Take a problem employee, or nobody at all?

Dear Bob …

I am a senior project manager. I am being allocated a project manager in my team who is know to be a problem character. When she was a team leader no one used to get along with her. When she joined a team, 5 of her peers in the team wanted to quit or transferred out. She was moved from the team.

Later on she was sent on a client site project along with another team leader. There was so much friction between the two team leads that the client stepped in and asked this lady to leave … knowing that she was the source of the problem.

I took feedback from other people in the organization and they have said that this lady is “good at creating negative energy”, “does not get along with people”, “knows how to put down people”, and “has been a problem case ever since she joined”. In fact she was made a project manager because she was creating too much noise in the system and someone said “here take it” and made her the project manager.

Now I am in dire need of a project manager and she is the only lady who is free. I am being forced to take her. I am stuck between the decision of taking her on and having a problem in the team and not taking her on … and therefore loading myself with the additional load of a project without a project manager and therefore running the risk of not being able to monitor the project and therefore problems in the project. Management has also refused to recruit anyone new!

Would really appreciate your advice on this.

– Needing to choose the lesser of two evils

Dear Choosing …

The answer depends on whether you have the authority to terminate non-performing employees.

If you do, take her on, making it clear to headquarters that you view this as a probationary situation and reserve the right to transfer her out if she causes issues.

The first thing you do is sit her down with someone from HR also in the room (this is for self-protection: In this day and age, no male manager should ever have a private meeting with a female employee, sad to say) and let her know, in no uncertain terms, that her reputation has preceded her. Let her know that you want her to succeed, be specific about your concerns, and be clear about what that’s going to take.

In terms of tone: Be direct, be empathic (not angry), and school yourself to look her in the eyes as you’re talking. Most of us tend to look away when we’re saying something uncomfortable. Eye contact matters, especially in this meeting.

Monitor the situation carefully and follow up with weekly meetings for the first month or two. She might surprise you – you never know. It’s entirely possible she’s never worked for someone willing to provide candid counseling about what she’s doing that’s impeding her success and what she needs to do about it.

If she continues her past pattern, start the process of terminating her employment.

If you don’t have the authority to terminate, the specifics depend on the nature of the process through which she’s being pushed on you. If it’s through a standard HR process, start with your own manager, explaining the situation without sugar-coating it (but professionally – this isn’t the time for over-the-top characterizations or angry epithets directed toward HR, which is just doing what the company has told it to do: Allocate its human capital according to availability and need). Negotiate a deal.

Your starting point is that you’d like to promote a promising employee to the PM role and backfill. Your fallback is to take her, but only if you can get rid of her should she fail to work out.

Document this conversation in a memo, cc’d to HR.

If the answer is that you have to take her and keep her, I’d suggest escalating as far as you can, asking, every step of the way, why other managers have had the authority to get rid of her but you don’t. Someone, somewhere up the line, will understand the point.

– Bob

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