The Right Altitude Field Guide to Performance

The performance problem isn't the person. It's the standard nobody wrote down. Someone on your team is underperforming and you have been letting it slide. Or the middle of your team is coasting and nobody has said so. Or your best person is quietly being harvested instead of developed. In every case the conversation you are avoiding is the same one, and it starts further back than you think: with a standard that was never made explicit, so nobody could miss it. Most performance problems are standards problems wearing a person costume. You describe the person. You list the behaviors. It feels like a diagnosis. It's a symptom report. And while you wait and collect evidence, the person is reading your silence as approval and the team is learning what you actually tolerate. This is a field guide for managing performance without guessing. It's built on 3 kinds of gap (clarity, capability, and commitment), plus a 4th that belongs to you: the structure gap. The treatments are opposites, so the diagnosis matters. 9 practices in 2 halves. 6 for your team: The Stated Standard. A 1-page standard sheet per direct report, so good looks like something a stranger could verify. Then the conversation, because a standard you email is a standard nobody reads. The Gap Diagnosis. 3 questions, asked in order, that tell clarity from capability from commitment, plus a check on whether anyone could hit the standard inside the structure you built. The First Naming. 2 sentences and a question, inside 48 hours. Gaps named in week 1 are observations. Gaps named after a quarter are indictments. The Underperformer Arc. Name, support, verify, decide, with a clock and 3 honest outcomes: improvement, redeployment, or exit. The Coasting Middle. The re-contract: 2 questions that separate coasting from people who chose steady on purpose. The Star Problem. A 4-question star audit, and the team invoice for the brilliant performer whose behavior has been granted a waiver. Then 3 for you: your own standard (what you state versus what you model), the gap read turned inward, and how your read of performance travels upward to the people who decide your next role. That includes the 3 altitude sentences your boss needs on the day your name comes up in a room you're not in. Start with the Gap Read, 12 true or false statements about 1 real person, to find which gap you are actually looking at. Then go straight to the practice that treats it. Every practice comes with coaching questions, a 48-hour experiment, and a 30-day build, because a performance problem named early is a conversation, and one named late is a file. The stories are drawn from coaching conversations. This is for the leader who would rather state the bar than deliver a verdict. Hold it on your stars. Hold it on yourself. Part of The Right Altitude Field Guide series: short, practical guides by executive coach Don Eash, MCC, ACTC.