If you can look at your smartest employees and see that they are not performing as expected, it is time to ask some questions – of yourself and your organization.

Most smart employees who don’t perform do so because they don’t want to.  So why don’t they want to and what can you do about it?

Does your organization value their employees’ suggestions? 

Are new ideas or processes encouraged, supported and ultimately executed?  Is the company culture inspiring?  For smart employees this is very important.  If they don’t feel they work in an environment that genuinely values their input or if they don’t have the ability to demonstrate what they can bring to the table, why bother going above and beyond?  Maybe it’s time reassess the corporate values and reward employees accordingly.

Do your employees have good managers? 

I posted recently about how people quit managers, not companies.  Do the managers share the vision and values of the organization or are they worried about their own agenda (such as a fear of being overshadowed by their team?)  Do the managers take accountability for the performance of their teams?  Are the managers full of negative feedback, provide lower than expected performance reviews, and exclude their teams in decisions or processes?  All of these will play a role in how a smart employee performs.  Maybe it’s time to take a close look at your management team.

Do you count on the smart ones too much? 

Sometimes it is difficult to get away from but when you have a lot of faith in one employee, don’t you tend to go to them for everything?  How does this affect their ability to perform?  When does he/she just have too much work to do?  A huge workload can be very de-motivating if it becomes too difficult to manage.  Combine that with little feedback and no stated upward mobility path and you’ve got a deadly combination.  Be aware that there is a line between feeling valued and feeling taken advantage of.

Are they really underperforming? 

According to who?  Could it be that your expectations were too high because you recognize how smart they are and you subconsciously expect bigger things from them?  If so, you can focus on inspiring them and they will surpass even your expectations.

As always, the best thing to do is communicate.  Think these things through and before deciding you know what the problem is, make a point to sit down and ask.  It could be that none of the above is true and the employee is going through a rough time personally.  Maybe you can offer solutions that will help, like temporarily letting he/she work from home.  Investing time into the thought process and creating time to talk one on one will go a long way toward a better performance.  Maybe you can’t offer the solution, but exhibiting a concern toward trying can often be just as good.