It was an early August morning in New Orleans and my friend Myra and I had just left a business meeting. We decided to take the short walk down Canal Street to Magazine Street  to a local restaurant to have another cup of coffee or two and catch up. I’m a country girl come to town, but I like cute shoes just as much as the next gal. So I was wearing shoes that I hoped were both cute and comfortable for the walk.

I was fine on the way there, but walking back, I started to feel my shoe rubbing my heel. I ignored it and kept walking.  It started to really rub and I thought about stopping to adjust the strap of my shoe but didn’t feel like making my friend stop. By the time I got back to my car, I discovered a really nasty blister. I realized that if I had just stopped for a moment to make a little minor adjustment, I might’ve been unscathed. But noooo, I tried to ignore it and kept going.

This is what happens, my friend, when you have a difficult employee wreaking havoc on the whole team. Sure, you can ignore it for a while, but I must warn you, you may end up like me with an ugly festering blister.

When you notice that you have a team member who is, as we say in Cajun French,  deficile, or difficult to get along with, you may think at first that it’s just a clash or a disconnect between the two of you. But, when you start to receive complaints from other people about that same person, you’d better sit up and take notice. One disengaged, disgruntled, and “diseased” team member is all it takes to infect the rest of your team, and before you know it, your customers are complaining too.

Ignoring it will certainly not make it go away. Putting a band aid on it won’t help either. It will still be there, getting worse by the minute. Your best bet is to address the problem head-on, and the sooner, the better. My suggestion is to use coaching and questioning techniques to get to the bottom of it.

For tips on how to handle this crucial conversation, See 

Ask. Don’t Tell. http://www.ledetmanagement.com/ask-dont-tell/#more-670 )

Also see Yeah, But… http://www.ledetmanagement.com/yeah-but/#more-676 .

Give me an update and let me know how things are healing. Oh, and my blister? Still there. And no more cute shoes for me until it’s completely healed. Aarg!

Action Time! What will you:

• start doing,
• stop doing, or
• do differently

to heal your deficile team member? Use the comment box below and share your action plan with us!