Are you being held to ransom?
April 13th, 2006 by Rashid
The graveyard is full of indispensable people!
Had a very interesting situation last night.
We were running a facilitation for a client and his staff. Our client (let’s call him Bob) wanted to bring his team together to discuss his vision for his business (in the health care area) and have this staff buy in and contribute to making the business a "happy and productive environment for both his staff and his clients".
We’d arranged for a 3 hour meeting after hours which included dinner.
Before we even started his main admin person (who believes she’s indispensable and runs the practice) loudly proclaimed that she was going to come, but not contribute! She’d even told the other staff that the meeting only went for an hour and then there was dinner.
Talk about crossed arms and legs. This woman (Denise - not her real name) felt that nothing Bob did was right and was going to do everything possible to make our lives difficult.
So if you were in this situation, how would you handle it? What you be thinking if you were her employer and had to put up with this attitude for over 6 months?
We started the meeting and everyone contributed but her. When I pushed her for a comment, she steadfastly refused. I let it go for a while and then asked her again.
This is a roll up of Denise’s responses. "I don’t care to say anything. I’m just going to do my job and nothing more. I’m not going to contribute in any way to making this a better place."
The sad part of all this is that Denise is actually quite a good worker in her own way. She knows how to juggle appointments, keep the computer appointment system running and organises the practitioners and makes sure that they have a full case load.
But her attitude, frankly sucks!
The final straw came when she proclaimed that, " I really don’t care and I’m likely to leave any time now."
I nearly lost it! Okay, I controlled myself, but my response was, "If you want to leave - why don’t you leave RIGHT NOW!"
And she backed down. "I’m not going to give you an answer now. I may stay, but I might also leave."
She stayed another hour and then at 8:30 got up and left blaming her boss for miscommunicating the timeframes.
What’s fascinating in all this is that Denise wants attention and this is one of the only ways she knows how to get it.
She just chose to do it with the wrong person. My attitude is don’t make threats that you’re not prepared to carry out. If you want to leave - leave. If your not happy, either do something to change it or leave. Mind you the grass only APPEARS to be greener on the other side!
The upshot is that Bob refuses to be held to ransom and is now looking for another administrator/receptionist.
As to the rest of the evening? It was pretty productive. Yes there were some major issues with communication and how people dealt with each other at times. Stuff came out that needed to come out. People put issues on the table so that healing could start to take place.
What was the biggest lesson that we took away?
People need to empty their buckets and have open communication. If you can talk about the situation over a cup of coffee or tea, chances are that it can be solved. Bottling it up helps no one.
Editor’s Note:
If you have a dysfunctional team and need some help to get stuff out on the table so that it can be resolved, give me a call. One of the things I didn’t mention in the article above is that a lot of the conflict stemmed from different personality styles (Denise is EXTREMELY structured and Bob is the opposite - hence they drive each other mad.)
By learning about behavioural preferences and patterns, you and your team could increase your productive by as much as 200%!
Give me a call on (02) 9499-7958 and get the ball rolling.
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