Managers often talk about poor performance to employees, thinking the problem has been resolved, only to find later that it still persists. One reason can be that the real problem has not been discussed. Performance problems are not always as obvious as they seem and you have to make sure you are having the right conversation.

Performance problems occur at different levels. Take what seems to be a simple problem of missed deadlines. Consider a monthly report that has been produced by a particular person for many months. This month it is late. You might say to the employee, Your report was due in yesterday, but it is not yet on my desk. What happened? If the employee says that they were overloaded with work, but that they can get the report to you today, and then does so, this may have been a one-off problem, and it has now been resolved. One simple question was all it took.

Unfortunately, some problems do not go away so easily! Let us say that for the next two months the report is also late. You plan to hold another conversation with the employee. There are three steps involved in moving to the second stage of solving this problem. First you need to be clear about the pattern you see emerging. Get your facts right. How often has the report been late? How late has it been? Are there any factors you are aware of that might have influenced the production of this report?

You must open the next conversation on the topic differently. The problem has changed. You are not concerned with one report that was late, but with a pattern of behaviour. You might say, I have noticed you have missed two of the last three deadlines for your monthly report. I am concerned there might be an underlying problem here. Can we talk? This opening signals to the employee exactly what you want to talk about and helps prevent the conversation being sidelined into discussion of the reason the most recent report was late. You have moved on from the problem with any one report to the pattern of performance.

Let us now say that you discover the employee has two deadlines for reports on the same day and you realize that one or other report is likely to be late in future. You agree to move the deadline for one report, and you and the employee agree that this solution will work.

It does, but only for a while. Then the report starts coming in late again. You now have two problems. You still have the problem of late reports, but you now have a bigger problem; that of someone not sticking to a commitment they made to you. In the next conversation you have to move the conversation onto the new problem of breaking a commitment. You would open the conversation with the facts. The report was late a number of times; you changed one of the deadlines; the employee agreed that this would remove the problem. But the report is still coming in late. Then you explain the implications of the situation. You might say, I am concerned that you have not kept to the commitment you made. I thought we had solved the problem with the deadlines. Can we talk this through again? We need to get to the bottom of it.

These three conversations each deal with a performance problem at a different level: a once-off problem, a pattern of behaviour, and an underlying, perhaps broader, problem. If none of these approaches is effective in obtaining the desired performance, then the rules change, and you have to consider whether the next conversation should move into the disciplinary procedure with a verbal warning.

Use these guidelines consistently and you will soon find yourself surrounded by a team of high performing people.