People, in their infinite complexity, often don’t do what we would like them to, when we would like them to do it, or to the level we would like them to achieve. This is true on an individual, team, departmental and organizational level.
Leaders are charged to organize this chaos into a synchronized effort in which all the individual parts are performing in concert to achieve a greater goal. All too often, efforts are far less than perfect.
When performance either breaks down or is not happening, as a leader, it is your job to understand why and then to fix it. Robert Mager, a thought leader in human performance, would ask the question: “If a gun was to their head, would they be able to do what you need them to do?”
If the answer is no, you have a training problem. Your response is clear – you need to teach them how. Train, coach, mentor, support, provide performance support – but help them acquire the skills they need to be successful.
If the answer is yes, you have a problem of motivation, or will, which requires a very different leadership action.
I subscribe to the notion that most people come to work wanting to do the best that they can. As such, not having the will do something that they know how to do is more likely caused by other factors. If this is the case, ask these questions:
- Have you been clear about your expectations?
- Do they have the tools and resources they need to execute?
- Are you modeling the behaviors you want to see?
- Are there things competing for their time and attention that are seen as a higher priority?
- Are there underlying systemic factors undermining the performance you want?
We’ve all been at the mercy of customer service representatives who cut you short and rush through the call. I suspect most times they have the skill, but will is undermined by the system. This happens when they are measured and rewarded by call volume, rather than customer satisfaction. Until you change the system, you will never have customer service reps focused on the experience.
Daily I see systems undermining performance. I see people in organizations who know what to do and have a strong will to do it. But they have so many conflicting demands on their time that they are forced to make a difficult choice: to do it all (but at a sub-standard level) or to drop things off the list or to sacrifice personal time and health. All choices ultimately lead to sub-optimal performance.
Two footnotes:
- There will be times when folks have the will and less than adequate skill. They are getting it done but not very efficiently. Be careful to not misdiagnose this one. Give these folks encouragement for their effort – and help them learn how to improve their performance with more training, coaching and feedback
- There are also those infrequent situations where someone is just not going to deliver. They are either unable to learn or lack the motivation to apply what they know. If you have taught well and set the stage for performance – it most likely is time for a different kind of change.
