Customer Reviews

Managing Difficult People: A Survival Guide For Handling Any Employee

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

You can learn how to handle problem employees three ways: figure it out for yourself, get a great mentor or read this book. Designed primarily for managers rather than human resources professionals, it's a handy guide to different problem personalities. Author Marilyn Pincus provides several alternative solutions for how to counter each type's negative influence on your organization. Her clear writing and thoughtful organization make the book even more useful. While author Pincus doesn't provide detailed advice on the legal and procedures aspects of employment, she does tell you when the ice is getting thin enough to seek the advice of professionals. We strongly prescribe her book to help bring managerial blood pressure readings back into the normal range.

As everyone who has worked in an office environment knows, not every co-worker is happy, productive and helpful. Human beings come in all shapes and sizes. For whatever reason, some people simply do not work and play well with others. While a co-worker has little recourse, the manager has a responsibility to address this issue and find a solution that ensures the whole team is not damaged by this one individual.

Managing Difficult People by Marilyn Pincus does not expect you to become a psychotherapist. In fact, she says flat out that in most cases it doesn't matter WHY the person is the way they are. Maybe it was childhood trauma, maybe it is a rough home situation. You can never "fix" a person. What you have to do, as a manager, is learn how to set up an environment that minimizes this person's negative impact on the group - and gives the individual the best possible chance to succeed.

The book breaks problems out into main categories - the bully, the procrastinator, and so on. Most people have different traits co-mingled, but if you work on issues one by one, that gives you the best chance of success. For each issue, the book goes step by step through techniques that work with that type of person, including examples.

I'm very happy that this book is also realistic about what you can hope to achieve. Where other books make you think that ANY problem can be solved, this book lays out when it's time to take further action, including documenting the issue, working to fire the person and even to bring in legal help. Not every situation can be resolved.

You can certainly just read through the book from start to finish, but where most books you read once and then donate to your local library, this one is a keeper. If an employee suddenly starts being late all the time, you can go back and re-read the chapter on procrastinators and learn some techniques to help them out.

Highly recommended!

This is an informative book to assist managers, particularly the junior and middle managers, to deal with difficult employees. The book describes the various kinds of negative or difficult people that one can encounter in an organization including the bully, the complainer or whiner, the procrastinator, the know-it-all, the silent type, the social butterfly, the "no people skills" person, the rookie, the overly sensitive person and the manipulator. Such difficult people disrupt the working environment, and hence the need for managers to take timely steps to adequately handle such negative people.

Marilyn Pincus does a good job of explaining the motivations of difficult people. She then presents tips, strategies and techniques for coping with them, whether or not you manage to figure out their motivations. This little book is a handy companion as the author provides practical and workable tips, strategies and recommendations to help you get the desired outcomes. Nevertheless, you need to bear in mind that some of the suggested strategies may be culture specific and you may need to adjust your style accordingly. It is also important to note that the manager's attitude influences the outcome when dealing with difficult people. However, all-in-all, I found the advice and suggestions that Marilyn provides to be useable and valuable.

This is a unique book because it provides a comprehensive analysis of a wide range of negative and difficult behaviour in an organization which you are not likely to get in any other book on the subject. The book is recommended reading for managers who need to achieve optimal results for their organizations by avoiding or effectively dealing with disruptions arising from difficult people.

This book is a good read and the author offers up many suggestions for dealing with different types of employees that way well work. However, it was something I read in the opening chapters that concerned me. The author mentions motivation theories, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and the Two Factor Theory (Motivation/Hygiene). Though these factors have been used by practicing managers for a long time (and are quite intuitive), empirical research has found that they are not valid. Though the author never explicitly says that she uses these theories in her recommendations, it casts doubts on her advice. Your mileage may vary on how useful her suggestions are, but I have a hard time trusting the advice of someone who is presenting outdated theories.

This book is amazing. I manage the prototype "Procrastinator" and followed the steps outlined in the book (i.e. micromanaging him and setting timelines). Well, I inherited him from the last manager and couldn't fire him even though he was god awful. Today, he just quit, probably because I "overloaded" him with actual work. Problem solved. I look forward to using her advice on my bully (yes, I've inherited one of those, too.)

This book is aimed at the middle manager who must deal with subordinates who are difficult and must also carry out the instructions of those above. Pencus explains how to recognize difficult people, how to understand then, and how to make positive an employee who is negative.

If the usual motivations of salary, recognition, opportunities for advancement don't work, how does the manager deal with these "negaholics?" Pencus offers personality types, and basics of conflict resolution.

One other category for managers might be the implications of rankism, the misuse of position within a hierarchy found in every business. The difference in rank may be an issue with the negaholic. If power is an issue, employees may be attacking those above or below them. Julie Ann Wambach, author of Battles between Somebodies and Nobodies: Combat Abuse of Rank at Work and at Home

There was nothing new in this book that wasn't in any other managment book I have read.