Learn How to Effectively Address Underperformance

When team members fall short of expectations, we need to consider a number of factors in order to successfully address performance problems. The first is our own role in the outcome. It’s common for leaders to mistakenly assume that the root of the problem lies entirely within the team member. Effective leaders look in the mirror first before they turn it upon others. Examine your own responsibility in results that fall short. Explore whether you created enough understanding in your people for them to meet their performance aims.

Were expectations simple and clear? Did you document them to provide staff reference points as they undertook their work? Were KPIs established and data about progress regularly supplied to your people? Were the resources available to help your team members made clear to them, including procedures and systems? Did staff know where, and when, to go for help if they encountered obstacles? Did you effectively communicate all this information and check to confirm that staff understood it? All of these issues can affect execution, and if you failed here you likely produced underperformance in your team members.

Having looked to yourself, you also need to review environmental impacts on performance. Reviewing systems, procedures, reporting structures, communication flows, and resource provision may also lead to the conclusion that you need to further adjust the environment to better support performance. Clear the path of rocks and fallen trees to create an easier route to success for your people.

Having reviewed these factors, you also need to explore how your team members themselves, via their own actions and behavior, contributed to the problem. They certainly own a piece of the responsibility for their performance, and it may be a big one. This is where the “skill versus will” examination comes in and where you adjust your coaching and training to meet the specific needs you’ve uncovered.

The discovery process is not one-way. You and your team member need to be actively engaged in conversation about performance and keenly interested in resolving the causes of underperformance together. You can’t be more invested in this process than your people are. The general philosophy is to focus on facts, including actions and behaviors. When discussions about performance issues arise, don’t make a summary judgment about the personal characteristics of others (he’s rude, careless; she’s lazy, unfeeling). Separate the people from the problem to avoid personally offending and damaging the relationship.

Speak to what is seen and heard. Use facts, examples, and data. Talk about what you’ve concluded from your observations and the potential negative consequences if you’re correct (Don’t treat your conclusions as fact, though. There’s usually more to the story). Allow your team member to share their own story and potential reasons behind the performance issues. Having explored both sides of the story, you’ll then need to produce some alternative solutions in order to improve performance. Both parties must be committed once they’ve agreed on a solution.

You have an audience, beyond your underperforming team member, who will be keenly interested in whether you make a good-faith effort to manage up or are merely laying the groundwork for sending someone to the unemployment line. Team members will be acutely sensitive to the culture you’re building around performance through your actions.

No one likes to be blindsided by managers who, lacking the courage to directly address performance or behavior issues informally, hide behind the formal process of the “performance improvement plan.” Such leaders abdicate responsibility away from themselves to “the process” and lose the respect of many when they do.

When a problem arises, unless it’s severe enough to warrant immediate formal corrective action, start with informal means such as verbal counseling. This doesn’t mean that conversations are less robust, only that the approach takes a more casual tone with a focus on coaching performance. You should still document a summary of the conversation and date it so that you have a record of prior attempts to address performance. Don’t let the first conversation about performance problems be a formal “note to the file” unless it is absolutely warranted. Think how you’d feel if you were in your team member’s shoes and the first performance discussion included a written warning. You’d likely feel angry, surprised, and betrayed, among other things.

Whatever processes your organization uses to address people problems, deal promptly with performance and behavioral issues once you identify them. When you fail to do so, you set a low bar as the acceptable standard on your team and build a culture where performance and accountability are only paid lip service to. High performers see that their superior results aren’t differentiated from low performers, and low performers aren’t held accountable for improving their own results. If you’re a high performer in a team environment where you end up working tirelessly to compensate for the failings of others, that doesn’t feel very good. Pretty soon you start looking for a different environment where you can shine brighter.

Let’s be clear though: No one likes being unsuccessful and repeatedly failing to meet the expectations set for them. When you neglect to address performance or behavior problems, they send a message that your expectations have sunk lower. When that happens, a mindset shift occurs among your team members. Individuals feel less concern, guilt, or accountability for what once was a standard of underperformance but clearly is now acceptable because of your inaction.

I once observed a particular region in a company underperforming against their primary measurables. When my colleagues and I dug deeper, we found a pattern of neglect by leaders to address performance and behavior issues. Coming in late to work or not complying with your schedule was acceptable. So was failing to undertake the volume and quality of activity needed to reach goals. When results failed to follow efforts, no one was being held to account. In the end, this was a culture created by leadership in the region that was the ultimate responsibility of the senior regional manager. What happened as a result? The organization started by addressing the primary performance issue in the region—and found a new regional senior manager. If you’re a leader, you own the outcomes of all those that report to you, directly or indirectly. If you fail to hold others accountable for improvements, then you become the problem rather than the solution.

·????????Do you promptly address underperformance, to both help your struggling team member and send a message to all your people that they’ll be held accountable for their results?

·????????Do you start by addressing underperformance directly and informally, or do you hide behind formal process and the “performance improvement plan” or written warning process?

·????????Do you address underperformance rationally as a problem-solving exercise, coming prepared with facts and examples of underperformance when holding discussions with team members?

* The above contains content from the book The Leadership Core: Competencies for Successfully Leading Others

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