Are you using a fulcrum point? July 7th

Here’s something I’ve run into a lot recently.
It’s a real manager’s avoidance justification.
It’s a way we feel OK about sidestepping around a situation that needs to be addressed.
It sounds something like this, “They do so much good around here that it really outweighs the bad”. Or, “So and so adds so much to the operation that the least I can do is cut them some slack when they blow it”.Or, “I certainly don’t want to take a chance on losing them because they have so many long suits that help us.”All these justifications are the same.
It’s like we as managers are imagining a balancing fulcrum point halfway between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior.
Like acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior are on opposite ends of a teeter-totter together.
And as long as the acceptable side is way up above the unacceptable side, it’s all good and the unacceptable can be ignored.
Here’s what I say to this –
There’s no such teeter-totter dynamic in good management.
Unacceptable behavior or performance needs to be addressed whenever it is noticed in whomever it is noticed.
Otherwise, we’re just playing favorites.  
Good management has to be employed consistently across the board for everyone.
If your perceived five-star employee messes up, it needs to be addressed.
If your employee who is just hanging-in-there with their job employee messes up, it needs to be addressed.
Addressed means responding and not letting it go.
That might mean a check-in, a coaching for improvement conversation, possibly a warning, and sometimes – heart-breakingly so – it may mean the ending of employment.
We hire people to do their job well with acceptable behavior and performance – that’s the baseline. There’s no counterbalance to this where confronting unacceptable behavior gets suspended allowing for negative impacts to the co-op. 
I get it. It can be really uncomfortable addressing an issue with a super-star-mixed-bag employee, or one who has worked at the co-op a long time (i.e. how could we talk to them after they have given so much?)
It can be one of the toughest conversations we have. It’s a bit easier to talk to someone who is screwing up consistently.
Yet, having these types of conversations exhibits and defines to the rest of the crew what type of managers we are – and believe me, our consistency earns us respect.
At the end, our staff want to know that we treat everyone the same – we support growth, and our boundary lines are consistent. This avoidance justification is something we all do or have done in the past. It is something we all need to face on our path to better management.