Belated SLA Notes: Handling Difficult Employee Issues
On Tuesday, I attended a wonderful session called “Handling Difficult Employee Issues”. The speaker was Mimi Krumholz, head of HR at Latham & Watkins. She spoke with sincerity, humour, and compassion; clearly, L&W is lucky to have her.
Mimi opened by saying that managers should really see themselves as “developers”, because people who don’t develop will either go or be asked to leave. A bit touchy feely, but a good point. She went on to make the following points:
- We can’t change anyone else, but we can change our behaviour in reaction to theirs
- The 80/20 rule applies in the context of difficult employees: 80% of your time is spent on 20% of people. This means star performers get neglected. One way to address this is to reverse the 80/20 - spend 80% on finding solutions, instead of stewing over problems.
- Never sacrifice anyone’s dignity in the face of difficulty
- We must learn to judge the different between someone just needing to vent, and engaging in inappropriate commentary. Encourage venting, within limits. Model the behaviour that you want to see in others.
She went on to say that awareness and knowledge are the keys to dealing with these situations.
First, you need to be able to identify the action that is causing problems, not your own reaction. Make objective, specific statements about the behaviour. She emphasized the need to use “I” statements to minimize defensiveness.
If the difficult person turns and starts to accuse you, try countering all attack statements with an agreement–they are not expecting this!
Accountability is important–have the person write a timeline and outline steps that he will take to improve, and check in weekly to monitor progress.
Be very careful about the word “but”. As in, “I know you’re under a lot of stress at home, and I want you to know that we care a lot about you, BUT we have a business to run here!” Mimi says the “but” erases the benefit of the first part of the message. Use “and” instead, so that the parts of the message are linked, not exclusive.
She also advised us to neutralize our own thoughts before heading into a difficult conversation, and to be very aware of our own body language and whether our body language contradicts what we are saying out loud. It’s vital to be in the conversation 100% and read the verbal and non-verbal cues of others.
Overall, Mimi’s advice was very useful and the day I returned, I found a way to use some of it, when I was asked for my own opinion on a difficult situation. I love when that happens! That’s the sign of a good session.
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