High maintenance people: how do you deal with them?
How do you deal with high-maintenance people?
That question arose on Twitter with the following exchange between Brett Nordquist and me:
- Brett: High maintenance employees can sure suck the fun out a job.
- Me: What do you do (or try to do) to get them to lower their level of maintenance?
- Brett: Good question, since that’s my job.
So now I turn it over to you, dear readers: share your wisdom on dealing with high-maintenance people (including yourself, if you’re brave enough to admit that it applies) in the comments. Feel free to share horror stories!
~
(Image from Cyron.)
Category: The working life6 Comments so far
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Ummmm, I think this might apply to me? Not sure though…..Does wanting respect and recognition count as high maintenance or just someone proud of their work? As far as how to deal with me, just throw me something, anything, to show that you know I exist. I work hard for the people I do business with and work for, make it worth my time.
Did that help any?
My experience in being and working with HMP (high maintenance person) is usually HMP means more work can be done. I get bored easily. Create distractions. When I’m really challenged, the symptoms of HMP disappear. So the solution is more productive work. (Key word being productive — Not silly work that has no goal — that will drive an HMP up the wall) That’s for HMPr’s who really want to work. Then there’s the other category — those who are actually incompetent and cause trouble to deflect from their incompetence. Those you just got to let go.
I think Kate is on to something and I like her suggestion of keeping these people busy. When they have nothing to do, they seem to cause problems. Some high maintenance employees are fantastic employees and worth the hassle. What I find the most frustrating is when their attitude rubs off on newer employees.
I think it depends on what type of person you are which in turn makes you classify a person as high maintenance. I have often trouble working with people who approach problems and situations from an emotional standpoint. The best way i have found (though taxing) is to try to sympathize with them to calm them and then calmly try to explain rational reasons for things.
The people that are the most destructive to workflow and company health are bullies. Never pleasant to work with this lot, yet companies always seem to have some in the mix.
Kate - Re respect & recognition: everybody deserves it for their good work, and it’s reasonable to expect it. In my experience, the problem that arises with true high-maintenance folks is that they expect an equal amount of attention / coddling / discussion / whatever whether the issue is World War III or where to order carryout for lunch. The challenge for everybody is to figure out how much feedback is reasonable to expect - reasonable to expect in *both* directions.
Rae - Excellent point! Keep challenging people, and usually their pettier concerns will dry up, or just be crowded out by what’s obviously more important. Worst-case scenario: an organization that fosters high-maintenance tendencies by focusing on minutiae, creating busy-work, or avoiding real challenges.
Brett - Amen. When an organization runs right, it’s hard to be high-maintenance, an extra-hard to foster high-maintenance behavior in others. This is yet another argument for leaders to pay special attention to organizational culture: if you can stem the tide of high-maintenance-ism before it ever gets started, you’ll be waaaaay ahead of the game.
Esin - I had never thought of it this way, but your comment makes me think that emotional intelligence and high-maintenance-ism seldom go together. People are perceived as high-maintenance when they seem to take up too much space — emotionally, time-wise, etc. — by the average person. Folks of average or better emotional intelligence avoid this by having a better sense of how much is too much. In part this can be addressed by understanding how different people tick (e.g. by using personality instruments like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator); in part it can be addressed by making *sure* that you hire and promote with at least some sensitivity for emotional intelligence.
(Oh, and I can attest that at least *some* companies avoid having bullies. We’ve never claimed that Hoover’s is perfect, but bullies just don’t survive here.)
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