by Rick Baker
On Oct 1, 2014
When people don't do what you expect consider the possibility this is due to one or more of the following complications:
- They understood what you asked but they didn't know how to do what you asked
- They understood what you asked but they forgot to do it
- They understood what you asked but they chose not to do it
- They didn't understand what you asked
These 4 possibilities represent significantly different situations.
To help your people do better in the future, use very different approaches for these 4 situations.
If you do not adapt to fit the situation then you are more likely to hinder rather than help your people improve their performance. Coupled with this, if you do not adapt to fit the situations, you will expand confusion...their confusion and yours.
In fact, you will need to address nuances within these 4 possibilities. You will need to take different tactical approaches. You need to consider the situation thoroughly. To do this, you will need to ask questions to determine what is causing your people to under-perform.
Design questions to hone in on the specific cause of the under-performance. For example, regardless of the situation, investigate to determine if the problem signals:
- a delegation-communication error,
- a lack of required knowledge, or
- a lack of talent or skill.
Those are the 'Big 3' causes of under-performance, so, investigate them first. Discover the true source of the under-performance. Then design a solution plan to help your people get from where they are to where they need to be.
PS: Yes, you may be tempted to conclude the under-performance is due to bad attitude. It is very normal to conclude 'attitude' is the cause of problems. However, more often than not this conclusion is exactly what causes problems to linger, fester, and repeat.