Difficult Staff Members

[TechMonkey]

Or even better: be understaffed, and alone - so there's no time to get stroppy and no one to get stroppy with!

 

You need a second personality, never be alone again. Easy to maintain plus allowing you to ignore people while still being poite*.

 

*Only available on sociable models. Other models my differ

[somabc]

Give them the old Glengarry Glen Ross speech

 

YouTube - Glen Gary Glen Ross Monologue - Alec Baldwin

 

Blake: We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

 

ABC - AIDA!

Edited October 23, 2008 by somabc

[AyatollahPies]

 

People only fall down when pushed.

 

You sir, have clearly never been drunk!

[DrummerBoy]

Being an older kind of guy, and been managing technical stuff for a loooooonnnnnggggg time, I have developed a way of working that might help.

 

1) Allways treat the person you want to get to do something as you would like to be treated by your boss.

2) Listen if they have valuable feedback, and let them know that if they have a complaint they must allways have a solution to go a long with it. This gets rid of complaining for no good reason.

3) Ask then nicely once, ask them again (if they fail to do it the first time), and finally tell them, politely, but firmly.

 

If they don't do it after the telling, then look at addressing the behaviour (not the person) either using a quiet word in their shellike, or a more formal disciplinary approach, if the behaviour continues.

 

Hope this helps. Rick

[andyturpie]

Ian,

 

My best piece of advice to you is to initially watch from the peripherary and see how the team "works" as is, rather than try to get involved. Watch how things are for a week at least and then sit down with each member of the team; discuss their views on the team as a whole, their strengths, their weaknesses etc and how they value their role in the team.

 

Then, once you're grounded in, you can stress that whilst you aren't out to rock the boat you have ideas and plans to help further build the team and procedure forward. Be open to criticism as you'll likely get some from those hard stuck in their old ways but you need to put up with that unfortunately.

 

I'm sure you'll be fine, but whomever it was who told you PRIOR to starting a job that you have a difficult team member should be ashamed as that's just unprofessional when a new line manager is coming in to have false expectations.

 

Also, given your name is here, if the member of the team reads this forum, how are they going to feel?

 

Exactly how I managed my team, it has worked wonders.