Yaniv Preiss

What is underperformance

Low execution

Low execution is what first comes to mind regarding underperformance.

Examples:

• Needing a lot of support in various stages of the work (discovery, design, implementing, testing, rolling out, documenting)
• Quality issues like bugs, lack of observability, missing use cases
• Consistent slowness, low number of work items delivered
• Missing deadlines
• Forgetting commitments and agreements, needing to be reminded

Insubordination

The direct report may be well-intentioned and competent, but pursues personal gains over the benefit of the team. This is also categorized as underperformance.

Examples:

• Working on non-priority items, violating “disagree and commit”. Reasons may be simply because they want to work on a specific task, they want to do a favor for someone, are passionate about getting something done, playing with a particular technology, or getting credit for an achievement
• Not sticking to policies and norms such as showing up on time to meetings, opening the camera on remote meetings, using private channels for communication
• Not notifying on finished tasks
• Not responding to messages from the manager and peers, or ignoring requests
• Violating company values, e.g., a value of “move fast and break things,” while the direct needs to feel safe and deliver perfect work

Tearing the team apart

This is the “soft skills” issue, which is definitely considered underperformance.

Examples:

• Bullying in code or design reviews
• Ridiculing suggestions, opinions, questions and mistakes
• Redoing work of others by surprise
• Blaming others
• Not volunteering
• Yelling, showing anger, gossiping
• Cutting others while they speak
• Unethical behavior, such as lying or trying to cover up mistakes
• Not participating in meetings
• Not adhering to the team’s decisions, like retro action items

How to identify underperformance

• Observing in team meetings and ceremonies
• Feedback and complaints from others – peers and stakeholders, public and in 1:1 or skip level 1:1s
• Hearing frequent excuses
• Lack of reporting
• Looking at qualitative and quantitative data to remove subjectivity

How to handle underperformance

Severe cases, such as violence, stealing or other criminal activities, require immediate action and involving HR. Here we’ll talk about the common underperformance cases.

Check yourself first

You might contribute to the underperformance: it is very common for managers to expect things from their directs because it makes sense to them, but without clearly communicating their expectations. Everyone is different in many aspects and backgrounds, so having the same understanding is close to impossible.

If you asked the direct right now what the expectations are, could they correctly respond?

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now” – if you haven’t done so until now, talk to your direct and explicitly state your expectation about behavior and outcomes, like always telling the truth or showing up on time, about functional skills and required contributions.

Check whether the strategy, projects or initiatives are clear, including their “why”. Mentioning that something is really important once and expecting everyone to align doesn’t work. You need to repeat and repeat.

A career ladder with expected behavior per seniority level and dimension, such as the company values, communication, leadership, impact and team work can be very helpful.

An IDP is another tool that is helpful in setting measurable goals and incrementally working toward them.

Check the direct

This is where the trust and rapport built in 1:1s pays off – enquire whether the direct has some non work related issues that affect work. Performance is suffering when we’re troubled.

If performance used to be adequate and deteriorated, it could be a sign. Did they start taking care of a sick family member? Are they going through some crisis?

In such cases, a temporary decrease in performance is expected, and being supportive is the best thing to do. For example, allow more flexibility, reduce the working hours or move a responsibility to someone else.

Face the problem

After you’ve checked yourself and personal issues and ruled them out, you’re left with either skills or motivation issue.

But the surprising truth is that the underlying reason for the underperformance doesn’t really matter until you reach the coaching stage listed below.

The common trap is to spend a lot of time with the underperformer, trying to fix them. But this strategy doesn’t make sense: assuming you can get a 20% improvement from or an underperformer or from a top performer, by spending time with them – which one would you spend time with? The 20% improvement from the top performer is much more impactful.

So, what do you do if the issue continues? Spoiler alert: don’t wait for the yearly performance review.

As with everything, groundwork in 1:1s and giving positive feedback are essential as they demonstrate that you care for the person and need them to improve performance. Otherwise, they might not trust your motivation for asking for it. Some may assume “The boss just hates me because of reason X.”

1. Document all occurrences of the behavior, output or outcome that you defined as underperformance. This is helpful for the conversations with the direct and is legally mandatory in case of termination.
2. Give feedback in 1:1 or shortly after the event using the formula:
   “When you do X, Y happens, can you do better next time?”
   It’s short and designed to get a commitment.
3. Give feedback and ask what they can do:
   “When you do X, Y happens, what can you do better next time?”
   It’s short and requires the direct to think of ways of improving.
4. Coach – facilitate the process of them improving their performance, this may include you being the trainer in case you have the time and you’re the expert on the topic. The secret is that it has to be measurable and time-bound.
5. Consider moving to a different team in case the nature of the tasks or the culture is different there and you predict a better match. A whole new role is also an option, for example, a product manager changing to business development or a software engineer turning to a product manager.
6. PIP – this is the official Performance Improvement Plan. It is time-limited with measurable goals. Its duration depends on the severity and nature of the performance problem. For example, improving product quality could take 8 weeks, and improving aggressive communication with team members in staff meetings could take 4. Clarify that inability to improve will result in termination. In some countries an official written warning is required.
7. Termination – there is clearly a mismatch and everyone will benefit from parting ways.

You see the escalation of the measures, which can take several weeks and requires frequent check-ins. The most unfair thing to do is to avoid giving feedback and having tough conversations, ending up in firing the employee without giving a chance to improve.

Be sure to check out the full performance management life cycle.

Team underperformance

So far, we’ve looked at an individual contributor’s underperformance. How does the situation look when a whole team is underperforming?

Andy Grove, the mythological CEO of Intel, wrote in his book High Output Management:

A manager’s output = the output of his organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under his influence

As the manager of the struggling team’s manager, it’s your responsibility to improve the team’s performance. It also means that the team’s manager is underperforming. They are the common denominator.

With this conclusion, we can apply the same debugging and resolving techniques to improve the performance of an individual contributor – we do the same with the manager. Addressing their underperformance will improve the team’s performance.

In addition to the low execution, insubordination and tearing the team apart, the manager might display a variety of damaging behaviors, such as: not conducting 1:1s, not giving feedback, not coaching, not delegating, measuring the wrong things, giving the wrong incentives, playing favorites, micromanaging or undermanaging.

Because the manager’s impact is much bigger, we may need to shorten the timelines for expected improvement and to train and support more.

Many managers were transitioned into management without any guidance or training, so it’s no surprise that performance is not as great as it could be. Use judgment to evaluate whether there is room for growth, or perhaps the person would do much better as an individual contributor. Some even never wanted to manage, but did it for their career progression.

You already need to think of a successor in case there is no improvement or the PIP doesn’t progress well. This could mean transitioning someone from the team to take over, the director stepping in as the direct line manager or hiring internally or externally.

Conclusion

When there is a low performer, it’s emotionally easier for the manager to ignore it or hope it will magically improve.

Tolerating underperformance signals to the top performers that low performance is fine (why should they put effort?) and to the low performers that they can continue.

But the manager’s job and obligation is exactly this – improving performance (and retaining the best people). The manager needs to do the hard right, not the easy wrong. And there is a structured and legal way to do it.

If performance improves, it’s a clear win for the employee, the team and the organization. If it doesn’t and the person is eventually terminated, they will find a better fitting place, the team will usually do much better and the remaining members would be relieved. The usual thought in this case is “Why haven’t I done this earlier?”