Hello, and welcome back to the Leveraging Operations and Leadership Podcast, the show that helps you build high-performing teams and sustainable systems without burning yourself out in the process. I'm your host, Tanya D. Harrison, leadership and team performance strategist, the shifter, and founder of Signal Partners. Now, today I want to talk about something that every leader faces at some point, and if you haven't, you will. But it is how to manage underperforming employees. And this can be it can be a challenge, but it doesn't have to be. Accountability for them, but also accountability for you. As someone who has worked in corporate for several years, um, most of my career I spent in healthcare administration. And at that time I was in leadership and operations. What I found as I moved from or as I was moved from department to department, which I later found out that the reason why I was moved so much is because I had figured out a way to turn around underperforming teens and um and really just learned how to navigate that space in a way where we were able to achieve the performance goals that we wanted to achieve, but also we were able to improve engagement in the process. And I started to realize that there were some things that I was doing over and over again, and um and I want to share that with you today. And I've broken it down into a four-part framework to make it straightforward and easy, but this is something that you can apply when you think that you have an underperforming team member. So before you try to fix the performance, we want to start with R. So the framework is rise and it stands for reframe and reset, identify, support, and establish. The R is for reframing and reset expectations. So before you try to fix the performance, start by reframing how you think about it. Most people want to do a good job. I truly believe that in my heart that most people want to do a good job. When performance drops or it's not where you expect it, it's often feedback about the system, not defiance from the person. And this is more times than not. So as a leader, you want to reframe your mindset first, shift from judgment to curiosity. I really want to investigate and find out what be what's going on, what might be getting of the way of this person's success. Go into it believing that this person wants to be successful and they want to succeed, and you want to figure out what is the obstacle, what is blocking them from achieving the level of success or the expectation that you that expect. When you reframe, you now lead from understanding instead of assumptions. You you don't want to go into it assuming the worst. You want to go into it. I'm not assuming anything. I want to understand what is. When you do that, you turn underperformance into data that now you can act on. Data about it, you're going into it, you're seeking to understand. Remember this only about 47% of employees strongly agree they know what's expected of them. So it's important that as we move into the second part of the R, we think about reset. And this is where you are going to reset and you're gonna say, you know what, I'm not going to assume that they knew what I meant. I'm not gonna assume that I was clear, I'm going to make it clear. So once your mindset is in the right place, it's time to realign expectations. Ask yourself, have I clearly defined what success looks like right now? Not a year ago, not when they initially took on the role, right now, because things change. Are the goals still measurable and relevant? And then also think: does this person know exactly what outcomes they're accountable for? And if things have changed, does this person have the skill sets that is needed to achieve the expectations that I'm looking for? So resetting is about clarity, it's not about criticism. This is an opportunity for you to just reset. And when you're resetting and you're having the conversation with the person, you are being specific and time bound, right? So ambiguity and being vague has no place when we're doing the reset. If you're telling people that they need to be more responsive, instead, be specific. Respond to client emails within one business day. Period. Be specific. Now is not the time to be vague. So this is an opportunity to make sure that your expect expectations are clear. Honestly, you can clear up a lot just by this first stage, right? But say, for instance, things do not clear up, then you want to progress to the next one. And this is the I. And here's where we're gonna identify the root cause of the underperformance. We need to understand exactly what it is that is happening. You cannot coach somebody out of underperformance if you haven't diagnosed what the problem is, right? How do you successfully coach someone, manage someone, lead someone from one position to another when you don't understand? This is where you become a detective, a performance detective. You're looking beyond the surface to find out why the gap exists. There's a couple of there's four main gaps that could exist, and your job is to identify which one is applicable so you know what your next steps are. Is it a clarity gap? That's number one. They don't know what to prioritize, right? They don't know what success looks like. They so is it about providing clarity? The second type of gap is capability. Do they lack skill skills or training? Knowing this is extremely important. Like I said, this may be somebody that you hired two years ago and they may have been able to do the job two years ago as it was, but it has evolved. If their skill set hasn't evolved, and if you haven't provided additional training, they may need training, it may be a capability gap. The third type of gap is a commitment gap. They've lost connection to purpose or leadership. And the fourth gap, which a lot of people don't talk about, but is extremely important and we need to address, especially in this day and time when organizations are laying off people, is it a capacity gap? That's real, they're overloaded or spread too thin. As a leader, we need to figure out how to address that, and that's a real gap. So those are the four gaps: a clarity gap, a capability gap, commitment gap, or capacity gap. When you identify the root cause, now you can coach with context, not criticism. Okay, so those are the different types of gaps. Your job as a leader is to find out which one it is so that now you can fill in the gap. The S in Rise is support. So now that you've identified where the gap is, now you want to provide support. And support could look a lot of different ways depending on what the gap was. But remember, support doesn't mean you're not trying to rescue them, you are resourcing, you're going to provide them what they need in order to move past this obstacle that you've identified and be successful. This could be coaching, uh training if they need additional training, tools. There may be some tools that you've identified that could help with the clarity piece, whether it's a process or if it's a capacity issue, it could be a matter of helping them adjust the workload or simplifying the systems that slow them down. There's a couple of different ways that you're going to support them, but ultimately the goal is to support them. A part of that support includes a performance support plan. This is not a punishment plan. And I know that a lot of times people think that when you do a performance support plan or performance improvement plan, that this is it. We are on our way out, and that's not the goal. For me, it was about helping somebody get move past an obstacle, especially if you have somebody that was doing well and now they have fallen into this space where they're not doing well. There could be so many reasons for that, and I want to do what I can to help people move beyond that. When you are doing this performance support plan, of course, you're going to document any areas that need improvement, but you're also going to make sure that you are doing your part and being clear about what success looks like for each area that they need improvement. Also, you want to provide a clear timeline as to when things need to turn around and commit to weekly or bi-weekly check-ins for progress and accountability. If you want them to be successful, we have to do our part too. So it's not just a one-part, it's a two-part. They have to do our part, we have to do our part. And then just remember, you know, um, this is not a time to beat somebody down. Most of the time, when someone is told that they're not meeting expectations or not doing a good job, they're going to feel some kind of way, right? So we want to again make sure that we are supporting them, making sure that we are rooting for them, that they can come out of this successful. We want to be kind during the process. Document documenting is just a part of what we need to do as leaders, but make sure that you are using empowering language. You know, here's what success looks like this month. What support do you need from me to get there? And then when you are meeting with them on a weekly basis, talking about any wins and progress that they've made, making sure that they know that this is something that you want to help them get through. The key here is collaboration. You're not doing the work for them, you're creating the environment for them to succeed. They still have to do the work. The last part, the last stage is the E, which is established. So, with established, this step is about reinforcing accountability and strengthening strengthening systems. You've reset, you started out by reframing your mindset, and then you reset by making sure that you have reset expectations and everybody's on the same page. You've identified what the root cause is and you have identified how you're going to support them. Now it's time to establish follow-up and consistency. So, again, you know, we talked about setting check-in dates, and during that time, you're going to evaluate progress and you're going to be honest about it. So, like I said before, you're going to celebrate wins, even small ones. But if improvement hasn't happened, you have to be genuine. You have to be authentic and you have to let them know that progress has not been made. Improvement has not been made. And making sure that you're finding out, like what you know what's going on. We've done these things, you know what I mean. Is it what part of it is not helping? What part of it do you need additional assistance with? Like, what can you do? There's only so much that we can do. Again, our goal is to provide the environment for them to be successful. You'll know, you'll know if it's a fit issue during this process, you're going to know. And there may be times where it's not a fit, and if you don't have a role, that you may have to um terminate employment. So to me, that is the last thing that we want to do, but understanding that sometimes it happens within leadership. As for you, you want to make sure that when you look back on this situation, however it ends, most of the time it usually ends successful. I could just say that from past experience. I've had more success with going through this process than not. And like I said before, usually at the reframing and reset stage, I'm able to clear up a lot and then move on. But once you get through this process, you want to go back and you want to reflect. What did this situation reveal about your systems, about communication, about onboarding and hiring is always an opportunity to reflect and read and learn from it, right? So um, every performance because every performance challenge is a feedback for the leader, too, right? This is also feedback for us, and that's how operational excellence and leadership maturity intersects. We are making sure that we have the leadership skills, but we're also making sure that we have the operational parts of it to help people be successful. So that is it. That's that's the rise framework. So just a quick, quick recap. Um, the rise framework is something that you could use when you have identified what could potentially be an underperforming team member. And I said potentially because sometimes it's not them underperforming, it's our lack of processes and systems or lack of clarity. But you've identified that someone's not meeting expectations. Here's what we're going to do: we're going to implement the Rise framework. The R stands for reframing and reset. So this starts with your mindset and then level setting with expectations. The I is identify the root cause, the real reason behind the gap. And I gave you four different types of gaps. The S is support through structure, right? We're going to support them through structure, not stress. And then E is establish accountability and next steps. And let me just say this about the E when it comes to accountability and next steps. This is why one-on-ones is extremely important because if you are effectively doing the one-on-ones, you could prevent yourself from going through this step. Because if we're having regular one-on-ones, we're already talking about performance. We are already talking about challenges and gaps and all of this stuff before it is identified as an issue, right? So that is a way to be proactive and having those conversations with your team members. So that is it. Um, and and like I said again, remember most underperformance isn't about effort, it's usually about clarity. And when you lead with clarity, you give your team the best chance to rise and be successful. If today's episode resonated with you, please leave us a review and share it with someone that could use it, share it with another leader. And then also, if you want to learn more about what I do and how I do it, you can join the team navigator. The link is going to be in the show notes. Again, thanks for tuning in to Leveraging Applied Rations in YouTube podcast. And until next time, leave with clearly a peace.