A Simple Model to Address Work Performance Issues
Published on Apr 9, 2026, filed under management. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon or on Bluesky.)
When we’re working with a low performer—and they’re actually a low performer—, there’s a simple model to help turn things around:
Is the low performance due to a skills issue or due to a motivation issue?
This is a relatively common model (I learned it at Google) and one that can be extended (Roy Osherove, as far as I recall, applies it to different levels in his book, Elastic Leadership).
If the low performance is due to a skills issue, one path forward involves training.
If it’s because of poor motivation, the path forward involves finding out more and trying to help overcome the issue(s)—sometimes well meaning to simply grant time for things to sort themselves out.
If it’s because of both a skills issue and poor motivation, we work on addressing both.
We Don’t Solve Motivation Issues by Demotivating People
What I keep seeing both within our field and outside of it, is that poor performance is approached by first demotivating the person.
A family member of mine, a store manager, had this recently when executives complained about his store not producing the desired results, bluntly and really inappropriately accusing him of doing poor work.
What happens when we address a perceived performance issue like this? We demotivate the person.
When we look at the model, what then happens is that either we just amplified the motivation issue—or we added a motivation issue to an existing skills issue.
This isn’t helping anyone—it makes things worse.
We Improve Performance by Genuinely Caring About and Helping the Other
What’s much more effective is trying to find out what’s going on—skill gaps, motivation gaps—and then partnering up and supporting the person address these gaps.
As indicated, skill gaps can be addressed by training. They can also be circumvented, by setting the person up for success and shifting priorities to areas in which they’re good at. That doesn’t always work—some responsibilities are quite narrow—, but in some cases, it’s an option.
Motivation issues are harder to pinpoint but may well be easier to fix. It’s precisely our work as leaders to embrace the challenge of learning more about what’s going on, rather than giving up on a peer.
From my experience, the care we demonstrate by first understanding, then teaming up is already half the performance improvement.
In the end, everyone can fire someone and waste relationships and resources this way. The real, rewarding, and human art of leadership and management is to keep people on, even when they struggle—unless, of course, they do want to leave.
About Me
I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies you use every day (like Google) and companies you’ve never heard of, I’m an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also with respect to politics and philosophy. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my experiences and perspectives. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, but do be critical.)