In Summary
- Many managers face the dilemma of whether to retain or sack troublemakers despite their good work.
We are still on lessons from the World Cup. Today, we
are on Mario Balotelli and Luiz Suarez. In Kenya, we have our own
Dennis Oliech. Let me explain.
These are hugely talented strikers, capable of scoring
virtually by themselves. Players of a calibre that any team would love
to have.
But they can also be a gigantic headache – being in
training-ground fights, throwing darts at young team players and
feuding with managers, among other lunacies. Last week, Suarez actually
bit another player on the shoulder – in a World Cup match!
One question, if you were a manager, would you want
them on your team? What do you do with players who combine such an
all-world talent with an equally all-world capacity for off-field and
locker-room distractions – knowing fully well that the headaches and the
goals come as a package?
Let me bring it down to business. There has been
much discussion about star performers and their contribution to success
of a business.
Often in teams, one member brings in more revenue,
has a great relationship with an important client or achieves more than
half the sales targets for the entire team.
Their high performance levels make them almost
indispensable to the team and management. But what happens if the best
performer is also the most badly behaved member of the team?
What if they do not work well with the team, have
trouble following rules or constantly upset their peers? Do you keep the
person in the team or show them the door?
This is a challenge that managers face every day. I
will tell you why. It is often simple to identify low-performing
employees or employees who need training or retraining. It is more
difficult to address the challenge of the employee who does good work
with a bad attitude.
An attitude of rudeness, malice or disrespect can be one of the most insidious threats to workplace collaboration.
Furthermore, a bad attitude can be disastrous for
productivity. A manager focused on productivity may be tempted to
overlook an employee’s negative attitude, especially if that employee is
among the top performers.
But a bad attitude can ultimately impact the
productivity of co-workers, which can denigrate the team and preclude
accomplishment of team goals.
The reason poor behaviours go unchecked is because
teams often do not have strong, open, professional relationships where
staff feel they can challenge bad behaviour.
The stronger the professional relationship, the
more staff are enabled to have the conversations that need to be had in
order to underpin performance, particularly high-level performance.
Some organisations are reluctant to develop strong
professional relationships because they are unsure how to go about it.
But I can refer you to one person who did.
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