Managing People

Mary worked as part of a committee at a local association. She frequently volunteered for committee work and was devoted. Mary would dive into the projects and produce volumes of outlines, plans, and specifications. She then sent the work-product out on an email listserve as committee mandate without obtaining any approvals. When questioned she made it clear that she felt that she should not need to get approval. When she was told she needed approval, it was a committee she began to attack everyone who questioned what she was doing on the same public listserve. Even after this happened several times she continued to march off into the sunset without pausing, getting approval, and in general conforming to committee life.

Needless to say Mary is no longer part of this committee.

The best news from this difficult situation is that management is now free from spending time on Mary and the committee has come back together stronger than ever and is able to move forward as a group. Everyone is relived and more productive. There must have been more tension and conflict being generated by the situation than anyone realized.

While this was an extreme case, do you have a Mary in your group? Someone who causes disruptions and always has three other problems stirring? Someone who tries to cut of dialogue by attacking people instead of ideas?

If you do have a Mary you need to take action to fix the problem. Let your Mary know what she is doing wrong and what proper conformance looks like.

If she cannot conform then let her go. While this always produces a sense of loss it is far better to loose a part rather than loose the whole. When done you will feel better and you will probably learn how little this person was actually accomplishing.