Five Principles for Successful Underperformance Conversations

Jan 15

One of the most important and dreaded responsibilities of a manager is having a conversation with a direct report who is underperforming in their role. Having these conversations is difficult regardless of whether you are a first line manager, a VP, or a CEO. All too often, underperformance conversations happen way later than they should or are not effective, causing confusion and persistent underperformance.

This article is focused on conversations where the direct report is underperforming in their role. This differs from a conversation where you are giving constructive or negative feedback in situations where they are still generally performing well overall, though these principles can be applied to other situations as well.

This article presents five principles that will help you have these conversations sooner and in a more productive way, which will help your team be more effective and reduce stress on yourself and your team.

I’ve seen these principles yield effective underperformance conversations time and time again with myself and the leaders I coach. One founder used these principles in a case of underperformance that had been festering for almost a year even after several attempts at trying to have this conversation. After using these principles in a conversation, I asked the founder how it went and they said “I feel like I moved a mountain.”

There’s no set script for these conversations since so much depends upon the situation, the relationship you have with your direct report, what constructive/negative feedback you’ve already given, and the culture of the company or team. What’s important is using these key principles and approaching the conversation with them in mind.

Principle 1: Treat everyone with respect, including yourself
Principle 2: State the facts clearly before determining causes
Principle 3: Co-create the path to success
Principle 4: Understand your fears and how they get in the way
Principle 5: Remember why you are having this conversation

Principle 1: Treat everyone with respect, including yourself

The most important principle going into an underperformance conversation is to have a deep respect for all the people involved and act in accordance with this respect.

Respect for your direct report

The desire to be nice is often a misguided attempt at showing respect. Respect and being nice are not the same thing. A powerful distinction is one of “serving” vs. “pleasing”. Pleasing is telling someone what they want to hear while serving is really truly helping them. To serve someone is to hold them in high respect.

Believing that your direct report can’t handle feedback does not hold them with respect. Hiding the truth from them is not respecting them. Neither is delaying giving them the truth. Your direct report is an autonomous adult who has the right to have responsibility for their own life, actions, and responses; and they deserve to be interacted with as such. When someone is underperforming, giving them the feedback as early as possible improves their ability to correct and become successful faster. The most respectful thing you can do for your direct report is to deliver the feedback in a clear, timely, and compassionate way.

Respect for your team

An underperforming direct report affects more than just you and your direct report. The rest of the team is affected by the consequences of underperformance. This can manifest in team members having to fix issues the underperformance has caused as well as demotivation since their team member is not pulling their weight. Doing your job as a manager is a way to respect and serve the entire team.

Respect for yourself

So many of us become managers because we want to help others be successful. This points our attention on everyone else. This can lead to us putting everyone else before ourselves and cause us to forget to have a deep respect for ourselves in this situation. You deserve to perform in your role as a manager and to lead a successful team. You deserve to not feel 100% responsible for your direct report’s well being. You deserve to not toil for weeks or months thinking about this conversation you know you want to have. You deserve to treat your direct report with respect by acknowledging that they are an autonomous, responsible adult. You deserve to be treated with respect when you deliver feedback in a respectful way.

Respect is about serving your direct report, the team, and yourself.

Keeping respect in mind, there are two major components of the conversation that must be kept separate: the facts and the path to success.

Principle 2: State the facts clearly before determining causes

Getting the facts

It’s really important to do diligence to make sure your direct report is actually not meeting expectations. Although your intuition may have pointed you in the direction of the underperformance, you need to determine and verify which expectations they are not meeting and back it up with concrete examples. This is what I refer to as “the facts” of the underperformance. This diligence will make it easier to be clear with your direct report (and yourself). It will also help you account for biases you may have.

Differentiate between the facts and the causes

So much of great management and leadership is asking questions and collaborating instead of dictating. However, regarding the facts of the underperformance this is not appropriate. You need to be super clear to your direct report that they are not meeting expectations. A more collaborative phase will come later in the conversation (as we’ll see in Principle 3) after the facts are clearly stated by you and understood by your direct report.

Every role is created with a purpose to drive important company outcomes. If someone is not performing in the role, it means the company outcomes are suffering. Just because there is a valid reason why someone is not performing does not invalidate the fact that the person is underperforming and hurting the team and company.

Failing to separate facts of the underperformance from the causes and the path to success is one of the biggest reasons underperformance conversations get delayed or are unsuccessful.

As a manager you have a great view on the results that your direct report produces (the “what” and “how”), but your view is very limited on the causes (the “why”) because you aren’t in your direct report’s head. You don’t know what information they have, how they interpret things, and what their thought processes are. You also don’t have a full view into their interactions with others or what’s going on in their life.

For example, the true cause of a particular underperformance case could be that the direct report didn’t fully understand a key expectation of the role. Maybe you told them this expectation in passing, but it didn’t really sink in for them. If, during diligence on the facts, you thought your direct report understood this expectation and you assumed the cause for underperformance was that they didn’t have the skills to perform the expectation and then you imply this to them, you’ve eroded trust and made the path forward much more rocky.

To determine the causes of the underperformance, you’ll need to collaborate with your direct report after the facts are clearly stated and understood.

How to state the facts clearly

It can be tempting to start the conversation with “how do you think you’re performing?”. The problem with that is it’s not a genuine question. Your direct report’s answer won’t influence your view on whether they are underperforming. You ask it because you’re hoping they say “I am underperforming” so you won’t have to be the one to tell them. If they answer “I think I’m doing a great job” then you tell them “actually you’re not”, it immediately becomes apparent your question was not genuine and not respectful. And it opens it up for a debate about the facts.

When you start the conversation, start with the facts. Don’t pad it with small talk. Don’t give them so much positive feedback about what they are doing well that they don’t understand they are not performing. Be clear about what you’re saying. They deserve to have a clear message. Allow them the space to get more clarity by asking questions. If the conversation starts slipping into the reasons causing the underperformance, redirect to making sure they understand the facts first. You can even clarify that you want to make sure they have an understanding of the underperformance and that, after establishing this, you want to collaborate with them on how to move forward.

It’s typically good to come into this conversation with what will happen if performance does not improve under some time frame. However, unlike with the facts, the causes for the underperformance may end up having an influence on the timeframe for when you are requiring improvement (for example, you may uncover that your direct report has a health issue that’s been affecting work).

Often your direct report will agree with the facts. Sometimes they will not. In this relationship the manager has responsibility to make the call. The facts are that the direct report is underperforming expectations and that if things do not improve under the timeframe you specify then something may happen up to and including moving them into a different role or them being fired. If they don’t yet agree that they are underperforming, at least make sure they agree that they understand that you have decided they are not performing.

Once you’ve established the facts of the underperformance, you can move to the next phase of the conversation where you’ll be collaborating on a path for your direct report to be meeting the expectations of their role.

Principle 3: Co-create the path to success

Now that you’ve clearly stated the facts, you and your direct report can work together on the shared goal of getting them to perform up to expectations in the role. You’ve set clear guidelines on what needs to happen with their performance, and you’ll be here to help them get there.

This is an area where it’s easy for managers to get tripped up in. They can think too much before the conversation to try to figure out how the direct report can improve and feel they need to present a plan for improvement in this initial conversation. Without knowing the causes for the underperformance (which need to be figured out in collaboration with the direct report) you can’t create a solid path forward. You don’t know for sure what’s causing the underperformance. Maybe they don’t either. The only way to figure it out is to work together. Your direct report knows their personal circumstances best and you have experience helping people grow and have resources and power to help them out.

You both have an important and unique role in the co-creation of the path to success. Though, ultimately they are the ones responsible for performing in their role, which is a responsibility they can handle.

The language you use in this conversation matters, but what matters most is genuine respect, being clear, and actually helping them to perform in their role.

Coming out of this conversation, you now have a shared understanding of the facts and an initial path forward on the shared goal of your direct report improving their performance. You’ll also typically want to set up a schedule of check-ins on their performance to give feedback and offer help along the way.

Principle 4: Understand your fears and how they get in the way

Often the root cause that stops us from having these conversations is fear. Every fear we have is well intentioned and it’s meant to keep us safe. However, our well intentioned fear can get in the way of us achieving the outcome we want when we’re not in any real danger.

Everyone has different fears around having underperformance conversations. Some common ones are: a fear of being disliked, a fear of being wrong (this was a big one for me!), a fear of situations where we don’t have full control, a fear of being uncomfortable, a fear of being imperfect, a fear of someone getting angry, a fear of hurting someone’s feelings, and a fear of not being able to handle the conversation.

Fear is an important and useful emotion. It has significant effects on our bodies and brains. It makes our heart rate increase, blood pressure rise, and breathing become faster. Fear also releases stress hormones and can cause our minds to race. It has these types of effects on our bodies and brains regardless of whether the fear stems from an underperformance conversation or from seeing a mountain lion staring at us while on a hike (though the magnitude of the effects may differ).

Fear can influence the intellectual part of our brain to create a story to make that part of the brain feel completely rationally justified in why we shouldn’t have the conversation. For every underperformance conversation you have had or would like to have there’s some reason your prefrontal cortex can come up with about the situation that makes it unique enough that you can convince yourself to delay or not have the conversation. For example: this particular person is sensitive, this person is well liked on the team so if I upset them the team will hate me, if only the project they’re working on wasn’t so important, maybe I wasn’t clear about my expectations, they might freak out and quit which will destabilize the company, they’ll start performing better on their own eventually, they are very disagreeable so the conversation won’t do us any good anyway, I’m way too busy for this right now, etc.

Even when we intellectually know we’re not in danger when having an underperformance conversation, it’s difficult to put fears aside because fear is so powerful and it takes over. We feel our breathing change and our heart beating faster. We feel our minds race. We come up with a story we use to avoid the conversation. The fear becomes us. That’s why it’s so hard to take a dissociated, rational view of the fear. When fear takes over, we can forget that fear is a signal that sometimes helps us and sometimes gets in the way.

Getting through the fear barrier

Doing the following will help you get through the barrier that fear has created.

Identify what fears you are having about the conversation. Once you’ve identified a fear, ask yourself a follow-up question to take it deeper. For example, if your fear is “I am afraid my direct report will not like me” then ask yourself “what do I fear my direct report disliking me would mean about myself?” or “what do I fear will happen if my direct report dislikes me?” Then, write down what you’ve identified.

Next, write down the story you are telling yourself about why you’re not having this conversation in just a few sentences.

Writing these (or really any emotions or thoughts) down helps you disassociate from the fear and the story you tell yourself, which helps you take a more objective view. You can then ask yourself the question, “If I were giving advice to someone else who was in this situation given the facts of the underperformance plus the fear(s) and the story that is written down, what would I advise them to do?”

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is persisting despite fear. Even if you’ve disassociated from the fear and the story, it’s likely to still cause symptoms when you are preparing for the conversation or having the conversation. Pulling from your prior experiences, if you can identify and write down what will happen in your brain and body, you’ll be more prepared for it and it will be less likely to derail you. For example, you may identify “When I see that preparing for this conversation is on my daily agenda my brain will start to search for other things to do” and “when I am about to tell my direct report that they are underperforming my breathing will quicken and my palms will get sweaty. This may cause my brain to tell my mouth to soften the negative feedback and end the conversation by saying ‘but overall you’re still doing great!’”

It’s like if you go to a haunted house the first time and an actor jumps out at you with a chainsaw, you may scream, start running the other way, or even collapse. If you’re told beforehand that right when you walk into the third room an actor with a chainsaw will jump out, you’ll still probably flinch and maybe scream, but it won’t have nearly as great an effect on you.

Sometimes fears go away. Other times they lessen their intensity. Having difficult conversations may always be at least a little scary. One thing I’ve learned going through this process about fears myself is: “Yes, I may be scared, but I can do it anyway”.

Principle 5: Remember why you are having this conversation

While most of this article is focused on how to have an underperformance conversation, having a successful underperformance conversation is not the goal in itself. It’s a key step towards having someone in the role who is performing up to (or even above) expectations, which increases the productivity and morale of the team. Since these conversations aren’t necessarily fun, if we only focus on the conversation and not where it will get us, then it’s no wonder these conversations get delayed!

It’s helpful to remember the end goal in order to get you to actually have the conversation. Here are some questions to help elicit what the end goal looks like for you and motivate you to have the conversation and have it without over-softening the message. Pick a few of these and answer them for yourself.

What will it be like to have someone in this role who is performing really well?
How much better off will my team or company be when someone is really performing well in this role?
How will it feel to have this conversation over with?
What will it be like to be in the collaborative path to success phase where everything is out in the open?
What will it be like to get this out of my head?
How will it feel for me to have done something courageous?
What will it be like to stop worrying about this conversation?

Having the conversation

These conversations are very important to be prepared for. The preparation should be focused on diligence about the facts of underperformance and the principles you use to have the conversation, not about the causes for underperformance, path to success, or speculating on how your direct report will react.

That being said, getting it done is better than trying to make it perfect. There may be a fact or two you are a bit off with. The person may react in a very different way than you expected (this is very common!). It may be an easier conversation than you thought. Or they may get angry and need some time to cool down. Do the best you can, treat people with genuine respect, and use your intuition guided by principles that resonate with you. This initial conversation is the first and most important step to get you and your direct report on the same page and working together to get them performing in their role. If something goes wrong, as long as you’ve respected them, you can always mend it with a follow-up conversation.

It’s usually good to send a follow-up email to this conversation to reiterate the facts of the underperformance and that you’ll be helping them on a path forward to perform in the role. This is useful because not everyone gets the right interpretation when they first hear it. This conversation may have been stressful for them (just like it may have been for you) so it’s helpful if they have something they can go back to and process over the following days. In the conversation, I recommend telling your direct report that you’ll be sending this email so it doesn’t come as a surprise.

Remember, these conversations are hard for everyone—even for someone who has 30 years of management experience or runs a multi-billion dollar public company. Not everyone wants to be or can be a manager, and dealing with complex people situations is one of the biggest reasons why. If you respect everyone involved, separate the facts of the underperformance from the causes, co-create a path to successful performance with your direct report, and have these conversations in a timely manner, you’ll be handling this better than the vast majority of managers. Though these conversations can be scary, with these principles and a bit of courage you can have really successful underperformance conversations, leading to increased productivity and morale from your team.

Insight and Action

What are the most important takeaways for you after reading this article?
What’s a case of underperformance (even if slight) that you’ve been delaying taking action on?
What’s an insight from the article that you can use to apply to a situation other than an underperformance conversation?
What action(s) will you take based on these insights?

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Kevin Rice