(first in a series titled Issues Managers Face in the Workplace)

If you have ever managed people, a project team, even a monthly birthday event planning committee, you most likely had to deal with a problem employee. The one who habitually shows up late, misses key deadlines, ignores emails, disrupts meetings, spreads productivity-reducing rumors – you get the idea.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

The first action you need to take is deciding if there is a problem at all. Ask yourself these questions:

  1. How did I get this information? Observation? From a colleague? Another employee? A customer?
  2. How credible is the source?
  3. Is this a routine occurrence or isolated incident?

Notice there is not an option to ignore the problem. Yes, you are a busy manager. These difficult workplace situations are part of the manager job description, near the bottom, right before “all other duties as assigned.”

STANCE OF CURIOSITY

How you approach the issue with your employee is critical. You do have options.

  1. Come down hard on the employee, accuse them of subterfuge, and scare them straight
  2. Ignore the issue and maybe it will go away
  3. Find out more information by asking some questions

I am sure you are familiar with the first two options. What about the third? Taking a stance of curiosity will allow you to uncover the intent and motivation behind the behavior. There are typically more than two sides to every story. Everybody makes mistakes. Even executives like Stanley Bing! At least he admits to them. Keeping curious until you have enough information to make a decision is important. Managing people is not a popularity contest. It is a respect contest. You need to respect your team, and they should be able to respect you.

I AM NOT CONVINCED

Ok, you find out you do have a problem with one of your people. Time to have a chat with them. If this is a first time incident, don’t make too big of a deal out of the meeting.

  1. In private, in your office
  2. No, you most likely do not need HR with you (though if the problem becomes habitual, you may)
  3. Start off with something like, “Help me understand…”
    1. “Help me understand why you haven’t checked email in three days.”
    2. “Help me understand why ABC customer is so upset with the service you recently provided.”
    3. “Help me understand why you didn’t let anyone else give input at the last design meeting.”
  4. Listen and do not roll your eyes, sigh or otherwise appear anything but 100% intent on listening to their side of the story
  5. Review what you think you heard by restating it back to your employee
  6. Discuss the outcome of what happened due to the employee’s actions
  7. Ask their help in how best to remedy the situation

FOLLOW UP

Once you have completed your meeting and gone back to work, be sure to follow up with your employee.

  1. Let them know when you have noticed a positive change in their behavior
  2. Ensure others that brought the issue to your attention know that you are working to fix the problem
  3. Do not hold the issue against the employee – this is hard – but lose the bias

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Want more on how to handle conflicts in the workplace? Check out this post from Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace!

Read more on setting up your team for success (and thus avoiding a lot of unnecessary conflict) in this post from lifehack.org!

Joe Raasch :: Dec.18.2007 :: Change Management, Leadership, Performance Management :: 7 Comments »