How to Manage the Office Prima Donna and Other Difficult Employees
Every office has employees that need to be managed differently. These tips will keep everyone happy and productive.
The Prima Donna
This creative employee needs special treatment to generate his or her special creative magic. He or she might insist on rolling into the office at noon (although everyone else has been there since 8 a.m.), demand you buy a $1,200 ergonomic desk chair or disappear at any moment to make a decaf soy chai latte run. Yes, the prima donna may be productive and even essential to your team, but these extra demands can quickly start to rub you and your other employees the wrong way.
Management solution
Resentment quickly builds up among employees when someone gets special treatment. The best way to handle it is to have an honest talk with your prima donna. If you do it the right way, opening up to the person about the issues the behavior is creating can make him or her feel even more special. Then, figure out ways you can appease the rest of the staff and the star—say, by offering everyone flexible hours within certain limits, or springing for an in-house latte maker.
The Perfectionist
Of course you want your business’s work to be the best it can be, but the perfectionist’s problems go beyond that. He or she noodles away at each assignment or project, revising endlessly—and holding up the rest of the team in the process.
Management solution
You can have the greatest product in the world, but that won’t matter if it never ships. How can you get the perfectionist to let go? Different tactics work with different people. Setting extra-early deadlines can keep some perfectionists on track. Still other perfectionists will benefit from being involved in the early, creative stages of idea development, but being removed from the final product’s polishing stages. (Distract the innovator with another bright, shiny new project.) Or you may need to invoke your role as CEO and tell the perfectionist that when you think the product or project is good enough, it’s game over.
The Futurist
This innovator consistently comes up with amazing ideas that are just a little too far ahead of their time. (Microsoft came up with a tablet computer before Apple did, but which tablet do you use today?)
Management solution
If you implement a new product or service before the market is ready for it, your launch is likely to fall flat, and your business wastes time and money. But if you consistently shoot down your futurist’s ideas, he or she will lose the will to keep innovating. How can you make the most of your futurist’s ideas? Use market research to explore the profit potential of each concept he or she comes up with. If it’s not quite ready for primetime yet, how long until it will be? By pairing your innovator with a detail-oriented research person who monitors the market, your team can create a pipeline full of future products you can perfect and introduce at just the right time.
Culled from Americanexpress.com
