"Learn how to lead your unleadable employees"/ "My employee often takes disruptive breaks"

Feb. 27, 2017 "Learn how to lead your unleadable employees": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:

As Alan Willett has counselled executives over the years, he has become fascinated by the challenge of leading the unleadable. Every workplace has mavericks, cynics, divas and other difficult people. Those folks usually have strengths that even the bosses they rankle can acknowledge. Unfortunately, often they go too far, like the diva so concerned about his project he won’t allow any tweaks.

“The unleadable have the good of the group in mind. 

The maverick wants to make the group better.

 But they step on toes and hurt morale. They need guidance to help them get others to get excited about the maverick’s goals,” the Ithaca, N.Y., consultant says in an interview.

Guidance is a manager’s role. And it may be you have to guide them right out the door; indeed, one of the best features of his book, Leading the Unleadable, is the table he uses to help the executives he works with decide whether to remove or improve an individual.

 At the same time, he feels you should “learn to love the challenge of transforming the troublesome to tremendous.”

That may start with working on yourself, changing your mindset. He stresses that if there’s a problem with a staff member, it’s your fault (even if it’s not your fault). By that, he means you need to accept that you are managing the individual and any trouble is your responsibility to solve, even if you just became the boss a day or two ago.

He urges you to appreciate the diversity of every leaf. You need a range of people who look at things from different angles. As well, start with the belief that everyone has good intentions. 

The mavericks, cynics and divas aren’t out to sink you; they just see another path to improving the organization.

Over the years, he has not found one person trying to hurt the leader or the group: “They were trying to help, but needed a translator to help them communicate their ideas and be effective.”

If that sounds Pollyannaish, he stresses the importance of setting a high bar for excellence those people are expected to meet. That actually helps to prevent problems. They know what’s acceptable and what’s not. 

Treat trouble as information-rich data you can act on.

When weighing whether to remove or improve, use these six criterion he highlights:

The person’s ability to take feedback and improve.

Is the person well loved? (Sometimes such individuals have a huge following, sometimes a limited but fervent base of fans, and sometimes they are loathed by everyone.)

What are his or her collaboration skills?

How does the individual’s skills and experience fit with current needs?

How do those skills and experience fit with future needs?

 If the person is removed, how difficult will it be to acquire the skills you need in the time frame it will take to hire?

Put those elements on a spreadsheet-like grid beside cells marked from minus two to plus two, the ratings you can assign for each criteria.

He says most of the time it will fairly quickly show you what you need to do as you study the score.

The questions force you to consider the consequences. You probably don’t want a schism if the troublesome person is ejected, and you could face that if they have many supporters.

 You don’t want to lose skills that are important today, particularly if it will be difficult to replace the individual. “Sometimes you fill out the chart and see they are disruptive, but important,” he says.

He also stresses you have a range of options for action:

You can wait to see if the situation corrects itself. This is rarely the best solution, he concedes, but should be carefully considered.

You can try to help the person correct the situation within the job he or she holds.

You could hire an external expert to help coach the individual.

There can be small modifications to the job to make it work better for everyone.

The person can be moved to a new position or new responsibility within the same project or team.

The individual can be moved to a different part of the organization – one where he or she can be more effective, not merely transferring trouble to get it off your shoulders.

The person can be removed from the organization.

With his chart, those options and the mindset he espouses, you can lead the unleadable more effectively.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-bc-edition/20170227/281913067889607

My opinion: I like the "remove or improve" part.  It's like if you don't like something, you either change it or get rid of it.

It can be applied to jobs, employees,  or friendships.  You may like a friend, but you don't like his or her behavior in this one aspect.  It's like I send 3 emails a week.  There are a few of you who only get 1 email a week because you requested it.

"My employee often takes disruptive breaks": Today I found this article in the Globe and Mail:

THE QUESTION

I have a small business with 15 employees. One of my employees will arrive at work on time, then head straight to the bathroom for 20 minutes. He holds up an entire crew, which ends up leaving the shop a half hour after they should. Though I’ve brought up this issue with the employee in the past, he continues this practice. Any ideas as to how to properly handle this situation?

THE FIRST ANSWER

Zuleika Sgro

 Director of people, Saje Natural Wellness, Vancouver

This can certainly be a sensitive conversation to have. To approach it, my advice is to keep a true log of the frequency of the breaks your employees take. And if you have a written policy for breaks in place, reference both in a private conversation with this member of your team.

Start the conversation by letting the employee know that you are concerned with the length of his break. Your reason for the conversation is to reiterate the break policy and give him an opportunity to share with you any concerns of adherence.

It is important to be mindful that your employee may have a medical condition and could require accommodation. He is not required to share with you the condition, nor should you ask. But if he does share information about a condition as the reason for the breaks, you may request a medical note stating accommodation instructions.

Otherwise, you can use this conversation to make clear your expectations for breaks and I also encourage you to have this conversation with the entire crew for alignment and awareness on the policy. If anyone, including this employee, violates the break policy, you can follow up with written warnings. These may lead to you taking further action if the situation does not improve.

THE SECOND ANSWER

Kyle Couch

 President & CEO, Spectrum Organizational Development, Toronto

Surprisingly, this type of bathroom behaviour is not uncommon. Cellphone rules, and other work pressures, cause many disengaged employees to use this private space as a way to regain some control over their lives. However, there may be a far more serious issue, which you owe it to your employee to have some compassion toward.

Your initial approach to the employee should address the disruption the behaviour causes toward the held-back employees. By starting with the outcome, not the behaviour, this may change your employee’s perspective on the matter.

However, once that is highlighted, your consideration must change to the personal needs of the employee. He may be suffering from a gastrointestinal disease, have mental-health needs with respect to social situations or have a personal conflict with another employee. 

Such issues may be embarrassing to discuss, and may elicit a negative response initially from the employee. These 20 minutes may be the time required to ensure the employee can be successful throughout the rest of the day.

If the issue is not health related, you must have a discussion with the employee, regardless if he is offended. While regulating washroom breaks is not the best approach, pushing to understand why this happens may identify some engagement issues in this employee, and perhaps others in your shop.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-globe-and-mail-bc-edition/20170227/281921657824199