3 Questions to help people perform better

These three1 questions are pretty obvious. That’s why it’s amazing how many times we forget to ask them when one of our reports is having performance problems, or when we want to help someone perform better.

• Does she know how to do what is expected of her? (lack of knowledge, or skills)
• Has he been given the necessary resources to do it? (lack of resources)
• Does she want to do it? (lack of motivation)

The answers lead to three more questions:

• Can she learn to do her job better? Is teaching her how part of our responsibilities?
• Can we provide him with the necessary resources? If yes, why haven’t we done so?
• What is her motivation? Is her lack of motivation a consequence of our leadership style?

2. Thanks to Manuel Alcázar for framing the questions some years ago and providing numerous examples. The original questions, in Spanish, are shorter: ¿no sabe? ¿no puede? ¿no quiere? ↩