As a manager of a team of people, one of your responsibilities is to make that people reporting to you are able to perform at their best. So when it happens that some don’t, you need to figure out why together with them.
It’s easy to label them as lazy or selfish or whatever, but that would just an easy way out. It is definitely not a pleasant situation that you need to look deeper into. I don’t believe it is a good idea to lay the blame only on the person not performing, let’s call them Jo. Jo is most likely in a context thing they cannot perform at their best. I think their context is a combination of factors that include Jo’s internal narrative about the work environment, the work environment itself and Jo’s context outside work. All of these and others contribute to how will Jo thrive at work and each of them should be taken into consideration when looking at solutions. Let’s have a look at each of these.
Jo’s internal narrative about the work environment
Each of us make a story in our mind about what work means for us, even if we realize it or not. For example, Jo might see their work just a means to a paycheck and they could as well do other job instead that satisfies their money needs. This fine and might not be a problem most of the time, but sometimes things happen at work that require a bit more involvement from everyone and if Jo doesn’t participate, then the rest of the team will have to pick-up their part as well. For good reasons, most people would be willing to do that for Jo, but not always and definitely not because Jo doesn’t care about their job. This creates friction in the team and could put the label on Jo of “poor performer”.
The work environment
While there are people who think like Jo who think that it isn’t possible to find meaning and purpose in a day job, I think they don’t search deep enough. These must be something they like doing and they could get paid for. There must be at least some aspects of the job they enjoy. And the work environment is where things could be changed. Work environment doesn’t mean only the physical things, but also the colleagues, the manager itself, the place where the office or the home-office is, every single aspect of where, who and what of Jo’s job.
For example, Jo might enjoy supporting the team’s users, but they also have a team member who is always over the place and takes all the interesting cases. Jo doesn’t want to confront this other colleague and this other colleague has no idea Jo is interested in this, they only think Jo is disinterested and that whenever Jo picks-up a case they are doing a poor job, so it’s better to not let Jo handle any cases. This situation is part of Jo’s work environment and can be highly demotivating for both Jo and their team mate. Encouraging them to talk and share the case load while giving themselves feedback is a potential way to make things better. Many times people are too much into their own thoughts and even though this situation could be easily solved by themselves, it is a part where their manager (or anyone who notices this and has a good rapport with both of them) can help them work it out.
The context outside work
Sometimes a change in Jo’s home context can have an impact as well on Jo’s performance at work. A new-born child, a sick family member or an abusive partner can take a big toll on one’s ability to do their best work. From the 3 factors I mentioned here, this one is the least one that could be influenced by the manager or the team. The only thing they can do is to be compassionate and supporting as well as they can until the temporary phase passes through.
This is a simple but realistic example. In reality there are more factors happening at the same time, so these situations are a bit like an investigation. You gather clues by taking with different people involved until you get a good understanding of the context.
It may very well be that Jo’s overall context cannot be made better as is and the only option is for Jo to completely change their work environment. This doesn’t mean necessarily for Jo to leave the company, it could also mean moving into another team or office of the company in a different city to cut the commute time. In some cases, Jo might very well need to change the company. Many times, any of these changes are hard to realize and Jo might feel stuck and need a discussion with a compassionate and understanding person to help them figure it out. Ideally, this person would be Jo’s manager, because they are the ones who most likely can help Jo to make changes.
Bottom line is that don’t be quick to judge Jo and show them the door. That might be a good solution in the end, but what if the real problem is in the work environment and there are more people on their way to be like Jo because of that?