MANAGEMENT
Perhaps, the art of management is easier when dealing with report(s) who are difficult to manage than those colleagues who are too ‘compliant’ and ‘submissive’. A difficult, or more harshly, a deviant report at-least comes clean to take-on his supervisor; while the compliant may harbour a negative sentiment and would most likely come from an unknown direction to upset your managerial capability. In my personal experience, I have found that most managers enjoyed the challenge of dealing with difficult colleagues than those who agree on every opinion of the supervisor more speedily, than the time taken by the supervisor to formulate and solidify his own thought.
Upon joining an institution, I was told by my outgoing predecessor and the chairman, to be alert of the “difficulties” a named colleague, would cause in the everyday management of the organisation. I met up with the colleague. We talked frankly, but cordially laying expectations of each other, in the efficient discharge of our respective responsibility. We agreed and had no disputation. In examining the personality of this individual, I realised, he was not only technically highly proficient, but was also a man with heart – the only visible shortcoming was his brazenness in expression, harbouring closely to disdain and arrogance. But this was his natural way of conversation and nothing conceited or deliberate intent was noticeable. We struck and made great partnership.
The only concession, as supervisor, if it can be referred to as concession was, I gave; was to give him most ‘airtime’ in conversations. That’s all. Nothing more was required for him to be both productive and positive. As managers and supervisors, it is important for us to examine and discover from where the “difficult” aspect emerges in any given person. Is the person difficult because of inherent nature, or he consciously wishes to be difficult? If a person is a pain because it is naturally present in his persona to be defiant and difficult, then the challenge to change is enormous.
It is not to suggest that any such colleague becomes permanently incorrigible for rectitude. But to get them on to the rails is an arduous task, for it requires special skills to permeate into the personality and discover the causes for his being deviant. The reasons could be as serious as ‘up-bringing, schooling or societal environment’ that he may have experienced, prompting the person to convert to defiance.
On the other hand, if a colleague is showing deliberate and pre-meditated thought and action to create impediments in your path as manager – the reason here could also be multiple; he could be seeing you as a competition for recognition and authority; or feels he has been robbed of his chance to lead; or considers himself to be better - in knowledge, skill and talent. This ‘difficult’ person is more easily manageable than the ‘naturally difficult’.
If it is not for the stated two conditions a colleague shows or projects himself to be ‘difficult’, it is then pure bragging for cheap popularity within the ranks. Handling such colleagues is a walk through the cake. Easy and swift action is to pull plugs on them. Immediately transfer them into extreme challenging zones; both in terms of business results and in man-management of ‘his types’.
As supervisor, humanise your function, with pronounced feelings and emotions. Don’t deal with colleagues as a cold stone slab that is found in graveyards. In the management of a difficult report, it is fundamentally important to critically evaluate your (manager’s) role and personality. Firstly, judge if you consider your reports to be an asset or a liability. If it is the latter, then it is the manager’s responsibility and skill to seek conversion of such colleagues to be productive assets.
In the run up to making judgment calls regarding colleagues (those in reporting line), a manager should initiate a criminally honest examination of his own self to determine and identify the triggers that complicate his feelings towards colleagues. When faced with a situation where you find your emotions running wild against a colleague, the best course of action is to set aside your developing bias and seek intervention from any reliable cross-stake holder to do an appraisal and evaluation, where the ‘deviant’ faces a manager, who is free of all biases, prejudices and has no baggage of past events of conflicts and injury.
A manager must know himself; for ‘knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom’. Never hesitate to offer on table the benefit of doubt to the colleague. Without making himself a Sherlock Holmes or even Inspector Columbo, the manager can probe and check how the situation can be helped. Engage. Talk. Converse. Explore ways to support. Is it the nature of work that is not in alignment with an employee’s skill and talent? Or is the employee in quest of something different? Sincerely introspect, are the colleagues having difficulty with your management style? As manager, are you being overly intrusive, autocratic, directive or even given to sharing vague ideas and direction; or even worse, are you breathing down their necks through micro-managing. To let everybody fall in line with singular objectives, seek if their preference is towards collaborative management style or if they prefer the oriental management methodology, where only the manager ‘thinks’ and all others merely ‘act upon directives’.
Too much autonomy to human mind can potentially work towards destructive outcomes. A demanding manager would carry in his personality equal ounces of empathy. A sustainable relationship needs to be developed with the team of reports. No dissent to your views should be considered as challenging to authority. Diverse points of view add meaning to a decision. Encourage free format discussion to dislodge even the most defiant member; after sometime they align themselves to your view, only if as a skilful manager of human intellect, you let them feel, it is their view, their decision and eventually therefore the result is their responsibility.
The most grievous reaction, in my view to a difficult report is to either ignore him or to consign him to outpost that is not even on the fringes of being heard from. That course is disastrous. In fact, work with such colleagues on some challenging projects / assignments, this will help create some camaraderie, which will impact positively as your try to find a solution on a collaborative basis.
A manager in control of himself is always a successful manager. Avoid the sentiments of anger, intolerance or the urge of retaliation. These emotions invariably lead you to make judgments in a misty and foggy state of mind and hence are therefore likely to miss the target, of any effort or action. Corn is cleared with wind, and the soul with chastening – always chastise your persona if it is you who is creating ‘difficult reports’.
Managers rely on the percept that there are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit – try to be in the first group, there is less competition there. (J Nehru).
Never hide away from a difficult report (or collectively Colleagues); instead confront them with your determination to seek collaboration and alignment.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
