Performance is a Function of the Individual and the System

A while back, a colleague of mine asked to pick my brain. He was having a performance challenge on his team, and wasn’t certain how to proceed. Mostly he wanted to talk out his frustration. So we took a walk, and we did land on a promising approach. We just didn’t take the path you’d expect to get there.

When facing a ‘performance’ problem, the first question you should ask is: Is this actually a performance problem? Now you may ask, if it’s not a performance problem, what else explains the lack of results then!? It’s a fair question, but have you considered how the work gets done?

Let’s consider build a fence for example. It might seem simple. You place some pickets, you hammer some nails, right? But it would be quite unreasonable to expect a fence built in an hour if you started with no pickets, or nails. And if you forgot your hammer at home, just forget about it! All these tools, materials, and even the place to build the fence are part of the work-system. That work-system determines how much of the results emerge from the individual’s actions.

In complex organizations, these situations are a bit like those optical illusions. What you see, depends on where you look! From one side, the picture is clearly a forest meadow. Shift a little left, and suddenly it’s a teacup! If you find yourself trying to stare down a work-system, start simple. Start by taking the individual contributor’s perspective. Step into their shoes and see the how the company, process, and support tools interact in the work.

Think about the fence again. How do you get the pickets? Are they ready on site, or do you need a truck to pick them up? Are you expected to bring their own hammer? Or did you rent a nail-gun? Are the nails the right kind? Each answer dramatically impacts how much fence you can actually build in that hour. In the same way, you work-systems impact the contributor’s ability to produce results! You’ll see the gaps better if you look at the work through their eyes.

A bad process will beat a good person every time.
W. Edwards Deming

Remember that colleague of mine who had a performance challenge on his team? The team was having trouble meeting their support SLAs. Tickets kept coming in, but not getting picked up. Gut-reaction was to assume the team was ignoring the tickets.

So I started with a question:
“Do the tickets come up in our work tracking tool, or somewhere else?”
Somewhere else.
“How does the team learn about new tickets in that ‘somewhere else’?”
They’re an email notification.
“How would you handle that kind of notification?”
I’d setup and Outlook rule, and check it when I check my email.
“How often do you check your email? Company policy is 24hour response time right?”
dawning realization
You’re right! But I also end up throwing out a bunch of those system notifications! I don’t use them, and can’t turn them off!

To be clear, not all performance problems are due to the system your team is in. Establish whether contributors know what they should do. Confirm they have the tools to do it. Check that they know how to proceed. Then you can tell whether the gap is individual or systemic. Two of those three are sensitive to work-system problems. So before you try to wrangle your next ‘under-performer’, check that you work-systems doesn’t have a wire hanging loose!