Address problems. First, you have to understand what their motivations are. Spend time with that person and spend time mentoring them. What I mean by that is, if you show up as a mentor, you show that you have that person’s best interests at heart and you start asking the right questions, then you can get down to what their motivators are. Are they motivated by recognition, by money, by some form of significance within the team? Are they motivated by external notoriety? Then, once you understand what they’re motivated by, then you can outline how some of their actions are making it more difficult for them to achieve what they’re trying to accomplish and how those actions are certainly not in the best interest of the company.
The way I do that is, first, I sit down with the person who is having the issue with letting go and talk to them about why it is important to place this in the right hands. Two, I reinforce and encourage their strengths by telling them that you have a great job of stewarding it to this point and that your value is in this sector or industry, where you’re going to come in and play the same role. You show them that they’re going to be recognized for what they have done and will do.
If the behavior continues, then you have to make a decision about whether this is somebody we want to continue to try to work with, because nobody is indispensable. But to start with, you want to find out what those key motivators are, because that becomes critical to working with that employee.
I have someone who is actually starting to slow up the process of closing a transaction on a partnership we’re putting together, because he wants to be perceived as the relationship builder. Quite frankly, he doesn’t have as much of the subject matter expertise as another person in our firm, and so we’re now having to make the transition to another person to not only effectively get this deal closed but get it closed properly and put it in the right hands.
