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5 Ways to Deal With Difficult Team Members

by on Sep 18, 12

This guest post was provided by Ryan Sauer who contributes in areas of project management certification for the University Alliance, a division of Bisk Education, Inc. He actively writes to help professionals succeed in preparing for their PMP training online.

Have you ever experienced the following range of emotions throughout the lifecycle of a project?

Eagerness, frustration, raised blood pressure, lack of progress, fear, contempt (the project falls behind), and then anger sets in!

We’ve all run this emotional gamut at one time or another during a project where something is not flowing quite right. That one thing usually turns out to be a kink in the workflow and sometimes comes in the form of a difficult team member. Some things you might come across when dealing with a difficult team member are:

  • Lack of regard toward other team members
  • Not carrying their load and ignoring timelines
  • Refusal to collaborate with others on a portion of a project; lone wolf syndrome
  • Abrasive behavior that can instill fear in others who have to work with this person

As a project manager trying to keep a project on track, these types of situations can become especially aggravating. We all know that one of the most critical processes to ensure a project’s success hinges on communication, and one of the most common ways to hit a snag in communication is having a team member who is less than cooperative. Rather than looking at this person as dead weight, make it your personal challenge to bring them back into the team. Here are 5 practical tips to help deal with a difficult team member.

  1. Approach with empathy; the person could be going through a personal tragedy or having a family issue
  2. Build a rapport with the team member; one-on-one or team building exercises are perfect for this
  3. Do not speak ill about this person behind their back
  4. Rather than accuse, offer help (i.e., if the team member hasn’t handed in their portion of a project, it could be as simple as they do not understand what is being asked or they are being challenged by something and are fearful of speaking out. People can act out when frustrated.)
  5. If all else fails, take action and report any insubordination

The last step above is really a worst case scenario. If you are coming upon tip #5, it should be because you’ve exhausted all other avenues of working with this person.

A good example of this approach can be found in corporate regulations. There is a reporting process within some organizations where an employee has to be written up several times before any other formal discipline takes place. During that time, an action plan may be created to help get them back on track. If the employee wants to stay at their job, they are usually receptive to the opportunity to right their wrongs.

With a bit of luck, tips 1-4 will do the trick and you can avoid tip #5 altogether. After all, your job as the project manager is to create better morale within your entire team, get projects moving smoothly again and achieve a successful completion. Don’t let a difficult employee get in the way of your goals. Instead, mentor them and work with them to make things right. This will allow for greater innovation, increased quality of work for the entire team and an overall higher project success rate.

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Adam Bullied

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