4 reasons why people don't do something or “How to shake a low-performer”

It so happened that the test and mother-in-law I have a doctor of pedagogical sciences. Which leads to the fact that willy-nilly, you begin to comprehend various useful techniques :)

One day, after some academic council for whiskey tea in the kitchen, the father-in-law says: Sash, but what do you think, why do people not do something?

Honestly, the question put me in a dead end. I began to dream: well, circumstances interfere, character traits, lack of experience ...
')
No, no, said, the test, it's not like that. If people do not do something, there may be 4 reasons for this. After that, my arsenal of management tools was replenished with one more. And about this tool we will talk today, and at the same time we will examine several stories from real life:

• Why project managers need to be transplanted into a separate building
• What to do when your customer does not use your reporting system
• How to shake a low-performer

So, if a person does not do what you want from him (or does something wrong, or does not), you should not immediately rush to kill him to solve the problem. Let's take a pause. After all, if a person does not behave the way we want from him, there can always be one of 4 reasons for this:

1. Fuzzy goal (understood in its own way)

I remember, back in Intel I told my employee: Max, look at static analyzers. Max says, they say, no question, and leaves. Comes in 3 days. I:
- Well, how?
- I looked.
- And ...?
- Here is the table ...

I almost killed him. I needed a person to find a free static analyzer of Java code and screw it to our version control system.

Max understood the problem in his own way - that it is necessary to conduct a comparative analysis of the available static analyzers. The man downloaded and installed all these analyzers, came up with metrics for comparison, found test examples. For three days he was engaged in a fairly meaningful activity. And I, as his manager, ended up dissatisfied.

If I ask you now who is to blame for this situation, you will probably blame me. And here let me disagree :)

In fuzzy tasks, you can blame the manager when you are an employee. But when the task is set for you, it is not always possible to tell your boss later: well, you somehow get together there, learn how to set tasks normally ...

Delegating a task is always a game of two or more people. And if I had asked Max how he understood the task, this situation would not have arisen. But if Max himself would rerun my task setting - this situation would not have arisen either.

2. Does not know how (we shall assign here: does not know)

A person may not be able to do what we want from him. At the same time, he may honestly be mistaken that he knows how to (“as a last resort, will figure it out”). “If I wrote virtual machines, wouldn't I really make a PowerPoint presentation? ..” - and I will. Another thing is that no one will be able to show it, but this is another story ...

There is exactly one case where we can be 100% sure that a person can do something. If he has repeatedly and successfully (both words are important here) did similar tasks, and you saw it.

If a person can tell how to do a task, this is certainly better than if he cannot tell. But this is not a guarantee that he can. I can tell you in some detail. how to break bricks by hand. But in reality, I'm afraid the brick will win anyway.

Therefore, if you did not see how a person does the task, then at the stage of setting it would be good to agree on the type and frequency of control. “My friend, we have not done this type of task before, so let me come to you every 3 minutes for two days and see what happens and how we move?”

3. Can not

Here we are talking about the lack of resources. First of all, time. For example, you set a task to a person, and he works in several projects. And here you are gone. After you, two more managers looked in to him, and strongly motivated the person to perform precisely their tasks. You come - your task is not done. Why, because “we agreed” and “you promised”? Not enough resource.

Or if you offer the engineer to debug a severe corporate Enterprise monster on a 386 computer, where the monster only starts 20 minutes - probably, the task will also not move quickly.

4. Does not want

For some reason, the person does not want to do the task. Maybe he does not like you. Or he sincerely does not understand why it is necessary to do this task. Or he does not agree with the decision. There can be many reasons.

How to use the tool?

Intuitively, we often start from the 4th reason and try to find a solution for it. “How would I motivate an employee to do A, B and C?” Is probably the most popular request on our training sessions.

Hey, wait, is the question exactly in motivation? Let's close the first 3 reasons first. If they are not closed (you do not have such confidence), it is not necessary yet to go and decide “does not want”. It is not easy, and there are other tools on this subject ( one and two ).

But sometimes it comes to ridiculous.

Case of life. Somehow a technical director of a large company calls:

- Sasha, I have a question, I want to consult. My project managers do not think about the strategy of their projects. I want to transplant them about this in the next building and decided to consult with you whether it will help or not.

At that moment my brain fell apart in half. Remember how in KVN?

A man runs onto the stage:
- Guys, there Lesha stuck in the elevator, give 500 rubles!
- I do not see the connection ...
- And it is not necessary ... “Lesha is stuck in the elevator” - information, “give 500 rubles” - please.

We start to understand. The situation is approximately as follows. The company had research and development teams. Each team had engineers and the most engineering engineers were technical leaders. These leaders have now been made project managers. They are responsible for the research team, the production team, validation + and the technical writer, system analyst, and someone else in the project.

And now, he says, the problem! They sat, as they did, in the same room with their engineers. And they tear them off on their engineering issues. As a result, managers do not think about the project strategy. I want to transplant them into a separate building.

Hmm, the picture becomes clearer ... And here I suddenly remember about 4 reasons.

Wait, I say, if managers do not think about the project strategy, there may be one of four reasons for this:

1. They do not understand what you want from them. You tell them: think about the strategy of the project? What should they do? Do they need to somehow strain, blush, sweat? How do you understand what they think about strategy? What are the signs?

You may want from them a plan for the strategic development of the project. This is a clear request. Or do you want them from time to time to bring you ideas about the strategic development of the project? This is another request. What exactly do you want from people, did you voice them?

2. Go ahead. If people have never written a plan for the strategic development of a project, how will they write it now? Maybe they tried, they saw that some kind of nonsense was coming out, and they didn’t even show it.

Maybe it makes sense to give them some book on this topic? Or hold a seminar? Or you tell them yourself. how to write strategic plans if you yourself know how.

3. How are people loading time? Previously, they were supervised by five engineers, now they have a whole crowd under their control. And you, probably, from them you demand some more releases? How are they with time?

4. People generally wanted to be project managers? Or could not you refuse?

It is difficult to refuse the boss, who comes and says: “Friends, we have a major transformation coming in the company. The only people I can rely on are you! ”It is unlikely that someone will say at that moment:“ Oh, nafig! ”People silently sigh and go to pull a new strap.

As a result, before moving to a new office there were many topics for discussion. :)

Or another case:

Case of life. A suitable person after the conference in Novosibirsk:

- Alexander, such a question. We have been writing a new reporting system for three months. As a result, they wrote. It has everything: 28 pages, each with 10 tabs. There is all the information - in general all.
- Congratulations, what's the problem?
- Our German customer does not use it. Instead of logging in and receiving data, she calls each of our engineers and asks him what he did. How do we motivate her to use our reporting system?

Well, let's understand. If the customer does not use your reporting system, there may be one of 4 reasons for this:

1. Does she even understand that she needs to use this system? Or you wrote her a 5-page letter with an obscure title, and she’s like this: “Oh, the guys are great, they are doing something ... there will be time, I’ll read it.”

2. Does she know how to use this system? Why are you sure about this? How long does it take for her to find the information she needs? Maybe she honestly tried one, two, three - buried in the system, did not find anything, and decided in the old manner - to call the engineers. They always answer what you need.

3. Does she even have access to the system? May be. she went there for the first time, she was not allowed in, and she decided that the system was not yet finalized. In the meantime, it is being finalized, I will call engineers ...

4. Maybe a person just likes to communicate with your engineers? Or she does not trust the data in the system and rechecks the information.

It would be nice to think about these reasons before talking to her, and so go for them.

The main difficulty of using the tool

The main difficulty in using this tool is to remember it in time. Seriously, it seems so trivial that it is not always remembered.

Case of life. At one of the trainings, the listeners had the following question: how to shake a low-performer? The team has a couple of very cool guys, a few middling. And there is one person who does everything substantially slower than others. How to shake it. so he started doing more and faster?

We have already gained air in the chest to start giving advice, as we remembered that the situation should first be clarified. After all, if a person works significantly less and slower than the others, this can be one of 4 reasons:

1. He does not understand that the way he works is bad. Yes, he sees that slowly. But quality! Not that these - they chopped up the code and threw it away. And then the system approach, unit tests, self-review, etc., etc.

Has the manager ever told a person directly that he was not happy with the amount of his work? Or does the manager send more non-verbal signals to a person? He stops giving interesting tasks, starts communicating with him less often, etc.

2. Can a person work faster? Has it ever happened that it worked fast?

3. What else does a person do? Maybe in Skype answers newcomer questions? Or now he has family problems, not before him.

4. What does he want at all? Stability? Or development? Of money? Become a tech? And then we will be able to tie our arguments to his Wishlist .

Perhaps he does not agree at all with the decision on which we are working. And its behavior shows that the decision is wrong.

Here it is necessary to understand, think before talking and communicate with the person. No need to rock, you need to understand.

Finally - try to look for reasons.

So that all this has not been in vain and has not turned into just reading the tales :), you can right now take a situation where someone does not what you want and try to figure out what his 4 reasons could be.

Once again, to think anything does not hurt. And for sure, it will be boring. :)

PS Previous articles in the management tools series:

1. How to explain when you feel one place?
2. Andragogue Practitioner Tips: How We Learn
3. How to play non-linear chess
4. Why do customers demand silly reports?
5. 5 questions to clarify the purpose or why you need a BMW X5?
6. 4 principles of constructive communication, or why we live in the mode of achievement?
7. 4-phase algorithm for solving problems with people or “What do you want if you're such a crap manager?”
8. How to unwittingly troll the interlocutor and get a minus in karma
9. A set of furniture keys or how to come up with constructive arguments
10. Intellect card "Formula of working with people"
11. Formula need or how we squeeze?

PPS I read the first comments - I realized that I need to write another article. :) And then it came to an experienced manager there with a 2-year experience for the case of 10 years ago with Max.

Probably, I did not disclose the idea. Let's expand here to not change the text of the article and the relevance of the comments. In brief and by points:

We can search for those who are guilty of misunderstanding for a long time, but look for those who are guilty - IMHO, the last thing. We need to make sure that such situations no longer arise.

In situations where my colleagues and I understand each other incorrectly, I think that it is my responsibility to make sure that such situations do not recur. Regardless of who the situation arose - with a subordinate, with our customer or my business partner.

If the readers of the article understood me differently than I wanted, I will not write badly about the readers. People both understood, understood. So I did not reveal my thought. Therefore, I am writing this postscript.

If you work as a manager and set the wrong task, then your responsibility is to make sure that such situations do not arise. If your boss set the task unclear for you, then you can either scold him silently and in Habré and hope that the boss will correct (and hope is not the most sustainable plan), or do something to prevent such situations from happening again.

My thought is very simple: you must take responsibility for what is happening on yourself. what role would you be in At least that's my conviction, I believe that. I repeat, the topic of a separate article. Thanks for the comments!

PS Blog Stratoplana moved to a separate site: http://blog.stratoplan.ru - see you there!