Many years ago, I inherited a team of developers and network specialists. With confused reporting lines, conflicting priorities, muddled production and development targets, the team had ended up being seen as a hopeless pit of binary wasters.

The staff were fundamentally decent and caring – apart from one obviously alcoholic manager who tried to hit me one day. They cared about what they did, but felt that the rest of the company had it in for them.

They worked in an environment that was cramped, messy and depressing. It was clear from the broken desks, chairs, cables and run-down ceilings that IT had to suffer for its penance.

I talked to all the team and especially the more visionary team leaders. They were full of ideas on how to improve their productivity and how they wanted to improve the software and infrastructure.

The problem was nobody had asked them before.

Many were classic geeky oddballs – two were brilliant and disruptive and fought almost physically with one another – the simple answer would have been to sack them.

However, they were working on an important project – together. I placed them in separate areas of the building and they got on like best friends, using instant messenger and meeting only when I could referee.

Result: one great postscript and pagination project that is still in use today, 12 years later.

The IT team had to know that I believed in them and was a leader who would perish with them – our success was welded together – and it worked. We even received a call from Microsoft and duly trotted to Redmond for bagels and a chat – we thought they would invest, they thought we had re-written Microsoft SQL 2.5.

Traditionally, when times are bad, as managers and in life we revert to parent-child-type dialogues, such as: ‘Your behaviour is unacceptable, your homework is poor and you will fail your exams.’ This does not even work with my kids, never mind with adults.

So, do not beat up your employees. Your team are adults. Listen to their issues, let them understand your goals and keep reminding them they are professionals. Then they will live up to that name and not the derogatory ones they are used to.

Paul Broome is referring to a previous engagement at an unnamed company. He is now chief technology officer at 192.com.