Working with difficult people.

All of us have had this situation before….having to work with someone you don’t get along with… at all.

Conflict can happen in any type of workplace. I work as a software engineer and I feel the problem is far worse in this type of profession. Most techies are the worst at:

1. Explaining how a situation is making them feel
2. Articulating their concerns to peers
3. Mentoring others

I have been doing people management for over a year now. I chose this switch in my profession as I highly value people interactions. I strive to understand what teams are wanting to deliver and what drives the individuals in those teams.

A difficult part of line management is doing performance reviews. This was my biggest pet peeve as I stepped into this domain. I did not want to unfairly assess someone I manage directly/indirectly as it has a direct impact on their lives.

As fate would have happened, I had to mark someone as underperforming at the end of the year. Any guesses on the reaction?

Anger. Hurt. Disagreement.

All these reactions were expected and I tried to approach the subject of delivering this news very carefully. Personally I wanted them to understand why they got this rating and what they can do very very quickly to turn this around.

However, the part I was not prepared for was…. ‘Disrespect’. This individual stopped interacting with me completely at the work place. I think a big part of me was quite hurt at this reaction. The outcome of the review was not a surprise to the individual as I continuously delivered the message of development opportunities throughout the year. But as human beings, we only strive to listen to what’s favourable to us. And there was nothing I could do about that.

I summoned my courage to speak to the individual a couple of months after the message was delivered. I wanted to understand and face my fears of backlash by doing so. This casual catchup turned quite sour as they raised their voice and threatened with HR action whilst my voice was completely monotone. I am trying to be quite objective here as I went into this conversation with a motive of trying to understand where the issue lies.

When someone backlashes at you like this, what are you to do?

Another thing to add here, I am a female manager and this is a male engineer. I will let the readers decide what next steps should be taken?