Speaker 1: Nobody shows up to work thinking, you know what, I'm going to do a bad job today. An employee doesn't join a company with the plan to underperform. In the beginning, we all show up day one, ready to go, 100% engaged, fully motivated. And then, over time, things may change. Things may happen in the organization that eat away at engagement, and there may be variations in a person's performance. So let's say there's a person on your team, and you notice that their engagement has waned and their performance has slipped. Now, the easiest thing for you to do would be to jump to the conclusion that, oh, there's something wrong with Jane, or there's something wrong with John, right? That's the wrong question, right? We want to start with, we hired them for a reason. What's in their way, right? That the employee isn't the problem. The employee's performance is a sign that a problem exists. So our job is to be curious. What's in the way? And there's really always only four reasons why there may be a variance in performance. So let's look at them, right? The first one is that something might be missing for the person. I had an opportunity many years ago to have some wonderful conversations with a gentleman I considered a mentor. His name was Ari DeHoos. He was an executive at Royal Dutch Shell. He wrote a fantastic book called The Living Company. And in The Living Company, Ari asserted that the job of leaders is to create the conditions in which people can voluntarily give their best. So your first starting point is what might be missing for this person, right? Are the conditions there for them to succeed? Is there a gap for them in understanding the team's shared goals and objectives or their role and responsibilities? Have you provided clear communication to them? Is there a resource shortage or a dysfunctional process that may be hindering them making their best contribution and performing the way that you would like them to? So be curious about the external possible causes for the performance variance before moving to it's something with Jane or something with John. So let's say that you've looked at it and they know what the team's shared goals are and objectives are. They know their role and responsibility. They have all the resources. Maybe then the second possible reason is that they've just hit a wall. That they have a certain amount of knowledge, a certain amount of skill, but they're stretched in this role. They've hit a limit, right? They've hit the edge of their competence or confidence. And so if that's the reason, it's your role as a leader to teach and mentor and coach to help them expand their knowledge. To develop their skill. To make that circle of confidence and competence bigger for them. So coaching for performance then becomes part of your job. If they've hit a wall, help them move the wall farther out. The third possible reason it could be that there's a lot of squirrels and they chase a lot of squirrels on your behalf. So distractions and difficulty focusing can mimic poor time management. And so maybe your coaching is around improving focus and organization and prioritization. And maybe there you can help them craft a 90-day tactical action plan. To better prioritize their work and communicate their accountabilities and follow through. And then stay engaged with what you and Jane or John agree is their important work. So eliminate the squirrels. The fourth possibility is that maybe they've been emotionally hijacked. Maybe there's something going on in their life that is having an impact on them. And so are there internal or external factors at work or at home that might be impacting them emotionally? And so this is where you can offer support. This is you being an empathetic leader again. So offering support where it's possible. And providing coaching or connecting them to external resources that can be of help to them. But are coaching them on developing their emotional intelligence to enhance their self-regulation. So if someone isn't voluntarily giving their best, as Ari says, your work as a leader is to figure out what's in their way. And of the four possible reasons that I mentioned, most of the time reason number one is the culprit. That there is something that leaders should be providing that the person doesn't have. They're not aligned. There's something in the team dynamic or around resources that is missing. So come back to number one. Because in most cases, I know you don't want to hear this part, but you guys just stay and listen. Low engagement and underperformance in many cases is due to the manager's behavior and the practices and the style and the level of engagement. The way that the manager engages with the person. So we have to own that as leaders. That we create the conditions that enable people to engage, voluntarily give their best all the time. So regardless of the reason, it falls on you to create the conditions where somebody can voluntarily give their best. ♪