Are People Really 'Unmanageable'?

Both in our corporate workshops and our recently published book 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You - The Art Of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations', my co-author Ken Cameron and I pose the question 'Are people really Unmanageable?' Even the most disagreeable or truculent of our employees or co-workers, are they really 'Unmanageable'?

What follows is an extract from our book where we consider this specific point....

Before we proceed any further let’s dispel a myth now; there

is no such thing as an employee who is truly unmanageable.

Thinking of these individuals as “fxxxing unmanageable”,

is unfairly demonizing them, and unfairly positioning yourself

as a victim or martyr. It may feel good, but it rarely positions

you as a strong and reliable leader.

Russell begins almost every one of our Forum Theatre for

Business workshops by saying “I’ll let you in on a secret. In

my twenty-five years of managing teams and developing

other managers, I have realized that most people want to

do a good job.”

We usually have at least one participant who responds with

“You need to come to my workplace.”

You might be having the same thoughts. There are some people

who are inherently lazy, who are naturally disaffected, who are

just so fxxxing antagonistic that they’re impossible to work

with and I’ve been stuck with one of them. This person

is beyond hope.

If that is the case, put this book down and go ahead and

fire them. It will be easier and less painful in the long run.

Before you say, HR would never allow it or the union would

make my life miserable or they’re the boss’s favourite, consider

the possibility that you’re lying to yourself. If their behaviour

truly is unmanageable, you can figure it out.

Ask yourself, was this problematic employee lazy, or disaffected

or antagonistic when they started at the organization?

Most employees develop their behaviour over time, as a response

to some dissatisfaction or disillusionment with their

work. They may have been mistreated in the past and are

now distrustful. They may have good ideas, but they’ve been

worn down because no one listens or they view the structures

and systems as needlessly cumbersome. All of this can

usually be boiled down to a reaction against change.

Resistance to change is another precursor to difficult behaviour.

When we say “change” we mean any sort of deviation

from the way things were. This could be extreme like a complete

re-organization or it could be as simple as introducing

a new computer program for tracking inventory. Other examples

could be a change in the individual’s workstation,

or the addition of a new team member.

People respond to change in different ways. Some embrace

change with an enthusiastic “YES” and feel energized, challenged

and renewed. Others respond with an outright “NO” and feel drained,

challenged and dispirited. Between these two poles, there is an infinite

spectrum of response.

Once you uncover and understand the change they are reacting

against, you may find you can empathize with them.

Empathizing with your employee makes the conversation

easier. It makes them better listeners and it makes YOU a

better coach.

Recently Ken mentored briefly under Peter Hinton, a brilliant

theatre director who served for many years as Artistic Director

of The National Arts Centre of Canada. Peter claimed

that he doesn’t believe in “talent”. There is a prevailing belief

in society that talent is some inherent mysterious force;

you either have it or you don’t. The Ancient Greeks and

Roman societies even believed talent was a gift from the

gods. But this idea is dangerously false and even destructive.

“If we assume that some actors have talent and others

don’t,” Peter explains, “then there’s nothing a director can

do for them. I might as well give up.”

Instead, Peter is one of those who chooses to believe that

everyone has talent. “Some actors simply have something

that blocks them, some internal obstacle that gets in their

way. This allows me to assist them by investigating what

those obstacles might be. When we uncover it together, I

can aid them in removing those blocks so their talent can

flow freely.”

By the same reasoning, if you suppose that some employees

“just fit in”, while others simply “aren’t team players”, then

there is nothing you can do to coach them. You might as well

give up now and begin the process of firing them. And

what kind of leader does that make you?