How do you know if your team is underperforming, and what steps do you take to address it?
Why This Is Asked
Interviewers want to see that you can diagnose performance issues early and take constructive action. They're assessing your ability to distinguish between systemic problems (process, resourcing, clarity) and individual issues—and to intervene without blame or panic.
Key Points to Cover
- Early warning signs you watch for (delivery slippage, quality issues, morale, attrition)
- How you diagnose root causes before jumping to solutions
- A structured approach to improvement (not just "work harder")
- How you involve the team in the solution rather than imposing fixes
STAR Method Answer Template
Describe the context - what was happening, what team/company, what was at stake
What was your specific responsibility or challenge?
What specific steps did you take? Be detailed about YOUR actions
What was the outcome? Use metrics where possible. What did you learn?
💡 Tips
- Give a concrete example of a team you helped turn around
- Show that you consider external factors (dependencies, scope changes) before blaming the team
- Emphasize psychological safety—people need to feel safe to surface problems early
✍️ Example Response
STAR formatSituation: I inherited a team of 10 at a large enterprise. Delivery had slipped for three quarters—they were missing 40% of committed dates. Morale was low, and two engineers had left. Leadership was frustrated and considering restructuring.
Task: I needed to diagnose root causes and turn the team around without blaming individuals or imposing top-down fixes.
Action: I started with listening. I ran 1:1s with every team member and stakeholders to understand what was going on. I found three issues: unclear priorities from product, constant context-switching across five projects, and a brittle legacy codebase causing rework. I created a simple diagnostic dashboard—cycle time by project, scope change frequency, and dependency wait time—and shared it with leadership. I negotiated with product to reduce active projects from five to two and introduced two-week sprints with a strict "no new work mid-sprint" rule. I also ran blameless retrospectives to surface process issues. I involved the team in designing the new workflow rather than imposing it.
Result: Within two quarters, on-time delivery improved from 60% to 88%. Voluntary attrition stopped. I learned that underperformance is usually systemic—check dependencies, clarity, and resourcing before assuming it's the people.
🏢 Companies Known to Ask This
| Company | Variation / Focus |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Deliver Results, Dive Deep — "Tell me about a time your team underperformed" |
| Navigating ambiguity, problem-solving under pressure | |
| Meta | Impact at scale, hard calls, execution |
| Microsoft | Execution under pressure, growth mindset |
| Netflix | High performance, accountability |
| Uber | Ownership, moving fast, building for scale |