Dealing With Problem Personnel
A key to success is to surround yourself with people who are excellent – positive, supportive, intelligent, motivated, diligent – helping you achieve success. With this calibre of personnel it’s still a challenge to run a successful business, but without them, it’s really tough.
So why is it that whenever I meet a business owner
and ask about the people around them, they’re quick to talk about the ‘problem people’? The phrase that often springs to mind is “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know!”, meaning that this person’s bad, but a replacement could be even worse!
STOP
With thinking like that, you’re destined to be surrounded by problems and walking disasters.
In other articles I’ve discussed two related topics –
“You get what you tolerate” – highlighting that you really mustn’t tolerate bad behaviour or you’ll get more of it.
And
“Do your team really know what you want?” – stressing the need to give absolute clarity about what you want from your team, in terms of both actions and attitudes. They’re all about taking responsibility and understanding if maybe part of the problem is actually you and your management?
If you can’t change your team, you’ll need to change your team!
Confused?
The starting point with problem staff should always be an attempt to retrain them to think and act the way you need them to. I honestly believe that anyone can change IF they want to and if you’re willing to invest the time, energy and money. But unless the answer to both of those is a clear “yes”, then you need to go the other route to change them… meaning replace them with someone who does have the right attitude and behaviour.
I regularly see job descriptions that describe a team member’s responsibilities and even the required standards of work, but rarely do they include requirements about behaviour. I highly recommend including points such as:
“You will have a positive and supportive attitude toward the company, staff, customers and suppliers at all times”
Hold staff to this, don’t tolerate anything less.
If someone has a bad attitude, take them aside and ask them what their job description says about attitude? If they don’t know, give them another copy and ask them to read the sentence. Ask them what that would mean in practice? Ask them if they feel they’ve been demonstrating this? Keep asking questions, getting into specific examples if necessary, and ultimately make it clear that this IS the requirement to work in your business.
After a clear discussion like that, they should be in no doubt about what’s expected. If they walk away muttering and go and tell their co-workers what an idiot you are, take them aside again and address their attitude once again and, this time, you need to go down the disciplinary route.
Yes, seriously, you need to ensure team members have the right attitude and if they can’t or won’t adapt, they need to go. If you keep them, the bad attitude will spread, morale will be low, performance will be lower than it should be, your profits will be low, and you’ll probably hate going to work! The costs of tolerating poor attitude are high.
You do of course need to operate fairly and within the bounds of employment law. If you don’t have a qualified HR person to guide you, I highly recommend using an outsourced HR expert on a monthly retainer. They can help you get documentation in place. However, ensure that the wording is friendly, helpful, and includes attitude – not just legalistic jargon. Ensure there are “Rules of the game” for all the team members and put them on the wall.
If you can’t change your team, change your team.
