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Reclaim Your Valuable Time By Closing the Complaint Department.
Falling under the "Tough Love" section heading of an SBA advanced management course I attended in Baltimore (too many) years ago, this challenge has less to do with an alienation of the chronic complainer and far more to do with effectively managing your personal resources."I'm Telling Mom!"
Nearly every team has at least one, and at times it can feel like yours are multiplying.
Regardless of how many of these chronic gripers you are living with, this small group of employees will insist on monopolizing your scarce free time with an endless stream of personal grudges.
So, how do you safely and respectfully curb this trend, and stop playing house-mother to a few employees who seem to be regressing before your eyes?
> First, recognize that each individual tends to color the world in their own way.
This means that we don't actually see the world around us as it is, but rather as we are.
It will often take new managers up to two years of conscious effort to craft and maintain a perspective of objectivity, something that most professional managers tend to take for granted once they have achieved this level of personal growth.
Specific to this subject: An habitual liar likes to think that everyone else is always lying in some way, and they both expect it and feel verified by pointing it out, whether or not it actually existed in everyone else's reality.
Ironically, they are telling the truth when doing so, despite the fact that they are wrong.
The slacker thinks that nearly everyone around them is also lazy, and their 'time thief' habits are justified because everyone else is trying to get over in some way as well.
The above examples are little more than basic human psychology, an (albeit feeble) attempt at rationalizing our bad and/or socially unacceptable behaviours.
"It's OK if I do it, because everyone else is doing it".
This particular type of mindset taps into a primal survival-instinct: The irrational fear of being left behind by the herd.*
The trick for the time-conscious manager therefore is to learn to read between the lines.
I'm not telling you to stop listening to the complaints, but instead to start hearing what the chronic complainer is actually saying about themselves.
You will very soon see the pattern of personal issues that require attention, and this will help you to deal directly with the real reason that this person has insisted on tying up your valuable face time with little more than gossip.
"Twenty percent of your people will occupy sixty percent of your time, and half of that is wasted on pointless whining." ≈ Anonymous (by choice) retired team manager
The old adage, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" isn't such a bad rule to live by, and it's far more valuable as a management policy.
- Avoid the temptation to view this type of input as an information resource:
There have been countless "advisers to the throne" throughout history, each with a personal agenda, and each considered a trusted source for a time before having their true motives discovered, usually long after irreparable damage to the boss's reputation or even the kingdom had occurred.
- Understand that for the vast majority of individuals, it is nearly impossible to relate a story or situation to a manager without putting a personal slant on the facts. A minor personal irritation easily becomes fodder for a complaint when they feel that every complaint has value to their manager-friend.
This naturally leads to the perception that the complainant's real value as an employee is tied directly to their ability to find more things and people to complain to you about.
- Clearly communicate your (new) personal policy with regard to high maintenance employees who seem to spend an inordinate amount of paid time both monitoring their co-workers, and then filing impromptu verbal reports that no one has asked them for.
Should they really have so little to do each day that they can find plenty of (paid) time to track fellow employees, then maybe the complainers are overdue for some additional duties to keep them fruitfully occupied.
These self-appointed managers may require a bit of special attention, but you will find this a valuable investment for the sake of the team and it's goals.
Your proactive approach to this issue will quickly see your daily stress levels dropping along with your personal time becoming far more productive.
So go ahead: Give yourself a big pat on the back.
* The fear of being left behind by the herd (thus becoming food for a predator) is a primal instinct that all humans carry, although deeply embedded in their unconscious core along with their various other survival instincts, such as "Fight or Flight".
It has been the root of such popular axioms as "There's Always Safety in Numbers" and similar survival concepts, as well as many social adages like "Keeping Up With The Joneses".
This is a base fear that I have taught many marketing professionals to reach with their advertising in my 1995 book "Marketing To The Cro Magnon Masses", later retitled "Guerilla Marketing".
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