Cognitive Bias And Why Performance Management is So Hard

• Unclear expectations: Your colleague does not know what is expected of them. Maybe their manager (you?) hasn’t set expectations for them clearly, or a team-mate has not clarified that they are blocked on their work or harmed by their quality of work.
• Lack of skill: Your colleague does not know how to perform the tasks expected of them.
• Lack of will: Your colleague is not motivated or interested in doing those tasks (they lack understanding or agreement of why they should be doing those tasks).

When a person is not doing his job, there can only be two reasons for it. The person either can’t do it or won’t do it; he is either not capable or not motivated.

When a person fails to begin a project that they care about, it’s typically due to either a) anxiety about their attempts not being “good enough” or b) confusion about what the first steps of the task are. Not laziness. In fact, procrastination is more likely when the task is meaningful and the individual cares about doing it well.