As a Provost you have a number of people that report to you.  You will most likely have the most contact with Deans and your staff including Assistant and Associate Provosts as well as administrative assistants. You will also have some contact with faculty members who may come to you with a problem with which you can help.   It is important that you find out if the faculty member has discussed the matter with her or his chair before coming to you.  If not, you would be wise to have her or him do that before you speak to them.  

In your dealings with these people, you will often have a small number of those who report to you who continually complain about their situation.  They will often express dissatisfaction with a wide variety of issues, some of which are not in your control.  In many cases you have no basis for dismissing them either because they are good at their job, and they may make important contributions or because they have job security in the form of tenure.  

It is likely that others will also find these individuals to be difficult to deal with and you will likely get complaints about these individuals. This will give you some assurance that your assessment that this individual is difficult is accurate. 

The first thing to do is to monitor yourself when you interact with these individuals.  

When people interact, they often react to the other person’s communications.  It is important that you try to be as neutral as possible when interacting with difficult individuals. If you react negatively to their complaints, you will reinforce their complaining and give them justification for their reactions.

There is a tendency to try to appease these individuals by giving them additional resources and/or special privileges.  The hope is that giving them additional things will decrease their tendency to make problems for you.  If you take this approach, you will come to the conclusion that doing so doesn’t work for long.  It is likely that the positive effect of giving these individuals additional resources and/or privileges will give you only temporary relief from their complaining and expressing their continual dissatisfaction.  It is better to deal with these individuals by realistically evaluating what they do and only responding to any substantive aspects of their complaining and dissatisfaction.  It is best to not pay too much attention to them, because your attention will only reinforce their complaining because it is likely that they simply want attention and reassurance that their complaints are valid.  

It is also important to recognize that giving a faculty member or staff member additional resources and/or privileges is unfair to those who do not complain.  It is likely that giving these individuals additional resources and/or privileges will be recognized by other faculty or staff members and will create a morale problem by sending a message that the best way to get what you want is to complain.

It is important that you make careful notes when meeting with these individuals and keep records in case you need them if the individual makes a formal complaint about you.  If the meeting involves complaints about you, it is also a good idea to have another person present who may take notes of the meeting.  This is especially important if the individual is of the opposite sex. 

It is important to remember that those who constantly complain probably do so in all of their relationships.  Also, remember that no matter what you do, it will not stop the complaints treating this person the same way you treat all other faculty and staff members is the best strategy.  There is a saying, “You can’t feed the alligators to prevent them from eating you.  You will either run out of food or they will eat you anyway.”

Written by

Louis Primavera, Ph.D., Associate Provost for Special Projects, Touro University