The Abrasive Achiever

A manager had a very good employee with a very bad trait. An employee who does a significant quantity of work with good results. An employee who asks the manager to set priorities when the workload is getting heavy, and also alerts the manager when a job will not meet the deadline.

Unfortunately the employee is also quite abrasive to co-workers who disrupt his work with questions, or requests for information or assistance. With little or no tact he lets them know just how much of a workload he has, how busy he is, and how their disruption is an imposition.

Sounds to me like the manager is dealing with an abrasive achiever; a person with a high focus on achievement of task, and a low focus on working with other people. This sort of person loves to blast through a heavy backlog of work while meeting all goals including quality and timeliness so they can gain recognition for outstanding performance and results. They tend to get frustrated and angry when anything disrupts their forward momentum, and their forceful, driven nature causes them to have little patience or tact when dealing with the disruption.

The end result is not good for department teamwork or harmony. Relationships with co-workers become strained, morale suffers. On the other hand, we don't like to be critical and possibly demoralize one of our "best" workers when it comes to getting things done. What to do?

Guard against overloading the achiever with so much work they have little time to assist others. Achievers will generally take on as much work as you can give them and then try to get it all done. When there is an overload of work, the achiever puts their head down and works even harder, under increasing pressure and with a rising stress level which intensifies focus on getting it done and an increases awareness that a deadline may be missed. Along comes a co-worker with an innocent question and the achiever snaps.

Also realize that when you give an achiever a slightly lighter workload, they are usually quite willing to help co-workers as part of the achiever's need to fill the day with things to do.

Just how much work should be given to your achiever will always be a balancing act and a judgment call. Hopefully the guidance above will help. But you also must make sure your achiever clearly understands that, no matter how great their individual workload, abrasiveness, rudeness, lack of cooperation and respect for others are not acceptable behaviors and cannot and will not be tolerated.

About me: Dan Pelley teaches Managing People, a 16-hour program concerned with the topics of motivating people, developing positive attitudes, being more effective in getting the best out of each unique employee, and handling people problems. The program is offered to companies as an on-site program, and it is also offered on an open enrollment basis in Danielson, CT and Lincoln, RI.

Copyright © 2009 Daniel W. Pelley
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