Difficult employees who really fun episode coming up. But no, I want you to have a think about
who is that person in your team that you feel the most angsty about, and it could be to do with some
emotional complexity. Like it could be the fact that you've been friends with them in the past
and now you're expected to manage them. It could be the emotional complexity around them being
older than you, them having more experience than you, and it feeling difficult as opposed to their
behaviour being difficult. Or it could just be the straight up like someone is performing badly.
Behaving badly has a negative attitude, which by the way, negative attitude is just as important as
them not performing this episode. Today, we're going to go through the entire spectrum and
process of what to do. So if you answered yes, I've got one of those employees to any of those
questions, this episode is for you because we're going to go right from the beginning. We're going
to take some accountability for it. First, understand exactly what we can do to stop this
happening, but then talk about what do we do? Like what's the process for these employees, how do we
manage them? How do we turn them around? Or do we? Is it time to fire them? We're going to go all the
way there. So thank you for being here. Thank you for coming back to this podcast. It means the
world to us. If you haven't already, please hit the Follow or Subscribe button. Please comment on this
podcast whether you're on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you are. Drop a comment below, tell us
what you love, tell us some feedback and tell us what you loved about the episode. It means the
world. So let's say you've identified you've got one of these, what we're going to call a difficult
employee. And let's say, you know, this person has a really negative attitude, or this person
has a they're not performing well. Before we even begin to look at
is this person good? Is this person high performer? Is this person good for the business? The first
thing we have to do guys, you're not going to like me for this. One is take some ownership for it.
Like we have to bring it back to ourselves. Have we caused this? The answer is not always yes, but
you have to ask the question, what could we have been doing as their leader that could have
perpetuated and built this behaviour. There has been so many times where I have like allowed
things to slide. Let small things slide, whether it's small performance issues, small communication
issues, and over time, those those issues just build and build and they become something that's
really unmanageable. Like I remember there was an issue once with a team member, a guy that was in
my team, and he was something he was doing in meetings. This is so specific. But he was like
turning up to meetings and I don't want to say mansplaining. I don't think that's the right term
here. It was like he was over explaining everything with really big words to the point
where no one could understand him. But then he wasn't doing the work after. So it was kind of
like someone who would really talk the talk, take up all the space in the meetings, like over
explain everything, use big fancy words, make everyone else feel a little bit small in the
meetings, and feel as though they couldn't, like, bring their opinion to the table because this one
person knew everything and you know, it felt as though he was the smartest person in the room. But
then behind the scenes, his actual performance, the things he was actually doing weren't really
matching up to that. And I'd noticed it. My gut feeling had noticed it, but I'd also noticed it
happening. And then someone had, like, fed it back to me that they'd noticed it too, and I kind of
just brushed it off. Like for a very, very, very long time, probably like over a year. Just brushed
it off because I was like, well, that's just how he communicates. Like, you know, we do want people to
take up space in the room. Some people are too quiet. And maybe if I say something to him like,
the whole room will go quiet. Also, you know what? If this is just his personality. Like, can I say
something? But every time that I ignored that, not only did it kind of say to him, oh,
this behaviour is okay. Like, continue doing this. Please continue. Like this is what I'm allowing.
This is probably what I'm even rewarding. It also sent this signal to the rest of the team that
this is what my standards are like. That's what I accept. I accept people who take up all the space.
I accept people who explain and make people feel small and don't actually do the work. They talk
the talk, but they never walk the walk. And I showed over and over again that that's what my
standards were, and I just had to learn that big lesson of sometimes people
come to us, come to our team, come to our place of work, with previous difficulty built
into them. Like sometimes it could be from a previous employer, maybe, you know, they had no
psychological safety in a previous workplace. And so therefore they've kind of learnt to like,
protect themselves from trying new things or bringing ideas to the table. It could come from
childhood, like so many things do. It could be that they, you know, have been taught from childhood
that if they speak up, they will be vilified, that they will be judged. And so therefore they stay
quiet and they don't contribute as much. There is so many reasons why someone could become or be a
difficult employee. And all of those reasons have usually been made by a different workplace, a
different person. And it could be us again, we could be doing that. And so before we look at like
what to do about these people, I want you to ask yourself the question. Am I laying the foundations
in difficult employees? Am I? You know, think about something that's really maybe just pissing you
off, grinding your gears a little bit of work. Maybe it's that, you know, every time you come into
a KPI reporting meeting on a Monday morning, that's the same person that just doesn't seem to
care, doesn't seem to contribute, or doesn't complete their actions. Maybe it's that you've got
that one person who is late to things all the time, like whatever it is, whatever that one thing
is, it's in your head. I need you to ask the question, how could you have allowed it? How could
you have created it? How have you accepted those standards for a long time that those standards
have now become normal? Once we've asked ourselves those questions, obviously we need to look at
undoing some of that behaviour. So it's just for me, truly, all it was was just never ignoring the
difficult conversations. And if you haven't listened to our episode on Stop Being Nice, start
Being kind yet. That was a couple of weeks ago. I would urge you to go and listen to that one,
because we unpack kind of all the confidence, all the lack of confidence that comes around, not
having these difficult conversations and how actually having them with people can be just the
growth that they really need. So that leads me to the first step of dealing with this, which is to
go and have a difficult conversation now. We all love to avoid conflict. None of us love to be the
enemy. None of us love to people. Please. And so it is natural to us to avoid these conversations,
just like I did for a very long time, I avoided it, but as a manager, it is now our duty to grow these
people, to build their careers, and that means to give them the feedback they need to hear in order
to grow, even though it's awkward. So the very first thing we're going to do is have a difficult
conversation with this person. And I say difficult doesn't always need to be difficult. Sometimes
it's quite a simple one. I would say it's simpler if it's about their performance. So like if it's
about their they're missing KPIs, deadlines, lateness, whatever. Like something that's very
tangible, easy to hold on to is quite easy to feed back on because it feels it's kind of outside of
them. It's more like, yeah, like performance workI stuff. The bit that's hard, the bit that I, that all
of us find really difficult is what do you do about negative just like behaviour, energy. What do
you do about someone who just doesn't care is disengaged? Like that's harder because it can feel
often like there isn't something to grip onto. So what I'm going to say to you, there is something
that can be really valuable here is use the company values, like most companies nowadays have
company values. If you don't, you should build your own. This is where people think company values
should just be like words upon a wall and they're just bullshit. You know? The company makes it and
never does anything about it. Well, it's us leaders that need to do something about it. And a really
important place that those values will help you is if you have someone whose behaviour is just
quite bad and you can't hold on to something tangible with deadlines, it means that you can
then use those company values. Let's say you have teamwork or integrity or whatever as your company
value. You can bring that up with them and say, this is the behaviour that we expect, and I feel
as though your attitude over the last couple of weeks has fallen short. An example of a
conversation that I had a few years ago was a guy who, um, anytime the company made a change.
So, you know, the classic like, businesses have new initiatives all the time. He was constantly
negative about everything before he'd even given it a chance. So distrusting, so negative. And he'd
come into the office first thing in the morning. Oh, have you seen this new company team email? Have
you? Can you believe we've got to do this? Taking up all the space inside the office, like taking up
every bit of space. So even if someone did feel positive about it, even if someone did quite like
the change that had just happened, maybe they'd voted for it or wanted it. He was allowing no
space for anyone to feel anything other than what he wanted them to feel, because he was just like
coming in and giving away all these emotions. And that was a tough one, and it was happening for a
while. The conversation I had to have with him was, do you realise that when you do that, you create
space, but you're not creating space for anyone's emotions. It's okay that you don't like this
change. It's okay that you feel negatively towards this new initiative. What's not okay is you come
into the office, can explain your emotions everywhere, and not allowing anyone to feel
anything other than what you feel, because you give them no space to. And so that was a hard
conversation I remember having to have that. I actually had to speak to my leadership coach at
the time before that conversation because I was like, what do I even say? Like it? So, you know, I
know it's okay for him to feel that way, but he's like bringing this energy into the room. And we
had a value inside the business which was given. It was all about feedback, like giving and taking
feedback, radical candour. And what I hooked it to was that value, because it was actually he felt
a certain way and he wasn't giving the feedback. He wasn't coming to me, he wasn't coming to any of
his peers or seniors and saying, here's my feedback on this thing. Can we change it? He was
just splaying those emotions everywhere. And so values can be really valuable. Values can be so
helpful when it comes to having conversations with people about things that aren't as tangible
as performance or KPIs. And when we have these conversations, I've got a method called the four
P's method. I'll put a link to the PDF. You can go download it. It's completely free to the four P's
method in the description. This method I use. I preface this by saying it doesn't actually matter
too much what method you use to have a difficult conversation. The crux of all of them is very
similar. You just need to make sure that a you have a method. You need to have a method because
if you go in there without a method of how you're going to deliver it, you're going to soften it.
You're going to over explain yourself. You're going to go around the houses and you're going to
end up leaving that conversation thinking, did I actually say the thing that that person needed to
hear? Or did I just say whatever was the most comfortable in the moment? So have a method go and
steal my four P's method. Um, and you can write it down as well. So something I used to do when
conversations got really hard, I remember a conversation I had to have with one of our
marketing team in an old business where his standard of work was just not good enough
whatsoever, And it felt tough because he got really defensive. And so every time I was in these
conversations with him, giving him feedback and he was getting really defensive towards me, I would
kind of just like soften everything and I'd step back and be like, oh, well, you know. Yeah. Never mind.
Well, I'm glad we had this conversation. Yeah, I understand, and I'd really, like, go back in on
myself and not actually say the thing that I needed to say. So I started writing down the key
statements of the message I wanted to say. I would then go into that conversation and be like, can
you just, you know, this is I need to give you some feedback. Is it okay that I give you that now? Yes.
Okay. Here are the kind of four key points. And then I would read through the key points. And then
again just shut up. Let that feedback land. Give them the space to process it. Don't over explain
yourself. Just say the things that are on that page and then be quiet. So firstly you need a
method okay. Secondly, that method needs to always start with something called the purpose. It may be
called the context, the why, the purpose, whatever you may have heard Simon Sinek start with why
explaining the purpose before you explain anything to anyone. And this happens in difficult
conversations. It also needs to happen in delegation processes. When you're explaining
something, we as human beings tend to like jump four steps ahead. You know, say, if I was delegating
a piece of work to leave, I, I would say, can you create the campaigns for me and do it by Tuesday?
Okay, I've jumped four steps ahead. Levi doesn't know why these campaigns are so important, who
they're serving, why are we putting them into place? Why are we doing it now? Why is it important
we do it on this platform, and so we have to connect it to the why? Because we don't get out of
bed in the morning to tick off tasks. We get off out of bed in the morning for a purpose, to
understand the why, the deeper meaning behind why we're doing something and what our work is
impacting. We have to help people connect their work to the why and so do it through difficult
conversations. So now and just always take an extra minute at the beginning of a conversation.
Again, this is, you know, if you listen to the last episode all about time and buying back time, it
takes a bit more time in the moment, but you will buy back the time because the message will land
so well. So explain the purpose. At the beginning of a conversation. I would say the reason I'm
having this conversation with you is because your behaviour has been impacting the wider team. The
reason I'm having this conversation with you is because I see a future here for you, and I really
want you to grow. However, this one thing is holding you back. You know, giving them that
context just helps to set this in. This is the bigger picture of what we're doing here. This
isn't a I'm pointing my finger at your bad behaviour. This is I am going to explain this to
you because I care because it's impacting other people. And so make sure a you've got a you've got
a process of some description and B that it starts with a purpose. And then obviously, I mean
we can go through the four P's. But a process, your difficult conversation process should look like
explaining the purpose. Then you want some sort of proof in the middle. So you want some sort of
proof around what it is that they've done the problem. You want the problem, what's the issue
that this is causing? And then the final bit that most managers ignore is called the path. What
comes next? What's the consequence if this behaviour continues? Do we have another difficult
conversation. Do we have to formalise it. Do we have to go on a performance plan? What is the next
step after this difficult conversation? And this is all the stuff I'm always banging on about
custard guys. But all of these plans frameworks for conversations are inside custard. If you
haven't already, go and start a free trial. You can try across Custard for free today. It's a it'll
pull survey. Your team will get all the data you need from your team to level up your management
of them. It will then, in turn, use that data to get the actions to you that you need to go and do so.
It will tell you to have these difficult conversations. If engagement accountability is low,
it'll tell you to go and have some of these conversations with people to figure out why, and
to kind of set paths and plans for them. Come in next. Okay. So you've got this difficult employee.
You've taken accountability. You've had a difficult conversation with them. What happens
next? What if they don't change? We've already tried giving them this feedback. They don't seem
to be taking it on. What do we do now? So the next step is always our manager's favourite tool is a
pip, a performance management plan. Now, I would probably have like three conversations before I
got to this point, and I would also make sure in those conversations explain to them if they don't
change this behaviour, the Pip is coming, the Pip is on the way and the performance plan is on the
way. And if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about with a performance plan, or you're a bit
like, oh, I do kind of understand what that is, I've kind of seen them. Um, don't worry, I'm going to
explain it all to you because I needed to explain it to me very clearly as well, because I think
this is the sort of stuff that, like, we're expected to know and no one really ever talks us
through it. So I'm going to talk you through it because it's helpful for my brain to be difficult
conversations. Explain to them if they don't change this behaviour, they're going to go on a
Pip. Now what the hell is a pip? A performance improvement plan is actually a HR tool. So it was.
It was built out with HR in mind. And what we mean by HR is I mean, there's so many different ways
that we can look at HR in a business. But one of the most important ways is compliance is making
sure that your business is is legally compliant, that we are taking care of our employees in the
most legal way, and keeping everyone kind of operating to the highest compliance standards of
HR in business and a performance plan. The reason that HR kind of developed this performance plan
in general is that we have to give people a fair chance before dismissal. So obviously you've got
different types of dismissal, like gross misconduct. Maybe you've had difficult, they've had
warnings, whatever, and then you fire them. A performance improvement plan is I am giving you a
chance to improve. It's also very well documented, very important. Guys, document motherfucking
everything. If you haven't already been involved in some sort of messy HR Thing in business yet
you will do at some point. I guarantee. Even the kindest, sweetest leaders who never get into
trouble, who never do anything wrong, you will end up tangled up in HR something at some point
because it's just the way of the world. It just happens. And like I ended up getting pulled into
one. It wasn't even technically to do with me. It was to do with two other entities. But I got
pulled into it because I was part of one of the conversations, and I had documented the
conversation, and therefore everything was clean and I had screenshots and I had evidence and
timestamps. But, um, just make sure that you're documenting these things. And when I say
documenting, it sounds a bit pedantic, but after you have a difficult conversation with someone, I
would highly recommend just sending them a very quickly email afterwards to say just to confirm,
we spoke about X, Y, and Z. Here's the next steps that I expect. Here's the next steps that we
expect. Um, can you just reply to say you confirm all well received? It helps with clarity of
communication, but it also helps to save your ass if ever anything goes wrong and just keeping
everything clean and making sure it's all documented. Performance plans are the next step in
this, and they can feel a bit weird and a bit scary. And I think, again, there is this sort of
brand around performance improvement plans that they're built to manage people out. And if ever I
talk about performance plans online, the internet comes down on my throat with employees, people
who've experienced them before, saying this is just a way for a company to manage people out. And
truthfully, some businesses do that. Like that's what some businesses use it for, because
technically you can use it to get rid of someone because it means that if you do the difficult
conversations, you document them. You go through the performance plan technically at the other
side of it, like you can get you can fire someone, you can let someone go because you've well
documented everything, I mean, right. Let's not get into the legal stuff here. Obviously check with HR
before you let anyone go, but just for illustration purposes, that is kind of the brand
around pips. We need to rebrand them a bit, guys, because we really need to rebrand them because
performance improvement plans. Done properly, can really help set people up for success. I have been
through. Not me being through them, but being through with other people. 2 or 3 performance
improvement plans where the person has come out the other side of it, a whole new person. It's
almost just like a bit of a deeper way of getting feedback to that person week
on week to make sure that they very clearly improve. All of Pip is is a spreadsheet,
essentially a spreadsheet. And it's a spreadsheet that has goals with a very clear outcome. So it
would say like the spread, the document was completed on time, and that employee will go
through at the end of every week and they will tick. Yes. Completed or no, not completed. Usually
they will have like a short session with you 15 20 minutes. At the end of every week they will
present to you. Okay, this is what have completed this week. This is what I haven't. This is where I
think I need to improve. And you will then kind of sign off and say, okay, great, here's some more
feedback. Here's where you did really well. Here's where I think we should look at improving next
week. And it's almost like a form of micromanagement in a positive way. It's like
saying for these six weeks or 12 weeks, I am going to sit with you and help you improve further and
help you level up even further. Like I said, I've done it a few times when it's worked really well
and people have taken to it really well. They've put a lot of effort in and they've come out the
other side and just smashed their job, and then they've gone away and done amazing things
afterwards. So don't be afraid to use a pip. I think a lot of people are afraid to use it
because of the brand around it being very like, I'm going to manage someone out, but damn well
like as long as you make it super clear to that person, look, I'm trying to set you up for success.
I want the best outcome for me and you is we get to the end of this, to this at the end of the six,
ten, 12 weeks, whichever you choose to do. And you've improved. And we get back to business as
usual. And you remain a great member of this team. But currently there's an issue and I can't let it
slide. And I have to kind of move into Pip with you. So it's always fun talking about pimps and
it's always very, you know, it's very like HR process tool documentation kind of vibes. And it
can feel a bit scary. But I think having the knowledge and understanding that they exist is
really powerful. Because when I, when I was first, first, first in management at Harrods, I was so
scared of do you know what it was? It's like I would avoid difficult conversations because I
didn't quite understand what the next step was, and it was almost like I would avoid saying
something because I think, well, they're just going to ignore me or get defensive. And then where does
it go from there? And just by learning and understanding HR and pips, you don't have to
become an expert. I'm not an expert. Just understanding like compliance, the law, your rights,
like the tools that you have at your disposal can help you be a better manager. Because even if you
never have to use them, you just know that they're there and you kind of understand the processes. So
I would just yeah recommend just get a bit knowledgeable on that stuff. But then what happens
at the end of the PYP? Okay. Let's say they pass it all. Well amazing. Stunning. Let's go back to
business as usual. But let's say they don't. We need to talk about letting people go. Nothing will
lose you great employees faster than them watching you tolerate a bad one. You. If you
consistently tolerate these difficult employees throughout your career, you will never,
ever be able to reach this sort of respected leader who builds other people around them.
Because it's not just that person that they're impacting, it's the rest of the team. It's not, you
know, every time that you say, I'm going to ignore this difficult behaviour, I'm going to allow this
negative energy to continue. It's not about them. It's about the other three, four people in your
team who see that and go, oh, okay, well they accept those standards, so I'm just going to lower mine
or see it and go, I don't want to work here because I'm a high performer. And why is that
person getting away with low performance and we're getting paid the same amount? We have to
think of that kindness, of that longer picture of that doing the uncomfortable thing because it
benefits you, the rest of the team and them in the long run. I have let people go. I've probably I
don't I don't know the exact number, but I would say like maybe 20 people I've had to let go in
the last ten years in various teams, various businesses, various roles. It's never nice. It's
horrible. In fact, it's the worst feeling ever. There are usually a lot of tears. It's usually
just, yeah, the most awful, awful situation. But nine times out of ten, the person on the other end gone
somewhere has kind of learnt this big life lesson because they've realised that the standards that
they were bringing to the table weren't good enough for what they wanted to achieve. And
they've gone and flipped it around, they've turned it around and they've gone and got another
amazing job that they're really good at. And it just goes back to that feedback point that's like,
you know, you can dance around people all you want. You can pretend you can avoid the conflict. You
cannot tell them the thing that's not helping them. It's not helping anyone. It's not helping
your team. It's not helping them. It's not helping you. And so having. Letting people go sometimes is
the thing. And most of the time, in fact, in like almost every one of those situations apart
from Harrod's are apart from if it's been like gross misconduct, I would say all of those
situations, I have paid them an extra month's salary so that they can go
and kind of find another job. They're not going to have time without paying their bills, because I
just think it's also my fault. Like if I take on a lot of ownership and responsibility for the fact
that maybe I've hired them and they're not they're not right. Like maybe I've hired them
thinking that they were one thing, and then they've shown up and been a different thing. And
we've tried and we've worked together and it's not right. And so I take on responsibility for
hiring someone, like not doing my due diligence, not getting that right. Maybe it's that I've
accepted those low standards for too long and now I'm not accepting them. We actually once paid
someone and this years ago we paid someone three months because they've been with the business for
a while and I wasn't a manager. And then all of a sudden I was and the previous manager had just
been tolerating the standards forever and ever and ever and and now it just wasn't good enough.
And so it was kind of like, well, we've been unfair on that person because we've been tolerating
those things. We've tried to turn them around. It's not worked. And so I'm going to pay them for three
months because I don't want them to be left in the lurch. I see this as partly my responsibility.
And so it's like I see this as a it can just be such a mature business decision
for you and the other person if it's done right. Um, and just so many of us avoid it, we just avoid
it like the plague. And so, yeah, just please try to again see that as kindness. And if you have the
tools in your belt to pay that person for a little while so that they can find themselves on
their own feet, I would highly recommend you do that as well, because then it's kind of kindness
all around. And I actually have quite good relationships with some people that I've let go
in the past because of the kindness that I've attempted to give them throughout that process.
That being said, you know, not trying to put myself on a pedestal because it is just shit. It's not
nice, not fun for anyone. Um, but sometimes it just needs to happen. It just needs to happen. So this
is my difficult employee process. Start by taking accountability in yourself first. Have the
difficult conversation. Do the Pip. And if we have to at the very, very last stage, we may have to let
that person go, go run through all that process. This is your job as a manager. This is it. Managing
people. We are now responsible for managing these people as best as possible. You just can't
let these things slide anymore. We can't let them slide. This is the sort of stuff that this is the
important work. Like I said, if you listen to last week's episode where we talked about time urgent
versus important, this is important. This work is the stuff that should take precedence. We should
be coaching. We should be building. We should be developing people. Helping people improve
themselves. So make sure you take the time out to go and do that. Now we are going to run some
episodes where we take dilemmas. We take struggles from you, directly from you, and we work towards
undoing those throughout the podcast. And so I would love it if you could email your biggest
leadership struggle, one that you'd like me to go through, help you unpack. We will keep everything
strictly anonymous. Please email it with as much detail as possible to hello at the Boardroom
podcast comm. Send it through. We're going to do a brilliant episode where we review all your
biggest dilemmas, all your biggest struggles, and we'll really get to the bottom of each of them.
And thank you for being here. Please, like I said before, it helps so much. We are a brand new
podcast you like and subscribe in everything that we do on here. If you have any feedback you can
send it through to comment. Let me know what your favourite bit of the episode was, what you
resonated with and just yeah, so grateful for you being here and we'll see you next week.