For any business people are the most crucial factor between success and failure. All the fancy technology in the world is useless if nobody knows how to operate it and those all important decisions are still, by and large, taken by subjective humans rather than objective supercomputers. People are what make businesses unique, unpredictable and exciting; they elicit change and development in a way that cold, impersonal machinery never could.

Given the importance of people within the corporate world it is equally important to know how to get the best out of them. Everybody has different skills and just because two people have the same job description it does not mean that they will approach their tasks in the same way. We are all human and we all have strengths and weaknesses; the trick is finding out how to play to everybody's strengths and limit their weaknesses so that they do not adversely affect business.

Managers tend to address the performance of their staff in workplace appraisals and reviews which can be stiff, formal discussions looking at performance over a significant period of time. Whilst these appraisals have their place they cannot look as deeply into day to day performance issues as other forms of performance management can.

If there is a significant performance issue amongst at least one member of your team then do not wait until their appraisal to address it. By this time their poor performance may have negatively impacted on the project in hand and caused considerable problems.

The first thing that any good manager should do is question why it is that the individual is not performing to the expected standard. In many cases the reason will simply be that the person is unaware of these standards or assumes that they are meeting them adequately. In a lot of instances clarifying what is expected of this employee will resolve the performance issues that are causing difficulties.

As well as confusion over expectations a common response from under-performing employees will be that they are lacking in a crucial area of support. Susan Heathfield identifies three 'T's that can hamper and frustrate individuals and prevent them from achieving their maximum potential. They are tools, training and time, and they are all issues which it is up to the manager to address and improve if necessary.

If the individual feels that they have not been given adequate training to fulfil their job role or that they do not have the required resources to hand to accomplish their tasks then every effort must be made to provide them with these opportunities for the sake of morale as well as performance. Similarly if the employee feels that unrealistic time scales are diluting their ability to do a good job then the manager must take this into account and review with the employee what they feel would constitute a more sensible time frame.

Of course not all performance management issues can be resolved in this manner but it is surprising how often the manager neglects to ask even the most basic of questions.