In my early management days I felt bi-polar. My thoughts about an individual would be positive on Monday but by Thursday I’d feel the exact opposite. Yes, I had discussions with each, laid the cards on the table, gave them my point of view, had performance appraisal sessions, blah, blah, blah. I wasn’t a first-grader in appraising and handling difficult cases but I still couldn’t make a decision with which I was comfortable.
One day, or perhaps one night in a dream, I figured out that people are not one-dimensional but two-, three-, or more-dimensional. I decided I could only handle two dimensions; that was a big enough mental step forward. Two broad, rough, macro categories seemed most important:
• Category 1: Is the person capable or not of doing the specific job? 
or 
• Category 2: Is their attitude appropriate or not?
or 
Category 1 requires only yes or no; it’s a binary decision. If the job is head of technology, then part of that job is to create technical progress. Define the job appropriately, look for an acceptable level of performance given the degree of difficulty, and semi-ignore the difference between doing the job and doing the job better than someone else.
Get the point? Doing the job means doing it well enough so the organization can make progress. If he or she meets that standard, the answer is yes. If not, the answer is no. By simplifying things, I burst out of the menagerie of 3.2 vs. 3.4 performers.
Category 2 is also a binary decision; namely, is his or her heart in the right place? An individual’s heart is in the right place if he is honest, has no hidden agenda, is a loyal employee, will view his dedication to the company higher than to himself unless treated unfairly, is reliable, spends idle time thinking of solutions to the company’s problems, is well balanced, is willing to deliver bad news including his own mistakes upwards, creates solutions to problems he has created and that have been presented to him, and is honest (I recognize my repetition; it was intended).
An individual’s heart is not in the right place if she is not honest, has a hidden agenda, is not a loyal employee, will not view her dedication to the company higher than to herself no matter how she’s treated, is not reliable, does not spend idle time thinking of solutions, is not well balanced, is not willing to deliver bad news including her own mistakes upwards, does not create solutions to problems she has created or that were presented to her, and is not honest (again with the honesty!).
The key is that each category has only two states. They are yes or no, 1 or 0, true or not true. And they represent the two most important but immaculately independent characteristics of an employee’s contribution to the organization. You’ll find it’s not really difficult to decide on each of these factors; the key is to treat them as independent. When considering capability, ignore attitude. When considering attitude, ignore capability.
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