Won’t

Years ago I was having some difficulty with an employee. He hadn’t been working out for various reasons, and I was struggling trying to figure out why. I approached my boss and mentor, Mike, for some advice, expecting to spend quite a bit of time re-hashing the events of the last week, personality traits, and other factors I was sure I hadn’t considered yet.

When I sat down at Mike’s desk he asked me one simple question: “Is this guy a Can-Will?” I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so he boiled it down for me in the only way he knew how, simple and straightforward.

“All of your people can be boiled down into one of four groups, laid out in a grid. On one axis of the grid are Can and Can’t. On the other axis are Will and Won’t. You have to decide if the person Can do their job, then if the person Will do their job. Of the four possible outcomes, the only people you keep fall into the Can/Will quadrant. Everyone else is useless to you.”

As a young manager I was a bit taken aback at first. We spent a few minutes discussing this particular employee. First we had to determine if he was a Can or a Can’t. He had been working for me for months, however I had been covering for him in some instances. As we were getting busier I didn’t have time to continue covering for some of his technical inadequacies. Put him squarely in the Can’t category.

Next, Mike asked me if this gentlemen was a Will or a Won’t. It was pretty obvious he was a won’t. He showed up late and didn’t focus when he did manage to make it in to work. So, he was a Won’t.

So, there within my small team, I had a Can’t/Won’t. It became crystal clear that it simply wasn’t working out and that it would be best for everyone to split up the relationship.

On my drive home that evening I applied that same logic to the other people in my group. I realized that I had another gentleman that was simply out of position. In the job I had him doing he was a Can’t/Will, but in the job I had just opened he was a Can/Will.