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Dealing With Poor Performance

Lack of ability, or low motivation.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

For every hundred men hacking away at the branches of a diseased tree, only one will stoop to inspect the roots. – Chinese proverb.

If you don't get to the root of a problem, you will never truly solve it. Recognizing that may seem an obvious approach but many people miss it, as the Chinese proverb reminds us.

So, what is the right approach, for example, if individual members of your team are performing less well than you'd hoped? Because employee performance affects organizational performance, we tend to want to look for a quick fix. In this case, would a training course help? Or should you move your under-performing team member into a different role?

You need to understand the root of a performance problem before you can fully address it. These types of solutions, like training, focus largely on the ability of the person performing the job. Performance, though, is a function of both ability and motivation.

Performance = Ability x Motivation

Ability is the person's aptitude, as well as the training and resources supplied by the organization.
Motivation is the product of desire and commitment.

Someone with 100 percent motivation and 75 percent performance ability can often achieve above-average performance. But a worker with only 25 percent ability won't be able to achieve the type of performance you expect, regardless of his or her level of motivation.

In this article and in the video below, we'll explore how you can enhance ability and improve motivation in your team to get the best out of them.

This is why recruitment and job matching are such critical parts of performance management. Be sure to assess ability properly during the selection process. Minor deficiencies can certainly be improved through training – however, most organizations don't have the time or resources needed to remedy significant gaps.

Diagnosing Poor Performance

So, before you can fix poor performance, you have to understand its cause. Does it come from lack of ability or low motivation?

Incorrect diagnoses can lead to lots of problems later on. If you believe an employee is not making enough of an effort, you'll likely put increased pressure on him or her to perform. But if the real issue is ability, then increased pressure may only make the problem worse.

Low ability may be associated with the following:

Overly difficult tasks.
Low individual aptitude, skill, and knowledge.
Evidence of strong effort, despite poor performance.
Lack of improvement over time.

People with low ability may have been poorly matched with jobs in the first place. They may have been promoted to a position that's too demanding for them. Or maybe they no longer have the support that previously helped them to perform well.

Enhancing Ability

There are five main ways to overcome performance problems associated with a lack of ability. Consider using them in this sequence, which starts with the least intrusive:

Be sure to address each of these interventions in one-on-one performance interviews with employees.

1. Resupply

Focus on the resources provided to do the job. Do employees have what they need to perform well and meet expectations?

Ask them about additional resources they think they need.
Listen for points of frustration.
Note where employees report that support is inadequate.
Verify the claims with your own investigation. People will often blame external sources for their poor performance before admitting their own fault.

This is a very effective first step in addressing performance. It signals to members of your team that you're interested in their perspective and are willing to make the required changes.

You'll need to ensure your team have the appropriate resources and means of communication to perform effectively at home if they work remotely, you can read more about this in our article Managing Home-Based Team Members .

Provide additional training to team members. Explore with them whether they have the actual skills required to do what's expected. Given the pace of change of technology, it's easy for people's skills to become outdated.

This option recognizes the need to retain employees and keep their skills current. There are various types of retraining you can provide:

Training seminars with in-house or external providers.
Computer-based training (CBT).
Simulation exercises.
Subsidized college or university courses.

Resupplying and retraining will often cure poor performance. People and organizations may get into ruts, and fail to recognize these issues until poor performance finally highlights them.

When these first two measures aren't sufficient, consider refitting the job to the person. Are there parts of the job that can be reassigned?

Analyze the individual components of the work, and try out different combinations of tasks and abilities. This may involve rearranging the jobs of other people as well. Your goal is to retain the employee, meet operational needs, and provide meaningful and rewarding work to everyone involved. (For more detail on this, see our article on Job Enrichment .)

4. Reassign

When revising or refitting the job doesn't turn the situation around, look at reassigning the poor performer. Typical job reassignments may decrease the demands of the role by reducing the need for the following:

Responsibility.
Technical knowledge.
Interpersonal skills.

If you use this option, make sure that the reassigned job is still challenging and stimulating. To ensure that this strategy is successful, never use demotion as a punishment tactic within your organization. Remember, the employee's performance is not intentionally poor – he or she simply lacked the skills for the position.

As a final option for lack of ability, you may need to let the employee go . Sometimes there are no opportunities for reassignment, and refitting isn't appropriate for the organization. In these cases, the best solution for everyone involved is for the employee to find other work. You may need to consider contractual terms and restrictions; however, in the long run, this may be the best decision for your whole team.

Remember, there are potential negative consequences of retaining a poor performer after you've exhausted all the options available:

You'll annoy other members of your team, who may have to work harder to "carry" the poor performer.
You may promote a belief in others that you're prepared to accept mediocrity – or, worse, underperformance.
You may waste precious time and resources that could be better used elsewhere.
You may signal that some employees deserve preferential treatment.
You may undermine the whole idea of finding the best person for the job.

Improving Motivation

Sometimes poor performance has its roots in low motivation. When this is the case, you need to work closely with the employee to create a motivating environment in which to work. There are three key interventions that may improve people's motivation:

Setting of performance goals.
Provision of performance assistance.
Provision of performance feedback.

1. Performance Goals

Goal setting is a well-recognized aspect of performance improvement. Employees must understand what's expected of them and agree on what they need to do to improve. For a detailed explanation of the goal-setting process, see our articles on Goal Setting , Golden Rules of Goal Setting and Locke's Goal Setting Theory .

2. Performance Assistance

Once you've set appropriate goals, help your team member succeed by doing the following:

Regularly assessing the employee's ability, and act if it's deficient.
Providing the necessary training.
Securing the resources needed.
Encouraging cooperation and assistance from coworkers.

Consider using the GROW Model as a way of coaching employees to improve their performance.

3. Performance Feedback

People need feedback on their efforts. They have to know where they stand in terms of current performance and long-term expectations. When providing feedback, keep in mind the importance of the following:

Timeliness – Provide feedback as soon as possible. This links the behavior with the evaluation.
Openness and Honesty – Make sure that the feedback is accurate. Avoid mixed messages or talking about the person rather than the performance. That said, provide both positive and negative feedback so that employees can begin to truly understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Personalized Rewards – A large part of feedback involves rewards and recognition. Make sure that your company has a system that acknowledges the successes of employees.

Ensure that you meet regularly with the employee, so that you can review progress and provide regular feedback.

Creating a Performance Improvement Plan

So how do you do this in practice? This is where you need to develop a performance improvement plan. Armed with the strategies we've looked at, you first need to evaluate the performance issue that you're facing:

Have you discussed with the person what they feel the problem is?
Have you evaluated your organization's motivation system? Are you doing everything you can to recognize and reward people's contributions?
Are you rewarding the things that you actually want done?
Do you have regular goal setting and development meetings with members of your team?
Do you help your people keep their skills current?

From there, it's important that you and the employee discuss and agree upon a plan for improving performance. Write down what you've agreed, along with dates by which goals should be achieved. Then monitor progress with the team member, and use the techniques we've discussed above for increasing motivation and dealing with ability-related issues.

Recognize that the actions needed to close ability gaps need high motivation on the employee's part to be successful. The two causes of poor performance – lack of ability and low motivation – are inextricably intertwined, and goal setting, feedback, and a supportive work environment are necessary conditions for improving both.

You need to understand the root of a performance problem before you can fully address it. Ability and motivation go together to impact performance, and the most successful performance improvement efforts combine strategies for improving each. This creates a positive environment where people feel supported to reach their performance potential – and feel valued, knowing that the organization wants to find a good fit for their abilities.

At times, your interventions may not be enough to salvage the situation. As long as you've given performance enhancement your best effort, and you've reasonably exhausted all your options, then you can feel confident that you're making the right decision if you do need to let someone go.

Before going down that route, however, try the strategies discussed here and create a great work environment for your employees – one where their abilities are used to their full potential, and where good motivational techniques are used on a regular basis.

[1] Whetten, D. A. and Cameron, K. S. (2011). ' Developing Management Skills ' (8th Edition), Pearson Education, Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ. p.27.

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Member Podcast

How to manage poor performance in your Workplace

August 21, 2017
in Employee Relations

communication , employees , performance management , productivity , workplace

Across Australia, in any industry or workplace, you will meet Employers dealing with poor performance from their team members. The impacts of this can have far reaching consequences, and if left untreated, can severely damage the spirit and future performance of your team.

According to recent studies, the most common causes of poor performance are absenteeism, lateness and inconsistent standards of work related tasks and duties.

Research suggests that absenteeism costs the Australian economy more than $33 billion in wages and lost productivity every year.

By turning a blind eye or avoiding any perceived conflict by performance managing these employees will only create further negativity and drain the spirit of your team, impacting on results.

Some important steps you can take to address these issues include:

Leave no room for doubt. Poor performance can be the result of poor communication.

First of all, set very clear expectations about how people are expected to behave right from the start. Effective position descriptions, a thorough induction process and regular one on one meetings will reinforce what you want, need and expect from your team. Being a reliable member of the team is a fundamental expectation of any employment relationship. Especially make this clear from the beginning, and through positive feedback, reinforce what being reliable means in your business.

Address issues immediately.

Recognise a pattern of behaviour and engage early. If employees are repeatedly late, have poor attitudes or inconsistent standards of work, let them know. Furthermore, explain why their behaviours or choices are making you lose confidence that they will deliver when they need to.

Act swiftly and with strength.

Don’t shy away from conflict. If you have a consistently poor performing employee, be prepared to take the actions necessary to consistently apply the standards you set. Idol threats do nothing to resolve issues and in many cases reinforce the very behaviours you are working to overcome. And whilst this probably sounds counter-intuitive, have the difficult conversations early and as they arise, to create and nurture a functioning and high performing workplace for all to enjoy.

Lead by example.

And finally, it does all come down to you. Showcase what you expect from others at all times. Be consistent and reliable yourself and your team are much more likely to rise to the occasion. Another valuable tool is having an open door approach. Most of all, showing you are always available to listen, support and advise will go a long way in achieving a high performing and happy team. Offering relevant, constructive feedback is also a good way of keeping an employee “on track” with their performance. It is always better to offer more information around your key messages to your staff, rather than less.

To conclude, don’t let poor performance hinder your business. Set your expectations from day one, whether they be verbal, written in the employee’s employment documentation or via your company’s policies and procedures. Act fast if poor performance does occur, and reinforce that you will take the necessary actions required if it continues. Be mindful too, if you have more than one staff member, poor performance can have a flow on effect and be both a downright negative for others or worse, can be contagious (especially to the younger, more inexperienced staff).

So, keep the communication up, and the damage down!

Olivia Bates

Olivia is an HR professional with over 14 years industry experience. She brings a great wealth of experience to the HR Central team and focuses mainly on supporting our vastly growing Regional Victoria client base. Olivia dedicates most of her time helping clients with: * Organisational development and change management * Employee engagement and coaching including work with Leadership teams from Geelong Football Club * Employee relations and dispute resolution * Leadership development and youth empowerment. This program is aimed at disengaged people and provides skills in job seeking, well-being, finances, personal presentation and career planning * HR Products developed include The Ops Box – a highly visual HR risk management tool housing essential policies and procedures for any workplace * Project and Grant management experience * Contract and Tender development & management * Permanent and executive recruitment. Olivia has placed candidates across a multitude of industries with a strong focus on the mining sector Australia wide.

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Four Steps for Addressing Performance Problems

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Performance management is key to sustaining a high-performing team where staff feel a sense of purpose and connection and take ownership over reaching goals. But what do you do when someone isn’t performing well—they’re not meeting expectations, hitting goals, or demonstrating the must-haves of their role? How much should you invest in performance improvement? When is it time to let someone go? And, how the #@$% do you decide?

Whatever the origin of the problem, you need to own the solution. When you notice a performance issue, you have a number of options—avoidance isn’t one of them. Your job is to own staff development and performance management, which includes spotting and addressing problems when they arise, and doing so in a way that advances racial equity and inclusion, promotes personal and organizational sustainability, and gets lasting results.

You are responsible for dealing with performance problems even (sometimes especially!) when:

You haven’t been a perfect manager
The problem is a result of a hiring mistake
The problem started before you got there
It seems like just a personality clash between two team members
You think the staff member might leave on their own
You really don’t have the time

Whatever your context (whether you’re in a school or a nonprofit, unionized or not), the following guidance will help you navigate the tricky processes of addressing performance problems. Tailor your approach with your organization’s policies and employee agreements in mind, and consult your lawyer as necessary.

Start by reflecting on two questions:

What is the impact of this problem (on people, relationships, culture, or results)?
Is this a management issue or a performance issue ?

The first question is a check to make sure that the problem is really a performance problem (the person isn’t meeting expectations around must-have skills or approaches) and not a conflict of preference or tradition. It also helps you see what’s at stake if the problem remains unaddressed.

The second question helps you identify what’s in your respective spheres of control. The purpose of this exercise isn’t to assign blame—it’s to name and identify the scope of the problem so that you can each own your impact and your piece of the solution.

Own the management lane.

Next, reflect on your management practices. Have you… provided clarity about expectations, roles, and goals? Built a strong and supportive relationship with the staff person? Checked your bias? Held regular check-ins where you provided support and coaching? See below for some additional choice points in the manager’s lane:

Performance management choice points:

Have you been clear about role expectations , including both the what and the how?
How explicit have you made your implicit expectations ? For instance, if making a deadline means getting it to you three days early to review and approve, does your staff member understand that?
Have you incorporated the four elements of relationship-building (space for authenticity, building trust, navigating difference and power, and shared purpose) in your interactions with your staff member?
Reflect on the quality and quantity of your feedback: How regular were your check-ins ? Have you given direct feedback on this issue?
Did you make time to connect, ask questions, and seek understanding ?
Thinking about your entire team, are there any inconsistencies in who gets your time, feedback, guidance, or investment, where unintended bias could be at play?
Will coaching, feedback, or training improve the performance issue?
Is the problem showing up in an area that’s truly a requirement for the role, or is it more of a preference or tradition ?
Have you sought others’ perspectives in assessing the quality of their work?

Identify their sphere of control.

Owning your lane doesn’t necessarily mean owning the problem. In most cases, when there’s a performance problem, the responsibility is shared—your job is to figure out what you can do better as a manager and to be specific and direct about what they’re responsible for.

Take a look at their role and goals. What are the expectations about must-have skills or approach that you’ve already communicated and aligned on? What are expectations beyond what’s codified in their role and goals that is captured in your team culture, values, and norms?

Consider your context.

Context is the backdrop of your work together, the stuff that’s largely out of both of your control—it’s never the sole reason behind a performance problem, but it could significantly impact their performance (or your perception of it). Consider what else might be going on. Are there extenuating circumstances that could be negatively affecting their mental and emotional well-being (see: the events of 2020)? Are there organizational shifts or transitions that are creating bottlenecks, communication challenges, or stretching people thin?

2) Check in

After reflecting, check in with your staff person to share your feedback and seek their perspective. (If this is an issue you’ve already discussed multiple times, skip ahead to the next step.)

Use CSAW to prepare for the conversation. If it’s a problem that you believe could escalate or can’t be resolved with some feedback—or even if you’re simply not sure—use the manager reflection worksheet in our Performance Improvement Plan Toolkit .

Keep in mind:

Spheres of control.

In your feedback, be explicit about what you think is in your respective spheres of control. Own your part(s) and be firm that they are responsible for how they show up and what they accomplish.

Don’t jump to decisions.

If you’re checking in about the issue for the first time, your goal is to sound an alarm, not (necessarily) to resolve the situation in one conversation. The purpose is to avoid surprises down the line, whatever you choose to do. It’s good to identify next steps for moving forward (the “W” in CSAW is for “Wrap up”), but we don’t recommend making any on-the-spot decisions about performance improvement plans.

Corrective vs. developmental feedback.

Both types of feedback are intended to help someone grow. The difference is about consequences. Corrective feedback helps someone get from off track to on track. If nothing changes (or changes enough), there will be more steps taken to resolve the issue, with letting go as a possible option. Developmental feedback helps people take their skills from good to great, or from meeting to exceeding expectations. If nothing changes as a result, the person likely won’t suffer negative consequences. A common manager error is not being explicit about the type of feedback they are offering. This can lead to a staff person interpreting corrective feedback as developmental feedback, misunderstanding the stakes, and then being surprised by a formal warning further down the line.

Step back and assess the problem, check your biases , and weigh your options. You may also want to seek perspective from others (such as your manager or peers—discreetly) to gain more insight.

Ultimately, this step is about answering these questions:

What is really the problem?

Its impact on other stakeholders and on the overall results of the work
Extenuating circumstances that may be exacerbating it
How coachable/teachable it is

What parts of it can be reasonably addressed with the resources and time available?

The staff person’s level of awareness, skill, and will to own their pieces of the solution
Your capacity, skill, and will to support them
Issues in the management sphere you need to address

If the problem is addressed, how likely is the staff person to achieve and sustain the level of performance that you need?

Here, you might consider their overall track record of success in their role, including course corrections and development.

4) Consider your options and decide

Note: Before deciding on next steps, always check your existing policies and consult your HR or legal advisors. Some organizations have employee manuals or collective bargaining agreements that commit the organization to following specific progressive discipline steps. As with any employment issue where legal issues may come into play, consider speaking with a lawyer.

As a manager, you typically have three options for moving forward:

This option involves applying more resources to support the person to meet performance expectations. It could include offering ongoing, specific feedback, providing coaching and training opportunities, and side-by-side work. It can also include putting someone on a performance improvement plan (formally or informally). Below are a few common reasons for choosing this route:

The problem is mostly a management problem, which means that the solution is in your sphere of control—you need to to improve your management practices and systems to offer more clarity, support, and/or structure.
There are truly extenuating circumstances beyond their control that have impacted their otherwise solid (or outstanding) performance.
The problem is coachable/teachable given your capacity, and the staff person is willing to learn.
The problem is due to growing pains (the role has changed or the organization is growing) and both you and the staff person need time (and/or additional support) to get settled in.

Note: In an ideal world, you’d always be in some variation of “invest” mode, even if there aren’t any detectable performance problems. If you’re only investing in your staff at the point when there is a performance problem, you’re setting yourself up for trouble.

When done well, coaching out is a win-win solution for the organization and the staff member. In a coaching out conversation, the manager is honest about their assessment of the situation and offers possible paths forward, one of which includes the staff person leaving their role. The outcome is that the staff member decides to leave their role (and in most cases, the organization). It’s a useful approach when performance is not meeting expectations but there’s still hope for improvement. It can also be appropriate when the work is generally meeting expectations but the role still isn’t a great fit. The key to coaching out is offering real options so that the staff person can exercise their agency. (When the options aren’t real, coaching out conversations are just letting go conversations in disguise.)

You might be on your way to coaching out if any of the following are true:

You’ve already tried to invest through an informal performance improvement process and there has been some improvement, but the person isn’t quite meeting expectations (or meets them inconsistently).
The organization is changing and the staff person is unwilling or uninterested in growing and changing alongside it.
The staff person has become bored, disengaged, or stagnant in their work.
The staff person’s capacity or circumstances have changed in a way that might impact their ability to meet expectations.

Here, we’re using “let go” to mean “fire”—terminating someone’s employment at your organization due to performance problems. For many of our clients, letting go is a last resort. And for good reasons, too—it’s uncomfortable, irreversible, and life-altering. For those of us committed to social justice, it can feel counter to our values—we want people to feel respected and valued, we worry about impacts on their livelihood (which is one reason to offer severance packages), and we want our movements to bring people in, not let them go. It’s hard to tell someone that they’re not doing a good enough job. However, when people are struggling to meet expectations and it’s having an impact on your people and your results, letting go is sometimes the best option. Here are some indicators that it might be time to let go:

The staff member is unwilling to grow or take feedback.
You’ve already tried to invest through an informal or formal performance improvement process and there has been little to no improvement, or rounds of inconsistency.
The problem creates significant burden or harm to others that cannot be reasonably mitigated with the time and resources you have available.

The above options are not mutually exclusive—they are steps on a path. Depending on the problem, the circumstances, and your organizational norms and policies, you may choose to invest first and progress to coaching out or letting go if the problem persists. For others, you might go directly to coaching out or letting go.

Did you notice that none of the options we laid out include “do nothing,” “get your boss to deal with it,” or “wait for the person to quit?” That’s because whatever you do, you need to decide . The longer you delay, the more the problem will grow—impacting others and your results. Test your thinking with your manager or a trusted colleague to check for biases. Then, communicate promptly with your staff person. Schedule a time to talk to them, prepare a script, and even practice with someone if necessary.

To see these four steps in action, check out our addressing performance problems case study .

Resource Metadata

Related resources, performance improvement plan toolkit.

A Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) is a written plan with clear steps to help your staff member get to the expected level of performance for their role. This toolkit includes two resources: 1) a preparation worksheet for managers, which can be helpful whether or not you’re ready for a formal PIP; and 2) a template for a written Performance Improvement Plan you can fill in and share with your staff member.

How to Approach Tricky Performance Improvement Plans

Here are some tricky performance scenarios our clients have encountered, and suggestions for designing a responsive performance improvement plan.

Addressing Performance Problems Case Study

Check out this case study that illustrates the four steps outlined in our article on addressing performance problems: reflect, check in, assess, consider and decide.

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10 Effective Ways to Deal with Poor Employee Performance

As humans, we don’t always reach the highest productivity level and deliver the best performance. But when your employees start to deliver repeated poor performance, and you do nothing to deal with it, things can get ugly.

If someone’s performance constantly doesn’t match your expectations, don’t worry, you can still turn things around. Here are 10 ways to help you deal with poor employee performance.

1. Question yourself

Some employers may assume that employees perform poorly because they lack the motivation or skills. But the reasons can be simple. Employees either don’t understand what you expect from them or don’t know that they’re underperforming.

So, before making any judgments, make sure you’ve communicated your expectations towards your staff, what is considered poor performance, and the consequences of it.

You should also evaluate the effectiveness of the training sessions you’ve offered. See if they’re enough and well-organized. Provide more educational tasks and training opportunities if needed.

2. Build up better trust

If employees perform poorly not because of their technical ability, you can build up trust between you and them to boost their morale.

Show your trust by letting staff know verbally, through meetings, or in private conversations.

It’s necessary to prevent poor employee performance right from the beginning. Let employees know that underperformance causes major consequences and isn’t welcomed. Trust goes with responsibility.

3. Conduct performance reviews

Constructive performance reviews are important once you have records of your employees’ underperformance.

You can’t give vague feedback such as “You’re doing a bad job” as it does nothing but hurt.

Let employees know clearly what their mistakes are, how their performance is affecting the company. Show detailed figures and records if necessary, but be careful, you’re not conducting interrogations.

To avoid misunderstanding, deliver a specific message and let them know your expectations, in a way that they can thoroughly understand. Use constructive phrases to make the best use of these review sessions.

4. Change employee attitudes

It’s important that you understand the personality and working attitudes of each employee.

current poor performance is temporary, and can be improved if they enhance their productivity, strive to learn new knowledge and skills, or build up conversations with fellow workers.

Encourage them to shift their attitude a bit in a more positive way to improve their performance.

Try to lead discussions to focus more on problem-solving instead of judging. Emphasize their strengths and positive points. Be open, honest, and sincere, and employees will feel it.

5. Set clear deadlines

Sometimes, setting clear deadlines will enhance productivity and solve poor employee performance.

Once you’ve assigned tasks to your employees, don’t just talk about your expectations of their performance.

Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time allotted”. That means your employees can stretch work when there’s no deadlines, resulting in a waste of time and poorer performance.

Give specific dates so employees can get the job done efficiently on time.

After that deadline, it’s also time to evaluate your employees’ performance. Peer reviews within specific timeframes are an objective way to spot problems in employee performance.

6. Deal with ineffective employees as soon as possible

If you don’t speak to an underperforming employee immediately, you’re sending the wrong message that their performance is acceptable. This will set a terrible precedent for that individual and other team members. Don’t wait too long to raise performance concerns with your employees.

There’s a huge difference between those who continually perform poorly and those who have just recently performed worse. If they’ve worked well in the past, you need to ask them (and yourself), “What’s going on?”.

Find the reason and support your staff if you can. And if your employees are always ineffective, you can think about finding someone to replace them, but have some constructive conversations first.

7. Keep a close eye on employees’ progress

Once you’ve assigned a task or shift to an employee, make sure you keep a close eye on their progress. See if they’re absent too much, late for deadlines, leave tasks unfinished, etc.

It’s also important to keep records of your employee performance for easier management. You can jot down notes about their work results and attitudes, or use tools such as Camelo to track employee attendance and tasks.

8. Have tough conversations

If poor employee performance keeps occurring time after time, you need to be assertive about it. This will let the staff know you take this problem seriously and you don’t ignore it.

This also will create an impact on other employees as well. Sometimes, hardworking employees feel unfair if they see irresponsible people get away with no penalty or feedback from management.

9. Recognize once they’ve made progress

Who doesn’t love to be recognized and rewarded? If employees show they’re making efforts to change, don’t forget to recognize and reward them in time.

This will help increase motivation and make employees more accountable for the job. Simple phrases such as “Thank you”, “Good job” also go a long way.

10. Consider putting things to an end

Letting someone leave your business is usually seen as the last resort. But if an employee continues to work ineffectively and cause negative results, you can terminate that employee.

Retaining employees with poor performance can lead to reduced morale and poor job quality, which affects your whole business.

Dealing with poor employee performance can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. You can quickly act on it and find the best solutions to ensure your business operation.

The Camelo Team talks to and works with team leaders, business owners, managers, and workers to write articles that help running a business easier.

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Turn your team into skilled problem solvers with these problem-solving strategies

Picture this, you're handling your daily tasks at work and your boss calls you in and says, "We have a problem."

Unfortunately, we don't live in a world in which problems are instantly resolved with the snap of our fingers. Knowing how to effectively solve problems is an important professional skill to hone. If you have a problem that needs to be solved, what is the right process to use to ensure you get the most effective solution?

In this article we'll break down the problem-solving process and how you can find the most effective solutions for complex problems.

What is problem solving?

Problem solving is the process of finding a resolution for a specific issue or conflict. There are many possible solutions for solving a problem, which is why it's important to go through a problem-solving process to find the best solution. You could use a flathead screwdriver to unscrew a Phillips head screw, but there is a better tool for the situation. Utilizing common problem-solving techniques helps you find the best solution to fit the needs of the specific situation, much like using the right tools.

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4 steps to better problem solving

While it might be tempting to dive into a problem head first, take the time to move step by step. Here’s how you can effectively break down the problem-solving process with your team:

1. Identify the problem that needs to be solved

One of the easiest ways to identify a problem is to ask questions. A good place to start is to ask journalistic questions, like:

Who : Who is involved with this problem? Who caused the problem? Who is most affected by this issue?

What: What is happening? What is the extent of the issue? What does this problem prevent from moving forward?

Where: Where did this problem take place? Does this problem affect anything else in the immediate area?

When: When did this problem happen? When does this problem take effect? Is this an urgent issue that needs to be solved within a certain timeframe?

Why: Why is it happening? Why does it impact workflows?

How: How did this problem occur? How is it affecting workflows and team members from being productive?

Asking journalistic questions can help you define a strong problem statement so you can highlight the current situation objectively, and create a plan around that situation.

Here’s an example of how a design team uses journalistic questions to identify their problem:

Overarching problem: Design requests are being missed

Who: Design team, digital marketing team, web development team

What: Design requests are forgotten, lost, or being created ad hoc.

Where: Email requests, design request spreadsheet

When: Missed requests on January 20th, January 31st, February 4th, February 6th

How : Email request was lost in inbox and the intake spreadsheet was not updated correctly. The digital marketing team had to delay launching ads for a few days while design requests were bottlenecked. Designers had to work extra hours to ensure all requests were completed.

In this example, there are many different aspects of this problem that can be solved. Using journalistic questions can help you identify different issues and who you should involve in the process.

2. Brainstorm multiple solutions

If at all possible, bring in a facilitator who doesn't have a major stake in the solution. Bringing an individual who has little-to-no stake in the matter can help keep your team on track and encourage good problem-solving skills.

Here are a few brainstorming techniques to encourage creative thinking:

Brainstorm alone before hand: Before you come together as a group, provide some context to your team on what exactly the issue is that you're brainstorming. This will give time for you and your teammates to have some ideas ready by the time you meet.

Say yes to everything (at first): When you first start brainstorming, don't say no to any ideas just yet—try to get as many ideas down as possible. Having as many ideas as possible ensures that you’ll get a variety of solutions. Save the trimming for the next step of the strategy.

Talk to team members one-on-one: Some people may be less comfortable sharing their ideas in a group setting. Discuss the issue with team members individually and encourage them to share their opinions without restrictions—you might find some more detailed insights than originally anticipated.

Break out of your routine: If you're used to brainstorming in a conference room or over Zoom calls, do something a little different! Take your brainstorming meeting to a coffee shop or have your Zoom call while you're taking a walk. Getting out of your routine can force your brain out of its usual rut and increase critical thinking.

3. Define the solution

After you brainstorm with team members to get their unique perspectives on a scenario, it's time to look at the different strategies and decide which option is the best solution for the problem at hand. When defining the solution, consider these main two questions: What is the desired outcome of this solution and who stands to benefit from this solution?

Set a deadline for when this decision needs to be made and update stakeholders accordingly. Sometimes there's too many people who need to make a decision. Use your best judgement based on the limitations provided to do great things fast.

4. Implement the solution

To implement your solution, start by working with the individuals who are as closest to the problem. This can help those most affected by the problem get unblocked. Then move farther out to those who are less affected, and so on and so forth. Some solutions are simple enough that you don’t need to work through multiple teams.

After you prioritize implementation with the right teams, assign out the ongoing work that needs to be completed by the rest of the team. This can prevent people from becoming overburdened during the implementation plan . Once your solution is in place, schedule check-ins to see how the solution is working and course-correct if necessary.

Implement common problem-solving strategies

There are a few ways to go about identifying problems (and solutions). Here are some strategies you can try, as well as common ways to apply them:

Trial and error

Trial and error problem solving doesn't usually require a whole team of people to solve. To use trial and error problem solving, identify the cause of the problem, and then rapidly test possible solutions to see if anything changes.

This problem-solving method is often used in tech support teams through troubleshooting.

The 5 whys problem-solving method helps get to the root cause of an issue. You start by asking once, “Why did this issue happen?” After answering the first why, ask again, “Why did that happen?” You'll do this five times until you can attribute the problem to a root cause.

This technique can help you dig in and find the human error that caused something to go wrong. More importantly, it also helps you and your team develop an actionable plan so that you can prevent the issue from happening again.

Here’s an example:

Problem: The email marketing campaign was accidentally sent to the wrong audience.

“Why did this happen?” Because the audience name was not updated in our email platform.

“Why were the audience names not changed?” Because the audience segment was not renamed after editing.

“Why was the audience segment not renamed?” Because everybody has an individual way of creating an audience segment.

“Why does everybody have an individual way of creating an audience segment?” Because there is no standardized process for creating audience segments.

“Why is there no standardized process for creating audience segments?” Because the team hasn't decided on a way to standardize the process as the team introduced new members.

In this example, we can see a few areas that could be optimized to prevent this mistake from happening again. When working through these questions, make sure that everyone who was involved in the situation is present so that you can co-create next steps to avoid the same problem.

A SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis can help you highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a specific solution. SWOT stands for:

Strength: Why is this specific solution a good fit for this problem?

Weaknesses: What are the weak points of this solution? Is there anything that you can do to strengthen those weaknesses?

Opportunities: What other benefits could arise from implementing this solution?

Threats: Is there anything about this decision that can detrimentally impact your team?

As you identify specific solutions, you can highlight the different strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each solution.

This particular problem-solving strategy is good to use when you're narrowing down the answers and need to compare and contrast the differences between different solutions.

Even more successful problem solving

After you’ve worked through a tough problem, don't forget to celebrate how far you've come. Not only is this important for your team of problem solvers to see their work in action, but this can also help you become a more efficient, effective , and flexible team. The more problems you tackle together, the more you’ll achieve.

Looking for a tool to help solve problems on your team? Track project implementation with a work management tool like Asana .

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7 Causes of Employee Performance Problems and How to Deal With Them

Mar 30, 2017

For most managers, one of their most anxious moments is confronting an employee with performance problems. Yes, it's part of the job, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less nervewracking. If the performance problems persist, termination is often a consideration; but it's possible to turn that problem employee’s performance around. In so doing, you'll create a happier and more engaged member of your staff.

7 Common Causes of Employee Performance Issues

So how does one start turning around a problem employee? The first step is to find out the reason why their performance has slipped. Getting to the source of the problem is critical before you can fix it. Many employee problems fall under a handful of causes.

Don't have a reason to care : As a manager, you must provide constant feedback to your employees and you should expect to get some in return. Carefully explain the employee’s role and how important it is to the organization’s overall health. More importantly, make sure they know how important their duties are to their co-workers and to you. Provide specific examples of their past contributions to make your case. If employees have a sense of ownership, they’ll work with a sense of purpose.
Don't know what their job is : If their job description isn't clear, that could explain why they're not doing it. If this is the case, define the job for them as you see it. Take a look at theire job description and see if you can pinpoint any discrepancies; look over it with the employee. Ask them if the definition of the job makes sense, and if not, ask why. This is the point where you solicit their views on how it might be better defined, which increases buy-in. Finally, put it in writing so there won’t be any disagreement about what was said later.
Lacking knowledge, tools, or skills : Lacking the time, money, personnel, or supplies is the easier thing to address. Sit down with the employee and have them cover every tool they need for success, and remind them to not be afraid to come to you if there's a problem. If it is not a simple matter of skillset, decide if the employee is miscast in this role. It's good to upskill your employees, but consider if the timing might not be right. Offer the opportunity to get them training, and check-in to monitor their progress.
Frustration over obstacles to their work : In a normal office environment, there can be a number of obstacles that crop up at any time. If the employee already feels as though their problems don’t matter to management, they may remain silent about the problem and try to guess the best way to continue. These obstacles can be technological barriers, interpersonal issues, information blocks, accessibility issues and more. It's critical to find out what is blocking the employee from doing their job and figure out what you can do to help.
See no reward : Do you praise and reward your employees for good work? There are times when it's easy to lose track of this when things get hectic. However, most employees will eventually slide into a negative pattern if their good work goes unnoticed and unrewarded too long. To counter it, establish creative incentives and publicize good work. Incentives and rewards don’t have to cost much money, if any at all, in order to be effective. Emphasize the value of peer respect for a job well done and give your staff several ways to show appreciation for their co-workers. Often, peer support and respect will alleviate all but the most severe causes of an employee’s unacceptable performance.
Expect a reward regardless of performance : Some employees expect a medal just showing up. It should go without saying that managers should never reward mediocre performance, nor should they ignore poor performance. Quickly address an individual’s performance problems, but establish department-wide parameters for performance as well. Help them understand what is worthy of reward, and what isn’t.
Illness or other personal issues : Life forces itself into the workplace sometimes. As much as the employee would like to use their work as a distraction, the stress might be too overwhelming. Even your strongest employee has a breaking point. If you find out there are outside forces negatively affecting your employee, remember to be patient, empathetic and, above all, discreet. Contact your HR department for guidance if you're unsure how to handle something, but mostly just remember to talk with them one-on-one and to not tell others more than the employee wants known.

Above all, keep communication lines open. Managers talk about being “kept in the loop,” but then fail to reciprocate. That causes confusion and frustration among the staff. Stick to an open door policy and make a daily effort to talk to your employees. Talk about everything, from the frivolous to the important, and you’ll stay on top of these common causes long before they become problems. Identifying the root cause of the performance problem is key before you can find the right solution.

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5 strategies to manage poor performance at work

In this post, we discuss strategies to manage poor performance at work. There is no doubt that managing an employee’s performance can be one of the most challenging parts of any manager’s role. Often by the time that the organisation’s formal performance management process commences, difficult and unproductive behaviours are already entrenched and the relationship between manager and employee has deteriorated. Productivity is low and patience is in short supply.

‘He won’t cooperate with me- he says that was never part of his job description.’

‘She says I have never had any concerns about her performance before.’

‘Once we had a great relationship but now he seems to hate me.’

These are the kind of comments we hear regularly from clients who call us in to assist when the performance management process falls apart.

5 strategies to manage poor performance at work

To prevent the situation from getting out of hand, there are five key strategies to manage poor performance by a member of your team:

1. Don’t delay

In many cases we see managers wait too long to raise performance concerns with an employee or put off delivering tough feedback. Opportunities for incidental or casual counselling sessions are missed. This can mean that the employee often has a false impression of how well they are travelling and so feedback about their poor performance comes as a shock.

In extreme cases, we have seen organisations decide it’s time for the employee to go – without having implemented any formal performance management process at all – which invariably ends in legal action for unfair dismissal.

2. Have tough conversations

Nobody likes being the bearer of bad news and so it’s tempting to soften the blow when giving an employee feedback about their performance. Lack of frankness or honesty does both the individual and the organisation a disservice. If you want your employee to have a genuine opportunity to improve, they need to know where their performance is lacking (with specific examples), what standard is required and there needs to be a two way conversation about how they can improve. Knowing how to have these tough conversations is a skill that can be learned and improved, but it requires practice.

3. Follow-through

So you have had the tough conversation with the employee and you have come up with a plan together as to how they will improve. This is the stage where things often fall apart if no one takes responsibility for following through.

It’s very important that there is a clear follow-through process which establishes:

What the goal is ( i.e.: to improve their report writing to the Industry agreed standard)
What the timeframe is for achievement of the goal?
How will you measure whether they have achieved the goal?
How regularly will you meet during the time for progress discussions?

Failure to follow up with an employee afterwards at regular intervals can lead to old habits resuming or for an employee to assume that they must have improved.

A clear and agreed process is also a useful tool that you can refer back to when emotions get high. If the individual involved fails to improve and you need to consider the next step, for example terminating their employment, that will be more straight forward if you can demonstrate that you gave the individual an opportunity to improve through a fair, documented process.

4. Document each step

The history of your management of an employee’s performance should be supported by a clear document trail. This doesn’t need to be an onerous completion of reports and forms. Clear diary notes that document meetings and emails confirming the content of conversations can also serve this purpose.

5. Improve your own performance

Finally, if you are not confident in this area and you have people management responsibility, then you need to improve your own performance! Successfully holding difficult conversations and managing poor performance is a learned skill that you can develop. Take our performance management course (see details below) or find a coach who can give you some professional development.

Nobody likes having to manage poor performance – but with a confident and clear approach you can ensure the process is constructive, respectful and hopefully, successful.

Master the performance management conversation

If you would like to improve or refresh your skills in this challenging area, then come along to Worklogic’s upcoming course on Performance Management in Melbourne on 9 March and Sydney on 15 March . This course will help you master the art of the performance conversation: listening, negotiating, and giving both positive and negative feedback about performance and planning for the future. Learn how to give honest feedback in a respectful way – and in a way that neither party will dread or regret! If you have a group of people managers that could benefit from boosting their skills in this area, we can also conduct this course in-house. Contact Worklogic’s training co-ordinator Danielle Calder for more information.

About Sarah Tidey

Worklogic offers a range of programs and in-house training to help organisations build a positive work culture and reduce workplace conflict. Please contact Sarah via email or give her a call on (03) 9981 6500 for a confidential discussion on strategies to improve the way your organisation manages poor performance.

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Telephone: (02) 8413 0384 Address: Level 21, 60 Margaret St Sydney NSW 2000

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Telephone: (03) 9981 6500 Address: Level 19, 15 William St, Melbourne, VIC 3000

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35 problem-solving techniques and methods for solving complex problems

Design your next session with SessionLab

Join the 150,000+ facilitators  using SessionLab.

How do you identify problems?

How do you identify the right solution.

Tips for more effective problem-solving

Complete problem-solving methods

Problem-solving techniques to identify and analyze problems
Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

Problem-solving warm-up activities

Closing activities for a problem-solving process.

Before you can move towards finding the right solution for a given problem, you first need to identify and define the problem you wish to solve.

Here, you want to clearly articulate what the problem is and allow your group to do the same. Remember that everyone in a group is likely to have differing perspectives and alignment is necessary in order to help the group move forward.

Identifying a problem accurately also requires that all members of a group are able to contribute their views in an open and safe manner. It can be scary for people to stand up and contribute, especially if the problems or challenges are emotive or personal in nature. Be sure to try and create a psychologically safe space for these kinds of discussions.

Remember that problem analysis and further discussion are also important. Not taking the time to fully analyze and discuss a challenge can result in the development of solutions that are not fit for purpose or do not address the underlying issue.

Successfully identifying and then analyzing a problem means facilitating a group through activities designed to help them clearly and honestly articulate their thoughts and produce usable insight.

With this data, you might then produce a problem statement that clearly describes the problem you wish to be addressed and also state the goal of any process you undertake to tackle this issue.

Finding solutions is the end goal of any process. Complex organizational challenges can only be solved with an appropriate solution but discovering them requires using the right problem-solving tool.

After you’ve explored a problem and discussed ideas, you need to help a team discuss and choose the right solution. Consensus tools and methods such as those below help a group explore possible solutions before then voting for the best. They’re a great way to tap into the collective intelligence of the group for great results!

Remember that the process is often iterative. Great problem solvers often roadtest a viable solution in a measured way to see what works too. While you might not get the right solution on your first try, the methods below help teams land on the most likely to succeed solution while also holding space for improvement.

Every effective problem solving process begins with an agenda . A well-structured workshop is one of the best methods for successfully guiding a group from exploring a problem to implementing a solution.

In SessionLab, it’s easy to go from an idea to a complete agenda . Start by dragging and dropping your core problem solving activities into place . Add timings, breaks and necessary materials before sharing your agenda with your colleagues.

The resulting agenda will be your guide to an effective and productive problem solving session that will also help you stay organized on the day!

Tips for more effective problem solving

Problem-solving activities are only one part of the puzzle. While a great method can help unlock your team’s ability to solve problems, without a thoughtful approach and strong facilitation the solutions may not be fit for purpose.

Let’s take a look at some problem-solving tips you can apply to any process to help it be a success!

Clearly define the problem

Jumping straight to solutions can be tempting, though without first clearly articulating a problem, the solution might not be the right one. Many of the problem-solving activities below include sections where the problem is explored and clearly defined before moving on.

This is a vital part of the problem-solving process and taking the time to fully define an issue can save time and effort later. A clear definition helps identify irrelevant information and it also ensures that your team sets off on the right track.

Don’t jump to conclusions

It’s easy for groups to exhibit cognitive bias or have preconceived ideas about both problems and potential solutions. Be sure to back up any problem statements or potential solutions with facts, research, and adequate forethought.

The best techniques ask participants to be methodical and challenge preconceived notions. Make sure you give the group enough time and space to collect relevant information and consider the problem in a new way. By approaching the process with a clear, rational mindset, you’ll often find that better solutions are more forthcoming.

Try different approaches

Problems come in all shapes and sizes and so too should the methods you use to solve them. If you find that one approach isn’t yielding results and your team isn’t finding different solutions, try mixing it up. You’ll be surprised at how using a new creative activity can unblock your team and generate great solutions.

Don’t take it personally

Depending on the nature of your team or organizational problems, it’s easy for conversations to get heated. While it’s good for participants to be engaged in the discussions, ensure that emotions don’t run too high and that blame isn’t thrown around while finding solutions.

You’re all in it together, and even if your team or area is seeing problems, that isn’t necessarily a disparagement of you personally. Using facilitation skills to manage group dynamics is one effective method of helping conversations be more constructive.

Get the right people in the room

Your problem-solving method is often only as effective as the group using it. Getting the right people on the job and managing the number of people present is important too!

If the group is too small, you may not get enough different perspectives to effectively solve a problem. If the group is too large, you can go round and round during the ideation stages.

Creating the right group makeup is also important in ensuring you have the necessary expertise and skillset to both identify and follow up on potential solutions. Carefully consider who to include at each stage to help ensure your problem-solving method is followed and positioned for success.

Document everything

The best solutions can take refinement, iteration, and reflection to come out. Get into a habit of documenting your process in order to keep all the learnings from the session and to allow ideas to mature and develop. Many of the methods below involve the creation of documents or shared resources. Be sure to keep and share these so everyone can benefit from the work done!

Bring a facilitator

Facilitation is all about making group processes easier. With a subject as potentially emotive and important as problem-solving, having an impartial third party in the form of a facilitator can make all the difference in finding great solutions and keeping the process moving. Consider bringing a facilitator to your problem-solving session to get better results and generate meaningful solutions!

Develop your problem-solving skills

It takes time and practice to be an effective problem solver. While some roles or participants might more naturally gravitate towards problem-solving, it can take development and planning to help everyone create better solutions.

You might develop a training program, run a problem-solving workshop or simply ask your team to practice using the techniques below. Check out our post on problem-solving skills to see how you and your group can develop the right mental process and be more resilient to issues too!

Design a great agenda

Workshops are a great format for solving problems. With the right approach, you can focus a group and help them find the solutions to their own problems. But designing a process can be time-consuming and finding the right activities can be difficult.

Check out our workshop planning guide to level-up your agenda design and start running more effective workshops. Need inspiration? Check out templates designed by expert facilitators to help you kickstart your process!

In this section, we’ll look at in-depth problem-solving methods that provide a complete end-to-end process for developing effective solutions. These will help guide your team from the discovery and definition of a problem through to delivering the right solution.

If you’re looking for an all-encompassing method or problem-solving model, these processes are a great place to start. They’ll ask your team to challenge preconceived ideas and adopt a mindset for solving problems more effectively.

Six Thinking Hats
Lightning Decision Jam
Problem Definition Process
Discovery & Action Dialogue

Design Sprint 2.0

Open Space Technology

1. Six Thinking Hats

Individual approaches to solving a problem can be very different based on what team or role an individual holds. It can be easy for existing biases or perspectives to find their way into the mix, or for internal politics to direct a conversation.

Six Thinking Hats is a classic method for identifying the problems that need to be solved and enables your team to consider them from different angles, whether that is by focusing on facts and data, creative solutions, or by considering why a particular solution might not work.

Like all problem-solving frameworks, Six Thinking Hats is effective at helping teams remove roadblocks from a conversation or discussion and come to terms with all the aspects necessary to solve complex problems.

2. Lightning Decision Jam

Featured courtesy of Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart Berlin, Lightning Decision Jam is one of those strategies that should be in every facilitation toolbox. Exploring problems and finding solutions is often creative in nature, though as with any creative process, there is the potential to lose focus and get lost.

Unstructured discussions might get you there in the end, but it’s much more effective to use a method that creates a clear process and team focus.

In Lightning Decision Jam, participants are invited to begin by writing challenges, concerns, or mistakes on post-its without discussing them before then being invited by the moderator to present them to the group.

From there, the team vote on which problems to solve and are guided through steps that will allow them to reframe those problems, create solutions and then decide what to execute on.

By deciding the problems that need to be solved as a team before moving on, this group process is great for ensuring the whole team is aligned and can take ownership over the next stages.

Lightning Decision Jam (LDJ) #action #decision making #problem solving #issue analysis #innovation #design #remote-friendly The problem with anything that requires creative thinking is that it’s easy to get lost—lose focus and fall into the trap of having useless, open-ended, unstructured discussions. Here’s the most effective solution I’ve found: Replace all open, unstructured discussion with a clear process. What to use this exercise for: Anything which requires a group of people to make decisions, solve problems or discuss challenges. It’s always good to frame an LDJ session with a broad topic, here are some examples: The conversion flow of our checkout Our internal design process How we organise events Keeping up with our competition Improving sales flow

3. Problem Definition Process

While problems can be complex, the problem-solving methods you use to identify and solve those problems can often be simple in design.

By taking the time to truly identify and define a problem before asking the group to reframe the challenge as an opportunity, this method is a great way to enable change.

Begin by identifying a focus question and exploring the ways in which it manifests before splitting into five teams who will each consider the problem using a different method: escape, reversal, exaggeration, distortion or wishful. Teams develop a problem objective and create ideas in line with their method before then feeding them back to the group.

This method is great for enabling in-depth discussions while also creating space for finding creative solutions too!

Problem Definition #problem solving #idea generation #creativity #online #remote-friendly A problem solving technique to define a problem, challenge or opportunity and to generate ideas.

4. The 5 Whys

Sometimes, a group needs to go further with their strategies and analyze the root cause at the heart of organizational issues. An RCA or root cause analysis is the process of identifying what is at the heart of business problems or recurring challenges.

The 5 Whys is a simple and effective method of helping a group go find the root cause of any problem or challenge and conduct analysis that will deliver results.

By beginning with the creation of a problem statement and going through five stages to refine it, The 5 Whys provides everything you need to truly discover the cause of an issue.

The 5 Whys #hyperisland #innovation This simple and powerful method is useful for getting to the core of a problem or challenge. As the title suggests, the group defines a problems, then asks the question “why” five times, often using the resulting explanation as a starting point for creative problem solving.

5. World Cafe

World Cafe is a simple but powerful facilitation technique to help bigger groups to focus their energy and attention on solving complex problems.

World Cafe enables this approach by creating a relaxed atmosphere where participants are able to self-organize and explore topics relevant and important to them which are themed around a central problem-solving purpose. Create the right atmosphere by modeling your space after a cafe and after guiding the group through the method, let them take the lead!

Making problem-solving a part of your organization’s culture in the long term can be a difficult undertaking. More approachable formats like World Cafe can be especially effective in bringing people unfamiliar with workshops into the fold.

World Cafe #hyperisland #innovation #issue analysis World Café is a simple yet powerful method, originated by Juanita Brown, for enabling meaningful conversations driven completely by participants and the topics that are relevant and important to them. Facilitators create a cafe-style space and provide simple guidelines. Participants then self-organize and explore a set of relevant topics or questions for conversation.

6. Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD)

One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions.

With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so. It’s great at helping remove resistance to change and can help get buy-in at every level too!

This process of enabling frontline ownership is great in ensuring follow-through and is one of the methods you will want in your toolbox as a facilitator.

Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD) #idea generation #liberating structures #action #issue analysis #remote-friendly DADs make it easy for a group or community to discover practices and behaviors that enable some individuals (without access to special resources and facing the same constraints) to find better solutions than their peers to common problems. These are called positive deviant (PD) behaviors and practices. DADs make it possible for people in the group, unit, or community to discover by themselves these PD practices. DADs also create favorable conditions for stimulating participants’ creativity in spaces where they can feel safe to invent new and more effective practices. Resistance to change evaporates as participants are unleashed to choose freely which practices they will adopt or try and which problems they will tackle. DADs make it possible to achieve frontline ownership of solutions.

7. Design Sprint 2.0

Want to see how a team can solve big problems and move forward with prototyping and testing solutions in a few days? The Design Sprint 2.0 template from Jake Knapp, author of Sprint, is a complete agenda for a with proven results.

Developing the right agenda can involve difficult but necessary planning. Ensuring all the correct steps are followed can also be stressful or time-consuming depending on your level of experience.

Use this complete 4-day workshop template if you are finding there is no obvious solution to your challenge and want to focus your team around a specific problem that might require a shortcut to launching a minimum viable product or waiting for the organization-wide implementation of a solution.

8. Open space technology

Open space technology- developed by Harrison Owen – creates a space where large groups are invited to take ownership of their problem solving and lead individual sessions. Open space technology is a great format when you have a great deal of expertise and insight in the room and want to allow for different takes and approaches on a particular theme or problem you need to be solved.

Start by bringing your participants together to align around a central theme and focus their efforts. Explain the ground rules to help guide the problem-solving process and then invite members to identify any issue connecting to the central theme that they are interested in and are prepared to take responsibility for.

Once participants have decided on their approach to the core theme, they write their issue on a piece of paper, announce it to the group, pick a session time and place, and post the paper on the wall. As the wall fills up with sessions, the group is then invited to join the sessions that interest them the most and which they can contribute to, then you’re ready to begin!

Everyone joins the problem-solving group they’ve signed up to, record the discussion and if appropriate, findings can then be shared with the rest of the group afterward.

Open Space Technology #action plan #idea generation #problem solving #issue analysis #large group #online #remote-friendly Open Space is a methodology for large groups to create their agenda discerning important topics for discussion, suitable for conferences, community gatherings and whole system facilitation

Techniques to identify and analyze problems

Using a problem-solving method to help a team identify and analyze a problem can be a quick and effective addition to any workshop or meeting.

While further actions are always necessary, you can generate momentum and alignment easily, and these activities are a great place to get started.

We’ve put together this list of techniques to help you and your team with problem identification, analysis, and discussion that sets the foundation for developing effective solutions.

Let’s take a look!

The Creativity Dice
Fishbone Analysis
Problem Tree
SWOT Analysis
Agreement-Certainty Matrix
The Journalistic Six
LEGO Challenge
What, So What, Now What?
Journalists

Individual and group perspectives are incredibly important, but what happens if people are set in their minds and need a change of perspective in order to approach a problem more effectively?

Flip It is a method we love because it is both simple to understand and run, and allows groups to understand how their perspectives and biases are formed.

Participants in Flip It are first invited to consider concerns, issues, or problems from a perspective of fear and write them on a flip chart. Then, the group is asked to consider those same issues from a perspective of hope and flip their understanding.

No problem and solution is free from existing bias and by changing perspectives with Flip It, you can then develop a problem solving model quickly and effectively.

Flip It! #gamestorming #problem solving #action Often, a change in a problem or situation comes simply from a change in our perspectives. Flip It! is a quick game designed to show players that perspectives are made, not born.

10. The Creativity Dice

One of the most useful problem solving skills you can teach your team is of approaching challenges with creativity, flexibility, and openness. Games like The Creativity Dice allow teams to overcome the potential hurdle of too much linear thinking and approach the process with a sense of fun and speed.

In The Creativity Dice, participants are organized around a topic and roll a dice to determine what they will work on for a period of 3 minutes at a time. They might roll a 3 and work on investigating factual information on the chosen topic. They might roll a 1 and work on identifying the specific goals, standards, or criteria for the session.

Encouraging rapid work and iteration while asking participants to be flexible are great skills to cultivate. Having a stage for idea incubation in this game is also important. Moments of pause can help ensure the ideas that are put forward are the most suitable.

The Creativity Dice #creativity #problem solving #thiagi #issue analysis Too much linear thinking is hazardous to creative problem solving. To be creative, you should approach the problem (or the opportunity) from different points of view. You should leave a thought hanging in mid-air and move to another. This skipping around prevents premature closure and lets your brain incubate one line of thought while you consciously pursue another.

11. Fishbone Analysis

Organizational or team challenges are rarely simple, and it’s important to remember that one problem can be an indication of something that goes deeper and may require further consideration to be solved.

Fishbone Analysis helps groups to dig deeper and understand the origins of a problem. It’s a great example of a root cause analysis method that is simple for everyone on a team to get their head around.

Participants in this activity are asked to annotate a diagram of a fish, first adding the problem or issue to be worked on at the head of a fish before then brainstorming the root causes of the problem and adding them as bones on the fish.

Using abstractions such as a diagram of a fish can really help a team break out of their regular thinking and develop a creative approach.

Fishbone Analysis #problem solving ##root cause analysis #decision making #online facilitation A process to help identify and understand the origins of problems, issues or observations.

12. Problem Tree

Encouraging visual thinking can be an essential part of many strategies. By simply reframing and clarifying problems, a group can move towards developing a problem solving model that works for them.

In Problem Tree, groups are asked to first brainstorm a list of problems – these can be design problems, team problems or larger business problems – and then organize them into a hierarchy. The hierarchy could be from most important to least important or abstract to practical, though the key thing with problem solving games that involve this aspect is that your group has some way of managing and sorting all the issues that are raised.

Once you have a list of problems that need to be solved and have organized them accordingly, you’re then well-positioned for the next problem solving steps.

Problem tree #define intentions #create #design #issue analysis A problem tree is a tool to clarify the hierarchy of problems addressed by the team within a design project; it represents high level problems or related sublevel problems.

13. SWOT Analysis

Chances are you’ve heard of the SWOT Analysis before. This problem-solving method focuses on identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a tried and tested method for both individuals and teams.

Start by creating a desired end state or outcome and bare this in mind – any process solving model is made more effective by knowing what you are moving towards. Create a quadrant made up of the four categories of a SWOT analysis and ask participants to generate ideas based on each of those quadrants.

Once you have those ideas assembled in their quadrants, cluster them together based on their affinity with other ideas. These clusters are then used to facilitate group conversations and move things forward.

SWOT analysis #gamestorming #problem solving #action #meeting facilitation The SWOT Analysis is a long-standing technique of looking at what we have, with respect to the desired end state, as well as what we could improve on. It gives us an opportunity to gauge approaching opportunities and dangers, and assess the seriousness of the conditions that affect our future. When we understand those conditions, we can influence what comes next.

14. Agreement-Certainty Matrix

Not every problem-solving approach is right for every challenge, and deciding on the right method for the challenge at hand is a key part of being an effective team.

The Agreement Certainty matrix helps teams align on the nature of the challenges facing them. By sorting problems from simple to chaotic, your team can understand what methods are suitable for each problem and what they can do to ensure effective results.

If you are already using Liberating Structures techniques as part of your problem-solving strategy, the Agreement-Certainty Matrix can be an invaluable addition to your process. We’ve found it particularly if you are having issues with recurring problems in your organization and want to go deeper in understanding the root cause.

Agreement-Certainty Matrix #issue analysis #liberating structures #problem solving You can help individuals or groups avoid the frequent mistake of trying to solve a problem with methods that are not adapted to the nature of their challenge. The combination of two questions makes it possible to easily sort challenges into four categories: simple, complicated, complex , and chaotic . A problem is simple when it can be solved reliably with practices that are easy to duplicate. It is complicated when experts are required to devise a sophisticated solution that will yield the desired results predictably. A problem is complex when there are several valid ways to proceed but outcomes are not predictable in detail. Chaotic is when the context is too turbulent to identify a path forward. A loose analogy may be used to describe these differences: simple is like following a recipe, complicated like sending a rocket to the moon, complex like raising a child, and chaotic is like the game “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” The Liberating Structures Matching Matrix in Chapter 5 can be used as the first step to clarify the nature of a challenge and avoid the mismatches between problems and solutions that are frequently at the root of chronic, recurring problems.

Organizing and charting a team’s progress can be important in ensuring its success. SQUID (Sequential Question and Insight Diagram) is a great model that allows a team to effectively switch between giving questions and answers and develop the skills they need to stay on track throughout the process.

Begin with two different colored sticky notes – one for questions and one for answers – and with your central topic (the head of the squid) on the board. Ask the group to first come up with a series of questions connected to their best guess of how to approach the topic. Ask the group to come up with answers to those questions, fix them to the board and connect them with a line. After some discussion, go back to question mode by responding to the generated answers or other points on the board.

It’s rewarding to see a diagram grow throughout the exercise, and a completed SQUID can provide a visual resource for future effort and as an example for other teams.

SQUID #gamestorming #project planning #issue analysis #problem solving When exploring an information space, it’s important for a group to know where they are at any given time. By using SQUID, a group charts out the territory as they go and can navigate accordingly. SQUID stands for Sequential Question and Insight Diagram.

16. Speed Boat

To continue with our nautical theme, Speed Boat is a short and sweet activity that can help a team quickly identify what employees, clients or service users might have a problem with and analyze what might be standing in the way of achieving a solution.

Methods that allow for a group to make observations, have insights and obtain those eureka moments quickly are invaluable when trying to solve complex problems.

In Speed Boat, the approach is to first consider what anchors and challenges might be holding an organization (or boat) back. Bonus points if you are able to identify any sharks in the water and develop ideas that can also deal with competitors!

Speed Boat #gamestorming #problem solving #action Speedboat is a short and sweet way to identify what your employees or clients don’t like about your product/service or what’s standing in the way of a desired goal.

17. The Journalistic Six

Some of the most effective ways of solving problems is by encouraging teams to be more inclusive and diverse in their thinking.

Based on the six key questions journalism students are taught to answer in articles and news stories, The Journalistic Six helps create teams to see the whole picture. By using who, what, when, where, why, and how to facilitate the conversation and encourage creative thinking, your team can make sure that the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the are covered exhaustively and thoughtfully. Reporter’s notebook and dictaphone optional.

The Journalistic Six – Who What When Where Why How #idea generation #issue analysis #problem solving #online #creative thinking #remote-friendly A questioning method for generating, explaining, investigating ideas.

18. LEGO Challenge

Now for an activity that is a little out of the (toy) box. LEGO Serious Play is a facilitation methodology that can be used to improve creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

The LEGO Challenge includes giving each member of the team an assignment that is hidden from the rest of the group while they create a structure without speaking.

What the LEGO challenge brings to the table is a fun working example of working with stakeholders who might not be on the same page to solve problems. Also, it’s LEGO! Who doesn’t love LEGO!

LEGO Challenge #hyperisland #team A team-building activity in which groups must work together to build a structure out of LEGO, but each individual has a secret “assignment” which makes the collaborative process more challenging. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, conflict, cooperation, patience and problem solving strategy.

19. What, So What, Now What?

If not carefully managed, the problem identification and problem analysis stages of the problem-solving process can actually create more problems and misunderstandings.

The What, So What, Now What? problem-solving activity is designed to help collect insights and move forward while also eliminating the possibility of disagreement when it comes to identifying, clarifying, and analyzing organizational or work problems.

Facilitation is all about bringing groups together so that might work on a shared goal and the best problem-solving strategies ensure that teams are aligned in purpose, if not initially in opinion or insight.

Throughout the three steps of this game, you give everyone on a team to reflect on a problem by asking what happened, why it is important, and what actions should then be taken.

This can be a great activity for bringing our individual perceptions about a problem or challenge and contextualizing it in a larger group setting. This is one of the most important problem-solving skills you can bring to your organization.

W³ – What, So What, Now What? #issue analysis #innovation #liberating structures You can help groups reflect on a shared experience in a way that builds understanding and spurs coordinated action while avoiding unproductive conflict. It is possible for every voice to be heard while simultaneously sifting for insights and shaping new direction. Progressing in stages makes this practical—from collecting facts about What Happened to making sense of these facts with So What and finally to what actions logically follow with Now What . The shared progression eliminates most of the misunderstandings that otherwise fuel disagreements about what to do. Voila!

20. Journalists

Problem analysis can be one of the most important and decisive stages of all problem-solving tools. Sometimes, a team can become bogged down in the details and are unable to move forward.

Journalists is an activity that can avoid a group from getting stuck in the problem identification or problem analysis stages of the process.

In Journalists, the group is invited to draft the front page of a fictional newspaper and figure out what stories deserve to be on the cover and what headlines those stories will have. By reframing how your problems and challenges are approached, you can help a team move productively through the process and be better prepared for the steps to follow.

Journalists #vision #big picture #issue analysis #remote-friendly This is an exercise to use when the group gets stuck in details and struggles to see the big picture. Also good for defining a vision.

Problem-solving techniques for developing solutions

The success of any problem-solving process can be measured by the solutions it produces. After you’ve defined the issue, explored existing ideas, and ideated, it’s time to narrow down to the correct solution.

Use these problem-solving techniques when you want to help your team find consensus, compare possible solutions, and move towards taking action on a particular problem.

Improved Solutions
Four-Step Sketch
15% Solutions
How-Now-Wow matrix
Impact Effort Matrix

21. Mindspin

Brainstorming is part of the bread and butter of the problem-solving process and all problem-solving strategies benefit from getting ideas out and challenging a team to generate solutions quickly.

With Mindspin, participants are encouraged not only to generate ideas but to do so under time constraints and by slamming down cards and passing them on. By doing multiple rounds, your team can begin with a free generation of possible solutions before moving on to developing those solutions and encouraging further ideation.

This is one of our favorite problem-solving activities and can be great for keeping the energy up throughout the workshop. Remember the importance of helping people become engaged in the process – energizing problem-solving techniques like Mindspin can help ensure your team stays engaged and happy, even when the problems they’re coming together to solve are complex.

MindSpin #teampedia #idea generation #problem solving #action A fast and loud method to enhance brainstorming within a team. Since this activity has more than round ideas that are repetitive can be ruled out leaving more creative and innovative answers to the challenge.

22. Improved Solutions

After a team has successfully identified a problem and come up with a few solutions, it can be tempting to call the work of the problem-solving process complete. That said, the first solution is not necessarily the best, and by including a further review and reflection activity into your problem-solving model, you can ensure your group reaches the best possible result.

One of a number of problem-solving games from Thiagi Group, Improved Solutions helps you go the extra mile and develop suggested solutions with close consideration and peer review. By supporting the discussion of several problems at once and by shifting team roles throughout, this problem-solving technique is a dynamic way of finding the best solution.

Improved Solutions #creativity #thiagi #problem solving #action #team You can improve any solution by objectively reviewing its strengths and weaknesses and making suitable adjustments. In this creativity framegame, you improve the solutions to several problems. To maintain objective detachment, you deal with a different problem during each of six rounds and assume different roles (problem owner, consultant, basher, booster, enhancer, and evaluator) during each round. At the conclusion of the activity, each player ends up with two solutions to her problem.

23. Four Step Sketch

Creative thinking and visual ideation does not need to be confined to the opening stages of your problem-solving strategies. Exercises that include sketching and prototyping on paper can be effective at the solution finding and development stage of the process, and can be great for keeping a team engaged.

By going from simple notes to a crazy 8s round that involves rapidly sketching 8 variations on their ideas before then producing a final solution sketch, the group is able to iterate quickly and visually. Problem-solving techniques like Four-Step Sketch are great if you have a group of different thinkers and want to change things up from a more textual or discussion-based approach.

Four-Step Sketch #design sprint #innovation #idea generation #remote-friendly The four-step sketch is an exercise that helps people to create well-formed concepts through a structured process that includes: Review key information Start design work on paper, Consider multiple variations , Create a detailed solution . This exercise is preceded by a set of other activities allowing the group to clarify the challenge they want to solve. See how the Four Step Sketch exercise fits into a Design Sprint

24. 15% Solutions

Some problems are simpler than others and with the right problem-solving activities, you can empower people to take immediate actions that can help create organizational change.

Part of the liberating structures toolkit, 15% solutions is a problem-solving technique that focuses on finding and implementing solutions quickly. A process of iterating and making small changes quickly can help generate momentum and an appetite for solving complex problems.

Problem-solving strategies can live and die on whether people are onboard. Getting some quick wins is a great way of getting people behind the process.

It can be extremely empowering for a team to realize that problem-solving techniques can be deployed quickly and easily and delineate between things they can positively impact and those things they cannot change.

15% Solutions #action #liberating structures #remote-friendly You can reveal the actions, however small, that everyone can do immediately. At a minimum, these will create momentum, and that may make a BIG difference. 15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change. With a very simple question, you can flip the conversation to what can be done and find solutions to big problems that are often distributed widely in places not known in advance. Shifting a few grains of sand may trigger a landslide and change the whole landscape.

25. How-Now-Wow Matrix

The problem-solving process is often creative, as complex problems usually require a change of thinking and creative response in order to find the best solutions. While it’s common for the first stages to encourage creative thinking, groups can often gravitate to familiar solutions when it comes to the end of the process.

When selecting solutions, you don’t want to lose your creative energy! The How-Now-Wow Matrix from Gamestorming is a great problem-solving activity that enables a group to stay creative and think out of the box when it comes to selecting the right solution for a given problem.

Problem-solving techniques that encourage creative thinking and the ideation and selection of new solutions can be the most effective in organisational change. Give the How-Now-Wow Matrix a go, and not just for how pleasant it is to say out loud.

How-Now-Wow Matrix #gamestorming #idea generation #remote-friendly When people want to develop new ideas, they most often think out of the box in the brainstorming or divergent phase. However, when it comes to convergence, people often end up picking ideas that are most familiar to them. This is called a ‘creative paradox’ or a ‘creadox’. The How-Now-Wow matrix is an idea selection tool that breaks the creadox by forcing people to weigh each idea on 2 parameters.

26. Impact and Effort Matrix

All problem-solving techniques hope to not only find solutions to a given problem or challenge but to find the best solution. When it comes to finding a solution, groups are invited to put on their decision-making hats and really think about how a proposed idea would work in practice.

The Impact and Effort Matrix is one of the problem-solving techniques that fall into this camp, empowering participants to first generate ideas and then categorize them into a 2×2 matrix based on impact and effort.

Activities that invite critical thinking while remaining simple are invaluable. Use the Impact and Effort Matrix to move from ideation and towards evaluating potential solutions before then committing to them.

Impact and Effort Matrix #gamestorming #decision making #action #remote-friendly In this decision-making exercise, possible actions are mapped based on two factors: effort required to implement and potential impact. Categorizing ideas along these lines is a useful technique in decision making, as it obliges contributors to balance and evaluate suggested actions before committing to them.

27. Dotmocracy

If you’ve followed each of the problem-solving steps with your group successfully, you should move towards the end of your process with heaps of possible solutions developed with a specific problem in mind. But how do you help a group go from ideation to putting a solution into action?

Dotmocracy – or Dot Voting -is a tried and tested method of helping a team in the problem-solving process make decisions and put actions in place with a degree of oversight and consensus.

One of the problem-solving techniques that should be in every facilitator’s toolbox, Dot Voting is fast and effective and can help identify the most popular and best solutions and help bring a group to a decision effectively.

Dotmocracy #action #decision making #group prioritization #hyperisland #remote-friendly Dotmocracy is a simple method for group prioritization or decision-making. It is not an activity on its own, but a method to use in processes where prioritization or decision-making is the aim. The method supports a group to quickly see which options are most popular or relevant. The options or ideas are written on post-its and stuck up on a wall for the whole group to see. Each person votes for the options they think are the strongest, and that information is used to inform a decision.

All facilitators know that warm-ups and icebreakers are useful for any workshop or group process. Problem-solving workshops are no different.

Use these problem-solving techniques to warm up a group and prepare them for the rest of the process. Activating your group by tapping into some of the top problem-solving skills can be one of the best ways to see great outcomes from your session.

Check-in/Check-out
Doodling Together
Show and Tell
Constellations
Draw a Tree

28. Check-in / Check-out

Solid processes are planned from beginning to end, and the best facilitators know that setting the tone and establishing a safe, open environment can be integral to a successful problem-solving process.

Check-in / Check-out is a great way to begin and/or bookend a problem-solving workshop. Checking in to a session emphasizes that everyone will be seen, heard, and expected to contribute.

If you are running a series of meetings, setting a consistent pattern of checking in and checking out can really help your team get into a groove. We recommend this opening-closing activity for small to medium-sized groups though it can work with large groups if they’re disciplined!

Check-in / Check-out #team #opening #closing #hyperisland #remote-friendly Either checking-in or checking-out is a simple way for a team to open or close a process, symbolically and in a collaborative way. Checking-in/out invites each member in a group to be present, seen and heard, and to express a reflection or a feeling. Checking-in emphasizes presence, focus and group commitment; checking-out emphasizes reflection and symbolic closure.

29. Doodling Together

Thinking creatively and not being afraid to make suggestions are important problem-solving skills for any group or team, and warming up by encouraging these behaviors is a great way to start.

Doodling Together is one of our favorite creative ice breaker games – it’s quick, effective, and fun and can make all following problem-solving steps easier by encouraging a group to collaborate visually. By passing cards and adding additional items as they go, the workshop group gets into a groove of co-creation and idea development that is crucial to finding solutions to problems.

Doodling Together #collaboration #creativity #teamwork #fun #team #visual methods #energiser #icebreaker #remote-friendly Create wild, weird and often funny postcards together & establish a group’s creative confidence.

30. Show and Tell

You might remember some version of Show and Tell from being a kid in school and it’s a great problem-solving activity to kick off a session.

Asking participants to prepare a little something before a workshop by bringing an object for show and tell can help them warm up before the session has even begun! Games that include a physical object can also help encourage early engagement before moving onto more big-picture thinking.

By asking your participants to tell stories about why they chose to bring a particular item to the group, you can help teams see things from new perspectives and see both differences and similarities in the way they approach a topic. Great groundwork for approaching a problem-solving process as a team!

Show and Tell #gamestorming #action #opening #meeting facilitation Show and Tell taps into the power of metaphors to reveal players’ underlying assumptions and associations around a topic The aim of the game is to get a deeper understanding of stakeholders’ perspectives on anything—a new project, an organizational restructuring, a shift in the company’s vision or team dynamic.

31. Constellations

Who doesn’t love stars? Constellations is a great warm-up activity for any workshop as it gets people up off their feet, energized, and ready to engage in new ways with established topics. It’s also great for showing existing beliefs, biases, and patterns that can come into play as part of your session.

Using warm-up games that help build trust and connection while also allowing for non-verbal responses can be great for easing people into the problem-solving process and encouraging engagement from everyone in the group. Constellations is great in large spaces that allow for movement and is definitely a practical exercise to allow the group to see patterns that are otherwise invisible.

Constellations #trust #connection #opening #coaching #patterns #system Individuals express their response to a statement or idea by standing closer or further from a central object. Used with teams to reveal system, hidden patterns, perspectives.

32. Draw a Tree

Problem-solving games that help raise group awareness through a central, unifying metaphor can be effective ways to warm-up a group in any problem-solving model.

Draw a Tree is a simple warm-up activity you can use in any group and which can provide a quick jolt of energy. Start by asking your participants to draw a tree in just 45 seconds – they can choose whether it will be abstract or realistic.

Once the timer is up, ask the group how many people included the roots of the tree and use this as a means to discuss how we can ignore important parts of any system simply because they are not visible.

All problem-solving strategies are made more effective by thinking of problems critically and by exposing things that may not normally come to light. Warm-up games like Draw a Tree are great in that they quickly demonstrate some key problem-solving skills in an accessible and effective way.

Draw a Tree #thiagi #opening #perspectives #remote-friendly With this game you can raise awarness about being more mindful, and aware of the environment we live in.

Each step of the problem-solving workshop benefits from an intelligent deployment of activities, games, and techniques. Bringing your session to an effective close helps ensure that solutions are followed through on and that you also celebrate what has been achieved.

Here are some problem-solving activities you can use to effectively close a workshop or meeting and ensure the great work you’ve done can continue afterward.

One Breath Feedback
Who What When Matrix
Response Cards

How do I conclude a problem-solving process?

All good things must come to an end. With the bulk of the work done, it can be tempting to conclude your workshop swiftly and without a moment to debrief and align. This can be problematic in that it doesn’t allow your team to fully process the results or reflect on the process.

At the end of an effective session, your team will have gone through a process that, while productive, can be exhausting. It’s important to give your group a moment to take a breath, ensure that they are clear on future actions, and provide short feedback before leaving the space.

The primary purpose of any problem-solving method is to generate solutions and then implement them. Be sure to take the opportunity to ensure everyone is aligned and ready to effectively implement the solutions you produced in the workshop.

Remember that every process can be improved and by giving a short moment to collect feedback in the session, you can further refine your problem-solving methods and see further success in the future too.

33. One Breath Feedback

Maintaining attention and focus during the closing stages of a problem-solving workshop can be tricky and so being concise when giving feedback can be important. It’s easy to incur “death by feedback” should some team members go on for too long sharing their perspectives in a quick feedback round.

One Breath Feedback is a great closing activity for workshops. You give everyone an opportunity to provide feedback on what they’ve done but only in the space of a single breath. This keeps feedback short and to the point and means that everyone is encouraged to provide the most important piece of feedback to them.

One breath feedback #closing #feedback #action This is a feedback round in just one breath that excels in maintaining attention: each participants is able to speak during just one breath … for most people that’s around 20 to 25 seconds … unless of course you’ve been a deep sea diver in which case you’ll be able to do it for longer.

34. Who What When Matrix

Matrices feature as part of many effective problem-solving strategies and with good reason. They are easily recognizable, simple to use, and generate results.

The Who What When Matrix is a great tool to use when closing your problem-solving session by attributing a who, what and when to the actions and solutions you have decided upon. The resulting matrix is a simple, easy-to-follow way of ensuring your team can move forward.

Great solutions can’t be enacted without action and ownership. Your problem-solving process should include a stage for allocating tasks to individuals or teams and creating a realistic timeframe for those solutions to be implemented or checked out. Use this method to keep the solution implementation process clear and simple for all involved.

Who/What/When Matrix #gamestorming #action #project planning With Who/What/When matrix, you can connect people with clear actions they have defined and have committed to.

35. Response cards

Group discussion can comprise the bulk of most problem-solving activities and by the end of the process, you might find that your team is talked out!

Providing a means for your team to give feedback with short written notes can ensure everyone is head and can contribute without the need to stand up and talk. Depending on the needs of the group, giving an alternative can help ensure everyone can contribute to your problem-solving model in the way that makes the most sense for them.

Response Cards is a great way to close a workshop if you are looking for a gentle warm-down and want to get some swift discussion around some of the feedback that is raised.

Response Cards #debriefing #closing #structured sharing #questions and answers #thiagi #action It can be hard to involve everyone during a closing of a session. Some might stay in the background or get unheard because of louder participants. However, with the use of Response Cards, everyone will be involved in providing feedback or clarify questions at the end of a session.

Save time and effort discovering the right solutions

A structured problem solving process is a surefire way of solving tough problems, discovering creative solutions and driving organizational change. But how can you design for successful outcomes?

With SessionLab, it’s easy to design engaging workshops that deliver results. Drag, drop and reorder blocks to build your agenda. When you make changes or update your agenda, your session timing adjusts automatically , saving you time on manual adjustments.

Collaborating with stakeholders or clients? Share your agenda with a single click and collaborate in real-time. No more sending documents back and forth over email.

Explore how to use SessionLab to design effective problem solving workshops or watch this five minute video to see the planner in action!

Over to you

The problem-solving process can often be as complicated and multifaceted as the problems they are set-up to solve. With the right problem-solving techniques and a mix of creative exercises designed to guide discussion and generate purposeful ideas, we hope we’ve given you the tools to find the best solutions as simply and easily as possible.

Is there a problem-solving technique that you are missing here? Do you have a favorite activity or method you use when facilitating? Let us know in the comments below, we’d love to hear from you!

thank you very much for these excellent techniques

Certainly wonderful article, very detailed. Shared!

Your list of techniques for problem solving can be helpfully extended by adding TRIZ to the list of techniques. TRIZ has 40 problem solving techniques derived from methods inventros and patent holders used to get new patents. About 10-12 are general approaches. many organization sponsor classes in TRIZ that are used to solve business problems or general organiztational problems. You can take a look at TRIZ and dwonload a free internet booklet to see if you feel it shound be included per your selection process.

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How to Resolve Employee Performance Issues

Pinnacle December 7, 2011 All , Management Best Practices Leave a Comment

You work hard to assemble a team of employees that is poised to drive productivity and generate results. Yet despite hiring the best talent and assembling the most qualified team, performance issues can creep up.

Addressing poor performance properly is essential.

When you identify performance issues, addressing and resolving them is critical to your short- and long-term success. Poor performance not only impacts the offending employee’s productivity, but it can be a drain on corporate culture, employee morale, and productivity across the board.

Following are three tips to help you handle performance issues:

1. Understand the cause. In order to solve the performance issue, you’ll need to understand the root of the problem. Is the employee simply slacking? Perhaps you haven’t defined the requirements of the position properly? Incorrectly diagnosing the issue can lead to larger problems down the line, so take the time and effort now to understand what is causing the issue.

2. Devise a plan. Once you have identified the problem that is resulting in poor performance, devise a plan to tackle and resolve the issue promptly, and with minimal impact on other employees. Some questions to ask when devising your plan include:

* Have you looked at your business’ motivation system? Are you recognizing employees for their accomplishments?

* Do you regularly set goals for your employees, and meet to determine whether they have been met?

* Do you provide ample opportunity for your employees to add to their education and skill sets?

3. Be honest, but supportive, when discussing poor performance with the employee. Your employee may already understand that his or her performance is sub-par, or your assessment could come as a total surprise. Be prepared for either event, and act professional and supportive during the meeting. Do not mention any issues in front of other employees, and be sure to provide specific examples of areas that are below expectations.

Struggling to find top performers? Here at Pinnacle, we only work with the most talented and skilled professionals in Winnipeg. We’ll help find the right employee to help you meet your organizational goals.

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Culture Development

Workplace problem-solving examples: real scenarios, practical solutions.

March 11, 2024

In today’s fast-paced and ever-changing work environment, problems are inevitable. From conflicts among employees to high levels of stress, workplace problems can significantly impact productivity and overall well-being. However, by developing the art of problem-solving and implementing practical solutions, organizations can effectively tackle these challenges and foster a positive work culture. In this article, we will delve into various workplace problem scenarios and explore strategies for resolution. By understanding common workplace problems and acquiring essential problem-solving skills, individuals and organizations can navigate these challenges with confidence and success.

Understanding Workplace Problems

Before we can effectively solve workplace problems , it is essential to gain a clear understanding of the issues at hand. Identifying common workplace problems is the first step toward finding practical solutions. By recognizing these challenges, organizations can develop targeted strategies and initiatives to address them.

Identifying Common Workplace Problems

One of the most common workplace problems is conflict. Whether it stems from differences in opinions, miscommunication, or personality clashes, conflict can disrupt collaboration and hinder productivity. It is important to note that conflict is a natural part of any workplace, as individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives come together to work towards a common goal. However, when conflict is not managed effectively, it can escalate and create a toxic work environment.

In addition to conflict, workplace stress and burnout pose significant challenges. High workloads, tight deadlines, and a lack of work-life balance can all contribute to employee stress and dissatisfaction. When employees are overwhelmed and exhausted, their performance and overall well-being are compromised. This not only affects the individuals directly, but it also has a ripple effect on the entire organization.

Another common workplace problem is poor communication. Ineffective communication can lead to misunderstandings, delays, and errors. It can also create a sense of confusion and frustration among employees. Clear and open communication is vital for successful collaboration and the smooth functioning of any organization.

The Impact of Workplace Problems on Productivity

Workplace problems can have a detrimental effect on productivity levels. When conflicts are left unresolved, they can create a tense work environment, leading to decreased employee motivation and engagement. The negative energy generated by unresolved conflicts can spread throughout the organization, affecting team dynamics and overall performance.

Similarly, high levels of stress and burnout can result in decreased productivity, as individuals may struggle to focus and perform optimally. When employees are constantly under pressure and overwhelmed, their ability to think creatively and problem-solve diminishes. This can lead to a decline in the quality of work produced and an increase in errors and inefficiencies.

Poor communication also hampers productivity. When information is not effectively shared or understood, it can lead to misunderstandings, delays, and rework. This not only wastes time and resources but also creates frustration and demotivation among employees.

Furthermore, workplace problems can negatively impact employee morale and job satisfaction. When individuals are constantly dealing with conflicts, stress, and poor communication, their overall job satisfaction and engagement suffer. This can result in higher turnover rates, as employees seek a healthier and more supportive work environment.

In conclusion, workplace problems such as conflict, stress, burnout, and poor communication can significantly hinder productivity and employee well-being. Organizations must address these issues promptly and proactively to create a positive and productive work atmosphere. By fostering open communication, providing support for stress management, and promoting conflict resolution strategies, organizations can create a work environment that encourages collaboration, innovation, and employee satisfaction.

The Art of Problem Solving in the Workplace

Now that we have a clear understanding of workplace problems, let’s explore the essential skills necessary for effective problem-solving in the workplace. By developing these skills and adopting a proactive approach, individuals can tackle problems head-on and find practical solutions.

Problem-solving in the workplace is a complex and multifaceted skill that requires a combination of analytical thinking, creativity, and effective communication. It goes beyond simply identifying problems and extends to finding innovative solutions that address the root causes.

Essential Problem-Solving Skills for the Workplace

To effectively solve workplace problems, individuals should possess a range of skills. These include strong analytical and critical thinking abilities, excellent communication and interpersonal skills, the ability to collaborate and work well in a team, and the capacity to adapt to change. By honing these skills, individuals can approach workplace problems with confidence and creativity.

Analytical and critical thinking skills are essential for problem-solving in the workplace. They involve the ability to gather and analyze relevant information, identify patterns and trends, and make logical connections. These skills enable individuals to break down complex problems into manageable components and develop effective strategies to solve them.

Effective communication and interpersonal skills are also crucial for problem-solving in the workplace. These skills enable individuals to clearly articulate their thoughts and ideas, actively listen to others, and collaborate effectively with colleagues. By fostering open and honest communication channels, individuals can better understand the root causes of problems and work towards finding practical solutions.

Collaboration and teamwork are essential for problem-solving in the workplace. By working together, individuals can leverage their diverse skills, knowledge, and perspectives to generate innovative solutions. Collaboration fosters a supportive and inclusive environment where everyone’s ideas are valued, leading to more effective problem-solving outcomes.

The ability to adapt to change is another important skill for problem-solving in the workplace. In today’s fast-paced and dynamic work environment, problems often arise due to changes in technology, processes, or market conditions. Individuals who can embrace change and adapt quickly are better equipped to find solutions that address the evolving needs of the organization.

The Role of Communication in Problem Solving

Communication is a key component of effective problem-solving in the workplace. By fostering open and honest communication channels, individuals can better understand the root causes of problems and work towards finding practical solutions. Active listening, clear and concise articulation of thoughts and ideas, and the ability to empathize are all valuable communication skills that facilitate problem-solving.

Active listening involves fully engaging with the speaker, paying attention to both verbal and non-verbal cues, and seeking clarification when necessary. By actively listening, individuals can gain a deeper understanding of the problem at hand and the perspectives of others involved. This understanding is crucial for developing comprehensive and effective solutions.

Clear and concise articulation of thoughts and ideas is essential for effective problem-solving communication. By expressing oneself clearly, individuals can ensure that their ideas are understood by others. This clarity helps to avoid misunderstandings and promotes effective collaboration.

Empathy is a valuable communication skill that plays a significant role in problem-solving. By putting oneself in the shoes of others and understanding their emotions and perspectives, individuals can build trust and rapport. This empathetic connection fosters a supportive and collaborative environment where everyone feels valued and motivated to contribute to finding solutions.

In conclusion, problem-solving in the workplace requires a combination of essential skills such as analytical thinking, effective communication, collaboration, and adaptability. By honing these skills and fostering open communication channels, individuals can approach workplace problems with confidence and creativity, leading to practical and innovative solutions.

Real Scenarios of Workplace Problems

Now, let’s explore some real scenarios of workplace problems and delve into strategies for resolution. By examining these practical examples, individuals can develop a deeper understanding of how to approach and solve workplace problems.

Conflict Resolution in the Workplace

Imagine a scenario where two team members have conflicting ideas on how to approach a project. The disagreement becomes heated, leading to a tense work environment. To resolve this conflict, it is crucial to encourage open dialogue between the team members. Facilitating a calm and respectful conversation can help uncover underlying concerns and find common ground. Collaboration and compromise are key in reaching a resolution that satisfies all parties involved.

In this particular scenario, let’s dive deeper into the dynamics between the team members. One team member, let’s call her Sarah, strongly believes that a more conservative and traditional approach is necessary for the project’s success. On the other hand, her colleague, John, advocates for a more innovative and out-of-the-box strategy. The clash between their perspectives arises from their different backgrounds and experiences.

As the conflict escalates, it is essential for a neutral party, such as a team leader or a mediator, to step in and facilitate the conversation. This person should create a safe space for both Sarah and John to express their ideas and concerns without fear of judgment or retribution. By actively listening to each other, they can gain a better understanding of the underlying motivations behind their respective approaches.

During the conversation, it may become apparent that Sarah’s conservative approach stems from a fear of taking risks and a desire for stability. On the other hand, John’s innovative mindset is driven by a passion for pushing boundaries and finding creative solutions. Recognizing these underlying motivations can help foster empathy and create a foundation for collaboration.

As the dialogue progresses, Sarah and John can begin to identify areas of overlap and potential compromise. They may realize that while Sarah’s conservative approach provides stability, John’s innovative ideas can inject fresh perspectives into the project. By combining their strengths and finding a middle ground, they can develop a hybrid strategy that incorporates both stability and innovation.

Ultimately, conflict resolution in the workplace requires effective communication, active listening, empathy, and a willingness to find common ground. By addressing conflicts head-on and fostering a collaborative environment, teams can overcome challenges and achieve their goals.

Dealing with Workplace Stress and Burnout

Workplace stress and burnout can be debilitating for individuals and organizations alike. In this scenario, an employee is consistently overwhelmed by their workload and experiencing signs of burnout. To address this issue, organizations should promote a healthy work-life balance and provide resources to manage stress effectively. Encouraging employees to take breaks, providing access to mental health support, and fostering a supportive work culture are all practical solutions to alleviate workplace stress.

In this particular scenario, let’s imagine that the employee facing stress and burnout is named Alex. Alex has been working long hours, often sacrificing personal time and rest to meet tight deadlines and demanding expectations. As a result, Alex is experiencing physical and mental exhaustion, reduced productivity, and a sense of detachment from work.

Recognizing the signs of burnout, Alex’s organization takes proactive measures to address the issue. They understand that employee well-being is crucial for maintaining a healthy and productive workforce. To promote a healthy work-life balance, the organization encourages employees to take regular breaks and prioritize self-care. They emphasize the importance of disconnecting from work during non-working hours and encourage employees to engage in activities that promote relaxation and rejuvenation.

Additionally, the organization provides access to mental health support services, such as counseling or therapy sessions. They recognize that stress and burnout can have a significant impact on an individual’s mental well-being and offer resources to help employees manage their stress effectively. By destigmatizing mental health and providing confidential support, the organization creates an environment where employees feel comfortable seeking help when needed.

Furthermore, the organization fosters a supportive work culture by promoting open communication and empathy. They encourage managers and colleagues to check in with each other regularly, offering support and understanding. Team members are encouraged to collaborate and share the workload, ensuring that no one person is overwhelmed with excessive responsibilities.

By implementing these strategies, Alex’s organization aims to alleviate workplace stress and prevent burnout. They understand that a healthy and balanced workforce is more likely to be engaged, productive, and satisfied. Through a combination of promoting work-life balance, providing mental health support, and fostering a supportive work culture, organizations can effectively address workplace stress and create an environment conducive to employee well-being.

Practical Solutions to Workplace Problems

Now that we have explored real scenarios, let’s discuss practical solutions that organizations can implement to address workplace problems. By adopting proactive strategies and establishing effective policies, organizations can create a positive work environment conducive to problem-solving and productivity.

Implementing Effective Policies for Problem Resolution

Organizations should have clear and well-defined policies in place to address workplace problems. These policies should outline procedures for conflict resolution, channels for reporting problems, and accountability measures. By ensuring that employees are aware of these policies and have easy access to them, organizations can facilitate problem-solving and prevent issues from escalating.

Promoting a Positive Workplace Culture

A positive workplace culture is vital for problem-solving. By fostering an environment of respect, collaboration, and open communication, organizations can create a space where individuals feel empowered to address and solve problems. Encouraging teamwork, recognizing and appreciating employees’ contributions, and promoting a healthy work-life balance are all ways to cultivate a positive workplace culture.

The Role of Leadership in Problem Solving

Leadership plays a crucial role in facilitating effective problem-solving within organizations. Different leadership styles can impact how problems are approached and resolved.

Leadership Styles and Their Impact on Problem-Solving

Leaders who adopt an autocratic leadership style may make decisions independently, potentially leaving their team members feeling excluded and undervalued. On the other hand, leaders who adopt a democratic leadership style involve their team members in the problem-solving process, fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment. By encouraging employee participation, organizations can leverage the diverse perspectives and expertise of their workforce to find innovative solutions to workplace problems.

Encouraging Employee Participation in Problem Solving

To harness the collective problem-solving abilities of an organization, it is crucial to encourage employee participation. Leaders can create opportunities for employees to contribute their ideas and perspectives through brainstorming sessions, team meetings, and collaborative projects. By valuing employee input and involving them in decision-making processes, organizations can foster a culture of inclusivity and drive innovative problem-solving efforts.

In today’s dynamic work environment, workplace problems are unavoidable. However, by understanding common workplace problems, developing essential problem-solving skills, and implementing practical solutions, individuals and organizations can navigate these challenges effectively. By fostering a positive work culture, implementing effective policies, and encouraging employee participation, organizations can create an environment conducive to problem-solving and productivity. With proactive problem-solving strategies in place, organizations can thrive and overcome obstacles, ensuring long-term success and growth.

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31 examples of problem solving performance review phrases

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You're doing great

You should think of improving

Tips to improve

Use these practical examples of phrases, sample comments, and templates for your performance review , 360-degree feedback survey, or manager appraisal.

The following examples not only relate to problem-solving but also conflict management , effective solutions, selecting the best alternatives, decision making , problem identification, analyzing effectively, and generally becoming an effective problem-solving strategist. Start using effective performance review questions to help better guide your workforce's development.

Problem solving appraisal comments: you're doing great

You always maintain an effective dialogue with clients when they have technical problems. Being clear and articulate makes sure our customers' faults are attended to promptly.
You constantly make sure to look beyond the obvious you never stop at the first answer. You’re really good at exploring alternatives. Well done!
Keeping the supervisors and managers informed of status changes and requests is important. You’re really good at communicating the changes to the projects at all times. Keep it up!
You stay cool and collected even when things aren’t going according to plan or up in the air. This is a great trait to possess. Well done!
You’re excellent at giving an honest and logical analysis. Keep it up! Effectively diagnosing complex problems and reaching sustainable solutions is one of your strong points.
Your ability to ability to make complex systems into simple ones is truly a unique skill to possess. Well done!
You often identify practical solutions to every roadblock. You’re a real asset to the team! Great job.
You always listen actively and attentively to make sure you understand what the exact problem is and you come up with solutions in an effective manner.
You have an amazing ability to clearly explain options and solutions effectively and efficiently. Well done!
When driving projects, you can shift to other areas comfortably and easily. making sure the project runs smoothly. Great job!

problem-solving-performance-review-phrases-person-at-work-talking-to-boss

Problem solving performance review phrases: you should think of improving

You always seem too overwhelmed when faced with multiple problems. Try to think of ways to make problems more manageable so that they can be solved in a timely and effective manner.
Avoiding conflicts constantly with people is not a good idea as you will only build up personal frustration and nothing will be done to remedy the situation. Try to face people when there are problems and rectify problems when they occur.
Don’t allow demanding customers to rattle your cage too much. If they become too demanding, take a step back, regulate your emotions , and try to make use of online support tools to help you rectify problems these tools can help a lot!
It’s necessary that you learn from your past mistakes . You cannot keep making the same mistakes , as this is not beneficial to the company.
You tend to ask the same questions over and over again. Try to listen more attentively or take notes when colleagues are answering!
Providing multiple solutions in an indirect and creative approach will allow you to be more effective at problem-solving . if you struggle with this typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light.
You fail to provide staff with the appropriate amount of structure and direction. They must know the direction you wish them to go in to achieve their goals .
You need to be able to recognize repetitive trends to solve problems promptly.
You tend to have problems troubleshooting even the most basic of questions. As a problem solver and customer support person, it’s imperative that you can answer these questions easily.
Read through your training manual and make sure you fully understand it before attempting questions again.

problem-solving-performance-review-phrases-person-talking-at-work

Performance review tips to improve problem solving

Try to complain less about problems and come up with solutions to the problems more often. Complaining is not beneficial to progression and innovation.
As a problem solver, it’s important to be able to handle multiple priorities under short deadlines.
You need to be able to effectively distinguish between the cause and the symptoms of problems to solve them in an efficient and timely manner.
Try to anticipate problems in advance before they become major roadblocks down the road.
Try to view obstacles as opportunities to learn and thrive at the challenge of solving the problem.
Remember to prioritize problems according to their degree of urgency. It's important that you spend the majority of your time on urgent tasks over menial ones.
When putting plans into place, stick to them and make sure they are completed.
When solving problems, try to allocate appropriate levels of resources when undertaking new projects. It is important to become as efficient and as effective as possible.
Try to learn to pace yourself when solving problems to avoid burnout . You’re a great asset to the team and we cannot afford to lose at this point.
Meeting regularly with your staff to review results is vital to the problem-solving process.
Staff that has regular check-ins understand what it is that is required of them, what they are currently achieving, and areas they may need to improve. Try to hold one-on-one meetings every week.

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Madeline Miles

Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.

How a performance review template improves the feedback process

25 performance review questions (and how to use them), agile performance management: how to improve an agile team, 5 tactics for managing managers effectively — and why it matters, 53 performance review examples to boost growth, how stanford executive education embraces vulnerability as a form of resilience, managers have a strong effect on team performance, for better or worse, awakening human potential: developing people and driving performance in the new world of work, uk leaders develop future-minded skills with betterup, similar articles, 10 problem-solving strategies to turn challenges on their head, teamwork skills self-appraisal comments: 40 example phrases, your complete guide to self-assessments (with examples), 30 communication feedback examples, 30 customer service review examples to develop your team, 37 innovation and creativity appraisal comments, 8 creative solutions to your most challenging problems, 5+ ways to establish taking ownership as a core value at work, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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Dealing with Performance Issues

An important role of leadership is talent management. An aspect of this is managing performance. At times employees may not be meeting expectations which not only impacts their work, but also the team, engagement, relationships with stakeholders, credibility, etc. As a leader, supervisors need to be able to identify performance issues, provide coaching and address issues to help employees improve and maintain an effective work environment to meet the needs of constituents.

Sometimes supervisors allow performance issues to continue without addressing them. This may be because they are busy, want to avoid a challenging conversation, or hope that issues will be corrected on their own over time. However, it’s important to quickly identify and address performance concerns. This is the best process to help an employee grow, reduce risks and improve efficiency.

For most performance issues, initial steps should include setting/clarifying expectations, coaching and training to help an employee learn and adapt in their role. Remember to apply an equity lens and consider what biases you may have in each situation.

+ To effectively identify performance concerns:

Ensure you understand the work and performance outcomes for each employee
Monitor work trends, repeated behaviors or substandard work over time
Consider feedback from coworkers, customers or other stakeholders, but make sure that you are also making your own observations
Connect with each employee regularly to understand what is working well in their role and where they are having issues

+ When performance concerns arise (non-disciplinary steps):

Meet with the employee

Connect with your employee one-on-one in a private/confidential setting
Expect and accept discomfort as these conversations may not always go smoothly
Be specific about what you observed
Be timely, ensuring the employee remembers what occurred
Talk about the impact the issue had on the business, team, work, etc.
Seek to understand - What is the employee’s feedback on the example(s) shared?

Set expectations

Demonstrate or outline what a successful outcome would be
Refer to policies, guidelines, instruction manuals, etc. that are specific to the performance concern
Offer training opportunities
Ensure expectations are consistent across the work and/or team
Partner to problem solve and identify solutions
Document the conversation

Provide ongoing coaching

Check-in with the employee regularly to understand how things are going
Provide feedback (what’s working well and where improvements may still be needed)
Provide support and resources

+ Documentation

Documentation is critical, both for non-disciplinary steps and any disciplinary action that may follow.

Documentation tips:

Include the date of the meeting
Specify the dates of examples discussed
Example: Kayla sent an email on 1/24 that received a complaint. The customer raised a concern about Kayla’s language, feeling it wasn’t accounting for all of the factors involved in the situation vs. Kayla isn’t customer-focused and is rude to customers in her emails
Document policies, work rules, or other written information that pertains to coaching conversations you’ve had with the employee
Be thorough, clear and stay on point
Save all of your notes in one place as part of the supervisory file you maintain for each employee. These notes should NOT be saved in the personnel file

+ Discipline

When you think disciplinary steps are needed, connect with your unit HR team for guidance, templates and review of the performance concerns.

The employee group will determine what rights employees have. Your HR team can guide you on the process, which includes ensuring Weingarten rights for all labor-represented employees, and a Loudermill hearing in which the employee has the right to share relevant information before discipline is issued.

Generally, discipline may include an oral warning, written warning, suspension and/or termination. While the progressive disciplinary process follows the above path, more egregious performance behaviors may warrant higher initial levels of discipline or even termination. Specific contracts, rules or policies applicable per each employee’s employment type may apply and govern this process. It’s important that disciplinary actions satisfy both just cause and due process.

For labor-represented employees, a grievance may be received after discipline is issued. If this is the case, ensure your unit HR and the Employee & Labor Relations team receive a copy of the grievance and are consulted before taking additional steps.

+ Common types of performance concerns by areas of performance

Job knowledge

Lack of understanding of policies and procedures
Limited expertise in required knowledge areas
Inaccuracies or errors
Unwillingness to update skills

Quality of Work

Customer/client dissatisfaction
Spoilage and/or waste of materials
Poor quality of final product

Quantity of Work

Poor prioritization
Untimely completion of work tasks/assignments
Inconsistent metrics of completion

Reliability

Missing or tardy to meetings
Inconsistent follow through
Attendance concerns (tardiness, absenteeism, leaving without permission)
Lack of cooperation
Unwillingness to take responsibility
Aggressive or passive communication style

Behavior/Conduct

Insubordination
Alcohol or drug use at work
Fighting, yelling, or disruptive behaviors
Policy violations

Remember that the university offers a variety of resources to support employees. Supervisors should contact their local HR for assistance locating available resources.

For assistance on any of these performance management topics, please contact your unit HR for consultation.

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A Better Framework for Solving Tough Problems

Start with trust and end with speed.

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When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand. Unfortunately, that often leads to patchwork solutions or problems not truly getting resolved.

But Anne Morriss offers a different framework. In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem and explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership. As she says, “Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.”

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the coauthor of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems .

Key episode topics include: strategy, decision making and problem solving, strategy execution, managing people, collaboration and teams, trustworthiness, organizational culture, change leadership, problem solving, leadership.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

Listen to the full HBR IdeaCast episode: How to Solve Tough Problems Better and Faster (2023)
Find more episodes of HBR IdeaCast
Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business.

When it comes to solving complicated problems, many leaders only focus on the most apparent issues. Unfortunately that often leads to patchwork or partial solutions. But Anne Morriss offers a different framework that aims to truly tackle big problems by first leaning into trust and then focusing on speed.

Morriss is an entrepreneur and leadership coach. She’s also the co-author of the book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leader’s Guide to Solving Hard Problems . In this episode, she outlines a five-step process for solving any problem. Some, she says, can be solved in a week, while others take much longer. She also explains why starting with trust and ending with speed is so important for effective change leadership.

This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast in October 2023. Here it is.

CURT NICKISCH: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Curt Nickisch.

Problems can be intimidating. Sure, some problems are fun to dig into. You roll up your sleeves, you just take care of them; but others, well, they’re complicated. Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your brain around a problem, much less fix it.

And that’s especially true for leaders in organizations where problems are often layered and complex. They sometimes demand technical, financial, or interpersonal knowledge to fix. And whether it’s avoidance on the leaders’ part or just the perception that a problem is systemic or even intractable, problems find a way to endure, to keep going, to keep being a problem that everyone tries to work around or just puts up with.

But today’s guest says that just compounds it and makes the problem harder to fix. Instead, she says, speed and momentum are key to overcoming a problem.

Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, leadership coach and founder of the Leadership Consortium and with Harvard Business School Professor Francis Frei, she wrote the new book, Move Fast and Fix Things: The Trusted Leaders Guide to Solving Hard Problems . Anne, welcome back to the show.

ANNE MORRISS: Curt, thank you so much for having me.

CURT NICKISCH: So, to generate momentum at an organization, you say that you really need speed and trust. We’ll get into those essential ingredients some more, but why are those two essential?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, the essential pattern that we observed was that the most effective change leaders out there were building trust and speed, and it didn’t seem to be a well-known observation. We all know the phrase, “Move fast and break things,” but the people who were really getting it right were moving fast and fixing things, and that was really our jumping off point. So when we dug into the pattern, what we observed was they were building trust first and then speed. This foundation of trust was what allowed them to fix more things and break fewer.

CURT NICKISCH: Trust sounds like a slow thing, right? If you talk about building trust, that is something that takes interactions, it takes communication, it takes experiences. Does that run counter to the speed idea?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, this issue of trust is something we’ve been looking at for over a decade. One of the headlines in our research is it’s actually something we’re building and rebuilding and breaking all the time. And so instead of being this precious, almost farbege egg, it’s this thing that is constantly in motion and this thing that we can really impact when we’re deliberate about our choices and have some self-awareness around where it’s breaking down and how it’s breaking down.

CURT NICKISCH: You said break trust in there, which is intriguing, right? That you may have to break trust to build trust. Can you explain that a little?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, well, I’ll clarify. It’s not that you have to break it in order to build it. It’s just that we all do it some of the time. Most of us are trusted most of the time. Most of your listeners I imagine are trusted most of the time, but all of us have a pattern where we break trust or where we don’t build as much as could be possible.

CURT NICKISCH: I want to talk about speed, this other essential ingredient that’s so intriguing, right? Because you think about solving hard problems as something that just takes a lot of time and thinking and coordination and planning and designing. Explain what you mean by it? And also, just how we maybe approach problems wrong by taking them on too slowly?

ANNE MORRISS: Well, Curt, no one has ever said to us, “I wish I had taken longer and done less.” We hear the opposite all the time, by the way. So what we really set out to do was to create a playbook that anyone can use to take less time to do more of the things that are going to make your teams and organizations stronger.

And the way we set up the book is okay, it’s really a five step process. Speed is the last step. It’s the payoff for the hard work you’re going to do to figure out your problem, build or rebuild trust, expand the team in thoughtful and strategic ways, and then tell a real and compelling story about the change you’re leading.

Only then do you get to go fast, but that’s an essential part of the process, and we find that either people under emphasize it or speed has gotten a bad name in this world of moving fast and breaking things. And part of our mission for sure was to rehabilitate speed’s reputation because it is an essential part of the change leader’s equation. It can be the difference between good intentions and getting anything done at all.

CURT NICKISCH: You know, the fact that nobody ever tells you, “I wish we had done less and taken more time.” I think we all feel that, right? Sometimes we do something and then realize, “Oh, that wasn’t that hard and why did it take me so long to do it? And I wish I’d done this a long time ago.” Is it ever possible to solve a problem too quickly?

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely. And we see that all the time too. What we push people to do in those scenarios is really take a look at the underlying issue because in most cases, the solution is not to take your foot off the accelerator per se and slow down. The solution is to get into the underlying problem. So if it’s burnout or a strategic disconnect between what you’re building and the marketplace you’re serving, what we find is the anxiety that people attach to speed or the frustration people attach to speed is often misplaced.

CURT NICKISCH: What is a good timeline to think about solving a problem then? Because if we by default take too long or else jump ahead and we don’t fix it right, what’s a good target time to have in your mind for how long solving a problem should take?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we’re playful in the book and talking about the idea that many problems can be solved in a week. We set the book up five chapters. They’re titled Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and we’re definitely having fun with that. And yet, if you count the hours in a week, there are a lot of them. Many of our problems, if you were to spend a focused 40 hours of effort on a problem, you’re going to get pretty far.

But our main message is, listen, of course it’s going to depend on the nature of the problem, and you’re going to take weeks and maybe even some cases months to get to the other side. What we don’t want you to do is take years, which tends to be our default timeline for solving hard problems.

CURT NICKISCH: So you say to start with identifying the problem that’s holding you back, seems kind of obvious. But where do companies go right and wrong with this first step of just identifying the problem that’s holding you back?

ANNE MORRISS: And our goal is that all of these are going to feel obvious in retrospect. The problem is we skip over a lot of these steps and this is why we wanted to underline them. So this one is really rooted in our observation and I think the pattern of our species that we tend to be overconfident in the quality of our thoughts, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems.

And so we want to invite you to start in a very humble and curious place, which tends not to be our default mode when we’re showing up for work. We convince ourselves that we’re being paid for our judgment. That’s exactly what gets reinforced everywhere. And so we tend to counterintuitively, given what we just talked about, we tend to move too quickly through the diagnostic phase.

CURT NICKISCH: “I know what to do, that’s why you hired me.”

ANNE MORRISS: Exactly. “I know what to do. That’s why you hired me. I’ve seen this before. I have a plan. Follow me.” We get rewarded for the expression of confidence and clarity. And so what we’re inviting people to do here is actually pause and really lean into what are the root causes of the problem you’re seeing? What are some alternative explanations? Let’s get into dialogue with the people who are also impacted by the problem before we start running down the path of solving it.

CURT NICKISCH: So what do you recommend for this step, for getting to the root of the problem? What are questions you should ask? What’s the right thought process? What do you do on Monday of the week?

ANNE MORRISS: In our experience of doing this work, people tend to undervalue the power of conversation, particularly with other people in the organization. So we will often advocate putting together a team of problem solvers, make it a temporary team, really pull in people who have a particular perspective on the problem and create the space, make it as psychologically safe as you can for people to really, as Chris Argyris so beautifully articulated, discuss the undiscussable.

And so the conditions for that are going to look different in every organization depending on the problem, but if you can get a space where smart people who have direct experience of a problem are in a room and talking honestly with each other, you can make an extraordinary amount of progress, certainly in a day.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah, that gets back to the trust piece.

ANNE MORRISS: Definitely.

CURT NICKISCH: How do you like to start that meeting, or how do you like to talk about it? I’m just curious what somebody on that team might hear in that meeting, just to get the sense that it’s psychologically safe, you can discuss the undiscussable and you’re also focusing on the identification part. What’s key to communicate there?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Well, we sometimes encourage people to do a little bit of data gathering before those conversations. So the power of a quick anonymous survey around whatever problem you’re solving, but also be really thoughtful about the questions you’re going to ask in the moment. So a little bit of preparation can go a long way and a little bit of thoughtfulness about the power dynamic. So who’s going to walk in there with license to speak and who’s going to hold back? So being thoughtful about the agenda, about the questions you’re asking about the room, about the facilitation, and then courage is a very infectious emotion.

So if you can early on create the conditions for people to show up bravely in that conversation, then the chance that you’re going to get good information and that you’re going to walk out of that room with new insight in the problem that you didn’t have when you walked in is extraordinarily high.

CURT NICKISCH: Now, in those discussions, you may have people who have different perspectives on what the problem really is. They also bear different costs of addressing the problem or solving it. You talked about the power dynamic, but there’s also an unfairness dynamic of who’s going to actually have to do the work to take care of it, and I wonder how you create a culture in that meeting where it’s the most productive?

ANNE MORRISS: For sure, the burden of work is not going to be equitably distributed around the room. But I would say, Curt, the dynamic that we see most often is that people are deeply relieved that hard problems are being addressed. So it really can create, and more often than not in our experience, it does create this beautiful flywheel of action, creativity, optimism. Often when problems haven’t been addressed, there is a fair amount of anxiety in the organization, frustration, stagnation. And so credible movement towards action and progress is often the best antidote. So even if the plan isn’t super clear yet, if it’s credible, given who’s in the room and their decision rights and mandate, if there’s real momentum coming out of that to make progress, then that tends to be deeply energizing to people.

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if there’s an organization that you’ve worked with that you could talk about how this rolled out and how this took shape?

ANNE MORRISS: When we started working with Uber, that was wrestling with some very public issues of culture and trust with a range of stakeholders internally, the organization, also external, that work really started with a campaign of listening and really trying to understand where trust was breaking down from the perspective of these stakeholders?

So whether it was female employees or regulators or riders who had safety concerns getting into the car with a stranger. This work, it starts with an honest internal dialogue, but often the problem has threads that go external. And so bringing that same commitment to curiosity and humility and dialogue to anyone who’s impacted by the problem is the fastest way to surface what’s really going on.

CURT NICKISCH: There’s a step in this process that you lay out and that’s communicating powerfully as a leader. So we’ve heard about listening and trust building, but now you’re talking about powerful communication. How do you do this and why is it maybe this step in the process rather than the first thing you do or the last thing you do?

ANNE MORRISS: So in our process, again, it’s the days of the week. On Monday you figured out the problem. Tuesday you really got into the sandbox in figuring out what a good enough plan is for building trust. Wednesday, step three, you made it better. You created an even better plan, bringing in new perspectives. Thursday, this fourth step is the day we’re saying you got to go get buy-in. You got to bring other people along. And again, this is a step where we see people often underinvest in the power and payoff of really executing it well.

CURT NICKISCH: How does that go wrong?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, people don’t know the why. Human behavior and the change in human behavior really depends on a strong why. It’s not just a selfish, “What’s in it for me?” Although that’s helpful, but where are we going? I may be invested in a status quo and I need to understand, okay, if you’re going to ask me to change, if you’re going to invite me into this uncomfortable place of doing things differently, why am I here? Help me understand it and articulate the way forward and language that not only I can understand, but also that’s going to be motivating to me.

CURT NICKISCH: And who on my team was part of this process and all that kind of stuff?

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. I may have some really important questions that may be in the way of my buy-in and commitment to this plan. So certainly creating a space where those questions can be addressed is essential. But what we found is that there is an architecture of a great change story, and it starts with honoring the past, honoring the starting place. Sometimes we’re so excited about the change and animated about the change that what has happened before or what is even happening in the present tense is low on our list of priorities.

Or we want to label it bad, because that’s the way we’ve thought about the change, but really pausing and honoring what came before you and all the reasonable decisions that led up to it, I think can be really helpful to getting people emotionally where you want them to be willing to be guided by you. Going back to Uber, when Dara Khosrowshahi came in.

CURT NICKISCH: This is the new CEO.

ANNE MORRISS: The new CEO.

CURT NICKISCH: Replaced Travis Kalanick, the founder and first CEO, yeah.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and had his first all-hands meeting. One of his key messages, and this is a quote, was that he was going to retain the edge that had made Uber, “A force of nature.” And in that meeting, the crowd went wild because this is also a company that had been beaten up publicly for months and months and months, and it was a really powerful choice. And his predecessor, Travis was in the room, and he also honored Travis’ incredible work and investment in bringing the company to the place where it was.

And I would use words like grace to also describe those choices, but there’s also an incredible strategic value to naming the starting place for everybody in the room because in most cases, most people in that room played a role in getting to that starting place, and you’re acknowledging that.

CURT NICKISCH: You can call it grace. Somebody else might call it diplomatic or strategic. But yeah, I guess like it or not, it’s helpful to call out and honor the complexity of the way things have been done and also the change that’s happening.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, and the value. Sometimes honoring the past is also owning what didn’t work or what wasn’t working for stakeholders or segments of the employee team, and we see that around culture change. Sometimes you’ve got to acknowledge that it was not an equitable environment, but whatever the worker, everyone in that room is bringing that pass with them. So again, making it discussable and using it as the jumping off place is where we advise people to start.

Then you’ve earned the right to talk about the change mandate, which we suggest using clear and compelling language about the why. “This is what happened, this is where we are, this is the good and the bad of it, and here’s the case for change.”

And then the last part, which is to describe a rigorous and optimistic way forward. It’s a simple past, present, future arc, which will be familiar to human beings. We love stories as human beings. It’s among the most powerful currency we have to make sense of the world.

CURT NICKISCH: Yeah. Chronological is a pretty powerful order.

ANNE MORRISS: Right. But again, the change leaders we see really get it right, are investing an incredible amount of time into the storytelling part of their job. Ursula Burns, the Head of Xerox is famous for the months and years she spent on the road just telling the story of Xerox’s change, its pivot into services to everyone who would listen, and that was a huge part of her success.

CURT NICKISCH: So Friday or your fifth step, you end with empowering teams and removing roadblocks. That seems obvious, but it’s critical. Can you dig into that a little bit?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. Friday is the fun day. Friday’s the release of energy into the system. Again, you’ve now earned the right to go fast. You have a plan, you’re pretty confident it’s going to work. You’ve told the story of change the organization, and now you get to sprint. So this is about really executing with urgency, and it’s about a lot of the tactics of speed is where we focus in the book. So the tactics of empowerment, making tough strategic trade-offs so that your priorities are clear and clearly communicated, creating mechanisms to fast-track progress. At Etsy, CEO Josh Silverman, he labeled these projects ambulances. It’s an unfortunate metaphor, but it’s super memorable. These are the products that get to speed out in front of the other ones because the stakes are high and the clock is sticking.

CURT NICKISCH: You pull over and let it go by.

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah, exactly. And so we have to agree as an organization on how to do something like that. And so we see lots of great examples both in young organizations and big complex biotech companies with lots of regulatory guardrails have still found ways to do this gracefully.

And I think we end with this idea of conflict debt, which is a term we really love. Leanne Davey, who’s a team scholar and researcher, and anyone in a tech company will recognize the idea of tech debt, which is this weight the organization drags around until they resolve it. Conflict debt is a beautiful metaphor because it is this weight that we drag around and slows us down until we decide to clean it up and fix it. The organizations that are really getting speed right have figured out either formally or informally, how to create an environment where conflict and disagreements can be gracefully resolved.

CURT NICKISCH: Well, let’s talk about this speed more, right? Because I think this is one of those places that maybe people go wrong or take too long, and then you lose the awareness of the problem, you lose that urgency. And then that also just makes it less effective, right? It’s not just about getting the problem solved as quickly as possible. It’s also just speed in some ways helps solve the problem.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, yeah. It really is the difference between imagining the change you want to lead and really being able to bring it to life. Speed is the thing that unlocks your ability to lead change. It needs a foundation, and that’s what Monday through Thursday is all about, steps one through four, but the finish line is executing with urgency, and it’s that urgency that releases the system’s energy, that communicates your priorities, that creates the conditions for your team to make progress.

CURT NICKISCH: Moving fast is something that entrepreneurs and tech companies certainly understand, but there’s also this awareness that with big companies, the bigger the organization, the harder it is to turn the aircraft carrier around, right? Is speed relative when you get at those levels, or do you think this is something that any company should be able to apply equally?

ANNE MORRISS: We think this applies to any company. The culture really lives at the level of team. So we believe you can make a tremendous amount of progress even within your circle of control as a team leader. I want to bring some humility to this and careful of words like universal, but we do think there’s some universal truths here around the value of speed, and then some of the byproducts like keeping fantastic people. Your best people want to solve problems, they want to execute, they want to make progress and speed, and the ability to do that is going to be a variable in their own equation of whether they stay or they go somewhere else where they can have an impact.

CURT NICKISCH: Right. They want to accomplish something before they go or before they retire or finish something out. And if you’re able to just bring more things on the horizon and have it not feel like it’s going to be another two years to do something meaningful.

ANNE MORRISS: People – I mean, they want to make stuff happen and they want to be around the energy and the vitality of making things happen, which again, is also a super infectious phenomenon. One of the most important jobs of a leader, we believe, is to set the metabolic pace of their teams and organizations. And so what we really dig into on Friday is, well, what does that look like to speed something up? What are the tactics of that?

CURT NICKISCH: I wonder if that universal truth, that a body in motion stays in motion applies to organizations, right? If an organization in motion stays in motion, there is something to that.

ANNE MORRISS: Absolutely.

CURT NICKISCH: Do you have a favorite client story to share, just where you saw speed just become a bit of a flywheel or just a positive reinforcement loop for more positive change at the organization?

ANNE MORRISS: Yeah. We work with a fair number of organizations that are on fire. We do a fair amount of firefighting, but we also less dramatically do a lot of fire prevention. So we’re brought into organizations that are working well and want to get better, looking out on the horizon. That work is super gratifying, and there is always a component of, well, how do we speed this up?

What I love about that work is there’s often already a high foundation of trust, and so it’s, well, how do we maintain that foundation but move this flywheel, as you said, even faster? And it’s really energizing because often there’s a lot of pent-up energy that… There’s a lot of loyalty to the organization, but often it’s also frustration and pent-up energy. And so when that gets released, when good people get the opportunity to sprint for the first time in a little while, it’s incredibly energizing, not just for us, but for the whole organization.

CURT NICKISCH: Anne, this is great. I think finding a way to solve problems better but also faster is going to be really helpful. So thanks for coming on the show to talk about it.

ANNE MORRISS: Oh, Curt, it was such a pleasure. This is my favorite conversation. I’m delighted to have it anytime.

HANNAH BATES: That was entrepreneur, leadership coach, and author Anne Morriss – in conversation with Curt Nickisch on HBR IdeaCast.

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about business strategy from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Mary Dooe, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Special thanks to Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener. See you next week.

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Dealing With Poor Performance
Low ability may be associated with the following: Overly difficult tasks. Low individual aptitude, skill, and knowledge. Evidence of strong effort, despite poor performance. Lack of improvement over time. People with low ability may have been poorly matched with jobs in the first place.
How to Manage Poor Performance at Work in 9 Easy Steps
Consider taking these steps to manage poor performance within your team: 1. Establish the issue. Sometimes when managing a team, you may notice that something's wrong, but you're unsure about the cause of the problem. Establishing the performance issue is therefore the first thing to do to successfully manage poor performance within a team.
Managing Poor Performance: 5 Steps
2. Address the problem face-to-face. Once Imani has pinpointed exactly what Juliette's performance problems are, she should sit down face-to-face with Juliette (even if it's via a Zoom call ). Imani will need to be upfront and factual when communicating that Juliette's work is not meeting her expectations.
6 Ways To Manage Poor Performance Within Your Team
When you manage the poor performance of one of your employees, you can also: Set expectations for your team. It's important for your team to realize the expectations you have for their performance, including the quality of work you expect to receive from them. Share a disciplinary process. Part of working as a manager and communicating ...
How to manage poor performance in your Workplace
Offering relevant, constructive feedback is also a good way of keeping an employee "on track" with their performance. It is always better to offer more information around your key messages to your staff, rather than less. To conclude, don't let poor performance hinder your business. Set your expectations from day one, whether they be ...
Four Steps for Addressing Performance Problems
2) Check in. After reflecting, check in with your staff person to share your feedback and seek their perspective. (If this is an issue you've already discussed multiple times, skip ahead to the next step.) Use CSAW to prepare for the conversation.
10 Effective Ways to Deal with Poor Employee Performance
Try to lead discussions to focus more on problem-solving instead of judging. Emphasize their strengths and positive points. Be open, honest, and sincere, and employees will feel it. 5. Set clear deadlines. Sometimes, setting clear deadlines will enhance productivity and solve poor employee performance.
10 Problem-solving strategies to turn challenges on their head
One of the best ways to improve your problem-solving skills is to learn from experts. Consider enrolling in organizational training, shadowing a mentor, or working with a coach. 2. Practice. Practice using your new problem-solving skills by applying them to smaller problems you might encounter in your daily life.
How to Address Poor Work Performance
An action plan is not a vague promise to do better, but a clear laying-out of objectives. Poor work performance action plan checklist: Description of the problem: Be extremely clear and specific. Objectives to solve the problem: Set 1-3 performance goals with the employee. How progress will be assessed: Define how you'll measure improvement.
How to Use Problem Solving Skills to Deal with Performance Issues
Define the problem. 2. Identify the causes. Be the first to add your personal experience. 3. Generate possible solutions. Be the first to add your personal experience. 4. Evaluate and select the ...
3 ways to solve your performance management problems
Encourage employees to give upward feedback. Make sure employees understand the role of feedback in performance management. Train managers on how to effectively ask for and receive feedback. Consider ways personalized coaching can help build a culture of trust in your organization. We know feedback is hard.
Problem Solving Strategies for the Workplace [2024] • Asana
4 steps to better problem solving. While it might be tempting to dive into a problem head first, take the time to move step by step. Here's how you can effectively break down the problem-solving process with your team: 1. Identify the problem that needs to be solved. One of the easiest ways to identify a problem is to ask questions.
7 Causes of Employee Performance Problems and How to Deal ...
To counter it, establish creative incentives and publicize good work. Incentives and rewards don't have to cost much money, if any at all, in order to be effective. Emphasize the value of peer respect for a job well done and give your staff several ways to show appreciation for their co-workers. Often, peer support and respect will alleviate ...
5 strategies to manage poor performance at work
Document each step. The history of your management of an employee's performance should be supported by a clear document trail. This doesn't need to be an onerous completion of reports and forms. Clear diary notes that document meetings and emails confirming the content of conversations can also serve this purpose. 5. Improve your own ...
35 problem-solving techniques and methods for solving complex problems
6. Discovery & Action Dialogue (DAD) One of the best approaches is to create a safe space for a group to share and discover practices and behaviors that can help them find their own solutions. With DAD, you can help a group choose which problems they wish to solve and which approaches they will take to do so.
How to Resolve Employee Performance Issues
3. Be honest, but supportive, when discussing poor performance with the employee. Your employee may already understand that his or her performance is sub-par, or your assessment could come as a total surprise. Be prepared for either event, and act professional and supportive during the meeting. Do not mention any issues in front of other ...
6 tips for managing poor performance
An article from Gartner outlines three ways you can set effective performance goals. These are: 1. Help managers provide context for goal setting. What a goal is trying to achieve is directly related to the situation. We've explored this idea in the first step of this guide to managing poor performance. 2.
Workplace Problem-Solving Examples: Real Scenarios, Practical Solutions
Another common workplace problem is poor communication. Ineffective communication can lead to misunderstandings, delays, and errors. It can also create a sense of confusion and frustration among employees. Clear and open communication is vital for successful collaboration and the smooth functioning of any organization.
Poor Employee Performance: How To Deal With It
Make sure you do not exaggerate your statements or use harsh phrases to reduce the self-esteem of the employee. Just be direct and precise. Reiterate the guidelines accordingly. Consider the needs of your employees. Poor performance isn't always the result of an employee's carelessness.
31 examples of problem solving performance review phrases
The following examples not only relate to problem-solving but also conflict management, effective solutions, selecting the best alternatives, decision making, problem identification, analyzing effectively, and generally becoming an effective problem-solving strategist. Start using effective performance review questions to help better guide your ...
Managing underperformance
specify how the behaviour or action needs to change or improve. Get any documents that demonstrate the problem, such as business statistics, examples of the employee's work or customer feedback. Make copies to give to the employee. Step 2 — Assess and analyse.
How To Put Problem-Solving Skills To Work in 6 Steps
Here are the basic steps involved in problem-solving: 1. Define the problem. The first step is to analyze the situation carefully to learn more about the problem. A single situation may solve multiple problems. Identify each problem and determine its cause. Try to anticipate the behavior and response of those affected by the problem.
How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills in Performance ...
The first step to improve your problem-solving skills in performance management is to assess your current level of competence and confidence. You can use self-assessment tools, such as online ...
Dealing with Performance Issues
An important role of leadership is talent management. An aspect of this is managing performance. At times employees may not be meeting expectations which not only impacts their work, but also the team, engagement, relationships with stakeholders, credibility, etc. As a leader, supervisors need to be able to identify performance issues, provide coaching and address issues to help employees ...
Problem Analysis In HR: 5 Problem-Solving Techniques
Examples of 5 problem analysis techniques: Problem tree analysis, Root cause analysis, CATWOE analysis, Kepner Tregoe analysis, and SCAMPER analysis are some of the systematic analysis tools your team can use to help you solve problems. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay up-to-date with the latest HR news, trends, and resources.
A Better Framework for Solving Tough Problems
Start with trust and end with speed. May 22, 2024. When it comes to solving complicated problems, the default for many organizational leaders is to take their time to work through the issues at hand.