Handling "Not Me"

Have you ever had "Not Me" in your department? You know, the person who always seems to be associated with a problem but for some reason can never be caught red-handed. You know they're involved. Your evidence is significant, but circumstantial. Hard to prove. Yet the problems created by this person are affecting your day to day operations, wasting time and money, and negatively impacting attitudes of and morale. You need to deal with it. But whenever you try to counsel the individual their response boils down to: "Not Me. Un-uh. Didn't do it. I'm a victim here. It's someone else. I wouldn't do that. No sir. Never. Not Me." What do you do?

I know a manager who faced this problem and tried to deal with the person through counseling. After several frustrating sessions in which "Not Me" would protest their innocence over and over again, the manager finally gave up. These were his final words to the employee:

"All right, I believe you. We keep having these meetings because somehow when these problems come up your name always seems to be associated with it. But every time we have these meetings you tell me it's not you. You're not involved. Somehow I've gotten the wrong impression. You would never be involved in such a thing. So now I believe you. And I'm done with these counseling sessions. I am not going to be talking with you about this again. But before you leave, I want you to know that somehow, whenever these things happen, your name is linked to it."

He continued: "I don't know what you are doing that causes that to happen. But you need to find out. And you need to fix it. So I'm telling you right now........... make it go away."

His tone-of-voice left no doubt in the mind of the employee that he was at the end of trying to counsel nicely. Nor did the employee have any doubt that the manager was nearing the end of his rope.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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