Managing difficult team member

Good day...

Picture credit: Ben_Kerckx

I believe each of us, a project manager, must have the challenging experience by having a non-performing, or worse, 'pain in the neck' team member, who seems like slowing everybody down and bringing about negative influence to the team. If you have not experienced one, you must be very lucky, or, the time has just not yet come.


When you have an irritating person in your team, do not let the person suck all of you positive energy from you or from your larger team. In my experience, there are three steps we can do to deal with this situation (listed in priority order):


1. First of all, we might need to do a personal approach to the particular team member, to better understand her situation. She might have a challenging situation at home or other non-working related stress factor. In this case it is best for us to agree with her on a specific timeline, whereby we give her flexibility to overcome her challenges. An evaluation should be conducted at the end of the specified time and see if she has made the necessary improvement.

2. Once personal approach is not working, we should not wait to escalate the situation to her line manager. It is best to notify the team member prior to escalating as people do not like negative surprises. In this step, we need to carefully gather all facts and evidences and to be specific on the occassions when the particular team member does not meet our expectation. A three-way discussion with the team member and her line manager can also be done following the escalation.

3. Should the above two approaches do not work, it is recommended to take a more stringent approach by asking a replacement of the particular resource. In many cases, resource is a constraint, hence, it might not be easy to find a replacement. In my experience, asking her line manager to cover up for the gap in expectation could be a viable approach. If everything else does not work, we should be ready to exclude her from our project team and let other team members jointly take over her part.

Although the above steps are never been easy, it is worth to try.

Edwin