After years of working with organizations on people development, I have watched a pattern repeat itself. Someone underperforms, and the organization sends them for training, assuming something is missing and that if we add it, performance will improve.
Sometimes that works. Often it does not, and when it does not, the organization assumes the person simply was not good enough.
Over the years, I have come to believe that many performance problems are not skill problems but fit problems. The person has been placed in a role that does not align with how they naturally work or where their strengths lie. No amount of training will fix a misalignment that is structural.
The Promotion That Backfired
I worked with an organization where a technically excellent employee was promoted to General Manager. On paper, it made sense. He had delivered consistently and earned his peers’ respect. What nobody assessed carefully enough was whether he could lead people in the way that role demanded.
He wanted to be a people’s person. But nobody had invested in developing that capacity before the promotion. He was put through some emotional intelligence training and leadership programs, but it was insufficient and came too late. By the time he was in the seat, friction with senior leadership and confusion among his direct reports were visible.
He had the intelligence and the commitment, but the seat required interpersonal instincts that did not come naturally to him, and training could not create them in a few weeks while the pressure was already building. That experience stayed with me. The organization had not failed him by hiring him. They failed him by promoting him into a seat that did not match how he was built.
This is a pattern I see often in fast-growing organizations, where promotion criteria are built around technical performance and the person who executes best gets elevated. But the role they step into often demands entirely different capabilities. McKinsey research found that more than 80 percent of role moves involve changing employers, which tells you how rarely organizations move people into the right seats before they leave.¹
The Opposite Story
I have also seen the opposite. People who appeared weak in one context flourished when given a role that matched who they actually were.
I once knew a young man working as a household helper. He was sincere and well-mannered, and I noticed his writing was good and he had a quiet sharpness about him. I asked if he would like to work in the office, and he agreed. I put him through ten days of typing practice, and once his comfort with the computer was established, his fear disappeared. Over time, he showed a genuine interest in accounting, studied on his own, and put in the hours. Today, he independently manages the accounts for the business. A chartered accountant reviewed his work recently and was impressed.
That kind of transformation happens when someone is given the chance to work in an area where their natural aptitude meets their willingness to learn. The role fit came first, and the development followed.
I have brought many people through similar transitions. In every case, someone believed in the person before they had proven themselves, and the environment gave them room to grow into the work rather than demanding perfection from the start.
The Signals
There is no formula that tells you whether someone is in the right seat. But over time, I have learned to watch for a few simple things.
In the first thirty days, I look at something very simple. Does the person show up on time, willingly, even when they have no established relationships and no reason to be there other than their own commitment? A new employee with no one calling them for a cup of tea, who still arrives early and appears engaged, is telling you something important.
By ninety days, the signals shift. Are they building bonds, executing on what they have been given, showing a willingness to learn rather than looking for reasons to avoid it? It does not matter whether they are talkative or quiet, only whether they are dedicating themselves to understanding what the role requires.
And then there is the broader signal, harder to measure but impossible to miss. When someone is in the right role, the stress disappears. The work stops feeling like obligation and starts feeling like contribution. The offsites, the team outings, the evening drinks will not create that feeling if the work itself leaves them cold. People stay because the work means something to them.
Where This Leads
Spending time to understand what a person enjoys, what they are naturally drawn to, where they come alive, is one of the most valuable things a leader can do. It requires patience and observation, and a willingness to accept that sometimes the best move is a different seat rather than another program.
Organizations that get this right see the change across the board. Performance improves, but so does something less visible. The friction that builds when people work against their own nature every day begins to dissolve. LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report found that companies with strong internal development cultures see 57 percent higher retention and 23 percent more internal mobility, which confirms what I have observed for years.² When people can see a path forward inside the organization, they stay and grow. When they cannot, they leave.
Most people do not want to leave. They want to contribute. The leader’s job is to find the seat where that contribution comes naturally.
Footnotes
¹ McKinsey & Company. (2025). “A New Operating Model for People Management: More Personal, More Tech, More Human.” McKinsey found that more than 80 percent of role moves involve changing employers, indicating that many organizations are losing value by not creating enough internal mobility.
² LinkedIn. (2024). 2024 Workplace Learning Report. LinkedIn found that companies with strong learning cultures enjoy 57% higher retention and 23% higher internal mobility compared to baseline.
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