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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5991267" data-attributes="member: 8835">Assuming you're talking to me, I'm not sure if you're saying I'd just fire the guy whom other people are talking about.  That would be the exact opposite of what I meant, which what I said echoes what Umbran said in business terminology.bad mouthing people behind their back is a different problem. That's I'll get to.To be clear on my prior post, I am talking about dealing with a person who I see is having problems and I am in authority to deal with them (I have fired and laid people off before).  It is best to identify a problem and try to fix it before it gets worse.  If you can't fix it (maybe Bob is really good at coding, and just lousy at talking with end users), keep Bob at coding and keep users away from him because it is expensive to replace Bob, compared to the work he does when you avoid his problem area.  If you can't find a balancing solution to get value from Bob, and avoid agitating his weakness, then it is time for Bob to go.  But in all those steps, communication with Bob over what he needs to work on is crucial.  It should not be a surprise to Bob, that's bad management and not fair to Bob.On bad-mouthing, that's actually a complicated problem.  You don't know it's bad mouthing until it crosses a line.At some point 2 people who have a problem with Bob are going to talk about it, so they can determine if there's a problem.  It will probably be an informal conversation.  Nobody books a meeting to talk about that thing Bob did at the last game.  It just kind of comes up.This is a normal human trait.  Humans are always talking about things that are not present at the time and place of the conversation.  It's probably why we invented words.  Otherwise I could just point and motion to smash it with my club.  You don't have to travel to the Grand Canyon just to talk to your friend about it AT the Grand Canyon.  Same thing for people as the subject.  Otherwise, you'd never be able to to plan a surprise party.So, you and I are for example are talking about Bob. I notice he's kind of surly whenever he talks to end users.   I'm curious to see if you've observed the same thing, or if I'm just being over-critical, since he's not doing it how I would do it.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that conversation, as that's how people work, and it's not likely to change.Couple  this hypothetical conversation we're having to what you'd think of me if I confronted Bob about it at the last team meeting.  It's not cool to call people out like that.  So that would make me be the bad guy.  So instead, I've got to build consensus that there's even a problem.This gets twisted when there's manipulative people involved.  If you and I are just engineers who want to get stuff done, and represent our team in a good light, our concern over Bob is genuine, as is our discussion.  A manipulative person uses these conversations to win people over to their viewpoint and get an outcome they desire (kill Bob, so they can move up in the hierarchy).  I hate those kind of people.But back to our fairly inocuous conversation.  Wearing my manager hat, I've learned a useful metric.  If everytime you and the leadership talk about an employee it's always about problems and dissatisfaction, you have a problem with that employee.  Follow the nice steps to fix it that Umbran ascribes to.   There's a difference to the last time I screwed up, and nobody remembers it from the guy who is always late with his code, never meets the requirements or follows the standards.  Outside of management role,  if your conversations turn from genuine perspective gathering to a form of mocking entertainment, you're bad mouthing.There's an old indian saying that you get to tell your story three times (story being about how you were wronged, typically).  After that, you're just milking it, and the tribe turns their back on you when you tell that story.Same sort of thing should apply to talking about a problem person.  When it starts getting into telling it for griping's sake, and swapping stories, that's not really nice.  It's aggravated by then not taking any kind of action to help correct the problem.  In the OP's case, this group sat for a year complaining to themselves about this guy.  By the third gripe-session, those people should have gotten to the "what should we do about it" conversation.Anyway, that's just some long thoughts in my head on the topic.</blockquote>

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