Fix Your Team

Chapter 15 THE FIX: ADDRESS UNCONSTRUCTIVE INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR

IMPROVE BEHAVIOUR AND HOLD TEAM MEMBERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR CONDUCT.

If you have identified problematic individual behaviour and inappropriate conduct in your team, the Tools in this section are designed to help you address them and to improve accountability. They are about counselling and coaching the employee who is behaving badly, and investigating allegations of wrongdoing.

TOOL #3 COUNSEL THE BAD APPLE OR UNPROFESSIONAL TEAM MEMBER

As discussed in chapter 3 on toxic personalities, Bad Apples have the capacity to damage team dynamics and undermine the manager’s effectiveness and influence. Colleagues behaving unprofessionally (chapter 2) cause similar damage. To address this problematic behaviour, the manager — with the support of Human Resources, if needed — must personally inform the Bad Apple or unprofessional team member of the standard of conduct that applies to everyone in the team, what conduct they are engaging in that is breaching that standard, and what the Bad Apple must do to improve their conduct. The manager must then follow up and continue their supervision and counselling until the team member’s conduct improves to a sufficient standard.

The manager’s vigilant supervision of the Bad Apple’s behaviour must continue until they improve. Remember, the manager is not expecting any more of ...