So, what’s the real cost of avoiding tough conversations until they explode in your face? Let’s break it down.
The hidden cost of keeping underperformers
Let’s be honest, keeping low performers around feels easier in the short term. No tough conversations, no awkward exits. But it’s a slow-moving disaster for your business. Productivity sinks, morale nosedives, and your top talent starts looking elsewhere because they’re sick of carrying dead weight.
Nothing poisons a team faster than underperformers coasting alongside high achievers. The solution? Radical candour. That means being brutally honest, but with a dose of humanity. The goal isn’t to hack away at the team when things go south, it’s to tackle performance issues head on, long before you’re forced into a crisis.
1. Set expectations so clear they’re boring
You can’t hold people accountable if they don’t know what ‘good’ looks like. Job descriptions should include actual, measurable KPIs; think of them like school report cards. If expectations are fuzzy, then performance becomes subjective, and trust in leadership tanks.
2. Frequent, specific performance conversations (not yearly torture sessions)
Annual performance reviews? Utterly useless. By the time someone hears “you didn’t meet expectations,” they’ve been missing the mark for months.
Performance feedback should be 'FAST': frequent, ambitious, specific and transparent.
Instead of “nice work,” say, “Your X led to Y, which meant Z happened faster.” See the difference? The more specific the feedback, the more useful it is.
3. Daily huddles, weekly check-ins – make it a habit
Want to eliminate ‘surprise’ underperformance? Have more conversations. Daily huddles and weekly check-ins create a rhythm of constant feedback. The result? Fewer big problems because small issues get tackled early. When feedback is part of the culture, performance doesn’t randomly ‘dip’, it’s course-corrected in real-time.
4. Support before you cut
Not every performance issue is a firing offence. Sometimes, it’s burnout, misalignment or personal struggles. Before you even think about a layoff, ask: 'Have we given this person the right resources, coaching and clarity?' If the answer’s no, the failure might not be theirs – it might be yours.
A structured performance improvement plan (PIP) should be a clear roadmap, not a death sentence. Used properly, it helps struggling employees turn things around before things get ugly.
5. Be transparent. Always.
Layoffs should never come as a shock. Employees deserve to know how decisions are being made and what’s expected of them. When companies operate in secrecy, like Meta just did, it breeds resentment, distrust, and a PR disaster.
Leadership accountability: walk the talk
If leaders want openness, they have to live it first. That means:
- No secretive decision-making
- No discussing employees behind their backs
- No dodging hard conversations.
If a leader can’t commit to radical candour, they probably shouldn’t be leading. A high-performance culture isn’t built on hush-hush layoffs, it’s built on transparency, feedback, and actually tackling problems before they explode.
The bottom line
Meta’s layoffs were a leadership failure, not just a business decision. The workforce today expects fairness, clarity, and accountability. Companies that fail to communicate clearly – especially in tough moments – will face backlash, both internally and in public.
Want to avoid this mess? Build a culture of clear expectations, frequent feedback, and radical transparency. Do it right, and you’ll never need a headline-grabbing mass layoff to ‘fix’ what should have been handled years ago.
Because at the end of the day, the way a company handles tough decisions defines its long-term success.
By Dominic Monkhouse, business coach and CEO of Monkhouse and Company
