How To Handle Difficult People At Work

Every leader needs to know how to handle difficult people in their team ... and handle them well. If you haven't read it already - you might first want to read the article on why dealing with difficult employees fast and effectively is so important. It's team (and personal) performance suicide if you don't fully understand the impact on the team of poor performers who aren't addressed fast.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip One:
Know The Impact You Want To Make

Are you clear about you the impact you want to have as a leader? I've often found that the leaders who avoid dealing with poor performers are leaders who don't have a clear vision of their impact and purpose as an individual. It is important that you have a clear picture of the type of team and organization you are creating and the results you want to see happen for you, your people and your business.

Write down the type of workplace you want to create. The difference you want to make. Not sure how to get started on this? The Inner Source Leadership workbook may be a good starting point for you.

If you aren't prepared to get clear about your impact, then you probably shouldn'tbother reading the rest of the article, because following the steps below, may give you a degree of success, but the minute it gets tough, you'll probably find yourself backing off and thinking it is too much trouble. That won't do you or anyone else any good. In fact all it will do is drive cynicism sky high and any chance at high performance out the window.

Not committing yourself to a powerful vision of the impact you will have as a leader is sure to hold you at the levels of either an average or low-performing leader .... which commits you and your team to low performance and that will eventually have a consequence to you, them and the business.

Holding yourself committed to a powerful vision slides you into the ranks of high performance and will help with your commitment to discover the best ways of how to handle difficult people.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip Two: 
Identify Each Individual's Performance Level

A quick way to do identify each individual's performance level is to divide your people into three categories:

1. High Performers - those who live the values and come with possible solutions to problems
2. Average Performers - those who mostly live the values, can identify problems, but may not always have the capability to resolve them
3. Low Performers - those people who don't live the values and either blame others for problems or ignore the problems

Another, more detailed process is to rate each person against criteria such as this:

• Technical Competence (capability to do the job)
• Quality of Work (standard of output)
• Performance Effectiveness (ability to meet targets and goals)
• Living The Values (interpersonal skills and personal style)

This How to handle difficult people: "Identifying Performance Levels template (nb: available only to Club Members) can help you to assess each person on each of the above criteria.

The article Situational Leadership (nb: available only to Club Members)also contains a process for Assessing Team Members. Become a member ofAlign-Lead-Inspire.com and get access to these and other premium resources.

Whichever of the two methods mentioned above that you use, you will probably come across people who are technically competent at what they do, but due to their attitude they are poison. Don't be tempted to rate them anything other than a low performer. Their attitude will be the undoing of your team - their technical brilliance simply won't stack up against the damage they do along the way to the spirit of your team.

If you have someone who is delivering results but not living your team's values the wisest thing you can do is to 'release them to industry'! (In other words let them go). You will find other people who have technical competence AND can be an important part of creating a best place to work.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip Three: 
Hold Conversations In Truth

If, up until this point, you haven't been addressing poor performers - now is probably the time to declare your intent to change. Have a meeting and share your commitment to creating a high performance workplace and your vision of making it a great place to work. Absolutely avoid giving the message you are going to shape everyone up - or that you have decided to learn how to handle difficult people so be on the watch out! - You wouldn't do that right?

More make it about saying let's focus on continuous improvement of ourselves as individuals and as a team.

Be inspiring.

Talk about the journey you want to take and your hope that they will be a part of it.

Of course, expect some cynicism ... especially if your past performance has been poor. But stay focused!

As part of this initial meeting/discussion, let people know that as part of your commitment to helping each individual be at his or her best you will be spending time with each of them one-on-one discussing their performance This lets everyone know what is coming.

Just to be clear - if you haven't been doing this with anyone in your team then don't just single out the poor performers. Dedicate yourself to the high performers too. Help them to continuously improve.

A powerful way to set the content of these discussions is to ask each person to come to the meeting with a list of the:

1. the things they think they do well
2. the things they think they could improve upon
3. the things you do that helps or hinders their performance

Certainly they may arrive with a quite different list from yours, however, this can set you up for a robust and frank discussion.

Don't be afraid of asking what you do that hinders. Remember the saying 'the truth shall set you free'. Sure there may be things they don't want you to do and that you aren't going to stop doing. That's okay simply be clear about what you are willing to change and what you aren't. Be willing though to listen with an open mind and look carefully at the things they say you are doing that hinders them. If the same feedback is consistent across the team it definitely something you should give strong consideration to.

Let them know that you will be preparing for the meeting in the same way and that your desire is that by the end of the meeting, together, you will decide an action plan that will enable each person to continuously improve their performance and be part of creating a great place to work.

Now set up meetings with each individual. Experience suggests the best way to do this to talk with your high performers first, then the medium performers and finally the low performers. There are a few reasons for doing it this way.

Firstly, people look to see who is getting the most attention and use this to decide which group has the most power. Talking to high performers first sends a clear message that this is where your focus is going to be. Isn't it ironic that the vast majority of most leader's time is spent with poor performers with the occasional nod to people who are doing a great job! High performance team leaders give a lot of attention to their best and mid-line performers.

Secondly, the high performers will let others know that having the one-to-one is 'no biggy' and that they are excited by where you are going as a team.

Thirdly, it gives you, the leader, the chance to practice your skills in giving feedback, guiding the conversation in the direction you want and strengthens you before you begin speaking with the poorer performers.

When you have the discussion with a low performer(s) you can expect them to arrive with little to no performance improvements and to push back quite firmly against any negative feedback you give them. To have had training in a program like Influence Your Way To Success will enable you to handle this ... I won't kid you it won't be entirely with ease ... but certainly with a degree of calmness and confidence.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip Four:
Follow Up On Commitments and Promises

One of the most damaging lines used in any organization is "Sorry, I didn't get to it something else came up".

Certainly it's true that priorities change - but what is not okay is that people don't talk with you about the shifting priorities. If a person uses the excuse "Something came up" this is a violation of trust.

The problem isn't necessarily, that the person changed his/her priorities; the problem is that they didn't have the courtesy to tell you and by completely leaving you out of the loop s/he's created a trust issue. To hold people responsible you must constantly use the sentence "If something comes up, let me know as soon as you can".

Then if the person doesn't do that you must call them on it. 'We had an agreement that ..(whatever was agreed).. When our agreements get broken like this I lose trust/faith in you. What needs to happen so that we don't face this again'. You wouldn't be that short in a real conversation - but you get the drift of the intent and content of the conversation.

Likewise if you make an agreement with someone - make sure you deliver. If you say to a team member that you will meet with them at 2pm on Friday to see how they are going - come hell or high water be there at 2pm Friday -- or give them plenty of notice if you can't do it. Your reputation relies on it. People will long remember when you didn't meet your commitments or weren't true to your word or placed them low on your priority list.

One reason many people don't like to give feedback is because they are so aware of all the times when they didn't meet performance expectations. They are scared that this will be thrown in their face! One of the things I share with people when I teach them how to handle difficult people is how to stop those under-performers who twist conversations so that all of the focus is off them and turned around so they are actually talking about your poor performance!

Don't expect to be perfect. But if you are committed to consistently being at your best and regularly delivering on your promises - you will breathe easier when you sit down to discuss someone's under-performance.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip Five: 
Recognize & Acknowledge The Right Performance

Well if you aren't aware that acknowledging good performance is important to people's motivation, you've probably been hiding under a bushel for the past 30 years   .

However the most important distinction is that you are recognizing and acknowledging the 'right' performance.

This Leader Got It Sooo Wrong ...

Some time ago I worked with a client who presented an award to a team member for the highest number of 'customer care calls'. I watched the reactions of team members as this person went up to receive their award.

On checking with the other team members about the frowns I'd seen, it unfolded that this team member had been the worst performer in the team (on many levels) for a long period of time. Several of the team members commented that he got the highest number of calls by getting people off the phone quickly and that he didn't deal with customer problems adequately - customers had to call back several times to get their problems resolved - meaning their complaint rate had gone up -- and this was mostly due to that team members. Ouch!

When I queried the team leader he said he had wanted to give the guy some acknowledgement for something in the hope that he might improve in other areas! All it managed to do was to alienate the rest of the team and reinforced with them and the poor performer that this leader wasn't on top of the operation, the behaviors needed for the team to run well and that people could pretty much get away with anything.

As well make sure that you are acknowledging the 'softer' side of performance. When people exhibit behaviors that are aligned with the company's values and mission - let them and others know that this is an important part of your company's success. Making a song and dance about people getting this part right certainly makes others sit up and take notice.

How To Handle Difficult People Tip Six:
Daily Interaction and Regular Performance Improvement Discussions

On a regular and consistent basis let people know how they are going. You can do this easily during normal day-to-day activities by acknowledging when people are doing well, as well as providing performance-gap feedback. Do this as soon as you observe a change (either good or bad) to reinforce what you want and where you are heading.

Certainly you don't want to come across as an annoying cheerleader or a carping criticizer - in any of these conversations (formal or informal). Make sure your tone is easy, your approach is "I'm wanting to help you be at your absolute best" and encourage not discourage.

If someone shows a pattern of not meeting expectations then it is important that you follow the processes your organization uses to handle poor performers and manage someone out of your business.

Give the person every opportunity to get it right and tell them that you know they can meet the performance needs (both socially and technically) of the business if they want to do it. However, if they make the choice to not meet expectations then you must take action and more importantly the team must see that you are taking action to handle this situation.

No point in patting someone on the hand once or twice a year to let them know they are doing a 'good' or 'bad' job. One hallmark of a high performance organization is that performance improvement systems are in place and used frequently. Setting up a 'formal' one-on-one with each of your team members, to talk about what is working and what isn't working really helps you and the team to swiftly achieve excellence. Of course, this 'formal' one-on-one doesn't replace your daily interactions, where you are guiding, inspiring and loving your people.

I strongly encourage all leaders I coach to set up weekly (best) or monthly (at minimum) meetings where they sit down quietly for 15-30 mins with each of their team members to talk about things like:

• what is going well,
• what is stopping them from performing at their best,
• what plans they have to overcome any challenges
• how the leader could help them with these challenges (as a barrier buster not as a problem fixer - empower them to fix the majority of their issues)
• what they are doing to ensure they are having and getting the best possible work experience

Managing people at work and keeping them engaged means showing them that you see them as their best and you expect nothing less.

Have faith that - as you learn how to handle difficult people well you can help them to either improve their performance or find opportunities elsewhere. And what a wonderful gift this is ... to give to yourself, your people, your business and the poor performer. You are giving them the gift of being able to find something that might make them happier - either feeling good about being a high performer or finding another role that better suits their needs.

Related Pages to How To Handle Difficult People

Influence Your Way To Success You can purchase my ebook - Influence Your Way to Success ... it all starts with you!

Communicating Without Defensiveness Here you can discover the two strategies you need to make sure you never get defensive again

Premium Content Available At The Align-Lead-Inspire Club Related to How To Handle Difficult People

(nb: only available free to Club Members)

Read the Situational Leadership article and then take the self-assessment quiz

Download the Assessing Team Member Performance Levels Template This template will help you to assess where people are at and next steps to take

Download the e-book "Influence Your Way To Success"

Take the Communicating With Power E-Course This course will help you to identify the four major personality types and how to interact more effectively with them