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This Months Question: Prima Donnas Gone Bad.
Q : Hi John,
We just acquired another company and I inherited two
extremely good, but very high maintenance sales
engineers. I was warned they are ‘prima donnas’ and
they are first class in front of the customer, but have a
negative attitude about everything internal, and neglect
basic tasks such as call reports, CRM updates etc. I am
concerned they are having an impact on the rest of my
team. What should I do?
Pietr
Central Europe
Q : Hi John,
We just acquired another company and I inherited two
extremely good, but very high maintenance sales
engineers. I was warned they are ‘prima donnas’ and
they are first class in front of the customer, but have a
negative attitude about everything internal, and neglect
basic tasks such as call reports, CRM updates etc. I am
concerned they are having an impact on the rest of my
team. What should I do?
Pietr
Central Europe
A: My first response is that this is a common situation within
an SE organization, and not to take it personally. Just to lay
out the situation in more detail based upon a follow-up email
you sent me, you have two employees who are very good at
the customer facing aspects of their job and they know it.
These two individuals have a sense of entitlement as they feel
they are indispensable to the new organization and do not
respect the chain of command, nor do you have any real
leverage to force them to handle the basic tasks of the SE job.
The other SE’s in your organization have noticed that these
two are very negative, cynical and are being allowed to shirk
their responsibilities, which is being tolerated by management
(including you). So this is not a routine case of employee
misbehavior, this is repeated insubordination.
However, as a manager you have a great opportunity to reset
expectations because of the acquisition and start afresh. Step
1 is to separately sit down with these two folks and clearly
explain the roles and responsibilities of the SE job and provide
them with a documented job description. You should also ask
them to lighten up on their criticism of the company, and
explain the negative impact their behavior is having upon the
rest of the team. This conversation may not make a great deal
of difference, but it will remove any misunderstandings – real
or perceived. I would strongly suggest that you keep and
document any notes made during the conversations. You may
also receive some frank feedback about their current
situation, discover some unknown facts to put everything into
a different light or even uncover some burnout. Based upon
your feelings about the outcome of the meeting, you may want
to speak to your Human Resources advisor too.
Plan “A” is then to monitor their progress and mentor/guide
these individuals when they step out of line and reinforce their
behavior when. You should be positive, but firm and leave no
room for misunderstanding. Your parallel step is to come up
with a “Plan B”, which is planning for life without one or both of
these SE’s. This may involve placing them on a rotational
assignment or a direct transfer to another division such as
consulting, engineering or product management. Beware of
sending your problems onto another manager, so you need to
be upfront with everyone. Even if you do believe these SE’s
are indispensable you need to determine if the productivity
loss on the rest of your team is really worth it. In my
experience, if people do not shape up over the following 4-6
weeks they are usually a lost cause, as by that time their
impact on the rest of the SE team is overpowering as they
drag everyone else down with them.
I have seen other techniques used in such situations. In one
case a high-maintenance employee was assigned a respected
mentor from the sales organization to counsel him about his
behavior. In another case, several of the senior SE’s on the
team directly approached the prima donna to request she
change her behavior.
The one consistent theme is that you cannot ignore such
behavior and need to take action. Such action can be direct
or indirect, but it needs to happen so that the prima donna
needs to change their behavior or move on to another
position inside or outside the company.
an SE organization, and not to take it personally. Just to lay
out the situation in more detail based upon a follow-up email
you sent me, you have two employees who are very good at
the customer facing aspects of their job and they know it.
These two individuals have a sense of entitlement as they feel
they are indispensable to the new organization and do not
respect the chain of command, nor do you have any real
leverage to force them to handle the basic tasks of the SE job.
The other SE’s in your organization have noticed that these
two are very negative, cynical and are being allowed to shirk
their responsibilities, which is being tolerated by management
(including you). So this is not a routine case of employee
misbehavior, this is repeated insubordination.
However, as a manager you have a great opportunity to reset
expectations because of the acquisition and start afresh. Step
1 is to separately sit down with these two folks and clearly
explain the roles and responsibilities of the SE job and provide
them with a documented job description. You should also ask
them to lighten up on their criticism of the company, and
explain the negative impact their behavior is having upon the
rest of the team. This conversation may not make a great deal
of difference, but it will remove any misunderstandings – real
or perceived. I would strongly suggest that you keep and
document any notes made during the conversations. You may
also receive some frank feedback about their current
situation, discover some unknown facts to put everything into
a different light or even uncover some burnout. Based upon
your feelings about the outcome of the meeting, you may want
to speak to your Human Resources advisor too.
Plan “A” is then to monitor their progress and mentor/guide
these individuals when they step out of line and reinforce their
behavior when. You should be positive, but firm and leave no
room for misunderstanding. Your parallel step is to come up
with a “Plan B”, which is planning for life without one or both of
these SE’s. This may involve placing them on a rotational
assignment or a direct transfer to another division such as
consulting, engineering or product management. Beware of
sending your problems onto another manager, so you need to
be upfront with everyone. Even if you do believe these SE’s
are indispensable you need to determine if the productivity
loss on the rest of your team is really worth it. In my
experience, if people do not shape up over the following 4-6
weeks they are usually a lost cause, as by that time their
impact on the rest of the SE team is overpowering as they
drag everyone else down with them.
I have seen other techniques used in such situations. In one
case a high-maintenance employee was assigned a respected
mentor from the sales organization to counsel him about his
behavior. In another case, several of the senior SE’s on the
team directly approached the prima donna to request she
change her behavior.
The one consistent theme is that you cannot ignore such
behavior and need to take action. Such action can be direct
or indirect, but it needs to happen so that the prima donna
needs to change their behavior or move on to another
position inside or outside the company.
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