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The High Cost of Doing Nothing About Difficult
People
"You
just don't understand. I'm not good at dealing with conflict. It makes
me uncomfortable."
I heard this from a manager who had been plagued by an industrial-strength difficult person, a man who hadn't responded to her gentle hints to clean up his act. The manager had watched her department go way off track as an increasing number of employees avoided, backfilled, and tried to placate their difficult colleague.
At the same time, this manager had been struggling to meet her department's challenging goals with fewer resources, time, money, and people.
Now, she'd been told she had to work with me to "take care of" this situation. The implied threat was clear. Make changes in her employee's behavior or her own career would be in jeopardy.
"I don't have the time or the energy to deal with this situation," she told me.
"More to the point," I replied, "you don't have the time, energy, or money not to deal with it."
Like so many others in similar situations, this manager hadn't considered the high cost of doing nothing about a difficult person. As we talked about it, she was appalled at how much this one employee's egregious behavior had cost her organization.
While several elaborate, mathematically precise, assessment tools have been developed to quantify a difficult person's financial impact, managers can easily ball park the effects of the difficult person they supervise.
Some of the time and money costs are direct and relatively obvious. Others are hidden and more insidious.
Resolving even trivial conflicts among dedicated but warring employees can quickly absorb more than a third of a manager's time -- and that figure is even higher for the employees involved.
When you assess the cost of a difficult employee consider:
- Time wasted on expressing, rebutting, and/or enlisting allies into the conflict. After having a short telephone conversation with his nemesis, one young man would spend hours composing long email rebuttals to every point discussed in the call. Another had extended conversations with colleagues in an attempt to pull them into the fray, resulting in department-wide uproar. When the combatants are dedicated to the fight, this activity can easily eat up a quarter of the work day.
- The time staff members waste informally reorganizing the work flow to avoid dealing with the antagonist. Don't forget the cost of disruptions in the communication networks, the loss or delay in transmitting necessary information, either trying to avoid contact with the difficult person or in a deliberate effort to sabotage him/her.
- The cost of sabotage, mistakes, and damages from distracted work habits. Include malicious compliance and inappropriate response to rules. One employee ignored the sounds of distress from his equipment, kept working throughout his shift, and then declared his supervisor was responsible for the damage. It wasn't his fault the machine broke. He knew it was having trouble, but his supervisor had told him not to stop working and he had to do what the supervisor said. A short period of malicious compliance can result in enormous dollar outlays for the company -- and a self-satisfied "gotcha" from the difficult employee.
- The loss of productivity due to poor motivation either to do a job, or to do it well. There are tremendous costs when team members are only giving lip service to quality, have a "why bother, management doesn't really care" attitude, or decide "others get away with poor performance, so I can too."
- Increased time off, absenteeism and illnesses. Many times these absences are categorized as "mental health days" because "if I don't get a break I'm going to go crazy."
- Increased costs of insurance premiums due to the mounting claims for physical illnesses, stress, and emotional difficulties.
In some cases, difficult employees are contagious, spreading unanticipated consequences throughout the organization.
For instance, many of the best performers will leave in the face of ongoing unrest and turmoil. They're unwilling to stay where management doesn't provide a work environment in which they can do their best. While replacement costs of defecting employees are typically estimated at 150% of their total compensation, those costs can escalate if they take their customers, intellectual property, and leadership impact elsewhere.
On the other hand, many marginal performers may elect to participate in "warm chair attrition." Their bodies remain, but their minds, efforts, and contributions are engaged otherwise. One woman closed her door for several hours each afternoon, claiming she needed quiet, uninterrupted time for finishing a complex research project. She was taking a nap.
One man claimed to be working at a facility annex when he left each afternoon. More than a year later, when the whole work group moved to the annex, and it became obvious that no one there knew who he was. He had been building a new boat at a nearby harbor.
Unfortunately, just estimating the number of hours wasted each week, and then multiplying that figure by the hourly salary of the employees involved, doesn't cover all the costs of a difficult employee in your organization.
Remember to add in the personal cost of going to a job where your satisfaction is compromised, where your productivity is curtailed, and your drug store bill for Maalox is escalating.
There is still the issue of being uncomfortable with dealing with conflict.
For most of us, dealing with conflict, with people who aren't performing, or with problem-causing people, isn't wonderful. It's understandable you would like to avoid the issue completely. I remind my clients with difficult employees that I've been the target of difficult people too. As therapist and consultant who has worked constantly with difficult people for over 30 years, I've been yelled at by experts.
However,
just like the manager, it's the consultant's responsibility to take
charge and work to effect changes in the employee's behavior.
Whether we want to or not.
Whether we like it or not.
It's our responsibility, and ...
We'll be glad when it's done!
The good news is in the results of the effort. The bottom line will be more robust, your stress level will decrease, your team will work together in harmony, and your department's effectiveness and productivity will begin to climb.
__________
Since 1986, Patricia Wiklund, Ph.D. has helped some of America's largest, and smallest, organizations resolve expensive and troublesome people problems and conflicts by leveraging the strategic power of soft skills®. A former mental health professional, she is as comfortable on the front line, as on the shop floor, or in the corporate executive suite, and also works effectively in government and educational settings. Call her today at 415 641-5997, or email her at pat@patwiklund.com to discuss how she can help you put your people and organizations back on track.
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