Managing creative people: How to deal with the problem child.

Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts frequently offers a full-day workshop on Managing Creative People, typically led by Tiffany Young, creative director of Seattle’s Smashing Ideas. The curriculum touches on hiring, motivating, and managing those with large and fragile egos. A topic that also gets a fair amount of attention is what to do with the loose cannon, or the problem child. Here are few thoughts gleaned from a recent workshop.

Everybody has one (or two or ten). We’re talking about the employee who’s slacking off, badmouthing, ignoring instructions, or spreading ill will in any number of ways. Tiffany Young, creative director of Smashing Ideas, and boss to 18 pixel-wrangling designers and writers, recently shared her fool-proof method of dealing with the difficult at a day-long workshop at SVC. Among her gems:

Start with praise.
Here’s the first thing to do when you call someone into your office for “the chat.” While every bone in your body will resist handing out kudos to someone you’d rather strangle, dig deep and find something nice to say—if not about their work, then their attire, car, or pet boa. The idea is to get them to let their defenses down so they can hear what’s coming next.

Speak hypothetically.
Rather than go for the personal attack, consider language that puts the situation in the hypothetical. For instance, “Terrell, we have a problem where some members of our team feel that they’re being disrespected.” Or you can put the burden of solving the problem back on the problem-maker by saying things such as, “Tanya, what would you do if you were me and you had two members of the team who were being so competitive it was getting in the way of their work?”

Set boundaries and give chances.
Even though steps 1 and 2 are about defusing the situation, you shouldn’t be a wimp. You’ll need to make it very clear about what’s acceptable as far as you’re concerned. So emphatically state what the rules are, and then give your problem child a chance to get in line. For example, you might say, “I don’t tolerate employees belittling each other behind their backs. So what are you willing to do to assure me this won’t happen again?”

Praise again or punish.
Change is hard, so if, after a few days, you see that your employee has made a sincere effort to behave, that’s worth a pat on the back. On the other hand, if your words took a quick ear-to-ear trip on your employee’s cerebral express lane, then feel free to put them on official notice.

Check with your company’s general manager or HR department, if you have one, about the proper way to document your conversations. That way, when the time comes to hand out the pink slip, you’ll avoid insomnia and courtrooms.