How to handle underperformers with empathy and clarity

When a manager says someone is not performing, nine times out of ten they have not yet worked out why. And the cause completely changes what should happen next, which is why the conversation almost always starts in the wrong place.

Four causes, and they are easy to tell apart

A skill gap looks like repeated mistakes and work that takes longer than it does for peers. It needs training, not pressure.

A will issue looks different: the ability is there and is not being applied, deadlines slip, and the effort stops at the minimum. It needs an honest conversation, not a course.

A fit problem is the cruellest to spot, because it looks like effort. High effort, poor results. The role is wrong, not the person.

And external factors, which is everything else: something outside work, a recent change, or a conflict inside the team that is taking up all the space.

Six weeks, not one meeting

In the first week you document specific examples and open the conversation with an observation rather than an accusation. Then you ask for their read on it before restating expectations, because what comes out is often not what you expected. Then you offer support, and you write down what was agreed.

Weeks two to four are about closeness: short daily check-ins, feedback in the moment it is useful rather than at the end, and time shadowing a colleague who does the thing well.

Between weeks four and six comes the decision point. Clear improvement, you keep going. Limited signals, you move to a formal plan. No signal at all, you part ways, and by then that should surprise nobody in the conversation.

The performance improvement plan, and why it gets misread

A PIP is not the paperwork that precedes a dismissal. It is the last real chance to save the working relationship, and for it to be that it needs four things: the gap described specifically, current versus expected, measurable goals over 30 to 60 days, a weekly check-in that actually happens, and success criteria written down alongside what happens if they are not met.

Document everything, with dates. Not to protect yourself in a tribunal, though it does that too, but so that six weeks later the conversation is about facts rather than two different memories of the same meeting.

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