If you hire that candidate, I’ll quit!

If you don’t pay me more, I’ll quit!

More than you might think employers cow down to these demanding employees. It’s not just inexperienced managers who fall prey to such threats, it’s well-seasoned, ought to know better, executives as well. Having said that, it is always wise to consider both sides of an argument.

If, in fact, the employee has been treated unfairly, then corrections need to be made. Not only is it the right thing to do, the organization’s reputation is at stake. Former employees talk and if he word “on the street” is that your company is not a good place to work, you will not be able to recruit top level employees.

An executive recently complained to the superior of a fellow executive in the same company that Bob, not his real name, was often insubordinate, sat on people’s desks, flexed his muscles, and was a know-it-all. Bob’s boss replied, “Bob’s OK, he’s just weird.” The executive, a client of mine, relaying this story to me felt confused because she saw this person as being condescending, but yet couldn’t understand why she felt that way and so blamed herself. When I asked this executive if she would let her son speak to her that way, she replied, “Good grief, no!” Why is this situation any different?

It just so happens that my client has her eyes on the CEO position when the current CEO retires in a few years. If Bob’s behavior is allowed to continue, do you think he will stop just because this person is now the CEO? Bob will take great pride in his ability to talk to such a superior in this manner, belittle the now CEO, behind her back of course, and generally help lace the organization’s culture with this condescending behavior company wide. The behavior now becomes accepted and the norm. What’s a budding CEO to do?

Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you know a little something about Emotional Intelligence (EI). Therefore, you no doubt know that EI is important in the workforce and why, that everyone has emotions, how to recognize them in others, and that we, as humans, have certain emotions built in or “hard wired” into us. However, other ideas are now coming to the forefront about these built in emotions.

Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, gives us a set of EI Competencies. They are:

• Self-Awareness
• Self-Management
• Social Awareness
• Social Skills

Importance of EI at Work: One source suggests that self-awareness forms the foundation of the other factors. An example is someone who is a bully, or obnoxious, or argumentative, and they are unaware of their behavior.  Therefore, none of the other factors will become tools that individual incorporates into his/her coping skills. The behavior will not change, and the office workforce will continue to experience disruption resulting in low morale and poor performance. If the leader is the individual with these types of behaviors and is unaware, crisis can ensue. EI at work remains important. Other ideas have a new spin.

There is plenty of conflict to go around these days. The “Me” in the title of this article is not me but you. So, let’s clear that up right now. I’m the center of enough of my own conflicts without being a part of yours. The three main ‘me’ conflicts are Me – Me, Me – You, and Me – Job. Those of us who work with behavioral management are attune to these three and a good coach or mentor can spot them quickly and the good news is that there are clear methods to deal with each of them.

A Little History

Research on what makes people tick, began in ancient history around 444 B.C. with Empedocles, who was the founder of the school of medicine. This is also the beginning of the DISC language for behaviors, Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance.

At times, getting a root canal seems a better way to spend your precious time than to sit through another dull, boring, and worse, unproductive meeting. Think:

1 Meeting = 1 Hour
People in Meeting = 6
Total Time: 1 Hour   WRONG!!
1 Hour Meeting + 6 people = 6 hours!

Can any of us afford such waste? The answer is, of course, no. The bigger questions is why are meetings such a waste of time? Some complaints clients express are:

• Some people talk too much
• Some people don’t talk at all
• Lack of structure
• Poor assignment of action steps or no action steps
• No follow-up or follow-through
• Meetings lack leadership
• Behaviors such as bullying, know-it-alls, side-conversations, getting off topic/rambling; negativity, griping, and ego battles run amok

It doesn’t have to be like this. While I am not of the mindset that there should be no meetings, in order to have effective meetings, you need to know the following five important steps to help prevent meeting mayhem:

Recently, one of my executive coaching clients was pulling his hair out over people in one department who were always complaining about his team. His team complained about the other team – of course. His team is essentially sales and the other team is policies, procedures, and compliance. You might as well try to mix oil and water and try to make a soufflé. What is it that has these teams all in a twitter?

Sales people are typically, not always, but typically a little more loose with rules and procedures. They just want to go out and influence people to buy so they can get paid. And yes, typically they do make more money than the “policy and procedure (P & P) enforcers.” The green-eyed jealousy monster starts running amok through the P & P team. The P & P people feel they work harder, are under more stress, and are constantly correcting the mistake of the sales team. The sales team doesn’t like rules; they take too much time to comply with and they need to be out selling. They reason, that if it wasn’t for them the P & P team wouldn’t it HAVE a job!

We’ve all seen children and how they can get hurt feelings over the most minor infractions, become territorial to the point of landing blows, and just being plain nasty. Of course, people who have attained high educational levels, worked their way through the ranks, and now manage executive positons would never behave in such a manner. At least, one would think.

Recently, I had a conversation with a Vice President. This individual not only is a VP but has a string of letters behind their name that represent both professional level achievements as well as certifications. It seems Pat, (not the VP’s real name), has serious issues with another individual, (Madison, again not a real name), who happens to be in a higher position in the organization. Pat has complained many times about being overwhelmed with work so much so that the organization is going to hire an assistant for Pat.