Unlocking High Standards: The Art of Guiding Underperformers in Product Management
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Complete interview transcript below
INTERVIEWER
OK, next question. Um, So this is about you as a team leader. And what I'm specifically trying to understand is how you set performance targets for your team, right? How do you prioritize what work And, and what is the process for working through this with your team members?
CANDIDATE
OK. Uh, this process is really connected to the business strategy. Uh, here in the company where I work, we use ORs. So on a yearly basis, Uh, we have this, this budgeting and, and yearly planning, and during this process, we set some strategic objectives, some tactical objectives. Uh, I give them some sort of direction, uh, and this direction is usually connected to, uh, bigger level, uh, goals and objectives of the company that comes from the management team, uh, which is the C-level here. And, and also it's like, it's a top-down and also bottom up process. So once uh we have this, this direction, I ask also the team in order to them uh to bring the opportunities, the challenges that they have, what are the problems that they need to tackle, and With this, we define these, these strategic objectives in the in the ORs also on a quarterly basis. So for each product manager, he is responsible for, for leading the, the quad and also ensuring that these, these ORs are being uh followed up with. We track them on a weekly basis. So we have KPIs, uh, at least one KPI for each objective, no more than 3 because it would be a mess, and yeah, basically that.
INTERVIEWER
And so how do you handle underperforming team members?
CANDIDATE
Mhm. Yeah, this is, is something that is happening now. Uh. Uh, I, I'm reflecting a lot about that, and Basically, uh, my job role here is to give them feedback. I'm now involving the HR business partner, so, uh, I have the support from HR. And, and I always try to, to give them feedback to Ask, uh, for, for the reasons why they are, uh, underperforming, if they are struggling with something, if, if they need some help. In this specific case, uh, the person has issues with prioritization, so, uh, she's trying to, uh, hug the whole world, uh, and she's like leading 57 initiatives at the same time, so it's not, just not working. And my role here is to give her feedback and, and help her choose. I, I don't want uh me specifically to choose, OK, you need to do that and only that, I'm trying to uh force the person to To discover that and to, and to learn this, this ability from herself, but I'm in the point on which I, I, I'm, I need to To do this, this sort of activity.
INTERVIEWER
And so what is an acceptable amount of time? To allow somebody on your team. To be failing, effectively failing, before you step in, right, before you take those HR steps.
CANDIDATE
Mhm. Well, uh, in this case, it, it was like, uh, Around one choir. Uh, because this person was recently promoted,
INTERVIEWER
uh, uh, well, no, hold on, I, I wanna be, I, I wanna speak in more, uh, broad case, not this specific person, but in general. How do you think about this problem with, with team members, not just this specific person?
CANDIDATE
Mhm. Yeah, well, from my, my past experiences, uh, and, and also in this case, I think that As fast as I, as I can do that is the better for the team because, uh, usually one person can, uh, Demotivate the, the rest of the team. But usually, uh, I'm not, uh, I'm not that fast on this, on this process. I, I, I try to give the person space and I try to understand their motives. Uh, and I, I tend to, to take a while to take, uh, one quarter, which is the, the period that we have also the OCR, so it's a way to, to see if the, uh, the person is delivering or not. OK.