Dealing with children with office problems
Kids With Workplace Issues – Everyone Has It From Dwight in The Office to the entire cast of Office Space characters, these leadership challenges have even found their way into popular culture. Unfortunately, they are all too real in the modern workplace. Whether as legacies left by a previous leader or new hires that were not evaluated during the interview process, these people can undermine your leadership efforts.
Regardless of the specific situation, problem employees pose a triple threat when it comes to your team reaching its full potential. First of all, all members of a team must do everything possible for the group to be successful. Lack of performance can be an anchor for this effort. Their toxic attitudes can extend beyond their own cube and undermine the morale of other team members. You need to deal with your troublesome children and their problems or they will paralyze you, forcing your focus to shift from improvement to crisis management. If left unaddressed, these issues will inhibit your team’s progress, so it’s up to you, as an effective leader, to resolve this personal issue for the good of the team.
Recognize that this represents one of the most burdensome aspects of leadership. Although it is simple, it is extremely difficult and time consuming. Each situation will be different and challenging. After all, each individual has their own idiosyncrasies and reasons for poor performance. Also, they will rarely interact with you silently and cooperatively. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be problems in the first place. You will likely hear a creative series of excuses presented as justification. Sometimes these can even involve heartbreaking family and personal problems. Stick to your plan and think of BOARD (a useful mnemonic) and you will be victorious.
-Buffer: It is essential that you do what you can to mitigate the influence of the problematic team members on the rest of the team. An effective way to accomplish this is to take them out of the equation and isolate them from the rest of the team. This may involve geographic separation, assignment to peripheral tasks, such as special projects, or both. Regardless of the exact solution, you need to ensure that the overall performance of the team is minimally influenced by your leadership challenge.
-Observe – Once identified, your problem child will require close attention with an eye on performance and action. Take special care to observe and document activities related to behavior and performance. This will allow you to effectively train the person with advice and advice based on factual information. This step will allow you to build a coherent and objective case for separation in case that path is necessary.
-Evaluate – With the information in hand, you are asked to determine the possibility that the problem child will rejoin the team. As with all steps in this process, the evaluation should be based on a purely objective determination of past performance and future potential. Anything you decide must have sufficient supporting documentation or you risk accusations of discrimination or favoritism.
-Retraining – Regardless of your evaluation, you will likely need to show that you have made an honest effort to reform your problem child. This should involve retraining in your organization’s policies, expected roles and responsibilities of the individual, and the technical aspects of your job. This will ensure that you save team members who have the will to change and the potential to benefit the team. It also ensures that you will avoid complicated situations regarding ambiguity in case you need to separate.
-Decide: after retraining, it is necessary to observe again to see if there is any improvement and decide what to do. If the problem employee is making progress, you can keep him in a probationary state and continue to develop him. If they continue to perform below standard or if they slip further, you need to cut them. No matter how difficult the person is, this activity is never easy or fun. However, you will see a great overall improvement when it’s done.
It all comes down to understanding that your duty is to the team. You can’t afford to have someone who doesn’t contribute or, worse, continues to undermine the overall team effort or authority. These troublesome kids will eat up morale and performance. With an objective and disciplined approach, you will easily solve this problem and move on to the best and most rewarding aspects of leadership.