How to Motivate Your Problem People

It’s a glorious image: all your employees marching off in the right direction, inspired by your vision, passion, and logic. The problem is, this leadership approach works only with already motivated people.

What about those other, difficult folks who consume too much of your time? How do you energize them? Contrary to conventional wisdom, you can’t—only they can.

Everyone has motivational energy. In fact, most problem employees are driven and commited—but only outside the office. The work-place—seemingly uncaring bosses, especially—can block that inherent motivation.

Here’s how to remove these blockages and channel inherent motivation toward your company’s goals.

The Idea in Practice

In trying to motivate problem employees, most managers mistakenly try to “sell” their viewpoint to employees—or simply dismiss them as “bad characters.” These mistakes stem from common but false assumptions: that everyone else thinks like we do, that we can change others, and that employees are problems to be solved.

A Better Way

Use these steps to unleash problem employees’ internal drive—or arrive at the shared conclusion that it’s impossible.

1. Create a rich picture of the problem employee. Don’t simply label him difficult. Explore three factors instead:

The employee: Through informal conversations, discern what drives him, what’s blocking those drives, and what could happen if blockages were removed. Example: 

Jerry, a new pharmaceuticals company manager, learns that Bernard—a talented but reticent and angry scientist reporting to him—was passed over for a promotion. Jerry’s insight? Bernard yearns to preserve his dignity.

Yourself: How might you be bringing out the person’s worst? Ask him and his colleagues to describe how you come across. Something basic—for instance, how you talk—may be wrong for him, though fine for others.

The situation: What may be eliciting the worst from both of you? For example, a tough restructuring may increase the employee’s stress and lessen your tolerance for his behavior.

2. Reframe your goals. Replace predetermined “solutions”—required new behaviors with the threat of dismissal if he doesn’t comply—with a menu of possibilities. Flexibility can yield surprisingly rich alternatives. Example: 

A customer-account processor’s proclivity toward gossip and office politics might be directed more constructively toward team building. And opportunities to interact directly with customers may provide the interpersonal stimulus he’s craving.

3. Stage the encounter. In a face-to-face meeting, affirm the person’s value to your company, describe the problem as you see it, assert things can’t continue this way, and state your desire for a mutually beneficial outcome.

Then test hunches about ways to co-opt the person’s passions for productive ends. Watch for unexpected areas of agreement—then tease ideas out of the person. To avoid another “yes, boss” encounter, don’t “sell” your viewpoint. Example: 

When the scientist Bernard says, “Nobody with technical smarts gets respect here,” Jerry sees an opening: make Bernard an advisor and technical coach for his unit—and get him credit for it. Now Bernard must propose specifically how this might work.

When you liberate people’s inherent motivation, you boost morale throughout your organization by demonstrating that you’re willing to work through difficulties, not simply discard them.