咨询公司Creative Energy Options的营销总监帕蒂•肖尔搬家需要花一个月的时间，所以，她申请将宠物狗带到公司位于宾夕法尼亚州怀特港的办公室。公司总裁西尔维娅•拉斐尔回忆说，当时，大家都非常热心。但没过多久，就有一名员工开始抱怨，称那只名为雷的混血柯利牧羊犬总是在她办公室门口转悠，让她不得安宁。

    肖尔试着把雷限制在办公室的另外一边，但它却总是缠着那名员工。拉斐尔说：“后来，有两名员工告诉我：‘她抽屉里有宠物饼干，而且总是趁人不注意的时候，用饼干喂狗。’这可真够阴险的。”

    针对她的消极对抗行为，拉斐尔与她当面对质，但得到的回答却让她瞠目结舌：她说她只不过是同情这只狗。之后，这名员工又做了些不够光明磊落的事，另外也是由于绩效问题，拉斐尔最终不得不把这名问题员工辞退。

    她说：“消极对抗型的人当面同意你的观点，却可能在背后给你一刀。有时候，这样的员工确实让人无计可施……只能请他们走人。”

    消极对抗的员工对于上司和同事而言都是最严峻的挑战。他们的行为难以识别，要想改变更是难上加难。但如果不解决问题，消极对抗的行为可能会蔓延开来，在公司内形成一种阳奉阴违、沉默对抗的氛围。

    乔治•布莱特是一名顾问，并著有《新官上任百日行动计划》（The New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan）一书。他说：“消极对抗就像癌症一样，非常隐蔽。如果你对它视而不见，那就意味着默许，之后就会传染到其他人。处方很简单，在它发作之前就把它消除掉。

发现症状

    开会迟到，还坐在后排跟同事窃窃私语，这都是典型的消极对抗行为。其中更典型的是，某位员工错过了一件大事，结果却声称那是因为自己有更重要的事情要办，比如要去见客户等等。

    布莱特认为：“他们的意思其实是说：‘我确实跟你和团队承诺过的一些事情，但我并没有真地打算去做，因为还有比你们更重要的人。’”

    During a month-long household move, Patty Shore, director of marketing at Creative Energy Options, asked to bring her dog to the consulting firm's White Haven, Pa. offices. Everyone at the company expressed enthusiasm, president Sylvia Lafair recalls, but before long, one employee began complaining that the dog, a mixed-breed collie named Mr. Ray, hovered outside her office and wouldn't leave her alone.

    Shore tried to restrict Mr. Ray to the other end of the office, but couldn't keep the pup away from the complainer. "Finally, two people came to me and said, 'She has dog biscuits in the drawer of her desk and feeds the dog when nobody is looking,'" says Lafair. "It was very devious."

    Lafair confronted the employee about her passive aggressive behavior and received a wide-eyed response: she just felt sorry for the dog. After a few more incidents of underhanded behavior and performance issues, Lafair had to fire the problem employee.

    "Passive aggressive people will say yes to your face and stab you in the back," she says. "Sometimes you can't help.... They need to be asked to leave."

    Passive-aggressive employees present one of the toughest workplace challenges to both managers and coworkers. The behavior can be difficult to identify, and even tougher to change. Left unaddressed, passive-aggressive actions can spread to other employees and create a culture of heel dragging and mute rebellion.

    "The passive aggressive stuff is like a cancer. It's insidious and if you walk by it, you're saying it's acceptable and it will spread to others," says George Bradt, a consultant and author of The New Leader's 100 Day Action Plan. "The prescription is, head it off at the pass."

Spotting the symptoms

    An employee who shows up late to meetings, sits in the back of the room, and mutters to colleagues is displaying some of the classic signs of passive aggressive behavior. Most telling is when a person misses an important milestone and claims that he was attending to something more important, such as meeting with clients.

    "They're saying, 'What I committed to you, to the team to do, I really didn't mean I was going to do it, because you are less important than someone else,'" Bradt says.

    有时候，这种行为很难被发现，因为它们非常消极，并且隐藏在表面之下。领导力咨询公司戴尔•卡耐基公司（Dale Carnegie & Associates）的董事长兼首席执行官彼得•韩铎建议：“找出是什么在干扰员工。如果整个团队出现了问题，是什么原因？有时候可能就是那些表面惟命是从，但实际却无所作为的员工。”

    或许，老板应该采取“越级会谈”的形式，也就是说，老板直接与问题员工的下属会谈。这种方法使布莱特想起了另外一种情况：他的直接下属当着他的面非常赞同某些工作目标，但之后又会给手下的人优先安排其他任务。他回忆道：“我发现，他阻断了我与他的团队之间的沟通。”

如何根治？

    如果有人有足够的勇气，尝试改造消极对抗的员工，那么，弄清楚造成这种情况的原因非常重要。特里•R•培根表示：“消极对抗的人其实是要试图实现一个目的：要么是在他掌控的局面中获得控制权，要么是为了避免冲突。”特里•R•培根是光辉学院（Korn/Ferry Institute）的驻校学者，其著作包括《权力的要素》（The Elements of Power）与《影响力的要素》（Elements of Influence） 等。

    首先要用温和的方式把冲突或争议公开化。培根建议，如果老板听到员工在背后对自己的点子嗤之以鼻，可以这样说：“当时在会上提出来的时候，我认为这是一个很棒的点子，不过我想知道有没有更好的替代方案。你们对此有什么想法？”

    培根表示：“把问题抛给他们，他们就会明说自己到底为何存在异议。如果依然遇到反抗和拒绝，老板可以说：‘我知道，虽然你当时支持这个想法，但我感觉你还是认为有些不妥。我非常想知道你们真实的想法。’”

    如果老板能让对方意识到出问题了，那代表老板已经成功了一半。接下来，给他们一定的控制权，把他们转变成自己的盟友。培根建议：“不到万不得已，不要发生正面冲突。”

    布莱特建议，要从各个方面给问题员工全力的支持，但与此同时，要观察他们的态度是否发生了转变。如果问题员工在六到八个星期内，依然没有改邪归正，可能只能放弃他了。

    如果有员工在项目中出工不出力，可以在他的团队里安排一名专门负责监督的员工，并且把他们的承诺公布于众。例如，如果有消极对抗的员工允诺会在某个日期之前提供数据，那就在需要这些数据的人面前跟这个员工确认他的承诺。

    培根表示：“像这样，公开与他达成协议，他就很难再有借口逃避。”

    Sometimes, you can't spot the behavior because it's so passive and under the surface. "Look for a disturbance in the force," advises Peter Handal, chairman and chief executive of leadership consulting firm Dale Carnegie & Associates. "If this team isn't working right, what's the problem? Sometimes it might be somebody who, on the surface, looks very agreeable but underneath isn't being productive."

    You may need to resort to "skip-level meetings," in which you meet directly with the problem employee's subordinates. This technique alerted Bradt to one situation in which his direct report was agreeing to certain work goals to his face but then telling his staff to work on different priorities. "I found out he was blocking all my communication to his team," he recalls.

Potential treatments

    For the brave souls who try to rehabilitate a passive-aggressive employee, it's important to understand what is driving the behavior. "People who are behaving passive aggressively are trying to do one of two things: Gain control in a situation where they don't have it, or avoid conflict," says Terry R. Bacon, a scholar in residence at the Korn/Ferry Institute and author of The Elements of Power and Elements of Influence.

    The first step is to try to bring the conflict or dispute out into the open, gently. If you hear that someone is pooh-poohing your ideas behind your back, say something like, "When I presented that idea in the meeting, I thought it was a pretty good idea at the time, but I wonder if there would be some alternatives that would be better. What do you think?" Bacon suggests.

    "Try to get them to problem solve so they will tell you what it is they are objecting to," Bacon says. If you still encounter resistance and denial, you could say, "I know you said you supported it, but I got the sense that you were uncomfortable about it in some way. I really would like to understand how you really feel."

    If you can get the other person to acknowledge that there is an issue, you'll have already won half the battle. Next, turn them into an ally for your cause by giving them some measure of control. "Use confrontation as a last resort," Bacon advises.

    Bradt recommends that you give problem employees your full support in every way, but then watch to see whether their attitude turns around. If the individual doesn't declare a change of heart within six to eight weeks, he's probably a lost cause.

    If you have someone who's dragging their feet on projects, add a chaperone to the mix and make public whatever promises they give to get work done. For instance, if a passive aggressive worker promises to get you data by a specific date, confirm that commitment with the employee in front of someone who needs that data.

    "When you make the agreement public like that, it's harder for the person to duck it," Bacon says.

    如果初步的努力未能阻止员工的消极对抗行为，老板可以在他们未能实现目标的时候施加影响。如果有人开会迟到，不要特地为他们回述会议要点，这既能鼓励及时出席的员工，又惩罚了那些拖拖拉拉的人。如果员工总是找各种借口为自己错过了最终期限开脱，老板可以说：“你的工作负担可能太重了。”然后把他的业务分配给其他的员工。这种反制措施看起来也有点类似消极对抗，但有时候，以毒攻毒也是不得已而为之。

该放弃时就放弃

    最后，你或许不得不承认，自己已经尽了全力，只能把问题员工转到其他部门，或者把他解雇。

    Voice.com是位于安大略省伦敦市的一个配音人才交流平台。公司总裁兼CEO戴维•茨卡瑞利表示，公司全体20名员工每天都必须参加长约15分钟的“碰头会”。后来，有一个部门的主管开始迟到早退，或者干脆缺席，茨卡瑞利意识到肯定出问题了。

    他说：“碰头会的目的是发现公司的问题。如果有人总是缺席，不想在公司其他同事面前露面，我就知道肯定有更深层的问题。”

    而且，曾有些客户遇到麻烦，或对Voice.com提出投诉，此人却恶语相向。茨卡瑞利找他谈了话，希望他能改变态度，没想到却适得其反，最后，他只得把他辞退。

    他说：“所有人都知道最后会是这样的收场。因为他的所作所为早已让大家厌烦。”

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    If these first efforts fail to stop the passive aggressive behavior, you can try to impose consequences when they don't meet their goals. Refuse to recap meetings for someone who arrives late, which both encourages those who showed up on time and penalizes those who dawdled. And if someone makes excuses for missing a deadline, consider saying, "you must have too much on your plate," and look to others to take on additional assignments. If this seems like a passive aggressive response, well, you may have to fight fire with fire.

When it's time to throw in the towel

    Ultimately, you may have to acknowledge that you've done all you can do and either transfer that person to another department or fire them.

    At Voices.com, a marketplace for voiceover talent based in London, Ontario, all 20 staff members attend a mandatory daily "huddle" that lasts 15 minutes, says David Ciccarelli, the company's president and CEO. When one department head started to show up late, leave early, or just skip the meeting altogether, Ciccarelli knew there was a problem.

    "It's my health check," he says of the huddle. "If someone's withdrawing constantly from that, I know there's a deeper issue because they don't want to be seen by other people in the company."

    This particular employee also made disparaging remarks about Voices.com customers who had problems or complaints. Ciccarelli met with the person and asked for an attitude improvement, but the problem only grew worse and he had to fire the employee.

    "Everybody saw it coming," he says. "It was starting to wear on other people."