What To Do If Your Employee is Falling Short of Their Potential

 

 

 

 

You’ve seen flashes of real competence — maybe even occasional brilliance — in your employee. So why are they failing to live up to that potential?

As a leader who cares about cultivating your employees’ skills, abilities, and professional growth trajectory, it can be enormously frustrating to feel that they’re not taking the initiative to do more with their talents. At times, you may even wonder if it’s a question of knowledge or willpower: Do they not understand what’s necessary to perform at their best? Or are they just unmotivated?

Obviously, there’s a reason you believe that your employees’ “typical performance” (what they usually do) is not as high as their “maximal performance” or capabilities (the best they can do) — so as a first step, it’s important to clarify and quantify that.

Perhaps you’re thinking of a specific example of their peak performance, such as delivering a compelling presentation under high-stakes circumstances, or particular moments when they’ve demonstrated valuable skills, like intelligence (recognizing an important hidden pattern, turning chaos and complexity into order, learning new things), curiosity (asking a truly insightful question), or creativity (delivering an unexpected insight, generating original and useful new ideas). They’re obviously capable of performing at that level if they’ve done it once, let alone multiple times.

It’s essential then, to narrow down the reasons your employee may not be reaching their full potential. Various studies have revealed three main categories to examine: personal challenges, interpersonal issues, or your own leadership.

Personal Challenges

One reason people fail to reach their full potential is that few people are aware of their actual potential in the first place. Consider that in any area of expertise, talent, or performance, there is typically less than 10% overlap between how good people are and how good they think they are. As a leader, you can give a powerful gift to the team members you lead and manage: seeing what they’re capable of, sometimes even before they do, and holding up a mirror. Indeed, feedback is a critical catalyst of employee performance, but research shows that two-thirds of the time, it either fails to make others better, or even makes them worse!

Make sure that you’ve specifically praised the times your employee performed at their best, so they’re aware of what “excellent” looks like, and engage them in conversations about what they did to succeed in those moments. Did they nail the speech because they took time to practice and prepare? Did they interview audience members beforehand so they could cite relevant examples? Helping them dig deeper into the reasons behind their success helps show them how to replicate it. In other words, think of yourself as a coach rather than a boss.

Another major driver of people failing to reach their potential is, simply, motivation. If you’ve seen your employees perform at a high level in the past, then clearly ability isn’t the problem here — so their current level of motivation is worth investigating. You might check in with your team member to see what’s going on, especially if there’s been a sudden change. Perhaps they’re going through something challenging in their personal life, or are on the pathway to burnout and need to take time off. Or perhaps they feel stagnant in their role and need new challenges, including stretch goals, which you can help them craft.

Interpersonal Issues

Sometimes your employees’ underperformance comes from the circumstances surrounding them — i.e., other people. As Boris Groysberg and his colleagues have shown, top  employees who migrate to new companies often fail to replicate their success, because the supportive ingredients that helped propel their rise (such as company-specific knowledge or networks) are no longer in place. Indeed, although organizations typically pay more for external hires than internally promoted employees, external hires typically tend to fail to add as much value as internal candidates, not least because many of the conditions that made them successful before may not be there anymore.

Similarly, your employee may be hitting a plateau as a result of new team dynamics (perhaps in the aftermath of a colleague departing or joining the team), altered roles or responsibilities, or a perceived lack of recognition or change in status (someone else landing a promotion or bonus). Your employee’s talents may be unchanged — but their ability to execute on them has. If that’s the case, you’ll want to discuss the dynamics honestly and identify opportunities to reframe or mediate the conflict — or shift them to a new role where they’re more likely to succeed.

Leadership Problems

It’s unpleasant to consider, but remember that at least 30% of employees’ performance is the product of how they’re managed, meaning that your leadership could play a big role in determining whether people are reaching their potential or not. It’s possible that, despite intending to support and nurture your employee, you may be squelching their talents through micromanagement, overly loose supervision, or poorly communicated objectives, among other managerial sins.

The good news about this potentially alarming revelation is that it’s one area that’s firmly within your control. By testing strategies around how you communicate with your employee, give feedback, empower them, and manage them, you can directly examine the results of the guidance you provide and evaluate whether the main reason for their underperformance is actually . . .  you. It’s useful to test strategies that have worked with them in the past, as well as those that have proven effective with other employees.

All people are unique and no strategy works for everyone. That being said, it’s generally true that when you spend more time with an employee with whom you have a trusting relationship and give them more feedback (including constructive criticism, worthy praise, recognition, and resources), they’ll be more likely to reach their potential than if you do the exact opposite with them.

Finally, remember that people are humans, and humans are not machines. This means you shouldn’t expect everybody to perform to their maximum level or full capabilities all their time. In fact, the most creative and talented people on earth — in any field — can be dramatically inconsistent in their performance, since inspiration is a strong driver of results and the main fuel for innovative and exceptional work. Cutting people some slack and respecting their natural cycles, while of course holding them accountable as appropriate, is what good managers do. Incidentally, the inconsistency or erratic element that underpins work performance may also apply to you — so it’s probably helpful to examine whether you are reaching your own potential, and what could potentially be stopping you from doing so.

Understanding the gaps in your employees’ performance — and, perhaps, your own — is an exercise in thoughtfulness and empathy. By examining the possibilities above, you’ll be in a much better position to help guide your team to be at their best more frequently.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, facilities services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.