Want to hear about the time I trained a cow to lay eggs?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Come on! You really thought I was going to give you an instruction manual on bovine transformation? Even six-year-olds know to be skeptical of such a statement.

I did grow up on a farm, though. Honest! And, to the best of my memory, we NEVER asked our cows to lay eggs. Conversely, we NEVER expected our chickens to give us milk. Any attempt to get a cow to produce eggs–any amount of coaching, motivating, begging, bargaining, or threatening–would have been a waste of effort. You’d be foolish to think otherwise.

So why do we consistently ask our staff members to be something they’re not?

You know exactly what I’m talking about. You hire someone (or inherit them, or promote them) even though you have reservations, and convince yourself they’ll be a perfect fit for the role. Unfortunately, at some point you realize you made an error in judgment. Substandard work, missed deadlines, and complaints from co-workers point to a problem needing to be dealt with.

Rather than admitting that you put a cow in a role better suited to a chicken, you stall. You coach. You cajole. You might even re-arrange offices or reporting lines. But eventually you have to face the brutal facts:

Cows can’t be chickens

We all have innate strengths. As Marcus Buckingham points out in his classic book First, Break All the Rules, workers deserve to have the opportunity to “do what they do best every day.” What is too often misdiagnosed as “laziness” is often a simple case of misalignment.

Doing a job you’re not cut out for is like wearing an anchor around your neck. Employees serving in a role that doesn’t fit their strengths profile are proven to be less productive, poor team players, and have lower levels of engagement (e.g. “bad attitudes”).

Cows who try to be chickens frustrate the other chickens

Here’s a great way to irritate the star performers on your team: make them work side-by-side with co-workers who aren’t fully engaged. Any time your stars have to slow down, fix errors, or engage in unnecessary problem-solving, they get one step closer to leaving your organization.

Here’s another brutal fact for you to consider: If people are frustrated with a co-worker, you’ll be the last to know. Your high achievers don’t come running to your office to complain about a “weak link” coworker, they just work around them. Until they can’t stand it anymore, then they find another job.

So, if you’re feeling frustration over this person’s performance, you can bet his or her co-workers are frustrated too…and talking about it with each other behind your back! When you become aware of a poor fit, address it immediately, because your team has been suffering through it for months.

Cows are happier in meadows than in chicken coops

Truth is, you’re not really doing the cow any favors either. It’s very stressful to be asked to do something you’re not good at and then repeatedly have your sub-standard performance pointed out by others. That being said, people are willing to stay in a job they hate because the fear of future uncertainty is worse than the current pain of unfulfillment.

Take a moment to step back and look at the situation from a more global perspective. What does the employee do well? Are there other members of your team whose responsibilities don’t necessarily match up with strengths? Is there an opportunity for you to shift roles around to let everyone do more of what they’re good at?

If you have no other options, then you very well may be doing the employee a favor by turning them loose to search for greener pastures. If you can, provide him or her with a fair and generous severance package. This will produce a win-win; the employee has time to do a thoughtful search, and the severance will cost you less in the long run than carrying an unproductive staff member.

Letting staff go is not fun. I know from experience. In some cases, the people affected were bitter and resentful. In one case, though, the affected employee actually stopped by my office some time later to tell me how much happier she was (in a genuine, not spiteful, way). Regardless, in all cases, the organization was better moving forward.

So no, I didn’t teach a cow to lay eggs

But I did learn to stop asking people to do jobs that are a mis-match to their natural talents.

Got a story about helping a team member find his passion? Please share in the comments below!

Darren Macfee is the founder of the Nonprofit Wizards. His life purposes are to dispense homespun wisdom, grill a perfect meal for his family, and help nonprofit leaders create amazing results for and through their organizations. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenMacfee or send him an enote. Be sure to sign up for alerts to be sure you never miss a post.

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