Leading your team, your peers and even your family to bleak performance is easy! See for yourself with these 5 ways to ensure bleak performance.

Bleak Performance Tip 1: Cancel Approved Vacation

This approach has been used successfully for decades. The setup is that you, the manager, approves a vacation request. Sometime before the vacation start date you realize that the situation at work is desperate.  If you don’t have the person you approved vacation for, why, everything might go totally wrong! You may be blamed for not hitting a deadline. Or there may be some issue that goes unsolved until your valuable team member is back.

What other option do you have? Of course you need to cancel the approved vacation. If it’s a really big trip, say, a vacation in Hawaii in winter when you live in a cold climate, then make sure you offer to buy the airline tickets and let them know they can reschedule “anytime.”

This has proven to be an effective approach to ensuring bleak performance.

Bleak Performance Tip 2: Take over that meeting!

Another favorite among those who have mastered cultivating bleak performance. Give your team member responsibility for something. When they call a meeting to give status, or talk though an issue, step in! In fact, don’t just step in, take over the entire meeting! You’re the one who knows the best approach and the best solution, so what’s the downside? Plus, your team member can learn from the best – you!

Bleak Performance Tip 3: Change things without telling anyone

This is also a top-rated choice for ensuring bleak performance. This works if you are a peer or a manager. Observe when someone is responsible for something. Then, change things up without telling them. If you’re a manager, this works well if you reassign the people working on the project, or you reprioritize requirements. If you’re a peer, start working on something different or take an approach you never discussed. Whatever you do, don’t communicate when things change! Lack of communication is the key to bleak performance in this case.

Bleak Performance Tip 4: Make the rules (don’t follow them)

If you’re in a position to influence and create process, then this approach to bleak performance is perfect for you! Create a process and declare that everyone must follow it. Of course by “everyone” you don’t mean yourself. Afterall, you don’t really need process to keep everything organized, communicated and in sync do you?

Bleak Performance Tip 5: Let your passive-aggressiveness shine!

This is super effective for a flourishing culture of bleak performance. Don’t like the way someone approached solving a problem? Don’t talk to them about it – ignore them instead! If you can pretend they don’t exist, even better. Someone give you feedback you didn’t see any truth in or appreciate? Why not withhold needed information from them so they have little chance at being successful in their role? This approach takes a bit of patience but if it’s bleak performance you’re looking for, this is a doozy.

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  • If you’ve ever caught yourself doing any of these, know there’s a better way! You can learn the skills to overcome any tendencies we have to behave in a way that encourages bleak performance.
  • Stay tuned for next week’s article where we’ll discuss 5 Ways to Ensure Peak Performance.