One of our Planning and Development Group members, George Walker was always interrupting and never seemed to agree with other members; tried to control members by browbeating them and when he did agree it had to be on his terms. George also had to have final say on anything the group did or presented i.e. documents were never formatted to please him and he even re-did other's work and insisted his way was the correct way. We needed to identify what his problem was and to correct the issue or see if there was any possible way to get along. We were not allowed the time or the luxury to replace George. .
The group secretly met without George one night at Burkhardt's (a local pub) to discuss the issue. We decided not to accept George's behavior and he was not the type that could be ignored or excluded from decisions. As I have previously stated, we cannot expel George from the group. As a result of the meeting, I was appointed the task of dealing with George; it seemed that he had burned too many bridges amongst the other group members and they could no longer interact with George without resorting to shouting or just "shutting down" until the argument was over. After exhausting all other alternatives, Acceptance, Exclusion and Expulsion I was left with one alternative Confrontation. .
I was not too pleased with the group for placing me in the hot seat but we really needed to get past this issue as our deadlines were at risk of not being met due to the dysfunction within our group. I decided to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of confronting George before confronting him, along with how to go about the confrontation.
The disadvantages were as follows, George could:.
a. Go on the defensive.
b. Become angry.
c. Refuse to listen.
d. Complain to management.
e. Attend the next meeting and attack the other group members.
f. Possibly become physically violent. .
The advantages were:.
a. George would tolerate us and make some changes.