151 Quick Ideas to Deal With Difficult People

4Don’t Wait for the Boston Tea Party

If an employee asks your help in dealing with a difficult colleague, investigate the matter promptly and follow up with a solution. Worse than a problem employee is a manager who won’t address intraoffice conflicts. He won’t confront bullies or saboteurs. He believes both problems and people will self-correct.

When you take that approach you aggravate the problem and, worse, you lose credibility with your subordinates. If a team is involved, members may take matters into their own hands like the colonists who staged the Boston Tea Party more than 200 years ago because King George refused to correct the problem of taxation without representation. With your reputation as a do-nothing boss, insurrectionists in ...