It has been an interesting week or so. I have had the same question (or a variation of it) asked by a handful of clients and students: what do I do as a leader if I have people on my team who will not do what they’re asked, will not follow directions, and refuse to listen to me? I’ve been asked this before in multiple variations throughout my career. This last week or so had an angst that I hadn’t heard in a long time.
My approach and the approach I share with my clients (and this is a 50K foot view):
Talk with your team member about what is going on. Take an interest in them. This is an opportunity to show empathy and compassion;
Talk with the team member about the expectations of their job (both relationship and task-oriented expectations);
Explain how their behavior is affecting the team;
Then, work together to discuss solutions and movement forward.
In my experience, 98% of the time, this ends up being a positive experience. Before you go, “Oh really?” Ha, “Yes, really!” See, it’s been my experience that the majority of people we work with are not intentionally being toads and honestly don’t know their behavior has shifted in a way that is affecting others. Folks, life changes and happenings affect us all very differently. These life changes and happenings are taking place at top speed and with a force we haven’t seen before. Let us make sure we are treating our team members with compassion and respect. We can do that while holding our team members to accountability.
I talked about this with both my clients and students. I could see a lot of lights go on (always a cool experience for a teacher or advisor!). This time though, half of them came back with, “We have, and it keeps repeating and is getting worse.” Ooof, no fun at all, and not just for our leaders.
In this current age of “The Great Resignation,” many of our companies are dealing with staff shortages. This is no different in the region I work. The leaders I am working with are exhausted, their teams are exhausted. They are working overtime and more. They know how important learning and development is but can’t spare more than a little bit, if at all, to make it happen. They are concerned about supply chains. They are spent...and so are their teams. I have no empirical evidence at the moment, but my experience and knowledge advise me that the reason I heard, “We have, and it keeps repeating and is getting worse” is because these shortages are pushing us to keep low-performing and even toxic individuals on board because we need the help.
Except, when does that backfire for our teams and organizations? Stick with me for a minute. Reinforcement (Thorndike, 1911 and Skinner, 1953) is the process of controlling (helping to shape) behavior using consequences. Most of us know this through positive, negative, and punishment reinforcements (calling all parents 😊). There is another form of reinforcement called extinction. The idea is to reduce unwanted behavior through the withholding of a valued consequence by an individual. Consider the co-worker who loves to walk around and talk? It’s just talking, right? Well, not if it interrupts others work or they are not getting their own done. Extinction reinforcement would be to withhold conversation from this individual to get them back to work and stop interrupting others. “Ok, got it.” Extinction can also have the opposite effect in that it can reduce WANTED behaviors.
This is what happens to our high-performers. When we allow poor behavior to continue for long periods or repeated periods of time, it takes away from our ability to support all of our team members. It also violates the psychological and procedural contracts that we will all be held to the standards: meet your required expectations, do a good job, do a high-quality job, follow the rules, etc. So, if others are not held accountable, what does that say to our performers? It not only feels like a betrayal of trust, but it can start to “extinguish” great behavior (actions, talent, high-quality work) from those who are meeting and exceeding expectations.
Leaders have a tough job right now, I know. I have experienced that frustration. I see it with my clients. I read about it in the research. I see it on LinkedIn. We must find a balance between coaching and helping team members grow, and also holding everyone, including ourselves, accountable to expectations and treating each other with respect. The more we allow poor behavior to continue, we extinguish not just performance but morale…we breach the psychological and procedural contracts with all.
I do not have the perfect answer or solution. I continue to work my process above, and so far, it continues to work. However, we continue to experience disruption and transformation. It is hard and uncertain. AND, it is so ripe with opportunity. Leaders, let’s continue to help, coach, and guide those team members who need help. AND, let us step back, remember, and recognize our team members who are meeting and exceeding those expectations. We are all a little (and in some cases a lot) tired and weary with the uncertainty. We have an opportunity to reinforce awesome input, work, behavior, talent, strength, and all the goodness in our people. Let’s get to it!
Please share your thoughts and insight into how you are handling your workforce shortages and performance issues as they arise. The more we share our experiences, the more we learn, and the better we all become.
Skinner, B.F. Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan, 1953.
Thorndike, E.L. Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies. New York: Macmillan, 1911.
Insightful Reading and Listening:
Reinforcement Theory
https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Pr-Sa/Reinforcement-Theory.html
Coaching Problem Employees – a fantastic podcast discussion from Harvard Business Review (transcript is included)
https://hbr.org/podcast/2020/09/coaching-problem-employees