A manager’s perspective

It’s not easy for a manager to identify difficult people, for three reasons:

• You might not be close enough to your team to witness what’s going on. Moreover, difficult people tend to tone it down when managers are around.
• Other team members will avoid bringing the issue to you for fear that they will be seen as the troublemakers.
• Difficult people do not have skill issues; neither do they leave records of substandard work in results. In other words, there is no objective way to assess the problem.

Here are a few tips to identify difficult people in your team.

Poor overall performance

Difficult people are damaging the team’s morale, and therefore affect results at all levels. This might be the first symptom pointing at the problem. If your team is great on paper but does not rise to the challenge, the reason might be that interpersonal relationships degrade performance, which in turn might be caused by difficult people.

Low morale

Look for telltale signs of low morale. Don’t ask questions directly. Simply walk around the office and look at your team. Difficult people can make colleagues miserable, and this affects behaviour. You’ll notice signs when team members are not aware that you’re watching. Note that this is not spying; this is managing by walking around (MBWA). Among all signs, abnormally low level of interaction is the most significant. When difficult people are around, others will interact only when necessary. Little or no chatting, no humour, defensive postures and low voices.

Low job satisfaction

If your team is afflicted by a higher-than-usual turnover, you should definitely look at the root cause. Unfortunately, for the sake of keeping good relationships, people usually never mention interpersonal problems as one of the reasons for leaving the team. You have to dig a little bit, particularly if the person who leaves does not present a clear reason for leaving.

Over ambition

Most difficult people (but not all) are extremely ambitious, which fuels their aggressive and overall difficult behaviour. If someone presses you for promotion, raise, or more important responsibilities, and if other signs are present, you might have identified the difficult person.

Speaking out of turn

Difficult people value their opinion much more than the opinion of others. You might notice that a team member often interrupts others or even pretends speaking for others. If on top of that others seem frustrated or annoyed and this situation persists, don’t look further, you’ve got a difficult person on board.

You’ve a difficult person on your team. What now?

You can alter behaviour but not change personality. If someone exhibits a behaviour that does not fit in the workplace, it’s usually a waste of time to try to change it. It would require permanent close supervision, which is unrealistic and certainly not cost-effective. It’s a huge hypocrisy to believe that everyone can have a place in an organisation. Some people just can’t. Difficult people do not fit anywhere. The damage they do to collaboration and to the morale of others more than offsets any skill they might have.

If you think there is hope, you can try conflict resolution techniques, but don’t be too optimistic. Set deadlines and be firm.

If you truly have a difficult person on your team, you should lay him/her off. Managers often fall into the trap of keeping the difficult person around in a position where he/she cannot do too much damage, in order to avoid conflict or because they have some doubt. Assuming any position requires some degree of collaboration and incurs some responsibility, the difficult person will continue causing damage. Laying off someone should never be done lightly, but in this particular case there is no other solution (IMHO).

Note that a manager should never try to buy peace from a difficult person. Conflict avoidance does not work with difficult people. They will take what they can and continue their crusade with renewed energy. Some managers make the huge mistake of rewarding people who complain or show aggressiveness because, to put it simply, they don't have the shoulders (I was tempted to use another word) to deal with the issue. Besides allowing the difficult person to do more damage, such a move will further depress other team members who will deeply resent this unfairness.

Nor should a manager embark on a witch hunt by blaming difficult people for every problem. Most management challenges have nothing to do with difficult people. Start by ruling out common causes before considering difficult people.

Next: A peer's perspective

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