Fixing Underperforming Teams
Help users identify why a team is struggling and implement a structured recovery plan...
Install
npx skills add RefoundAI/lenny-skills --skill fixing-underperforming-teams -g -a claude-code -y- Repository
- RefoundAI/lenny-skills1.5k
- Category
- Engineering
- Updated
- 4mo ago
- License
- MIT
- Context cost
- Mediumabout 1,644 tokens
- Runs scripts
- No, instructions only
What it does
Help users identify why a team is struggling and implement a structured recovery plan by addressing leadership gaps, individual performance, and structural misalignments.
Fixing Underperforming Teams
Diagnose the root cause of dysfunction and take decisive action to restore high performance.
Help the user with fixing underperforming teams using insights from 12 guests and posts across Lenny's Podcast and Newsletter.
How to Help
- Diagnose the source - Help the user distinguish between leadership failure, skill gaps, or structural strategy issues.
- Identify complicity - Guide the leader in reflecting on how their own patterns are contributing to the team struggles.
- Draft an action plan - Structure a sequence of interventions ranging from process changes to talent decisions.
- Prepare for hard conversations - Provide scripts and frameworks for delivering direct feedback or handling terminations.
Core Principles
Apply the Enthusiastic Rehire Test
Uri Levine: "Every time that you hire someone new, mark your calendars for 30 days down the road and ask yourself one question, knowing what I know today, would I hire this person? If the answer is no, fire them immediately."
Regularly ask if you would still hire an individual today knowing what you know now. Admitting a hiring mistake early prevents cultural decay.
Distinguish Skill from Will
Anuj Rathi: "There are only three reasons why things do not happen the way you want them to happen as a leader. You can look at a person, and you would say either that person can't do, which is a capability issue, or they won't do, which is a motivation or an alignment issue, or they were not set up to do, which is really your problem that you didn't set up the ways of working now design properly."
Systematically determine if underperformance is a lack of ability (can't do) or a lack of motivation (won't do). This determines whether to coach or move the person.
