From the Ask Tom mailbag:
Question:
I’ve been in my position as a manager for the past year and a half. Over time, I have noticed that one of our supervisors always seems to do his own thing and doesn’t conform to all of the company’s policies. He has been with the company since it started and has a wealth of knowledge about our industry. Yet, he refuses to help train new employees or take on a larger work load. This causes problems with the other supers who feel their work load is too heavy. A month ago, I inherited this situation. His former manager never confronted him so he feels like his behavior is normal and that no change is necessary. What can you suggest to help this situation?
Response:
The inattention from his former manager has placed you in a tough position, but that’s nothing new. Management is all about the reality of behavior. I know you want him to either shape up or ship out, but the downside is the loss of tribal knowledge, continuity of service to customers, having to recruit and train a replacement. Before I respond, why don’t we let some others take a crack at this. If you have some advice, let’s hear it. Post a comment.
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Try letting the supervisor know he is appreciated by asking him to take the spotlight by performing a group training session for the other supervisors. This can be a first step toward turning the wayward supervisor into more of a team player. Many similar steps will be required but he may respond to this kind of appreciation and slowly change.
I agree with Jeff’s point of view by setting the supervisors experience into the spotlight. Make him feel appriciated by working with his strenghts. Although putting him in front of new employees might also mean bringing over his way of doing things: his own way instead of the company policie. I wonder why the supervisor doesn’t want to take new responsibilities or trainees. Maybe he’s happy the way things are going and makes himself comfortable at work by just doing it his way. Or does he have a history of non-appreciation making him just doing the things he has to do. Maybe this man just needs a carreer change to make him ‘work’ again?
the first question is if he’s been there that long and has that much knowledge, why isn’t he higher up in the company? what are his goals? what is his vision? I think to modify his behavior he has to have new goals to shoot for.
I agree with John, why isn’t he higher up in the company? Perhaps he’s bored. I would recommend asking him in detail what he wants, sees as the mission, vision and culture, etc. such as what would occur with a strategic planning session. I could speculate that he know’s he has the company over a barrel to some degree because they would not want to fire him, but the bottom line is that if he does not come on board, he will bring everyone else down rather than elevating them as a whole. Perhaps other valuable supervisors may quit because of the work load; people he’s supervising may assume what’s good for him is good for them and perhaps not pull their share, etc. The culture will become merky if it hasn’t already.
What every you do, you have to ask him. I feel that’s really what he wants. Perhaps you could do an anonymous questionnaire to all the supers and compile the data and then review in a meeting so that this gentleman can see how others feel also.