Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
Damien and Alan (names changed) joined the business together ten years ago as graduate engineers.
Alan had recently progressed to become the firm’s chief operating officer whilst Damien remained a senior project manager.
By now Damien’s attitude had become legendary, for all the wrong reasons.
Damien’s attitude has been variously described as negative, always critical, angry, demanding and argumentative, never willing to accept an alternative to his own opinion.
Three bullying complaints against Damien had been dropped each time HR was asked to intervene.
Damien’s team had the highest turnover of staff.
However, as the founder, now chairperson, had said many a time when complaints about Damien’s attitude were raised, “Damien did good work and had deep knowledge about the firm’s processes.”
Alan didn’t want to argue with his leader without evidence to measure the cost of doing nothing versus Damien’s value to the business.
Whilst Alan had only experienced “a cup half empty” attitude from Damien, he personally had no real problem with Damien.
But the legend of Damien’s attitude persisted.
So, Alan embarked on an investigation.
His plan was to:
- Discover the reasons why Damien’s team had the highest turnover.
- Measure the performance and productivity of Damien’s team against the performance and productivity of the other three project managers.
- Survey all teams to discover the level of engagement, morale and satisfaction and relate it to the productivity of the teams.
- Interview Damien to get his opinion and willingness to address the issue.
- Interview HR to get their point of view.
Alan’s Findings
- Of the nine staff, all graduates with an average of five years’ experience, who had resigned from Damien’s team over the past three years, six of them declared they’d left because they couldn’t get on with Damien and believed the business cared more about Damien than them. The other three left for better career choices.
The cost of replacing those six staff is close to two times their salary when adding recruitment, training and workplace familiarisation costs. Average salary was $90,000.00, therefore: 2 x $90K x 6 staff ÷ 3 years = $360K p.a.! Alan’s salary was half that!
- Damien’s project costs were 9% higher than the other teams’ when all factors were considered!
- The teams survey showed Damien’s team to be the least engaged and with the lowest morale.
- When Alan confronted Damien with the data from above and asked for his opinion, Damien at first defended his position, claiming he was acting in the best interests of the company by being demanding.
Damien eventually acquiesced to having a problem when Alan asked how things were going at home.
Damien had a communication and behavioural problem both at home and at work and alternated between denial and fight mode about it.
Alan suggested to Damien that he could get coaching to help with the issue, and that would make both home life and work life better for everyone.
Damien said he’d think about it.
- When Damien met with HR with all the above evidence, apart from HR initially declaring that they’d dealt with each complaint effectively, they agreed that Damien needed an intervention (coaching) and that they had unused budget for that.
Approval to Proceed
Alan went to the chairperson with the evidence and solution and the chairperson gave his approval to proceed now that he had clarity about the cost of doing nothing.
HR found Damien a coach – me.
I met with Damien to see if we could work together.
Damien agreed and we commenced.
I first asked Damien to take an online profile which gave a 54-page report detailing the traits and enabling us plan those aspects that Damien wished to address.
The profile showed that Damien’s biggest issues were an internal conflict with himself wanting to get things done fast versus a real fear of missing something, not following rules and being wrong.
He also lacked self-awareness and self-regulation.
Together we designed a coaching plan and executed it.
Success
Six months later we redid the profile and Damien’s traits had moved significantly in the right direction though there was still opportunity to continue improvement, but he had cracked the problem.
Most importantly, Damien’s team noticed the difference and their retention, engagement and productivity now matched the other teams.
Damien’s home life also took a turn for the better.
Conclusion
Too many leaders procrastinate and tolerate bad attitudes at great risk to the business, especially these days.
The cost of doing nothing can be horrendous.
Yet the rewards of dealing with the issue effectively are clear and abundant.
If you need help in this space, call me and let’s have an adult conversation about it.
I specialise in dealing effectively with difficult attitudes and behaviour, using both science and skill.
I can either coach you to do it or do it for you.
