If you were under the impression that managing people is one of the easy parts of your job, you are totally mistaken. In real life, not everyone is dedicated, hard working, consistent in development, and not everyone exhibits immense talent. Surveys have revealed that these type of people are found in abundance in offices across the world.
Some employees take the most difficult forms, and are extremely hard to manage. So how will you manage such non-supportive, non-cooperative, non-talented, or in some cases, a non-collaborative employee??
This is how you should do it:
- Accept that the problems exist: Many managers keep themselves deliberately oblivious to the most important part of their job, that they have to ‘work hard’ towards people management, and that every employee is not cooperative. If you are in such a situation, don’t waste your time thinking that there is no such problem.
- Set clear job tasks with deadlines and targets: This is something that usually exists in many organizations as a mere piece of paper, which was circulated as a memo in the beginning of the year and resides in the top drawer/notice board of each employee and is very rarely followed. Make sure that your goal setting is precise, based on actual facts and non-theoretical information, with regular follow-up so that employees are following the KPIs fully with no gap. Ask as many questions as possible during the weekly/monthly/quarterly review meetings as its important for you to know of anything. If you are not aware of the situation, then you will not be able to handle conflicts when they arise.
- Conflict avoidance vs. Conflict Resolution: When an employee starts to cause problems, some managers tend to ignore them more often in order to avoid facing a conflicting situation. If you like an ideal life and hate conflicts, then management is not for you. Make sure that when a conflict reaches your desk, bring all the facts from both parties to the table, and decide accordingly. One-sided information is always deadly and does not support appropriate decision making. Listen to all the stake-holders and decide on the information you have received. Your decision should be clear and unbiased and should result in positivity across the team.
- Put yourself in the other’s shoes: Its easy to say, but the most difficult part to do. Try to sit on the other side of the table and see things from the ‘other’ perspective. You can also communicate with an employee who is aware of the situation, and whose judgment you trust, but it doesn’t mean you start doing what you are being told. Asking for opinions isn’t a sign of weakness, but shows that you trust your employees and you value their opinion.
- Asset or Liability: Ask yourself this very important question: Is this employee an asset or a liability? If he or she is an asset, keep that employee. If he’s a liability, let him go. But, what will you do in a situation when a problematic employee is adding value to the organization, or is at an important level that can’t be ignored? Usually, we come across brilliant people being very difficult to manage. This means they are problematic but they are assets. But the important point to be considered is the ‘weight’ of their disruptive behavior, because if it outweighs the accomplishments, then they are liabilities. This is not the only way to assess the importance, but it helps tremendously.
If you learn to use these approaches in your actions and behavior, then no matter how things end up, you will know that you have worked the best towards reaching that result and that your actions are based on the right approach and in light of all the information that you can have.
