A mini case study
Consider this story:
Jack manages a staff of 4 people in the accounts payable department of an IT company. The group has been working together for at least 8 years. In the last 4 months Jack has noticed that Sam has been really negative. At first, no one seemed to notice except Jack, especially when they met during one-on-one meetings. Sam was always complaining about others in the organization who didn’t follow the rules. Jack never really did much about it and frankly brushed it off; he just figured that Sam was going through a rough patch and if he ignored the situation Sam would get on track.
However, it didn’t improve and only got worse over the next few months. Sam’s peers (the other 3 folks in the department) were consistently complaining to Jack about Sam and his negativity. It was even carrying over to other departments. A number of Jack’s peers commented that Sam was a problem and he was being rude and unprofessional to their staff members. It got to the point where Jack’s boss phoned him and told him to fix the problem with Sam “right now.”
QUESTION: What steps do you think Jack should take to address the situation with Sam?
Part II of this post will discuss the possible steps that Jack might take in order to resolve the issue with Sam.
Thank you for reading and for your comment Ivan. You are absolutely accurate that sometimes a personal problem will certainly reflect in the workplace. It is important to get the employee to share what is going on so you, as the manager, can provide support and/or point him in the right direction for help (such as to HR.)
This is quite tough. But then, it will help to ask Sam what the real problem is. Sometimes, the problem is not really the other employees or the situation. It can be a problem at home or in a relationship. The key is to provide Sam with the support system he needs so that he can change his behavior.