Your team is facing performance gaps due to external factors. How can you support them effectively?

1. Open Communication: Regular check-ins - understand team challenges/concerns. 2.Identify External Factors: Clearly define/document external factors affecting performance. 3. Provide Resources: provide additional resources/support. 4. Adjust Expectations: Re-evaluate /adjust performance goals/expectations . 5. Foster Resilience: Encourage growth mindset/resilience . 6. Offer Support and Flexibility: Be flexible with deadlines/work arrangements . 7. Collaborate on Solutions: Involve team in brainstorming and problem-solving. 8. Recognize and Celebrate Efforts: Acknowledge hard work and effort . 9. Strategic Planning: Work on contingency plans and strategies 10. Maintain Transparency: Keep team informed ref changes /development .

In India, external factors such as the Monsoon rains, religious festivals, political rallies and so forth have a large impact on the performance of employees. As a manager you need to assess the extent of impact such factors have on your team's performance. And sometimes you need to adapt and adjust performance goals to suit these external factors. These changes will not result in watered-down performance goals, but in adapting or moving the goals a bit to enable the employees reach them. The above is a tricky operation, but it demonstrates to the employees the extent you would go to adapt it for employees' benefit, resulting in their feelings of trust for you. Channels of communication will be both ways, enabling perspective exchange.

It is very important to know external factors that affects the team performance can be assessed within the control of the team or beyond the control of the team. But these vary from organization to organization. For example; 1. A team that is very poor in customer handling will cause a significant decline in sales which directly affects the team performance. Decline of customers could be considered as external factor but the cause is the team itself. 2. Inflation, political situations, lack of raw materials … could be external factors considered as cause for the team performance gap. These are beyond their control.

In adopting goals involving the team in the process is not only enough, there should be a culture of coming up with a solution. Such culture will empower the lower level employees to think thoroughly for any challenge they face and come up with optional solutions. As a team that directly faces the factors that challenges performance, the solution should be also expected from the same team before it goes to the supervisor. while adapting the goal the team contribution would be significant.

Support in Well-being should should be considered as a matter of standard. It shouldn't be remedy rather as prevention from low performance is happening. But for this specific case besides support well-being addressing the right cause of the challenge should be considered if it is other than the team soft skill. If it is due to lack of other provision, it is also important to consider.