|
Most experienced
human-resources professionals accept the wisdom of the
85-15 rule: 85 percent of a manager’s effort is spent
dealing with 15 percent of the people. This article
focuses on how to deal successfully with the most
problematic of those people — the “bad apples” who
make worklife miserable for those around them. We’ll
call them SOPs: Sources of Pain.
SOPs can be found in
every industry and profession. Above us in the pecking
order may be the manager who isn’t doing his or her
job, but wants to tell us how to do ours. Next to us is
the SOP co-worker who refuses to cooperate, understand
or even try. And below us may be one or more whining
SOPs who can’t seem to accomplish even the simplest
task without hand-holding. SOPs can also be outsiders
— customers or suppliers.
Assume for now — as
managers occasionally must — that you can’t afford
to quit if you’re working under an SOP; that you can’t
get a transfer if you’re working next to an SOP; and
that, for fear of legal action or other reasons, you can’t
summarily fire an SOP working for you.
Perhaps no “paper
trail” yet exists to document the person’s poor
performance. Worse, a handful of neutral or mildly
positive evaluations may already be on file — the kind
of evaluations you may have written in a hurry to avoid
hassles and hurt feelings. These documents can be
important evidence of wrongful termination in legal
action against you if your SOP is fired with undue
haste.
In short, you have to
cope with your bad apple for the time being. How can you
make the best of it, for yourself and your company or
practice?
We must take
responsibility for the subtle and not-so-subtle ways in
which we aggravate an already bad situation.
Consider, for example,
how we usually picture the workplace drama of
personalities. The majority of us, the “good guys,”
get along well — a happy family. The bad apple, as the
social outcast, is seen an an aggressor who threatens
the relatively passive majority, the “victims” of
his or her misdeeds.
We communicate this
interpretation of the bad apple in the very language we
use to describe him or her: “He makes me so mad.”
“She drives me crazy.” “He ruins my whole day.”
But that interpretation
of the bad apple at work overlooks the rest of the
story. What are members of the Happy Family doing in
response to the actions and attitudes of the bad apple?
The usual answer is falsely innocent: “We didn’t do
anything to him. We were just minding our own business.”
In fact, the drama of
conflict between a bad apple and surrounding workers
involves both attack and counter-attack. Understanding
what we do to the bad apples in our midst is the first
step in learning to how to deal with them successfully.
Natural Reaction 1:
We vilify the bad apple. We strip him or her of
virtually all positive attributes. The co-worker who
nettles us is reduced to “that idiot — he’s
completely useless!” The boss who crosses us suddenly
becomes “a jerk who always plays favorites.” We’re
blinded to any redeeming qualities in the bad apple by
the glare of hurt and anger. In so doing, we virtually
guarantee that a bad situation will grow worse.
Natural Reaction 2:
We defame the bad apple. Having stripped the problem
employee of all positive qualities, we commit further
interpersonal aggression by building consensus against
the individual. Over coffee or lunch we tell and re-tell
our grievances to all who will hear. We inquire about
their experiences with the bad apple — we want to hear
“the dirt.” We dredge up past events, sometimes
rewriting history to put him or her in as unfavorable a
light as possible.
The net result of this
group groan, unfortunately, is to blind us further. We
become more convinced than ever of the justice and
wisdom of our strong emotional reactions. How could we
be wrong when so many co-workers support our outrage?
Defaming the bad apple
clouds our judgment and objectivity. Urged on by the
cheerleaders we’ve invited to join our cause, we take
unconsidered and unwise actions against the bad apple
— actions that often cost us dearly in productivity,
emotional wear and tear, employee morale and even legal
entanglement.
Natural Reaction 3:
We explain the bad apple. Faced with increasing
interpersonal conflict, we tend to ascribe motives to
the bad apple. Interestingly, we never ascribe
reasonable or well-intentioned motives; instead, we heap
on any explanations that make the bad apple appear as
narrow, self-seeking, vengeful or stupid as possible.
By creating our
explanations regarding why the bad apple behaves as he
or she does — and getting others to believe them —
we too easily fashion a monster from the cloth of our
own emotional baggage. It’s more helpful, and
certainly more strategic, to begin with a blank slate in
interpreting conflict with a bad apple in our
organization. There’s solid wisdom for a manager in
saying from the outset, “I don’t know why he’s
acting this way.”
That stance leaves you
the flexibility to take an obvious — but often
overlooked step: to ask the bad apple what motivates his
or her actions. Chances are at least 50/50 that the
problem employee will tell you his or her side of the
story. Under-standing that background, you will be in a
much better position as a manager to respond rationally,
carefully and perhaps even sympathetically.
By avoiding the three
natural reactions described above, you leave open the
possibility of frank communication with the bad apple.
But how do such
problem-solving conversations begin? The following “ice-breakers”
have proven successful for many managers eager to
resolve rather than to fuel conflict:
“Let’s not play the
blame game. Tell me how you see the problem.”
“I want to know your
feelings about the situation and how you think we can
get back on track.”
“I’m not asking for
an apology. I do want to understand where you’re
coming from.”
“In your view, what
can I do to help resolve the problem? What can you do?”
These or similar
conversation-starters move the focus away from
accusation and toward honest disclosure and
solution-seeking.
Finally, a manager who
wants to cope successfully with a bad apple in the
organization can achieve impressive results by reversing
the three natural reactions described above.
-
Instead
of stripping the bad apple of all redeeming
attributes, try to find positive characteristics or
behaviors and build upon them.
-
Instead
of defaming the bad apple, mention something that he
or she contributes to the organization — and make
sure that the bad apple hears about it.
-
And
instead of explaining the motives of the bad apple
in a negative light, withhold judgment until you’ve
had a chance to hear all sides of the story.
The old cliche has it
that one bad apple ruins the barrel. For the sake of
organization if not the individual problem employee, it’s
in every manager’s interest to deal with bad apples as
calmly, humanely and strategically as possible.
|
