Protecting Your Team Against Toxic People

Protecting Your Team Against Toxic People

Picture this: You have a new bag of oranges. You go away for a weekend, leaving them on the table. What you didn’t know was that one of those oranges in the bag was moldy. When you return home after a few days, you’ll find that all the oranges that were touching the moldy one are now moldy as well. Having a toxic person in your organization is similar to having a moldy orange you didn’t know about. While a company’s culture can vary depending on the industry and size, what works for one company doesn’t work for another company. It’s important that as business owners and leaders, we are intentional about the culture we allow in our business. When an employee doesn’t fit in with your company’s core values, they can be an unhealthy influence on your other employees and can hurt your business in ways you don’t even realize.

In a work environment, people feed off of others and the energy that is being put out there. When one employee consistently shows that they do not align with your core values, that attitude will rub off on others, creating an inconsistent work environment.

Not removing toxic people from your company will cause 2 things to happen:

1. The good employees who don’t want to be around those with misaligned core values will leave
2. Others will start to see what they can get away with and start following those misaligned core values

Pretty soon, you won’t have anymore employees left who fit your core values. This phenomenon will only get worse if leadership doesn’t take the necessary steps to stop the cycle. Especially if there are employees working against company core values and stop meeting expectations.

Signs of Toxicity Within Your Business

Remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? The characters start to have their internal values appear outward as consequences for their actions. It is easy to tell what their core values are because as the movie goes on, their outward appearance will match their internal values. It also helps that the movie has oompa loompas singing to the audience about the lessons the characters learned. In real life, we unfortunately don’t get oompa loompas telling us the lessons we should be learning, and people don’t usually have their exterior match their interior. So how do you know if someone is a rotten orange in your organization?

Described in this blog posted by Inc., here are eight things that toxic people do, and how to spot them:

1. They gossip and badmouth other coworkers
2. They complain about having to fulfill the responsibilities of their job
3. They request special treatment
4. They boast about their accomplishments, even if it makes others feel uncomfortable
5. They put you or your team on the defensive – your employees may not engage as much because they not want to interact with them
6. They make you work to please them
7. They don’t show interest in your concerns
8. They don’t make you feel good

Even if the toxic person in your company gets their work done adequately and on time (GWC), their misaligned core values will disrupt everyone else. This can cause you to lose one or several people on your team all because of this one person – grinding business to a halt.

As you’ll often hear me say, “Right People, Right Seats” – we have to have both. For the most part, people aren’t bad, they are just different and don’t fit your core values. However, that means that there is a place out there that will fit their core values, we just need to let them go so they can find the right fit for them. This can be difficult, but it opens up a spot for you to find the right fit employee to join your team.

EOS To The Rescue

Having a toxic person in your organization can feel overwhelming, even after they are gone, but I promise there is a way forward! With the Entrepreneurial Operating System and an implementer like myself, which is designed to help you evaluate and pinpoint the exact pain points within your business, you will never wonder what to do in this situation. You will have a clear roadmap on how to work through these issues.

For example, recently, one of my clients experienced a complete leadership team turnover. The only person left at the helm was the owner, which is probably one of the biggest fears that small business owners have – being left to handle everything alone. But, by using EOS tools to hire the right people, within 90 days, there was a whole new leadership team, new culture, and new outlook on where the business was headed. The team went from feeling stressed and overwhelmed to feeling productive, supported, and everyone was able to comfortably take on more work and responsibilities.

One of my 3 Uniques as an EOS implementer is that my true passion and driver is YOU. I want to help you get what you need out of your business, and in my experience, the right thing to do in these situations is to put your effort and focus on your loyal and hard working employees. This happens by creating an environment that has clearly defined core values and hiring employees that align with them – there simply isn’t room for toxic people in a business run by EOS.

Tired of the Bad Vibes?

EOS has helped hundreds of companies reach their goals through hard work and trusting the process. If you are feeling bogged down by a toxic work environment and you can’t figure out how to fix it, contact me today to schedule your free, 90 minute meeting, and see if EOS is right for you.