How to Approach a Confrontational Worker

     As a manger in the world of organizational communications there are times when things are easy and there are times when they become difficult.  You can tell someone that you need them to complete a task by a certain time.  This is easy because this is cut and dry.  The person was hired to complete this task, and you are just giving them a timeline to accomplish the task for which they are assigned.  There is no emotion involved this communication process.  You don’t even have to think about it. “Hey Tom I need you have those TPS reports on my desk by close of business on Friday.”  This statement leaves no room for interpretation; it is cut and dry, and straight to the point.  Now when you place feelings into the communication process you complicate it, and make the process difficult.  If you were to take the same example and throw in the fact that worker has come into work late every day this week, and states that it is because they are having problems at home.  Now being a human with compassion it becomes a little more difficult to tell the person that you need them to take time away from their issues long enough to focus on the task at hand and have it to you by close of business on Friday.  It may sound like this, “Hey Tom, sorry to hear about what is going on at home, do you think that you can have those TPS report to me by the end of the business day on Friday?”   Do you see how that changed up just because there was emotion involved with the request? 

            In this blog I would like to cover how to dress an issue like this very one. I will do that by giving you the reader a scenario like the aforementioned examples, and I will address a technique that you can use to resolve the scenario.  I will accomplish this by explaining how I would approach the situation.  I will also anticipate the response that I may receive from the scenario, and I will break down the technique that I would use to resolve this issue.  I will tell you know that I think that the technique can be used in easy and difficult situations.  Now that you understand what this blog is about lets go into the scenario.

Scenario:

“You are a department manager in a mid-sized company that provides technology support services.  You have ten employees who are required to maintain a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  One of your employees has been with the company for two years, and is performing at a substandard level and you have received numerous complaints from customers and coworkers.  In addition, this employee has displayed confrontational behavior which has created a hostile environment.  You must now meet with this employee and deliver an ultimatum regarding the need for immediate improvement or dismissal.”

 

Analysis:

What you know:

1.      The employee has been with the company for two years.

2.      The employee is now performing at a substandard level

3.      You have numerous complaints from the customers and coworkers

4.      The employee is confrontational

 

Approach:

 

            The first thing that I would do is to gather all the information on the situation.  In this example that I have given it states that the employee has worked for the company for two years, so the first question that I am going to find out is when exactly did this employees’ performance begin to fall off?

The next thing that I would do it to find out what the measurable metrics are of the organization.  If this employee is performing at a substandard level I would like to know what level that he is performing at, and how much work is required to get back to the required levels to be efficient in the organization.  I would then collect the complaints of the customers and the coworkers to not only have as the employees written deficiencies, but also as learning tool as for what not to do in the work place.  It is my understanding that this person’s performance was at one point on par with the organizations expectations of them, so I will revisit that time with them.  Once I have collected all this information I would take this information and sit down with the employee and begin the communication process.

 

Step one:

 

            Create relaxed atmosphere.  In this step you want to find a place away from coworkers and customers.  You want to find a place where the employee can feel comfortable and not somewhere that he will feel like there are people there that will judge them.  The individual has already shown the propensity to act out around others, so if this does happen you want them in an area that they will not have an audience.  The relaxed atmosphere can ease tension as well.  Remember this is a very nerve racking situation, and you want to remove as much of the stressors as possible.

 

Step two:

 

            Give them a WIIFM.  This is an acronym that we use in the military it means you want to tell them What’s In It For Me.  you want to let the employee know why you are having this meeting with them and what it is that they will get out of sitting with you and communicating this out.  I would do this my telling the employee:

 

            “We are here today to talk about your performance.  In the past two years you have performed on a high level of technical expertise and deliver excellent customer service.  In the past (insert timeframe from research here) your performance has begun to drop.  Today I would like to talk with you about what I can do as your manager to aide you in getting back to the high level of technical expertise and excellent customer service that we are accustom seeing from you.  To accomplish this we will address where your proficiency in conjunction with where the organization wants you, and at any time during this meeting if you want to address any issues that you have with this organization feel free to do so.  Once this meeting draws to a conclusion I would like to have a plan on what we can do to get you back to the peak performance that you once exhibited.  Before we begin do you have any questions about what we will address in this meeting?”

 

            In communication it is imperative that people have an understanding of the why and what.  Why am I communicating to you?  Why are we here? What do you want to accomplish here?  If the person understands this question before communication begins then they will be more receptive to what you have to say.  Now that we understand this step let’s move on to the next step, which is the most important step of all.

 

Step three:

 

            In this step you will inform the employee of what you have found. This step the most important step because it opens the door for the communication process. In the You have what you know about the situation, but you cannot resolve the issue without knowing the whole picture.  You know that this employee’s performance has dropped, and that they have become confrontational with others.  This step in the process is the most important one because you can make close that information gap at this point.  What you don’t know you can find out in this step.  To do that you will inform the employee of the information that you have collected.  This is good because it does a few things for you.  It shows the employee that you are serious about aiding them in improving because you took the time to research what was going on with them.  As a person when you have someone come to you and tell you that your performance is bad, but doesn’t give you details how does that make you feel?  Now if you have someone that comes to say that your performance has dropped because you have missed turning in four important reports on these dates, and this is how it affected the organizations’ bottom line, would you be more receptive to this person vice the aforementioned person? This is the approach that you take when talking with the employee.  You tell them of your detailed findings and you then use open ended question to get to the root cause of their performance decline.  Like I stated before this is an important step because it closed the information gap, if you ask question that and they can answer with a yes or no (a closed ended question) then you will not get a complete picture of what is going on with them.  Now if you ask the open ended question like, “So I see that you were late on these reports on December 10^th, what prevented you from getting the reports in on time?”, to which the person cannot give a yes or no answer.   This is important because it is the answers that hold the details behind the root cause of this employee’s issues. 

 

            What you will find is that during this step in the process the employee may become confrontational.  This happens because the person feels that they are being placed on trial, or they have an emotional issue that has nothing to do with the meeting.  It is important that you do not lose your cool because this is a part of the process as well.  You have to remain cool so that you can listen to what they are saying. If they have a valid issue that needs addressing then you will need to let them know that you acknowledge the issue and that you will correct the issue.  If their issue has nothing to do with their performance then you need to acknowledge their issue, and allow them to try to connect this to their performance.  You will then work with them to come up with a solution. 

 

            The importance of this step cannot be emphasized, because this step is where you resolve the issue with the employee.  In this step you will listen to what replies the employee gives, and keep cool if the employee loses their cool. The reason is because anything that is said in this step by the employee will give you the next step to take with the employee.  Speaking of the next steps let talk about what you will do in the next step.

 

Step Four:

 

        In the previous step you should collect a lot of information from the employee.  This information is vital to the success of correcting the employee’s decline in performance. In this step you will take the information from the previous step and regurgitate to them what they have stated the issue was with their performance.  If you and the employee come to a mutual understanding of what the issue you will proceed to inform them of what steps that needs to be taken to resolve their issues.  When you do this you will be precise in what you want them to do. You will give detailed steps, timelines and repercussion, so that if these steps and timelines are not adhered to they understand you as the manager will have to dismiss them. In this step it is extremely important that everything that is agreed upon is placed into writing, and signed by both parties to ensure that each party understand their role in this new process. 

 

            Each of these step have their own importance in the process, but one cannot be accomplished without the previous being accomplished first.  The technique that I used for this process is called the S-TLC, and no it does not stand for Some Tender Loving Care, although you may need to use that.  It stand for Stop, Think, Listen, and Communicate.  Allow me to break that down for you.  When you have identified that you have an issue with someone that you need to take to you don’t rush into the situation you stop.  Then you have to think of a game plan on how to attack the issue. This is the same as the first and second step of gathering the information about your situation, and laying out how you will address this issue by using the WIIFM. Now that you have thought it out you need to gather more information, and you will do that by listening to what the employee has to say.  When I say listen you will actively listen to find the meaning behind the words.  Once you understand the issue and the employee understands that you understand the issue you can communicate what needs to happen next.  In this example you accomplish this two ways.  You communicate verbally, and in written form.  This is best because although we forget things the written form does not change and we can always refer back to this.   If you follow this technique it is my belief that you can resolve any situation that arises weather it is complex or simple.