Oh boy. Bit of overgeneralizing in that article. First, if you have direct reports, especially if they are mangers, odds-are that you don't have a team. You ar

Oh boy. Bit of overgeneralizing in that article. First, if you have direct reports, especially if they are mangers, odds-are that you don't have a team. You are a middle manager. I conclude you're not a team because you're having special meetings to communicate, instead of letting communication happen organically (because you are already working informally in close physical proximity) In this case, if you don't have a team, you need one. So follow all that advice in the article. Plus there's a bunch more advice about creating a team that you should find and follow. But if you have a team, you need to separate two things: the failed promise of performance from one of your team members, and the underlying reasons this might be happening. You should absolutely hold people publicly accountable for the things they have committed to doing. Invite the team as a whole to own the problem instead of just one person. Many heads are better than one. The team is a tremendously-powerful problem-solving machine. Give them this problem to see what they can come up with. However -- and this is a big caveat -- people might be missing commitments for reasons they do not want to share publicly. They may have a health problem. They may be having domestic problems in their marriage. They may have a private issue which prevents them from doing well in a certain type of work. In this case, after publicly acknowledging that there is a performance problem with the team (which should probably happen on a continuous basis until the team either adapts or it gets fixed) you absolutely should comfort and counsel your friend offline in these other areas, assuming your conversation is welcome. And this counseling will probably consist of reminding your friend that either this obstacle is overcome or their relationship with the team could terminate.