Author: Colleen Kettenhofen

“When managing difficult people, if it isn’t written down, it’s as if it didn’t happen.”

Many managers and supervisors are promoted to management positions based on their hard skills. Yet few of them have had training in the area of managing people. Especially managing difficult people. In conducting seminars on managing people, one challenge I hear managers and supervisors face nowadays is how to manage a difficult employee. You can’t control them, but you can control their environment in the hopes of coaching the employee to better performance.

Here are 10 Management Tips for Managing Difficult People:

1. Document, document, document. As far as the courts are concerned, if it isn’t written down it’s as if it didn’t happen. Even if you have a prospective employee sign a form saying they know they can be terminated at any time, without cause, and without warning or reason. You never want to terminate without proper documentation. Terminating an employee without cause, reason, or prior warning, can make it easier for the difficult person to win a wrongful termination lawsuit.

2. Document training and coaching. Any type of training you provide for your difficult employee is considered coaching. In managing difficult people, many managers assume the documentation is to build a case for termination. It is not! It’s really to show everything you did to try and salvage the difficult employee. This includes any and all training. Whether you trained the employee, someone else trained them, or you sent them to a seminar to be coached to better performance.

3. Avoid the word “attitude.” In managing difficult people, why would you want to avoid saying something like, “Pat, I don’t like your attitude?” Because it’s too subjective. It’s not specific enough.

4. Focus instead on specific behaviors or the quality of their work. For example, what should you do if every time you delegate a special project to the difficult person, they fold their arms, exhale loudly, roll their eyes, and sarcastically mutter under their breath, “Okay, whatever?!” You would want to say in a low controlled tone something like, “Pat, every time I delegate a special project to you, the arms are folded, you’re rolling your eyes, muttering under your breath, ‘Okay, whatever.’ What seems to be the cause of this?” Notice I listed specific behaviors. So focus on facts.

5. Be objective, not subjective. As mentioned, when managing difficult people, be objective by mentioning specific behaviors, or specific declines in the quality of their work. For example, when documenting the employee’s “attitude,” you might document the following: “Every time I delegated a special project to Pat so-and-so, he/she would fold their arms, exhale loudly, roll their eyes, and mutter under their breath, “Okay, whatever!” Now, if this were ever read by a jury, or your H. R. department if you have one, or your manager, they would have a clear picture of this person’s attitude.

“When managing difficult people, it’s imperative that you make their goals and objectives measurable, specific, quantifiable, and in writing for accountability.”

6. Provide specific examples of the behavior or quality of work you want. Put it in writing for accountability. When managing difficult people, it’s imperative that as their manager or supervisor, you’re making their goals and objectives clear. For example, if they’re doing clerical work, they are to, “Correct and proofread all required reports for the quality control department.” Or if they’re in customer service, an example of a measurable, quantifiable, specific goal would be that they are to, “Respond to all customer complaints within 48 hours of receiving them.” If they’re in manufacturing, they are to, “Produce 35% more wingbats by December 15 of this year. ”

7. Be aware of how you present yourself. When managing difficult people, remember, you are their role model. Be aware of your eye contact. Typically look at the person for two to five seconds. You don’t want to stare at them bug eyed! But you also don’t want to avoid looking at them because you’ll come across as too passive, too wishy-washy. They’ll sense you’re fear of confrontation.

Having lots of eye contact can be difficult for some people because in some cultures, children are brought up that it’s disrespectful to have eye contact with their elders. It can be difficult to unlearn these habits. Also, watch your tone of voice. Use a low controlled tone. Be aware of your body language, too. Study after study shows that fully 93% of what people notice and believe about you in face-to-face communication is based on your tone and body language.

8. Be very clear and concise in spelling out the consequences of what could happen if they don’t improve. For example, if this is a verbal warning, you might say to the employee, “You know our policy here, and right now this is a verbal warning. As it says in our handbook, if there isn’t sustainable and maintained improvement including and beyond the next thirty days, it could result in further disciplinary action. Or, it could even result in termination.” In managing difficult people, one of the golden rules is you don’t want the employee to ever be able to say that they “weren’t warned.” Or, “I didn’t know. You didn’t tell me that.”

9. Get at the root cause of what is causing the employee to be difficult. For example, do they simply not like their job? Would they rather be in a different department? Are there personal issues going on with the difficult person that you need to know about? While it’s not your business to know what they do outside of work, it is your business if it’s something that’s affecting their work performance.

You can simply say to the difficult person, “Is everything okay? Is there anything going on that I need to know about? Because this drop in performance just doesn’t seem like you. As your manager/supervisor I want to see you succeed. And I’ve noticed a real decline in the quality of your work, for example….” Then, give very specific examples. Remember, be objective not subjective. Focus on facts. Attack the problem not the difficult person. Attack the behavior not the person.

In managing difficult people, a lot of this is common-sense. Yet, as mentioned earlier, most managers, supervisors and team leaders are promoted to leadership positions based on the fact that they were doing a great job. But that doesn’t mean they know how to manage difficult people.

10. In managing difficult people, have follow up performance-related meetings with the difficult employee. For two reasons: First, it’s what the courts want to see. Second, it does the employee a great disservice if they make a big turn-around and you don’t acknowledge it. Have a date and a time in writing for when you and the difficult person are going to meet again. And do meet! According to research one of the main reasons employee improvement plans fail is lack of follow-up on the part of the manager.

“When managing difficult people, most of us know what to do. We just don’t always ‘do’ with what we know.”

Colleen Kettenhofen is an Arizona motivational speaker, author and workplace expert. She is co-author of The Masters of Success, featured on NBC’s Today Show. For free video clips, articles, e-newsletter visit http://www.ColleenSpeaks.com [http://www.colleenspeaks.com/ Colleen is available for keynotes, breakout sessions and seminars by calling (800)323-0683. colleen@colleenspeaks.com <A href=] Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Colleen_Kettenhofen

Author – Laurence Mason

Upon flipping a coin ten times and having ten successive “heads” as an outcome, is heads or tails more likely on the eleventh toss? Surely it’s tails? Wrong! It is a 50/50 chance of course! Every time!

You may have fallen into this trap before – the “Gambler’s Fallacy” – where there is a tendency to think that future probabilities are influenced by past events. It’s just one example of cognitive slip ups earthlings often make. Judgement errors happen to everyone regardless of age, gender, intelligence or education. The brain is sifting through many hundreds of subconscious processes even if we are only concentrating on one thing at a time. Misplaced judgement is a fundamental principle behind the ideas of motivation and success. I have designed this post more for entertainment as it is only a quick skim, but all the topics and ideas behind them, are as solid as concrete.

1. Self fulfilling prophecy.

This is a prediction which causes itself to become real by engaging in patterns of thought that get results from the confirmation of existing ideas. This goes back thousands of years. Roman legends for example: Romulus and Remus (the founders of Rome) were placed in a basket as infants, and thrown in the river Tiber after their uncle feared they would overthrow and kill him. Romulus and Remus were rescued by a she-wolf and eventually discovered their identity as teenagers, leading them to kill their Uncle and fulfil the prophecy.

If I believe that a job interview will be successful, the confidence this instills in me may drive me to do my absolute best, and to leak confidence from every orifice; and so thanks to this I get the job. It is a pattern that crops up in self development all over the place. If I believe that hard work will yield success, I will subconsciously strive to work harder and fulfil my expectations. This is why having a positive attitude is so important in improving your mindset. Tragically it works the other way. Giving yourself limiting beliefs will prevent you from achieving. Withdrawal from social events due to perceived under-confidence will make you less confident. A belief that you can never run a marathon will make it so.

“If you think you can or cannot, then you are probably right” -Confucius

2. The reactivity effect

This is the tendency for people to act differently when they know they are being watched. Soldiers of old fought harder and longer in order to impress watching generals or kings. It is also the reason why we have several different “faces”. One for close friends, one for family etc. In the 1980s, a manufacturing plant called Beecham works investigated the effects of music on worker productivity. Astonishingly, the music caused worker productivity to increase dramatically! After the “successful” study however, the productivity dropped to previous levels. Unknown to the managers, the increase in output was caused not by the music, but because the workers were being watched! So they were motivated to change their behaviour, and put themselves in a better light. The reactivity effect can be exploited in academia and sport. Having a workout partner encourages friendly rivalry for more strenuous exercise. Students work harder if teachers are watching them.

3. Pygmalion effect.

Similar to the reactivity effect, the more expectation is placed on students and employees, the better they perform. It is a form of self fulfilling prophecy and so also works the other way, people with poor expectations confirm their negative beliefs. It is believed by sociologists to contribute to the class and education divide.

4. Planning fallacy.

Summed up by the phrase: “The task expands to fill the time available”. We tend to think about how long the actual task will take, and not the hold ups or transitions between the tasks. They do however add up to a significant portion of time. Things like overruns on breaks, commute times, sickness, interruptions etc, are all very real considerations to a project’s time frame. When you are planning your day, consider also whether the time frames you give yourself are realistic or simply wishful thinking (see no. 8). When planning time, giving yourself deliberately less time for a task is one way to motivate yourself to complete it more efficiently. At the day job do not be tempted to sacrifice the quality of work over quantity. It takes a lot of courage to say to whoever is in charge: “I cannot complete all these tasks to the best of my ability in this amount of time; I would rather complete these tasks properly so they don’t have to be cleaned up later”.

5. Reactance.

When faced with a perceived threat on our freedom of choice, we naturally want to resist, or do the opposite of what is asked. The individual may not even need or want to engage in the unwanted behaviour, but knowing that it is barred creates a desire to act in that way. The effect is well-known with rebellious teenagers. When reacting to some social stimuli, it might be worth asking yourself if your intended decision is a result of reactance, or whether you have decided logically on the right course of action.

6. Herd mentality.

Peer pressure is another term, it is where we follow the behaviours of those around us to avoid conflict and to feel included in social norms. Many fads like mullets and flares in the ’80s; and more recent memes such as the “lying down game” are all caused by herd mentality.

It is like this in the workplace and at home. But in response to this I would not encourage anyone to play by rules just because everyone else does. Are these rules in place for the happiness of all involved? Or is it because a perfectly legitimate alternative would not be considered “normal”? Barefoot walking and running for example is far superior to feet in terms of health and efficiency than wearing shoes; but footwear has sacrificed this advantage in favour of cultural norms.

7. Escalation of commitment.

With all the decisions in life, it is inevitable that some will be unsuccessful. Escalation of commitment is where people continue to support these endeavours even when all hope is lost. Lets say an inventor uses half of his life savings to start a business with his product. If after six months he is still losing money, the best course of action would be to cut the loses and return to the day job. The inventor might however be compelled not only to stick with his original decision, but to throw even more money at the problem in the hope that the business turns around.

In your life you will make commitments that don’t turn out the way they planned. And in the same way that the inventor still invests money into the business, you could still invest time or resources from which you will not get a return. Learn to recognise when this is happening. But be aware that the situation in the example is different from a period of low productivity or a brief phase of low motivation. We’re talking about an endeavor going seriously the wrong way. Don’t for one minute start applying this thinking to justify giving up voluntary work or exercise from which you still get some return. There may still be rewards in the future that are not apparent. If in doubt, ask someone you trust.

8. Wishful thinking.

When we are forming goals to work towards, many people make a fundamental mistake – that is one of forming a goal which is pleasing to imagine fulfilling, and not necessarily one that is going to be attainable. When the goal is found to be too difficult to achieve, the resulting feeling of failure is an enormous knock to confidence.

The lesson to be learned is to not try to do too much. Only set yourself what is realistically achievable. You can test to see if your goals are realistic by writing down exactly how you plan to achieve it; every step of the way. If you reach a stage where a step in the method is too “wishy washy”, such as: “work hard every day” you will not be able to commit to it fully as the boundaries of your efforts have not been defined. I encourage the reader to do their research in this area, as goal setting is not an easy thing and most people do go wrong at some stage.

Roundup

Common faults in thinking at first sight, struggles to be relevant to personal development. But bear in mind that everything we undertake has it’s origins in our motivation for happiness and for the best possible outcome. In this respect the idea of self fulfilling prophecies, believing in one’s self and wishful thinking are phenomena that must be considered. For how many years have you made new year’s resolutions based on wishful thinking, as opposed to what you can realistically achieve? Are your actions in the social scene influenced more by your individuality and uniqueness, or are you just following a crowd? Would the Pygmalion effect have a positive effect on your life? Could you utilise a higher expectation of others to allow them to fulfil their potential and not just yourself?

Personal development and self improvement involve training yourself to think in new ways. To combat our cognitive bias and replace it with a behaviour that actually works for the pursuit of happiness. If you understand the mind then you can start making progress towards changing it’s faults.

This article and more are featured at http://smartertosmartest.blogspot.com/ – your one stop resource for high quality personal development advice.

Laurence Mason – an expert author with EzineArticles, writes quality articles with content value at the heart of every sentence. The philosophy is one of maintaining articles that provide genuine value to people, and to ensure that readers are positively impacted by what is written; perhaps changing the way they think forever. Do pay a visit to http://smartertosmartest.blogspot.com/ to read some of the many entertaining and informative posts on personal development, memory training, procrastination, time management and more. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Laurence_Mason