In the last post we looked at the kinder, gentler approach to resolving a conflict. Today we will look at situations that can be a bit more challenging. Some employees have very abrasive personalities and frequently tangle with their coworkers. Others are lazy by nature and either produce poor quality work or fail to deliver on key responsibilities. Still others are a bit rebellious by nature and consistently break the rules in significant ways.
If you are faced with a situation like this it is critical to take decisive action. If you look the other way and hope the problem just takes care of itself you will end up harming the other innocent members of your team who are impacted by the offensive behavior. Moral will go down. Work will be done wrong or not at all. Time and money will be wasted and worst of all; the behavior might spread to other team members who notice that they can get away with it.
I believe the Scriptural guidance for these cases comes from Mathew 18:15-17
“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Even though the context here is confronting interpersonal conflicts within the church, I believe that it applies quite well to the workplace as well. Here is how I would interpret this to happen in a workplace setting.
Step 1 - Speak to the person privately
The idea here is to make the person aware that you are concerned about a particular issue but to do it in a positive and constructive manner. You want to raise awareness of the issue without causing the person to feel offended and get defensive. The ideal outcome is for the person to understand the problem and feel good about making a correction so that your long term relationship is not harmed.
A great way of achieving this is to wrap the complaint up in between sincere compliments both before and after the problem is stated. Suppose you are a Sales Manager and you have a sales person on your team who, until now, has maintained a good relationship with a regular customer. The problem is that your sales person failed to show up at the last meeting with the customer and lost a sale as a result.
It could be tempting to blast your sales person with a harsh “You IDIOT! What is wrong with you?”
However, this can be counterproductive. Your salesperson is likely to feel embarrassed and/or insulted and a rebuke like that could damage the person’s moral as well as your relationship with them.
It would be better to find a quiet place to speak to him or her and say something like “I heard from Such and Such client yesterday. They were a bit confused because you have always given them really outstanding service, however, they did not see you at the meeting yesterday. They needed to place an order right away so they had to resort to calling another vendor. I know you’ve got what it takes to win back their trust and their business so what do you say you go out there, win them back and put this setback behind us?”
With this approach you are taking the issue head on and making it clear it needs to be fixed, yet you are doing it in a way that builds the person back up instead of tearing them down. If they are receptive to this approach you will strengthen your relationship with them and the person will be a better performer in the future by learning from this mistake.
Step 2 - Raise the issue with a few witnesses
When you first confront a person privately in Step 1 the hope is that “A word to the wise is sufficient.” In some cases it will be. However, some folks are too stubborn to receive constructive criticism and they will continue to exhibit the offending behavior even after a couple of conversations. At this point, you need to do as the Bible instructs and stage a bit of an intervention. Arrange a meeting between the offending party, a few of the people who are impacted by the behavior and you. State the problem again and have the other parties add their point of view in as constructive a manner as possible. Let the person know that this is more than just your own point of view. Show the person that there is a consensus about the problem and that change is required.
If the offense is particularly serious you should consider the possibility of including someone from your company’s Human Resources Department in the conversation. A Human Resources rep can give you an objective assessment of the situation and can also provide guidance as to how to most appropriately proceed given the nature of the issue, the policies of the company and the potential legal issues that might be involved. It can also help to communicate the gravity of the situation to the offending party when they see an Hr person present.
Step 3 - Termination
In my experience, most people respond well to the gentle guidance in Step 1 if it is done correctly. I have further found that most of the group who don’t respond to Step 1 will come around after Step 2.
However, there are those particularly difficult people with extraordinarily thick skulls who just will not bend even after repeated warnings. If you have the misfortune to encounter one of these folks there is just one answer left. Fire them…..and do it quickly.
A business is not a charity ward. You do not owe a job to a person who can’t or won’t do what is expected of them. Rather, you owe it to the other hard working people who are being harmed by this troublemaker to put a stop to the nonsense. You also owe it to the other stake holders in the company to see that things in your group run smoothly. As long as you have clearly defined the problem, clearly indicated what is required to resolve it and then given the person a fair chance to correct it you really have no other choice but to remove him or her if they refuse to cooperate.
Stumble it!
