Bad Apples: How to Manage Difficult Employees, Encourage Good Ones to Stay, and Boost Productivity

Unlike other career books, this book offers managers a team-focused approach to neutralizing a not-so-pleasant--or productive--working atmosphere. Instead of isolating the one problem employee, relevant teams are considered as part of the solution. The result? Solutions stick and there’s less likelihood of the bad apple ruining the bunch.

Complete with situational advice and case studies taken straight from the trenches, this simple and straightforward guide teaches managers how to:

• Calm down combatants
• Motivate wasters
• Silence gossips
• De-arm backstabbers
• Convince passive-aggressives to open up
• Teach narcissists the importance of the team

This book helps managers decide what the right course of action is--whether it means chastising negative behavior, encouraging positive outlooks, separating certain folks, creating teams for success, giving employees warnings, and/or firing the ones who are pretty much rotten through and through. This book is essential reading for any manager looking to ensure a pleasant, productive--and fruitful--work environment.

Terrence Sember (Clarence, NY) is Vice President of Internet and Technology Services for Chakra Communications (www.ChakraCentral.com). He is coauthor of The Essential Supervisor’s Handbook. He is a member of InfoTech Niagara and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, made up of 2,500 member businesses with a quarter of a million employees. He is a member of the American Management Association, a worldwide organization with more than 700,000 members.

Brette Sember (Clarence, NY) is a former attorney and author of more than thirty titles, including The Essential Supervisor’s Handbook and Project Management Strategy. Her freelance work has appeared in more than 150 publications, including Home Business Journal and the New York Law Journal, as well as many national women’s, parenting, and pregnancy magazines. Her website is www.BretteSember.com.