Harvard Business Publishing

This is not a specific story, but a theme I have noticed over the years in management. The truly difficult person to manage is one who provides needed assets to the company, but their temperament brings liabilities to the company as well. When the liabilities appear to outweigh the assets, the dilemma question is, “Does the company have the ability to replace the assets being brought to the company by the employee, and does their temperament warrant dismissal?” For large corporations that provide services to the government, the latter half of that question can be a delicate one to resolve.

Spot on, but what a frustrating lesson to learn.

How exhausting to give and give (being fooled that you are "giving") but realize that you are being sucked dry.

I think in trying to change my wife or our kids, I find that it is I that needs the change the most. And, boy, am I a frustrating patient!

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

What about being on the other end of the situation?
Is it worth trying to change management to even consider your points of view? I try and try at times to no avail.
I want to make an impact, I want to contribute but sometimes I am pushed aside only to be left with the old way.

Is it worth trying?

Allen - You make a great point. Leaders need to make an 'is it worth it' analysis before dismissing anyone. Each situation will be different.
Jason - I agree. We often cannot change others, but we can change ourselves.
Joe - Back to the 'cost benefit analysis' comment, each situation is different. You have to ask 'is it worth it' before 'fighting the battle'.

I understand and concur with everyones sentiments. I must say however, that by introducing the idea of keeping each situation 'relative' you have a greater opportunity to garner understanding from your manager, friend or colleague. In efforts of 'solving' the current issue perhaps permanent change is not feasible, rather temporary positive gains to be created by maintaining this perspective.

Sir,

Spending time and effort on people who do not wish to change is futile. In most of the organizations that I have had the privilege to observe closely, one common thread has been visible. One can find a few outstanding performers who do not want to change. These employees are smart, work hard, go beyond the call of duty, and deliver results. They have all the answers. They do not like being told there may be a better way. Best Practices and Benchmarking mean nothing to them.

In such a situation, the organization faces a dilemma. Since the employees have many positive traits, it is difficult to fire them. There is no guarantee that a replacement would be any better. On the other hand, moving to the next level of excellence requires a qualitative change in several processes. And this is where the performers become the stumbling blocks. I am almost tempted to hypothesize that a relationship seems to exist between acceptable and consistent performance and resistance to change. It is far easier to change average performers to be achievers than it is to change achievers to align with process changes.

Patience and perseverence seem to work even with such cases. The question remains - is it worth the effort and time? Where does one draw the line?

Warm Regards

It sounds to be hopeless for the typical unwilling-to-change.For the organisation,it makes sense to buid up the relationship just as your Dad and Mom:one can complaining and coaching,the other can listen and may change.
What's your opinion?

Yes, I have had my share of people who are unwilling to change or at least look at any situation from a point of view different than theirs. However, in every situation where I was attempting to demonstrate a different perspective to a client, student or friend and would encounter resistance, I would constantly ask myself, “Am I doing this to help this person to solve his problems or to purely impose my views on his?" This would make me change my approach from "I know better than you so you'd better listen to me" to that of "I would really like to help you solve this problem so let us look at it from several angles before making a decision, shall we?" More than 90% of the time, this change in approach was sufficient in making the client, student or friend more relaxed and open to ideas or suggestions different than their own. In short, there was a paradigm shift from a purely sales approach to that of a marketing approach. Simple and yet oh so effective!

Raj Bose
Faculty - University of Phoenix

Hi Marshall,

The talking bird analogy is graphically and suggestively hilarious.

I often received similar words of wisdom from my dad - let it go.

Off the top of my head, I recall a success story of helping out an old high school buddy. To cut to the chase, I was successful at convincing him that the taunting words and misplaced intentions of some of our knee-slappin, beer glass tiltin' buddies need not bother or discourage his forward movement in life. At that time, it was clear as day that their words chewed him up inside. Fortunately, he quickly changed his outlook and began taking deconstructive comments with a grain of salt.

Quite interestingly, my story of failure that seems to be repeating over and over again like a broken record comes from the person in my life who has always advised - let it go. Ain't that a kick in the pants!

Matthew R. Polkinghorne
MGSM: Special Topics Friend

Nick - Good point. Although people not care about a 'big change' they may be willing to try a 'small change'.
BV - I believe that there is no one answer to your question. I would suggest just doing a basic 'cost-benefit' analysis - and then deciding.
Vincent - I am not suggesting that no one ever gets 'coverted'. I am suggesting - and this is backed by research - coaching people who don't care is seldom the best use of the coaches time.
Raj - Thank you!
Matthew - Take the great advice. 'Let it go!'

There are always people who won´t change their behavior.
The fact is, thanks to this kind of people, the development of companies and organisations will grow faster then others, where evrybody is concentrated on the subject of change.
I believe Dr Goldsmith could give us some deeper aspects on this
- or is it impossible to change a value, an attitude here?

Jan - I strongly beleive that any of us can change any behavior if we choose to do so. I also know that it is often not cost-efficient to ignore the people who truly care - and spend our time trying to 'convert' people who do not care.

Greetings,

At one time, I had the privilege of coaching a mid level executive in a well known company. After I did the 360 degree interviews and came back to him with the results of his adverse impact on others he shared with me his unwillingness to believe the results and he insisted that it was the other individuals misunderstanding.

After several weeks of introspection and discussing life in general and his ultimate aspirations, he finally recognized it was in his own best interest to try to change. It was this shift in 'attitude' that moved the coaching relationship from 'doomed for failure' to I am willing to listen and change. Fast forward ~ 12 months, his behavior changed and his impact on the organization improved substantially.

Years later he tells me this 'intervention' saved his career. I like to say to others: He did all the hard work, I just helped him recognize that he needed to shift his attitude. Once this shift occurred, his improvement was rapid.

Phil Holberton
Adjunct Faculty
Brandeis University

Phil - Thank you for this excellent example. You let him make the 'turnaround' instead of 'dictating' it to him. Your work helped someone have a better life.

I spent years learning these 4 chestnuts:

1) Disposition to adoption of change follows a bell curve; a few people can't wait to change; a few people detest change; and most will follow if well-lead.

2) There are actions a leader can take that will help a person understand if making the change is "worth it" to them personally, but these are easy and are usually completely described in five minutes. Then it is up to the person.

3) The merit of an idea is only weakly correlated to the likelihood of its adoption; that is some great ideas take a long time to adopt. WHO adopts an idea correlates strongly to adoption. If someone credible likes it, it is much easier to rally adoption.

4) The time implementing a change is best spent rallying those that are anxious for change and leading those that are waiting to be well-lead. The unfortunate few that refuse to change will either relent or perish. And that is their choice.

Hi Marshall

I came across this blog as I was googling "anger management" + Knight (for Bob Knight - the baskeball coach with the most wins ever, known for his temperaments)

I understand what you're saying about letting go those who cant change.. obviously Indiana Uni did that. And in this particular case, the competitor benefited as Texas Tech team became quite successful under Coach Knight's guidance...

What can we do if we cant change a person and we also cant afford to let the person go?

Thanks

Powerful insight. I see a similar situation in marketing and branding. If all you have is a me-too product, your chances of convincing consumers to switch to your brand are close to nil, no matter how much you try or how much money you spend. Better find a niche that you can dominate and where you can be the first. As you say, Marshall, if they don't care do not waste your time.

Hello. I have been in management for 28 years. In that time frame I have worked for a variety of companies, from startups to very large International concerns. I have been married 3 times. I have two children. I have been coaching youth soccer for 8 years. What I have learned from all that, both professionaly and personaly is that, yes it is a waste of your very valuable resources to try to coach someone who does not want to change or improve. But how do you tell? What is the test?
It's not a question of "is it worth it" because you have already decided that it is in order to try. The issue is "will it work?"
Our ego dictates that we are better than those that have tried before us! And maybe we truly are. Or maybe the person is finally ready. Ok, then what?
Prove it to yourself...
It's easy. Take something seemingly insignificant but will require change. Then coach the person. If it takes, keep going by increasing degrees. If it doesn't work with the insignificant test case, move on and don't waste your resources. If you find reason to keep going to bigger and bigger changes, you sould make a rule that you will stop when they stop.
The bottom line is that you have a part in the change as well. That responsibility is to manage the resource (of change) you are providing. When the recepient has reached their capacity, stop and move on.
I just wish I had learned this lesson when I was 20!

Hi All,

Here are two interesting quotes on this subject

"There are three kinds of men, ones that learn by reading, a few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves" - Will Rogers

The trouble is not children afraid of darkness, but adults afraid of light.

—Plato

I am a corporate trainer and a guest faculty at IIM Bangalore, India.
When I teach Persuasion, I urge the participants to sit with an open mind. I tell them I may be the world's worst speaker but they can learn from me too - at least how not to speak !

However, when there is a deep rooted prejudice or unwillingness to change, Mr Goldsmith's advice is sacrosanct- 'Don't waste your time. Move on..."

cheers
CK

Gregg - I love you thought, "The merit of an idea is only weakly correlated to the likelihood of its adoption; that is some great ideas take a long time to adopt." Too much of leadership development is spent on the false assmumption that 'if they understand - they will do'. If this were true all of the people who buy diet books would be thin!
Jurry - If we cannot change a person - and cannot afford to 'let them go', we need to learn to accept them for who they are and 'make peace' with what we cannot change.
Mario - I had never thought of the applicability of this idea to marketing. Thank you!
DJ - Thank you! Hopefully the lesson that you learned later in life will help one of our younger readers.
CK - Thank you. We can all learn from 'what not to do' as well as 'what to do'!

''I GREW UP ON A SMALL 160 ACRE COUNTRY FARM .....''YOU CAN LEAD A HORSE TO WATER ; BUT YOU CAN'T MAKE HIM DRINK .''

http://www.MySpace.com/georgetet

Powerful insight. I see a similar situation in marketing and branding. If all you have is a me-too product, your chances of convincing consumers to switch to your brand are close to nil, no matter how much you try or how much money you spend. Better find a niche that you can dominate and where you can be the first. As you say, Marshall, if they don't care do not waste your time.

Atty. Tetreault , Jr-This is a fact! You are absolutely right.
Mario-Thank you for sharing!

Greetings,

Great article! If time is our most precious asset, trying to enlighten someone who does not want to be enligthen is not the best use of your time. The same goes for trying to sell people on products or services they have no interest in takes from time you should be spending on serving customers that are looking for what you have to offer. Thanks for your time and attention.

Namaste,

I beg to differ in this opinion that we should let go people who don’t want to change.

Let’s look for an answer invert rather than passing a judgment that people do not want to change.

Change the way you train/coach/mentor people. Every individual have different learning skills so you have to train/coach/mentor them differently.

I think with expert mentoring skills and time; we can change anything... remember “Only constant is Change”….

I conclude by saying if we change the way we mentor/manage people; we can bring the desired change we want to.

Warm Regards,
Sanjay Chamoli

I agree that it is difficult to change people who don't want to or especially who don't think that they need to improve. Many people have a mental model of their capabilities and traits but have blind spots to some of their true attributes. One way to reveal these hidden traits and motivate people to change is through providing feedback by means of an anonymous 360 survey. I recently conducted a survey on myself that analyzed my leadership abilities. My reviewers were from all different areas of my life to provide a well-rounded, accurate review. It revealed areas in which I need to improve some of which I was previously unaware. When people see how others truly perceive them, they are more likely to want to make a plan to improve their weaknesses and enhance their strengths.

~HA