Before You Blame Your Team, Check This First

On a recent coaching call, a client vented some understandable frustration.

He had a team member who was moving slower than expected, not following up well with owners, and leaving tasks half-done until a reminder came.

You’ve probably been there. It’s easy to jump straight to “this person’s not working out.”

But I challenged him to slow down and step back.

Because here’s the truth most business owners don’t want to hear:

Two-thirds of underperformance is usually our fault.

✅ First, it’s a system problem.

✅ Second, it’s a training problem.

❌ Only after that is it a performance problem.

Here’s the checklist we walked through together:

1. Have you given them a clear system to follow?

If your maintenance coordinator doesn’t know how long they should wait before following up with a vendor… that’s a system issue.

If your resident relations person doesn’t know whether to text, call, or email first… that’s a system issue.

No system = no consistent performance.

Period.

2. Have you trained them properly on that system?

Training isn’t “we talked about it once.”

Training is:

• Walking them through expectations.

• Showing examples.

• Giving them practice reps.

• Checking their understanding.

If you haven’t trained it, you can’t expect it.

3. Only then: Is it a performance problem?

If you have the right system…

If you’ve trained it properly…

And they still don’t execute?

Now it’s a performance conversation.

Now it’s about coaching them up or coaching them out.

But you can have that conversation with a clear conscience, because you’ve done your part.

If you’re frustrated with a team member right now, here’s your move:

• Audit the system.

• Audit the training.

• THEN audit the performance.

In that order.

Otherwise, you’re trying to fix symptoms instead of the real disease.