Sometimes the best defense is a good offense

I learned a valuable lesson while the First Sergeant for an Army National Guard infantry company several years ago. An infantry company has around 100 soldiers, and generally has some extra duties that are assigned to a few select soldiers in the unit. The soldiers in these roles are exempt from most cleaning details, since they would perform their duties while everyone else was cleaning weapons and equipment on our return from training.

Dealing with difficult colleagues

One critical role is the retention NCO. The soldier in this role is responsible for convincing people nearing the end of their enlistment to reenlist. Our retention NCO wasn't doing his job. I would often ask him who was up for reenlistment, and he rarely knew. I'd often see him hanging with his friends from other companies, and not with our soldiers. We had a few conversations about it, and what my expectations of him were. Nothing changed.

So one day I relieved him, and assigned a new person to the role. A short time after I did this, the soldier I relieved came into my office, and said that many people in the company told him I relieved him because of his race. He was thinking of filing a racial discrimination complaint. I was surprised, to say the least. The vast majority of the soldiers in the unit were minorities. I replaced him with another soldier from the same minority, not that this mattered. He went on to level additional accusations, and stated that if I reinstated him as retention NCO, he wouldn't file the complaint.

I asked him to sit down in my office, and closed my office door. I then picked up the phone and started to dial the battalion sergeant major, my immediate supervisor on the NCO side. As I dialed, I thanked him for bringing this issue up, and I told him I looked forward to the investigation. Would he like to talk to the sergeant major first, or should I relate the story for him? His face went slack, and he quickly back-pedaled, saying that everything was fine. I hung the phone up, and reiterated that he was replaced for poor performance, and if he thought I had acted inappropriately, he should file the complaint. If he didn't file the complaint, he should shut his mouth and do his new job. He was now an infantry fire team leader. The issue disappeared.

The lesson? Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. People will sometimes use the threat of an accusation to gain an upper hand in a given situation.

Fast forward a few years, and I was working at a company where a guy I interacted with on a daily basis had poor social skills. He continuously erupted at me (and most people) in open office areas. My manager mentioned that my issues with this guy - let's call him Derk (rhymes with Jerk) - was causing tension in the office. I asked if I had ever been unprofessional when dealing with Derk. I was told no, but I needed to resolve the issues. We were both at the same level, so I didn't get why I was being asked to resolve this, but when I am assigned something, it gets done.

The next day I asked Derk to meet with me in an office, and with the door closed, told him how much I enjoyed working with him. I valued his skills, and thought it would be best if we didn't engage in any disagreements in the public areas of the office. Derk then proceeded to tell me that he didn't like me, never would, and I should leave the company. I'd never last there anyway. He related how he is involved in all down sizing decisions, and would make sure I left the company anyway. I thanked him for his candor, and left the office.

I walked to my boss' office and related what I had done to resolve the issues, and what Derk's reaction had been. I then asked for advice on how to manage this issue, since my positive confrontation of the issue had failed. I was met with a face that looked like a screen saver. There was no help offered for the situation I was in. My boss then confessed that Derk was a jerk, and told me not to worry about it. Maybe knowing this up front would have guided me to modify my approach. Derk's stock began to fall.

I went on with my work, and a few months later Derk left the company after almost a decade there. I not only noticed that my job satisfaction increased, I also noticed that the office attitude in general became more positive.

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Sometimes we are used by our bosses to do the hard part of managing difficult people for them. But this latter topic will be covered in a future blog post.

How have you dealt with office conflicts? What is your favorite approach to dealing with difficult colleagues? What is your worst failure in terms of managing a conflict?

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