How to Talk to an Underperformer

Few of us like confrontation, and having to confront an underperforming employee about their performance can be a daunting prospect. Writing in the Harvard Business Review global CEO coach Sabina Nawaz offers some guidelines to de-pressurize this difficult situation:
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• Ask before telling. Start by asking your employee how they think they’re doing on their goals. In the best case, they’ll be on the same page as you, and you can move on to next steps. If they are in partial agreement, this still saves you some heavy lifting. If they think they're doing fine, you might say, “I have a different perspective... I’d like to provide more information and then explore with you what I might be missing and where you might need to do things differently.”
• Clarify non-negotiables. Provide a list of clear expectations and clarify which are “musts” rather than optional. 
• Connect to the employee’s goals. Your employee will be more motivated to improve if performance is tied to one of their goals.
• Provide specific examples and behaviors that are unsatisfactory. Telling someone, “You’re not responsive,” is vague and doesn’t outline a path for change. But saying: “You haven’t replied to the team’s Slack messages” clarifies what behavior is expected without labeling them.  (Tweet it!)

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Have you ever had to confront an underperforming employee? Did your talk lead to productive change? To join the conversation, click "comments" above. 

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