The first time I inherited a team that was not performing, my first instinct was wrong.
I thought the problem was the people.
When you take over a team that is underperforming, the easy story is that you inherited the wrong people. Some leaders clean house, bring in their own, and call it a turnaround. Sometimes that is necessary. Most of the time it is the laziest possible diagnosis.
They were unclear, not incapable
Here is what I found when I actually looked. The team was not incapable. They were unclear.
Nobody had told them what good looked like. Nobody had given them the context to make decisions. Nobody had invested in their development in years.
They had been managed, but they had not been led.
Four separate questions
So I started with the questions I ask of every struggling team.
Do they know the standard? Do they have what they need to meet it? Have they been given the authority to act? And do they actually want to, or have they checked out?
The first three are the leader's job to fix. And when I fixed them, most of the team came back to life. People who looked like underperformers turned out to be capable professionals who had been operating in a vacuum.
Accountability comes after the investment
A few did not respond. After the investment was made and the path was clear, a small number still chose not to engage. That is when accountability has teeth.
But that decision came last, after I had done my job, not before.
When a team is struggling, look at the leadership before you look at the people. Most of the time, the gap you are seeing is a gap someone above them failed to close.