What Kind Of Performance Do You Have On Your Team?

Leaders who I work with describe the performance on their team in four categories:

1. Poor Performers: They don’t care about their job or do just enough to get by.
2. Okay Performers: They are better than a poor performer. They do an okay job sometimes but they are not performing at the necessary level.
3. Good Performers: They are fairly consistent most of the time and perform at the level they were hired to do but not much more than that.
4. High Performers: They are excited about their job. They work autonomously, independently, and are self-motivated. They “get it” and are producing great results.

A Manager’s Primary Function

A manager’s primary function is not to make decisions and tell people what to do (like I used to think 20+ years ago when I first became a manager). A manager’s primary function is to:

1. Identify Obstacles
2. Help Remove Those Obstacles

How To Identify Obstacles

The best tool to identify obstacles is with regularly scheduled 1:1 meetings. There is no better way to build relationships and trust and identify obstacles than through regular 1:1 meetings with your team.

What’s different about these 1:1 meetings is that the manager does not bring the content of the meeting to the meeting. It’s the team member’s responsibility to bring the content of the agenda to the meeting. The team member leads the 1:1 meeting.

Click here to learn more about the benefits of building working relationships through 1:1 meetings

The 1:1 Meeting Agenda

NOTE: Listed below is a high-level description. More details and a full template is included in the free PDF download all about implementing 1:1 meetings.

1. One or Two Successes
   What successes has your team member experienced since the last 1:1 meeting.
2. Two or Three Key Metrics
   Your team member reports the status of their key metrics (improving, remaining steady, decreasing, why?). If there aren’t any key metrics, use this time to identify and create them.
3. Report Project Updates or Report Issues In Progress
   This is not the same as discussing obstacles. This is reporting the current progress of projects or issues so that you as a manager are aware of what your team member is working on.
4. Identify Obstacles
   What are the obstacles that keep your team member from a higher performance?
5. Identify How To Overcome The Identified Obstacles
   Discuss together ideas for overcoming the obstacles that were identified. Sometimes overcoming obstacles is something your team member can do. Sometimes the obstacle is so big that you as the manager may need to remove that obstacle.
6. Discuss Career Aspirations
   This isn’t an agenda topic that is necessary at every 1:1 meeting, but it is something to discuss every few meetings so that you can help your team member achieve their career aspirations.

More Details To Help You

Learn more about implementing 1:1 meetings with your team in a free guide about How To Turn Your Team Into High Performers.

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