Winning With The Employee From Hell

EMPLOYEEWinning with the

FROM HELL

Books by Shaun Belding:

Winning with the Boss from Hell

Winning with the Employee from Hell

Winning with the Customer from Hell

ECW PRESS

EMPLOYEE

A GUIDE TO COACHING

AND MOTIVATION

wINNING WITH THE

FROM HELL

SHAUN BELDING

Copyright © Shaun Belding, 2004

Published by ECW PRESS2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E iE2

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the

copyright owners and ECW PRESS.

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Belding, ShaunWinning with the employee from Hell: a guide to coaching and motivation / Shaun Belding.

(Winning with the... from Hell series)ISBN 1-55022-633-9

i. Problem employees, i. Title,n. Series: Belding, Shaun. Winning with the... from Hell series.

HF5549.5.M63B44 2004 658.3'o45 02003-907315-7

Cover and Text Design: Tania CraanCover Photo: © CORBIS/MAGMA

Production and Typesetting: Mary BownessPrinting: Transcontinental

This book is set in Akzidenz Grotesk and Minion.

The publication of Winning with the Employee from Hell has been generouslysupported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Government of Canada

through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program. Canada

DISTRIBUTION

CANADA: Jaguar Book Group, 100 Armstrong Avenue, Georgetown, ON, L7G 554UNITED STATES: Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin Street,

Chicago, Illinois 60610

PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

ECW PRESSecwpress.com

This book is dedicated to Mom, for all the lessons

especially the ones about looking for the

good in other people.

(I really was paying attention, you know.)

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

INTO THE DEPTHS OF HELL ix

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT 3

CHAPTER TWO

SETTING THE STAGE 17

CHAPTER THREE

ANATOMY OF A GREAT BOSS 37

CHAPTER FOUR

SETTING IMMUTABLE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS 53

PART TWO

CHAPTER FIVE

PERFORMANCE COACHING 63

CHAPTER SIX

SETTING GOALS 69

HELL'S HALF ACRE

HELL OR HIGH WATER

CHAPTER SEVEN

OBSERVING PERFORMANCE 81

CHAPTER EIGHT

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE 87

CHAPTER NINE

RESPONDING TO PERFORMANCE 93

CHAPTER TEN

THE FINE ART OF DELEGATING 113

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CARROTS AND STICKS 123

CHAPTER TWELVE

SETTING EMPLOYEES FREE 135

PART THREE WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

POISON IN THE POOL AND CURIOUS QUIRKS 145

CONCLUSION 197

INTRODUCTION

What's a little severance pay between friends?

It's Tom. He's driving me nuts. He's just so ... well . . . darn

negative. He always has that sarcastic comment, you know?

Like he feels as though he has to judge everything. He's

constantly taking shots at management, how bad all the deci-

sions are, and how dumb all the people around him are. It's

just so hard to build any motivation or excitement about

things because he makes people so cynical. I know it sounds

like it's not a big deal - but I get a knot in my stomach every

time I walk by him. I always wonder what he's saying about

me when I'm not around. . ..

Sound familiar? Tom is just one of those delightfulemployees who can make you question your decision toenter the field of management. Sometimes it seems thatyou no sooner get one Tom figured out when somebodyelse pops into your life with a whole new way to driveyou nuts. Employees from Hell — ambassadors forantacids everywhere.

They're not all like Tom, of course. Some are well-meaning but lazy. Others are overly social. Some aredownright criminal. The stories I've heard range fromrun-of-the-mill performance issues to toe-curling hor-ror stories, from salaried sales reps sitting in a tavernevery day from noon until closing time to an employee

ii

INTO THE DEPTHS OF HELL

WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

who ran a phone sex line at work during working hours.They come in every shape and size, and they are all adeptat pushing your buttons.

I'm willing to bet that, if you've been in managementfor any time at all, you have either experienced or knowsomeone who has experienced an Employee from Hell. Isuppose it comes with the territory. What makes suchemployees so interesting is that they can get to you nomatter how experienced you are. Whether you are a rawrookie or have been in management for a hundred years,somebody somewhere is going to surprise you by doingsomething more stupid than the last person.

A good friend of mine, a general manager for a carrental company, once enthusiastically introduced me tothe company's new training manager. I was instantlyimpressed: he was bright, enthusiastic, knowledgeable,and personable. Some of the things he had already donefor the company were, to say the least, spectacular. Iremember thinking that he could have been the posterboy for the ideal training manager.

Eight months later, however, his employment at thecompany was terminated. On top of a fairly long list ofwrongdoings during his brief tenure, it turns out that hewas using the company's fleet to operate his own littleprivate rental agency out the back door. To this day, myfriend just shakes his head. This was a young man withthe world by the tail. What on Earth was he thinking?

x

INTRODUCTION

Actually, that's a good question. What are these peo-ple thinking? Are they even thinking at all? If we want tolearn how to deal effectively with Employees from Hell,we first need to understand who they are and whatmakes them tick.

Who is the Employee from Hell? I suppose the sim-plest way to define him or her is any employee withwhom you are having an ongoing challenge. The chal-lenge can involve any combination of work skills,interpersonal skills, attitude, aptitude, knowledge, inten-sity, personal situation, or confidence. He can beaffecting you alone or any number of other people. Whoare your Employees from Hell? They are the ones whocontinually come up in your conversations with yourspouse, friends, or peers. They are the ones you losesleep over and the ones you dread having to meet with.

They are also often the roadblocks to achieving yourgoals, which is one of the reasons they create so muchstress. Let's face it, for managers in today's businessworld, productivity is the measure of success. And any-one who, either consciously or unconsciously, stands inthe way of that productivity also stands in the way ofyour happiness and future.

So why are they doing these things? What makesthem tick? Is it just personality quirks? Are they justplain stupid? Is it intentional, or is it something else?

Unfortunately, and as sad as it sounds, some of the

il

XH WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

behavior we see is intentional. Some people out theremake deliberate efforts to work against you. Sometimesthey just don't want to go in the direction you're push-ing them. Sometimes they think that you are asking toomuch of them, and sometimes they believe that you'resimply incompetent and therefore resent taking direc-tions from you.

Fortunately, though, the majority of our challengesexist with people who are neither consciously nor delib-erately trying to be a problem. They are, for the mostpart, either unaware of the impacts of their actions (orinactions) or simply unable to meet your expectations.They're just people, like you and me, with weaknesses,faults, and frailties that are causing challenges. Theyaren't going out of their way to be difficult, but never-theless the impact they can have on you can go farbeyond your day-to-day interactions with them.

The owner of a large wholesaling operation oncehired my company to help fix some serious morale chal-lenges developing in one of his locations. Our first stepwas to meet with some of the people in the organization,and it didn't take many meetings to discover the root ofthe challenges.

Susan, the warm, bright, and highly motivatedmanager, knew that there were issues but had no ideahow to fix them. Her best friend, Carol, who had startedas a coworker in the facility, wasn't responding well to

INTRODUCTION Jf|||

Susan now being her new boss. She'd been there as longas Susan and thought that it was inappropriate for Susanto be giving her directions. In addition to a fairly consis-tent passive-aggressive response to Susan's leadership,Carol was continually searching for flaws and communi-cating her critical thoughts on Susan's managementabilities to the other staff.

A couple of months into her tenure as manager,Susan made the mistake of bringing her husband, ahandyman, in to do a bit of much-needed work. Carolmade a point of identifying all of the errors in his workand then lamenting to everyone how, because it wasSusan's husband, it was now impossible to bring it to herattention without offending her.

By the time we got involved, Susan could barely bringherself to even look at Carol, much less talk to her. And itseemed to Susan that every initiative she tried to intro-duce was now being met with resistance from everyone.

Was Carol deliberately trying to hurt Susan and hercompany? I don't think so. Carol was operating oninstinct and emotion without being aware of either themotivations for her actions or the consequences she hadcreated. Unfortunately, the effect of a little jealousy in a"friend" and coworker had gone far beyond just the twoof them. Productivity in the warehouse had decreasedby almost 20%, and employee turnover had sharplyincreased. The impacts on Susan's personal life were

XJV WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

equally profound. Her relationship with her husbandhad become strained, and her normally positive andcheerful disposition had become negative and irritable.

As with all difficult people, Employees from Hellstand out in our minds and occupy our thoughts somuch because they are exceptions, not the norm. Buteven though they may not come around that often, theycan still create long-lasting havoc for a business and thecollective psyche of your team. Your ability to managethese people in an effective and proactive manner is cru-cial to everyone involved. And the consequences ofmismanaging them or, worse, not managing them canbe disastrous.

Employees from Hell can be divided into two distinctgroups: Performance Challenges and Personality Chal-lenges, and I separate the two in this book because theyare quite different in how they need to be approached.Performance Challenges, as the name suggests, areemployees whom you are having difficulty bringing upto standard. They are either unable or unwilling to per-form at a level that you consider acceptable. PersonalityChallenges are employees who, while competent, are dis-ruptive because of their attitudes or interpersonal skills.While many of them get their jobs done, they havedetrimental effects on the team and the environment.

There is, of course, one strategy that works forpeople in both groups: you could just fire them. After all,

INTRODUCTION

what's a little severance pay between friends? Assumingyou are fortunate enough to hire better the next time,your problem is solved — clean and simple. Thequandary with this strategy is that you risk throwing outthe wheat with the proverbial chaff. Not all Employeesfrom Hell, after all, are a complete liability to the com-pany. Their current actions might be a challenge, but theemployees themselves might have the potential to betremendously valuable. They might possess knowledgeor skills that are either an asset to the business or hard tofind in a new recruit. They might be contributing inother areas of the business. They might be worth tryingto save.

It's also a good idea, before you fire someone, to takeinto account the role that you may have played in thatperson's behavior. The person you consider to be anEmployee from Hell maybe a model employee to anothermanager. Early in my career, I inherited a secretarywhom my predecessor, a longtime acquaintance, claimedhe was going to steal back from me as soon as he had thechance. "She's amazing," I remember him telling me."I've never worked with a more efficient person. It's likeshe can read my mind." He eventually did steal her fromme, but it wasn't soon enough for my liking. I found hercold, humorless, and unwilling to make any extra effort.

I discovered several years later that my friend hadalways made a point of including her in all his meetings,

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XVi WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

regardless of whom they were with, so that she'd alwaysbeen completely up to speed on his activities andupcoming workloads. She had really appreciated it, andit had given her a sense of importance in the organiza-tion. I hadn't thought to do this, and she'd taken theabsence of invitations to my meetings as my way of say-ing "Just do your own job, and never mind mine." Thechallenge, as it turned out, wasn't as much my employeeas my own lack of communication and leadership skills.As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "To differentminds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven."

In Winning with the Employee from Hell, I will intro-duce specific and powerful management strategies thatare worth exploring before resorting to that unenjoyableend game of terminating employees. The book beginswith some proactive management practices for creatingan environment that minimizes the potential foremployee discontent. It includes skills and processes thatare remarkably effective in dealing with PerformanceChallenges. And it outlines successful techniques formanaging a wide variety of common Personality Chal-lenges.

Perhaps more importantly, I try to explain why somepeople behave in such seemingly inexplicable ways. Wewill also look at why some of the traditional, popularmanagement strategies don't work consistently and whysome don't really work at all. Fundamentally, this book

INTRODUCTION

is about people — what makes them tick and how towork with them.

I'm afraid that, if you're looking for some new buzz-words with which to impress your friends, you may bedisappointed. The purpose of this book is to providestraightforward, real-life solutions to real-life challengesfaced every day by people who manage people. All ofthose important-sounding words and phrases — client-centric, human capital, core competencies, gap analyses,best practices, learning metrics, and so on — may lookgreat in a vision paper or strategic document, but I havealways found them to be counterproductive when itcomes to actually getting things done. Far too few peo-ple have a real understanding of what they look like inreal-life situations. This is a meat-and-potatoes kind ofbook, and the measure of its success will be simple: ifyou can inspire just one difficult employee to become amotivated, loyal, and productive member of your team,then we've all won — you, me, your employee, and yourcompany.

xvii

HELL'S HALF ACRE

iaster, what is so grievous to them, that malesthem lament so bitterly?

- DANTE'S immo

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

It's not so much knowing what to do as it

is doing what you know.

Ah, the good old days. Let your employees in, lock thedoor, chain them to their desks, and don't let them outuntil the job is done. You want to motivate them? Startyelling and badgering, and threaten not to pay themunless they smarten up. Yeah, life sure was good backthen. If only it could still be so simple.

Now we have to contend with sick leave, maternityleave, stress leave, counselors and coaches, daycare cen-ters, hiring bonuses, extended vacations, sensitivitytraining, flex hours, and a myriad of special perks, spiffs,and incentives. Long gone are the days when MBA (man-agement by abuse) style leadership was accepted by all.

Hard to understand, really. After all, there are 168hours in a week. If you factor in eight hours a day forsleep, two hours for breakfasts, dinners, showers, bath-room breaks, and so on, and another hour per day forcommuting, you're left with about 93 available hoursper week. If you have a nine-to-five job (okay, like any-one's got one of those anymore), that means a person

3


spends only 43% of her available hours at work. Recentstudies actually suggest that the real number is morethan 50%, but it still means that average people haveabout half of their waking hours to themselves. Whatmore do they want?

A lot more, it seems. Quite a lot more. The HR peo-ple I talk to, for example, tell me that workplaceenvironment, vacation time, and other benefits are inex-orably crawling up on salary as primary markers ofemployee satisfaction. That age-old question — do youlive to work or work to live? — is seeping back into oursocial consciousness. People want working to be, asmuch as possible, an enjoyable experience. And if youcan't provide that for them, either they're going to leavefor someone who can or they're going to start moaningand griping so much that your life will become a livinghell. Neither is a pleasant option.

Employees from Hell, for the most part, aren't justcrazy people that you had the misfortune to hire at aweak moment. Nor are most of them just naturally dis-gruntled people. History has repeatedly shown that, asan environment changes, so do the people in it. Put atypically good person in a bad environment, and thatperson's behavior will begin to deteriorate. Put a typi-cally bad person in a good environment, and thatperson's behavior will begin to improve. My experiencehas been that most people in this world are pretty

4

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

decent. Sure, some are a little louder, some are a littlemore aggressive, and some are a little stranger, but mostpeople seem to make an effort to get along. We just haveto make sure that we have the right conditions to facili-tate playing nicely together.

So, before we begin to examine the employees, let'stake a look at what's going on around them that could becontributing to their unproductive or counterproduc-tive behavior. It's an important exercise. We want tomake sure that we'll be solving a problem instead of justmasking symptoms. Like a doctor doing a diagnosis of apatient with a sore throat, you first want to find outwhat's causing the problem. A throat lozenge may easethe pain temporarily, but, if the root of the problem issomething more serious, antibiotics or some other formof treatment may be required. As in medicine, in a busi-ness environment, failure to address the direct cause canhave serious and unpleasant repercussions.

To determine if an employee's negative behaviorstems from his own personal quirks, or is a symptom ofsomething more systemic, you have to examine a fewthings. You have to look at the environment. You have tolook at yourself as a manager. You have to look at hisexpectations of you and the company, how reasonablethose expectations are, and the degree to which they arebeing met. Why did the employee choose to work foryour company in the first place? What roles does he

5


expect you and your company to play in the employee-employer contract? You may have some pretty clearexpectations of what you want from him, but what doeshe expect from you?

Let's begin by examining why your employees choseto work for your company in the first place. Peoplechoose a place of work for many different reasons: salaryand benefits, proximity to home, the types of productsand services the company is involved in, the employee'sarea of expertise, and the working environment, toname just a few. In many cases, your company becamethe company of choice simply because you were the firstto hire them.

These criteria play a large role in employee expecta-tions. An employee who gets a sizable raise still may notbe happy if her job isn't challenging or within her area ofexpertise. A change in location can be a hardship forsomeone used to walking to work. An additional week'svacation instead of a raise may mean nothing to theemployee facing tuition for a child's university educa-tion. A shift to lower-profile projects can be perceived asthwarting an employee's opportunities for advancement.

The president of an automotive aftermarket companyonce told me of the time he tried to lighten the load of anoverworked vice-president by transferring some of theVP'S responsibilities to another department. As it turnedout, his attempt to do something positive for a valued

6

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

employee backfired. The VP became distraught, thinkingthat the move was a reflection of the president's confi-dence in him, and almost quit the company.

The expectations that employees have of your com-pany will vary based on the nature of their work and theirpositions within the company. A senior executive, forexample, likely expects an office with a window, a nicedesk, a comfortable chair, guest chairs, a coffee table, etc.A miner working a mile below the surface, on the otherhand, has quite different expectations. He might expectready availability of emergency oxygen, up-to-date equip-ment, and cold water. The senior manager expects fromher boss latitude to make decisions and take action. Theminer expects clear direction and a fair workload.

Are there any expectations common to all employees?Are there any general guidelines we can use to ensure thatwe are at least on the right track, no matter what businesswe are in, who our employees are, and what type of workthey do? Yes, there are. They are simple, seeminglystraightforward, and will likely resonate with you imme-diately because they are the same expectations you haveof the people to whom you report. Without exception,whenever my company is asked to help reenergize a

7

HUTS


faltering workplace environment, the people we inter-view cite them instantly as the missing elements of theirhappiness: direction, appreciation, respect, and tools.(DARTS, if you happen to enjoy acronyms.)

Direction, appreciation, respect, and tools. PeopleManagement 101. These are the absolute basics of peoplemanagement, and they are taught in different fashionsin virtually every management skills seminar out there.Yet a colossal number of employees believe that thoseelements are lacking in their working environments.Why is this happening?

Before we take a look at why, let's do a quick reviewof these four elements and why they are important.

Direction

Think about the young child who walks onto the field tojoin a pickup game of soccer. The first question to comeout of his mouth is always the same: "Which team arn Ion?" He, like us, wants to know which way to run, whomto pass the ball to, and which net to aim at. The clearerand more accurate the directions that we as managersgive to our employees, the better the results, and thehappier everyone is.

Appreciation

Many years ago, I worked in the advertising agencybusiness. One of my clients was a large trust company

8

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

gearing up for the lucrative retirement savings programseason. We were under the gun (as always seemed to bethe case in that industry), and as manager of the projectI had to work right through the Christmas season. Twelvehours a day, including Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, NewYear's Eve, and New Year's Day. For three straight weeks,the only day I got off was Christmas. The vice-presidentI reported to, vacationing in the Caribbean for thosethree weeks, returned, and the first thing he did was teara strip off me because the project wasn't further along.There was no recognition whatsoever of the work andcommitment I'd put into the project. It was at thatmoment I decided to leave the company. It's very easy toforget how powerful a simple thank you can be. We alllike to be recognized for our efforts.

In addition to the effort we put in, we like to be recog-nized for our abilities and treated with the same kind ofdignity we give to those around us. In our society, weconsider dignity to be a fundamental right — regardlessof rank, position, or power. In my experience, mostemployees have no problem with managers who are exact-ing, as long as they are not disrespectful. There is never apayoff for managers in ignoring common courtesy.

9

rESPECT

1Q WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

Tools

A couple of Christmases ago, my wife bought me a cord-less drill. I can't get over the huge difference it has madein completing all the little projects she has me do. (Nowthat I think of it, there might have been an ulteriormotive for the gift.) No more digging out an extensioncord, unwinding it, plugging it in, rewinding it, puttingit away — just pick up the drill, do the job, and put thedrill away. It has increased my household project pro-ductivity tremendously.

The same scenario holds true in the workplace. Justas you wouldn't hire a carpenter and not give him ahammer, you wouldn't hire an assistant and not givehim a computer or a salesperson and not give her pro-fessional presentation material. Intellectual tools are nodifferent from physical tools in this regard. Whenevermy company conducts a seminar, workshop, or clinic,there is at least one person who says to us "I wish I hadknown some of this stuff years ago." We love to hear that.Because that is precisely why the company hired us inthe first place — to give its employees some intellectualtools to help them do their jobs better.

These four elements, DARTS, are the backbone ofsuccessful team leadership, and they represent the mini-mum that your employees expect from you. They seemto be common sense, and most experienced managersconsider them the basics. But if DARTS are in fact such

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

common sense, why do so many people perceive them tobe lacking in their work environments?

There are two reasons. The first and simplest reason isthat, as in any other occupation, in management peoplerange from being very good to very bad. The bad man-agers either don't know or don't care about theimportance of direction, appreciation, respect, and tools.The second and, I believe, more common reason hasmore to do with perception and perspective than skill orattitude. I've encountered many managers who under-stand the fundamentals of team leadership and (althoughtheir employees will tell quite different stories) believethat they are making solid attempts to use these skills.They think they are doing these things, but they're not. Itgoes back to that ancient adage: "It's not so much know-ing what to do as it is doing what you know."

I will never forget one afternoon I spent coaching ina unisex clothing store. I was working with one of theemployees on her discovery skills and encouraging herto ask more probing questions of her customers. Juliemade remarkable progress as the day went on. Twohours into the session, she completed a $400 sale from acustomer who'd begun the interaction with "No thanks,I'm just looking." On the way out the door, the customerremarked to her "You're wonderful! I'm going to send allmy friends in to see you " Julie was on top of the world.Her excitement and confidence were palpable as she

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12 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

went from customer to customer. I took this opportu-nity to step out for a bite of lunch.

Forty-five minutes later, I walked back into the storeonly to find Julie standing behind the counter with along face and the customers in the store being virtuallyignored. It was a shocking contrast to the woman I'dseen less than an hour before. "What's going on?" Iasked. "When I left, you were bouncing off the ceiling.Now you look like the world is coming to an end. Iseverything all right?"

Julie looked at me for a moment, then said glumly"Yeah, my manager came in shortly after you left. I toldhim about the big sale I made and all the questions Iasked." Her voice started to become excited again as shecontinued. "And I told him about how she was originallyjust looking and how I managed to make her feel com-fortable with me. And I told him about how she thoughtI was wonderful and that she was going to send all of herfriends to the store." At this point, her voice faltered, andshe said "And my manager just looked at me and said 'Soare you just going to stand around and brag about it allday, or are you going to get back to work?'"

It still ranks in the top five stupid things I've everheard of a manager saying. It also surprised me. I hadspent some time with Craig, the manager, the daybefore, and he had struck me as a bright, positive, andmotivated young man. The comment seemed to be

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

completely out of character. When I saw him an hourlater, I asked him about it.

Craig was mortified when I told him of the effect ofhis comment on Julie. "It was a totally tongue-in-cheekresponse," he said to me earnestly. "I was thrilled withwhat she had done. As a matter of fact, I got straight onthe phone to our district manager to tell her about it.Here, look what just came in." He handed me a fax forJulie from the district manager that had come in fiveminutes earlier congratulating her on the sale. WhatCraig had really meant was "Way to go, I'm proud of you— now go out and do it again!" Unfortunately, Juliehadn't realized this and had taken his comment literally.Craig learned a valuable lesson on perspective that day.

There is a fascinating product of employer-employeeperspective that I refer to as the telescope effect. Imag-ine holding a telescope as you normally would andlooking through the eyepiece. The object you arefocused on zooms closer until you almost think you canreach out and touch it. It's right there. Now turn the tel-escope around and look at the same object through theother end. The object now appears tiny and a great dis-tance away.

Thp Tplp^mnp Fffppf9Ho iyiOduUpy Llluul

13


The same phenomenon, interestingly, also existsbetween employees arid bosses. Most progressive man-agers these days refer to their employees as "the team"and talk about them as "working with me" instead of"working for me." Most managers perceive the gapbetween themselves arid their employees as being rela-tively small. They are looking through the eyepiece ofthe telescope. They consider themselves part of the teamand, although in a management position, not necessar-ily superior to those around them. In theory, it's a greatattitude and is common to most strong leaders. It canwork against you, however, when you fail to recognizethat employees see the distance as significantly greater.

How do you perceive your own boss? Do you feel asclose in position to her as you do to your employees?There is a good chance you don't. And, when you thinkabout it, it makes sense,, Your boss is the one who evalu-ates your work and judges your performance. She's theone who determines what you do and has to make sureyou do it. To varying degrees, she determines your salaryand your opportunities for advancement. She is the con-trolling factor in 50% of your available waking hours.No matter how nice she may be, or how team-focusedher approach may be, you will always perceive the gapbetween the two of you to be much greater than she will.With your boss, you're looking through the other end ofthe telescope.

WHAT EMPLOYEES WANT

How does this telescope effect impact the employer-employee relationship? The primary impact has to dowith weight and gravity. It's a physics thing. Think ofany statement you make as being a brick and your posi-tion power as the distance above the person to whomyou make the statement. Whenever you speak, then, it'slike dropping that brick on her head.

Now imagine saying jokingly to a good friend "Youare so lazy!" What would the impact be? It would, ofcourse, be minimal. Because you occupy no positionpower over your friend, you are both at the same height.The effect would be the same as simply placing the brickon his head.

Imagine, however, making the same statement to anemployee. Because you don't perceive a great deal of posi-tion power, you might assume a similar impact. Butbecause your employee perceives your position power asbeing much greater, to him the impact is the same as if youdropped the brick from many feet up. "Was he really jok-ing?" the employee might think. "Was he trying to make apoint?" "I wonder if he really thinks I'm lazy." "What if hewas being serious?" The employee would feel significantpain that you didn't even realize you had delivered.

The stronger the statement, and the higher your posi-tion, the bigger the brick is, and the faster and harder itdrops. The CEO who visits one of his plant's assemblylines and comments to an employee that his work is

f CEl %M

|Q WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

substandard therefore delivers a devastating blow.We always have to be aware of our employees' per-

spectives. What you consider to be adequate direction,appreciation, respect, and tools may not appear so toyour employees. Julie didn't recognize Craig's flippantcomment as appreciation. My secretary viewed not beinginvited to meetings as a lack of respect. An employeegiven a lot of latitude in a project could conceivably per-ceive it as a lack of direction.

Delivering those things that make for an enjoyablework environment also means having tremendousawareness of the people around you. This is particularlytrue during times of stress and high workload. Some-times when we become so engrossed in our ownchallenges, we forget to do the simple things we knowwe should be doing. We forget the attaboys. We speakmore sharply to people than is appropriate. We forgetthat it's been six months and we still haven't given ouremployees that training they need to do the job better.We stop doing what we know.

As with most difficult situations, those involvingEmployees from Hell are often born of the discrepancybetween expectations and reality. The better we under-stand those expectations, particularly as they relate todirection, appreciation, respect, and tools, and the closerwe get to meeting them, the less of a breeding groundthere is for future challenges.

CHAPTER TWO

SETTING THE STAGE

Pardac is a good thing.

"I don't get ulcers — I'm a carrier" is the favorite quip ofa senior executive I know. It isn't really true in his case,but it is, unfortunately, an all too real scenario in theworking world. It's amazing how many "difficultemployee" situations actually turn out to be managerbehaviors and company policies that have set things upfor failure. Often it's not the employee that is the realproblem. Let's face it, if you poke a dog long enoughwith a stick, you're going to get bitten — even by thefriendly ones.

Some company policies and management behaviorsare almost guaranteed to create grouchy and disruptiveemployees, and it's important that we take a look atthem. Before we begin to point fingers at our employees,we want to make sure that we're not at the root of theproblem. Following is a checklist of what I've found tobe the seven most important things a company shoulddo to minimize employee challenges.

17

|8 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

1, Become a Better Boss

It's amazing how, as our skill levels increase, our chal-lenges with employees decrease. Read books (and thenext chapter), go to seminars, get a personal coach. Makeevery effort you can to ensure that you're doing the bestjob possible. Make your efforts visible to people. Letthem know what you're doing. Ask them for theirinsights, opinions, and guidance. Part of a boss's job is tobe a role model for employees. And that means walkingthe proverbial talk. If you're asking your staff to improveperformance or behavior, you have to let them know thatthe same expectations apply to everyone — even you.

Part of this process also means learning how to askyourself slightly different questions than you're used to— questions that are a bit more introspective. Forexample, instead of asking yourself "Why does he dothat?" you could ask yourself "What am I doing that iscausing him to do that?" It might turn out that anemployee's unsatisfactory behavior has nothing to dowith something you've done, but if you don't ask your-self the question, you'll never know.

Like it or not, employees are reflections of their man-agers. Walk into an office environment and see a group ofserious and sullen people working at their desks; thenmeet the manager, and guess what you'll find — a seriousand sullen manager. Walk into a retail store and find

SETTING THE STAGE

unhelpful, grouchy staff who don't seem to have any cluewhat customer service is all about, and guess what you'llfind? You've got it — a manager who sends the same mes-sage. The reverse is also true. Walk into a businessenvironment and find an energized and positive group ofpeople, and you'll find an energized and positive manager.

One of the most amazing work environments I'veever seen was at a company called Zenastra Photonics.The very air was alive with energy and charged withexcitement. The sense of team spirit and camaraderiewas unlike anything I'd witnessed before. Small wonder.The CEO and CFO used to make regular tours of the com-pany — talking, joking, laughing, and interacting withpeople. Each of them also had in their offices a multi-shot, semi-automatic Nerf gun that they would oftentake with them to pelt unsuspecting employees. Theemployees, in self-defense, had gone out and purchasedtheir own Nerf guns, and every now and then the entireoffice would erupt in a giant, lo-minute Nerf war.Zenastra unfortunately fell victim to the high-tech melt-down of the late 19905, but it certainly wasn't becauseof poor management. To this day, former Zenastraemployees get together for parties and networking ses-sions. According to Doug Gibson, the CFO, there were250 employees and not an Employee from Hell amongthem. What a coincidence.

19

2. Create an Enjoyable Environment

You don't have to run out and buy a bunch of Nerf gunsto create an enjoyable environment for your staff. Infact, that tactic could backfire if you happen to have oneor two PC police in the company intent on sucking allstimulation from the environment. Creating a positiveand enjoyable environment is more about the littlethings. If you're in an office environment, make sureeveryone has comfortable chairs. Get employees incan-descent lights for their desks to counter the drainingeffect of fluorescent lighting. Pin up a joke-of-the-daycartoon on your office door (doing this also has thepleasant side effect of making people more comfortablecoming to your office). Have a games day once a month,perhaps playing interoffice minigolf through the hall-ways. A CEO I know set up an annual tricycle race on atrack created in the company's corridors.

One of my company's call center clients once devel-oped a tremendous incentive game to encourageemployees to deal with, problem situations themselvesinstead of escalating them up to more senior levels. Thecompany created a Customer from Hell dartboard.Every time employees got a difficult customer and han-dled the situation themselves, they got a dart to throw atthe board. Marked on the different segments of theboard were various prizes, ranging from a five-dollar gift


SETTING THE STAGE

certificate at the local coffee shop to dinner for two at alocal restaurant. Every time someone handled a difficultsituation, she'd hang up the phone and shout for a dart.Everyone would then turn to see what she won. Not onlydid the game bring a little more fun into the work envi-ronment, but it was also tremendously successful inreducing the number of escalated calls.

If you want to improve your work environment, thebest way to start is by asking people what they thinkwould make an improvement. Begin by talking to every-one on your team. Don't send out a memo or animpersonal blanket e-mail — make it a personal visit,Tell your team you'd like their feedback on how to makethe work environment more pleasant. Give them sheetsof paper to write their ideas on, and have them drop thesheets in a box outside your office by the end of the day.Allow them to make their suggestions anonymously, justin case somebody wants to tell you something you don'treally want to hear.

Be careful when introducing incentive games, how-ever. Some people, for example, respond well tocompetition, while others respond better to cooperativeincentives. To make these games work, you need a goodunderstanding of your team and where each member iscoming from. Chapter 9, on external motivation, shouldgive you a good start on this understanding.

21

3. Communicate with Your Employees

A huge proportion of interoffice challenges stems fromcommunication breakdowns. As a manager, you have tomaximize both the frequency and the quality of yourcommunications. Sometimes the most insidious anddestructive forces impacting an office environment arethe rumor mill and office gossip. Both are fuelled by lackof communication and incomplete information. Oneperson has a tidbit of information (or misinformation)that someone else wants to hear, and that person passes iton to the next person, and so on, with the story changingslightly every time. Just like that game we used to play inelementary school. The best way to counteract this prob-lem is to make sure that people don't feel uninformed.While it may be true that "Loose lips sink ships," it isequally true that "Zero information creates rumor millsensation." The more you can tell employees, the better.

Garry Wood, when he took over as president and CEOof Bell Distribution Inc., introduced to the company theconcept of monthly "Power Sessions." They are one-to-two-hour updates held at the head office on every aspectof the business. Attendance isn't mandatory, but all BDIemployees are invited, and the atmosphere has the elec-tricity of an Amway rally. Beginning with Garry,different people get up and deliver brief, punchy mes-sages to the large audience. The previous month's and


SETTING THE STAGE

year-to-date successes are celebrated, and areas forimprovement are acknowledged. Promotions and con-tests are introduced. Individuals are recognized fornotable accomplishments. The last half hour is a ques-tion-and-answer period in which any employee is free toask any question of the senior management team.

The sense of pride and accomplishment within BDI ispalpable. Not only are all employees conscious of thecompany's direction, but they are also aware of the chal-lenges the company is facing and how it is handlingthem. BDI gets the message out, and the result is a highlymotivated and satisfied workforce.

The way messages are sent also plays a role in effectivecommunication. E-mail, the handy-dandy replacementfor the interoffice memo, has become one of the mostmisused forms of communication in the new millen-nium. I've heard literally hundreds of stories ofemployees receiving e-mail memos from bosses sittingin offices just a few feet away from them. The fact is,there is simply no better way to communicate withsomeone than to talk face to face. Sure, sometimes doingso takes a little longer. Sometimes it takes a lot longer.But the impact on both productivity and employee sat-isfaction makes it more than just a little worthwhile.One very effective vice-president whom I know proudlyclaims that every e-mail he sends out to his staff beginswith "As you already know. . . ." That is because, before

M&<$


he sends the confirming e-mail, he has already discussedthe matter with each member of his team.

Communication, of course, goes both ways. Not onlydo you have to enhance the way you communicate withyour employees, but you also have to create an environ-ment in which they can easily communicate with you.Keep in mind the telescope effect, and remember thatyour employees are less comfortable initiating commu-nications with you than you are with them.

Begin with an open-door policy. A real open-doorpolicy. Be careful you don't have one of those "My-door-is-always-open-but-if-you-walk-through-it-rm-going-to-be-annoyed" policies, as so many managers tend tohave. Your employees — all of them — must feel com-pletely comfortable approaching you about any topic.But how can you achieve this level of comfort? How canyou convince your employees, some of whom may betremendously intimidated by either you or your posi-tion, that you are, in fact, approachable? The bestmethod is the tried-and-true MBWA: management bywalking around.

The best boss I ever had was Don Ambrose, chairmanof the advertising agency Ambrose, Carr, Deforest & Lin-ton. He was a master of MBWA. Everyone in the agencyknew that between 7:30 and 8:00 every morning Donmade the rounds of the office. If you had a pressing issuethat you wanted to talk with him about, you simply had

SETTING THE STAGE

to be in your office when he walked by. Sometimes he'djust poke his head inside your office to say hi, andsometimes he'd sit down and have a little chat. But ifyou had something on your mind, he was always opento listening to it. He didn't wait for people to open hisdoor. He opened their doors. The net result of thisapproach was twofold. First, Don was by far the mostinformed person in the office. Second, there were rarelyany issues left to fester.

Even if you don't have a door to open, you can stillget the quality of feedback you want. A regional man-ager for a retail chain once shared with me her secret forgetting open and honest feedback from store employees.Prior to every store staff meeting she attended, shewould give them pieces of paper and ask them to writedown suggestions for improving something within thestore, frustrations or problems, or something or some-one worthy of praise. They were not to put their nameson the papers. At the staff meeting, they would fold theirpieces of paper and deposit them in a large box. Shewould shake the box to mix up the papers, then haveeveryone draw out one of the responses. Each personwould then read out in turn what was on his or her sheetof paper, and the team would have a discussion aboutthe point that had been made.

The beauty of this method was that little things werebrought out and discussed in a public forum before they

25


became serious issues. And employees could raise theseissues without fear of repercussion. The key to thisprocess, claimed the regional manager, is that, wheneveran issue was brought up, even if it was about her or themanagers,, nobody was allowed to become defensive.Points of view were acknowledged and respected, anddebate was encouraged. After four or five of those meet-ings, she claimed, the box became virtually unnecessarysince employees began to trust that they could expressthemselves without repercussions during normal work-ing hours.

The biggest challenge in improving communicationis that most of us already consider ourselves pretty darngood communicators. We tend to perceive communica-tion challenges as originating with somebody else, notus. In fact, most of us are mediocre communicators atbest. In my company's leadership and team-buildingworkshops and retreats, we always include one or twocommunication exercises so that people can test theirown communication skills. Participants are always sur-prised at how little of what they say actually gets acrossto the recipient and how little of what the other personsays they actually absorb.

SETTING THE STAGE

I will never forget sitting in a newspaper reporter's officeand reading through an "office rules reminder" memo.Among other things, it included

e no cell phone use in the office;

• no dating company employees;e no cartoons on the wall; and

° no running in the halls.

I laughed, assuming that it was a tongue-in-cheek mis-sive, then was astounded to learn that it was seriousindeed. "We're surrounded by PC Nazis and cubiclepolice," he lamented. "If I didn't work outside of theoffice so much, I would have quit long ago "

While most of the rules stymied me, I was particu-larly curious about the one banning "running in thehalls." It turned out that a reporter had once been fran-tically dashing back to his office when he'd run squarelyinto the managing editor — sending his coffee flying.The angry editor had gone straight back to his office andissued the directive.

It was typical of the root cause of many stupid rules.Frustrated managers create blanket rules to solve specificproblems. Instead of just dealing with individual behav-ior, they pass laws that impact everyone. Remember the

4. Lose the Stoptd Rules

2raf


school teacher who used to scold or punish the wholeclass when one person did something wrong? We allhated it then, and we all hate it now. As a manager, if youhave a problem situation, deal with it. An official ruleshould always be a last resort.

All too often, managers are guilty of trying to controltheir environments through rules instead of respect. And,while it's good to have a professional conduct policy(reviewed by a lawyer), it's always better when people dothings because they want to instead of because they haveto. As we'll discuss in Chapter 4, having solid, positive,and motivating performance standards is a far better toolfor guiding employee performance than blanket rules.

Some rules are just plain silly. Edicts such as "Nodating other employees or customers" are virtually un-enforceable. "No personal plants" reduces employees'ability to make their environments more comfortable.The son of a good friend of mine, working in a fast-foodrestaurant, was once instructed to have his hair cut. Itwas no longer than the hair of the women who workedthere, and he wore it in a hair net just as the women did,but there was a rule that men had to have short hair.Unfair arid seemingly arbitrary rules such as that onejust beg for conflict.

It's always a good idea to ask your employees to do acomprehensive critique of the office rules. You'll learn ina hurry which ones people aren't responding to well.

SETTING THE STAGE

"Employee empowerment" might well be the most over-used buzzword yet poorly understood concept in today'sbusiness world. Its meaning is really quite simple: giveyour employees the tools and the authority to makedecisions.

I remember being in a small East Coast airport. Adistraught young woman in front of us in line was des-perately trying to get a ticket for the upcoming flight,which was sold out. Her daughter was in a Chicagohospital, gravely ill, and there were no other familymembers with her. The man behind the counter lookedat her for a few moments, as if to size her up, then lookedback at his computer screen. When he looked up again,he said "Don't you worry ma'am, you're on the flight.Seat 146. We'll get you there."

When it was our turn at the counter, I asked him howhe was able to get her on the flight. "Well," he said witha smile, "the last person we check in is going to discoverthat we're overbooked. Somebody that's not so much ina hurry is going to have to sit off the flight. We'll givethem a hundred dollars for their inconvenience, andeverybody will be happy."

"Wow" I said, recalling my own experience trying toget a flight when my father passed away. "I seem toremember going through a lot of paperwork and hassle

29

5. uSE THE pOWER OF pARDAC


to get the airline to make an exception like that."The man looked at me and smiled again. "Well, at

this little airport, we have pardac. Let me tell you some-thing — it saves a lot of time and aggravation foreverybody."

Pardac, huh? When we got on the plane, I turned tomy business partner and asked him if he knew what "par-dac" was. He chuckled and pointed out that I had simplymisunderstood the man's pronunciation and that he hadreally said "power to act." Here was a man given wide lat-itude to make decisions. The net result — less stress forhim, less paperwork for his company, and happier cus-tomers. Sure, he likely made a bad call occasionally, butthe overall benefits far outweighed the risks.

Many companies don't empower their employees asmuch as they should because empowerment equals risk.There will always be people who make poor decisions,and there will always be people who take advantage oftheir expanded powers. What we so often lose sight of,however, is that for the most part these are the excep-tions, not the rules. Assuming that you've hired well, thatyou've trained well, and that you yourself have been agood role model, what is the real risk?

The risk, of course, is that employees might makemistakes that will cost you money in the short term. But,if you coach them properly and advise them of theirerrors, hopefully they won't repeat the mistakes. The

SETTING THE STAGE

question you should be asking, though, is what is therisk you run by not empowering your employees?

First, you risk increasing your own workload. Sec-ond, you risk slowing down processes — because youend up being the thin end of the funnel — and that willcost the company money. Third, you risk making youremployees feel less ownership over the actions they dotake. And fourth, diminished control over their owndestinies will create significant and ongoing frustration.

Pardac is a good thing.

I remember walking through the doors of a well-knownice-cream franchise, and there, behind the counter, wasthe store manager loudly and angrily berating one of hisemployees. Including me, there were four customers inthe store. The scene lasted a full three minutes. Fromwhat I could glean, she had forgotten to change some ofthe tubs in the freezer. Two of the customers were look-ing at each other in astonishment, and the third walkedout. When it was my turn at the counter, I had a briefconversation with the manager, who had taken overfrom the now distraught employee. When no one waswithin earshot, I suggested to him that he consider notscolding his employees in front of customers. He looked

v Don't Embarrass Your Employees

31


at me unapologetically and said "It wouldn't happen ifshe would just do her job right." Not only had he embar-rassed her in front of their customers, but he had alsounwittingly embarrassed himself.

As we discussed in the first chapter when talkingabout DARTS, respect is one of the cornerstones of goodmanagement. Respect is also reciprocal. Treat peoplewith respect, and they will treat you with respect. Treatthem disrespectfully, and expect the same in return. Ihave never seen a positive payoff to embarrassing anemployee in public.

7. Listen to Your Employees

In my first book, Winning with the Customer from Hell, Idescribed a six-step process for dealing with the majorityof dissatisfied customers whom employees encounter.The process, using the acronym LESTER, demonstratesthe tremendous power of active listening — a skill that isequally powerful in maintaining positive relationshipswith your employees.

"I keep telling the boss that this is what we should bedoing, but he just doesn't listen!" is a statement I'm sureI've heard a thousand times from employees who arefrustrated with their bosses. They feel neglected, under-appreciated, and unimportant — and the boss wonders

SETTING THE STAGE

why he has a morale challenge. Even if you do believethat you listen well, it is important to remember that lis-tening by itself isn't good enough. You have to listen insuch a way that people actually know you are listening.Here are some basic rules.

Pay Attention

When an employee has something to say, turn to her.Face her. Put down the thing you're working on and giveher your undivided attention. Look into her eyes, and lether know that, for the moment, she is the most impor-tant person in your universe.

Get Their Thoughts

Usually, by the time your employee has brought some-thing to your attention, she has already been thinkingabout it for a while. It's always a good idea to find outwhat's on her mind. If it is something that requiresaction, find out what she thinks that action should be.

Echo Their Thoughts

After your employee is finished speaking, simply reflectthe essence of her statement. If she is telling you that anew project is putting excessive pressure on the team, forexample, simply say "So you think this project is startingto get to people?" She gets the message that you've heardher. You might not agree with her, but you've heard her.

3"B$


Acknowledge Their Ideas

If your employee has presented an idea to you, make apoint of acknowledging it and the thought behind it.Often we are guilty of just grunting or nodding at anidea or, worse, trying to find flaws in it. A simple "That'san interesting idea — thanks for bringing it up" is allyou need,.

Set Expectations

If your employee has presented you with an idea orthought that you may not be acting on for some time (ifat all), make sure that she knows it. People are far morewilling to accept delays when they are already expectingthem. Say something like "I can't promise that I'll jumpon this right away — I'm really under the gun right now— but I will look into it over the next few months," andyou will put people's minds at ease.

Respond

You can't take an idea or suggestion from someone andthen hope that over time he will just forget about it.That's not going to happen. You are far better off sayingsomething like "I just wanted you to know that I've givenyour idea a lot of thought over the past couple of weeks,and I don't think we're going to be using it right now.Don't let that stop you from coming up with new ones,however — I really appreciate them!"

SETTING THE STAGE

The active listening process opens up lines ofcommunication and shuts down lines of miscommuni-cation. There is no better way to maximize employeemorale.

Here again are the key things to remember in settingthe stage for an enjoyable workplace.

e Become a. better boss.

" Create an enjoyable environment.

<" Communicate with your employees.e Lose the stupid rules.

e Empower your employees.

e Don't embarrass your employees.

° Listen to your employees.

35

CHAPTER THREE

ANATOMY OF A GREAT BOSS

You get what you give.

My business partner, Bob Hough, often talks about hisformer boss and longtime mentor, Hugh Burgess —now at Pitney Bowes. When I finally got to meet Hugh,I could understand why he made such a positive impres-sion on Bob. He exudes leadership with a kind of "aw,shucks" attitude that makes people feel instantly com-fortable with him.

According to Bob, their first encounter occurredwhen Hugh took over as corporate manager of thecompany Bob was working for. One of Hugh's initialacts was to call Bob and all of the other managers in fora meeting. The first words out of his mouth were "Youdon't work for me." A moment of panic hit Bob and theothers as they thought they were being fired. Theyquickly realized otherwise. "I work for you? continuedHugh. "Your job is to make sure that the things get donethat have to get done. My job is to make sure that youhave everything you need to do your job well." It iswithout question the most accurate and concise defini-tion of a manager's role that I have ever heard. And I

37


have probably repeated it a thousand times (always giv-ing Hugh credit, of course).

When Bob first introduced me to Hugh, he casuallydropped another piece of magnificent wisdom into mylap. We were in the middle of a lively discussion on man-agement practices when Hugh laughed and said "We cantalk management theory all we want, but the most valu-able piece of advice I've ever received was from mymother back when I was a kid: 'You get what you give.'"

In addition to all of his skills and knowledge, thething that makes Hugh such a tremendous leader andmanager is his clear understanding of a boss's role. Healso understands the principle that, like it or not, theway oui1 employees behave is a direct reflection of theway we manage them. You get what you give.

In the previous chapter, we talked about what ouremployees expect of us and our companies and whatkinds of environments are least likely to createEmployees from Hell. In this chapter, we're going toexplore the impact that strong leadership has onemployee behavior and on the direct relationship betweenthe strength of your leadership and the challenges youhave with employees.

If you've ever gardened, or tried to create and main-tain that perfect lawn, you will know intimately thepowerful truth of the old adage "an ounce of preventionis worth a pound of cure." Putting a proper weed and


feed on your lawn in the fall and spring will save youcountless hours of pulling out dandelions and otherweeds. Any gardener or farmer will tell you that, the bet-ter condition the soil is in when you begin, the less workyou end up doing in the long run.

The same is true with people. Some bosses seeminglyspend all their time pulling the weeds out of their com-panies — firing the people who aren't doing their jobs ordon't fit in, only to have more challenges sprout up afterthey are gone. The companies and managers who arealways the most successful, however, have created condi-tions so that those weeds don't grow in the first place. Itall boils down to leadership.

From the hundreds of excellent people out there whospeak and write about leadership, the best definition of aleader that I have been able to piece together is "a trustedand respected action taker focused on a common goal!'Trusted. Respected. Action taker. Focused. Championinga common goal These seem to be the things that every-one can agree on. They sound great on paper, but whatdo they look like, and how does one achieve them?

What Leadership Is AH About

39


Trust

Any fool with a pulse can earn money.

An incompetent with a. good work ethic can earn respect.

But only an honest and open person can earn trust.

We were at a client's office, sitting in a room of 12 com-pany employees. The question we had put to them was"What do you believe to be the biggest roadblocks to thecompany's growth?"

"The company needs to stand behind its employees,"one of the participants said. "It's frustrating when we'reout in the field and have to make a tough decision —then, when a customer gets upset, all they have to do isphone head office, and they will overturn our decisionright away."

It was a topic that had come up the day before whenI was tailing to the company's senior management team.They recognized that this was a problem and were in theprocess of taking measures to correct it. However, whenI suggested to the assembled group of employees that itwas my understanding that this was being addressed, theresponse was a chorus of derisive laughter. "Yeah, sure,"one employee said, "they say they're doing lots of things.I'll believe it when I see it. I for one won't be sticking myneck out anymore. I don't care if it slows down theprocess, I'm going to wait and let them make the deci-sions. At least that way I won't look stupid in front of my


customers." Here was a company that had completelylost the trust of its employees. The result: lower produc-tivity and lower employee morale.

I'm not sure that there is any more powerful elementin an interpersonal relationship than trust. The greaterthe trust that exists between two people, or within anygroup of people, the stronger the relationship is. Andthe stronger an employer-employee relationship, thehigher the productivity and job satisfaction. I'm alsonot sure that there is anything that is harder to win andeasier to lose.

Many companies try to enhance trust by putting theirpeople through any number of team-building exercises,ranging from the standard lean-back-and-hope-the-person-behind-you-catches-you trust fall to the moreextreme rock-climbing and white-water-rafting genre.While these popular events may be enjoyable to somepeople, and can create a common bonding experience,they usually miss the essence of real trust. The ability toearn trust is less a matter of skill and action than it ischaracter and integrity. When it comes right down to it,earning trust is only a matter of two things: honesty andopenness.

I suspect that, if you were to take a poll asking peo-ple if they consider themselves to be honest, most, if notall, would respond "yes." Yet I would bet a month's salarythat almost everyone who answered that question, like

41


the rest: of us, is still guilty of telling that little white liefrom time to time. We tell the carpet-cleaning telemar-keter that we have no carpets in our house. We tell ourboss that we're a little further ahead on the project thanwe really are. We tell our kids that we got higher marksin school than we really did. We tell our friends that thefish we caught was a bit bigger than it really was. We nodpolitely and tell people we know exactly what they aresaying when we really don't have a clue what they aretalking about.

For the most part, these little white lies are relativelyharmless, and there's no real malice or subterfugeintended. But the problem exists in our different inter-pretations of where to draw the line. What one personconsiders to be a little white lie another might see as adamning falsehood.

A person whom I used to work with, for example,who considers herself to have a great deal of integrity,used to be in the habit of making up false pretenses inorder to bring up certain subjects. "Oh, while I have youon the line ..." was one of her favorite phrases, and shewould move from the false pretense to the real reasonshe'd called.

She wasn't doing anything horrible, but, for those ofus who worked with her, we were never quite sure whenshe brought something up whether it was in fact the topicor whether she had a hidden agenda. The impact of her


behavior was that people became more guarded aroundher and did not easily take what she said at face value.

Are there any people out there who are totally hon-est? I believe there are, and I think I even know a few.Shortly after I met my good friend Doug Maguire, nowpresident of Maguire Marketing and Communications,I overheard him telling somebody that he absolutelyrefused to lie to people. As I do with almost everybodywho makes such statements, I took what he said with ahefty grain of salt. "Yeah, sure," I remember thinking tomyself, "we'll see about that." That was about 20 yearsago, and I'm still waiting to catch him. I often kid himabout how he managed to be so successful in the adver-tising industry with a silly philosophy like that.

The end result is that I trust Doug absolutely andimplicitly. So does everyone else who knows him. I takewhat he says at face value, and I never question hismotives. My 17-year-old son, like Doug, also prideshimself on his honesty. And he's finding, as he getsolder, that more and more people are prepared to listento what he has to say because no one questions hiswords or the motives behind them. As with Doug, I'mstill trying to catch him, and to this day I've beenunsuccessful. Without the type of unconditional hon-esty characterized by such people, one will never beable to nurture the kind of trust that is critical tostrong leadership.

43


Tied closely with honesty, and the other key compo-nent of earning trust, is the concept of being open withother people. Regardless of how honest you are, if peo-ple think information is being withheld from them,there will always be seeds of doubt. As we discussed inthe previous chapter, the more information people have,the better. If there is something that you can't tell some-body, you can at least tell him why.

Allan, a senior manager for a large client of ours, onceconfided to me his frustration at having been passed upfor two promotions that he was very much hoping to get.He assumed that his boss thought he wasn't quite readyfor the positions yet, and he was seriously consideringmoving to another company that would place greatervalue on his skills and experience.

A few days later, in conversation with the VP who wasAllan's boss, I discovered that he actually had tremen-dous regard for Allan's skill as well as his contribution tothe company. He had, in fact, a clear and very excitingcareer path planned for Allan. The two jobs that Allanhad been interested in would not have been in his bestinterests in the medium or long term. The reason thatthe VP hadn't told Allan about his plans was because hehadn't wanted to get his employee's hopes up, just incase things didn't work out. I suggested to him that,while he might not want to tell Allan about his specificplans, he could at least let him know that there was a


conscious reason for his not getting the two promotionsand that he could hope to get something even better inthe near future.

Here was a situation where, while the VP had alwaysbeen completely honest with Allan, his lack of opennessin his decision making made Allan question his motives.Openness and honesty. When employees believe they aregetting the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but thetruth, they will begin to trust you.

One of the common things you'll hear people say aboutstrong leaders is "I may not always agree with them, butI really respect them." In an employer-employee rela-tionship, respect can be divided into two parts: respectfor you as a person, and respect for your competence atyour job. And, in both cases, being able to earn respecthas far more to do with attitude and character than skill.Respect is highly prized, and I've watched some peoplego through some of the most amazing gyrations to try toget it. Some become workaholics; others become shame-less braggarts and self-promoters. Still others try toknock down those around them so they can look betterin comparison. But, the fact is, earning people's respectrequires none of those things.

Respect is, by nature, a reciprocal thing. Treat otherpeople respectfully, and by and large they will treat you

45

Respect


respectfully. Show respect for their professionalism andskill sets, and they will show respect for yours. This isanother area in which the telescope effect plays a bigrole. That is, any action you take with your employeewill have a far greater reaction than you expect it will.Walk up to one of your employees some day, pick outsomething that she is exceptional at, and say somethinglike "You know what, Janet? I really admire the way youdo that. You're absolutely spectacular at it." Then watchhow she responds to you the rest of the day.

Action

I remember watching author and personal motivationexpert Anthony Robbins in a television interview. Thehost asked him what he considered to be the most com-mon mistake people make in their lives. Robbins'sresponse went something like this: "People are always say-ing 'Oh, I should have done this, I should have done that.I should have tried this, I should have tried that.' Shoulda,shoulda, shoulda. People just 'should' all over themselves."

I couldn't agree more. Gunna, shoulda, woulda. Wehear them all the time. "Yeah, we're gunna do that soon.""Yep, we shoulda done that, all right." "Well, I wouldadone it, except something else came up." Most people arefar more prepared to talk about things than they are toactually do things. Because of this, action takers standout from the crowd, and even when we don't agree with


their actions we still respect them for their ability andwillingness to do them. People admire action takers andfollow them. When a team has a boss who keeps them inpositive forward motion, they will have greater motiva-tion and thus greater productivity. Being an action takeris critical to effective leadership.

Focusing on a Common GoalHave you ever met one of those people who seems to beable to accomplish absolutely everything he sets hismind to? He doesn't get distracted and doesn't losemomentum. He is dogged, persistent, and relentless.Stick-to-it-iveness my grandmother used to call it.

Do you remember how you felt when that personwas on your side? When that person was on your team orworking with you on a project? You felt secure and con-fident. You thought that, even if things went wrong, thatperson would be able to fix them. That is exactly thefeeling that, as a leader, you want to instill in the peoplearound you.

When employees sense that their manager is seekingthe same outcomes that they are, and that she is unwa-vering in her conviction, they get a sense of positivemotion. And with this sense comes motivation and satis-faction. When employees sense that their manager isunfocused, however, these things are replaced with feel-ings of anxiety and indifference. There is inertia and a

47


general unwillingness to be proactive. Who wants toput his job on the line for a project when the managerdoesn't really seem to care?

Years ago my company was asked by one of ourclients to build a comprehensive set of customer servicepolicies arid procedures for a new concept the client haddeveloped. The manager responsible for the projectthrew everything she had at it — heart and soul. She wasexcited about the vision created by her superiors andcompletely dedicated herself to it. The company hadallocated substantial financial resources to the projectand claimed to be committed to a five-year buildingprocess. It was going to set a radical new standard forcustomer service in the retail industry.

Everything was on track and going according to plan.All of the deliverables were being delivered, and the cus-tomer response was tremendous. Nine months later,however, without warning, the company completelypulled the funding and began to distance itself from theproject. It had decided that five years was too long towait. The manager was left hanging on a limb, with the"failed" project sitting squarely on her shoulders. Shewent on stress leave shortly afterward and left the com-pany a year later. "That's what you get for jumping intoprojects with both feet around here — you always gethurt," one of her colleagues later confided in me. "Me, Idon't take ownership of anything anymore."


I have heard the same sentiment more times than Idare to count. Typically, it stems from the middle man-agement levels of large corporations. The ripple effectfrom changes made at the shareholder or senior manage-ment level, even the little changes, creates a constant stateof flux for the people within the company. In these kindsof environments, it is even more critical that employeesperceive their managers as being strong leaders.

Championing Employees

Employees also need to believe that, as long as they dotheir jobs to the best of their abilities, their boss willstand behind them. Loyalty, like respect, is earned —and it begins with you. I once watched a vice-presidentof a New York company loudly and violently read theriot act to a secretary who'd apparently botched a FedExshipment to a client. The manager whom the secretaryreported to stepped between them and said to the VP ina quiet but no-nonsense voice "Hold on. This womanhas bled for this company for the last six years. She haspulled my butt, and yours for that matter, out of the firemore times than I can count. I don't care what she mayor may not have done, she sure as heck doesn't deserveto be talked to like that. You want to yell at somebody,yell at me."

The silence in the room seemed to hang for a life-time, and then the angry VP turned and stormed off.

4i


"Thank you," the appreciative secretary said."No problem," the manager grinned, "but if I get fired

because of this I'm coming over to live at your house.""Any time," she replied.Do you think that this secretary felt more than a lit-

tle loyalty to her boss? You bet. There is no better feelingthan having your boss go to bat for you.

One comment that you will consistently hear fromemployees who have a high degree of job satisfaction isthat they believe their boss will go to the wall for them.They feel valued, and they know that their boss genuinelycares about them. If you ever get the impression that theloyalty of your employees is beginning to wane, ask your-self what you might be doing to cause the decline.

Championing the Company

Part of the schizophrenia of management is that, whileyou always need to champion your employees, you alsohave to champion your company. One trap that man-agers often fall into is to say negative things about theircompanies, their bosses, or the projects on which theiremployees are working.

"Yep, it's flavor-of-the-month time," the regionalmanager of a large distiller once told me as he walked intothe seminar room filled with his employees. "So," he saidwith his hands on his hips, "what's the topic today?" Hewent on to say that, while his company spent a lot of time


and money on training, it never walked the talk. "Thiscompany just loves to flush money down the toilet," hesaid sarcastically. How much loyalty do you suppose thisregional manager's employees had to the company? Howmuch respect for or confidence in the company's direc-tion and decisions were they likely to have?

If a manager puts the company down, what do yousuppose his employees do? A large part of your respon-sibility as a manager is to look for the positives in thecompany and to make sure that your employees perceiveyou as being both loyal and dedicated. If they think youdon't believe in the company, then they will never feelthe need to be loyal themselves.

Want to be a great boss? Develop your leadershipskills. Build trust and respect. Focus on a common goal.Take action. Always remember to champion both youremployees and your company.

ma 4&w® WQ I

CHAPTER FOUR

SETTING IMMUTABLEPERFORMANCE STANDARDS

You need to determine what is truly important to you

and the company, identify exactly what the

minimum acceptable level of performance

is, communicate it to your employees,

and then accept nothing less - ever.

We've all grown up with rules and consequences. Theypermeate virtually every aspect of our lives. If you driveover the speed limit, you get a ticket. If you miss yourcurfew, you'll be grounded. If you grab an opponent'sfacemask in a football game, your team gets penalized. Ifyou commit a crime, you go to jail. Our lives haveboundaries, and we all have expectations placed on us.So why is it that so few managers are comfortable settingunwavering standards for their employees?

A lot of performance-related issues with Employeesfrom Hell can be averted by the implementation of per-formance standards. Standards that are binding anduniversal. Standards that are immutable.

Every now and then, when I'm presenting to a groupof managers, I walk in with a small flagpole. I tell them

53


that the pole represents performance and that the flagrepresents their team. I ask them how high they wouldlike their flag to be. The answer, inevitably, is all the wayto the top. So I make a big show of hoisting the flag tothe top of the pole and then stand there holding it whileI ask them if this is exactly where they want it. After theyhave all agreed that the flag is in the right place, I let goof it and walk away from the pole. The flag, of course,falls to the floor. "Is it still where you want it to be?" Iask. When the group responds with "No," I say "So,what? Are you expecting me to stand here through mywhole speech holding this stupid thing?" Eventually,someone calls out that maybe I should tape it up there,which I do.

The point I make is that we can boost performanceand productivity as much as we want, but if there is nomechanism in place to maintain them they willinevitably fall back down. It is the difference betweenattaining a goal and setting a standard. A goal can be aone-time thing, while a standard is a constant. As soon asthe flag falls, even by a fraction of an inch, the standardceases to exist. No matter what the circumstances, youcan't have a "flexible stcindard" — that's an oxymoron.

A standard is a benchmark, an unchanging pointfrom which things can be measured. In golf, it's called"par." While most people like to have standards, few ofus are adept at setting and maintaining them. Want to

SETTING IMMUTABLE PERFORMANCE STANDARDS

watch a real example of someone self-destructing whenit comes to performance standards? Go to any beach,walk through any shopping center, or go to a restaurant,and you stand a good chance of witnessing at least oneparent in the process of completely undermining anyhope of setting standards for his or her children."Johnny, don't do that!" the parent will say and thenwatch Johnny go ahead and do it anyway, "Suzy, put thatback!" will come the reprimand. Only Suzy never has toput it back. "No, I'm not going to buy you an ice cream!"the parent vows — but, five minutes later, there's thechild with the ice cream. No, overall, we're not very goodat setting standards.

Although most of us as managers don't like to admitit, we do the same thing with our employees. We give oursalespeople targets yet don't apply consequences whenthey don't meet them. We give deadlines for projects butcalmly listen to the whooshing sound as the deadlinesblow by. Employees who don't meet the supposed stan-dard get the message loud and clear that you don't reallymean what you say. And employees who do meet thestandard get the message that they worked far harderthan they had to.

Setting immutable standards for the performance ofyour employees is a critical first step to eliminating diffi-cult situations with employees. You need to determinewhat is truly important to you and the company, identify

KK93


exactly what the minimum acceptable level of perform-ance is, communicate it to your employees, and thenaccept nothing less — ever.

The Principles of Immutable Performance Standards

1. Stick to the Important Things

Remember that these are performance standards — nota job description, a procedure manual, or a wish list. If itisn't critical to the ongoing success of your business,don't make it a standard. For example, having someoneanswer the telephone through the Christmas seasonwith "Season's greetings, this is Veronica speaking, howmay I help you?" may be a great idea, but it likely isn'tcritical to the success of your business. Ensuring that thetelephone is always answered with a positive, upbeattone of voice, however, may be.

2. Keep Them Simple

A company should never have a list of performancestandards longer than the employees can easily memo-rize. Try not to exceed seven. They should be worded insuch a way that the meaning of each is clear. Along withkeeping them simple, make sure that each standard isspecific and single-minded. For example, "All sales activ-ity will be duly noted on the reporting log, and faxed in


to the office, with a follow-up phone call to the customerthe next day to confirm the products and quantities" isconvoluted and really involves two separate standards —one involving the reporting log, and the other involvingcustomer follow-up.

3. Make Them Universal

A performance standard must apply to everyone onthe team or in the group. If your team involves cross-functional work groups, then you might want toconsider having one set of three to five performancestandards that apply to the entire group and two to threethat apply to each subgroup.

4. Make Them Fair

A standard has to be something that everyone on yourteam can reasonably be expected to maintain. You mighthave one gung-ho sales rep who works 90 hours a weekand makes 100 cold calls a day. As much as you wouldlove to use his numbers for the standard within the com-pany, they likely aren't fair or realistic for sales reps whohave families at home or some other life to lead.

5. Make Them a Source of Pride

In our company, we have a participant feedback form wehand out at the end of a seminar, workshop, or clinic.Among other things, we ask the participants how well

17


they liked the program presentation and how confidentthey were that the material would be helpful to them. Wehave a minimum acceptable standard for the first of 4.7out of 5 arid a 98% confidence level for the second. Thisis a source of much pride for our team, and we take itpersonally when, for some reason, the numbers fallbelow those standards.

Once you have introduced performance standardsinto your workplace, and once they are being met, don'thesitate to toot your horn a little. Encourage youremployees to do the same. The sense of pride andaccomplishment plays a large role in the team's ongoingmotivation.

6. Make Them Measurable

The only way you can effectively get a group of people tofully understand the level of performance expected ofthem, and to collectively and permanently change theirbehaviors, is to constantly measure their performanceagainst the standards you've set.

Garth Mitchell, former president and CEO of Mark'sWork Wearhouse, once told me of his company's suc-cess: "We measure everything. Because what getsmeasured gets done." Hard to argue with the com-pany's track record. I have since heard the samesentiment echoed by dozens of other successful com-panies. What gets measured gets done. One of the


things I've discovered, in fact, is that, if it can't bemeasured, it likely isn't very important.

As a manager, you have three basic choices. You canignore performance standards and just keep lifting theflag up and letting it fall back down over and over. Youcan set standards and hover over your employees,micromanaging their every move — holding the virtualflag yourself, as it were. Or you can set positive and neg-ative consequences so that the flag stays up on its own.The first option leaves you vulnerable to countless per-formance issues. The second dramatically increases yourworkload and can lead to bitterness and resentment.That leaves us with the third option — using positiveand negative consequences to hold the standard in place.

These consequences provide substance to the stan-dards and ensure that the whole team commits toachieving them. The secret, however, is in diligentenforcement. Setting consequences can backfire on you ifyou don't apply them consistently or fairly. In fact, notproperly applying the consequences you have set has con-sequences of its own. Employees might begin to perceivefavoritism or simply weakness on your part. As the conse-quences begin to fall in their eyes, so do the standards and

Positive and Neyefive Consequences

R£g59 S!

(JQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

the corresponding performance.There are four secrets to making performance stan-

dards work.

1. Set out your new performance standards and make sure

everyone knows them.

2. Visibly and consistently measure the degree to which the

standards are being met.

3. Set out positive and negative consequences that are fair and

apply to everybody.

4. Apply the consequences every time you see someone either

succeed or fail.

If you successfully implement all of these secrets, youwill be astounded at the success you achieve and howfew employee performance issues you will encounter.

PART TWO

HELL ORHIGH WATER

The hottest places in Hell are reserved forthose who in time of great moral crisesmaintain their neutrality.

-mmmrno

CHAPTER FIVE

PERFORMANCE COACHING

Win just one for the Gipper. . .

It's 1928. Halftime of the army football game. NotreDame coach Knute Rockne is trying to create at least onebright spot in his worst season ever. With the playersseated, silent, and disconsolate, the door to the dressingroom opens, and Rockne is wheeled in. The players lookaway from him in embarrassment. Knute speaks to themquietly.

"Well, boys. . . . I haven't a thing to say. Played a great game . . .

all of you. Great game. I guess we just can't expect to win 'em all.

[long pause]

I'm going to tell you something I've kept to myself for years.

None of you ever knew George Gipp. It was long before your time.

But you know what a tradition he is at Notre Dame. . . . [another

pause]

And the last thing he said to me - 'Rock,' he said, 'sometime,

when the team is up against it - and the breaks are beating the

boys, tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one

for the Gipper. . . . I don't know where I'll be then, Rock,' he said,

'but I'll know about it - and I'll be happy. . . .'"

S3


As Rockne turns and is slowly wheeled out of the dressingroom, the players erupt with "Well, what are we waitingfor?" and rush through the doorway to win the game.

Coaching is perhaps the single most powerful tool ata manager's disposal for building individual perform-ance, yet few of us do it well or consistently. Despitethe length of time that "coaching" has existed in ourmodern-day management lexicon, most managers stilldon't see themselves in that role. They see a manager'srole as more administrative and authoritative than asinstructional and motivational.

When you really begin to take a look at the Employeesfrom Hell out there, you'll see that the majority of themare ultimately performance-related challenges. Employeeseither unable or unwilling to do their jobs how they aresupposed to be done are frustrating to the point of dis-traction — in part because you know that, if you weredoing their jobs yourself, you'd be doing them a lot better.

A senior sales manager I know once told me of a newsales rep who was driving him nuts. His company sellshigh-end, multimillion-dollar computer software pack-ages. The sales cycle for their products is extremely longand complex and requires experienced and skilled sales-people. His new sales rep's pipeline of prospective newcustomers was diminishing quickly, largely because ofher inability to think through the cycle.

"In an example of this," the manager told me, "she


recently dropped a prospect from the pipeline. When Iasked where it had gone (it was a university that I hadqualified and was one of my pet accounts), sheexplained that she had sent three e-mails to the contactand that the contact had not responded. Based on this,she had decided that this was a dead account.

"I suggested that she should have read the history ofthe prospect. The contact's son has cancer, and he istherefore frequently away from the office. He rarelyresponds to e-mails. The best thing is to phone periodi-cally and catch him during those moments when he's inhis office. This contact was quite eager to schedule ameeting. But this rep had not bothered to read throughthe accumulation of historical information we had onthe university."

The sales manager knew what had to be done. Heknew that, if he were to take over, he would be able tomake the sale, and he couldn't understand why theanswer wasn't as obvious to her as it was to him. But healso knew that his sales rep would never improve in thelong run if he didn't at least try to help her understand.

Sound familiar? And how about some of the following?

e the administrative assistant who is completely unorganizede the employee who never adopts new procedures without a

fight

85

QQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

• the salesperson who simply won't ask enough discovery

questions

• the telephone CSR (customer service representative) who

continues to challenge and scold customers

• the warehouse employee who won't pick up the pace

• the middle manager who won't change her management

style

• the serviceperson who is rude to customers

• the receptionist who sounds bored over the telephone

These are all performance issues. And the good news isthat most of them can be corrected through perform-ance coaching.

A lot of people get training, mentoring, and coachingconfused. In a nutshell, here's the difference. Training isthe process of transferring new knowledge, skills, or per-spectives to someone. Mentoring is the process ofproviding additional knowledge, skills, and perspectivesto someone on an ongoing basis — usually in a live envi-ronment. Coaching is the process of assisting andencouraging people to apply knowledge, skills, and per-spectives consistently in a live environment.

I can't count the number of times I've heard a man-ager grumble something like "I must have told them ahundred times not to do it that way."

My answer is always the same. "So why do you sup-pose it's not sinking in?"


And their response to me is usually the same as well"I have no idea."

"Well, maybe it's time you found out."Simply telling people something has little impact on

performance. For starters, we humans don't really listenvery well But, more importantly, we don't change ourbehaviors and actions easily. To replace an old habit, wehave to work on creating a new one, and that requirespractice, drills, and rehearsal. That's what coaching isall about.

Hardly a week goes by without us encountering ahighly skilled employee who thinks that she isn't gettinganywhere. Almost always this frustration is a result of alack of consistent, focused direction and encouragementon the part of her manager. As managers, we often get socaught up with the daily operations of our little worldsthat we lose sight of developing our most importantassets — our employees. Performance coaching involvesfour basic steps that, as fortune would have it, create theacronym SOAR.

e Set goals.

» Observe performance.

8 Assess performance.a Respond appropriately.

The elements are straightforward and relatively easy

67

(J8 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

to execute. The biggest challenge is to execute themconsistently. The payoff in employee performance, pro-ductivity, and satisfaction, however, makes it allworthwhile. Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson illus-trated many years ago in The One-Minute Manager thatassisting arid encouraging employees to rise to new lev-els of performance and job satisfaction don't have totake a great deal of time, but they do take commitment.

CHAPTER SIX

SETTING GOALS

You should always work on the assumption

that employees can't read your mind.

Once upon a time, there was a man who decided hewanted to be the best race car driver ever. He started bysetting out to build an amazing race can He spentmonths sourcing out the sleekest, lightest, most aero-dynamic body ever developed. He spent a small fortuneon the best engine, drive train, and tires money couldbuy. Then he took driving lessons from the best racinginstructors in the business. But, despite all his invest-ments of time and money, he never won a single race.You see, while he was always much faster and moreskilled than anybody else on the track, he never seemedto be quite sure where he was going. The same thing canhappen with skilled and motivated employees.

Performance failures are very often followed by thewords "But I thought you wanted me to...." Sometimesemployees aren't quite sure what is expected of them.Their negative behavior often stems from frustrationover insufficient or unclear direction.

Performance coaching begins with making sure thatemployees are perfectly clear each day on what your

es


expectations are of them. If you want to assist andencourage someone to improve his performance, thefirst step is to set goals for him. Daily goals. Goals thatare challenging, attainable, measurable, and tangible.Goals that give him the satisfaction of a job well done atthe end of the day.

Begin by creating for yourself a daily coaching log,like the one on the following page. (If you wish, you candownload one for free from my company's Web site,www.beldingskills.com, or you can contact our officeand have one e-mailed to you.) A coaching log providesyou with a reference point and a record for your coach-ing endeavors. It begins with setting daily goals.

Every morning, for each employee, pick an areawhere you would like to see her develop. In no morethan one minute, let her know exactly what her dailydevelopment goal is, and make sure she understandsprecisely how you define successful achievement of thatgoal. Write it down in the log, and have her initial theobjective to confirm that you both have the same under-standing of it. Make goal setting part of your dailyroutine. It's not time-consuming at one minute perperson, and the results will astonish you and youremployees. Productivity will increase, along withemployee satisfaction. The better direction you are giv-ing, the more races you will win, and the more races youwin, the better everyone feels.

Date

Date:

Achieved the Objective

Approached the Objective

j Did not Achieve the Objective

[ Achieved the Objective

| Approached the Objective

| Did not Achieve the Objective

Date: [ Achieved the Objective

| Approached the Objective

Did not Achieve the Objective

[Date: Achieved the Objective

Approached the Objective

Did not Achieve the Objective

Date:

| Achieved the Objective

1 Approached file Objective

1 Did not Achieve the Objective

Kmytayae:

Eaach:

OBJECTIVES OBSERVATIONS ASSESSMENT RESPONSE

OBJECTIVES

OBJECTIVES

OBJECTIVES

OBJECTIVES

OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS

OBSERVATIONS

ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT

ASSESSMENT

RESPONSE

RESPONSE

RESPONSE

RESPONSE


Principles of Setting Performance Goals

1. Make Them Relevant

If you haven't done so already, carefully analyze yourbusiness and create a comprehensive master list of allthe skills and behaviors employees need to be successfulat their jobs. Make a list of all the areas in which youwould like to see your employees develop. Focus onskills and attitudes, not on tasks. It is not an easyprocess, but it is a valuable one.

Once you have created a skills map, the process ofguiding an employee to higher performance levelsbecomes much easier. A skills map is created by breakingskills down to their basic components and then system-atically breaking the components down into smaller andsmaller pieces. The smallest pieces make up your bank ofcoaching goals.

The following chart is an example of how a skill canbe broken down into daily coaching goals. This illustra-tion shows how the discovery process, one of the keyskills of selling, can be broken down into progressivelysmaller elements. The thread identified in the samplechart shows how the skill of discovery can be drilleddown through its subcomponents — listening, prompt-ing, word choice, vocabulary, and gentle language.

When this process is repeated for each component of

A$&kil$f3r OllP^fMlfl̂A 3&£$&&,M. Js.iSfeL ^&F %&vt»~ *8 4^^?M1,^

-Open-Ended QuestionsDirected Questions

Sequencing

Prompting

Timing Word Choice!

Listening•Empathy

Creativity

Product Knowledge•Features

Advantages•Benefits

Gentle Language

Avoid YergannahaftaUse "May" and "Might"

Mirror-Voice Tone

Avoid SlangUse Passive Sentences.

Vocabulary

Echoing

Tone of Voice

Focus

MirroringEye Contact

pROBLEM-sOLVING

dISCOVERY


the discovery process, you will discover over a hundreddistinct things that can be used for daily coaching goals.The same will be found from mapping out virtually allworkplace skills.

By mining and mapping each skill, you will be able toensure that the objectives you set each day are relevantto developing each employee and that you are proceed-ing in a logical, productive manner.

2. Keep Them Simple

The simpler, the better. Now, by simpler, of course, Idon't mean easier — I mean single-minded and focused.If you make a performance goal too complex, or if yougive someone too many goals at a time, you hinder theemployee's ability to understand it and achieve success.

3. Make Them Attainable

There used to be a philosophy that, if you can keep thegoal just slightly out of reach, you will be able to moti-vate people to do great things — much like the oldpractice of dangling carrots in front of horses' noses.Unfortunately, with humans, that process just leads tofrustration and bitterness.

When you set a goal for an employee, make sure thatit is attainable for him. It doesn't matter if his coworkercan achieve it easily. If the person you are coaching can'tdo it, it will only frustrate him.

SETTING GOALS

I remember conducting a coaching session with fouremployees in a junior department store. One of thegoals was to try to have the employees change fromtheir standard "Can I help you?" question to the moreproductive "What can I help you find today?" and sim-ilar questions. Halfway through the session, three of thefour employees had begun to make the change fairlyconsistently. The fourth, however, kept faltering badly,and it became apparent that she would be unable toachieve the goal.

As it turned out, it wasn't the change in wording thatwas creating the challenge. This employee simply wasn'tused to the idea of initiating contact with customers inthe first place. Until she became comfortable doing that,she would never become comfortable with the change inwording. We had to change her goal.

We reset it for her to "greet every customer whocomes through the door with a smile and hello." Sheachieved it after a lot of effort and went home with a feel-ing of accomplishment. How would she have felt,though, if we hadn't changed her goal and she hadn'tachieved it? The failure would have dealt a tremendousblow to her self-esteem and motivation.

4. Make Therm Challenging

Attainability isn't the only thing that makes a goal moti-vating. It also has to be challenging. Telling someone to

7*5f 31


stand there and breathe, for example, is attainable, butthe person isn't likely to have a great and rewardingsense of accomplishment.

The purpose of coaching is to help people developtheir skill sets. This means that the goal you set has topush their limits, either by introducing new skills or byencouraging them to use existing skills more consis-tently. Simply reinforcing a skill that someone hasalready mastered will be unproductive at best and hasthe potential to be counterproductive.

The wife of a friend of mine is a computer program-mer in a very specialized field. She happens to be verygood at what she does in relation to the people aroundher, so, when her boss sets goals, she usually has themcompleted halfway through the day. After repeatedly andunsuccessfully asking for something more challenging,she now spends her downtime working on a Web site forher personal home business. Is she an Employee fromHell? Technically, yes. She is using company resourcesand time for personal use. Practically, however, she isnot. She is simply looking for some productive way touse her time. Were her boss to find something a bit morechallenging for her, everyone would be a winner.

5. Communicate Their Importance

Have you ever had someone give you what you considerto be just a "make-work project"? Do you remember how

SETTING GOALS

dernotivating it was? When people don't understand orappreciate the importance of their work, they begin toquestion your assessment of their importance to thecompany. As we discussed in Chapter 3, respect is amutual thing, and, when an employee begins feeling thatyou don't respect him, challenges can develop.

In that one-minute period when you are outliningthe performance goals for the day, be clear about whyachieving the goals is important. Let's say you are asupervisor in a call center, and the goal you have set forone of your employees is to finish every call with "Isthere anything else I can do for you?" You might presentthe goal to your employee like this:

Here's what I'd like you to concentrate on today. At the end of

every call, say to the customer "Is there anything else I can do for

you?" We're focusing on this because it reinforces to customers

that they are important to you, and it might trigger something that

could save them another phone call and us opening up another

ticket. Will you give that a try today?

In this instance, the GSR now has two reasons toadopt the new language. First, it will send a positive mes-sage to the customer; second, it might make life easierfor himself or a coworker. He is satisfied that the goalwasn't set just for the sake of setting a goal and that thereis an important purpose behind it.

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6. Give Them Time F:rames

Any goal you give to someone needs to have a time frame.Most of us work better when we know there's a deadline.It's particularly important to set time frames for perform-ance goals, because they are typically situation-based.They're based on interaction with and response to otherthings and people. Let's say you set for yourself the non-performance goal of cleaning up your work area byFriday afternoon. The goal is a good one, but the Fridayafternoon part is not necessary to achieving it. Youmight have it done on Thursday afternoon or Fridaymorning. Even if you get it done by Saturday morning,you will still have a sense of accomplishment.

Performance goals, however, revolve around situa-tions. "When a customer calls, I will maintain a brighttone to my voice." "When a customer walks in the door,I will smile,," "When we're in a brainstorming meeting, Iwill only use positive language." Your goal is tied to some-thing or somebody else.

What this means is that simply saying "I want you tosmile at your customers" isn't good enough. You needto make it clear: "I want you to smile at every customerwhen they walk in the door!' This tells your employeeexactly what you are expecting and when you areexpecting it.

One of the most common mistakes that we as man-agers make is to assume that our employees understand

SETTING GOALS

the things we want them to do. We assume that they willprioritize things the same way we will. We assume thatthey will think through challenges the same way we do.You are always better off assuming the opposite. It doesn'tmean that they're stupid; it just means that you shouldalways work on the assumption that they can't readyour mind. Your best bet is to spend one minute eachday with each of your employees and set clear, concise,motivating goals for them. You will find that productiv-ity will go up and that your employees will be muchmore comfortable and confident in knowing what youexpect of them.

The key to setting goals, again, is to make sure theyare relevant, simple, attainable, and challenging. Givethem a time frame, and make sure that your employeeunderstands their importance.

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CHAPTER SEVEN

OBSERVING PERFORMANCE

It takes neither courage, nor imagination, nor brains to

find problems. Problems have a way of finding us.

OK, so, like a good coach, you've outlined the game planfor the day. The team members are reminded of theirroles and their individual performance goals. It's time forthe work to commence and the game to begin. Like yourcounterparts in football, baseball, hockey, soccer, andbasketball, your job is now to stand on the sidelines andwatch each player perform. There are three key rules toobserving performance and one important trap to avoid.

Rule 1: Look for the Good First

One of my favorite questions to ask a group of managersis "When you return to the work environment after acouple of days' absence, what do you look for first —what's going right, or what's going wrong?" I like thequestion for two reasons. First, the response is much thesame every time — people look for the things that aren'tquite right. Second, the look on people's faces is also the

81


same — a little sheepish. We all know what the rightanswer should be. We've all heard the theory of howimportant "catching someone doing something right" is.But we are all still human, and human nature is to lookfor the negatives first.

Looking for positives, for things that are going right,requires conscious effort and discipline. You have towant to find positives, and you have to be prepared toattune yourself to them. Remember, it takes neithercourage, nor imagination, nor brains to find problems.Problems have a way of finding us.

Rule 2: Be Open

Observing your employees shouldn't be a covert opera-tion. Quite the opposite, in fact. All team membersshould be aware that you will be monitoring their per-formance. If you set performance goals for them, andthey sense that you aren't monitoring how well they aredoing, they will likely assume that the goals weren'treally important arid that you don't really care.


Although you want to be open about your performancemonitoring, you should never be in the way or so obviousthat you are making people nervous. Don't hover orstare. I remember once watching an overzealous retailassistant manager trying to coach his staff for the firsttime. He was following the salespeople and customersaround so closely that customers were leaving out ofsheer discomfort. To make matters worse, he was in thehabit of jumping into the sales interviews whenever asalesperson seemed to be faltering.

It's easy to forget that your role at this point is as anobserver only. Watching someone struggle when youknow you could do a better job isn't easy to do, but itcan be devastating if you don't resist the temptation toget involved. Remember the old Chinese proverb: "Givea man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish,you feed him for a lifetime." (Although the wife of afisherman friend of mine insists that it should be "Givea man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish,and he'll sit around in a boat drinking beer all week-end.") Be patient with people.

Rule 3: Be Discreet

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The Trap: Don't Lose Focus on Your Objectives

One of the biggest traps managers fall into while coach-ing is losing focus while observing performance. As youundertake to coach on a consistent basis, you suddenlybecome much more aware of your employees' perform-ance and behavior than ever before. You begin to see agreat many things in each employee's behavior that youwould like to correct in addition to those related to theobjective you have set. The trap is that you lose yourfocus and try to fix everything right away. We managersare conditioned to respond to negative stimuli — to theexceptions. And, as we encounter more and more thingsthat need to be corrected, the urge to take immediateaction can be overwhelming. While your increasingawareness of your employees and their performance is agood thing, it is critical that you don't try to correctissues outside the specific goals you have set.

It will be tremendously unfair to your employees ifyou set one objective for them and then evaluate themon another. Not only will you instantly undo any goodthe coaching has done, but you'll also risk losing youremployees' respect and trust. Think about a footballcoach sending a player out with explicit instructions toblock a specific opposing player. If the player goes outand does so to the best of his ability, he won't appreciatebeing criticized by his coach for not picking up another



blitzing player — even if the opportunity to do so wasright in front of him. The player was focused on theobjective set by his coach, and that is the objective thecoach should be focused on as well. When you begin tosee additional behaviors that you think may requirecoaching, write them down. You can use your skills mapto identify where they belong and then set them asfuture objectives.

The observation part of the process involves moni-toring and shadowing. It is passive and nonpartici-patory. Going back to the telescope effect, it is importantto recognize the great amount of discomfort that youremployees will initially have as you observe them. Thegood news, however, is that once your employees getcomfortable with the idea, and they see that you are con-sistent and fair, they will actually look forward to havingyou watch their work.

Here again are the three rules for effective observa-tion and the one trap to avoid.

Rule 1: look for the good first.

Rule 2: be open.

Rule 3: be discreet.

The trap: don't lose your focus.

85

CHAPTER EIGHT

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE

You can't evaluate one person based on the

abilities of another.

You've set the objective for the day, and you've observedyour employee in action. The next step is to determinethe degree to which the objective was met. It is impor-tant that, before you respond to what you've seen, youtake the time to assess the information you've gathered.There are two basic questions you have to answer.

1. Did the employee make a visible effort to achieve the objective?

2. Did the employee succeed in meeting the objective?

The answer to the first question will be somewhatsubjective. Different employees master skills at differentrates, and the same effort put in by any two will gener-ate varying results. Let's say you give employees Bill andChris the goal of "giving every customer whom youencounter a warm, genuine smile." Bill, a naturally out-going and expressive person, accomplishes this goaleasily. Chris, a more shy and introverted person, forces asmall but awkward smile — kind of like he's got gas.

OT


When it comes to the analysis, how do you rate Chris? Incomparison to Bill, Chris failed miserably. But in rela-tion to his own current abilities and comfort level, hiseffort may actually have exceeded Bill's. The answer isthat, while Chris may not have quite achieved the objec-tive, he certainly made an effort. The lesson? You can'tevaluate one person based on the abilities of another.

As with the observation process, it is also importantnot to fall into the common trap of assessing perform-ance that wasn't part of the original objective. Using theexample above, if the employee succeeds in smilingmore but makes poor eye contact while doing so, don'ttake the eye contact into consideration in your assess-ment. You. can make note of it as a future objective, butit would be both unfair and demotivating to address itduring the current coaching session.

An employee's performance will fall into one of threecategories:

1. achieved the goal;

2. approached the goal; or

3. did not achieve the goal.

The first category, achieved the goal, is pretty straight-forward. Your employee has done everything you askedhim to do precisely the way you asked him to do it. Inthe second category, approached the goal, your employee


has made an effort but hasn't quite achieved the goal asoutlined — like the almost-smiling Chris in our earlierexample. And, in the third category, did not achieve thegoal, your employee has made no visible effort to achievethe goal

The biggest challenge in assessing our employees' behav-ior is first accepting and then dealing with our own lackof objectivity Because these might be employees withwhom you have worked for some time, you could havepreconceived notions about how they will perform andthe areas in which they will struggle. You know thatFrank isn't a good team player; you know that Racheltends to be abrupt on the telephone; you know that Billcan't close a sale. The problem is that these preconcep-tions can actually hinder our ability to recognizeperformance levels and improvements.

I've been involved with coaching in minor sports for along time as a parent, a coach, and more recently a volun-teer teaching coaches how to motivate their teams moreeffectively. Every year players try out for competitiveteams, and coaches and evaluators have to determinewhere to place each of the kids. As always, the hardestpart comes down to evaluating what are referred to as

Avoid Preconceptions

us


players "on the bubble" — that last group of seven oreight kids vying for the final few spots. This last group isalways the hardest to evaluate because they are typicallyvery close in skill level. It's interesting to listen to theevaluators trying to come to a decision about this group:each sees different things, and those who know some ofthe kids from the year before already have preconcep-tions. Plaiyers get labeled and have great difficultybreaking through the barriers that those labels create.

I remember in particular a discussion about oneyoung man trying out for the local competitive hockeyteam. He'd been at various levels in the league for sixyears. He was a nice, quiet young man who played asteady, solid game. All of the evaluators liked him, butthere was one concern.

"He's a good player," one evaluator put it, "but he'snever been very physical, and it's a pretty rough game atthis level. I'm not sure he'll be able to handle it."

Heads around the room, including mine, nodded inagreement.

Then a lone dissenter spoke. "I don't know him likeyou all do, I guess," he said, "but, according to the evalu-ation sheets, he's delivered more checks than almostanyone else in the tryouts. It looks to me like he's astrong player. It sure doesn't look like he's going to havea challenge."

We all looked at the evaluation sheets again and


discovered, to our astonishment, that he was right.Rather than evaluating his current performance, wewere evaluating his past performance.

When you are assessing an employee's performance,give serious thought to your assessment. Try, as much aspossible, to remain open-minded. Be aware of your pre-conceptions, and be prepared to question your ownobjectivity. Keep in mind that people do have the abilityto change behavior, but you'll never know if you don'tlook for it.

Remember that their performance will fall into oneof three categories: they achieved the goal, theyapproached the goal, or they did not achieve the goal.

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CHAPTER NINE

RESPONDINGTO PERFORMANCE

Imagine what the work environment would be

like if every manager you know allocated

just 20 minutes a day to do this with

all their employees.

The final and most critical element of the coaching processis the way in which you respond to your employees' per-formance. This is the most challenging stage and, notsurprisingly, the one that most managers execute theleast well. Most managers, when faced with employeeswho are not performing to standard, either ignore theproblem and hope it magically corrects itself or comedown too hard on the employee, creating resentmentand demotivation. Similarly, when employees achievetheir goals, their managers often say nothing, or as goodas nothing, leaving employees wondering why they triedso hard in the first place.

The response to an employee's performance shouldcome immediately after his attempts at achieving thegoal Don't wait for the end of the week or even the endof the day. As undignified as the analogy seems, it's kindof like training a dog. As soon as the dog makes a mess

93


on the carpet, you put his nose beside it and say "Baddog." If you wait until the end of the day to tell him he'sa bad dog, he won't have any idea what you're referringto. Although most of us are typically a little moresophisticated than dogs, things are still more meaning-ful to us when they are fresh in our memories.

As a general rule, you should try to respond to youremployee as soon as possible after she has attempted toachieve the goal. If she is a retail salesperson, take a fewmoments to talk with her as soon as her customer hasleft. If she is a call center GSR, you can talk with her assoon as the call is over. If she is a manager, you can talkwith her as soon as she is finished her meeting. Duringthe course of a day, you may respond several times toyour employee's performance.

Now, you might be thinking that this whole processis just going to take way too much time. The truth is, itdoes take time — but not as much as you might think.Most coaching responses should take no more than aminute when done right. Considering the payback ofusing positive coaching techniques, it is often the bestinvestment of your time.

As we discussed in the previous chapter, when youassess an employee's performance based on the objectivesyou set, there are really only three possible outcomes —either they succeeded completely, they gave it a good trybut didn't succeed 100%, or they failed completely.

RESPONDING TO PERFORMANCE

Correspondingly, there are three types of responses toperformance: positive, constructive, and corrective.

I, The Positive Response

When your employee has achieved the goal in full, yourresponse must be unequivocally and absolutely positive.After you have responded, there should be no doubt inhis mind that he was successful.

You might think that this is rather obvious. It is. Theonly challenge is that most of us just don't do positivereinforcement and praise very well. Oh, sure, sometimeswell give an employee a mumbled "Nice job," but werarely take advantage of the opportunity to really moti-vate a high-performing employee. Many bosses, evenwhen praising their employees, can't seem to resistcounterbalancing it with something negative. "That'sgreat," I heard a CEO once say to one of his VPS, "too badyou didn't do that on the last project"

There seems to be some unwritten rule somewherethat managers are supposed to keep their positive emo-tions in check, that approval and praise are somehowsigns of weakness that will compromise our abilities tomanage. More than one manager has told me that theydon't like to give too much praise because employeeswill then expect more money. Not coincidentally, these

95


managers seem to have more Employees from Hell and amuch greater rate of employee turnover than the norm.

When an employee makes the effort, and achieves agoal set out for her, this is the time to step outside ourtypically conservative comfort zones and really demon-strate our appreciation of her performance. Give her ahigh-five. Say "Wow!" "Wonderful!" "Way to go!" "That'sterrific!" Show your enthusiasm. The payoff is huge. Youget an employee who feels valued and is motivated tomaintain that level of performance. It's an attitude thatis infectious and can spread through the entire team.

The cost of not responding positively is equally huge.Many Employees from Hell whom I have met are basi-cally nice people who have simply given up. "Whyshould I care?" they ask me. "My boss doesn't." Try beingmore positive. I have never once heard an employeecomplain that her boss compliments her too much.

2. The Constructive Response

It would be wonderful if your employees achieved theirgoals 100% every day. Chances are good, though, that thiswon't happen — particularly if you have ensured that thegoals are challenging. The most common scenario is thatan employee will attempt to achieve the goal but will notquite achieve 100% success or consistency. It is with


these, the majority of your employees, that coaching hasthe most dramatic effect on performance. These are theones who have demonstrated a willingness to try, butneed the assistance and encouragement that you can pro-vide to master the skill

When an employee has made an attempt to attain agoal, but hasn't quite met it, two things are important.First, you have to acknowledge his effort. He needs re-assurance that you know he is trying. Second, he needsyour guidance and encouragement to continue tryinguntil he does meet his objective. Achieving both of theseoutcomes requires careful attention to our language skillsand the ways in which we present ourselves. The best waythat I know of to accomplish this is a "good-stuff-bad-stufT-good-stuff" format that I fondly refer to as "thePoop Sandwich." Once you've mastered its execution, youwill discover that it has a wide range of applications andthat it works amazingly well. It has six steps.

The Poop Sandwich

Let me illustrate how the poop sandwich is executed.Your employee is Cindy, a receptionist who is very effi-cient but often comes across to customers as beingabrupt and cold. The goal you have set for her is to"Look up and smile at everyone who comes into theoffice." She begins well and wins over the first eight cus-tomers with a dazzling smile and clear eye contact. The

97


ninth, however, is a Customer from Hell who loudly andrudely complains about the company and berates herabilities to get things done. After this, a shaken Cindyforgets about her goal and falls back into her old habits.

1. Begin with the Employee's Point of View

The first step is to approach your employee and find outhow well she thinks she's doing. In our example, youwould look for a quiet time to walk up to Cindy and say"Hey, how are you doing with the smiling so far?"

You ask her first because she may already be awarethat she has slid back into her old habits. She mayrespond with "I was doing great at first — until that Cus-tomer from Hell walked in. I honestly haven't been tryingvery hard since then." If she acknowledges her failure tomeet her goal, then your only task at hand is to pick herup, dust her off, and encourage her to keep trying.

If you don't ask for her perspective and instead juststart pointing out things she's already aware of, you runthe risk of irritating her. Imagine accidentally tearing upa winning lottery ticket, only to have your friend say"That was really stupid — you could have been rich ifyou hadn't done that." Now, not only do you feel stupid,but your friend is also rubbing it in. The last thing youwant to do is demotivate someone who is already downon herself, What most of us would like our friends to say


instead is something like "I feel so bad for you! Don'tworry about it, it just means that the next one you winwill be bigger!"

Most often, however, employees are unable to eitherrecognize or acknowledge the failure to meet theirobjectives. Not because they're stupid or unaware — it'sjust very difficult for people to be objective when itcomes to their own performance. When this happens —when your employee responds to your question withsomething like "I think I'm doing pretty good" — youmove on to the next part of the poop sandwich.

2. TeSI Her the Good Stuff

It doesn't matter how open-minded or rational a personis; nobody likes the feeling of being criticized. This isparticularly true when the critic is the person who doesyour annual performance appraisal. People's responsesto criticism can vary from defensiveness to denial tooutright aggression. Few of us respond very positively.

It is thus important that you begin by letting youremployee know that you respect her and that you appre-ciate the effort she has made in trying to attain theperformance goal. Remember that, in this instance, theemployee has given it a real effort but just hasn't quitesucceeded yet. So start off by letting her know that yousaw her doing some things right.

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1QQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

Make sure that what you say is genuine and relevantto the performance goals you set. To refer to our exam-ple, it may go something like the following.

You: Hey, how are you doing with the smiling so far?

Cindy: Pretty good, I think.

You: Well, I was able to watch you with the first few people.

You were fabulous! You really lit the room up. I don't know if you

noticed or not, but I did - the customers really liked you!

Don't be afraid to lay the positive stuff on thickly.While you might find it a little over the top while you'redoing it, you'll be surprised at how positively youremployee will respond,, Again, I have never heard anyonecomplain that her boss was too complimentary.

3. Tell Heir the Bad Stuff

The next step is to introduce the area where youremployee still needs to improve. Needless to say, how youintroduce it is paramount to your success. The telescopeeffect plays a role here too. Remember that the slightestcriticism from you, as the boss, is likely to land muchharder than you intended. It means that your choice oflanguage in presenting the areas that need addressingmust be as gentle as you can make it, without runningthe risk of being wishy-washy. It also means avoiding, at


all costs, the words but, however, and although.

We all know what "but" means when it follows acompliment. It means "Ignore everything I've just said,because I'm just about to tell you what I really mean." Itis a killer.

As you try to execute the poop sandwich, you will findthis part to be by far the most difficult. The temptation touse one of those three words will be overwhelming.Because most people aren't used to communicating in amore positive manner, we struggle when trying to findalternatives. You should think through what you'regoing to say and how you're going to say it before youbegin the response. You don't want to undo all of thegood you've initiated.

4. Get Her Agreement

Before you move on, ensure that your employee agreeswith your assessment. If, after you point out the area in

101


which she still needs to improve, she still does not agree,you might have to reexamine your assessment with her.You might have heard something wrongly or seen some-thing out of context. Or your employee might beunwilling to face up to the truth, in which case you mighthave to be a bit more forceful with your point of view.

Let's take a look at how you can word the bad stuffand gain agreement using our example.






Cindy: Thanks!

You: Look, that really obnoxious customer you had - he got

under your skin a bit, didn't he?

Cindy: You can say that again.

You: Did you notice that after you had to deal with that guy you

stopped focusing on smiling a bit?

Cindy: Yeah, I guess I did.

Here you were able to point out Cindy's negativebehavior in such a way that she was comfortable agree-ing with your assessment. She didn't feel threatened,and you didn't make her feel stupid. As you know,some people out there become defensive easily, and the


language you choose and the tone of voice you use arecritical at this stage.

5. Reinforce the Good Stuff

Whatever you do, you absolutely do not want to leaveyour employee on a sour note — particularly after shehas been making a concerted effort to achieve the goalyou set for her. As soon as she has admitted to you thatshe hasn't quite achieved her goal, you need to jumpback in with the positive things she has done. Doing solets her know that, although her performance isn't per-fect yet, you still have a great deal of respect for her andbelieve that she has the capacity to develop. Here's howit looks in the example.






Cindy: Thanks!






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|Q4 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL


You: That guy was a jerk - don't let him bother you. You were

doing such a great job. I'm serious - up until he came along, you

were on fire!

Mission accomplished. You have communicated toyour employee that you appreciated her effort and sawsome good things. You let her know that there are a fewareas that she still needs to work on, but that overall youwere pleased with her effort. What more would anemployee want to hear? You have just set her up for success.

6. Gain Her Commitment to Continue

Before you leave your response session, gain youremployee's commitment to continue her pursuit of thegoal. You don't have to make a big deal of it; you justneed to let her know that you'd like her to keep trying.Here is how the complete coaching response might lookin our example.






Cindy; Thanks!

RESPONDING TO PERFORMANCE |Q5







You: That guy was a jerk - don't let him bother you. You were

doing such a great job. I'm serious, up until he came along, you

were on fire!

Cindy: Yeah.

You: Will you keep working on the goal of smiling and eye con-

tact? I can't promise you won't get another jerk like that guy, but

it's really making a difference.

Cindy: Sure.

In less than a minute, you were able to acknowledgeCindy's efforts, refocus her on the goal, let her knowhow much you respect her, and get her commitment tokeep trying. Her morale is up, and she recognizes theimportance of her efforts. Imagine what the work envi-ronment would be like if every manager you knowallocated just 20 minutes a day to do this with all theiremployees.

Most of us want to do well. Most of us make mis-takes. Similarly, most of the nonperforming employeesyou encounter, those Employees from Hell who seem tobe either unwilling or unable to get the job done right,

1Q3 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

simply lack skills and encouragement. Practice the con-structive response. The payoff is tremendous. You'll findthat, if you can master the constructive response as out-lined in this chapter, it will serve you well in a wide varietyof situations both at work and in your personal life.

3. The Corrective Response

Occasionally, you will encounter an employee whomakes no apparent effort and completely fails to achievethe goal. On these rare occasions, your strategy changesto the corrective response.

You begin by trying to discover why your employee isapparently not trying. It's not a good idea to second-guess him. The best way to find out is right from thehorse's mouth. Ask him directly. "I've been watchingyou, and it doesn't look like you are trying to hit thatgoal we set out. Is there a reason?" The answer you getwill let you know how to proceed from there.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons why one ofyour employees might be so seemingly blatantly disre-spectful as to not even attempt to hit the goal you haveset for him. There are a number of possible reasons, andnot all of them are bad.


1. Fear ©f Failure

Many people are uncomfortable trying something newbecause they lack confidence and are afraid that theymight fail. They are afraid that they will look stupid infront of people and that their entire character will bejudged based on how well they accomplish the task.Some might actually fear for their jobs. Fear of failurecan completely paralyze some people, and it will requirea great deal of encouragement on your part to help themtake action. The task may be unlike anything they haveever done before, in which case it is fear of the unknown;or it may be that they tried to do it once before and failed.

If it turns out that fear of failure is the reason forinaction, your job now becomes to convince them thatthe costs of inaction are far greater than the costs of act-ing and failing. You have to start by acknowledging theirfear and showing empathy. Saying things like "Oh, that'sjust silly" only makes people feel stupid and reinforcesthe notion that you really don't understand them. Fol-lowing your acknowledgment, you have to carefullycreate a cost-benefit scale so that they can understandhow the consequences of not doing something outweighthe consequences of trying and failing.

Let's say that you have a salesperson with the goal oftrying to add additional items to every purchase. He hasmade no effort, and you discover that it is because he isafraid that customers will become upset with him and

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perceive him as pushy. Here's an example of how youmight present the cost-benefit case to him.

John, I understand exactly how you feel. And you're right - we

don't want our customers to become upset with us. What I think

you maybe haven't considered, though, is that there are a great

many customers who appreciate having the accessories. It saves

some of them a second trip because they forgot to purchase them

the first time around. It saves others from embarrassment over not

knowing enough to have asked for them in the first place. You're

working on the assumption that our customers don't want our

products. Why not work on the assumption that they do? Sure,

some customers are going to say no, but most will understand

your asking. Besides, John, this is part of our selling process, and

you have to master it eventually.

In this example, the manager acknowledged John'sfeelings and validated them. He then outlined whychanging his behavior was in the customer's best inter-est and then, by saying "you have to master iteventually," let John know that it was a requirement ofthe job. John now has the clear choice between attempt-ing to achieve the goal and seeking another line of work.

2. Misunderstanding the Task

Sometimes your employee simply misunderstood whatyou were asking and will correct her behavior as soon as


she understands the task. In this case, make a point oftaking the heat yourself for the misunderstanding. Evenif you believe that your employee simply wasn't payingclose enough attention, it serves no purpose to make herfeel stupid. A simple "I'm sorry about that; I probablydidn't explain it very well" clears up the issue.

3. Lack of Self-Awareness

Many times I have heard employees say to their bosses "Iwas doing it!" It's amazing how many people are com-pletely unaware of their own behavior and assume that,just because they know what to do, they are automati-cally doing it.

In our sales and customer service programs, wetalk about trying to be a little more positive in ourresponse to "Hi, how are you?" We encourage peopleto be something a little better than just "OK," or "Nottoo bad," or even "Good." Customers' expectations ofyou will rise if you tell them that you are great, won-derful, terrific, etc.

Occasionally, when we are coaching, we set the goalas "Tell every customer that you are something betterthan just good." It's amazing how many employees areconvinced that they are saying something different whenthey have actually fallen right back into their old habits.One employee, whom I happened to catch on tape say-ing to a customer "I'm not too bad," was astonished

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HO WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

when I played it back to him later. "No way," he said."That wasn't me!"

In these instances when someone is just not aware ofhis behavior, you have to become a little less subtle dur-ing the observation process so that he begins torecognize his behavior right away. You might also wantto enlist someone to observe with you so that he or shecan confirm to the employee what you have heard.

4. Brain Cramp

Sometimes people just forget. Remind them and givethem another chance.

5. Disagreement with the Goal

You may discover that your employee chose not toaddress the goal because she just plain disagreed with it.It doesn't happen often, but every now and then some-one will say to you "I'm not going to do that." Now youhave a challenge. Literally. In six words, your employeehas thrown down a virtual gauntlet. She has chosen tobecome confrontational.

When this happens, your response must be black andwhite, with no room for your employee to wiggle out.Restate to her why the objective is important and tell herthat, while you appreciate her concerns, you expect herto give her best effort at achieving the objective. She willlikely try to argue with you and tell you why she thinks


it is stupid. Whatever you do, don't argue back. You canacknowledge what she has said with an "I hear you," orsomething similar, but she needs to recognize that youwon't be backing down. Just like the referee in a footballgame, you might listen to a player's complaints, but youwon't change the call.

This is unquestionably the least comfortable sce-nario, and unfortunately many managers back downwhen faced with this kind of confrontation. The ques-tion you have to ask yourself is "What are theconsequences of backing down?" Not only do you senda message to the employee that you don't have a greatdeal of conviction in the goals you've set, but you alsosend a message to all of the other employees that theydon't have to try if they don't want to either.

If the employee continues to exhibit this kind ofbehavior over a period of time, you have no choice butto move to an employee dismissal strategy. Take a look atChapter 12 to see how it's done.

Whichever strategy you end up using, positive, con-structive, or corrective, always remember that coaching isan exercise to educate, motivate, and encourage the peo-ple who work for you. It's not about finding flaws insomeone else's performance, and it's not about exercisingpower. It is a powerful, positive tool that can dramaticallyimprove the performance levels of your team.

Ill

CHAPTER TEN

THE FINE ART OF DELEGATING

So what are we going to do about it?

"I swear to God, it seems to be the only thing that givesher enjoyment," the general manager of a large pharma-ceutical company once told me of one of his employees."Whenever something has gone wrong, she comes intomy office and tells me about it. Then she just standsthere with this smirk on her face and watches me try tofigure out what to do. Then, when I come up with acourse of action, she stands there and picks holes in it.I'm convinced she lives to make me squirm."

The fact is employees look to you, as their boss, fordirection. That is, after all, your job. It's also true, how-ever, that wherever possible employees will look to youto make their decisions for them, thus saving them fromthe risk of making an error in judgment. Given theopening, they might even let you do their work forthem too. If you're really set on creating performance-challenged Employees from Hell, a great way to start isto avoid delegating.

If you've been in management for longer than a

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1)4 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

month, you've likely heard how important delegation is.The benefits are tremendous. Delegating tasks frees youup to do more important things, and it helps youremployees to develop, it increases their sense of valueand accomplishment, and it reduces the number ofproblems when you return from vacation.

Most of us are horrible at it. We don't have thepatience or the skill. Most of us aren't willing to take therisk that comes with delegation, the risk of giving upcontrol and trusting other people's decisions. We alsofear the higher personal workload as we initially trainand coach employees to do new things. Employees willstruggle and fail as they progress through the learningcurve — that's a given. But most of us are afraid to letthat happen.

The fact is, though, you can't expect employees tohave pride in the work that you're doing for them. Youcan't expect someone to feel like a valuable contributorwhen he isn't permitted to contribute anything valuable.You can't expect someone to exude trust and respect forothers when she doesn't feel trusted and respected her-self. Many performance issues with employees have lessto do with the things you are asking them to do thanwith the things you aren't asking them to do.

A VP of a large retail chain was once lamenting to meabout a handful of his store managers who kept askingto be allocated more employee hours. "Most of their


stores are underperforming as it is," he said to me infrustration. "Where do they think the money is going tocome from to pay for all of these extra hours? I wish toheck these people had a bit more business sense."

I asked him why he thought they seemed so obliviousto the relationship between employee hours and storeprofitability.

"I don't know" he responded. "It's not like we haven'ttaught them how to read a profit and loss statement.This is pretty basic stuff!"

"So your managers are responsible for the profitabil-ity of their stores?" I asked.

"Sure," he responded. "Well, indirectly, at least. Imean, aren't we all ultimately responsible for the prof-itability of the stores?"

And there was the problem. Store profitability wasbeing used as the measuring stick for the performance ofthe stores, but the managers had no real control overhow it was achieved.

I suggested to him that he take a handful of storesand charge the managers completely with their prof-itability. Have the managers create the budgets, andbonus them based on achieving or exceeding quarterlyobjectives. Monitor their activity on a monthly basis sothat he could provide them with some guidance if theywere making truly questionable decisions, but otherthan that let them make the calls.

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1)9 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

He tried it with six: stores, including two with man-agers who'd been asking for more hours. The first twomonths were excruciating as the managers struggledwith their newfound responsibility. Only one managedto hit his quarterly target. By the second quarter, though,all but one hit the target, and when the fourth quartercame around, the lucrative Christmas season, all but oneexceeded their targets by wide margins.

The interesting part is that they all did it in differentways. One reduced hours to the bare minimum, whileanother increased staff to serve customers better.Another introduced a series of incentives and bonusesfor hitting certain dollar-per-hour targets. What they allhad in common was a huge sense of pride in theiraccomplishments.

If the reason you haven't been delegating is a time-related issue (e.g., "I don't have time to train someone"),you should conduct a little mathematical exercise. Esti-mate how many hours it would take to train and coachsomeone to be proficient at a specific task. Then esti-mate the amount of time you would normally spend onthat task over the course of a year, two years, or fiveyears. Then simply subtract one number from the other.You might be shocked at the outcome.

If you aren't delegating because you don't think youhave the right people, try the coaching process. If thatdoesn't work, refer to Chapter 12, "Setting Employees Free."


The Delegating Process0 «|

Most people, when delegating, either "delegate anddrop" or micromanage. Neither approach is effective.Proper delegation is a gradual, nurturing process thateases both you and your employee into the change. Ifyou want to become a better delegater, here are the sevensteps you'll have to take.

1. Decide What Is to Be DelegatedBegin by making a list of all the things you do on a givenday. Which things are repetitive? Which consume mostof your time? Which do you keep putting at the bottomof your "to-do" list? Now, with each of the elements, askyourself "What might I stand to gain by delegating this?"as well as "What do I stand to lose if I delegate this?"

Not everything, of course, can or should be delegated.A CEO, for example, can't delegate his board meetings (asmuch as he might like to), and a salesperson can't dele-gate a sales call. There are some things that requirediscretion and confidentiality. But the number of tasksthat can be delegated is far greater than the number ofthose that can't. It's also a good idea not to delegate tasksthat you find enjoyable. After all, those are the thingsthat keep you coming to work every day.

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Ifg WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

2. Choose Your Delegatees

Once you have decided what to delegate, the next step isto decide whom to delegate to. The greatest challenge hereis to avoid the "give it to a busy person" trap. You likelyhave, as most managers do, one or two people whom yourely on. Your "go-to" people. They might be more confi-dent, more eager, or just a little more effective. As a result,they are the ones whom you turn to most often. The dan-ger, of course, is that you run the risk of burning out avaluable employee and alienating the others.

As much as possible, try to delegate something toeveryone. Delegate tasks only to people who have (orhave potential for) proficiency in the area, and, when itcomes to the less enjoyable jobs, don't heap them all onone person. Spread them around a bit.

3. Discuss the Tasks with Your Employees

When you have a quiet moment, take your employeeaside and ask him if he is willing to take on the addi-tional responsibility. Explain what you are delegating,why you are delegating; it, why you have chosen him forthe job, and how both he and the company will benefitfrom the delegation. If your employee appears appre-hensive about or uncomfortable with the job you areproposing, probe and listen carefully. Be prepared forthe possibility that you may not have selected the rightperson after all.


4. Show Your Employees How to Do the JobsInstead of just throwing employees into their tasks, takethe time to demonstrate to them exactly how you wouldlike the jobs done. Be patient and continually confirmtheir understanding.

5. Supervise Your Employees

For the first two or three times that an employee doesthe delegated task herself, supervise her closely. This isyour opportunity to nitpick a little and make sure thatshe is completely comfortable with the job.

6. Follow Up instantly

For the first three times that an employee does the dele-gated task, you should follow up right away Doing soallows you to correct any errors immediately, and it givesyou the opportunity to provide your employee withplenty of positive reinforcement for a job well done.

7. Provide indirect, Passive Supervision

At this stage, your employee is ready to begin doing thedelegated job without direct supervision. You are now atthe point where all you have to do is casually review thework. Once people have become comfortable with thethings delegated to them, your goal shifts to teachingemployees to solve their own problems.

My friend Tony Wackerman, VP for the large gift

119


retailer Stokes, is without question the best delegater I'veever met. He excels at encouraging his employees to beproblem solvers. I'll never forget sitting in his office oneday in the late 19905 watching a steady parade of peoplecoming in to see him for advice. (Tony is one of those rareindividuals who actually has a real open-door policy.)

"We have a problem," the first person said. "One ofour stores doesn't have the proper signage for the salethat's starting tomorrow!"

"That is a problem," acknowledged Tony. "So whatare we going to do about it?"

The employee hesitated for a moment, then pro-posed a solution.

"Great," said Tony. "Make it happen."Five minutes later another person dashed in. "Tony,"

she said breathlessly, "one of our landlords has just toldus that we can't open our temporary location tomorrowunless they have all of the signed lease documentationand our electrical layout. He said that he's going to beleaving his office in half an hour."

"Wow," exclaimed Tony, "what are we going to doabout this?"

Again, after a brief hesitation, the employee outlinedher plan.

And so it went. Ten or more times over a two-hourperiod. It was like watching a bizarre ping-pong game.An employee would come in and lob a ball into Tony's


end, and Tony would quickly send it back. It was fun towatch and even more fun to watch the attitudes of theemployees. Most were run off their feet — to say thatthe business ran lean was an understatement. But thesense of pride and accomplishment in what they didwas palpable.

Here again are the seven steps to effective delegation.

1. Decide what is to be delegated.

2. Choose your delegatees.

3. Discuss the tasks with your employees.

4. Show your employees how to do the jobs.

5. Supervise your employees.

6. Follow up instantly.

7. Provide indirect, passive supervision.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

CARROTS AND STICKS

The key to motivating people is to push the

right buttons in the right people, at the right

times, for the right reasons.

One of the tried-and-true strategies for boosting per-formance is through motivation, incentives, and rewards.Sometimes the most unproductive and lackadaisicalemployee can catch on fire with a little push in theproper direction. Motivation is often a misunderstoodconcept, however, and many people find themselvesbecoming frustrated with the lack of success their effortsachieve. The fact is not all people will be motivated by aKnute Rockne-type speech. And even those who aremotivated by such a speech will respond to varyingdegrees depending on the situation.

In my volunteer work in minor sports, helpingcoaches to develop skills for motivating their teamsmore effectively, I will, from time to time, volunteer toconduct the pregame speech for a coach's team. I do thisto illustrate the effect proper motivation can have onperformance.

One instance was with a competitive minor hockey

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team in my neighborhood. They had been having arough season to that point, with 23 losses and zero wins.After some discussion and planning with the coach, Iconducted a 20-minute pregame speech, and to every-one's delight, at the end of the game, the record stood at23 losses and one win.

While it was an exciting moment, the point of theprocess was to demonstrate to the boys that their previ-ous losses had less to do with their own skill levels, ortheir coach's coaching ability, and more to do with theirconfidence and focus. And, while they still finished theseason with a poor record, they at least knew that, whenpush came to shove, they were as good as any other teamout there.

But the thing about motivation is that these pregamespeeches I give won't work a second time. Despite theenergy and enthusiasm they generate, it is the boys, riotthe speeches, who win the games. The speech gives themconfidence and helps them to focus, but that is all. Itspurpose is solely to break the inertia. From there, thestrategy has to shift to building on the energy andenthusiasm, not reinventing it.

Motivation is a process, not a one-shot deal. And, assuch, it requires proper planning. Different people aremotivated by different things, and it is important to beaware of that before you begin. The key to motivatingpeople is to push the right buttons in the right people, at

CARROTS AND STICKS |25

the right times, for the right reasons.There are two basic kinds of motivation: internal and

external. Internally motivated people are those whoseinterests, beliefs, values, and principles provide themwith strong enough reasons to take action. They don'tneed a push — in fact, they are usually the ones doingthe pushing. Externally motivated people are those whorequire an outside stimulus to take action. They needsomething or someone to give them a reason.

Nobody, of course, is completely internally motivatedor completely externally motivated. The degree and typeof motivation change depending on the task at hand. Afriend of mine, for example, is a marathon runner. He isup at 5 a.m. every morning training diligently in order toprepare for the 26.4 grueling miles. Nobody has to pushhim, and there's no big money for him at the end of therace. He does it purely out of a sense of pride and accom-plishment. The only way his wife can get him to do thedishes, however, is by threatening to hide his golf clubs.

It would be wonderful if all employees were internallymotivated to do a great job at work all the time, but thatis rarely the case. Most managers find themselves withone or two employees who are difficult to motivate. Todrive sales, productivity, or other behaviors, therefore, wehave to turn to an EM (external motivation) plan.


EM Hot Buttons

Let's begin by examining what types of things motivatepeople. What are people's motivational hot buttons, andwhy is it that common motivational strategies some-times don't work at all?

The two primary factors that contribute to the suc-cess of external motivation initiatives are the nature ofthe motivation and the manner in which it is delivered.The nature of the motivation can be either tangible orintangible. In other words, it can be a thing that hasmass or substance, or it can be something symbolic oremotional. A tangible motivator might be the annualsales trip to Mexico, the monthly bonus, or the raise atthe end of the year. An intangible motivator can beacknowledgment in the company newsletter, recogni-tion as employee of the week, or praise from the boss fora job well done.

The manner in which the motivation is delivered caneither be visible or discreet. Visible motivators are thosethat everyone can see. They are public recognition of agoal achieved or a job well done. They include publicpraise at the next staff meeting, a framed certificate, or abadge. Discreet motivators are delivered quietly and per-sonally, often with other people never knowing aboutthem. They range from a telephone call at home fromthe boss to an unadvertised day off with pay.

CARROTS AND STICKS

It's important to be aware of these distinctionsbecause they can play a significant role in the success ofyour external motivation plan. I first became awareof these distinctions when I was running a small chain oftoy stores. I was becoming increasingly frustrated withmy attempts to incentivize employees. If I had a contest,some would jump in with both feet, while others wouldduck their heads and ignore it entirely. When I tried abonus plan to encourage people to help the store hit itstargets, some people rallied and worked incredibly hard,while others appeared not to care at all. The curiousthing was that it never seemed to be the same peoplewho were motivated each time.

When the nature and delivery of motivation arecombined, you get a matrix that looks like the onebelow. Each quadrant is a motivational driver. To betteridentify them, I've named them after the classic four ele-ments: earth, fire, water, and wind.

Visible

Discreet

Tangible

EARTH

WATER

Intangible

FIRE

WIND

Virtually everyone has either one dominant motiva-tional driver and one secondary motivational driver ortwo equally dominant motivational drivers. In generalterms, here is how they are differentiated.

197I £f


Earth (Visible/Tangible)

Earth is motivated by things that are tangible and deliv-ered in a highly visible format. For example,

• a jacket with the company's logo;

• a publicly announced promotion;9 publicly awarded prizes;

• greater authority or responsibility;

• a preferred parking spot; or

• business cards.

Although it is hard to tell through the bragging, Earth issomewhat insecure with his abilities and accomplish-ments. It is very important to him that he is recognizedfor his efforts and that everyone is aware of the recogni-tion — particularly his boss.

Fire (Visible/Intangible)

Fire is motivated by highly visible recognition thatcomes more from the heart than the pocketbook. Beingemployee of the week, appearing in the company'snewsletter, or being held up as a role model at the quar-terly conference appeals to him. He is proud of doing thejob he is paid to do, and, while he craves the recognition,he doesn't necessarily feel the need for additional com-pensation. Other examples of Fire motivators include

CARROTS AND STICKS

8 invitations to lead or be involved in high-profile projects;

° award pins and badges;e a plaque recognizing accomplishments or certification; and

• invitations to planning meetings and business trips.

Water (Discreet/Tangible)

Water is motivated by things that are tangible, but isuncomfortable being in the spotlight. Water is often con-cerned that others will become jealous or judgmental.Water will work hard for bonuses, commissions, andspiffs, where the compensation is usually privately con-cluded, but Water will shy away from excelling in contestsand competitions. Other Water motivators include

0 time off with pay (e.g., afternoons for golf);e preferred shifts;9 coffee/lunch paid for by the boss; and9 theater tickets quietly handed out or put in the pay envelope.

Wind (Discreet/intangible)

Wind actively avoids any obvious motivational device.While Wind responds extremely well to expressions ofappreciation or recognition, he does not like to feelmanipulated. He perceives himself as somewhat abovesuch things. You will often find that the Employees fromHell you are having the hardest time motivating haveWind as their primary driver. Motivation for Wind must

128


appear spontaneous and genuine. Wind motivatorsinclude

• private recognition;

• an invitation to planning meetings;

• a thank-you phone call at home;

• a pat on the back or a "Nice job!";

• a letter of recommendation; and

« an invitation to a buying/training trip.

Over the years, as rny company has taken groups ofpeople through analyses to determine their drivers, wehave noticed some broad generalities. Commissionedsalespeople, for example, have a tendency to fall into themore tangible Earth and Water categories. Engineersand other people in the sciences tend to fall into themore discreet Water and Wind categories. Entrepreneursand senior managers lean heavily toward the more visi-ble Earth and Fire categories. Having said all this, wehave also discovered that it is impossible to predictsomeone's motivational drivers based solely on his posi-tion or occupation. Motivation is a very personal thing.

When you consider how different each motivationaldriver is, it's easy to understand why it is virtuallyimpossible for company-wide EM programs to stimulateevery employee. It's also easy to see how, if you imple-ment the wrong plan, it can even have an adverse effect

CARROTS AND STICKS

with the performance-challenged Employee from Hell.The employee who falls into the Wind category may bescornful of an Earth-focused incentive. The employee inthe Fire category may be disappointed with the less vis-ible Water approach.

One of the biggest reasons that EM programs are notas effective as they could be is that we don't take the timeto think them through. We think "Last year we ran theTrip to Florida reward program, and it seemed to work— let's try it again this year," "We tried that 'dinner withthe boss' thing last year, and it was a flop — I'm neverdoing that again," or "XYZ company is using this promo-tion, and it's really working well for them — I think weshould try it." Before introducing an EM plan, you needto take a close look at which employees you are target-ing. Recognize that you won't be able to reach everyone,and decide which employees you do want to reach. Onlyafter you've determined this can you make an appropri-ate decision on how you are going to reach them.

Once you know whom you want to reach, and haveassessed which categories they fall into, the next step is todetermine the approach to take. There are three funda-mental EM strategies: incentives, inducements, and rewards.

incentives

An incentive is an external motivator that is somethingpositive for people to work toward. In other words, a

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J32 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

carrot. Incentives are announced ahead of time and areattached to concrete, measurable targets. For example, aprogram in which everyone achieving her budgetreceives $50 is an incentive plan. An incentive is used toencourage people to hit specific sales targets, to achievecertain scores on mystery shopping or customer satis-faction reports, to achieve certain closing ratios, tocomplete projects within budget or time parameters,and so on. Incentives are appropriate for people moti-vated by tangible things — Earth and Water.

Inducements

While an incentive is tied to an end result, an inducementis a motivator tied to the means to that end. It is com-pensation for specific action. For example, a salespersonmay receive a two-dollar spiff for each one of a specificproduct she sells, or a call center employee may get a five-dollar bonus for every difficult customer he doesn'tescalate to his supervisor. Inducements are always tangi-ble, and typically financial, although substitutes such asmovie passes or gift certificates can also be used.

Inducement and incentive strategies can be run at thesame time. You can, for instance, run an incentive pro-gram that gives everyone in the department a free lunch ifthe department is under all of its expense budgets for themonth. At the same time, you can give out free moviepasses every time someone improves a process to help

CARROTS AND STICKS

achieve that goal. The two work together toward thesame end. As with incentive strategies, inducements aretangible motivators and appeal to Earth and Water.

Rewards

A reward is an acknowledgment of a job well done. Thedifference between a reward and an incentive or induce-ment is that, while people appreciate the recognition, itis not necessarily the motivation to do the job. Rewardsare given after the fact, for a specific accomplishment,and are not always announced ahead of time. Rewardsare effective in boosting team or individual morale,expressing thanks, encouraging future successes, creat-ing pride in the workplace, and so on.

Rewards can be visible, such as recognition in thecompany newsletter, or discreet, such as quietly givingemployees some extra time off at the end of the day. But,because a reward is not necessarily either concrete orannounced ahead of time, it appeals more to Fire andWind — people attracted to intangible motivators.

A well-planned and well-executed EM plan can havea significant impact on both productivity and morale. Apoorly planned or executed one can backfire and causeheadaches for everyone. One company, for example,used to give its employees a turkey every year at Christ-mas to thank them for their roles in the company'sprofitability. For some 15 years in a row, employees never

•I <gjtf|la<3


had to worry about their Christmas turkey. In 1991, thedeep recession caused the company to lose money forthe first time in its history, and come Christmastimethere was not a turkey in sight. The union put in a griev-ance — and won — citing that the turkey was now partof the expected employee compensation package. Theturkey had ceased to become a reward.

To reiterate the point I made at the beginning of thischapter, an external motivator is effective only when itpushes the right buttons in the right people, at the righttimes, for the right reasons. If you are experiencing per-formance challenges with Employees from Hell who arefeeling unnoticed or underappreciated, a sustained andwell-thought-out EM plan can have a tremendousimpact. Tied with a positive management style and apositive work environment, it can dramatically lift agroup's energy and productivity.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SETTING EMPLOYEES FREE

If you have to swallow a frog,

it's a good idea if you don't stare at it too long.

You've tried everything. The working environment iswonderful, you're wonderful, you've set performancestandards, coached, and attempted to motivate. Yet youstill have that Employee from Hell driving you nuts. Itmight be time for the end game. The F-bomb.

Back in the olden days, we called it "firing." Then,somewhere in the mid-ipSos, some Enlightened Peopledecided that the term "being fired" was hurting the feel-ings of the firees and began to come up with a myriad ofgentler terms. These days employers dehire, have a per-manent layoff, deplace, jettison, downsize, move on, putthem off of work, rightsize, surplus, and trim people,but no one gets fired anymore. Somehow these wordsare supposed to soften the blow of getting sacked. Right.As sort of a flippant commentary on this trend, ourcompany began, in our management skills workshops,to refer to firing people as "setting employees free."

Knowing how and when to fire an employee is atremendously valuable skill. It's also a very necessary

lii


skill. Done properly, it can have an immediate and wide-ranging positive effect on an organization. Done poorly,it can cause a myriad of headaches. Not done at all, youmight be haunted in a hundred different ways.

I'll never forget the first person I had to fire. She wasan account executive I had inherited when I joined thecompany. She had a knack for saying inappropriatethings at inappropriate times, and, despite an inordinateamount of coaching, she was completely unable to con-nect with either clients or coworkers. She was also unableto meet any deadlines set for her, and as a result she waslargely ineffective at her job. I found myself constantlycovering for her failures and scrambling to fix her work.

I delayed the decision for almost three months. I kepthoping that she would magically begin to improve. Shedidn't, of course, and it wasn't until one of my coworkerssaid to me "When are you going to stop whining abouther and just do something?" that I finally took action.

The positive changes began almost immediately.Clients were more responsive, there was less tension inthe office, and I was sleeping better. Three otheremployees came to me and confided how good a deci-sion they thought I'd made. The change was even goodfor the employee I fired. She ended up moving into acareer that she found much more satisfying. The lessonI learned that day is that, when you know what you haveto do — just do it.


Bosses and managers have all kinds of strategies fortrying to avoid firing employees. Some try to ignore theemployee, as I did, and hope things will get better. Somebegin to give the employee increasingly more disagree-able work in the hope that he will start looking foranother job. Some transfer the employee to a differentdepartment. Some demote him in the hope that he'll seethe writing on the wall and quit.

My brother-in-law, Tim, is a senior manager with alarge software company. Here is the story he told ofinheriting someone who'd recently been demoted:

He was originally the sales manager but could not motivate or

organize the sales group. He was demoted to sales rep. And then

I was hired on. He was bright and very knowledgable. He could

deal with the most arcane discussion about what is a very large

and very complex software package. But he could not develop or

articulate a simple sales strategy. His software demonstrations

were hideous affairs where he jumped all over the map, where

there was absolutely no flow and no cohesion to the demo.

After repeated discussions over these problems and increas-

ingly dire warnings, he finally confessed that he had attention

deficit disorder. His psychiatrist had put him on medication the

previous month, and everything was going to be okay. Things did

not improve. There was no alternative position within the company,

and there was no one in the organization who wanted him anyway.

I finally had to fire him.

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Think of what might have happened had thisemployee just been set free in the first place. The com-pany would likely have gained more business, Timwouldn't have inherited a challenge that consumed hisvaluable time, and the employee wouldn't have had todeal with the stress and embarrassment of beingdemoted before his peers — and then fired.

There are four fundamental steps to setting employeesfree.

1, Get a Second Opinion

Before you begin the process, confidentially outline yourthoughts to your boss or a peer you trust. Get herthoughts. Listen to her. If she agrees that your course ofaction is the right one, continue to the next stage. If shedoesn't agree with your course of action, you may ulti-mately still want to continue to the next stage, but atleast you'll have questioned your own perspective.

2. Cover Your Bases

Check any protocols or procedures that your companymay have for dismissing employees. If you have an HRdepartment, ask someone there for input. If neither


option is available to you, be fully aware of your locallabor laws and follow the proper process. At minimum,you will want to make sure that you have given youremployee at least one verbal warning and one writtenwarning prior to taking dismissal action. Ensure thatyou are offering at least the minimum compensationpackage required by law. In today's highly litigiousatmosphere, you want to make sure that you have leftnothing to chance.

Pick a date in the near future — no longer than 10 days.Mark it on your calendar so that you don't forget. Unlessyou see some miraculous or dramatic improvement,that is the day you will break the news.

A former franchisee of mine had a saying: "If you haveto swallow a frog, it's a good idea if you don't stare at ittoo long." When you're meeting with your employee,don't beat around the bush. Get straight to the point.The best way to begin is "John, I'm afraid we're going tohave to let you go." Pause for a moment to let your

1 Set a Decision Date

4, Break the News

139


employee respond. Whatever you do, don't enter into anargument: with him, and don't get into a philosophicaldiscussion about the wisdom of your decision. Simplyoutline the details.

Following are some examples of how he mightrespond and appropriate ways for you to react.

John;: E3ut I've been getting better! I'm really trying!

Boss: Unfortunately, your performance is still below par. Here is

a copy of your severance package.

John: You can't fire me - I have a family to look after!

Boss; I'm sorry, John. I understand your predicament. Here is a

copy of your severance package.

John: I knew this was coming! You've never liked me. This is

completely unfair. You're going to regret this!

Boss: Maybe so. Here is a copy of your severance package.

You don't have to be quite that abrupt, of course, but itis important that you try to avoid discussions that pro-long the discomfort for either you or your employee.

I don't think I've ever met anyone who actuallyenjoys firing people. It is sometimes, however, one ofthose necessary evils. If you've tried everything — setimmutable performance standards, tried coaching andmotivating — and the employee's performance hasn't


improved, there becomes little choice. It may help torealize that, by the time you've reached this point, youremployee is likely as unsatisfied as you are. Nobody, afterall, wants to be a failure, or unproductive, or unsatisfiedwith what he does. One reason our tongue-in-cheekterm "setting employees free" actually caught on is that,in many respects, this is exactly what you are doing. Notonly are you giving yourself, your team, and your com-pany an opportunity for a stronger, more productiveatmosphere, but you are also giving the employee anopportunity to find a new job in which he might excel.He may be losing the job, but with any luck he won't losethe lesson.

Here again are the four basic steps to setting employeesfree.

1. Get a second opinion.

2. Cover your bases.

3. Set a decision date.

4. Break the news.

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PART THREE

WHEN HELLFREEZES OVER

fiercely adverse have they lean tp ie, and tomy fathers, animy partf.

-wntit INFERNO

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

POISON IN THE POOL ANDCURIOUS QUIRKS

There seems to be an incalculable number

of weird and wonderful behaviors that

you can run into as a manager.

If the only Employees from Hell you have to deal withwere people simply not performing up to standard, lifewouldn't really be so bad. Using the strategies and con-cepts outlined in the previous chapters can help youwith most of them. Unfortunately, employees can some-times present an entirely different type of challenge.Sometimes we find ourselves having to deal with . . .interesting . . . and sometimes strange personalities.

There seems to be an incalculable number of weirdand wonderful behaviors that you can run into as a man-ager. Because they are so diverse, and at times so extreme,it would be impossible to develop an all-encompassingstrategy for dealing with them. In this chapter, we'll take alook at a cross-section of some of the more prevalent anddetrimental personality-challenged Employees from Helland at some specific techniques for dealing with them.

To help define these Employees from Hell better, I

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have divided them into two categories: Poison in thePool (employees whose behavior creates a significantnegative impact on the entire team) and Curious Quirks(employees whose counterproductive or just plainannoying behavior primarily impacts their own per-formance or their relationships with you).

Poison in the Pool

The Whirier

Some people, it seems, simply aren't happy unless they'reunhappy. No matter what's going on, no matter how goodthings are going, they'll find something to complainabout. They get great satisfaction from putting cloudsinto silver linings. We've all seen these people. When busi-ness is quiet, they whine because they're bored. Whenthings get busy, they whine because they're overwhelmed.They have sore backs, bad bosses, bad coworkers, rudecustomers, and bunions. Left unchecked, these people canslowly but surely drag down the entire team — and youwith it. They can put a damper on any of your attempts tomotivate the team, and you don't dare greet them by say-ing "Hi, how are you?" because they'll likely tell you, andit won't be pleasant.

Whining, or chronic complaining, is a type of pat-terned behavior. Most often the people who behave this

POISON IN THE POOL AND CURIOUS QUIRKS

way in your business environment behave the same wayin their social environments. And the interesting thing isthat most of these people don't realize they're whining tothe extent they are, and typically they're unaware of theimpact they're having on the team.

To deal with the Whiner, and it's very important thatyou do deal with her, you have to begin by separating thebehavior from the person. Most people can accept, albeitgrudgingly, that from time to time they exhibit behaviorthat is inappropriate. Nobody, however, likes to think ofherself as a bad person. Saying "You are a negative influ-ence on the rest of the team," or labeling somebody bycalling her a "whiner," will be completely ineffective,with the net result that you have just given her some-thing else to whine about.

The other challenge is that, because it is patternedbehavior — behavior exhibited on a consistent basis —it won't be corrected overnight. It has been programmedinto the person for years — sometimes a lifetime — andthe deprogramming process is neither easy nor quick.The good news is that most Whiners can be turnedaround, but it does require diligence and patience onyour part.

The first thing you need to do is get the person alone— either in your office or in the local coffee shop. Intro-duce the subject by using a variation of the poopsandwich technique.

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Good Stuff

Begin by outlining what you consider to be her strengthsand her contributions to the company. Something like"Jane, I think you know what it is that you bring to thiscompany, You have tremendous experience, and youalways get the job done."

Bad Stuff

Again, no "buts," "howevers," or "althoughs." Keep itpositive. The best way to start with the corrective part isby saying "There's something I need you to do for me. Idon't think you've noticed it, but a lot of times the thingsthat you say are, well, kind of negative. And my concernis that people may begin to think of you as a bit of awhiner. Now, I'm sure that's not a perception that you'dlike to have, and it certainly isn't something that I want,because that kind of negative energy can really start tobring down the team. Can I get you to, over the next lit-tle while, maybe be a little more conscious of the thingsyou say and the way you say them? I think it would be ineveryone's best interests."

Good Stuff

Make sure you let her know it isn't a condemnation of

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her as much as an observation on her behavior. You needher to believe that you don't think of her as a bad personand that you believe she is capable of improving. Forexample, you might say "I wouldn't be telling you this ifyou weren't such an important member of this team. Ireally need your help on this."

Commitment

Finish off the conversation with a simple commitmentquestion, such as "Can I count on you?" or "Will yougive it a try?"

Be prepared for the employee to become a littledefensive. If that happens, tell her about some specificinstances so that she understands what you're talkingabout. Make sure that she knows these are examples onlyand that, if it was just something happening now andthen, you wouldn't even have bothered to bring it up.

The next step requires a little diligence on your part.It is critical that you interrupt her pattern now everytime you see it. So, if you happen to be walking by herdesk while she's hanging up her phone, for example, andyou hear her say "Oh, it's that stupid customer of ours,old Mr. Smith, calling in to complain again," make apoint of reacting to it. You don't have to make a big scene— just tap her on the shoulder and look at her withraised eyebrows and a "Remember what we talked

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about?" kind of look. She likely won't respond well tothis and might get a little defensive. But once you'vedone it a dozen times or so, you'll find that she'll becomemuch more aware of her behavior patterns, and she'll bewhining less frequently.

The Gossip

The office environment is a lot like living in a smalltown. There are always a few people intent on knowingwhat everybody else is doing and on sharing that infor-mation with others in the office. The Gossip knowswho's dating whom, who has a drinking problem, who'shad a promotion, and who's in trouble. The sad truth isthat, if corporations could figure out how to spread pos-itive and relevant information as effectively as theGossip can communicate negative and irrelevant infor-mation, they would all be flourishing.

Unfortunately, the information people get from theGossip is rarely completely accurate and is generallytainted by the Gossip's opinion. The trap for manybosses is that the Gossip is often also their source ofinformation. He's the one to whom a boss might turn toget the "pulse" of the company. He's the person who willvolunteer opinions that he claims are really the opinionsof those in the office who are uncomfortable expressingthemselves. If the Gossip has his own agenda, it's easy fora boss to take actions and make decisions that can be


counterproductive at best.If you have a Gossip, and your other employees

believe that he has your ear, your ability to communicatewith the team is compromised considerably. I onceexperienced firsthand the negative impact of the Gossipon open and honest communications while conductinga series of focus groups as part of a client needs analysis.One of the groups was noticeably hesitant to shareinformation and far less candid in their comments andopinions. No matter what tactic I took, I couldn't helpbut get the feeling I wasn't getting the whole story. Afterthe session was over, one of the participants approachedme and asked if I'd noticed this behavior. I told him Ihad, and he explained why it had happened. "One of thepeople in the room," he explained, "is the manager's pet.And nothing ever happens around here that the man-ager doesn't find out about. He's a nice guy and all, butnobody really trusts him very much."

Gossips are virtually impossible to stop, short of justfiring them. But they can be controlled. They're hard tostop because they're typically fairly outgoing people andmavens by nature. They like to know things and areunhappy when they don't know things. They don't per-ceive themselves as busybodies or meddlers. They do,however, perceive themselves as being in the proverbialloop.

The best way to deal with the Gossip is not to fight

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him but to enlist him and redirect him. Begin byacknowledging that he has a good handle on everythingthat is going on, and tell him that you need his help. Tellhim that you've noticed some of the rumors goingaround the workplace that, in the long run, may hurt theteam. (Don't mention the fact that it was likely he whostarted them in the first place.) Ask him if he will take onthe role as the de facto guardian of company morale. Ifhe hears anyone say something negative about or debil-itating to the company, his role will be to try to spin itinto a positive.

You then have to explain to him that, in order to beeffective in his role, he will need to earn and retain theconfidence of his coworkers. Hence, he will have torefrain from providing you with the kind of input thathe has in the past. Tell him that, as much as you appre-ciate his information and updates, his role as "moraleofficer" will have a far greater positive impact on thecompany.

This approach allows you to use the Gossip's strengthto the company's advantage while setting the stage forgreater trust in the workplace. The compromise in usingthis strategy is that you're losing a source of informa-tion. Given the potentially questionable nature of theinformation, however, that's not necessarily a bad thing.


Jealous Joe

I remember sitting in a pub once with a group ofcoworkers when one announced that she had justreceived a promotion. High-fives and drinks were hadall around as we all scrambled to congratulate her. Shewas a bright and likable person, and we were all thrilledfor her. Well, almost all of us.

After she left, one of my coworkers, I'll call him Joe,began seething. "I can't believe she got the promotion!"he exclaimed angrily. "I've been here for five years. Ifthere's anyone who deserves a promotion, it's me!"

The outburst didn't really surprise anyone much. Joefrequently went crazy whenever somebody got some-thing he didn't have. When I had received new officefurniture a month before, he had marched straight intohis boss's office to demand why he hadn't got new officefurniture. When one of our colleagues was invited tospeak at a function, Joe made a huge fuss about how heshould be speaking at functions. He just couldn't standthe idea of somebody else being successful.

There are many people like Joe who measure theirself-worth based, not on their own accomplishments,but on how well they are doing in comparison to thosearound them. It's kind of a "keep up with the Joneses"mentality These people tend to be highly judgmental ofothers' accomplishments and are typically very vocal intheir thoughts. Their inward focus completely prevents

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them from celebrating team goals and the achievementsof others, and they can be a heavy drain on a group'spositive momentum.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that you can change theway Jealous Joe thinks. At some level, he will alwayscompare himself to others and see success as a relativething. But you can try to control his impact on the restof the team.

Your best bet with Jealous Joe is to be direct with himand consistent in your actions. Begin by meeting withhim alone. Your meeting should be positive, and, asalways, you should begin by letting him know how valu-able he is to you and the company. When you present thechallenge to him, you should be direct without beingaccusatory. Relate to him two or three instances in whichhis jealousy surfaced, and explain to him that the deci-sions you make are based on individual assessments,needs, arid requirements. Explain how his actions haveimpacted the team and why it is important that he makean effort not to damage the team's morale. Let him knowthat he can always come to you with anything that heperceives to be an injustice, but be clear that you will notdiscuss other people's situations with him.

Whatever you do, don't allow yourself to fall into anargument with him, and absolutely don't let him dragyou into a discussion about his value in comparison tosomebody else's. You will have to be both consistent and


diligent in your approach, because he won't be able tostop his behavior easily. His brain tells him there hasbeen an injustice, and it may always do so. Your strategyis to try to keep him quiet.

Mr Sarcastic

A cynic is just a man who found out when

he was about ten that there wasn't any

Santa Glaus, and he's still upset.

- James Gould Cozzens

When I was a kid, my parents used to drill into my headthat, "If you can't say anything nice about someone,don't say anything at all." Some people never got thatmessage. I'm convinced that every workplace has a Mr.Sarcastic. Like the character Steven Hyde on television'sThat '/os Show, he rarely takes the forefront, and rarelycontributes anything positive, preferring instead to sit inthe background making snide remarks about the thingseveryone else is doing.

Sarcasm, when it is chronic, is a defense mechanism."As long as I sit in the judgment seat, I am less likely tobe judged myself" is the underlying thought. Few peoplewant to judge Mr. Sarcastic harshly for fear that hemight turn on them. And make no mistake about it,although cloaked in the guise of humor, sarcasm can bemore devastating than outright condemnation when

i KIR1 93


directed at a specific person or company.On its own, sarcasm is a wonderful form of hurnor.

It gets people to look at things from different perspec-tives, and it can serve as a great release during tensesituations. It starts to become harmful, however, when itis persistent or directed. Its impact on the team can be sostrong that people become literally paralyzed for fearthat any action they take will be made fun of.

This is one of the few situations with an Employeefrom Hell that can't be effectively dealt with directly. Ifyou were to call Mr. Sarcastic into your office to talk withhim, he would simply turn it around and use it againstyou. "I got the big talk today," he might say later aroundthe water cooler. "Apparently, I'm too sarcastic. Likethere's nothing to be sarcastic about around here...."

There is only one way that I know of to deal with Mr.Sarcastic effectively, and that is to use your positionpower to beat him at his own game. It's not pretty, but itworks. Every time you hear him make a sarcasticremark, come back with a sarcastic remark of your ownthat tells him his behavior is not acceptable. Here are afew comebacks that you can try.

• "Slow day in the positive attitude department today, John?"

• "If only you could use that biting wit for goodness and niceness,

instead of evil."

• "Ah, thank you, John, for putting that cloud in our silver lining."


8 "Nothing like a little sarcasm in the morning to motivate the

team, right, John?"

° "I think the phrase is 'Early to bed, early to rise,' not 'Surly to

bed, surly to rise.'"e "Thank you for that productive contribution, John."

8 "Don't be yourself, John, be nice."

Remember that Mr. Sarcastic is using sarcasm, atleast in part, as a defense mechanism. He's trying toavoid being judged. The effect of "reverse sarcasm" isthat, every time he makes a sarcastic remark, you arejudging him. Two things will happen. The first is thatthere's a good chance he will quickly begin to tone downhis behavior to avoid criticism from his boss. The secondis that the other employees, in hearing your responses,get the message that Mr. Sarcastic's behavior is notacceptable, which effectively begins to remove anypower his comments may have.

Snake in the Grass

Every now and then you run into an employee who wantsto get ahead and decides to use your head as one of herstepping stones. Although she's often very friendly to yourface, behind your back — to her coworkers, your peers,and your superiors — she takes shots at everything fromyour management style to your decision-making abilities.

She believes that she is considerably smarter than

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you are, and she's trying hard to convince everyone elseof this. Her approach is typically a passive-aggressiveone. She will rarely, if ever, come out and challengeyou, but she will try to raise questions. She'll say thingsto other employees like "Well, I don't really know whyBob has decided to do it this way, but, hey, I'm just acompany woman, and I do what I'm told." Or she'llsuggest hidden agendas in the things that you do: "Ofcourse that's the reason he wants people to believe...."She might try to subtly discredit you with your boss bysaying, for instance, "Gee, I guess Bob never got aroundto telling us that" or "I'm sure that Bob means well,but...." She will cast doubt on your leadership at everyopportunity.

Left unchecked, the Snake in the Grass can under-mine your every effort and potentially your career. Thebest way to deal with her is an approach that she will bethe least comfortable with — a direct approach. Beginby telling her that you want a meeting. Pick a specificdate, time, and place a few days ahead to give her sometime to ponder what you're going to talk with her about.

When the meeting starts, confront her immediatelyby saying something like "Janet, you seem to be having aproblem with me," and let the statement hang in the airto see how she responds. In all likelihood, she will replywith something like "What do you mean?" Your goal atthis point is to let her know, without directly threatening


her, that you are aware of what she's been doing and thatyou won't tolerate it in the future.

To accomplish this goal, you employ a passive-aggressive tactic of your own. Begin by identifying to hertwo or three comments that you know she's made. Tellher that, if it were just one comment, you could overlookit as a onetime thing and that, if it were just two com-ments, you could write them off as coincidence. But,because of the frequency, it's apparent that there's some-thing else behind them. The language you use in the lastpart is important because you need to trigger a response.Here are some examples.

8 "Clearly, you are trying to send me a message."

• "You obviously have a reason for doing this."8 "Clearly, something is motivating you to say these things."

Follow your last statement with silence to give hertime to answer. Her response will take one of two forms.Either she'll tell you what is actually on her mind, or, asis vastly more likely, she'll claim that the comments weremade in all innocence and that you have completelymisread them. Rather than begin an argument by chal-lenging her denial, accept it without apology and spellout your position and why her behavior is destructive.Here's an example of how you can present it.

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IQQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

Janet, for the moment I'm willing to give you the benefit of the

doubt as to why you're saying these things. But you have to rec-

ognize the impact that they have on the team, not to mention the

impact they can have on me. I would appreciate it if you would

be more careful of the way you say things in the future.

Regardless of the real reasons behind Janet's sniping,you've made it clear that it isn't acceptable, and you'vealluded to the fact that you will be monitoring herbehavior. It's not a particularly fun strategy to execute,but it is effective, and It is definitely more pleasant thanthe consequences of allowing the sniping to continue.

Napoleon Blown-Apart

Have you ever met one of those people who always seemto be right on the edge of losing it? When things aren'tgoing exactly as planned, or people aren't doing thingsjust so, they get wound up tighter than an Egyptianmummy. The explosive employee is typically a hardworker, plays by the rules, and is generally polite andrespectful with coworkers. He just doesn't handle stress-ful situations well. When those situations occur, heraises the anxiety levels of everyone around him.

I once had an explosive colleague who worked in theoffice beside me. At least once a week, the frustratedshouting and cursing would literally drown out anyconversation I might have been engaged in. Once a


month or so, I would be jolted out of my seat by thesound of a telephone or other office paraphernalia beinghurtled against our mutual wall Having said this, on theprojects on which we worked together, we got alongfamously — but I still found myself walking on eggshellswhenever we hit a glitch.

I learned the secret for dealing with him fromanother colleague. Just as they would begin a project,he'd turn to our explosive colleague and say "Frank, Idon't want to see any of that famous temper of yours!"Frank would smile at him, but my colleague would per-sist. "No, I want you to understand — if you can'tcontrol it, let me know now, and I'll find someone elseto work with." He never had a problem with Frank.

Napoleon Blown-Apart's greatest challenge is that hehas never learned the skills for managing his emotionalstate. He's never had to — most people simply backaway from him when he's angry and don't want to runthe risk of riling him up again by bringing it up later.He's also learned that the occasional outburst can workto his advantage because fewer people have the courageto question his work or decisions.

As a manager, your best strategy for dealing with himis very similar to the way my colleague dealt with Frank.During a quiet moment, let him know that you won'tpermit that behavior with you or anyone else on theteam. You don't have to explain why; you simply have to

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be direct and clear. The next time he blows — and hewill — wait until he's settled down, and then ask him fora meeting. Let him know that you're disappointed withhim. Reiterate your expectations of him, and advise himthat there will be consequences the next time it happens.And when it happens again — which it will — applythose consequences.

It's important that you don't avoid or ignore thistype of Employee from Hell. By not doing anything, yougive him tacit permission to continue with his behavior,and other employees will begin to question your judg-ment and your leadership abilities.

The Bully

She comes across as supremely confident. She is com-pletely self-focused, and her own needs are inevitably apriority. She gives no consideration to other people. Toget her way, she won't hesitate to threaten, badger, brow-beat, embarrass, or intimidate other people. Those peopleinclude her subordinates, peers, coworkers, suppliers,customers, and even you. She can raise the tension levelin a room just by being there. This is the same type ofperson who pushed people around in the schoolyard,light up a cigarette in an elevator, and tailgate on thehighway.

The Bully operates on the principle that most peo-ple will back away from confrontation. So she creates

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confrontation, or the threat of confrontation, at everyopportunity. Having a bully as a member of the team canhave a catastrophic effect on productivity and the generaloffice environment. The dilemma with having a Bully asone of your employees, however, is that despite herunpleasant nature she almost always achieves her goals.

"I'm not crazy about the way she goes about things,"the GM of a large retail chain once said about one of hisdistrict sales managers, "but she sure gets things done," Hewas right, and it was hard to argue with him. It wasn't ayear after that conversation, however, that the unhappypeople in that DSM'S territory successfully spearheaded amovement to unionize the employees.

The issue with a Bully is that you have to weigh hereffectiveness, her productivity, against the productivityof the team as a whole. If you have 10 employees, andher negative behavior reduces the performance of theother nine by just 10%, she would literally have to betwice as productive as any of them to make her behav-ior acceptable.

The best way to deal with a Bully is to redefine to herhow her performance will be measured. Rememberingthat she is goal-driven and motivated by self-interest,you have to try to change her perception of what is inher best interests. If they aren't already included in thecriteria for that person's regular performance reviews,add elements of teamwork and attitude to the mix. If

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1g4 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

they're already included in the criteria, reweight them sothat they become more significant factors. Once you'vedone this, sit down, tell her what you have done, andexplain to her why.

Tell her that, while you are not unhappy with theresults that she is achieving, you have concerns abouther methods. Make sure that you have specific examplesto give her., Tell her that you are responsible for the effec-tiveness of the performance of the team as a whole andthat you can't permit behavior that jeopardizes that.

It is important that, prior to your meeting with theBully, you are exceptionally well prepared. Rememberthat her modus operandi is confrontation, and she likelywon't be afraid to try to confront or intimidate you aswell. If the Bully does become confrontational, don'targue — but do stand your ground. You may find, infact, that any bullying tactics she uses during the meet-ing you can use to your advantage. Here are someexamples of how you might handle it.

Example 1

Bully: Look, if you don't like the way I deal with things, I'm sure

that I can find a position somewhere at the competition.

You: Now you see, Sally, that's exactly the kind of behavior I

was talking about. If you feel that that behavior will be acceptable


to the competition, and you feel that you would like to leave and

work for them, that's your choice, and I can't stop you. But using

it as a threat is inappropriate.

Example 2

BulSys So what am I hearing you saying? You don't care how

good a job I do, and you just want me to be nice to people? I

mean, if you want me to be nice, and ineffective, I can do that, but

I don't see how that's going to work to the benefit of this company.

Yous Now you see, Sally, that's exactly the kind of behavior I

was talking about. I didn't suggest that, and putting those words

in my mouth is unproductive. Now, if you don't know how to be

productive as a positive member of a team, we can arrange for

training to help you develop those skill sets. If what you are saying

is that you are just unwilling to make the effort, however, that's a

different story altogether.

Example 3

Bully: I can't believe this! I'm the only one hitting all of the tar-

gets all the time. I'm the only one getting anything done around

here. And you're telling me that I'm the problem? It would take you

two people to replace me!

You: Now you see, Sally, that's exactly the kind of behavior I

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1QQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

was talking about. There are 12 people in this department, and

you are focused exclusively on you. That's not the way a team

functions.

Don't let the Bully's productivity levels dissuade youfrom moving to a dismissal strategy if you believe it's inthe company's best interests. You may be surprised athow well the rest of the team responds when this nega-tive influence is taken out of the mix.

In the late 19908, the Ottawa Senators hockey clubrefused to back down from the extortion-like demandsand bullying tactics of their star player at the time,Alexei Yashin. He represented a large proportion of theteam's goal production, and, when it became clear thathe would be sitting out for a season, it was widelybelieved that the team would suffer significantly by los-ing such a potent offensive threat. As it turned out, theimpact on the team was quite the opposite. The teamactually scored five more goals than the year before, andthey came together to become one of the premier teamsin the NHL. The Ottawa Senators became a testimonialto the value of teamwork over individual play.

As a final note about dealing with Bullies, make surethat at all times your I's are dotted and your Ts arecrossed. If you have to move toward a dismissal strategy,you don't want to be remotely vulnerable to a wrongfuldismissal litigation.


Not all Employees from Hell, of course, have the samedirect and dramatic impact on the rest of the team as thoseoutlined in Poison in the Pool. There are many others whorange from simply unpleasant to have around to justplain weird. I call them Curious Quirks. And, while theyaren't quite as destructive as Poison in the Pool types,their behavior can still be a distraction and negativelyimpact the productivity of themselves and those aroundthem. Following are a few examples of Curious Quirksand some strategies for dealing with them.

Sunshine up the Shorts (Mr. Everything)As a manager, you can't help but love employees who arealways positive. And, if every employee were as willingand eager to take on new responsibilities as Mr. Every-thing, our lives would all be greatly simplified. Mr.Everything, however, poses a different kind of problem.He's the guy who volunteers for everything. No matterwhat is on his plate, he will always want to take on more.It's not just a matter of his not being able to say no (whichhe can't); Mr. Everything actively seeks out a continuallyincreasing workload. The net effect is that he often findshimself unable to meet the deadline on anything.

Characteristically, Mr. Everything has a great deal ofinsecurity about his value and contribution to the

Curious Quirks

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company. Taking on more and more tasks is his way oftrying to convince you, and himself, that he is a valuable— perhaps indispensable — member of the team. He isloyal to the company and feels as though he has a per-sonal stake in its success.

The last thing you want to do is quell his eagerness orpositive energy. What he needs more than anything isreassurance about the importance of the work he is cur-rently involved with. There are two things that you haveto do. First, regularly remind him of the importance ofhis current projects and goals and how much you appre-ciate the job he is doing on them. Second, when he offersto take on a new project that you think might over-whelm him, you have to restate that message and let himknow how much you appreciate his eagerness andenthusiasm. Say something like "John, I really appreciateyour offer, and I really think you could do a good job onit. But right now I really need your expertise on the proj-ects you're working on. They are very important to thecompany, and I don't want anything to stand in the wayof them being complete successes." In that brief state-ment, you have told him that you appreciate hiswillingness, respect his abilities, and value his work.

Mr. Impossible

The opposite of Mr. Everything is Mr. Impossible. If youever want to develop a master list of why a task or project


can't be done, just talk to Mr. Impossible. Whether it isinsufficient manpower, shortage of time, lack of funding,inadequate knowledge, or whatever, Mr. Impossible willtry to dissuade you from having him do anything differ-ent from, or in addition to, what he is already doing.

Although his reluctance is often perceived as laziness,that is rarely the real issue. Often it is simply insecurity.Some people just don't handle change well. Other timesthe person is a perfectionist who doesn't want to dosomething unless he is confident that he can do it per-fectly. Both are people who are afraid to make a mistake.They are afraid of failure.

These are also the same people who can pose chal-lenges while you are trying to implement a performancecoaching program. They often don't respond well to goalsthat are challenging, preferring instead goals that fall intothe realm of their current expertise and experience.

Another difficulty with Mr. Impossible is that weoften find ourselves doing things to try to avoid theinevitable hassles that always seem to happen when wedelegate increased responsibilities to him. We either dothe work ourselves or delegate the tasks to other mem-bers of the team, and in doing so we begin to overloadeveryone else.

The key difference between Mr. Impossible and theWhiner is that Mr. Impossible is not necessarily a nega-tive person by nature. He is often proud of what he does

IBS


and of his company and coworkers. He just isn't com-fortable taking on more, new, or different things. As amanager trying to get a job done, though, you will findthat it doesn't take long for Mr. Impossible to get onyour nerves. This is where you have to be careful. Show-ing your frustration or impatience is not the way to dealwith him.

Unlike with many other Employee from Hell types,it's best to stay away from positive encouragement withMr. Impossible. He will likely perceive statements such as"John, I know you can do this" as reflections of flaws inyour management capabilities — either you don't under-stand the magnitude of what you are proposing, or youare overestimating his capabilities. The best way to dealwith Mr. Impossible is to move as slowly as possible withhim. Break the project or task at hand into many smallercomponents, and allow him to grow into them gradually.The smaller the component, the smaller the consequencesof failure. The smaller the consequences, the smaller therisk. The smaller the risk, the easier it becomes for him toaccept the work. If the project isn't easily broken down,give him a little more time to complete the task so that hecan make sure he will be successful.

If it is impossible to break things down or allocatemore time, let him know that you are aware of how hefeels but that you still expect him to do it. When hefinally does successfully complete the project or task,


remind him of his earlier misgivings, and then tell himthat you knew all along he was able to do it.

Many management books will encourage you simplyto reassure Mr. Impossible ahead of time that the job iseasy and that he should have no problem getting it done.I've seen this approach fail far more often than I haveseen it succeed. Why? When you think it through, theanswer is obvious. He has already convinced himself thatthe task won't be accomplished easily, and he has alreadyvoiced his opinion to you. Saying something like "Thisjob's an easy one, John. You could do it with your eyesclosed" only sends the message to him that you don'tvalue his opinion and aren't prepared to listen to him.

That approach can also cause Mr. Impossible to cre-ate a self-fulfilling prophecy. As he stews over having todo the task despite having voiced his concerns, he canbecome much less focused and productive. The nextthing you know, the task doesn't get done. He has, inessence, "proved" to you that he was right in the firstplace. You'll be much further ahead with Mr. Impossibleif you acknowledge his opinion and then try to ensurethat he is able to achieve his goal. Save your encourage-ment for after the fact, when you can tell him of yourcomplete faith in his ability to accomplish the task.

Social Butterfly

My company was doing some work with a large real estate

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development firm, and one of the women I met told mehow she was constantly overwhelmed with work and thatthere just weren't enough hours in a day to do all thethings she had to do. She wasn't unpleasant, or negative,or whining. Quite the contrary, in fact — she was a verypleasant and upbeat person who was just always under alot of time pressure. Our discussion turned to more pleas-ant things, and half an hour later our conversation hadcovered family, children, and friends.

Over the next few days, as I was in the workplace, Ibegan to notice how rarely she actually sat at her desk.Much of the time she was in other people's offices orstanding with colleagues in the hallway. The discussionsshe was having rarely seemed to be about business. Onetime she was having an animated chat with a coworkerabout the recent company golf tournament; anothertime she was recommending a restaurant to somebody.Yet another time she was in a hallway discussing herplans for the weekend.

Everybody liked her. She was bright-eyed, bubbly,personable, and an excellent listener. But I suspect thather time challenges at work had far less to do with herworkload than with her interoffice social activities. Shewas a Social Butterfly.

The challenges with a Social Butterfly are obvious. Notonly are they not as productive as they could or shouldbe, but they also hinder everyone else's productivity as

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they do their thing. They don't do it on purpose, andmost of them would be devastated to learn the negativeeffects of their behavior on their companies and cowork-ers. They just happen to be gregarious — but unfocused— individuals.

You have to be very careful when dealing with SocialButterflies. They are, by nature, quite sensitive and, ifnot approached properly, can become entirely demoti-vated. You want to change their behavioral patterns, butyou want to do so without losing their positive attitude.Again it's time for the poop sandwich — this time witha bit of a twist.

Begin by telling the Social Butterfly how much youappreciate her positive energy, and compliment her onher ability to build positive relationships. Assuming thatyou like her, tell her so. Let her know that her positive atti-tude is a valuable asset to you and the company. The nextstep is to tell her that you would like her to work a little onher productivity and her time management. Tell her yourreasoning is that, if she can combine her tremendousinterpersonal skills with better time management skills,she will become an even more valuable asset to you.

Most Social Butterflies have a strong desire to pleaseand will jump at the chance to increase their value to youand the company Pick a time for the two of you to meet,and begin with the following basic time-managementexercise.

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Ask her to record her every action over the next week,in one-minute increments. Tell her to make sure sherecords everything — from bathroom breaks to tele-phone use to cigarette breaks. Ask her to be diligent aswell as honest. When outlining the instructions, makesure she understands that there will be no negative conse-quences whatsoever — regardless of her findings. Let herknow that, even if you find out that she actually worksonly 15 minutes a day, she won't get in any trouble.

Monitor her for the first couple of days, making dis-creet notes about the times of day you see her visiting ordoing other social activities. After two days, casually askher if you can take a look at her log. Make sure that it isan informal and brief glance, and quickly check the logagainst your notes. If it is fairly accurate — if there aren'ta lot of significant discrepancies — hand it back to herand say "Great!" If you notice that she is omitting a sizableproportion of the activities you've noted, call her intoyour office. Say something like this: "Barbara, this is great.I need you to be a little more precise, though, with yourrecord keeping. I made a few notes during the day, and Ijust wanted to see if the two coincided, and there are a fewdiscrepancies. For example ...." Make sure that she rec-ognizes this is not a condemnation or an accusation.

At the end of the week, set aside half an hour withher to go over the log. Create ahead of time an informalspreadsheet with six or seven different categories to

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indicate the major time consumers. Included in themmay be telephone time, discussions not related to a proj-ect or task, meetings, breaks, and so on. The first thingyou'll notice as you begin to analyze her log is that, overthe course of the five days, the amount of time she spenton actual work progressively increased. As she filled outand reviewed her log, she became more and more awareof her unproductive time and tried to correct itthroughout the week.

Next, calculate the averages in each of the categories,and set targets for the second week. For example, if heraverage telephone call was seven minutes long, set thetarget at five minutes. If her average meeting time was 20minutes, set the target at 15 minutes. Help her to identifyareas that are stealing time from her. Show her how, bytrimming her time stealers, she can add a significantamount of time to her work week. I went through thisexercise myself many years ago and managed to easilyrecapture three and a half hours a week simply by short-ening each phone call a bit.

Ensure that you give the Social Butterfly a lot of pos-itive reinforcement as her performance improves — andyou'll be amazed at how much improvement there willbe. After the initial two-week period, while you won'tneed her to continue filling out time sheets, you stillhave to remain diligent. Like all of us, she is susceptibleto falling into old habits and comfort zones. When you

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pass her in the halls and hear her having a personal dis-cussion, just look at her, tap your watch with a smile,and walk away.

Not My Job

Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer!

- "Bones" McCoy, Star Trek

There's an old joke about two construction workers withshovels working at the side of the road. One man woulddig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. Theother man would come along behind him and fill ineach hole. While one was digging a new hole, the otherwas 10 feet behind him filling in the previous one.

Joe, watching this for an hour and a half from his gasstation across the street, finally couldn't take it anymoreand walked over to talk with them. "OK, guys, I give up.What's with all this digging and refilling of holes?"

The two men looked at each other blankly, and thenone turned to Joe and said, "Well, we work for the gov-ernment, and we're just doing our job — that's all."

The two men returned to their shoveling."But one of you is digging a hole, and the other is just

filling it up again. You're not accomplishing anything.Aren't you wasting the taxpayers' money?"

"Look, mister," one of the men told Joe, leaning onhis shovel, "it's not our fault, OK? Normally, there's three


of us — me, Elmer, and Leroy. First I dig a hole, thenElmer sticks a tree in it, and finally Leroy here puts thedirt back. Elmer got laid off yesterday, so now it's just mean' Leroy."

It's unfortunate, but there really are people like that.People who will do their job, only their job, and nothingbut their job — no matter what the impacts might be onthose around them. Nurses talk about doctors whowon't even change a dressing. Law clerks tell of lawyerswho don't even know where the filing cabinets are. Iremember a coworker of mine once refusing to hold thefront door of the office open as movers were bringing inhis new furniture.

Margo Warren, manager of events for the massiveannual Gift and Tableware show, tells about the occa-sional keynote speaker with an ego so large that commoncourtesy when off the stage seems to elude him. Quite theopposite Margo herself, who won't hesitate to put asideher title of "manager" and pitch in if another set of handsis required to set up an event. Or people like StanUdaskin, general manager of Park and Fly, who readilytromps out into the most miserable of weather to helphis car jockeys and drivers shuffle cars around.

No, Not My Jobs are people who consider themselvesabove such things. "I didn't spend seven years in university,"I once heard a recent MBA grad say, "to make my own pho-tocopies." Imagine if Sam Walton had had that attitude.

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This unique Employee from Hell becomes particu-larly challenging when someone in a weak momentunwittingly promotes him to a position where he canannoy people on a larger scale instead of just one personat a time. There is no easy way that I know of to dealwith Not My Job, but there is one way that works. Beblunt. Brutally blunt. Horribly, directly, brutally blunt.Invite him into your office for a meeting. Have preparedthree things: a glass of water, an organizational chart,and a bull's-eye target.

When he sits down, come straight to the point. Lethim know that he is teamwork challenged and that yourgoal in life at the moment is to correct that. Here's howyour opening might sound: "Charlie, there seems to be achallenge with your willingness to be a team player. Theimpression seems to be that you see yourself as beingsomewhat above some of the tasks that have to be donearound here. I would like to take you through an exer-cise on perspective."

Charlie may well deny that he has a superior attitude.If he does, let him know that you are prepared to givehim the benefit of the doubt but that you still want himto go through the exercises. Begin with the glass ofwater. Ask him to stick his finger in it and leave it therefor a few moments.

While his finger is in the water, explain to him that,for the purpose of this exercise, the water represents the


workplace, and the finger represents him. Convey to himthat, when people pitch in and function as a team, theybecome the water — fluid, flexible, and accommodat-ing. The organization as a whole becomes responsive toand ready for as much growth as its structure will allow.When someone is not a team player, that personbecomes a solid, and the organization ceases to be asflexible and responsive. (I have to warn you, by the way,that, as he is sitting there trying to make eye contact withyou while he has one finger dipped in the water, it is verydifficult to keep a straight face.)

"The most important thing to recognize," you con-tinue, "is how very much more important the team as awhole is than any of us as individuals are." Then ask himto take his finger out of the glass. "Now take a look at thehole you left." Remain quiet while you maintain eye con-tact. Look for signs that he might be getting the point.

Right after this exercise, direct his attention to theorganizational chart. Ask him to find himself and circlehis name or position. Point out all of the lines that con-nect each position in the chart. "What would happen,"you now ask, "if all these lines were broken? What ifeveryone reported only to himself and never had tocommunicate with others?" Hopefully, he will be able torecognize that, should this happen, the company wouldcease to function.

"When someone concerns himself with his own

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needs only, to the exclusion of those around him [begincircling positions as you speak], he begins to interruptthe flow created by these lines. We become islands untoourselves. Even though each of these areas has its ownset of goals and responsibilities, they all have to be ableto work together for everything to function." Give himthe chart and suggest he pin it up by his desk.

Finally, hand him the bull's eye. Tell him that, if hecan't begin to be a little more respectful of the rest of theteam, he might as well just tape it to his back. Whetherit's someone on the current team or someone on afuture team, eventually he is going to become the targetof somebody's wrath.

The approach isn't particularly pleasant, but it is effec-tive in sending the message on the importance ofteamwork and communicating your expectations of himas a team member. There is a good chance that you willnever have his complete agreement or understanding —his selfish behavior, after all, has been nurtured for manyyears — but: at least you can have his compliance.

Heart on Sleeve

I have a good friend, Janet, who has a colossal challengetrying to take a vacation. She is in a relatively high-pressure job, and her second in command simply can'ttake the stress when she is away. Janet inevitably receivesat least one or two crisis phone calls during her vacation

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and upon her return finds herself spending half a dayjust trying to reassure her employee that everything is allright. According to Janet, this employee is highly com-petent, and, although maybe not as proficient as Janet,she definitely has the skill sets and knowledge to get thejob done. Intellectually, she has what it takes, but she ischallenged emotionally when it comes to dealing withthe stress.

Some people just seem to lack the ability to managetheir emotional states at virtually any level. Their moodscan change without notice, and you never know whichof their personalities will show up for work on a givenday. It takes very little to get them upset or worried, butonce they've achieved one of those states it is extremelydifficult to get them out of it.

With most Heart on Sleeve people, this isn't some-thing that you can just sit down and have a conversationabout. Their very sensitivity makes it a difficult topic toapproach. It's also unlikely that you'll be successful inattempting to teach them how to better manage theiremotions. The best strategy, I believe, is for you to learnhow to better manage their emotions.

Most emotional behavior is patterned and progres-sive. Our emotional states are set off by triggers, andthose triggers can be literally anything. A loud noise, aringing telephone, somebody shouting, a bill in the mail— anything. We suddenly find ourselves feeling

«i


depressed, angry, upset, frustrated, overwhelmed, unsat-isfied, and so on. Once the emotion has been triggered,the emotional state builds and expands until it eitherreaches an end point or another emotional trigger over-rides it.

It's important to recognize that these escalations inemotions follow a distinct and recurring pattern eachtime. Even though the specific events that trigger theemotions may differ, the same thought patterns emergeevery time. Like popping in a CD, the same old songstarts to play in our heads — and it plays particularlyloudly for the Heart on Sleeve employee.

To change patterned behavior, you have to developstrategies to interrupt the pattern. Interrupt it signifi-cantly enough and often enough, and the pattern ceasesto exist. The first step is to learn how to identify Hearton Sleeve's triggers. What gets her going? Which com-mon events seem to trigger her counterproductivebehavior? Make a list of these things so that you're pre-pared ahead of time to deal with them.

The second step is to interrupt her emotional pat-terns through a series of highly focused, short-termtasks. As soon as you see her emotional state begin tochange, give her a five-minute task that will take all ofher concentration to complete. Ask for a monthly salessummary broken down by client. Ask for a handwrittensummary of each difficult customer she's had to deal


with over the past two weeks. Ask for a rough count of acertain type of inventory you have. The task itself is lessimportant than the time frame you give her — five min-utes, and make it urgent.

As soon as she has completed the task, give heranother one. Again, make it easily attainable but some-thing that will require significant focus for five minutes.What you'll discover, after you have done this two orthree times, is that she has lost the emotional state thatbegan to build. Although she won't be conscious of whatyou are doing, the events that used to trigger certainemotional patterns will eventually begin triggering amore work-related focus.

In following this process, you will literally havebegun to reprogram the way in which she responds tocertain triggers. Kind of like Pavlov's dog, only withoutthe drooling. It won't work all the time, and it certainlywon't change Heart on Sleeve's inherently emotionalpersonality. But it will gradually reduce both the natureand the severity of the incidents that most significantlyaffect performance.

Unfocused

There is one type of Employee from Hell for whomwork is just a tremendous inconvenience. It gets in theway of all her other activities during the day. A senior HRprofessional I know tells about an employee who went

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around to her colleagues and various managers to shareher most recently learned moves from a belly dancingclass. Another, whom I mentioned at the beginning ofthe book, ran a phone sex line during working hours.Commissioned sales reps are notorious for having little"side projects" (sometimes full-time jobs) that eat uptheir time.

For some people, their job is simply not a priority.And it doesn't seem to matter how much coaching andmotivating you throw at them — nothing works. Butdon't feel bad. It's a good bet that the same people areequally unfocused in every other aspect of their lives aswell. It really wouldn't matter who their boss was —that's just the way they are. They often don't feel atremendous attachment to the job or the company. Theyhave an exceptionally short attention span, and they arealmost exclusively focused on themselves. They are con-stantly in search of either mental or physical stimulation.

The Unfocused employee is not always salvageable, butit's never a bad idea to give it a shot. Some activities, ofcourse, such as the employee running the phone sex line atwork or the commissioned sales rep being a full-timeemployee of two companies, must be dealt with directlyand finally. Fortunately, most cases aren't quite that severe.

Sit down with Unfocused and explain to her exactlywhat in her behavior is creating challenges. As always,make sure that you have some specific examples to help

POISON IN THE POOL AND CURIOUS QUIRKS |gg

make the point. Tell her that you need all of her attentionon her work and the job at hand. Let her know that, whileyou are prepared to support her in getting her job done,you can't do it all yourself— she needs to pull her weight.

It's really the only approach you can take. Some ofthese employees, no matter how well you say it to them,will simply be unable to understand what the big deal is.They will think of you as just overreacting to a minorincident. Unfortunately, these employees often becomeperfect candidates for being set free.

Most Unfocused employees, however, will make theeffort to change their behavior. In many cases, they aresimply unaware of what they've been doing or don'trealize the extent to which they've been doing it. Mostwill be mortified and embarrassed when you point outjust how much of an effect their behavior is having onproductivity.

Temporally Challenged

The meeting begins at nine o'clock. Everyone is therebut Paul, but no one is surprised — Paul is late foralmost everything. He is one of those time-challengedpeople who drive everyone else around him nuts.

People who are chronically late for things are every-where, and their behavior can range from being just alittle annoying to being highly disruptive. A senior execu-tive I once worked with used to be so chronically late with

IQ6 WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

client meetings that our company literally began to losebusiness. (Needless to say, he's not there anymore.)

To be honest, when I was younger, I was also chroni-cally late. Not for important things such as businessappointments or golf games, of course, but when it cameto anything else I was always the one straggling in 15minutes after everyone else. It wasn't until someonepointed out how selfish my behavior really was that Ibegan making an effort to change it.

Chronically late people have a dramatic and insidi-ous impact on a company. The first and most obviousimpact is the amount of other people's time that getswasted. The biggest effect, however, is in the subtle (andusually unintentional message) they send. When some-one is chronically late, she sends the message thatneither you nor the company is very important.

There are a couple of strategies that I've seen workfor the Temporally Challenged. The first is to quantifythe consequences of his actions for him. The next time ameeting is delayed because of his tardiness, have a meet-ing afterward with him and go through a littlemathematical equation with him. You may have to do alittle preparation, but your meeting might go somethinglike this:

Paul, there were six people in that meeting. If we pick an average

salary of, say, $60,000 (use his salary as the example), that's


$360,000 in annual salaries. That's $180 per hour, or three

bucks per minute. You were 10 minutes late today, and in doing

this you've wasted $30 of the company's money. That might not

seem like a lot to you, but you're late a lot. How often? Two, three

times a week for different things? A hundred times a year? Now

we're into thousands of dollars - just in employee costs. When

you factor in the cost of lost productivity, it becomes many times

that. The bottom line, Paul, is that I simply can't afford to have you

being late to meetings anymore.

Finish by asking for his commitment, and make surethat you monitor him on a regular basis.

The second approach is equally direct but appealsmore to his sense of empathy for his coworkers. Have ameeting with him, and point out the message he wassending to the others. Here is an example of how youmight present it:

Paul, being late for things every once in a while is acceptable. It

happens to everyone. But it's happening with you more often than

just once in a while. While you no doubt always have good rea-

sons, I don't think you recognize the message that you are

sending to everyone else. Being late for a meeting once sends the

message 'Oops, I goofed.' Being late on a number of occasions

sends the message 'My needs are more important than everyone

else's.' I am sure that that is not the impression you are meaning

to give people.

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As in the first example, finish by asking for his commit-ment, and make sure that you monitor him on a regularbasis.

All about Me

A few people out there truly believe that the world, andyou, owe them a living. At times bordering on a narcissis-tic personality disorder, these people feel a certain sense ofentitlement. They have unreasonable expectations ofspecial treatment and literally do not understand whythey aren't the center of everyone else's universe. Theytypically struggle with fundamental customer serviceprinciples because the concept of putting the needs ofsomeone else first makes them uncomfortable. In meet-ings and workgroups, they translate everything into"How does this affect me?"

All about: Me is different from Not My Job in that Allabout Me's are not particularly conscious of their behav-ior. They see themselves as discerning, particular,selective, and hard to please, but they perceive those tobe positives — reflections of character. They are rudeand abrupt and at times seem almost to enjoy watchingthe people around them become uncomfortable. On therare occasions that they express empathy — when it isexpected of them — they make a big show of it so thateveryone can see. All about Me's gain a feeling of powerby being hard to please. They regularly send food back to


restaurant kitchens. They burn through suppliers whodon't treat them as though they are their only customer.They frustrate employees who don't display visiblerespect and adulation. Whenever I meet one, I think of asaying I once heard: "Never give power to someone whocan't live without it"

All about Me's are particularly challenging Employeesfrom Hell to deal with because, while they aren't partic-ularly good team players, they rarely do anything wrong.Their response will typically be "Yes, I have high stan-dards — I'm not going to apologize for that." What areyou supposed to say to that? "We don't want high stan-dards around here?" The best way that I know to dealwith All about Me is on a situation-by-situation basis.Focus on the manner in which he says things instead ofthe actual things he is saying. Use questions to maintaincontrol of the conversation. Be prepared, however; Allabout Me can become very defensive.

His first line of defense will be to question why youare even bringing the issue up in the first place, and hewill express strong reluctance to recognize the need forchange in his choice of language. He will try to dismissany attempt you make by using deflecting questions andcomments.

Let's say, for example, you're in a restaurant withhim, and he decides to return some food. Your conver-sation may go like this:

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Charlie: Waiter, the chicken is dry, the rice is cold, and the veg-

etables are anything but crispy. I was wondering if you would take

this back and bring me something that is actually edible.

You: (after the waiter has gone) Charlie, how might you have

said that differently?

Charlie: What?

You: How might you have said that a little more pleasantly?

How might you have phrased that so that the waiter would want

to bring the food back instead of just feeling as though he had to

bring it back?

Charlie: Why is that important?

It may sound like a flippant comment, but Charlie actu-ally doesn't understand why it is important. Answerssuch as "Being nice to people pays off" or "You shouldtry being nicer to other people" will have no effectbecause he simply doesn't think that way. Unless he seesa direct and immediate payoff to himself, being nice topeople is irrelevant.

The fastest way to have him change his behavior is tolet him know that you expect him to be nice. You expecthim to be courteous, and you expect him to be consider-ate of other people's feelings. He will want to debate thepoint and ask you why, but don't explain. Simply tellhim that it is what you expect and that it isn't negotiable.Your conversation at the restaurant now might finishlike this:


Charlie: (deflecting) Why is that important?

You: It is important to me. I expect courtesy and awareness of

other people's feelings in the workplace, and this is a good place

to practice. So tell me, how might you have said that a little more

pleasantly?

Charlie: (deflecting) What's this all about?

You: It's about courtesy and presenting things in a more pos-

itive manner, Charlie. It's very important to me, and \ expect it of

the people who work for me. It's an area that you need to work on.

Now tell me, how might you have spoken to the waiter a little more

pleasantly?

Charlie: (deflecting) I don't understand. What has brought this

on?

You: Work with me, Charlie. Tell me how you might have pre-

sented that a little differently.

In the example, Charlie continues to deflect therequest, hoping to draw you into a debate. The key is toavoid this debate and not to lose focus on your originalrequest. Charlie will likely never really understand whyhe has to do it, but he will do it if you stick to your guns.The next step is to repeat this process each time you seehim exhibit similar behavior. It's a painful and arduousprocess, but he will eventually get the message.

The Skunk

Every now and then you run into an employee who has

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some kind of persistent odor. It can be body odor, badbreath, smelly shoes, or stale cigarette smoke. It makeseveryone uncomfortable, yet, like a real skunk, the per-petrator never seems to notice.

In the early 19708, a series of television commercialsfeatured people anonymously receiving bottles of themouthwash Scope. Although it may not be a strategyyou'd want to employ in real life, the humorous com-mercial did illustrate well the fact that these people needhelp, not: condemnation.

The best way to deal with an odoriferous employee isthe direct but gentle way. Your goal is to correct theproblem while keeping embarrassment to the mini-mum. You want to present it to him as a friend, and youdon't have to let on that anyone other than you noticesthe odor. Begin by acknowledging that it is an embar-rassing subject. Let him know that you're telling himbecause you respect him. Be plain, and be brief. Don'tstay around long after you break the news to him —doing so will just increase the embarrassment. Here is anexample of how you might approach this problem:

You: Sam, there's something I want to talk to you about. It's

kind of embarrassing, and I don't really know how to bring it up,

but. . . well . . . I don't think you notice it, but you have a bit of a

body odor problem. It's not really horrible, but it is noticeable. I'm

really sorry to bring it up like this, but, well, I have a lot of respect

POISON IN THE POOL AND CURIOUS QUIRKS f |J3

for you, and I thought I should tell you before it becomes a prob-

lem for you.

Choosing your words carefully is paramount. On theone hand, you don't want to play the problem down somuch that he does nothing about it; on the other hand,you don't want to come right out and say something like"Man, you could knock a buzzard off a manure wagon!"Be direct but gentle.

Yabut

If I were ever to open an excuses store, I would have noproblem finding staff or inventory. There are a greatnumber of people out there who absolutely excel atexcuses. "Yabut it wasn't niy fault." "Yabut I'm reallybusy." "Yabut it's gunna take a lot of time " "Yabut that'snot how it works."

Yabut, yabut, yabut. One word with the power toturn the best of intentions into distant memories. Fromtime to time, we hear it in our training sessions — typi-cally in our customer service and sales programs."Yabut," the employee will tell us, "this is [insert thename of any city on the planet here], and our customersare different." It's getting harder to keep a straight faceevery day.

Once, while I was coaching in one of the stores of alarge fashion retailer, two employees tried to convince


me why they shouldn't proactively greet customers.They wanted no part of it. "Yabut," they told me vehe-mently, "our customers are different from the customersin other stores...." As fortune would have it, at the verymoment they were telling me this, three customerswalked into the store laden with bags from at least fiveother fashion retailers in the mall. I couldn't resist."Yabut," I said, "what about them?"

Ron Pasternak, vice-president of Vincor Interna-tional, feels as strongly about yabut as I do and keepsurging our company to sell buttons that look like this:

The best way to deal with the chronic Yabutter is tocontinually point out her behavior and to encourage herto reword her statements every time. Here are someexamples.


Call Center

Supervisor" Jane, I'd like you to try to resolve more of these cus-

tomer complaints without escalating them to a supervisor.

Jane: Yabut they ask for a supervisor; what am I supposed to

do?

Supervisors There's another one of those yabuts again! 1 think

maybe what you meant to say was "OK, do you have any sugges-

tions as to what I can do that might work better?"

Sales

Boss: Allan, I'd like you to increase your number of cold calls by

10 a week, all right?

Allan: Yabut I'm already doing 50. How am I going to do more

prospecting and still keep up with my follow-ups?

Boss: Was that a "yabut" I heard? I think what you meant to say

was "Sure, boss, I'll give it a shot. It's going to be a challenge to

do that and keep up with my follow-ups, but I'll sure try."

Office

Boss: Sandy, it looks like I'm going to need those reports on

Thursday instead of Friday, as I originally thought.

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IQQ WINNING WITH THE EMPLOYEE FROM HELL

Sandy: Yabut I'm already in the middle of three other projects! I

can't just drop everything.

Boss: There's one of those "yabuts" again. Try this: "OK, boss. I

do have some other projects on the go - which ones should take

priority?"

Eventually, if you remain consistent, your employeewill develop an awareness of her language pattern andgradually remove yabut from her vocabulary.

Liars, Cheats, and Thieves

If there is ever a time when the decision to set anemployee free is clear-cut, it's when someone lies, cheats,or steals. Don't think twice, don't hesitate, don't negoti-ate. Just dance the person out the door as fast as you can.Regardless of whether the victim was a coworker, thecompany, a customer, a supplier, or you personally, thebest solution for everyone is unceremoniously to cuthim loose.

CONCLUSION

We've gone from being just big bugs to being

big bugs with power. And that's scary.

Every now and then — when I'm walking through astore, standing in an office, or talking on the telephone— I meet someone who prompts a screaming thought:"Who the hell hired this person? What was he thinking?"I hear the employee saying incredibly stupid things andsee him behaving in inexplicable ways. I watch himbumbling, stumbling, and mumbling while his cowork-ers and managers look on in embarrassment. I seecustomer service people with dead faces and deadervoices. I witness shameless acts of selfishness and narcis-sism. There are times, honest to goodness, that I thinkwe are just a bunch of large bugs with no more sensethan our tiny counterparts.

But, inevitably, no sooner do those thoughts flashthrough my mind than I begin to see different things. Isee the high school student-turned-retail clerk who'snever been asked to smile. I hear the telephone GSR who'snever been told that she talks too quickly, too softly, ortoo abruptly. I see senior managers who have never beentaught the basics of managing people. I see employeestrying to do a good job but not getting any support fromthose around them.

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It's then I realize that, at one level or another, we allhave the capacity to be Employees from Hell. And, asbosses, we have the influence to create even moreEmployees from Hell. We've gone from being just bigbugs to being big bugs with power. And that s scary.

Perhaps the most important thing I've learned is thatEmployees from Hell are really not much of a differentkind of bug than you or I. They are typically decent peo-ple who just do stupid things from time to time. Theencouraging part is that, in most cases, we can do some-thing about it. In Winning with the Employee from Hell,I've tried to give you a few highlights of some of thosethings. The solutions aren't always pretty, but neither arethey complicated — the important thing is that theywork. And, even on those rare occasions that they don'twork, I hope I was able to communicate the concept thatyour destiny, and the destinies of those who report toyou, are largely still in your hands. Any action is betterthan no action, and doing nothing is rarely, if ever, anacceptable option.

Begin by examining your work environment. Howmight it be contributing to employee challenges, andwhat, if anything, can you do to correct it? Then take alook at yourself. What skill sets can you develop as amanager that will have a positive impact on the peoplearound you? Follow this assessment with a close look atyour Employee from Hell. Why is he behaving this way?

CONCLUSION

What's behind his behavior? Talk to him. Listen to him.Learn from him.

Yes, when the frustration really gets to you, and yourEmployee from Hell is just one more annoyance amongyour workday pressures, it might seem as though thesimplest solution is just to grab that pink piece of paperand put an end to it. Sometimes, too, that is the bestsolution. But try not to make it your first or only alter-native.

Before you squish him like the bug you think him tobe, give him a chance. He may be a good bug after all.

iq§

Winning With The Employee From Hell

Education

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