Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

andiroberts.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 69 posts

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#21

Post by Ensorceled »

electric_muse wrote: post #8

[flagged]

This is the hardest part of dealing with a chronic complainer: they think they are the only one "noticing a fire" and "getting sidelined" for raising flags.

Often there isn't actually a fire, they're complaining about trivialities. Everybody already knows about the fire because they've complaining about at every meeting for three months. Or the thing they are complaining about can't be changed. They're actually getting sidelined because they interrupt company allhands to ask the CEO irrelevant questions, wasting the time of 50 people and no one likes them anymore.

I view dealing with chronic complainers as mentoring them to stop self-sabotaging themselves.

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#22

Post by palata »

iambateman wrote: post #13
electric_muse wrote: post #8

[flagged]

This is true in some cases…but there are other people who just complain because they want attention. Good managers listen and try to understand the difference between a person complaining because they’re closer to the problem and a person complaining because they are the problem.

> there are other people who just complain because they want attention.

I would say that people who complain generally do it because they are not happy. Nobody purposely do it as a way to get attention. Nobody says "I will make sure to bother everybody so that they hate me, because I love it".

Doesn't mean they are not the problem: sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. So I join you on:

> Good managers listen and try to understand the difference between a person complaining because they’re closer to the problem and a person complaining because they are the problem.

I have seen people complain because they somehow hated their coworkers (they had a very different view of what "good code" meant). A good manager would look for a solution, like moving them in different teams. A bad manager doesn't act (it's useless to listen if you don't act on it).

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#23

Post by happytoexplain »

>The project plan is flawed. The deadlines are unrealistic. Leadership is out of touch.

Fascinating examples. I have never in my professional career heard anybody refer to these as "complaining". "Complaints", yes, but in English that has does not have the same connotation.

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#24

Post by palata »

Ensorceled wrote: post #21
electric_muse wrote: post #8

[flagged]

This is the hardest part of dealing with a chronic complainer: they think they are the only one "noticing a fire" and "getting sidelined" for raising flags. Often there isn't actually a fire, they're complaining about trivialities. Everybody already knows about the fire because they've complaining about at every meeting for three months. Or the thing they are complaining about can't be changed. They're actually getti…

Sometimes I find that there is a question of preferences. Take 3 architects, they will come up with 3 different architectures. There is "style" in architecture. Some people will complain because the chosen architecture is not their preferred one, and they see everything that is not their preferred choice as "bad".

I feel like establishing a hierarchy may make sense here: "This person is the architect, you are not. You may disagree and make technical arguments to them, but at the end of the day, they take the decision and you have to follow it". Of course it means that the architect has to actually listen to the technical arguments, and not go "I'm the architect, I'm better, just shut up".

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#25

Post by siva7 »

electric_muse wrote: post #8

[flagged]

Spoken like from someone who never managed teams. There may be valid complaints but there may be also just difficult characters.

To answer the original question: It's a bit like in romantic relationships. Trying to change personalities of others is a tough game (usually not worth it).

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#26

Post by palata »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #16
electric_muse wrote: post #8

[flagged]

I'm not a manager and have no aspirations at all to be one, but I have worked with plenty of "complainers". Usually what complainers complain about has nothing to do with why they are unhappy. Way too often frustration with people is pointed at circumstance rather than trying to productively sort out the conflicts between the individuals. And here is where management usually fails. A person complains about unrealisti…

> so management jumps into action and invent over elaborate processes around securing deadlines and quality, rather than splitting up the dysfunctional team that can't / refuses to cooperate

Yes, I've seen this!

Then they fire the dysfunctional team, but the problem was the incompetent management.

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#27

Post by alphazard »

Most of the time, complainers are a exhibiting a personality trait (or learned behavior as the article says); let's call those "unserious complainers". Some of the time (maybe 10% IME), the person complaining knows how to fix a problem, and is confused why no one is taking them or their suggestion seriously. It could be that the problem has existed for so long that the team has a cognitive blindness, or the team is swamped and has no capacity to think strategically.

A good way to partition the complainers into serious and unserious groups is to ask for a written plan. Unserious complainers backoff quickly, while serious complainers will be glad someone is taking their suggestion seriously.

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#28

Post by mnhnthrow34 »

giantg2 wrote: post #4

Depends on what they are complaining about and how they are doing it. In general, I would ask them how they would fix the problems they're complaining about. The first two steps to fixing any problem are to identify any analyze it. This might be their (unideal) way of doing that.

I think some of the most important problems get hidden if there is a culture where you expected to also want a specific solution before you complain. People avoid reporting difficult, complex problems without obvious solutions. Maybe they just see somethings as "the way things are" at that org or that leadership doesn't want to hear their needs.

Better to have a free, easy ability to complain about things, and if there is a good manager hanging around somewhere, they can synthesize the complaints and discover if there are solutions possible at the org level, which individual contributors might not know about or even be functionally able to own.

Re: How can I deal with a team member who is always complaining?

#29

Post by jacquesm »

alphazard wrote: post #27

Most of the time, complainers are a exhibiting a personality trait (or learned behavior as the article says); let's call those "unserious complainers". Some of the time (maybe 10% IME), the person complaining knows how to fix a problem, and is confused why no one is taking them or their suggestion seriously. It could be that the problem has existed for so long that the team has a cognitive blindness, or the team is s…

That's a great call but it should be paired with a promise: you present your great plan and then we'll put it to a vote. Otherwise you are just trying to get rid of them with busywork.
Post reply on HN