Double Standards Hurt Everyone: 7 Questions to Ask About Underperformance

Deputy Barney Fife is keeping a vigilant watch on Mayberry’s peaceful streets when Gomer Pyle makes an illegal U-turn on an empty street.

Barney stops Gomer and writes a ticket for the U-turn. Gomer is surprised that Barney is making a fuss over a minor infraction and appeals to Barney for leniency because of their friendship.

“I’m giving you a ticket,” says Barney, “for committing an illegal U-turn. It’s from little misdemeanors that major felonies grow and it’s my duty – it’s anybody’s duty – to stop ‘em before they get too far. The law must be upheld. If I – as just plain John Doe, an ordinary citizen – were to see you making a U-turn I’d have to make a citizen’s arrest.”

Barney hands Gomer the ticket, returns to his car and makes an illegal U-turn.

Gomer yells, “Citizen’s arrest! Citizen’s arrest!”

“You made a U-turn,” says Gomer to Barney, “and it’s my duty as a law-abidin’ citizen to call you on it. You’re supposed to be setting an example for the rest of us. You made a mistake, Deputy, now write yourself a ticket.” The gathering crowd cheers Gomer.

Barney objects and Gomer says to the gathering crowd, “You hear that, folks? There’s 2 sets of laws. One for the police and one for the ordinary citizen.”

The Leader’s Slippery Slope

The Andy Griffith Show aired from 1960 through 1968, and “Citizen’s Arrest” was broadcast December 16, 1963.

“Citizen’s Arrest” is as timely today as it was 50 years ago because it skewers the practice of double standards.

When “there’s 2 sets of laws” in the workplace, leaders find themselves on a slippery slope for their failure to hold people accountable. It’s anything but funny.

Double standards – whether they take the form of a leader’s conscious decision to let certain performance slide or the mistaken belief that an under-performer will change their behavior on their own – put  a leader’s credibility at risk.

Mayberry is a make-believe place. Mayberry-like behavior is not. My interviews with senior leaders at some of the world’s most respected companies prove that the moral compass guiding Mayberry’s citizens is alive and well in high-performing organizations (Accountability: The Key to Driving a High-Performance Culture, February 2014, McGraw-Hill).

In high-performing cultures, accountability is a way of behaving based on character, mutual respect and the individual responsibility of doing what you’ll say you’ll do and “calling out” those who refuse to play by the rules or who cannot or will not pull their weight.

7 Questions to Ask About Underperformance

When you see changes in someone’s performance you’ll need to figure out what’s happening to account for the change.

Dive beyond surface answers.

Once the conversation with the under-performer occurs, answer these questions:

1. How important is this person to the organization?
2. Is this person capable of doing the work?
3. Is this person willing to embrace our values and do the work?
4. How much of my time am I willing to invest in this person to help them get their performance back on track?
5. How much of the organization’s time can we invest as this person works to get their performance back on track?
6. What’s my back-up plan if this person is unable or unwilling to change and meet my performance expectations?
7. What’s my commitment to following through on my decision?

Failure to confront under-performance – whether it’s a top performer who refuses to play by the rules or an employee who’s unable or unwilling to meet expectations – is unfair to the rest of your workforce.

Your failure to act costs you credibility.

Even well-run organizations have a Deputy Barney Fife in their midst.

Does your culture encourage a Gomer Pyle to yell “citizen’s arrest”? If it does, your employees will cheer.

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