How to Manage an Employee Who Gets on Your Nerves
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Welcome to H, B, R and leadership case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts hand selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. Does someone you manage get on your herbs, but you're not sure what to do about IT managing different personalities, even those that are cue is part of leadership.

But psychologist art markman says dismissing these employees as simply annoying could keep you from communicating more constructively with them. Markmen is a former professor of psychology at the university of texas at Austin and now the school's vice provost for academic affairs. In this episode, he takes questions from listeners who are struggling to manage employees who are unlikeable, overly polite and passive aggressive.

He offers advice for how to offer initial feedback a and how to coach someone to help them improve their communication skills. This episode originally aired on deer H B R in june twenty eighteen. Here IT is .

welcome to dear H B R from harvard business review. And then again.

and I.

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Today we're talking about annoying subordinates with art markman. He's a professor of psychology at the university of texas. He's also the cohoes to the podcast. Two guys on your head are thanks so much for being on the show.

Oh, IT is great to be here.

So have you had an annoying supporting at yourself?

Well, you know to me that the biggest problem that I have is is people who won't tell me what's going on with them and then assume I will somehow into IT that there is a problem and exactly what that problem is and then are annoyed with me when I haven't even if I come out directly and say, okay, there appears to be something going on that's probably over the years, been my biggest frustration.

And also you feel like it's gna limit their own career.

Well, any good leader is trying to groom people for advanced ment in the future. And when you have people who get in their own way, IT is incredibly frustrating.

How is IT different? When is the boss who finds the subordinate behavior annoyed? How does that power dynamic change the situation?

Well, IT does. And IT doesn't change IT. You know, you're certainly in a position to to coach someone. And I think people are more likely to take advice like that from someone that they worked for. As I always like to say, the old joke is true. You know, we say, how many psychologists does that take to change a light bulb? And of course, the answer is one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

Ready for a number one? Yes, dear H B. R.

I recently took over a ten person team. One of my director reports is chAllenging. He's a season manager in his forties.

He's technically solid, dependable and motivated. The issue is that his communication style is super frustrating. He interprets constantly.

Once he begins talking, he doesn't stop until you are interacting back. After just two weeks as his manager, I gave him direct feedback. I told him that I expect him to not interpret to me.

I told him to try to focus this conversation to the task at hand. IT didn't work. It's not just me.

Other people are avoiding interacting with him. For example, we were meeting with my boss the other day. The employee gave several fairly long responses that drifted off topic.

I could see my boss getting frustrated, giving off body language to wrap this up, but my supporter did not pick up on IT. When I initially join the team, he would tell me that he felt frustrated about not being in the loop. But no wonder people keep out of things.

It's becoming clear to me that they just don't enjoy being around them. I have no idea how to deal with this. I can work with him, are not receipting people and keeping his answers crisp. But how do I even bring up that he's not liable?

Well, first of all, we have to acknowledged, we all know people like this, right? Um there are people who seem a oblivious to what's going on around them and socially and you know the literature starts by saying, how do I even bring up that he's not likeable. It's not so much you want to say to somebody you know nobody likes you .

yeah I think that's a bad conversation to have.

IT tends to kill the conversation early on. You know, the interesting thing about this particular letter, though, is that IT feels to me like this guy is unlikeable because he's socially awkward rather than unlikable because he's combat tive, right? So you can start by saying, look, you've express that your goal is to be more in the loop. So i've noticed a few things that are getting in your way of doing that. And I want to help you to developed and behaviors that will contact that.

So that sounds like the unlikeable lace IT sounds like we need to get feedback from other employees on specifically what the issues are and break them down into something that there's an actual specific thing to improve on.

That's right. And I think that, that even in this letter there is there several examples of things that this supervisor has already noticed that he can use as the basis of initial feedback. Yeah.

the several fairly long responses that drifted off topic, the fact that he didn't notice the higher of bosses body language to wrap this up, those were definitely red flags to me.

What did you notice that that the interruptions, the drowning, on and on and on, which means making the same point several times, all of those things are reasons why people would ultimately dread having to interact with this person. And those are the ones that you then have to begin to address specifically because what we know about the human action system is we're designed to do things, not to not do things.

So we have to give him something to do. So let's think, for example, about the listening Better and not interrupting. So the first thing we know about a lot of people's meeting behavior is that they only listen to other people long enough to figure out what they are going to say next, and then they stop listening.

I hope we're not .

doing that.

okay?

I I would let you know so so tell him, look, come into every meeting with a note pad, and as soon as you think of something you want to say, write IT down so you don't have to keep rehearsing IT in your head, which then keeps you from listening to everything everybody else says, because IT may turn out that by the time you start speaking, somebody else has already addressed the thing you are going to say, in which case you don't need to say again.

Then give him a very simple rule, if someone else is speaking, do not say anything, wait until the is a natural break in the conversation before you attempt to take the floor. So what you're doing is trying to train him to listen for the social breaks that occur, as opposed to cutting somebody off. In sense, I sometimes .

to have attended to interpret people, and i've tried to correct IT. And one of the things that helped me, it's just to buy product of my job. I often have to have conversations with people where were recording the conversation because we're going to write an article or write something based on IT when I really listen to them.

And much more aware, because i'm not in that moment, I an observer at that point. I can tell when I interpret, I can not tell why i'm interpreting, and much more sense to the proportion of who's speaking when. So I wondered whether this guy could find some excuse to tape himself in a few conversations and go back so much like watching an incident replay of yourself. Swing golf club IT helps you learn what you're doing wrong. He might learn something from that.

Yeah, language happens in the moment, and so it's very hard to replay that in your own head. We're not designed to hold onto an exact memory of the way a conversation went. So so being able to to to listen to what I think is extraordinary important and even if this employee can't articulate this is what I was hoping to accomplish as he listens back to a tape of a conversation, he will at least be able to hear um a little bit more of why he wasn't effective at communicating whatever point he was making at that time by listening both to the way that he starts that conversation as well as to the the meandering element of what he says.

So art, that sounds like this is not just a question of how he improves his speaking in meetings, but he has to become a much more active and developed listener.

That's right. One reason why he comes across as unfocused and as not really being on point is because he's not really listening to what IT is that anybody else saying.

How does he then come back to the points that he wanted to make sort of throughout the readings that he's attending? I just tactically, i'm trying to understand how IT work now, because I understand the impulse to interrupt when you have something relevant to say, yeah, I do IT all well.

right. And so and so you've got a, you know, you ve got to wait for that natural break in the conversation, look at that list and put a little checkmark against the one thing that is most important for you to say at this moment, and then stick to the right. And this is hard.

Clearly, this is something that this guy does. Heal the ander from topic to topic without really wrapping IT up. And when you talked him about that, about picking one thing, help him to understand that the reason that you want him to do that is because if he tries to talk about many things, whatever great points he's just made are gonna get lost.

Because he's me. He's running from one thing to the next. But if he just hammers home a single point, everyone is gone to hear what he says, and everyone is gone to remember the thing that he was talking about. And if he has to come back later in the conversation to bring up a second thing .

he can do that IT reminds me a little bit of the process that they used to media coach people who are gonna talking heads on television. They need to learn to pick one point they're going to say and to say IT in a fairly concise, almost the sound by, there is no way you can go on and on on a television format. IT almost seems like he needs a modified version of that to succeed in his meeting.

Setti reminds me of the advice that hurt our excEllent CER gives .

us not to talk more than forty seconds. Yes, exactly.

And that's exactly IT. So the other joy of having the tape of the conversation is that he can actually take a stop watch to his terms. And if he goes on for I, I would have said more than a minute but more than forty seconds, even Better then he's gone on too long and he needs to practice thinking through um here's a point I wanted to make in a meeting.

Let me actually write out how I wanted to say IT and see if I can write out write IT out in a single sentence or two sentences um because another thing that happens to people is that they start speaking without really knowing what they want to say. And so what you're getting is a series of successive drafts from them as they figure out the point that they wanted to make online. And you have to listen to that whole process. And if he practices saying these things concisely, even if he's doing IT off line, that will actually benefit him in conversations as well.

I wouldn't wondered that. I I don't know what i'm saying. I playing IT out is ago. That's a great point and I hadn't thought about this until you said IT, but I tend to email things instead of having conversations because I know i'm a little bit stronger that way. So you might be that he may be able to circumvent these meetings to certain is saying .

knowledge to send you an email on that I did so I .

was listening to .

you remember I didn't write IT down. I should have um so we all agree that the boss should have a conversation with this employee. Do the other employees need coaching to accept this guy a little bit more as yes, maybe not the interrupting but did they need to be taught to be more accepting even if he's not someone they would wanna have a beer with?

Um i'm not i'm not sure about that actually because in some way part of this development plan is also gonna have to be becoming more aware of the social feedback in your environment to the extent that you basically said everybody else, you know what, we ve got to cut this guy break.

But there just people who are socially awkward and there are sort of nothing you can do about IT except be kind.

Are you thinking anyone in particular.

not you down?

don't. Well, we're having an intervention now. Uh, IT may be in the end that that's where we get to, but it's not clear that anyone's ever worked with this person on this before, right? Even though he's is in his forties.

You know we've actually ignored a lot of these human elements of things in the workplace for a long time. And so people can kind of drift from job to job without ever actually getting tactical feedback about how to improve their interactions. And so i'm not sure I want to lead with. Well, let's just accept that this person is just never gonna someone you want to spend time with.

So dan, what are we telling this boss?

So we think it's great that this boss wants to work with his aborted to try to help him overcome these behaviors that are holding him back. Uh, we think there are a few things that will help this interrupting problem. First, we think that he would benefit if they tape recorded some other conversations and the subordinate listened back very closely, maybe even with a stop watch.

Is he jumping into the conversation when there are natural pauses? Is he's speaking longer than a minute? He should be trained to bring a notebook into these meetings so that if he has something that he has the urge to jump in and say, he can write IT down so he can hold that thought.

Some of these are really basic behaviors to try to cure this interacting problem. The broader problem of he's not liked by his colleagues on the team, we think if he can get a handle on this erupting issue that might go part of the way there, this will be a little bit of a difficult conversation. But if the boss treats IT as an opportunity for the seaborne to develop himself, to bring out his potential, potential to advance in the organization, if you can get past these issues, that will put in, in a really positive frame.

Onto the next letter. Dear H. B. R. I'm the manager of a three percent team and am having trouble with one of them.

IT seems like he's always trying to be overly professional and polite. Honestly, it's too much. I can even come off as condescending. For example, I was recently chatting in my office with a colleague.

When I was about time for my weekly checking with the employee, he came to the door so I said, goodby e and Michael worker and SHE left. Even after IT was just the two of us, he offered to come back another time. He apologized for scaring off my friend.

As he put IT, I told him he didn't scare anyone off. And IT was time for a meeting, so he wasn't interrupting. On another occasion, he came to my office with a question, and I was in the middle of typing, but I stopped when he came in.

He apologized for disturbing me and offered to weight. While I finished my thought, I said I was no problem and tried to quickly turn to his question to show me that I really wasn't a bother. I get that he's trying to be respectful, but it's overkill and incredibly annoying.

I'm not sure if others have the same opinion. Am I wrong to react this way? Should I keep IT to myself or as a manager? Should I coach him to stop doing that? What should I say?

This is a fun one. And I got a mental image of this employee of being on the Younger side.

Yeah, we also know from this literature that she's a woman. She's a female boss.

If the worst problem is, uh, female boss has is that her subordinate is just too damn nice, you know, there are worse problems, and this one totally seems solvable.

right? So this is a fascinating letter because he's being overly deferential. And I think that there are a few intersecting pieces to this right. One is the possibility that in the past he's overcorrecting for a behavior in which he was more oblivious to other people's time.

or he had a boss who was terrible and mean, and he does something, learn to act right.

sort of like, know a shelter puppy who's had a bad previous owner yeah. And one of the things that that suggest is that this supervisor needs to address IT IT with kindness despite the fact that it's frustrating. A second component though that I think is is important, is that we have to place this into the current cultural context.

I mean, you know, you look at social media right now, outrage is the emotion to jure. There are lots of examples of interactions between male and female employees where somebody says something that they meant in a neutral way, in ways that can cause tension as well. And I think that for people learning to navigate that environment, you can see how someone might inappropriately Carry that difference into the workplace because they're just condition to if I do anything that could be perceived as offensive, then there is going to be something that turns on me.

So there is confusion about the rules is what i'm hearing. And one of the things I thought about in the slater also was whether there were some cultural differences here um when I interact with people from other cultures at times, some of them call me repeatedly. Some cultures are much, much more polite.

I think we all agree that sort of first, first step is to think about why this person is acting this way and try to get less annoyed and more empathetic. I also think maybe behove sort to gather a bit more information and see if IT is just her. You surely he can observe him and interactions with other people well.

and one of the things he needs to pay attention, not just to this difference over interruptions, but is this difference happening throughout his interactions, even if they're just happening with? So if he differs to her opinion all the time, if he defers to her view about how things should be done, then SHE needs to help him to gain enough self confidence to actually have an interaction that will allow him to disagree every once in a while, because that is career limiting. You being overly polyte is a minor annoyance, but where IT rises to the level of something that can actually in the way of someone's advancement is when they're not really willing to stand up for anything that they're interested in, anything that they believe should be done, right?

So how do you build some oneself confidence?

Well, I think you need to give people some small Victories. So at that point where he just walks in and you you're interrupted in something, and he immediately began speaking at the end of that interaction. So I also want to thank you for just moving ahead with the conversation.

And likewise, you know, if he comes in and says, you know what, i'm a little bothered by this memo that we are planning to send to this client or whatever IT is after discussing that again, be sure to thank him for i'm glad you came to me with that. It's really important that we get your input. Your expertise really matters here.

I love that you're suggesting not necessarily starting with this sort of lets sit down and have a conversation about your behaviour, but more let me look at how I am acting the moment he comes in the room and does something polite, you know, he says that he responds, it's no problem, but is a it's no problem or as a it's no problem, you know, is SHE expressing her annoyance with her body language and her tone of voice, which will probably just make him become more polite and more scared and more differential?

No, might be something that the boss is doing that sort of inviting and trigger ing this behavior possibly.

And IT may not be heard. IT could be past bosses, as we said, or I could just be the boss I mean so I must admit you I thinking back to my college career, which is receding rapidly into the past um I remember going to a professor office hours for the first time and being so afraid of college faculty that I could barely catch my breath in having a conversation with them and they seemed utterly oblivious to my distress you know, I think i'm kind of a Normal approach able person, right? So I forget that gulf between subordinate and more subordinate person.

Uh, my first internship when I was in college, I remember calling my boss that on the first day, mr, so and so, because I thought you just addressed adults like that and everybody looked at me like, I had three heads like, why arent you calling them by their first name?

I didn't know what the rule was. Yeah, I think so much so IT IT may very well be that he's gotta just get used to what IT means to have a boss who is actually .

a what does SHE tried to modify her behavior, built his self confidence in subtleties, and he still keeps being overly differential, not just her, but other people, in a way that's gonna damage his career. What should he do?

Great question. I think a lot of what he needs to do is to think about how do you help people to be really tactical about these very broad things you say. So if I say to you, I want you to be less differential and you don't know how to do that, then you you're not gona change your behavior because you're not sure what to do.

So one of the things that you need to do to say, okay, so here are three specific things I want you to try right? The next time you come into my office and i'm doing something, I want you to ignore the fact that I was doing something not on the door. And when I look up and say yes, I just want you to state your question right, you know and that's a very specific behavior and I promise that will react well to that.

Number two, when you have something that you want to say in a meeting that disagrees with someone else, um you don't have to apologize to everybody that you're gona say something that disagrees is you you can say. In addition, i'd like to add this point right and give people a script. Here's the language and basically say, okay, here let's pick a few situations in which you could be more assertive. And in those situations, here's the script I want you to follow.

It's like when someone says um or like too much, they just need to become aware that they are doing IT, recognize that it's not a helpful thing and work over time through practice and through the scripts you suggest to solve IT. You can get Better at IT over time.

It's so interesting because I didn't really identify with this question at all because I don't consider myself to be overly polite and I really am not surrounded by people who are super differential. But I T when you were talking IT made me think of the fact that I used to, whenever anyone gave me a comp about about my work, I would say, oh, well, you know, there are a lot of people who helped me. I didn't work that hard on IT or you know, just I would sort of brush IT off and my boss coached me to say, I want you to start saying thank you like just say thank you and i've started doing that. And IT is just that little simple thing that I feel like maybe will in the future enhance my career because I am seen as more competent and sort of deserving a praise.

I guess, yeah, yeah. I and I think that this idea, learning the specific things that you need to do in these kinds of social situations is important because we often give people very general, very abstract advice. And then we're frustrated because they don't seem to be following IT.

So alson, what are we telling this female boss?

So I think as a first step, he should step back and understand why this annoying employ may be as polite as years and just approached the situation with empathy and kindness. SHE should gather a little bit more information to determine whether this politeness more of a difference that will limit his career in the future. SHE should try to change the dynamic just in everyday interactions with body language and tony voice and comments that build his confidence. And then if those sort of subtle cues don't work, he should have a direct coaching conversation with him, telling him that he really wants him to succeed in his career, and he sees this one aspect of behaviour as possibly limiting him, and then work on a tactical plan for getting him to be more assertive, being very specific about three things that you'd like him to do to improve .

else needed that very well.

Thank you.

It's working. The coaching is working.

Dear H. B. R.

one of my supporters, ance, is extremely passive aggressive. SHE will not speak openly with me about any issue she's having at work and that even when I asked her directly if there's any way I can help with her workload, instead, SHE utilizes in a elaborate gossip chain. In two weeks after the fact, i'll find out that he had a problem.

SHE also has the year of one of my advisory board members. If something isn't resolved to her satisfaction, I may get a call about my leadership. I constantly feel like i'm in a fog of anxiety.

I never know if this employee is upset or not. Nothing SHE does taken on a zone is enough for a disciplinary action. But honestly, I just wanted fire her. I'm tired of her antics. Please help.

I mean, this is one of the tough ones where you have somebody that that you think you're trying to work with and and they're not willing to come out and say something directly to you and and but they're are going to make an end run around you. One of the very first things that this person needs to do is to sit down with that member of the advisory board and explain that it's not helping his relationship with his supervise to be getting the feedback in this indirect way and essentially to try to cut off that that communication loop .

is interesting. Me to say, talk to the advisory board first before even the employee well.

And there there's there's a multifaceted ratee here, right? One of the things you have to do is to make IT hard for the employee to get what they want through indirect means. Because if i'm going to ask you to change your behavior ah, you're going to be you're going to do your best to keep going back to doing what has worked for you in the past. So one of the things that's really important to do is to try to make sure that that behavior that has been working for you doesn't work anymore.

The literature talks about an elaborate gossip chain. So does this outreach to higher ups in the organization need to expand beyond the specific advisory board member? I mean, should there be other managers that he's talking to and having the same conversations with about this employee?

Well, you know, the place that closes the loop is this advisory board member. And so I think starting there is probably the best thing in part because, at least initially, you don't want to damage the reputation of an employee that you're having difficulty with, particularly if this turns out to be something that can be fixed so that a year from now, actually this person is a model employee because it's hard to unring that bell if you start telling people this person's is a problem. So part of what you want to do is to try and talk just with the direct source at the moment that that is that advisory board member and really try to work this out in a way where this employee then doesn't become labelled as a problem.

Presumably, this plan is going to involve some sort of a difficult conversation with this abortion. How do you open this can warmth I view?

His first step is to say, why does this employ act this way? Why is SHE conflict avoiding IT? Are my assumptions about her passive aggressive nature correct? Or am I doing something that's causing her not to come to me?

Yeah, here I grew the alson. One of the first things to do is to try to figure out exactly what's going on and to make sure that you don't step into a meeting where you immediately begin to accuse somebody of doing something without provocation. A one of the other interesting lines in this letter that stands out to me is I constantly feel like i'm in a fog of anxiety. Um I don't know about you, but I occasionally have people who disagree with something that i'm doing and I may not be getting along with. I don't live in a four of anxiety a result of that and so one of the other questions that this person needs to ask themselves before, uh, doing anything else is why am I so anxious about this employee who am not getting along with?

I feel that I was a symptom of the fact that he doesn't seem to have a strong network within the organization and he doesn't have these connections to board members that he does. So he feels, although he technically is in a position of power, that he is power less in some way because he doesn't feel supported. It's important to understand how influence works in organisations and make sure that you have IT.

absolutely. And and I think on top of that, one of things that has to look at as well, what is my reaction when somebody actually does make a complaint to me? Because anyone who who experiences a lot of aniele when they are not getting along with people, well, this is somebody who when if you come to me and give me a complaint, my first reaction might not be to really take that seriously, to sit down with you and try and work through that.

My first reaction might be to get defensive. And if so, well then you, why would someone want to keep coming back to you? This is anxiety may actually be creating part of the problem. And so if if that's what's happening, then when the supervisor sits down with his employee, he needs to sit down and say, look, I realized that there are times you've come to me or we've had discussions in which I haven't reacted well. I need to work on that, but I need you to keep talking to me directly and not be making that end run around after that. Actually, questions can be really helpful you know to say, okay, so please tell me what's going on, right, and give somebody an opportunity to state their side of IT because now you're i'm not accusing you of anything. I'm trying to understand the situation.

The this idea that things are only going to get worse if we talk about this, if I let the cat out of the bag, I think if you can condition the person to say, hey, terrible things aren't onna happen if you tell me you're angry, that might be a key maybe changing .

that behavior and then you can begin to talk about, you know how this makes you feel right now. You're not saying you did this, what you're saying as well when I find out from the advisory board member that you have a problem even though I try to speak to you directly IT, i'm frustrated by that because I can help you to grow as an employee and I can't help make the workplace a Better place for you if I don't really find out what's going on in a way where we can have a conversation about. So it's again, it's about your reaction to IT rather than the accusation, which now at least provides an opportunity for a productive conversation.

I think also, are you mentioned emphasizing that this is a developmental conversation and you really care about the person's growth and the team's performance? I feel like putting that at the start of the conversation, just saying I want our relationship to improve. You know, I really want you to succeed in this job. Might be another thing that he could do to just set the right tone.

I'm going to flat out disagree with you there because the letter rider, the letter says I honestly want to fire her. He he doesn't necessarily have her best interest to her to here. He's coming up this with some not positive motives.

right? But I think that he it's fine, turn IT around. He is not working well with his employee. SHE is well connected in the organization. If they don't continue to work well together, he will not succeed.

So he needs to stop wanting to fire her before and actually develops some positive feelings before he can sort of positively coach.

Yeah, absolutely. And maybe even spend a little bit more time with her. To figure out why she's acting this way.

you have to start with that orientation, even on those days when seeing that person and knowing what they're capable of makes your skin craw. Because if, in fact, he can break through and change that behavior, then he may have somebody who's actually an extraordinary valuable employee there. And so you've gotta start with that orientation and then take IT from there.

Um so what if he has this conversation and the behavior just continues? What does he do then? Well, I looked at the joy of the H.

R. processes. When you sit down to develop somebody, you can begin to document these things. You can say, well, here's the goal that we said. The goal we set was we're going to have open conversation about problems and so now if you document, well, low behold, i'm getting another problem third hand.

Well, you know, now you're creating that trail that you can come back to somebody and say, okay, look, we've talked about trying to fix this, and we're not having success with this. Let's try this again. But at some point maybe you might Better suit in a role working elsewhere in the organization, or perhaps elsewhere .

all together. Maybe we could take the unlikeable, interacting guy and put him in a cube with the overly apology guy from last letter.

the world in the past of aggressive lady. So what are we telling this manager then?

This manager really has to do two things. They need to open a direct line of communication with the employee, communicate that, look, if there's a problem, I need to hear about IT directly. I don't want to hear about a third hand.

Two weeks later, there's only positive things are going to happen. When you open up to me, there's not going to be negative conflict. I know that these conversations are going to be hard for you, but in the order order for you to advance and develop, this is really something you need to learn to do.

He also needs to have a conversation with the advisory board member, make IT clear that he has a plan for dealing with this issue, and that he is looking for support from the advisory board member to stop this back change. Avenue of communication in all these conversations is important to focus on actions and behaviors, not impune people with intensions or negative, uh, motivations for all this and again, to focus on the idea that this is a developmental opportunity for the person to advance their cure if they can cure this behavior. That tolled in the back.

I think we got that.

Thank you so much for helping us work through these listener problems today.

This was great fun. Glad we had a chance to talk about IT.

That was psychologist art markman in conversation with alison beard and dan on deer. H. B.

R. Markman was formally a professor of psychology at the university of texas at Austin. And now he's the schools device proposed for academy affairs. Will be back next wedding day with another hand picked conversation about leadership from harvard business review.

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