Do this to deal with your Under-performers
In my career, as a lead, manager, coach and a mentor, I surely dealt with under-performance. and, yes, when I started my lecturing career back then in 2000, I was an under-performer — Now, 22 years later I am one of the highest paid speakers in the country — How come? Once a poop performer, now has become a highly-paid professional on the same job?
On the other hand, when I dealt with colleagues who were not up to the bar, I must agree, it wasn’t any easy job to move on and to get the them back on track — In certain cases it was the lack of competency, at times, it was just lack of interest and motivation.
Under-performance is often frustrating, causes projects to drag out, and it can generally have a ripple effect on other team members. If you don’t grasp the nettle before it grows, the struggling worker might eventually become a profit-killer for your organization and a time-drainer for you as a manager.” [Kuba, 2021]
Any good news on this?
Certainly, yes! There are ways you can help an under-performer turn around and contribute to your team and organization.
Pull out the root of the problem
First thing first, some people don’t fit in! Before you onboard someone and start investing, you should think hard! This is why your selection process must not be compromised.
My observation is that performance issues happen because the person is not competent enough or lack the motivation — If it’s a competency related issue, you are most likely to help the person fix it with necessary support, mentoring and resources — If it’s to do with motivation, you must understand what’s going on with the person before you fix anything. The person might experience various stressors and might be hugely distracted — specifically, when the time is tough, circumstances are not supportive.
Whatever it is, put in the legwork to identify the root of the problem before you jump in and try to address poor-performance.
Clarity First, Be Clear on the Management Expectation
I find this is been a key reason for under-performance — most organizations don’t do a good job in communicating their expectation — If you don’t communicate what your employees should do, how do you expect them to deliver the results you expect?
If you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there — Yogi Berra
So, How do I set clear expectation?
There are numerous, proven ways:
- Create absolute clarity using Objectives and Key Results(OKRs) to ensure the lagging employee understands what is expected — Traditional way of setting expectation using Objectives is not sufficient enough to create clarity
- Have regular check-ins and allow them to walk up to you for any clarifications
- Discuss what success looks like often enough so that the colleague won’t overlook major key results
Offer Feedback, Shorten the Feedback Cycle
Offering feedback is critical and offering timely feedback is a must — if you truly want the person to turn around and get back on track.
Structure your feedback discussion to address:
- What you observe on the current context: Be open and direct but in a gentle, empathetic way
- Try to discuss specific examples without going around the bush — For starters, put together three to five concrete examples of the mistakes the struggling employee is making. [Forbes]
- Now, give a few options from your perspective with clear evidence: Then, asked the person to speak up and tell you what he/she thinks about the proposed options. Collectively, decide what’s best.
- Regulate your feedback discussions to be weekly or bi-weekly. Offer the feedback — document the agreements and walk away with clear action items assigned to the the colleague.
- Avoid pre-conclusions: Do ensure, evidence of the progress is tracked — good or bad, all tracked weekly basis over a 15 minutes one-on-one feedback session — let the evidence speak out — get the person to acknowledge — this way, you try to get the personal views out of the equation. Be ready to support and welcome him/her as a performer, if the evidence is showing progress.
As much as you offer constructive, negative feedback, be ready to compliment!
In an under-performing situation, it’s natural that you always tend to offer negative feedback — although your intention is to help the person, negative feedback can further disappoint and frustrate the person — the person may lose the hope and think, no way out —
While you are offering constructive feedback, please do praise the person for the good work — don’t butter up the fellow yet, once something is done, compliment — isn’t this what you would do in your family? timely compliments can lit up the person and motivate to do more and look at the whole process as a positive one — this is important.
All in all, managing a poor performer will be challenging — however, Pulling out the root of the problem, Creating crystal clarity, offering timely feedback and complimenting the person and more importantly, maintaining a positive engagement during the mentorship would help you to get the person back in control.
Good luck!
