Why do some people perform poorly at their jobs?
The key components of performance in every position are:
- Education
- Experience
- Skills
- Personality Traits
- Intelligence
The employee must have adequate levels of each of the five key components of high performance. Your recruiting and promoting systems should have identified what level each position requires of all five of these components. If you find that an employee is missing one of these five components then you must ask yourself some questions:
- Can the employee attain the necessary education?
- What ways can you help the employee to gain the required experience and skills?
- Can the role be adjusted to accommodate the employees inborn personality traits?
- How did someone without the required intelligence get the position in the first place?
What about when an employee with adequate levels of the five key components of high performance is performing poorly?
It is important that managers and business owners do not make judgements about the attitudes of their employees. All too often we hear people say things like “they have a bad attitude” or “they just don’t care” when in reality we have no way of knowing what the employee is feeling and thinking.
Ask yourself important questions about the apparent lack of performance:
- Does the employee know what high performance looks like?
- Are there any obstacles that are not in the control of the employee?
- Does the employee know what they are supposed to be doing and what “finished” looks like?
They may have all the necessary key components of high performance yet they may not realize that the current level of performance is unacceptable. Even if you have told them repeatedly that they are under performing do they know what they have to do to achieve high performance? For example just because a person is intelligent does not automatically mean they know how to do something effectively.
It may seem basic and like you shouldn’t have to articulate to that level of detail but the reality is you get paid for what your people do and so you must make sure that every obstacle is removed. Never allow a situation where “finished” can only be recognized by you the manager or owner. Training is often the answer that managers and business owners jump to as the solution to poor performance. Until next time good health, good business, and good day!
| Article Tags :: adequate levels | apparent lack | attitudes | bad attitude | business owners | education | education experience | Experience | high performance | intelligence | jobs | judgements | necessary education | obstacles | performance | personality assessment | personality traits | Skills | |
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