DON'T LET TALKERS SHUT YOU DOWN

One of these can drag your team down

Have you ever met a person that when you tell them one story they feel duty bound to stop everything they are doing to tell you three of their own? We have occasionally had them show up in our offices. 

I first thought he* was just a minor annoyance
I humored him. I tried to listen, I really did. Eventually I trained myself to never pass on ANY information to him at all. I couldn’t bear to hear all the news I would have to listen to in return. It became awkward. I certainly did not want to offend him, so I avoided him…in my own office!

This describes the situation perfectly
A friend of mine once made this statement about one of his professors…

“I wanted to ask her a question but I didn’t, because I knew she always took such a long road when she started talking before she got around to the answer... and I just didn't want to go on the trip.”

…EXACTLY!

Eventually I realized this person was creating more than a “minor annoyance.”
He repeated this pattern all day long. Talk, talk, talk. He did it with others on our staff, regularly interrupting work. He did the same when he got one of our clients on the phone. It was as if everyone was an old friend and everyone was desperate to hear all these time wasting stories.

He had to go.
I couldn’t afford the disruption any longer. I finally saw the situation clearly. He wasn't interested in doing his job as much as socializing. Unfortunately, we had a ton of work to get done. He was shutting us down. He was affecting everyone’s performance—and annoying our clients. He had to go.

Anyone who persists in continually disrupting and dominating the flow of work in the team is not making a contribution, they are making everyone’s job harder…and they have to go.

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This is Part 4 of a Series on HOW TO PROTECT YOUR TEAM
Related posts:
Part 1: USE YOUR EAGLE EYE: SPOT DANGER
Part 2: SNAKES ARE SNEAKY: BAD PEOPLE
Part 3: OH NO, NOT THEM! : BACKUP PLANS

*Note: "He" is being used as a generic, to avoid using the plural "they" or specifying the gender of the offender.

Oops! Anything that Can Happen, WILL Happen

Mortified.  

One day my wife was home alone with our oldest son, Adam, who had just turned 2 years old, and she heard the phone ring in the other room.  

She was indisposed so she let it ring, assuming whoever called would just call back later.  

Suddenly she heard a noise in the other room, sounding like the receiver being lifted, immediately signaling something was going wrong.  

Then she heard, “Hello,” in a 2 year-old’s voice.  
Now, unable to move, she sat in panic mode listening from the other room, alarmed at what might happen next—while also impressed that the 2 year old was clever enough to pick up the phone and answer it.  

Quickly, her first worst fears were realized as she heard the child’s voice in the other room say, “No, Mommy can’t come. She’s taking a poop,” followed immediately by a click.  

Adam hung up.  

Mortified, it dawned upon her that she had no idea who had called and there was nothing she could do to find out.  

The moral of the story: Keep an eye on your kids at all times.  
Keep an eye on your employees, your trainees because the innocent and cute little suckers can inadvertently create all kinds of chaos for you if you let them.