How do you handle it when external parties (family, friends) influence your team members in unproductive ways?

Our reader poll today asks: How do you handle it when external parties (family, friends) influence your team members in unproductive ways?

• I focus on their performance and ignore those external influencers 28.68%
• I offer my concerns that those parties are having unproductive influence 27.97%
• I tell them to stop listening to those parties and explain there will be consequences 4.19%
• I seek to understand those parties’ concerns and alleviate them 39.16%

Understand External Influences. As much as people like to keep work as work and home as home, it’s impossible to keep home from impacting work and vice versa. If you’re dealing with a team member who clearly has personal relationships impacting their work, the vast majority of you seek to understand what’s going on (39%) or go even further and express concerns about the impact those other people are having on the team member’s work (28%). Simply sticking your head in the sand and avoiding the conversation seems imprudent for the 29% of you who ignore those situations. Take some time to understand what’s going on in their lives. Find out who’s impacting them in negative ways and why it’s happening. You might not be able to do anything about those negative influences but you may at least be able to alleviate concerns and minimize their impact on your team members’ performance.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.