The Three Greatest Challenges For Managers - People, People, People

People! They are so individual. That's what gives them the edge, gives them uniqueness and this is what they bring to any role they play at work. It also, however, makes them difficult for managers. Having 10-15 unique individuals in your team that you are trying to relate to and value their individuality is very challenging.

That's why it is so important to get them working as a team. Building a great team is about everyone understanding and valuing the unique contribution that each member of the team has to offer and have everyone draw on those attributes to produce a superior service or product.

The problems begin, however, when one member of the team doesn't pull his/her weight or doesn't shape up.

How Do I Get My Team Member To Change?

This is a question workshop presenters get asked in various ways at nearly every workshop they conduct.

Managers always have at least one person in their team who is not performing as they would want them to. It's the smaller issues that are often the most challenging. The very serious issues leave no manager in any doubt about what he or she should do.

The smaller issues, ones that are very annoying and frustrating, are the ones that leave the manager questioning: Do I just put up with this and try and work around it? Or do I make an issue of it and risk negative reaction and possible disengagement?

Their team member may 

• always be late in meeting deadlines,

• arrive 15 minutes late for work every day,

• never have their statistics done on time,

• dress inappropriately for their role,

• take days to respond to requests for information needed for joint reports,

• leave their dirty dishes in the team room for someone else to wash,

for example.

Usually managers have raised these issues many times with the particular team member and nothing has changed. The workshop presenter is then asked for a magic solution.

Emotional Intelligence, An Important Soft Skill, Comes To The Fore.

They can always hand out tips and strategies for managing situations with people. Have you noticed, however, how easy they sound when someone else is talking about them, but how difficult they become when you go to implement them?

While they do exactly what they've been told at the workshop or read in the book or article, they don't get any changed response from their team member. This is usually because the manager is not in the best emotional space to implement these strategies.

By this time the actual issue has been lost for the manager in a sea of frustration, annoyance, irritability and even anger.

It has become an issue of high emotion.

It has also become a personality issue - this particular team member's personality.

What's wrong with this person that he or she just can't do this?

As well, it is now a conflict management issue.

To approach a team member from out of that space is a recipe for disaster. Managers need to resolve their own emotional "stuff" first.

• What am I feeling about this person at this stage?

• How is what I am feeling going to effect the way I approach and communicate with this person?

• Can I separate the issue from the personality and just address the importance of resolving the issue?

• Am I still clear about what the issue is and why it needs to be resolved?

• How do I manage these inappropriate emotions that this person is generating in me and develop an emotionally intelligent response to this situation?

When a manager takes him/herself through that first, and then approaches the team member, that crucial conversation is much more likely to be constructive and produce a focussed solution.