Coach, or cut?

• Title slide: making a fair call on an underperformer
• A 75-minute working session — you will decide a real, contestable case
• *Presenter note:* Set the tone — this is not a lecture; they will argue and defend a call.

Meet Sam

• Floor supervisor at Cedar & Co. (a made-up retailer; all figures illustrative)
• Three strong years — then a new checkout system and a promotion that went to someone else
• Now: ~11% error rate vs ~4% team average, 3 months below standard
• *Presenter note:* Read it, then ask for a show of hands — coach or cut? Note the split.

Two ways to get it wrong

• The too-quick cut: exit someone who would have recovered — feels *decisive*
• The endless rescue: "one more chance" forever — feels *loyal*
• Both traps arrive dressed as a virtue
• *Presenter note:* Ask which one they feel pulled toward with Sam.

Diagnose before you cure: skill, will, or fit

• Skill gap — wants to, can't *yet* → coaching's home turf (best odds)
• Will gap — can, but checked out → fix the *why* first, not the skill
• Fit gap — neither reaches the role → a move or an exit, not a plan
• *Presenter note:* Same two bad months can have opposite cures — that's the whole idea.

Waiting is never free

• Team drag: the others absorb the gap every shift
• Regretted attrition: your best people read a tolerated gap as "effort is optional"
• So a real attempt is time-boxed — a deadline beats an open-ended rescue (escalation)
• *Presenter note:* But cutting too fast costs a ~4-month replacement — both sides have a price.

Your task

• In your group: diagnose → weigh → call it → flip it
• Write the call in one sentence, and the one fact that would change it
• 20 minutes. Defend it, don't guess it.
• *Presenter note:* Hand out the worksheet; form groups of 3–4.

The call (and why it's close)

• Sam's cause is a tangle: real skill gap + a will gap from being passed over
• Marginally more defensible: coach — with a hard deadline (no real plan tried yet)
• Cutting is also defensible if you read the will gap as *deepening*
• Flip test: *"If Sam hit every target, would you be glad to keep them?"*
• *Presenter note:* Stress that this is genuinely contestable; reward reasoning, not a letter.

Takeaway

• Diagnose the cause before you choose the cure
• Never coach without a deadline
• This is practice at a hard call — not a certification, not a promise
• *Presenter note:* Point fast finishers at the stretch task.