If something in your car is broken, you can press and press the accelerator and all you get is more engine revs, but no movement: something may be broken in the machinery.
This happens with even the best people: for no apparent reason they can sometimes become less effective, and you know your words aren’t making any difference.
Sometimes…
- peoples’ attention is fragmented, continuous swapping between jobs means lower output: they need help in shutting themselves away, preventing interruptions, taking control – or possibly you’re putting them in an impossible position, and you need to make changes elsewhere to reduce the interruptions
- people have information overload and are confused: perhaps you need to help them rationalise the data and refresh their plan and deliverables
- even the best people can be overwhelmed, and their wheels start spinning, they start to flap and productivity drops: they need help prioritising, and then setting others’ expectations of when deliverables will be appearing
- people trying to please impatient bosses end up letting them down because they hadn’t been briefed properly (or didn’t ask the right questions) but now don’t want to admit they weren’t really ready to start.
Time to take a different tack. Take the person to a quiet room, with the list of what was expected of them, and go through it, slowly, one by one:
- Was she briefed well enough for each task ?
- How long did she think it would take her ?
- How long did it actually take her ?
- If it took longer, then why ?
Once you properly understand the detail, rebuild their work plan with them, change processes if you need to, and refocus them. Yes, this takes time. But you’re a good manager aren’t you ? You’re in control of your time, aren’t you ?
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