Employee underperformance wreaks havoc on company profits and devastates job satisfaction. It’s a destructive phenomenon that is largely unavoidable. While LCB prefers to provide actionable “DO” lists, it is important to outline the preventable “DON’T” behaviours that some individuals may not be able to identify in themselves.

An organisation needs to take control of its human resources and needs to ensure the company and its strategies and processes are aligned. IT transition plan is a comprehensive transition plan which outlines activities and roles and responsibilities for the transition of infrastructure. Many companies do not realise this, but things like having a plan in place, is vital in ensuring success. An SLA template, a document outlining service levels, is also an important step for a company to implement.

In today’s IT centered business run world, managing your IT systems and processes are going to help your company and your staff in the day to day running of your business. IT due diligence may be necessary and perhaps a questionnaire that can guide you in the right direction.

You’ve seen it before. A colleague of yours is intelligent, creative, and capable; perhaps more so than his peers. Yet, in spite of his potential, he is stuck in a mid-level position and is dissatisfied with his job and career. So often, this state of career limbo carries on for years. Before he knows it, he’s looking at retirement with very few accomplishments of any significance and a laundry list of unattained and unrealized goals. This scenario is all too common, and can lead to an infectious negative attitude that spreads throughout the workplace.

Let’s explore three distinct, dangerous behaviours and attitudes that will result in underperformance, dissatisfaction, and thus, decreased organization performance.

1) Refuse Input and Advice from Peers

Regardless of your intellect and prestige of your degree on the wall, you don’t know everything. If you believe that accepting assistance from your colleagues, employees, and bosses is a sign of weakness and will show that you don’t belong in your position, you are making a very costly mistake. Your peers can provide a wealth of information from a lifetime of experiences, and rejecting this advice and input could deprive you of important information that you simply weren’t aware of. To top it off, you will come off as rude, insecure, and not a team player. You recognize and note the negative behavior of your peers, and your colleagues are no different. Don’t be surprised if this comes up during performance reviews for a promotion.

2) Assume Maintaining the Accepted Status Quo Will Yield Deserved Promotions

A significant portion of the workforce shares the mistaken belief that simply showing up to work and fulfilling your stated duties will earn you promotions and pay raises. While certain industries have incentive systems that reward seniority, a greater number of companies and industries are moving towards performance-based systems that reward innovation, creativity, and appropriate risk-taking. If you fail to adhere to the changing systems and expectations, you run the risk of being lapped by your colleagues and passed over for promotions by your superiors. LCB touched on this in an earlier post.

3) Reject Advice from Proven and Successful Leaders

Visionaries and successful leaders like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Tony Robbins have seen it, lived it, and now look to share their success with you. Their goal is to empower you to be the greatest version of you that’s possible, and to allow you to take the steps in your life that can transform you into a successful, happy, and accomplished individual. Self-help “gurus” are a dime-a-dozen and often offer nothing more than what they read and heard from others. But true visionaries like those mentioned above can catapult you to the next stage of life and your career, allowing you to realize your true potential. If you reject their educated, experienced, and proven advice as common self-help trash, you are abandoning an opportunity to develop your professional and personal skills. Set your ego aside and learn from those who have proven they have the knowledge and abilities to succeed.

Too often individuals navigate their careers and allow professional goals and personal dreams to fall by the wayside as they fail to meet the expectations they set for themselves. Demotivation, a critical organizational behavior concept, has devastating effects on employee productivity and thus, company performance. This trap is often self-inflicted, and you can avoid falling into the cycle by stopping yourself when you notice you may be exhibiting the three aforementioned behaviors and attitudes.