Lead the Turnaround: Skills for Managing Underperformance
A programme to develop managers’ confidence and skill to address underperformance.
A programme of two half-day modules to develop managers’ confidence and skill to address underperformance and keep the turnaround on track.
By attending this blended learning programme, managers will be able to:
- Describe with confidence the performance management journey they will follow to support a team member address underperformance
- Plan good quality performance conversations and construct tailored and effective action plans
- Identify ways to maintain the gains achieved by performance improvement
- Demonstrate an understanding of the role of, and key steps, in formal performance management
- Describe how to ensure that formal performance management is fair and complies with the legal framework.
📂 Module 1: Managing underperformance informally
Pre-workshop activity: Watch ▶️ The Performance Management Journey, ▶️ Describing the Performance Gap, ▶️ Diagnosing the Cause of the Gap and ▶️Performance Management vs Bullying
| 9:30 | Introductions and welcome
Plenary discussion: What causes us to hold back from managing underperformance? Discussion of topics such as perception of ‘put on a PIP’ and fear of allegations of bullying. |
| 10:00 | Managing informally: The performance management roadmap
Pairs discussion: Starting with the end in mind. What’s the effect if a step gets missed? Plenary discussion: informal and formal management, what’s the difference? |
| 10:30 | Set off strong: Describing the gap and getting to the root cause of performance gaps
Individual exercise to describe a performance gap using the technique in ▶️ Describing the Performance Gap Pairs exercise identify great quality questions to diagnose the cause(s) of the performance gap using the structure in ▶️ Diagnosing the Cause of the Gap |
| 11:30 | Point-to-point action planning:
Case study (or working for real situations): Creating an action plan – using SMART to connect the plan to the cause(s) of the gap. Planning the timeframe for review, evaluation and next steps. |
| 12:15 | Maintaining the gain
Plenary discussion: How to use the performance manage journey to create a maintenance plan. What happens if performance dips? |
| 13:00 | Close of module |
Post workshop activity: Watch ▶️Creating an Action Plan and apply to a case/study.
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📂 Module 2: When and how to manage performance formally
The aim of this module is to give managers important oversight of the formal process with a view to building confidence both to manage informally and to make the decision to commence formal management.
Pre-workshop activity: Watch ▶️Making the Decision to Begin the Formal Process, ▶️Constructing the Invite Letter to a Formal Meeting and ▶️Planning Your Meeting
| 9:30 | Welcome back!
Plenary discussion: Define the formal process in words or phrases, based on the learning from the pre-activity. |
| 10:00 | Conducting a formal meeting
Practice exercise to plan and conduct a formal meeting |
| 11:10 | The role of a warning in performance cases
Exercise: Would you give a warning if…. Plenary discussion: If a warning is appropriate, what else and what next? |
| 11:30 | Dismissal for underperformance, when and how is it the fair thing to do?
Exercise: Application of the learning from this programme to the fair dismissal formula and demonstrating an inclusive process for colleagues living with disability and neurodivergent colleagues. |
| 12:45 | A performance culture in our organisation?
Plenary discussion: How does all we have learned serve to create a performance culture? |
| 13:00 | Close of module |
Post programme activity: Planning performance conversations using all the 10to3 tools.