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I had someone like this. Absolutely brilliant but SO reactive. If they were having a bad day, suddenly the whole team was tense. I finally had to set the boundary that while emotions are valid, they can’t dominate the workspace. I introduced structured feedback sessions where they had time to process before responding, and I also encouraged them to use a coach or therapist for external support. Maybe try giving them a ‘cool-down’ window before responding to feedback?
Spoiler alert they are not one of your best employees. They may deliver to the business but at what cost.
Make sure you check your own energy and impact that you bring to this person and team
The previous poster is correct. This is not your best employee, this employee takes probably 80% of your time. If not just over % and I’ve had one of these and her question to me every day was are you mad at me? Like we were in high school.
So I sat her down and very bluntly told her that that’s not a question for your boss it’s a question for your husband. Stop asking it. I told her she was a very good employee. She did get reactive, but she was handled with kid gloves for too long so once I told her that she finally got it and from what I could see, her peers liked her better, their interactions were more positive, she was more positive on the team and our interactions were much better.
Unless the person brings an enormous amount of value to the organization, you just can't spend a lot of time on their drama. If people have bad periods, they're reacting to some negative event in their life for example, some of that is excusable. But if the person is perpetually grandstanding it just needs to end. Find a graceful way to explain it's a business, not an Off Broadway theater.
Yes, I have dealt with this before. I have learned that they are rarely worth it. Yes, they can do a lot _however_ they have a habit of bringing down everyone else around them. If you have a good team one "rock star" can be net negative.
Rock star devs also frequently produce the hardest to understand and maintain code. Again, net negative when looking at TCO. Fire them and hire solid and talented replacement. YMMV
DOSE1 - that makes sense. The issue isn’t that he’s good, it’s that he’s a d—k. When you’re on a team, adding comments is common sense, practical, and just best practice.
Complicated Code should have detailed comments Not none.
I have an employee that is like htat. She is actually a highly sensitive peson which I didn't know was a real thing and she really struggles with taking everything so personally. I just had to learn how to approach her with things so that she knows she is not in trouble.
An an hsp thank you 🙏🏽
Bad days happen, but when somebody is having a bad day every day, it does not only take up too much of our time, but brings everyone else down too. This person would have to bring in the combined amount of everyone else and then some, because that is the only number that would justify it.
I would recommend talking to the employee about why they take things so personally. It may be due to personal experience where the feedback in the past has been directed at them personally versus being directed at their work.
It may be that the way you deliver the feedback doesn’t focus on the output, but rather on the person doing it so that they feel that you are personally critiquing them. But whatever the reason is, I would say have an open dialogue with that person and ask them what is the preferred way of receiving feedback so that you can work with them to deliver it that way.
The last thing I would say is that you should definitely talk with them about not letting their anger be visible to others, but I also have questions about the other people on the team. If you’re going to tell this one employee that they need to control their emotions, I think it’s equally as fair to ask the other employees to control how they respond to that person’s emotions. I don’t think one person can be responsible for how everyone else feels unless that person is in their direct leadership path. There is responsibility to be taken for emotional reactions on all sides here.
This is so tiring and hard! You're in the "Over-Care" pain cave. What this means is that you're not holding them accountable to standards because of some valid reason.
Happens all the time for many reasons - i.e. top performer, loved one is sick, their dog died. I've certainly been here.
Step 1: Get clear on expectations - if your company has values that apply in this situation (e.g. respect or ownership) or role competencies, great! If not, it's OK for you to write down what it means to effectively communicate and contribute to meetings. I love writing down "Good Day" "Bad Day" columns with behaviors in each.
Step 2: Now that you're clear on expectations, it's time to talk about them with the employee. It's important to say, "I want you to succeed in XYZ role. I wanted to talk about the expectations for this role to make sure we're on the same page". If the expectations weren't previously made clear, you can own it - "I could have done a better job clarifying these earlier".
Step 3: Talk about the delta between expectations and this person's actions. "Hey, so now that I've laid these out I also wanted to talk about some gaps I'm seeing during team meetings and figure out how we can help you close those gaps. I'm assuming you have good intent and have important things to say. What's going on for you during meetings?"
Step 4: Listen
Step 5: Based on what's happening, figure out 1-2 adjustments they can make. Identify how you can help and agree to check in during your next 1:1 or even that week on progress.
You might learn that they have something going on and need to escalate to HR for help. They may not like this, but keep going back to your expectations. This isn't your personal judgment, this is you telling them what success looks like and helping them succeed.
Silly example but my kids started asking for ice cream every night. So, I made up Thursday is Ice Block Walk night. I said, "I can't give you ice cream every night to keep you healthy. But we'll do this every week and really enjoy our time together". I set a clear expectation, to help them succeed, and now when they ask on a non-Thursday I blame the standard :)