“When someone’s not performing, is it because Don’t know how to do or because don’t want to do?”
One day, my Head-HR walked into my office looking worried. We messed up, he said. Looks like we made a bad hire.
I leaned back, thought for a second, and told him calmly, ‘It’s up to you to make them work. If he is not working as you want, you need to complete the task and, in that case, we would not need either of you.’
That was it — no long lectures, no complicated plan. Just one sentence that put the ball right back in their court.
And as I watched my Head-HR take it in, I could see the gears turning. It was never just about pointing fingers — it was about owning the outcome.
Later, he told me that he went back and started looking at the new hire differently. Every time the employee struggled, he asked himself one simple question:
Is he don’t know how to do — or he don’t want to do?
If he didn’t know, we could train him, coach him, and help him grow.
But if he didn’t want to do the work? Sorry — that’s a different story.
That one shift in mindset changed everything. It stopped being about ‘wrong hire’ and started being about leadership — making it work, or knowing when to make the tough call.”
At the end of the day, every leader must look beyond labels like “non-performer” and focus on the real issue — is it a skill gap that can be trained, or a will gap that needs a different conversation? Making this distinction can transform how you manage your team and drive lasting performance. Leadership is as much about guiding as it is about deciding who truly belongs on the journey.
