When you have a difficult character in the team, you choose to live with it every day. 

Maybe they treat information as power and only bring people inside the loop based on political advantage. Maybe they brief against rather than get on board. Maybe they like to step in when things are going well and step out smartly at the first sign of difficulty. Maybe they say Blue to one audience and Green to another.

Tolerate this kind of behaviour – the effect closes its fingers around every other interaction. Throttling commitment, buy-in, progress.

The new normal: confusion, mistrust, discontent, blame.

Continue to leave it unchecked: good people will start behaving badly too or they’ll make their way out the door.

Or, you can deal with it. Doesn’t matter what their contribution is or who they were in the past. 

Skippy strategy: Deal with who they are.