Company Blog

2012 is going to be a busy year. The economy will continue to dominate our thinking.  There will be an increased focus on delivering results.

You've assembled your team. You've communicated the plan. Resources are in place. Everyone is ready to go. But you are concerned about several of your employees. You're not confident that they will deliver.

What will you do?

Chapter 8 of McKenna and Maister's book 'First Among Equals - How to Manage a Group of Professionals' provides practical advice on how to help underperformers.

Firstly, it's helpful to consider the reasons why someone may be underperforming. The authors surveyed a cross-section of group leaders and asked them this question. The reasons were:

1. Trouble at home or other personal problems (divorce, alcoholism, depression).
2. Burnout - no longer finding the work interesting or stimulating.
3. Lack of competency.
4. Fear of failure in trying something new and reaching for career progress.
5. Quality of life choice - lack of desire to contribute more energy or time to the business.
6. Externally driven reasons such as the loss of a recent client or downturn in their sector.
7. Failure to keep up in their field; being less in demand.
8. Struggling because of poor time management or other inefficiencies.
9. Lack of knowledge about what they should be doing to succeed.
10. Being poorly managed.
11. Insecurity due to things like company merger discussions.

Depending on the specific dynamics within companies and teams there will be a number of other factors which contribute to underperformance. However the main reasons identified centered around burnout, loss of enthusiasm, quality of life choices, personal/family issues and externally driven market changes.

Generally people are not underperforming because they don't know what to do, or they don't want to do it, or the incentives aren't there. If they aren't doing what they should it is probably due to something deeply personal in their lives. By talking with them, managers will be able to find out what it is and will then be able to deal with it.

Lack of performance is very rarely to do with competence and everything to do with confidence.
The role of the manager is to work with the individual to understand what is happening and to reignite confidence - the results will then follow.

McKenna and Maister outline a number of steps to be taken to help a person whose performance needs attention:

1. Set up a meeting to discuss the performance issue that concerns you. Stress your commitment to solve the problem together. Ask the team member to bring their ideas to the meeting eg "I'd like to catch up with you on Wednesday to talk about your workload. I have some concerns about your numbers and since you are a lot closer to it than I am I'm keen to discuss your ideas on how things could improve".

2. Reassure the person of your confidence in them and your desire to be supportive, eg "I know that there are times when the results don't come in. I know that you can turn this around. I'll do anything I can to help".

3. Get agreement that a performance issue exists, and discuss causes. This may involve firstly setting out the specific performance expectations for the person. The individual may respond with a range of emotions - they may become defensive, uncooperative or hostile. Stay positive and listen carefully, because it's important to identify and understand the reasons for underperformance. The key is to stay calm in the face of resistance. Don't become frustrated or angry.

4. Identify and discuss any obstacles to performance beyond the individual's control. These obstacles may be real (administrative policies, compensation inequities, physical or emotional health, or not feeling fully responsible) or imagined (lack of priorities, convenient excuses). When the obstacles are legitimate your role as manager is to help to remove them. When the suggested obstacles are not real you need to confront the excuses, eg "The reality is that you are accomplishing less and I am concerned for you. Do you have some ideas on how we can help you refocus and what specific first steps you could take to get back on track".

5. Seek ideas for improvement by keeping your team member focused on the areas in which performance improvement may be possible eg "Are you aware that it is taking you longer to complete your tasks than others? What do you think we can do to improve this situation?"

6. Agree on specific actions to be taken to solve the performance issue. Although, as manager, you may have a number of constructive ideas to resolve the situation, it is important to allow the individual to come up with remedial ideas first. By doing this it will be their plan, not yours, and they will own it. Then set out all the ideas, and work together to come up with an action plan. Allow the person to choose which actions are of the highest priority and capable of being implemented, and then get them to outline the actions in writing, eg "So that we're clear about what needs to be done please send me a short summary with the action plan". By doing this, they own the plan.

7. Set specific follow-up dates to review progress. These should be short review meetings, a few weeks apart, where you acknowledge any achievement, no matter how small. Your role as manager is to 'praise achievements back to acceptable levels of performance'.

2012 will be a very busy year. All the indicators are there. The state of the global economy is causing companies to re-evaluate their business models, to drive efficiencies, to reduce costs, to increase outputs. More will be expected of everyone, and the role of manager is to instil confidence, to remove obstacles, and to unleash performance.

References

First Among Equals - How to Manage a Group of Professionals, Patrick McKenna and David Maister. Free Press 2002