Thoughts Unlocked – Underperformance Might Have Nothing To Do With Underperforming

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Welcome to Thoughts Unlocked, where we decode what’s really holding your team back, and I’m going to give you some keys to help fix those things. This idea I wanted to tackle today was about underperformance. And I want to help you realize that it’s not always about skill. It’s about connection. Let that sink in for just a moment. It’s not about skill. It’s about connection. Because while you’re off looking for the right tool, the right magical program or just offer another training. The real issue here could possibly be that your team just doesn’t feel like a team.

So, let’s unpack that for just a second.

1. I wanna get to this idea that disconnection, it drains performance.

Lonely employees aren’t just bummed out, they’re burned out. According to Cigna, 58% of employees feel lonely at work, at least once a week.

That’s kinda not just sad, but it’s also expensive. I mean, it’s really sad. Six out of 10 people feel lonely at least once a week. Anyway, put your arm around that person. Lonely people are five times more likely to miss work due to stress. Did you hear that? Five times more likely to miss work due to stress, more prone to check out emotionally, and less likely to speak up when it really, really matters. And that means… feedback disappears, silos get stronger, morale tanks. If your team looks like they’re coasting or clashing, might be that social isolation is happening. They might just be lonely. It might not just be like, that person just has such a bad attitude. No, no, it might just be social isolation.

2. Connection. It builds trust, my friends.

Google did this project. They had this project called Project Aristotle. And, if you haven’t looked it up, look it up right now. They found that the number one indicator of a high performing team was, drum roll please, psychological safety. Are any of you surprised by that? Probably not. Teams usually aren’t when I say that. It’s not intelligence, it’s not experience, it is psychological safety. It’s not how to make spreadsheets the best and the fastest. No, no, no, it’s psychological safety.

And what drives that safety, you ask? Well, foundation of good communication, trust, belonging, connection, those types of things. When people feel connected, they’re gonna take more risks. They’re gonna speak up. They’re gonna be more honest. They’re gonna collaborate deeper. Disconnected teams, they don’t wanna rock the boat. They just wanna protect themselves. And that’s when innovation flatlines. That’s when psychological safety is not present and we just kinda like, mind our own business, silos, turf wars, finger pointing, all that stuff.

3. Motivation. It’s relational.

According to another theory, I love bringing up different theories, self-determination theory. One of the three core drivers of motivation is relatedness, feeling connected to others. It’s not pay, it’s not praise, it’s connection.

Some you are like, just give me more money. Some of you are like, just write a nice letter to me. Let’s just connect better. Peer camaraderie, according to the total motivation framework, if you haven’t read that book, you should check out that book. That one is awesome. It’s one of the top intrinsic motivators at work. So, when a team feels flat, maybe don’t jump to incentives or accountability charts. Ask yourself, do these people, do they even like each other? Because people show up
for people, not just policies.

People show up for people. I’m willing to jump in the trenches and fight for you because I trust you and you trust me and we’re in this together.

4. Emotional tone is contagious.

Every time, everybody has this emotional thermostat and disconnected people, well, they usually run a little bit colder. Cynicism.

It spreads faster than clarity. You ever notice that? Next time you’re in a cynical environment, think about last time somebody was clear with you and how easy that was to hear versus the cynicism. But when your team feels connected, they bounce back a lot quicker. They forgive faster. They recalibrate better. Momentum is emotional and you can’t spread your way, spreadsheet your way into that. You cannot spreadsheet your way into it. Momentum is emotional. So, what do we do about this?

Here’s some ways to turn that connection from theory into practice.

#1. Open with a real check-in. Ask how people are doing, not just what they’re doing.

Yes, it’s called small talk. Yes, it’s like checking the weather and seeing how their family is and they’re looking at some dog pictures, maybe, I know, I don’t like looking at dog pictures either, but maybe that’s what it takes to connect with some people. Check in with them. How are they doing? Because here’s my thing, y’all, work and life, they don’t separate easily. One brings the other into their world, into their sphere.

#2. Make gratitude a team habit.

End the week with shout outs, maybe for some other teams that helped. I used to have this thing I did called “Win of the Week”. It was on our Slack channel, #WinOfTheWeek. And I would take time to celebrate something that had happened that week. So make gratitude an expectation, a value, a thing that we just do. It’s just part of our culture, just what we do.

#3. I want you to ask better questions.

Try this one. What do you wish people understood about your job right now?

I’m telling you, my friends, will be blown away, I think, by some of the things that people say when you ask that question. What do you wish people understood about your job right now? Because oftentimes, that’s a thing. We just feel misunderstood. Nobody gets me. Nobody understands what I go through. Nobody understands the struggles I’m having right now or how hard this program is to use or that this team member is hard to work with or whatever. What do you wish people understood about your job right now?

And then the last one….

#4. I want you to use tools like, Hello, 5 Voices or StrengthsFinder or MBTI or I’m gonna just throw all the competitors of disc or whatever you’re using, use it.

Yes. Some people say, I don’t want to use any of those things. I don’t want to put anybody in a box or you can’t put me in a box. Don’t put labels on me. Here’s the thing y’all. I don’t use them as a way to put you in a box. The 5 Voices is a way that we can give context and some understanding to how we operate, what we do and why we do it. And based on nature and nurture choice, how can we use those things to shape the way we communicate intentionally with others?

To build more trust, to build more psychological safety, to help us understand a little bit more about where each other are coming from, to help build empathy. Empathy precedes action. So, I want you to think about how do we do that?

If you all want to talk about the 5 Voices, let me know. It’s a very simple, sticky solution to understanding your colleagues and how you’re working. This isn’t just fluffy stuff, y’all. It’s performance infrastructure. Yeah, I’m gonna call it that. Performance infrastructure, the fluffy stuff.

This is the hard stuff. We talk about hard skills and soft skills. The hard skills are the job stuff, the building spreadsheets, the soft skills are talking to people. But you know what? This is the hard stuff. The people, that’s the hard stuff. Let’s keep talking about it and keep working on it.

You might think you have a performance problem, but most of the time, it’s not that your people can’t do their job. It’s that they don’t feel seen or known or connected to anybody. Let’s fix that. And in a virtual workplace, it’s even more important that we do that. Performance, the performance will take care of itself. We help people feel connected, involved, heard. We build psychological safety. We’ll start to be challenged a bit more and we’ll start to raise the roof, raise our expectations and increase hope in what we do.

So, here’s your challenge. Pick one person on your team and I want you to check in. Not about tasks, but about them. Some of you are really good at this. Some of you, you know who you are. You’re not so good at this.

Connection starts with curiosity. So let’s go be curious.

Thanks for listening to another episode of Thoughts Unlocked. Share this one with a leader who’s trying to figure out why their team is stuck. And remember, connection, it’s not extra, it’s essential.