Dear Jayme,
There's a guy in the company who does great work but has a really sour attitude. He's always complaining, whining and criticizing me and how we do things. When I talk to him about this, he gets insulted and angry, and it just makes things worse. How do I handle this?
Hal
Dear Hal:
There are lots of people with excellent technical skills, but that alone doesn't make them valuable (or even tolerable) employees.
To be an effective employee (at any level), technical skills must be combined with appropriate behaviors. Inappropriate behavior negates the benefits of the technical skill, damages the people in contact with them and can threaten the existence of the entire organization.
Too dramatic? Not at all. Negative, cynical, angry employees are like a cancer in your business whether they're on a work crew, in the office or in the owner's chair. One negative cynic turns into two, two into four and so on. Eventually your business takes on an atmosphere of angry negativity that's both unpleasant and bad for business.
They're bad for business? Why?
They focus on what's wrong rather than on opportunities: Your employees are a great resource for uncovering improvements and new business, but the naysayers are busy finding fault and being victims.
They cause unrest in the ranks: They don't keep anger to themselves, but instead, they tell anyone who'll listen. Soon, others adopt the negative attitude, and the infection spreads.
They consume far more management time than other employees (as you've discovered): Yours is the most valuable and scarce time in your business. You have far better things to do than constantly deal with one or two problem children.
Customers prefer to do business with pleasant people: Nobody wants to pay to listen to a whiner on the jobsite.
Desirable employees don't like being around conflict and anger, and they won't put up with it: If you don't address it, your best people will migrate elsewhere and your reputation will only attract more negative employees.
What to do:
- Get clear on what's acceptable and what isn't: Create and publish these standards, and enforce them rigorously. It's your game-you get to set the rules.
- Hire carefully: It's much easier to not hire the sour moper in the first place than to try and cope with him later. Don't hire without reference checks. Absolutely do not hire just to fill the position.
- Have a process for complaints and suggestions: All your people need this pipeline anyway (and you'll hear things you really need to hear). Make this the only acceptable process for criticism-no grousing in the field or behind anyone's back.
- Don't take any crap: Personal attacks on you must not be tolerated because failure to do so sanctions the behavior and promotes deep disrespect for you throughout the business. Complaints and criticism are fine in their place, and that's within your process (above).
- Set the example: Your own behavior sets the standards in your business. Embody and project the behaviors you expect from others.
- Have a little chat with the problem employee: Make it clear that their behavior is out of line with your standards and that it needs to improve over some period of time or termination will result. Develop a quantifiable way to assess improvement (like surveys of other employees).
- Have a termination process: Have a clear, reasonable progressive discipline process that includes behavioral issues and enforce it every single time.
Part of owning a business is dealing with personalities...to a point. You're not a social worker and can't spend huge amounts of time dealing with the psychology of one or two disruptive, angry employees, much less waste time doing the constant damage control that their behaviors require.
A technical wizard can destroy your business with a negative, angry attitude. He's a lousy employee whose expertise you simply can't afford to have around.
Cheers!
Jayme
Construction Business Owner, May 2008
