How To Handle Difficult People At Work

Who Is The Most Powerful Member Of Your Team? ... Is it the Leader? Is it the most engaged and inspired person? Is it the one with the most degrees? Is it the one with the most information?

Nope! It is the one who cares the least about the team's success. Harsh but true.

The person who cares the least is the most powerful because of the insidious influence they have over the success or mediocrity of your team.

Teams are like that. If your team is very negative and you bring in one optimistic, upbeat person the chances of that one person making a difference in the team can be quite small.

Contrastingly put one person in your team who is poisonous and it can have a rapid impact on the performance of your entire team. There is something about human nature that I've not quite figured out, but the lowest common denominator can often be the most prevalent - which is why you need to handle poor performers quickly and well.

I witnessed a team move from high levels of performance to a team in shreds through the introduction of one very negative person and at the same time a leader who wasn't skilled enough to handle poor performers well. There was so much fighting as the people who were high-performing were increasingly frustrated with the low-performance that was not being addressed and the people who were average-performers, slowly and leechingly like the water in the coffee, began to let their performnance slide. Unfortunately, the team lost several high performers before the rot was stopped.

If you are leader who is letting under-performance go unremarked ... who doesn't know how to handle difficult people well ... then the uncomfortable truth for you is that your team will eventually perform to the level of the lowest performer. Savvy team leaders and engaged and empowered team members know this truth: they need to know how to handle difficult people and poor performers and team member performance issues need to be addressed early, directly and frequently.

Sure, to let poor performance slide may seem easier and safer, but it is team engagement and consequently team performance suicide if you do. You'll have poorer customer service, higher absenteeism, your high performers will leave in frustration and rather than coming to work with a spring in their step it will be a chore for everyone to come to work.

You can even justify avoiding having to handle poor performers and keeping the poor performer around because:

• a warm body is better than nothing
• maybe the next one will be worse
• the union protects people and makes it too hard

Use any excuses like those and it's absolutely the losers limp! Sure addressing low performance and having to handle poor performers can be tough. Many challenges are likely to come your way as you hold people to a higher standard and shift them outside their comfort zones. But, what's your alternative ...? A mediocre team, being led by a mediocre leader, delivering mediocre performance. You are better than that!

The Six Tips On How To Handle Difficult People

1. Get Focused On What You Want To Create
2. Identify Each Individual's Performance Level
3. Have Conversations In Truth
4. Hold People To The Expectations Set
5. Recognize & Acknowledge The Right Performance
6. Hold Performance Improvement Discussions Regularly

How To Handle Difficult People Tip One:
          Get Focused On What You Want To Create

If you've been avoiding having to handle poor performers (or learning how to handle difficult people), then one cause of this, might be that you haven't clearly articulated to yourself the impact you wish to have. 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. Sure it might frighten you, because you don't know how to do it. That's good! Because now that you know what you want, your internal antenna will be on red-high alert for the information you need (such as articles like this) to help you create your vision.

If you aren't prepared to do this step, then you probably shouldn't bother 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 at the window.

Realize that not committing yourself to a powerful vision is sure to hold you at the levels of either an average-performing 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.

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

A quick way to do this 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 (nb: available only to Club Members) template 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.

Whichever way you chose, 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

Now it is time to let your team know about where you want to head. Have a meeting and share your commitment to creating a high performance workplace and your vision of what you, as a team working together, can create as a team.

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.

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 the last one. 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 maybe something you want to change.

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 decided 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 this.

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.

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 low 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 see you 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:
          Hold People Accountable To The Expectations Set

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 good performance as well as providing performance-gap feedback. Do this as soon as you observe the performance (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. 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 doesn't meet expectations then it is important that you follow the processes your organization uses to handle poor performers and manage someone out of your business.

When you are managing people you want to 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 performance levels then you must take action and more importantly the team must see that you are taking action to handle difficult people and poor performers.

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

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

Well if you aren't aware that acknowledging good performance is critical 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. Say for example you acknowledge someone for having dealt with the highest number of customer care calls for the month. That's all well and good, however, they were getting people off the phone so quick, that the customer's problem wasn't adequately dealt with. Meaning the customer had to call back several times to get their problem resolved. So in this instance the right performance to be acknowledge is 'customer satisfaction with how your team member handled their problem' not 'the number of calls the team member got through'.

Similarly 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. 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:
          Hold Performance Improvement Discussions Regularly

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 high performance organizations is that performance improvement systems are in place and used frequently. Setting up a 'formal' monthly 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 high performance. Of course, this 'formal' one-on-one doesn't replace your daily interactions, where you are guiding, inspiring and loving your people.

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

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