Explore before you prescribe: diagnose why the gap happened
The solution to a missed commitment depends entirely on what caused the miss — and you usually don’t know until you ask.
Key takeaways
- What it is: The solution to a missed commitment depends entirely on what caused the miss — and you usually don’t know until you ask.
- Why it works: VitalSmarts identifies six sources of influence that create performance gaps: motivation (do they want to?), ability (can they?), and structural factors at the personal, social, and organizational level. Most managers jump to motivation (assuming the person didn’t care) or prescribe training (assuming they lacked ability) without diagnosing which source actually created the gap. A solution mismatched to the cause produces no change.
- Evidence: Plausible mechanism, limited direct outcome data.
- Avoid: Moving directly from describing the gap to demanding commitment to change — without understanding the cause, the commitment will fail for the same reason the original commitment did.
Why it works
VitalSmarts identifies six sources of influence that create performance gaps: motivation (do they want to?), ability (can they?), and structural factors at the personal, social, and organizational level. Most managers jump to motivation (assuming the person didn’t care) or prescribe training (assuming they lacked ability) without diagnosing which source actually created the gap. A solution mismatched to the cause produces no change.
How to do it
- 1After describing the gap, ask: "Help me understand — what happened?"
- 2Listen for the source: is this a motivation issue, an ability issue, or a structural/resource issue?
- 3Ask clarifying questions: "Did you have what you needed?" "Was there something that got in the way you didn’t flag?"
- 4Only after you understand the cause should you discuss the solution.
What the evidence says
MechanisticMisattribution of performance gaps to motivation when the actual cause is situational or structural is well documented in attribution research and in process improvement frameworks (root cause analysis). Diagnosing before prescribing is the standard corrective.
Honest caveat: The six-source model is Crucial Accountability’s diagnostic framework, not a separately validated taxonomy. The principle — diagnose before prescribing — is broadly supported but the specific categories are the authors’ synthesis.
Common mistake
Moving directly from describing the gap to demanding commitment to change — without understanding the cause, the commitment will fail for the same reason the original commitment did.
IX Coach helps you work through the six-source diagnostic before a performance conversation, so you walk in with the right question ("What made this hard?") rather than the wrong prescription.
Practice this with IX Coach →