Bad Apples: How to Manage Difficult Employees, Encourage Good Ones to Stay, and Boost Productivity

Unlike other career books, this book offers managers a team-focused approach to neutralizing a not-so-pleasant—or productive—working atmosphere. Instead of isolating the one problem employee, relevant teams are considered as part of the solution. The result? Solutions stick and there's less likelihood of the bad apple ruining the bunch.

Complete with situational advice and case studies taken straight from the trenches, this simple and straightforward guide teaches managers how to:

• Calm down combatants
• Motivate wasters
• Silence gossips
• De-arm backstabbers
• Convince passive-aggressives to open up
• Teach narcissists the importance of the team

This book helps managers decide what the right course of action is—whether it means chastising negative behavior, encouraging positive outlooks, separating certain folks, creating teams for success, giving employees warnings, and/or firing the ones who are pretty much rotten through and through. This book is essential reading for any manager looking to ensure a pleasant, productive—and fruitful—work environment.

Brette McWhorter Sember, JD, is the author of the children’s book Quiz Book 3: Three Times the Fun. Sember has also taught an online course for Barnes and Noble University called Responsible Credit Card Spending. The mother of two children, Sember is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). A former attorney, she also has had extensive experience working with children in her role as a law guardian in four counties in New York.