The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

by Camille Fournier

Ask the CTO: Coaching Someone Out of the Company I have an employee who seems stuck. He’s been with the company for a couple of years and done OK work, but I don’t think he has the potential to be promoted further on our team. Every time he asks what he needs to do to get to the next level, I tell him, but he then goes back to his comfort zone, and no amount of nudging seems to bring about any change. What should I do? This is a fairly common occurrence that managers have to handle. You have an employee who has topped out in the organization and seems to be losing energy. He has achieved expectations in his level, but can’t figure out how to grow enough to get to the next level, despite your efforts. It may be time to coach him out. Many organizations have a rule of “up or out” for early-career employees. The entry levels of most engineering career ladders expect that people at those levels will progress within a certain period of time, and if they don’t, they aren’t meeting expectations and will be fired. Generally, you want to make sure that long-term employees are capable of doing their day-to-day work independently, without a lot of oversight or help. However, once people have gotten past these up-or-out career points, what do you do when they get stuck? Some people will be happy cruising as senior engineers or managers at a certain level for their whole careers, and if you’re both satisfied with the work, there’s nothing wrong with that. Others, like your employee, wa...