One of your strongest people has gone quiet, and their work has visibly slipped over the past month. What do you do?

There's no procedure for this dilemma: move too fast and it reads as surveillance, wait and the slide compounds — and the wrong move of prying into someone's private life is temptingly close. It also works for candidates stepping into their first lead role, who have no management history to describe.

• What do you say in that first conversation, and where does it happen?
• They say everything's fine. Now what?
• What do you watch for afterward, and for how long?

The change raised early, privately, and factually — observations about the work, not theories about the person — an open door offered without prying into causes, support aimed at the work itself, and a follow-up planned rather than assumed.

Waiting for the next review cycle to mention it, opening with guesses about the person's private life, treating "everything's fine" as case closed, or reaching for formal warnings on a previously strong performer as the first move.