Managing "Bad Apple"!

The principle of fact, as we know, is that one bad apple can spoil the entire bunch. This fact is true on project team in many organizations. A “bad apple” team member may not always be obvious. But, they will usually show up somewhere during the life of the project. As a manager project manager, the “bad apple” has to be dealt with properly promptly and swiftly.

John Maxwell in his work, Seventeen Laws of Teamwork, suggests that a leader, before dealing with a person with a bad attitude, should do some self-reflection and check their own attitude. The person that is leading needs to make sure they are not the problem.

A few simple steps in dealing with the “bad apple” are as follows:

1. First document the problem or symptoms are they begin themselves.
2. The next step is to meet one-to-one with the “bad apple” to provide counselling and advise on how to improve the problem that has been encountered.
3. As a project manager, you must try to get the root of the problem and find out what can done to correct the situation.
4. Once you are assured of the problem, a correction plan or course of action to solve the problem should be initiated. As a manager, you should document the course of action discussed and you and the team member should sign-off on this plan.

Finally, after these steps are completed, the team member will need some time to make the necessary agreed-upon changes to correct the problem. Visible result should be seen, documented and praised. However if no change is observed and the behaviour continues, the manager must start the process of removing the team member. It is obvious to everyone on the team that bad attitude can and has affected the project. The team members are waiting for the manager to take the lead and make corrective action.

Team Building-Upgradation of Team Members

To start with, you can help your subordinates to learn more from their experience by:

Giving time for them to review their actions and work out what was effective, what wasn’t and why, rather than indulging in constant ‘fire-fighting’ (it might prevent a few fires) – Every person it having his/her own grasping power. A team leader should give enough time to his/her team-mates to review their actions in respective the assign goal/tasks. It leads to learning from their own assignments rather a push from outside and it gives positive energy to respective team-mates to accomplish future assignment.

Giving feedback on how they perform; on the results and the way they achieved them- A team lead should share regular feedback with his/her team-mates on their performance on given task, and guide/coach them if required to improve productivity.

Encouraging them to question their assumptions and ready-made conclusions about what experiences mean – A team lead should allow a healthy environment in team, which allow team-mates to approach team lead in the case of any query on assignment. Even after a effective communication on task requirement, some of team-mates might required some clarification on his/her assignments.

Letting them try new ways of doing things to create fresh experiences, rather than rigidly following previous patterns or adapting other peoples’ solution as short-cuts- If the assigned task is not crucial and need not require to follow rigid path, a team lead can allow his/her team mates to try new ways of accomplishing the given tasks. It leads creativity in team and might result more effective ways of doing a task.

Hard Working vs Smart Working

Hard work, no doubt, will pay you. But, hard work in the absence of smartness will not yield the desired results.

It is the smartness in execution of work that distinguishes a successful manager from others.

If a manager drowns himself in hectic activity, finds no time to have his cup of coffee in a hurry, it all indicates that he is not working smartly.

A manager who is not smart enough will only generate lots of work-oriented work oriented work instead of result-oriented work. In his organization, there will be hectic activity and everybody will be very busy, but there will be hectic activity and everybody will be very busy, but there will be very little action and the result will be disastrous. 

I believe it is. Of course, you have to be ‘smart’ about working hard, but hard work always pays. Just being smart or working smart is only half of the real story.

The fact remains that hard work and smart work must go hand in hand for you to be successful. Smart work is about making the right strategy, about following a disciplined work culture. Hard works translates your vision and ideas into results.

Working hard and working smart are not exclusive of each other. Smart work teaches you to be more productive with your time. If you are happy with your current level of success, then smart work will surely allow you the luxury of not having to work as hard as you otherwise would. But if you want to reach the pinnacle of success in your chosen field, than smart work alone won’t really help.

Many people think that hard work goes largely unnoticed. They believe that unless you are ‘smart’ about letting others know that you are working hard, you remain a drudge. They call hard work a kind of drudgery. They are more interested in letting the ‘boss’ know that they are working hard. Their focus is in the wrong direction.

I believe that hard work always gets noticed - perhaps not in the short run, but eventually people can’t help but notice hard work. And the rewards follow without you having to push for them.

You need to stop worrying about doing ‘hard work’ or ‘smart work’; you should just concentrate on doing your best every day. Thinking about rewards and results saps your energy, creating a ‘neediness’ in you.

Rewards come to you when you are not looking for them continuously. When you step out to work with a passion to do your best, you will bring out the best in others as well! That itself is a great reward.

MIS Reporting!

Gather only such vital data/information that is crucial and relevant for your plan of action. Calling for all and sundry data will land you in an information jungle from where you cannot come out, leave alone leading your organization to success.

The MIS reports should not contain unwanted, irrelevant insignificant data. Ask only for such data/information that you really need and that you can make use of.

It should contain maximum information and minimum data.

It needs not supply the managers with the routine details of an organization’s daily activities. Instead, they should provide the manager with the new insights about the business and thus lead the manager to action.

Designing of MIS reports is a job that needs special attention of the manager. There should be proper interaction between managers at different levels in the hierarchy and the floor level personnel before designing the formats. Any amount of time in designing of proper MIS is worth spending.

Calling for too many reports, apart from spoiling accuracy, often tends to give inconsistent result since different reports emerge from different departments.

Let not your MIS be designed in such a way that information gets lost in the jungle of data.

You Can't Please Everybody

It is highly impossible to please everybody; every individual is a different person with different aspirations.

At times managers may have to take hard decisions which are unavoidable. Such decisions may prove to be good for some of the employees and may not be to the linking of others.

An ideal manager will not hesitate to take the right, timely decisions even if they happen to be hard decisions. However, he will obtain honest views of as many people as possible and go ahead with taking such hard decision, after he is fully convinced.

While a particular action will benefit the organization and many people in the organization, a few others in the organization may at the same time not like it. This is because the personalities of individuals differ and there can be no way to keep each one satisfied.

Read a really god story on this:

The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

A Man and his son were once going with their Donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: "You fools, what is a Donkey for but to ride upon?"

So the Man put the Boy on the Donkey and they went on their way.  But soon they passed a group of  men, one of whom said: "See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides."

So the Man ordered his Boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn't gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: "Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along."

Well, the Man didn't know what to do, but at last he took his Boy up before him on the Donkey.  By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them.  The Man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at.  The men said: "Aren't you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey with you and your hulking son?"

 The Man and Boy got off and tried to think what to do.  They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey's feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders.  They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the Donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the Boy to drop his end of the pole.  In the struggle the Donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

  "That will teach you," said an old man who had followed them: “Please all, and you will please none."

Pro-active Approach

Prevention is better than cure; you can prevent failures only if are proactive.

It is not enough if a manager is active; he must be proactive.

A manager ought to be proactive in such a way that he makes the required change early in his organization, before they are forced upon the organization.

Don’t wait for problems to arise. Go all out to find them and nip them in the bud.

Look at the word responsibility – “response-ability”- the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling.

Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances.

Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.

Reactive Language	Proactive Language
There’s nothing I can do.	Let’s look at our alternatives
That’s just that way I am.	I can choose a different approach.
He makes me so mad.	I control my own feelings.
They won’t allow that.	I can create an effective presentation.
I have to do that.	I will choose an appropriate response.
I can’t.	I choose.
I must.	I prefer.
If only.	I will..

Another excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of pro-activity is to look at where we focus our time energy. We each have a wide range of concerns- our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a “Circle of Concern”

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their “Circle of Influence” to increase.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it. This literally turns a failure into a success. “Success,” said IBM founder T.J. Watson, “is on the far side of failure.”

It is not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most; it is our response to those things. Chasing after the poisonous snake that bites us will only drive the poison through our entire system. It is far better to take measure immediately to get the poison out.

Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Suggested steps to be pro-active:
1. Plan you tasks in advance.
2. Pre-identify the risks of respective task.
3. Make a mitigation plan to respond the above risks
4. Review of task & achievement regularly to identify the upcoming risks/problems.

Blaming Others for Failure!

It is easier to find scapegoats, but gentlemen never do that; be a gentleman.

If an organization fails, the prime responsibility lies with the chief Executive. He cannot pass on the responsibility to his next level officers. If that were so, everybody would pass the buck and only the peon or the watchman at the gate would finally be made responsible for the failure (obviously, they cannot pass the buck further down).

When you realize that you have made a mistake, accept it with courage instead of finding a scapegoat. Your confession will only improve your image in the minds of your subordinates.

People who don’t want to accept any responsibility, shift the blame on the others.

Take responsibility for your current situation. Figure out a way to change the part of your life that you are not comfortable with. Blaming others is not going to solve your problems.

According to Harvard Business Review: “Playing the blame game never works. A deep set of research shows that people who blame others for their mistakes lose status, learn less, and perform worse relative to those who own up to their mistakes. Blaming is contagious.”

The bottom line is simple. When you blame others for how you feel, you give them your power.  No one can make you feel anything.  No one is more in charge of your destiny.  Believe this and watch your confidence soar.

It’s an illusion if you believe, “If they’d be like that, I’d be like this.” You give away your power by believing your state is dependent on others.  By playing the blame game, you shout to the world:
1. I have no control over my life—I’m a victim
2. Other people in my life are more powerful than me—I’m a victim.

Refer my blog on Handling Failures without blaming other "http://rkc-mgr.blogspot.in/2013/04/managing-failure.html"