How To Manage Poor Performance

At some point in your career as a manager, you’re going to have to manage a poor performing employee. You’ll have to deal with that employee who just isn’t pulling his or her weight. You’ll have to talk with that team mate who just can’t keep up. But before you jump right into the conversation, perhaps the best thing you can do is step back and observe the situation. Because if you understand the cause of the poor performance, you will be better able to resolve it…and maybe even able to unleash the latent talent of that employee that just hasn’t been shown yet.

In thinking about poor performance, it’s helpful to divide the causes into two broad categories. (We’ll sub-divide a bit later). There are primarily two reasons for poor performance. The first is the system — meaning the overall organization, the work environment, the way different parts of the organization interact, the way performance is being tracked, and a host of other elements that comprise what surrounds an individual worker. The second category, therefore, is the employees themselves.

It’s helpful to remember the wise thoughts of W. Edwards Deming, the legendary organizational psychologist. Deming had a principle he called the 85/15 rule. What the rule meant was the 85% of an employees’ performance was determined by the system the employee worked within. Only 15% was the actually employee. That means…