My first thought! Asking yourself “what would Dan Savage do” is a pretty good way to go through life’s problems.
…Whoa. As I said before, my company is very laid-back culture-wise, people roll in at noon if they feel like sleeping late (of course, those guys usually stay until midnight), I’m posting on the Dope right now and that’s okay as long as I get my other work done though I may have to stay late at work, but firm policy since day 1 – technical policy as well as management policy – is to have all work reviewed before it goes out the door. Doesn’t matter who does the review, a manager or a tech guy, an experienced guy or a beginning guy (although beginning guys usually get their stuff reviewed by someone more experienced for obvious reasons) but someone has to look at it first. And let me tell you, you can find all kinds of things that way even in people who have been working for twenty years – places where the wrong customer’s name is on the chart, things like that.
Again, I’d say working with your people is key. Identify the people who are the most responsible, the most interested in getting out a good product that they’re proud of. Ask them what would help them do their job better. Suggest things like, “Hey, if we reviewed everything before we sent it out the door, I think that would really help with quality,” and with their input institute a peer-reviewing system (this has the advantage as well that it doesn’t feel to this one guy like you’re singling him out). This doesn’t mean you have to take it lying down if they say, “Ugh, that sounds like a total waste of time, let’s not do it”; you can insist that it be done but still solicit their input about how to make it as streamlined and as easy for them as possible.
(If none of your people fit the description of “responsible and interested in getting out a good product,” then yeah, the culture needs to change. But at least in my company, the laid-back culture actually promotes the hard-working responsibility the rest of the time because we don’t have to waste our time on dress codes and such.)
That’s a manager’s job.
ETA: I intended to put something in but forgot about how, if you find these other responsible tech guys, they will probably themselves have noticed that the guy in the OP can’t follow directions. Ask them for their input, and whether they would be willing to mentor him.
Speaking as someone who works at a very small software company – a lot of people hear stories about our workplace and are shocked or appalled. Clearly we can’t be getting anything done, since we have a pool table and a beer fridge, and because we play movie trailers at meetings sometimes or send around amusing YouTube videos. Does playing Rock Band and pool sometimes at work make us a “nursery school”? No, that’s not true. It’s a very loose culture, but it’s also a culture of very intelligent and productive people by and large, who have chosen the small company atmosphere.
Working for a small company has plenty of downsides in its own right – generally lesser pay, getting reamed on health insurance, fewer opportunities for promotion. On the flip side, working for a small company like mine has good sides – flexibility, a laid back culture, non-authoritarian management, and being able to get involved with lots of aspects of the business.
Does time get wasted? Sure. But I’ve worked for very big, authoritarian companies that tried to keep all employees on a tight leash. Not only do you pay for that sort of management with turnover, especially of bright and talented employees, but people find ways of getting back. I found that people wouldn’t collaborate and would frequently resist any sort of positive change at all, becoming obstructionist and difficult as a way of fighting having to do work. Oh, your plan will save everyone including me a ton of time? Well, I don’t want you getting credit for doing something good, so no. Nothing changes for the better. People do the bare minimum and punch the time clock.
So, all that said, it does sound like you have some performance problems, but at the same time, you’re not feeling like a fit and not sure what to do. That’s understandable, but look at their perspective. They’ve had a comfortable, happy workplace, and now an ‘outsider’ has come in to change all that. If we had a new manager come in with a very formal, Fortune 500-style way of management, who stormed in and started telling people how to change right away without knowing too much about how they’ve done things, you could bet that people would not respond well. You would get plenty of anger, fear and resentment.
If it were me, the first thing I would do is start meeting with the team in a casual manner. Taking people out to lunch, for example, on neutral ground. From there, ask them how they think things are going – don’t try to provide your own impressions. Ask them about the culture. Ask them about their co-workers. Ask them how they feel things are going with clients. Ask what’s going really well, and what should be improved. Be neutral; listen. You might find that it’s not a ‘them’ vs you situation, but that a lot of them might know of problems or issues too. You’re not trying to butter them up, but rather to get a broad impression of what’s actually happening. If someone says everything’s fine, just listen, even if their performance is bad – just wait. You might be surprised and they might confess they feel overburdened. Don’t tell them what to do. Ask them what they think they need, ask them what is wrong, and listen to the answer. If other employees mention a problem with someone, ask them what they think, and don’t editorialize. Just listen.
Also, you might want to take a step back on the judgement aspect. You’re already seeing these employees as childish, juvenile, and ultimately, as beneath you. At the end of the day, though, them playing Magic: the Gathering doesn’t really matter. What matters is their work. You’re not their parent and you’re not out to fix them as human beings, you’re out to get good output. If the games are being played to excess, that’s something to approach, but if that’s all you do – target all the fun stuff to make it stop happening, but not actually look at the output of individuals – you’re going to be the fun-hater tyrant no matter how you slice it.
Put aside the judgement and go out there and listen. Most employees, even the game-playing loose ones, want to do a good job and aren’t just there to take advantage, and making them feel like criminal time-stealers after doing what’s been accepted and encouraged is only going to alienate them. Yes, you want to start getting control, but you need to earn respect of your team as well.
Eventually it’s going to be time for some candid talks. That’s never easy, but it’s much easier coming from someone who knows and understands what is happening in a broad sense than from the new person who marched in with a new rulebook. Review of work, and that sort of thing, should be expected. People can and will respect you if you apply this equally, and give reasons – and those who don’t and run to HR are just problems you’re going to have to deal with.
Another thought. I know everyone hates meetings, and so do I, but every group I’ve ever been in, either academic or corporate, has had periodic meetings where people present what they’re working on and everyone else gives feedback. This has the advantages of a) no one can get too far off track without people noticing, and b) sometimes other people don’t know exactly what you’re working on, and when they find out, they may have good ideas on how to fix problems you’re seeing.
If you can get money in your budget for buying pizza, no one will protest too much. (Both my grad school advisor and my corporate manager used this to bribe the students/tech staff into attending these meetings, with success.)
ETA: fluiddruid has some really good remarks, and you should definitely listen to them.
The mentoring idea is a good one - but you have to know the rest of the staff well enough to find the right mentor.
You can’t ask this, but do you have a sense of how this problem person is perceived by his peers? Given that everyone else gets stuff done, I think there is likely a strong sense in this group that they are good at what they do - so good that they can get all their work done and still have time to play. They may feel this problem person is not up to their standards - if so mentoring might backfire. Does he get invited to play? If there are meetings, how do they treat his comments if any? Average performers can feel demeaned in an environment full of stars.
Depending on this, the reaction of the group to you helping him can range from gratitude at helping out a guy they like to animosity at concentrating your attention on a loser.
BTW, is anyone complaining about the cards or is it just a source of worry? If someone is complaining, or even feels uncomfortable, you should ask them to exclude these cards because it makes someone feel uncomfortable. They probably never considered it. I got someone who worked for me to change server names (taken from people on the Howard Stern show) for this reason, and it worked out fine. If no one has a problem you still might want to do it, but it will be a bit trickier.
I’ll third fluiddruid’s advice. And while I stand my my first crazy-pills comment (that is, you need to knock it off with the contempt for your subordinates), I’ll back away from the second one a bit. You do need to consider how they view you–not necessarily because they’re right, but because they’ll modify their work habits depending on how they view their supervisor.
My thinking: clear, high expectations, and accountability for those expectations. If an employee is expected to have a spreadsheet to you by Friday at 5, check in first to be sure the employee knows what belongs on the spreadsheet, let the employee know to talk with you if there’s any problem getting it done, and then expect it by 5 on Friday, barring some conversation earlier that details problems. If this is an across-the-board expectation/accountability policy, nobody can claim personal animus.
Having been the terrified employee with performance issues, I can tell you what worked for me. What I needed most from my boss, in addition to clear guidelines on what needed to be done and when, was empathy and reassurance. I can’t face anger at all; it just causes me to freak out and shut down (and think that the other person hates me). “I know that you’re capable of doing the work” is very powerful to me. Can you present goals in those terms – “You have the skills, understanding, whatever, to produce this code by 5:00 p.m. on Friday. I’m really confident in your abilities. I know that there are [these challenges] that come with the assignment, but I think you can work through them. Let me know if you run into problems and we’ll resolve them.” In my case, what was preventing me was getting things done was being afraid that I couldn’t do them, or that I would screw them up. Once I was reassured that that wasn’t the case, I was able to tackle the job effectively.
I think to some managers, an employee who isn’t getting the job done looks like a lazy slacker who needs discipline and a good harsh dose of reality. But that isn’t always the case, and it might be worth trying a different approach with this employee.
In re the use of extreme formality in emails, the problem lies in the inability of many people to think before forwarding. “Hey Bob, how was the game?” starts to look silly when it’s amended to a long string of emails that were sent to the president of the company. I write every email as if it will be forwarded to my boss, or even a client, since there is a distinct possibility that it could happen.
I clumsily missed that part. But, like Living Well Is Best Revenge, I find it funny that the pavlovian response to work troubles seem to be “talk to HR”. The one place I worked that did have HR, they weren’t who you talked to about that kind of problem anyway. They did screen unsolicited resumes, but the only reason for most employees (including supervisors) to talk to them would be for questions or problems with benefits.
Exactly. All the HR people I’ve known knew about benefits and HR law. But when actually dealing with management issues, they were clueless.
A hostile work environment (playing games that have work inapproriate content counts) is an hr law issue.
Take him out to lunch a few times, get to know him. Get him comfortable with you and then talk to him about getting work done. If possible, maybe have others help him out. In such a casual culture, it shouldn’t be some taboo to have some help. Maybe he’s being overworked.
Except that in this case it wasn’t that they were clueless. It just wasn’t what they were there for. They were there to deal with paperwork for new hires, benefits, and time clock issues. Management issues were dealt with by department heads, or the COO if it needed to go higher than that.
In stepping into the manager role, have you had discussions with the team about your definition of “success” and walked through your expectations for any work products - e.g., look and feel, level of detail, etc.?
If your team is supposed to produce, I dunno, a “project workplan” - and their definition of “workplan” is materially different from yours - well, that’s a problem.
So, have you checked in with them on your expectations and gotten a sense for how aligned you are?
Have you spelled out your expectations for specific work products?
If you have done both of these, then you can circle back and check in - as a group or with specific individuals - when you see performance that deviates from your expectations.
As for casual dress and behavior - well, those only start to matter if they aren’t showing that they can meet their work objectives consistently.
My initial $.02
The culture is independent of this guys problems. You need to deal with your own problems about the culture. But the HR stance (if it’s as you’ve described) isn’t so hot either. They have to start giving a damn about how well people do their jobs. You may also want to crack the whip on anything that has HR questionable content, it’s great in some cases to have lot’s of freedom, but the few rules there are, are more important to enforce then.
But as to your problem employee, something has to change there. The guy is having problems, and the rest of the crowd is probably playing dominance mind games with you by coming to his side. Don’t let the juvenile nerd stuff fool you, those guys are clever and manipulative in their own way. First thing to do is try to get him into another position, in someone else’s department. If that doesn’t work, change the nature of his assignments, and with the advice and consent of HR (translated: copy them on the emails and ignore anything they say) set up a standard for the employee to follow. If he seems intimidated face to face, switch to email and messaging for communication, but make sure he answers questions, and completes tasks. As far as coaching, it really may not work. Some of his coworkers who are complaining about your gestapo tactics should be doing this. You could assign one or more of them to that task.
Instead of trying to earn the respect of the entire group, a nearly impossible task since most of them probably don’t fully understand the concept, you should be looking for the leaders in the group and forming a relationship with them. First by proving your dominance to them (don’t go overboard here, you really want to find someone who understands the concept of chain of command and direction), and delegating more of the managerial tasks to them. This is the way break through the us vs. you concept they have.
So, you’ve got a soft puppy there. That means you have to teach in an accordingly soft manner. He may actually be the employeee with the best work ethic, who is terrified of what you’ll do when you find out the extent to which they’ve been goofing off. Maybe so much so that he’s never really learned his job.
So teach it to him. Let him know that you consider this a fresh start, but you need him to show initiative in learning and beginning to meet his goals. Do they have Group/personal goals defined? If not that’s your first step. Work with him to find out the proper methods/processes/requirements if you yourself don’t know them yet.
The point is to make it a team effort, with you in the leadership position. Make it clear to all concerned that although this culture is new to you, you have no interest in disrupting anything that works. And “Anything that Works” is defined as the set of variables within which the work gets accomplished in a timely fashion and an acceptable quality level.
Once you are sure that’s what’s occurring, you can start pushing for excellence and efficiencies. But it’s never a good idea to just march in and start changing things before you really have a handle on how it is currently working (or not, and if not, why not.)
If you do find a change is necessary, I would start by defining “Core” work hours during which no goofing should happen. 1:00 to 5:00 is probably best, as tech types are usually not morning people.
And it may help to give “nod” to the nerds. I mean, you hang out here so you can’t be that far removed. 
It’s Star Trek day? wear one of these: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/jewelry/d255/?srp=2 It’s Klingon day? Bring prune juice and offer it to everybody. Nothing big, just a nod and get on with your day.
hth
Is this person actually part of the team? Does the team rely upon his work out-put, and if yes, are they happy with his role? Rely upon the team to make the decision of his value as part of the team. The work environment doesn’t matter.
I was a manager in a manufacturing plant and I would take the new hires on a tour and then then turn them over to the work crew for the rest of their orientation. They would always try to impress me and I would honestly tell them,“these people on the floor are the ones who are going to hire or fire you.” I don’t care, and the Big Boss doesn’t care, until you become a problem that we need to address.
Sure the big boss will actually bring you into the office for the official termination, but the people you work with are the ones who actually fire you.
Leadman from A shift comes in and says, “can you put this doorknob on B crew?” A week later B shfit guy comes in and says the same thing. Third week comes and they are brought into the office and told that there is no C shift.
So the questions to ask are, is his output valued by the team? If yes, he is their problem child. If no, then he goes on to some other opportunity.
People can smell pandering. Coming to work with the statement “I can be a geek just like you” isn’t going to work well.
It sounds to me that they’re not doing anything that they wouldn’t do in mixed company at home. That doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be told to stop, but it can be done within the group without HR being involved. It makes it a “here’s what we have to do” instead of us versus them.
Was Mr. Wetsy Pants the one who complained to HR about you reviewing his work? If it were me, I’d start gathering excuses to get rid of him after a stunt like that.
I mean, I occasionally butt heads with the Alpha Geek on my team over his stubborn resistance to any kind of external QA of his work, eventually resorting to “Because I said so,” but I grit my teeth and bear it, because he’s high performer even when his propeller beanie is spinning at full RPM. He’s the type who needs to feel like the smartest guy in the room at all times, and it’s part of my job as his manger to both keep him happy and prevent him from annoying the ever living shit out of his colleagues.
If your guy isn’t only not meeting expectations, but also flipping out when offered constructive criticism, there’s really nothing you can do. He’s his own enemy at this point. The culture of the office has very little to do with it.
They can also smell contempt. msmith has on these boards before made it pretty clear that he’s a fratboy, not a nerd, and that he thinks of the world in these sorts of terms (if I’m misremembering, I apologize, but I think that’s a fair summary). The OP spends a lot of time mocking them as weird and talking about the place as a nursery school. Seriously, unless he can get over his prejudices, I think he needs to ask to be reassigned to a frathouse office where he’s able to respect his subordinates.