Workplace Sanity

Employees acting like children?

June 10th, 2013

If you’ve ever felt that managing employees is like raising (difficult) children, you’re not alone.  People often bring their worst behaviors and attitudes into the workplace, constantly testing staff and management, defying efforts to create teamwork.  These kinds of employees can cost profitability quickly byconsuming precious management resources, destroying customer good will and contributing to an overall overly anxious or depressive culture.  For some employees, “playing well with others” was a challenge never quite met since childhood.  Learning to cooperate and help others while working hard at what you’re good at is a set of skills we shouldn’t  take for granted.  Understanding what leads people to such destructive behaviors can help.  If turnover is high in your business, you may be sacrificing talent otherwise saved by a more robust style of management, one that keeps goals and values clear, and leaves minimal room for noise, poor performance and whining.  Marcus Buckingham, former Gallup Poll researcher and author of “First Break All The Rules” reminds us that great managers aren’t created managing easy employees, you can read this article and learn ways to better manage yourself and your team.  Great managers are the ones that can bring out the best in hard charging but difficult performers while finding ways to mitigate their flaws.  Of course this can’t happen without getting to know our employees well, and it won’t happen unless employees are willing to get to know themselves well, especially their blind spots and limitations.  It can pay business dividends to refer an employee outside for brief counseling.  Often a few sessions can improve attitudes and solve problems that have defied in-house management attempts.  I often encounter a curious and predictable dynamic when sorting through an employees history.  Call it self sabotage, or “choking”.  Morris Shectman, in his excellent book, “The Internal Frontier” refers to a sub-concious habit of seeking what he refers to as an “emotional familiar”, or a constellation of counterproductive feelings and thoughts that overwhelm a person during particular times of stress, even though the resulting behavior is self destructive.  He maintains that employees will unknowingly seek these “emotionally familiar” feelings in the workplace and exasperate all attempts to stop it.  He uses an example of a respected female executive who “chokes” during every presentation she gives before a tough senior manager.  Visibly shaking and out of control, she has put her advancement in jeapardy by avoiding opportunities to lead.  She is unaware of the origins of this failure, and is even more puzzled by it’s stark contrast  to her overall high levels of achievement.  During therapy, she is able to recall her struggle with a long ago learning difficulty and her abusive step father’s outbursts during his tutoring of her.  The “emotional familiar” is her sense of shame and temporary loss of self esteem and self direction.  With the help of an outside therapist, and the gentle, persistent coaching of a good manager, she is able to gradually overcome her fears and participate more effectively with the senior management team.

Namaste,

John

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