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Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director
This is a great question since almost everyone has experienced a bossy, controlling, bullying, or generally inconsiderate team member at some point in their career.
Some people simply will not behave -- if that is the case I recommend getting rid of the person any way you can. I once had a project team member who was very controlling and would not change his behavior no matter how many times we discussed the issue. I couldn't fire him from the company, but I could remove him from my project, which I did, even though I could not replace him. The project team, though one person smaller, was much more productive afterwards.
If you are interested in learning more about the impact of bullies, jerks, and generally mean people on organizations, I'd suggest you read The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (pardon the obscenity -- it is a great book, no matter what you think of the title) by Bob Sutton.
Other people aren't that extreme. All of us are rude and inconsiderate from time to time. For these people, I suggest creating a few simple rules and a system of feedback that help people understand how to play well together.
Here are four rules I created for a project team with "strong" personalities:
To enforce these rules, we used a game called Instant Feedback. Every day, I would distribute four poker cards to every team member -- two red cards and two black. Red cards were complimentary, and black cards were for rule breakers. Any time a team member exhibited good behavior, the others would give him or her a red card. When people misbehaved, black cards were shared. At the end of the day, all the cards were returned to me.
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This simple system was fun and encouraged a sort of polite toughness within the team. We began to listen to each other and to behave more appropriately, without holding back our opinions or objections.
This approach emulates the Agile belief that teams should regulate themselves. It isn't the exclusive responsibility of the project manager to promote teamwork -- everyone needs to help if you're going to be successful.
This was first published in March 2008