"Wipe the slate?"

Yesterday, we talked about a new Team Lead who inherited a performance issue on their team, someone they had worked alongside, someone everyone agreed was a good addition to the team, but who wasn’t quite meeting expectations.

They had the hard conversation.
They named what had been unsaid.
And to their credit, the team member didn’t shut down. They took the feedback on board.

Now comes the next decision: what to do with the past.

The outgoing Team Lead had gathered evidence.
Missed deadlines. Incomplete tickets. Feedback from multiple reviewers.
It was a clear, thoughtful trail. Not designed to punish, just to document the pattern.

The new Team Lead took it seriously.
Read it all. Reflected on it.

But in the end, they made a different choice:
They decided to wipe the slate clean.

Not because the past didn’t matter.
But because the relationship had changed.

They were no longer watching from a distance, they were now supporting up close. And that meant looking forward, not backward.
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The new Team Lead has made the choice to handle the situation in their own way. They know what to look out for and as they've already had a discussion with the team member I have no doubt they'll continue to support the team member to reach their true potential.

What their true potential looks like is the subject of tomorrow's email.
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Until next time,
Dermot
​The Messy Middle

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