Dealing with a Toxic VERY Difficult person at Work

Right. You are both senior and you’re now more senior than him and he has a supportive role. Is that correct? Is this a new set up?

I think you’re pussy footing around this person because you’re conflating seniority with competence. They got to their position somehow but if they’re not meeting your service needs they are no longer performing. They are using a,very effective by the sound of it, strategy of disruption and non engagement with you.
Stop it. Performance manage them formally. Ignore the chaos. Let them know this is a formal process. Give them the performance policy. Outline your plan for improvement with timelines and review along with support. Then take it week by week. Keep them close and meet formally every two weeks with documented review of key performance targets.

Perfect

You facilitate them working out what they need to do and the best way to achieve it, giving ownership to the task objectives and targets.

Consult your own LM and ask them to mentor and coach you through this.

Do you not have a manager that you can raise concerns with? That would be the first course of action for me, and if they didn’t help I’d be letting them know I was looking for another job.

What is their opinion of their role in relation to yours?

OP I think you need to start by reflecting back on yourself and your skills as a manager, particularly communication style.

You’ve identified part of the issue with your different styles but you won’t fix it by carrying on being hyper focussed on them and how they aren’t meeting your expectations.

Can you go and get some management training and feedback, particularly around your communication and management style and how to get the most out of different people and styles of working?

I don’t think there is anything wrong with them commenting on what you are doing, I would see that as them taking an interest and trying to connect with you. This is an insight into your one dimensional, thinking and assumptions. You are being unreasonable if you are even reacting so negatively to something quite normal.

Agree with PP you are coming across with lack of maturity for the role but if you are willing to work on yourself I think this will be the easiest way to improve the situation at work (edited typo and missed word).

I know multiple people who've gone significantly further: when a manager is recruiting internally for a job and has a calendar entry with the details hidden that's the right length for an interview, they've calendar-stalked dozens of people to find the one with the corresponding hidden-details appointment.

I couldn't possibly comment as to whether I was one of those people.

Yep, I have always diary stalked my managers. It allows me to know what is coming up and if they'll be asking for things eg for committee meetings etc. I check their diary at the beginning of the day to make sure I'm ready for requests. My staff also have access to my diary so they can do the same.

In terms of managing your person, fortnightly check-ins are a good plan. Touch base, build rapport, share information and get status updates. That's basic people management.

It's time to pull the big girl pants on!

Here you go.....

"I'm going to use this meeting to be clear about my role and my expectations of you.
I am your line manager and whilst I appreciate your experience and skills I am responsible and accountable for ensuring you deliver (x). What we will do is agree your objectives and timescales for delivery and review these on a monthly basis. It is important that if there is a possibility the deliverables/timescale's aren't going to be met we can agree on what needs to be done"

Then set very clear objectives and when you review them use a model such as:
Observation - what you have seen/heard/read
Impact on objective
Solution - what you need them to start/stop/continue

If they start objecting, blustering and generally being a pain, stick to the message. They will either change their behaviour or you change them out.

Good luck!

Weekly meetings is completely reasonable, monthly is far too few and far between. From my own experience, he won’t improve. You need to get a handle on this. Does he actually know/accept that you’re his superior?

Really clear, ‘SMART’ targets, chunked down, then if these aren’t achieved, one more chance to do so before it goes higher. The person I was managing was let go based on competence (lack thereof) but management above me was very helpful, although it took a new manager to ensure it happened.

How would you manage someone who is cooperative and positive? Imagine this scenario then repeat, rinse and repeat to get the point across. Also getting in a 3rd party, maybe just someone to take minutes of a meeting, can help as what is said is in black and white and you are being professional with your expectations. When one to one and the other is defensive and refuses this is so difficult and support needed. Xx

I say this as a company owner. What needs to be done needs to be done and your job is to get it done. Micromanagement will never work, if someone has clear directives they should be left to get on with it so they can take pride in demonstrating their own abilities. So…

You should have a clearly written policy and procedure for each method of work, you have KPI to measure this.

You build regular reviews to assess these being met. It’s not emotive, it’s factual delivery ‘you did not meet this objective, can you tell me why? Is there anything we can support you with that would change this? Do you have any suggestions to improve processes that you believe would achieve greater results? Really listen in these moments, might they have a point? Is it worth trying something different and seeing the results to make a final decision on the best way forward? Also, mantra should meaningfully be, we are a company committed to continuous development so have no problem providing additional support and training’. Document. Apply any suggestions they make for support and training.

If they are truly just difficult and will not work with you despite the above this will become a live with it or let go situation.

I have a member of staff who always believes she’s right, doesn’t matter what it is, critique is not something she responds well to. Yet when someone wrongs her (outside of work situations) she will go off, like if her pizza is late, and almost bully people to get a discount on things, etc. She has even, in the past, tried to manage other members of staff with no clue of the policies and procedures they follow. I genuinely am perplexed by how someone could have so much stress over the small things in life sometimes 🙂. Lately she has taken to trying to dictate her own hours of late by just coming in early….

I tolerate none of this… each review we go through skills/abilities/attainments. There is praise for progress, but there are SMART goals for failures. I have implemented a million training sessions and things are steadily improving, but the bottom line (and what I keep banging on about) is that continuous personal development in our company and jobs is a non negotiable, because we don’t win awards standing still.

Rinse and repeat. She loves me and hates me in equal measure, but, bottom line, she knows I am right and respects me 🤷🏻‍♀️. Together we will work it out 🙂.

Strict measurable KPIs - held accountable.
Inhad one of these- managed out of the business, a blessing for all of us - he was clearly unhappy and needed a shove

This! Also, you’re dealing with grown adults at work who, in their own lives, manage perfectly well without being told what to do at every turn. People don’t like it and won’t co- operate unless they like & respect you. Any manager should get to know their team members & suss out what’s important to the individual- money, flexibility, career development etc.

I have a formal 121 with my team members ( x 6 people) every month. Review L&D requests, IT or system issues, objectives etc. The usual.

In addition to this I have
Monday - 15 minutes with each of them to see what they're coming week looks like, do they foresee any challenges, is there anything I can help with. I follow this up with an email along the lines of "hey X sounds like you have a plan for the week, keep me in the loop with ABC, and give me a shout if you need support with XYZ. My calendar is up to date if you need to pop in a call for any reason".

Tuesday - whole team meeting, review performance data, everyone summarises what their current focus is, wins and issues plus any internal Comms that I need to cascade.

Thursday morning ( as Friday is my non working day) 10 mins check in to review where they are up to, on track for deadlines, actions for the following week etc.

Do you have / could you introduce something similar within your team?

That way this person cannot claim they are being singled out but you have evidence from the 121's and check ins the reviewing of tasks, deadlines, kpi's and support you have offered etc in case you go to HR to raise a capability issue?

I had a very difficult team member in my first position managing people. Holy Christ it was like a baptism of fire from the day after I signed off her probation! Luckily our HR business partner was the best support I could've asked for. Told me to record every interaction, tasks set, reviews etc.

He actually said to me, I'll give it 3 months and she will have put in a grievance against you. And she did.
It went nowhere (but jeez the stress) and she did it just to cause upset in the team. She was moved to another manager (same team) and did the same thing. She was managed out within a year of being moved to another team.

Think you are being too kind in your approach generally so when you need to discuss issues with his work he won't want to listen. Basically you need to sit down and explain to him the dynamics and if he has a problem with this then HR is the way to go.

I think this is right. If you're both senior, it's actually ridiculous to be offering constant instructions and directions and to be acting like a micro manager. A senior person, even if they are under you in the heirachy, should be able to be allocated a task and expected to get on with it. If he can, great. If he can't, that's another conversation.

I used to work in investment banking. It was always interesting to me to watch how senior bankers in the same team worked together. So there might be 3 managing directors by title, but one guy was the head of the team. But while that person was the one we went to for the big decisions etc, their was never any sense that the other MDs were having to report in daily. They had responsibilities within the team and were expected to get on with it.

You are a micro manager and that doesn't work with senior people of any sort.

@BusyMummy001 I agree with a lot of this, but in my case it comes from working with someone who I am not qualified to diagnose but let's just say when I googled 'working with a narcissist' I suddenly understood what had happened.

@didficultemployee Reading between the lines, it sounds as if you are getting some kind of anger/rage when you try and tell this person what to do and what is expected, and this is what is making the process so difficult. In which case, I would suggest that you also google 'working with a narcissist' and see what fits... If it does, be careful because this person will have a real internal need not to be proved wrong and so you need to be documenting everything, as suggested above to cover your back. I'd also suggest getting HR involved now, even if you just tell them what is going on. Because I don't think this will get better easily.

Sounds as though they are like most of the members of my family - all ND and therefore prone to PDA (pathological demand avoidance) - also known as ‘not liking to be told what to do’ or ‘being a difficult bastard’.

We have found that we operate better as a family without directions/demands/instructions. Instead of: tidy your room now [you lazy bugger] we will say: would it be an idea to tidy your room today, if you do it now we could go out and do X that you wanted? Or we have guests coming today, are you okay with them seeing the house like this [implying: and making judgements] or shall we all work together to get it shipshape?

Ie. It’s about offering choices and pointing out consequences, then allowing the other party to ‘choose’. You get really adept as asking the ‘right’ questions to get the outcome you want in most cases - and yes, it seems bloody annoying not to simply just ask and be direct, but if doing that gets the other party’s hackles up (for whatever reason) you’ve pretty much stymied yourself anyway.

As others have mentioned, a management course would help - the approach to PDA is pretty much what I’ve seen on every people management training course I’ve ever attended.

Clear boundaries and clear end results. Give them the kpi's they need to work to. If they can't or won't document this. Time to start to either manage their behaviour, if that doesn't work then manage them out the company.

If they aren't hitting milestones and not doing what they are supposed to be and poor performance then time to start putting them in a performance plan. I'd also speak to hr for guidance

What does QP mean please?