If your team is struggling, it's easy to assume that it's because they're being lazy. 

And sometimes that may be true. (I have worked with and supervised a few lazy people in my career!) But what if the issue isn't laziness? What if it's capacity?

Your team may care. They may be trying. They may understand the assignment. The problem may be that their capacity is simply leaking out. 

Think about an average day on-site for many... an upset resident comes in demanding to speak to someone, Amazon delivered packages to all the wrong apartments and your residents are mad at you, a supplier calls the office asking why their invoice hasn't been processed yet, a report that the team forgot about it due, a regional wants answers, and the coffee maching stopped working. 

By itself, none of those things may be a huge deal. But together... it starts to feel like a lot. And that's when performance slips, morale dips, and even amazing people check out. 

Of course, I'm not excusing poor performance, nor am I making the case that you should as well. Accountability and results matter. But, if you misdiagnose a capacity problem as a character problem, you may respond in a way that makes everyone try harder for awhile, but eventually causes more problems in the long run. 

If the team is still leaking capacity, the same stuff will show up again and again and again.

Capacity is not just about how many tours they can do in a day. Or how many turns they can do in a week. Or how many follow up emails they can send by the end of the day. It's also about how much energy, attention and focus they have to do (well) what they have to do.  

That is why capacity is a leadership issue. So many leaders ask, "Why aren't they getting it done?" When the better question may be, "What's preventing them from doing the right things well?"

That reframed question may unlock exactly what you need to know. 

If your team is struggling, don't ignore it. Don't placate poor performance. Don't lower the standards because you know your people are busy.

But before you assume the team simply needs to care more, get curious. What might be draining their capacity to succeed? And what can we do about it?

That's the kind of leadership we need more of in the workplace today... and it's the kind of leadership that works.