I don’t know a single manager who hasn’t had an experience
with bad atitude. Looking over my own management career I’ve
fired three people, two of which were for performance issues ultimately
related to “having a bad attitude.” To determine if
this is normal, I conducted a quick survey and garnered more than
100 responses.
The question, “With respect to employees, define
what you mean when you state an employee has a “Bad Attitude,” generated
the following range of responses:
| Not a Team Player |
Does the Minimum |
Disrespectful |
| Insubordinate |
Always Negative |
Unhappy |
| Pessimistic |
Offers no solutions |
Surly |
| Tardy |
Gossipy |
Clock Watcher |
| Prima Donna |
Contagious |
Argumentative |
| Work to Rule |
Abrasive |
Rude |
| Confrontational |
Disruptive |
Inflexible |
| Argumentative |
Defensive |
Sarcastic |
| Poor communication skills |
Unpleasant |
Instigates Dissent |
The most significant observation is that
nearly 10% of the respondent’s employees (past and present)
are still labelled as having a bad attitude.
With 10% of our employees “destined” to have
a bad attitude, knowing how to deal with this issue, or better
yet,
how to avoid it, is a must for any manager.
Of that 10%, we fire, terminate, let go or constructively dismiss
at least 67% (my 2/3 ratio was unfortunately extremely accurate
for a single data point).
It is important to point out that we can’t (in most places)
fire someone for having a “bad attitude,” yet it is
often at the root of the reasons which justify the termination
of many employees. Bad attitude affects productivity, customer
service, the ability of teams to work together and it lowers morale.
Given these statistics, every employee - managers included - should
know that cultivating bad attitude is a severely limiting and costly
career decision.
The reason why people with bad attitude don’t last long
in an organization revolves around the central theme of contagious.
The person with the bad attitude is never content to keep it to
him or herself. They do their best, consciously or unconsciously,
to infect others with it.
Strong agreement in the survey revealed that a single bad attitude
has a widespread and contagious negative impact on an organization
with respect to levels of productivity. Regardless of the source
of the problem, we must “fix” a bad attitude, the question
is - how best to do that?
The survey attempted to answer that question. The responses to “What
have you found to be the most effective solution to the problem
of “Bad Attitude?” suggest a wide variety
of solutions and approaches. However, based on the raw input, there
is an admitted
lack of ability in this area. Many of the solutions offered were
identified by the submitter as being ineffective. Is it any wonder
that the “solution” of “letting them go” is
our most common approach?
Here are some of the strategies gleaned from the survey:
| Constructive Dismissal |
Say goodbye |
Find the Cause |
| Positively ignore the issue |
Not my problem |
Lack of Will |
| Negatively ignore the issue |
Training |
Counselling |
| Prevent it from occurring |
Procrastination |
Reassignment |
| Laying it on the line |
Address the Issue |
Peer Pressure |
*It’s important to note these strategies
taken from the survey represent potential “problems” as
much as they represent suggested “solutions”.
Given that more than 2/3 of employees with bad attitude are terminated
in some fashion, its obvious layoffs are the most commonly deployed “solutions.” It
does however, raise an important question: “Did the termination
solve the problem, or did it just sweep it under the rug by pushing
the employee out into the street?”
Based on the survey results and my experiences both as a manager
and as an external consultant, here are the most common reasons
I’ve found for why people get labelled as having a bad attitude.
I don’t claim it’s complete, but I’ve rarely
seen a situation not covered by these seven “root causes.”
| Those who just don’t like working for a living. |
| Those unwilling to accept unavoidable change |
| Those with psychological problems of some type |
| Those with stress/life challenges unrelated to the organization. |
| Those who don’t like their current job. |
| Those who disagree with a management practice |
| Those incorrectly labelled as having a bad attitude. |
| And of course, some or all of the above. |
If you have an attitude problem to solve,
how do we determine which of these is most applicable? If we go
back to the list of
solutions offered by the survey respondents, we immediately see
that some of them are non-starters. We can’t solve a problem
if we believe it’s “not my problem”, or by having
the lack of will to address it. The only hope we have to figuring
out what’s going on is to have an honest, frank and important
conversation with the person in question. Guessing what the problem
might be only leads to more complications and problems.
© 2006 Peter de Jager – Peter is a keynote speaker
and consultant. Read more of his work at www.technobility.com
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