Deal With Your Productive-butDifficults (The “D” Box)

The D box is the worst box of all for someone to be living in on the Star Chart. It is comparatively easy to know how to deal with folks in the other three boxes: retaining your stars; developing your potential stars. That’s easy. Firing your wrong fits is obvious. They neither share your attitudes nor show any productivity; this is a sad decision, but not a hard one.

But what do you do with people who are great workers—really productive in many cases—but whose attitudes are downright despicable? Maybe, in fact, they work circles around their colleagues. Often productive-butdifficults have unique (in some cases almost irreplaceable) skills. The rarer the skillset, the greater the chance that a productive-but-difficult is being incubated. How can you think of losing such a person?

But I’ll bet you’ve already thought many times about doing just that. They wear out the people around them, and they pointedly reject your right attitudes. Thinking about them exhausts you. Whenever there’s an eruption, your productive-but-difficult is often in the middle of it, loudly proclaiming his innocence, or sitting in sullen silence.

You don’t really trust him, either. To use an analogy from the world of pets, productive-but-difficults are more like cats than dogs. There’s no question that you share a bond with your dog. There’s loyalty and affection there. But cats are different. Though you sometimes hope your cat may love you, you strongly suspect that the only reason she stays around is because you feed her. If the food source was interrupted, or if someone else offered better food, you wouldn’t hear from your cat again.

Productive-but-difficults are like mercenary soldiers—soldiers who fight only for money, who fight for opposing countries and causes, and who change teams without any feelings of loyalty. They’re there for themselves and what they get, not because they believe in what you’re doing. You also suspect that they’re already fighting against you while you’re paying and investing in them, and sometimes defending them from the rest of the team.

The 4 Certain Signs of a Productive-but-Difficult

It isn’t hard to spot people who live in this box. Following are some sure signs to watch for. (This isn’t an exhaustive list, but you may recognize some of these symptoms in people that cause you grief.)

1. She undermines you and your initiatives.

2. He stirs up drama.

3. She thinks only of herself.

4. He displays asinine behavior.

1. She Undermines You and Your Initiatives

When our kids were little, my wife and I used a term to describe disrespect that’s just under the surface (there’s no doubt it’s there) but not so outrageous that it can easily be called out; we called it micro-disobedience.

When my youngest daughter was about 3, she got in trouble with her mom for some minor offense. As punishment, my wife gave her a time out in her crib, leaving our daughter in room for a few minutes of solitude so that she could weigh the gravity of her crimes in private and emerge, chastened and obedient.

About two minutes into the time out, my wife eagerly gestured for me to come listen silently at the door of our daughter’s room. Not wanting to get in deeper trouble, but wanting her displeasure to be clearly known, she was repeating loudly, “I hate you, pretty mommy!”

This is the behavior that productive-but-difficults often display. They don’t want a showdown, but they do want you to know that they don’t respect you (or a coworker), and they communicate it in subtle but unmistakeable ways. You have the strong feeling that, even though they’re great workers, they’re also working to undermine everything you’ve tried so hard to bake into your culture.

The truth is that some people are only happy when they’re rebelling. In some cases, it’s due to immaturity; in others it may show an independent streak that, in the right context, could be a tremendous asset. These folks should (and do) consider self-employment.

Lots of celebrity CEOs would make horrid employees. How would you like Steve Jobs to be your production supervisor? He would be erratic, imperious, unyielding, impossible, and utterly hopeless as an employee. But as CEO he might make the company a billion dollars.

2. He Stirs Up Drama

Productive-but-difficults can be toxic personalities who enjoy getting into big, dramatic, ick-splattering social catastrophes—like the bad kid in your class in middle school. These massive upsets meet some of his basic social needs; they prove he matters. Attention is the goal, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s good or bad attention—just so some-one’s noticing.

For some people, big drama actually equals intimacy. The fact that you care enough to enter his gross, complicated world on his terms is something he enjoys. He mistakenly believes this is how to get closer to someone else. “People who hurt the most, hurt the most.” People in pain sometimes enjoy causing other people pain, because it provides a distraction from their own miserable circumstances.

Or, as George Bernard Shaw said, “I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” Drama is exhausting; it wearies those who have to watch the play every day, and creates an atmosphere of distrust and insecurity throughout the business.

3. She Thinks Only of Herself

The Copernican revolution was the stunning change of thinking that occurred when humanity first realized that the sun, not the earth, was the center of the solar system. The productive-but-difficult needs her own personal Copernican revolution, because she believes the mistaken notion that everything revolves around her.

Productive-but-difficults lack maturity and aren’t able to see situations from another’s perspective. If they have a conflict with a coworker, it’s because the coworker is a bad person.

They also look first to their own interests, whether that’s getting paid more money or having “lord of the manor,” dictatorial control over their own area. They do whatever it takes to guard their own interests.

4. He Displays Asinine Behavior

A lot of profane adjectives can be used to describe the lowlifes that indulge in the wide variety of witless and idiotic behaviors available to the productive-but-difficult. These include bullying and harassing; making cutting, sarcastic, or crude and creepy sexual remarks; acting like outrageous turds in order to prove a point; throwing hissy fits and temper tantrums or having “clam-ups” where they don’t talk to others for days.

Asinine behavior is catch-all phrase I’m using to describe a bizarre cornucopia of crazy conduct. Like the guy who loves getting “a reaction” from the women in the office by ogling/talking to them while wearing sexually explicit, graphic “joke” T-shirts, or the guy who looks for a chance to freak out on new hires to maintain his “leadership” position, or the lady who “confidentially” throws rival colleagues under the bus, then backs up the bus and runs them over once more for good measure, or the guy who writes and leaves behind weird, unsettling poems for his colleagues to discover. (These are all true stories.) The possibilities in this category are endless. You know it when you see it.

Like wrong fits, productive-but-difficults don’t have much self-awareness. Although they may have some idea that people around them are unhappy with their behavior, in their heart they think they’re amazing. And far from imagining that they could be fired, they assume they’ve reached such a pinnacle of peak performance that the company would never survive without them. That’s why they feel free to flout your company’s right attitudes with impunity. They know—or at least they think they know—that they’re indispensable.

Confronting Your Productive-but-Difficults

You need to give your productive-but-difficults every opportunity to change their attitudes. Do this by confronting their behavior—clearly and kindly.

I once worked with a client who had a productive-but-difficult in a role, and though his performance was, in some respects, good or even very good, my client was sick of his brittle and superior attitude, and was on the verge of firing him.

I asked the leader if he had ever explained to this employee, in clear terms, why he was showing up in the productive-but-difficult box, what he had to do to change it, and what would happen if he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) change. He said, “Yes, I’ve told him many times.” But he also asked me if I would sit with him one last time to see if he could be rescued. Most leaders hate firing people.

So we sat down together, and I asked the employee where he saw himself on the Star Chart. He pointed to the top right corner of the chart. In other words, he was such a gifted star that he couldn’t envision any way that he could get any better.

I advised him to take a deep breath, and then showed him where his employer saw him on the Star Chart. Showing the employee’s place on the chart communicated the leader’s meaning beyond doubt. This is a big part of the value of the chart. He was gobsmacked. Next, I asked him if he wanted to stay with the company, and if he was willing to do what it would take to get in the star box. He strongly wanted to stay and professed a commitment to do whatever it took.

I then asked him if he could think of any behaviors that might be relegating him to such a bad position on the chart. He thought for a bit and then responded tentatively, “Maybe it’s because I don’t suffer fools gladly?” I then asked him, “Is that code for you being difficult and abrasive with people you don’t like?” He paused and, after a bit, smiled and agreed that he needed to own that.

We ended up with a mutual understanding about the issues that were keeping him in the productive-but-difficult box, and made a clear plan for how he would journey to the star box. His first step (his idea) was to take home-baked treats to the various departments that he interacted with, apologize, and ask how he could be of better service.

Deathbed conversions don’t often stick, but last I checked on this guy he was still with the company. The owners, who once wanted his head, were now brainstorming about how to retain him.

Reprimand Them and Act as Their Reality Advisor

I discussed how to give reality advice in Chapter 10. The same advice applies to your productive-but-difficult. In short, you need to articulate two things: (1) the reality of the situation and (2) the employee’s skewed perception of reality. The further these move apart over time, the bigger the eventual collapse is going to be. Your job as leader is to bring them into line with one another before the big crash occurs and your other employees suffer the collateral damage.

But when dealing with productive-but-difficults, there’s another piece of advice: They must be told explicitly that their behavior will not be tolerated.

Coach Them if They’re Willing to Change

Someone with the right attitude, intelligence, and personality fit can learn almost anything with the right coaching and training. But it’s pretty hard to teach someone an attitude, unless they’re very young and/or very teachable.

I’m a big believer in trying to shock productive-butdifficults out of their poor behavior. There’s nothing to be lost, because anyone nesting in the bottom half of the Star Chart doesn’t have a long-term future in the organization. Why not give them an opportunity to change?

I once worked with a medical services firm that had a highly specialized physician who was virtually irreplaceable. Truly, just a handful of people in the world have his specialization, yet this guy was very hard on people around him. He always had to be the smartest person in the room and viewed support staff as minions who were there only to do his bidding. He was condescending and rude, and sucked the oxygen out of any room he entered.

One day the medical director met with this physician and described how his actions affected the work-place. He was taken aback. He really was unaware of the situation. At a follow-up meeting, two support staff members described how difficult life was due to some of his behaviors. One of the women cried. After some coaching, the physician showed genuine remorse, apologized, and pledged to change.

I always recommend confronting your productive-but-difficult with his behavior and showing him how it affects others. You might be surprised to find that he cares more than you think.

Cultivate Options for Succession

When warning and coaching haven’t worked, the next step is to try to isolate your productive-but-difficult from others as much as possible. Your productive-but-difficult may have figured out along the way that she gets her best results when working alone. Often these personality types prefer to work by themselves anyway, probably because their level of genius is hard for others to understand, so limit her interactions with the team even more. It’s not ideal, but this stopgap measure will buy you some time.

As much as possible, begin to document her job. Knowledge is power, and if all of the knowledge resides in that person’s mind, you’re held hostage to her and her terrible behaviors. You may have no idea what she’s actually doing that’s working. You must download that knowledge onto paper, so that someone else can take over that role in the event it becomes necessary.

Finally, get working on building a bench of people who could one day replace your productive-but-difficult. “The graveyard is full of indispensable people,” the old maxim says. There’s someone out there who has the attitudes, knowledge, and skills that you are going to need. Start looking early.

Keep your eyes open when reading industry journals, attending trade shows, or running into outstanding people in other industries. If you’ve gone through the other steps and they aren’t working, one day you’ll meet someone who will be a better fit. You just need to keep your eyes open.

Help Them Exit With Dignity if They Can’t (or Won’t) Change

Sometimes, perhaps most times, the productive-but-difficult never gets it, and either leaves or has to be fired. This happens even after all your efforts to intervene and save them. Remember that it’s much easier to learn a skill than to change an attitude next time you make a hire.

When this happens, and it will happen, help that person exit with dignity. Let them go when their team isn’t around to watch them react. Be firm, kind, and generous. Don’t enter into debate with them or rehash why it hasn’t worked out. Act on good legal advice and fulfill your obligations to them, thank them for the contributions they have made, and wish them luck in their future endeav-ours. If this takes longer than eight minutes, you’ve gone too long.

The Productive-but-Difficult Leader

Communication is the biggest issue every growth company faces, and no one is willing to bring things up in front of a productive-but-difficult leader. These jerks are never trusted, and they stifle communication. When communication breaks down, trust leaks away; and once trust is gone, the game of culture-building is pretty much over.

If a productive-but-difficult does stay in a leadership capacity, he’ll create a tight oligarchy of similar people under him who will feel empowered to impose their own despotic reign of terror, and the best people will also leave (of course).

Life’s too short to work for a productive-but-difficult leader or his henchmen. Eventually the cost to the organization will outweigh any benefits he brings to you in productivity.

How should you handle “indispensable” productive- but-difficults?

1. Confront them and act as their reality advisor.

2. Coach them if they’re willing to change.

3. Isolate them and cultivate options for succession.

4. Help them exit with dignity if they can’t (or won’t) improve.

People Action Steps

• Estimate the actual cost of your productive-but-difficults. How many customers have they turned off? What have their mistakes cost? What could you produce if you didn’t have to deal with them? Put a number on it.

• If a star leaves you, perform an exit interview with them to find out why they left. Make sure it isn’t because of a productive-but-difficult.

• Cultivate options for every key seat in the business. Always be on the lookout for great people. The strongest lever in negotiating is the ability to walk away, and you can only do that when you have other options.

• Hire slowly and carefully. In my experience, leaders spend 75 percent of their time working with non-stars, and 2 percent of their time vetting new hires. Taking the time to vet new hires ensures that you’ll be spending less of your time working with non-stars.

In Summary

It’s very hard to decide to take action to lose a productive-but-difficult, because he’s good at what he does and is very productive. However, he’s like a mercenary soldier and you don’t trust him; plus he’s hard on you and the people he works with.

The four certain signs of a productive-but-difficult staff member are:

1. She undermines you and your initiatives.

2. He stirs up drama.

3. She thinks only of herself.

4. He displays asinine behavior.

A productive-but-difficult in a leadership capacity is a disaster. She stifles communication because she’s not trusted, and people won’t tell the truth while she’s in the room. If she remains in leadership, she’ll only inspire a few productive-but-difficults under her to act the same way. The good people are likely to leave.