Do Business Well

Of course, none of this means that great managers ignore nonperformance. They don’t. Focus on strengths is not another name for the power of positive thinking. Bad things happen. Some people fail. Some people struggle. And even your star performers have their faults. Poor performance must be confronted head-on, if it is not to degenerate into a dangerously unproductive situation. And it must be confronted quickly—as with all degenerative diseases, procrastination in the face of poor performance is a fool’s remedy.

The most straightforward causes of an employee’s poor performance are the “mechanical” causes—perhaps the company is not providing him with the tools or the information he needs; and the “personal” causes—perhaps she is still grieving from a recent death in the family. As a manager, if you are confronted with poor performance, look first to these two causes. Both are relatively easy to identify. Both also happen to be rather difficult to solve—the former will almost certainly require some careful job redesign and better cooperation between individuals or departments; the latter will demand understanding and patience. But at least you will know what is causing the performance problems.

However, many performance problems have subtler causes. Causes like this are more difficult to identify, but fortunately, with the right mind-set, their solutions are all within a manager’s control.

The great manager begins by asking two questions.

First, is the poor performance trainable? If the employee is struggling because he doesn’t have the necessary skills or knowledge, then it almost certainly is trainable. Jan B., a manager in an advertising agency, gives us a simple example:

“One associate was supposed to turn all of my handwritten notes into killer presentations. But it wasn’t happening. Her turnaround was slow, and the finished product wasn’t that great. I sat her down and subjected her to one of my heart-to-hearts, during which she confessed that she had never learned PowerPoint properly. She was a brilliant art student,

But no one had taught her the detailed mechanics of putting that brilliance onto a computer. Well, that’s easy. I just set her up with some intensive PowerPoint training and now she’s a star.”

Laurie T., a manager in a petrochemical company, describes a slightly more subtle approach to imparting knowledge:

“Jim was a young man, very talented, who always used to come in late. We talked about it, and he said that he was just terrible at organizing himself to arrive on time. Every morning something would happen to throw him off. He said I shouldn’t worry because he always stayed late and completed his assignments. I told him that I was worried. I was worried about how others were perceiving him. I asked him what he imagined other people’s perceptions of him were. He confessed that they probably associated his lateness with laziness, a lack of responsibility, a poor team player. ‘But that’s not me,’ he said. know that’s not you,’ I replied. ‘But they don’t. I’m not saying that you must come in on time from now on. I am saying that you must manage your teammates’ perceptions better. Otherwise they won’t trust you, you’ll drag the team down, and I’ll have to ask you to leave.’

“Jim now comes in on time 95 percent of the time. I didn‘t change his behavior. What changed his behavior was his knowledge of how negatively others were perceiving him and his awareness that he didn‘t like that.”

These examples are probably familiar to you. You may have faced the salesperson who didn‘t know the product well enough. Or the secretary who didn‘t know how to process expenses. Or the recently hired business school graduate who hadn’t yet learned how to prepare a report for the real business world. All of these cases of nonperformance can be traced to the employee’s lack of certain skills or knowledge. Whether it’s as simple as teaching someone a computer program, or as delicate as helping someone gain a perspective on himself, all of these skills and knowledge can and should be trained.

The second question great managers ask is this: Is the nonperformance caused by the manager himself tripping the wrong trigger? Each employee is motivated differently. If the manager forgets this, if he is trying to motivate a noncompetitive person with contests, or a shy person with public praise, then the solution to the nonperformance might well lie in his hands. If he can find the right trigger and trip it, perhaps the employee’s true talent will burst out.

John F., a general insurance agent, needed a very public misstep to help him understand this. His most productive agent was an individual called Mark D. A repeat winner of the Agent of the Year award, Mark let it be known that he hated the banal plaques that accompanied the award. If he was going to be recognized, he said, he would prefer something other than another meaningless plaque to shove in a drawer alon_gwith the others. John listened patiently, but believed he knew better. All salespeople love plaques, he thought.

At the awards banquet, John announced Mark as the winner yet again, ushered him up onto the stage, and proudly presented him with his plaque. Mark took one look at it, turned to the audience, made an obscene gesture, and stalked off the stage, vowing to leave the company. The banquet was a disaster.

John F. spoke to some of Mark’s colleagues to see if he could learn anything that would help recover the situation. Apparently on car journeys, in the hallways, and over lunches, or whenever the conversation inched toward life outside the office, Mark would bring up his two daughters. He and his wife thought they could never have children, so these two little girls were a particularly precious gift. Mark would describe their exploits and their triumphs and the funny little things they would say to him. He was so proud of them. They were his life.

As quick as he could, John called up Mark’s wife and explained the situation. Mark’s wife had an idea. She brought the two girls into a photographic studio. A beautiful portrait was taken of them and mounted in a frame. Mark’s plaque was embossed on the frame.

Two weeks later John held a luncheon. In front of all his agents and the guests of honor, Mark’s wife and daughters, John unveiled the portrait and presented it to Mark. The same prima donna who had flipped off the crowd now started to cry. Mark’s trigger was his two daughters.

This would not have worked if Mark had felt that John didn‘t genuinely care about him. But fortunately, over the years, trust had developed between the two of them. The only aspect that had been missing from their relationship was a full understanding, on John’s part, of what was truly important to Mark. Guided by the clues from Mark’s colleagues, John filled that gap. From now on he would respect, and play to, Mark’s unique motivational trigger.

All managers can learn from John’s example. If an employee’s performance goes awry, perhaps you have misread what motivates him.

Perhaps if you tripped a different trigger, the employee’s true talents would reengage. Perhaps you are to blame for his poor performance. Before you do anything else, consider this possibility.

However, if you can genuinely answer “No” to both of these initial questions—”No,” it’s not a skills/knowledge issue, and “No,” it’s not a trigger issue—then by default the nonperformance is probably a talent issue. The person is struggling because she doesn’t have the specific talents needed to perform. In this case, training is not an option. Given the enduring nature of talent, it is highly unlikely that the person will ever be able to acquire the necessary talent. She is who she is, and left to her own devices, she will always be hamstrung by those few areas where she lacks talent.

This situation seems bleak. But it’s actually rather commonplace. After all, no one’s perfect. No one possesses all of the talents needed to excel in a particular role. Each of us is a couple of talent cards short of a full deck.

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