Executive Podcast #300: Dealing with a Difficult Employee

Chris Goede:
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Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell leadership. Welcome to our 303 episode 300. Welcome and thank you for joining. I do want to specifically just say a huge thank you to Perry. Many of you have maybe heard this story, but this podcast session one, episode one, did not start off too well.

Perry Holley:
You were a Lone Ranger.

Chris Goede:
I sent it to a buddy of mine, my coach at the time, and I said, hey, what do you think about this? And he only had one thing to say, which is, you want me to help you with that? So, man, the content over 300 episodes comes straight from Perry. And I tell people all the time, he is a ferocious learner, reader, consumer of content, and is an incredible coach facilitator.

Perry Holley:
Thank you.

Chris Goede:
But all the content that we’re able to get to people around the world that we’re impacting, and we’re humbled by this everywhere we go, even in our office building here I was telling you a story. I was out in the lobby talking to somebody, and they came over and they’re like, executive podcasts. And I’m like, do you have an office here? And so, man, thank you for that. Because what this has been and the fact that we’re at 300 is because of thank you. You wanting to grow every day and share that to add value to people. So as we roll into this, I want to encourage you to visit maxwellleadership.com/podcast and there you can learn more about our coaching facilitating content pieces. I was talking to somebody today who is like, man, we have a couple of different generations. And I was like, we have a course.

Chris Goede:
Tim Elmore wrote an incredible book called New Kind of Diversity. Perry took it. We put it into a training course. Now it’s multi leading, multi generational teams. We have some culture content, and if you’re interested, fill out that form there and we’ll be in touch with you. Well, today’s topic is something that I think a lot of us struggle with. Matter of fact, um, there’s a significant number of leaders that even fail to do this. Um, and this avoidance of what we’re going to talk about today is a major leadership failure, a stumbling block from them to grow and, and to connect with teams.

Chris Goede:
And that is how do we deal with the difficult team member? How do we deal with the difficult employee that is on our team? So we’re going to, on this 300th episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about that. And Perry, take it away. Where we’re going today on this topic.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, this came from a, one of our coaches that we have and they’re, when their coaches had asked, I’m really having struggling with a particular employee and I don’t know how to deal with that. And do you have any suggestions? And then that coach sent it to me and said, what do you know? And I thought, you know, we don’t really talk about this. Actually, after 300 episodes, I was so thrilled to find we haven’t ever talked about this, that it is a issue my own career. I’m sure most leaders that are watching or listening would say, you don’t deal with this a ton. Most of your people are good and well meaning and all that, but occasionally there’s someone that just makes it very difficult for the team or for you to do that. So I thought, I didn’t always handle these well. I probably have only had a handful in 40 years of doing this, but they’re the first few were not handled well at all. So I began to study and learn and get some help from coaches and mentors.

Perry Holley:
How do you do this and be respectful, but also be direct? And there’s some things about my personality that I have to work a little harder. Some others may not, but I’ll just say, let’s just jump right into it. I say my first answer to this, to this other person was, it starts with you and that leadership, as we teach, is all about influence, not about your titles. You know, you’re the boss. And this problem person’s giving you a hard time. That’s not going to be helpful for you to be command and controlling. It is about your influence level. And so while your title in position can give you some small amount of influence because you’re the boss, people don’t really want to.

Perry Holley:
Don’t really want to be boss. So I thought, if you’re having a problem with someone, always start with you. Look at you. Do you have influence with them? Have you? And we talk about. Maybe you could talk a little bit about how do we, you know, the five levels, and we say, how do you build influence? And it starts with relationship, and how would you know? I think you got to monitor that a bit first before you start jumping into the person’s the problem. There could be something else going on.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. I want to be very clear here, and what we’re Perry’s bringing to us today, which is not necessarily handling difficult conversations with difficult people. It is someone that’s on the team, inside the organization that is just difficult. Right. Period. Across the board. And they. They.

Chris Goede:
This happens. I’m listening to right now, a book on, I think, the titles culture solutions. And the session this morning was that your hiring process has to be, a process has to be dynamic, because that is a direct result of what the culture of the organization is going to be like. And so I was just fascinated by some of the simple things they were talking about that then shows up down the road in culture, because we have difficult people in there. And so, as Perry said, we can talk a little bit about the five levels, but let me back up and even say, do you see every employee, even if they’re difficult or not as valuable? We’re going through, you know, John’s new book right now and high road leadership. And one of the chapters I was digging into the other day talks about the fact that unless you see every individual as valuable, then you’re not going to be able to lead them to the fullest of their ability. They still might be difficult, but we have to start at the foundation of seeing them as valuable. And when you do that, then you can potentially invest time to get to know this person instead of just checking out and not knowing.

Chris Goede:
I don’t know. Right. I’m done. He’s difficult. She’s difficult. Um, have you even tried to connect with them? Find that 1% that you guys have in agreements and go 100% in on that another connection principle that we’ve talked about. And then, to Perry’s point, we were talking about the five levels, right. Level one, are they just following you because they have to, or have you done enough to get to that relationship, that connection level at level two where they want to be on your team? And I think when that happens there, you’ll see a little bit of a shift of those that are difficult.

Chris Goede:
And so the follower, whether they are a difficult employee, team member, or not, they’re always asking three questions of you. First, can you help me? We’ve said this before here. They’re asking that, and if not, they may be difficult. Second one, do they care for me? The third one is, can I trust you? And if these answers are yes, then I think you’re well on your way of helping to work through this difficult employee. If they’re no, then you gotta go back to that foundation at level two of the five levels and really figure out how do I connect with them?

Perry Holley:
I think that’s so important, and it sounds so simple. Most people. Oh, yeah, I get that. It makes sense. I’m gonna encourage you. Write it down. Three questions. Help, care and trust.

Perry Holley:
Do they know you’re trying to help them? Do they know you care about them? Do they know they can trust you? And that’ll give you a good indicator. If those are yes, yes, and yes, then you probably have some good influence. Doesn’t mean they’re not, they’re going to stop being a troubling employee, but it, it’ll put you in a long way. One, getting there. Most leaders are doing this and are being, have a great relationship. So let’s, let’s shift gear. Once you’ve looked at yourself, I think it comes down to, I’ll just, it’s going to be a couple of categories here, but the first one I’ll just call awareness. Is this person aware of their disruptive or negative behavior? This is a one on one conversation.

Perry Holley:
Do not do this in public. That’s probably pretty obvious, but a private conversation. And you probably need to be specific about what you have observed about them and just find out, are they aware that they’re even doing it? I’ve had situations in the past where when I handled it poorly, I assume that they were, and they knew they were doing it, doing it on purpose. Once I got a little smarter and I started asking, are you aware you’re doing this? I had one guy almost break in tears. He said, no, I’m sorry, I’ve got a big issue at home, and I didn’t realize there were some other factors that were there. If you have those specific examples, I find it again is another word that we use a lot here about can I stay in a curious mindset? Is that don’t be judging if you’re curious. It’s hard to judge somebody. It’s hard to jump to conclusions if you’re curious and you don’t need to use the word I’m curious, but I find it helpful sometimes.

Perry Holley:
I’m curious, is there something going on? Is there. I’m curious, why would you be acting this way? I’m curious, why did you degrade or speak badly to your teammates? Why are you being negative and really asking the questions from a curious? I genuinely want to know, is there something going on that I can help with? Show care with, build trust with. Go back to the three things. So, awareness. Sometimes they’re not aware, sometimes they are. But I need to get that on the table quick.

Chris Goede:
And through this process, I think you’re going to be able to discover the why. Right. And that’s where Perry’s going, is whether they’re aware or not. Like, it’s your job as a leader to really dig in and try to discover the why, that they’re. They’re acting this way. Is it something they don’t like? Is it professional frustrations that. That maybe you weren’t aware of? Maybe they weren’t even aware of until you began talking through that? Should they be paid more? Where is their future here? What does that look like? Something going on at home? You talked about a leader a lot going home. We had a great conversation just a couple weeks ago with a client of ours.

Chris Goede:
We have multiple coaches that are working with one organization. And once every other month, we all get on a call with their leader and we just start talking about, without breaking confidentiality, we start talking about, hey, what are we sensing? What are we feeling? What do you need to be aware of? Hey, what can we help you communicate all those things? And one of the comments that came up, I still think about to this day, where he’s like, we asked the question, we said, is there something that you are coaching team members on right now that you haven’t been coaching on? We’ve been with this organization for seven or eight years in the past that we should be aware of. Great question. And one of the guys on our team said, this is going to be kind of in left field. And so we were like, hmm, interesting. He goes, you guys need to be aware that your kind of middle management upper leaders are dealing with aging parents at home, and it’s becoming pretty heavy to where they could become difficult at times. They could not necessarily act how they’ve always acted, and they’ve shifted the corner. And so, to your point, kind of discovering that why of what’s going on will will help a ton.

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Perry Holley:
The next thing I would move toward is make sure that you address the behavior as unacceptable, letting them know that this is not the way we do things here. When I think about not the way we do things here, this becomes a culture question to me. And so when somebody says, what should we do about this situation or that situation, my answer is, what does your culture say you should do? And if you’ve done culture correctly, it is built on a set of core values. And so when you have somebody that’s troubling or being a disruptive force on their team, and when you say it’s unacceptable, I like to tie it to core values that drive our culture. So you might say we have a core value, one of our core values, as you can see on the coffee mug or on the, you know, the plat on the plat on the wall is that we have respect for others, and your behavior is not in alignment with that value, you may want to be prepared to give positive examples of how we do show respect to others. So each of your core values should have a definition and a behavior that’s associated with that. And it should. Those core values should determine how people think, how people act, and how people interact.

Perry Holley:
And if you have them thinking correctly along with your values, you have them acting along with those values and have them interacting with others along with those values. You have determined how we do things here. And so if you’ve got somebody that’s outside the boundaries, my first thing is, are they aware? Secondly, let them know it’s unacceptable. And why it’s unacceptable is not because I think it’s unacceptable. Even though I do, it’s unacceptable because it doesn’t align with our values as an organization. If you don’t have a good set of strong core values, this might be problematic, and that would be a good time to get that taken care of.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. It’s not Perry’s set of values of why this is unacceptable. It’s the organizations, it’s the teams.

Perry Holley:
It’s not me against you.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s right. It’s just like, hey, and, and I love the fact that you put this up here because a lot of leaders, as I mentioned when we start off, don’t address this. And what ends up happening is the rest of the organization is aware of it. And the longer that you allow it, without.

Perry Holley:
That’s the truth.

Chris Goede:
Right. Without addressing it, your credibility continues to decline because everybody sees it and they want to know, well, why is Perry not addressing that type of behavior? So my personal experience in some of this is that oftentimes, even if we give them, hey, this is how we should be thinking, acting and interacting around here. I get a lot of excuses, I get a lot of justification. That’s going to be the natural reaction. And so you got to try to address those objections by going back to, no, no, no. These are our core values. This is how we’re going to do things. This is how we’re going to communicate to others on our team.

Chris Goede:
And often then during this discussion, um, I really get a clear picture and understand of how this is going to end. Right. One of the things that we talk about around here, and John’s big word over the last twelve months or so is, has been, man, are they coachable, right. Makes me think about three words that I think about often when it comes to attributes of people that I want on my team, are they committed, are they coachable? And are they aware? Like, those three things are so key. And you’ll see that. You’ll, when you address it to Perry’s point, this behavior, and it’s, it’s unacceptable, you’ll see those things come out in that conversation and it’ll give you a really good clue on how that’s going to end.

Perry Holley:
Well, I think that paying really close attention to your point there about are they blaming others? Are they blaming you? Are they blaming the circumstances? Are they making excuses? Are they, you know, justifying in some way that what they, what their actions are that you find unacceptable they think are acceptable? It may require more digging from you and it may, I can’t express enough how, and you said it earlier, is that how do you see people? Do you value this person even though they’re troubling? And John said, put a ten on their head. I know they can be more. I know they can do more. I know they can, they can fit in. We hired them. I think they’re supposed to be here, but maybe something’s happened. So I need to be able to do the digging to make sure that, do I have all the information I need? Do I understand what’s really going on here? I’ve made them aware. I’ve brought them to the point that it’s unacceptable.

Perry Holley:
I’ve told them what is acceptable. Now I’m going to hear what they’re, what they think about it, and they’re going to probably determine, like you said, how this is going to end.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. The last thing I’ll say on this part of the lesson today is make sure you’re setting clear and setting and communicating clear expectations. There’s a, sometimes we call it the disappointment gap. I also think you can call it the expectation gap. And again, it’s going back to the root of defining what is acceptable here and then what’s unacceptable, if need be, and then making sure that they understand what the consequences are for violating those, those expectations. Now, you may be listening to us and go, man, like they’re, they’re talking about, like, letting people go. No, no, no. There are different levels that you’re going to be dealing with this, but what I would encourage you to do is understand that little things lead to big things.

Chris Goede:
And so as you begin to see it or as things begin to happen, there’s going to be different expectations and different consequences for those, but develop a system to be able to handle them.

Perry Holley:
Just before we head toward closing this and wrapping this up, I just put, when I was talking to this leader and just providing my point of view, I said, well, here’s just a few thoughts around this and some things that I’ve learned over the years and something I took from Doctor Henry Cloud. He’s the author of boundaries, and he’s got boundaries for leaders, but he talks about the situation you’re experiencing is whether it’s good or bad as a result of two things, what you created and what you allowed to be. And so as leaders, I think we must, you know, look at what have we allowed to go on or have we created something here? We’ve allowed this behavior to exist? When do we send the message to the rest of the organization? And as you were saying, it’s not probably going to get better if we allow it to go. And we’re sending a message to other people that this is acceptable.

Chris Goede:
It’s okay.

Perry Holley:
Yeah, we do this. Another thing that this particular leader told, told us was that this individual kept repeating to other people, I hate my job. I hate my job. Now, that’s fascinating to me. Is that. Why would you go about saying that? So what I would just. I’m again being curious. What specifically do you hate? Is it the role? Is there something else you’re better suited for? Are they in the wrong position now? I should be.

Perry Holley:
Full disclosure. I tend to believe in people sometimes more than they believe in themselves. Have I offered them the help they need? Have I go back to the help, care, and trust? Have I given them a chance to find a role that is more pleasing to them, more acceptable to their skills and that sort of thing? But one person confessed to me over the years that they were trying to get me to fire them so that they could receive some sort of benefit or severance or something like that. And I was able to inform them that if, you know, let them know that there is no. Based on how we do things here, firing for cause, and that sort of thing would have no compensation on it. But I thought, are they trying to manipulate the people? Doing things is a little weird.

Chris Goede:
And real quick, you’re talking about the example of somebody saying, hey, I hate my job. And then you begin to say, well, what is it? And then you end up trying to get into being curious and getting down to the root, and then you get to the root, and it’s nothing even tied to them hating their job. Right. And that’s. And then, in essence, is what we’re trying to. To help you look at two other things, um, that Perry had in my notes here for the doctor, Hendrick Codd the boundaries and things just to share with you is that people are going to do things for their reason, not yours.

Perry Holley:
Right. Okay.

Chris Goede:
It’s their reason. So how do you understand their reason? And. And, I mean, it’s something that, man, it’s going to be in their mind, um, and they are absolutely not going to be able to get past it. And you need to understand that. The other thing is, is that the most people that they would say, oh, I’ve been categorized as a difficult employee before, and this is my story in life, and they feel like the world kind of owes them something. They’re going to be overdramatic at times and fueled by kind of the reactions that they get from those around them and in the past, because I often think too, as leaders, the good and the bad, you are dealing with and leading from their previous leadership experiences. You got to be aware of that. You got to know that there’s going to take some time for you to filter through that.

Chris Goede:
And so we just need to make sure as we work through that, that we’re aware of their mindset and where they’re at and how they’re thinking about it.

Perry Holley:
And most of those behaviors are driven, poor behaviors are generally driven by personal insecurities that people have and how they see themselves and that sort of thing. And you’re not their shrink. You’re not. But I always, look, is there something I can do to help how you see yourself, to help how the value you feel that you bring here? Maybe I’m not going to done a good job of letting you know how relevant you are, how valuable you are and how I see you, that sort of thing. You can help with that. But I, while I try to avoid terminating people, I just think we hired you, we put you here. There’s something going on. But there are times when it comes to that.

Perry Holley:
I would just encourage you to be professional, be generous, be kind, be quick, don’t drag things out, but treat people professionally, respectfully on that. And then one thing I learned the hard way early my career was document all conversations. Just let, let them know that I am, you know, we’re having these conversations and I’m documenting what we’re talking about. This is a serious thing and most people will respond to that positively. I found, but not everybody.

Chris Goede:
I started off today and I’m going to wrap up with a thought I started talking about. There is a significant amount. I was reading an article and several articles that you could go find this. People do not deal with this. And it is a, it’s something that’s going to stop you from growing as a leader, as a team and as an organization. So why don’t they, right. Like what is it? And so I began thinking about this because I’ve been in seasons of my life where I didn’t deal with it right and done some, some growth and some learning in there. And so obviously the top three reasons came to mind.

Chris Goede:
Obviously they’re, they fear conflict. They just, they’re, they want to avoid that at all costs, so they just allow it to happen. The other thing is maybe they haven’t developed a skill on how to do it the right way. This is what we’re hoping this content gives you today. A process, a system to be able to do that. And then the third one which I. I have been guilty of doing this before, and this pains me to say that. And then read this, because you go, really? Wow.

Chris Goede:
How important is what you were doing versus what they were doing and disrupting the culture? And the third one is, yeah, you know what? I was just so busy, I didn’t. I don’t want to prioritize it. I don’t want to have to have those conversations. I don’t want to get to the point where maybe we do have to replace them. Then I got to hire somebody. And you go through all that because you’re so busy. Those are, for me, the three top reasons I think people aren’t dealing with this. And so I want to go back to the second one as I wrap up here.

Chris Goede:
And this is a skill that requires practice. And you’re like, okay, so am I supposed to go out and find difficult people and start practicing them? No, but I think what it does mean is that when you sense or feel a little bit of difficulty between peers, between peers, you might have, whatever it might be, begin to have those conversations, begin to practice. Some of the things that we’ve laid out here for you today understand that they are valuable as an individual. Everybody needs to be led differently. We understand that. But, man, if you go about it in a way to where you’re very simple, you’re articulate about it, you’re kind and clear of what the expectations are, I don’t think you can go wrong. If you keep in mind, hey, I know I gotta. I gotta have these conversations.

Chris Goede:
I know I gotta deal with that. But if I’m kind and I’m clear, I don’t think you can go wrong doing this. They’re gonna. They’re gonna understand.

Perry Holley:
I do, too. You can learn about our offerings. Leave us a comment or a question. You can get the learner guide for this issue. You may do all of that at MaxwellLeadership.com/podcast. We enjoy hearing from you, and we’re very grateful that you’d spend this time with us. That’s all today for the Maxwell Leadership executive podcast.