How to Deal with a “Problem” Employee without Losing your Humanity

Firstly, by not referring to them as the ‘problem’ employee, even in your mind. Typically, when an employer-employee relationship is not working, it is felt both ways. Your job, as the leader, is to assess if changes can be made by either party to create a workable solution. If not, then your job becomes finding the best way to part ways amicably.

1.What/How Conversation

Have what I call the “what/how” conversation. This is a conversation that you have with the employee where you ask thoughtful open-ended questions to understand the situation from their point of you. Questions that start with "what" or "how" often lead to more productive conversations than questions that start with ‘is” or “why” (hence why I call this the "what/how conversation"). Examples:

How do you think that meeting went?

What do you think can be changed to better meet the goal?

How can I or the team support you as you work towards that for the next project?

This conversation will help you understand how self-aware the person is. Sometimes, the employee is already hard on themselves and knows that the meeting didn’t go well, knows what they did wrong and how they can do something differently. In this case, you simply need to listen, encourage and support. In other cases, the employee may think that nothing is wrong or what whatever is wrong is someone else’s fault. In these cases, your job is to help them see the full picture as you see it or as others in the organization are perceiving it and then help them get to the point where they become open to having a conversation around what needs to be changed to address these concerns.

2. Create Systems around the person

In parallel to step #1, introspect on the team structure to uncover what systems, tools and processes you can put in place to assist the employee. For example, I once had someone on my team who presented a dashboard that had some obviously inaccurate data on it. Turned out that they had tweaked their query at the last minute which led to the mistake and they hadn’t had time to double check it. Let’s break this down.

1. Why did they have to tweak their query at the last minute? If this is because the requirements kept changing until the last minute, then you, as their manager need to intervene and set appropriate expectations with the stakeholders around lead time your team needs to deliver good quality work. This one is on you, the manager and not the employee.
2. Do you have a peer review/code review process in place? If not, this is an indication that it would be helpful to start one. This way, all work is reviewed by at least 2 people on the team so that obvious mistakes like this are caught and avoided. If the presentation is going to high stakes stakeholders, then consider doing a review yourself before it goes out.
3. Do you have the right tools in place to minimize such errors? For example, is your team using GitHub or other version control tools so that when doing the peer review, the teammate can easily see what is being done?

3. Not the right fit

If the above two don’t work, then it is likely that this is simply just not the best fit for the employee and the team. In this case, it is important to have this conversation openly and honestly with the employee. For example, I once had an individual who was interested in a sales enablement role but what the team needed was someone to do Territory/Sales mapping and lead scoring. This required the person to have SQL and statistics that they did not have and were not interested in acquiring. If this is the case, then think about if there is another team within the organization that this individual will be a better fit for. If your organization is too small, then work with them to identify other organizations where they can shine.

For these conversations to be successful, you have to have done the work to establish trust with this individual from day one. You have to approach this conversation from the stand point of, what counsel would I provide this person if they were my friend, cousin or someone else I care about personally rather than as their manager.  The conversation has to center the employee, their goals and what is in their best interest. It's okay to take off your manager hat for this conversation and focus on the human that is in front of you. Only after you have done this, can you then take a step-back and create the correct off-ramp for the individual.

As a fiduciary for the organization you represent, it is your responsibility to make sure that the needs of the organization are being met. As a human being, this does not preclude you from treating others who find themselves in a bad fit situation with respect and love.