In my last blog, I wrote about a problem that I see when organizations engage in planning & set goals to improve (“Goal-Setting & Amount of Detail Needed”). This blog will cover another threat to organizational improvement: Difficult Employees.

Difficult employees are a thorny issue for leaders, but guess what? If those difficult employees can be a pain in the fanny to a supervisor, you can bet that they are even more difficult when dealing with other employees. If they can act inappropriately to a person in an authority position, they are probably wreaking havoc with some of your less-assertive employees, and they are also gaining power & status among other underperformers for being difficult in the workplace.

One way to reduce the effect of the difficult employees is to train all employees on the topics of difficult employees & reducing organizational conflict. It is easier for employees to listen objectively to training session content and learn new techniques for dealing with the difficult employees than it is to try to handle the knucklehead employees on the spur of the moment.


Training Session Content

All employees should understand that organizational conflict can give difficult employees more traction, and that the typical causes of organizational conflict include:

Cause #1: Lack of Focus Issues

Cause #2: Difficulties With Processes & Practices

Cause #3: Interpersonal Issues

Cause #4: Leadership/Followership Issues

Cause #5: Conflict From Bad Behavior

You will want to express the idea that we all want to be hard on the problems, & easy on the people when it comes to the issues that cause conflict. Employees in a training session should be encouraged to consider each of the above causes, & ID which one(s) are currently out of whack enough as to cause uncertainty re: employees’ role & responsibilities that lead to inappropriate employee behavior.


Questions to be Answered by Employees

All employees should also be ready to answer the following questions:

1) What causes conflict here?

2) What types of inappropriate behaviors happen during conflict?

3) What behaviors do you want co-employees to use when conflict happens here?

Answers to the questions can be collected & posted. Your better employees will take heart in the fact that many of the responses are healthy & reflect their own beliefs. This will help the majority of employees to see that their beliefs are shared by others, despite what the difficult employees are broadcasting.


Strategies for Dealing With Difficult Co-Employees

All employees should also be made aware of the four basic types of difficult employees:

1) The Aggressor

2) The Saboteur

3) The Know-It-All

4) The Procrastinator

Employee training on this topic should help “inoculate” your healthier employees against the lower performance & lower morale caused by difficult coworkers.

If I may be of assistance to any blog readers as you try this activity, please e-mail me (bruce@bigrivergroup.com). I would be happy to respond to any questions or issues so that you can be as effective as possible as you take on this topic in your own organization.