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difficult people
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Brutes, Beasts, and Boors: Marketing Starts with Individuals By Meredith Gardner, President, THE STRATEGIC EDGE, MarkeTrends Report
You know who this is. The partners making impossible demands, expecting perfection, growling and barking at everyone and unable to get along with anyone. Managing partners always have at least one of these beasts in their stable, and the temptation is often to deal with offensive people by firing or transferring them. But when the person is an experienced senior partner, an industry guru or a star performer, that's not the best answer. "Behavioral Turnaround" is a behavioral modification process that many of the largest corporations and professional firms now use to help them hold on to their investment in talented individuals. By bringing in a skilled outside consultant with no vested interest in the outcome of the process, the firm and the partner needing help typically find new ways communicating more effectively with workers and clients. The typical executive turnaround project is customized for the individual involved, and has three steps. 1. The consultant meets with other partners and co-workers (and sometimes clients) of the individual to get feedback on the behaviors that are most annoying to others. The feedback asked usually relates to the person's interpersonal skills, their management and leadership style, and how they speak in front of small meetings and large groups. 2. The managing partner provides a "wish list" for how they would like to see the person behave. 3. The consultant identifies the goals and/or qualities that are targets for that individual, and tailors a multi-day program of one-on-one training to accomplish the goals. A behavioral turnaround program helps people to develop more behavioral choices—to make them aware of alternatives for accomplishing better results from themselves and from others. It motivates the person to achieve what they want and give colleagues what they need. Everyone resists change. Change frightens people. A behavioral turnaround program does not seek to change the person's personality or technical skills. Rather, it helps them to become aware of the impact of their behavior on others and how better to accomplish their own goals, and adds to their toolbox of interpersonal and managerial skills. It works! Participants and their colleagues typically report substantial, dramatic improvement after the difficult person completes a customized program. For example, an executive who procrastinates and misses deadlines can learn to recognize the impact of procrastination on others, and how to renegotiate expectations so that deadlines are more realistic and will be adhered to. A partner who uses coarse language or sexual innuendos, or bullies the managers and staff, might be led to understand the impact of his or her words on others and how such words reflect on their own image. A program for such a person might teach alternate meanings others can get from what is said and how one person's "crisp no-nonsense style" is another person's "hostile and tyrannical." The goal in any executive turnaround is to dovetail the firm's goals with the individual's goals in such a way as to help the person become a contributor instead of a thorn in many peoples' sides. A person with a behavioral problem is like a weak leg in one of the triangles making up a geodesic dome. One weak leg will cause the whole structure to collapse. The ideal executive turnaround involves the other people the problem person is in contact with regularly—the other legs of the other triangles that touch. Executive turnaround programs shape the person to fit better and be stronger in the organization—to strengthen the geodesic dome. Customized turnaround programs can save the firm many thousands of dollars. In addition to potentially saving clients, putting troublesome employees through an executive turnaround program inevitably results in a happier employee and greater productivity among all the individuals who contact or work with that individual. The tamer the beast, the happier and more profitable the flock. What Drives "Problem Personalities"? "Behavioral Turnaround" helps problem people to understand their own motivations and the impact their actions and words have on clients and co-workers. Differing motivations can cause people to exhibit behaviors that others find inappropriate, threatening or unpleasant to be around. Experts say that people are generally motivated by need for security--need for control, or need for approval. You may recognize people you work with in these adjectives. People who need Security are often described as: Cold, Humorless, Indifferent, Cut off, Careless, Negative, Overwhelmed, Vague, Tormented, Unhappy, Hopeless, Disillusioned, Discouraged People who need Control are often described as: Distrusting, Evasive, Impatient, Suspicious, Skeptical, Irrational, Paranoid, Manipulative, Demanding, Selfish, Pushy, Abrasive, Argumentative, Defiant, Explosive, Resistant, Spiteful, Stubborn, Aggressive People who need Approval are often described as: Aloof, Arrogant, Contemptuous, Cool, Critical, Dogmatic, Decisive, Naughty, Holier than thou, Hypocritical, Judgmental, Narrow-minded, Opinionated, Overbearing, Patronizing, Self-sufficient, Uncompromising, Unfeeling, Vain |
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