A Fantastic Team Grows
We have a fantastic team of nurses, technologists, and administrators in our neurophysiology center. Things were going extremely well, and we needed to expand. The build out for the expansion of this center went smoothly. With the addition of the new monitoring rooms, we needed to hire several new technologists.
The group in place was working smoothly as a fully integrated team and had been working together for several years. They had developed a strong team spirit with an excellent work ethic. Their helpful attitudes were contagious.
The New Hires
Three of the four new technologists were fantastic and fit in with the group seamlessly. They rapidly adopted the helpful spirit. Simple things like helping clean monitoring equipment after a study or helping prepare the mobile systems really make the workday more enjoyable and the quality of care improves commensurately.
The fourth new technologist interviewed well and said all the right things and performed with a high standard of quality. The issue was not quality, however. Simply put, the new technologist was unhappy and verging on angry much of the time. This individual would rapidly complete a task and then leave for lunch or to go home at the end of the day—usually while the other staff were finishing up numerous small but still important tasks. The situation rapidly became toxic and the cohesiveness of the team began to fray.
The anger felt by some of the staff began to affect their job performances as well. People who typically were pleasant became terse. Something had to give.
Addressing the Issue
The clinical supervisor met with the technologist who was unhappy. This is always the best way to begin addressing individual problems, which must always be done privately. (Praise, in contrast should be given publicly). Sometimes the person receiving feedback has something else going on that can be addressed that you won’t know about unless you ask. Sometimes, they can take the feedback and try to change. (See our blog on Leaders Have Difficult Conversations or our Case Study: BY and the Performance Reviews.)
Unfortunately, when the issue is attitude, more often than not, positive outcomes of the conversation are rare. In this case, the responses were predictable: “I got my work done.” “Their mess is not my job.” “Nobody told me I was responsible for them.” The pep talk approach yielded nothing of consequence.
A second discussion with the program administrator was followed by a third. The behavior did not improve. There was nothing egregious or negligent. Still, the behavior of one individual was destroying a team of many and the program from within.
Resolving the Issue
Fortunately, the center had a relatively prolonged evaluation period as part of the hiring policy. There was also a well-designed and well-written policy regarding both the evaluation period and the employment process. The technologist with a bad attitude was replaced with an equally skilled person who was a much better fit with the overall team.
Don’t let a small problem drag down the entire team. Don’t let poor planning affect hiring. Do sweat the details about hiring and throughout the entire process of onboarding new employees. Learn more about dealing with difficult employees in the video below.
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