What do you do with those staff that take up the majority of your time? Maybe they’re the people who produce significant business for you, or perhaps they preoccupy you and their co-workers with their demanding, troublesome or toxic behaviours.
Retaining talent is an important aspect of business, but perhaps you should be asking yourself the question, “At what cost”? The 80:20 Pareto Principle is often mentioned when explaining the extraordinary performance of some staff, however this should not be at any cost and certainly not to the detriment of co-workers’ performance. A positive performance from one, giving a negative return in others should be looked at more carefully.
Troublesome staff can often be very evident in an organisation, however insiduous behaviour such as with passive-aggression or demanding personalities who quietly sabotage theirs and other people’s work should also be watched out for.
Toxiuc Behaviour
Rayner & Keashley (2005) studied toxic behaviour in the workplace and found that 25% of people were the targets of this behaviour and 20% of people who witnessed it, left their jobs. They have even worked out that the costs of replacing lost people and excluding lost productivity, for an organisation of one thousand people, to be one million pounds.
The toxic people in an organisation are often well known. They’re often called firebrands, mavericks or rough-diamonds, as organisations struggle to explain the conflict between the sales or performance that they bring and the behaviours that they show. Many companies still fail to link performance targets to behaviour, especially in appraisal systems and such behaviours persist as often it is only past performance that is reviewed rather than looking at improving behaviours against established competencies.
Often long-term performance is sacrificed for short-term business objectives and invariably this kills talent and performance, as people do not see the need to change their behaviours for long-term success.
Maverick Behaviour
Short-termism often appeals to ‘maverick-type’ executives, whose behaviour can have a very negative and demoralising effect on those staff who work for them and those in close contact with them. Often these people are seen as untouchable by the organisation, protected by management and their child-like behaviours indulged. But have you ever considered the effects, both financial and psychological, on the people who surround them?
Some studies have calculated the effects of having ‘Toxic Talent’ in an organisation and compared the revenue generated by these people compared with the ‘negative revenue’ created by their effect on the performance of others.
Companies should always look at the total Cost of Perfomance of some of their ‘super-performers’, the effects on co-workers and other staff and whether the behaviours they demonstrate, actually match the competencies of that job. It really shouldn’t be ‘performance at any cost’.
Self-Esteem
Working with such people in a coaching role, the dynamic that seems to emerge time and time again is that these individuals have low self-esteem, which at first glance would seem to fly in the face of logic. These individuals, who seem to be brimming with self-confidence and with a string of achievements behind them, usually have great feelings of inadequacy and they use this at every opportunity to bear down on their colleagues and subordinates.
No matter how old we are or how long we’ve had our behaviours, we are all capable of changing them. When faced with troublesome or toxic staff in organisations and when deciding what to do next, the important question to ask is “Do they want to change their behaviours”, once they become aware of the negative effect that this is having on the organisation? In my experience, a very high percentage of these people do want to change; some are not even consciously aware of their behaviours on other people and many admit to the anxiety that their behaviours create in themselves.
Coaching Troublesome Types
Often it’s a relief to get constructive support and help from a coach trained in these sort of unresourceful behaviours and often the results are equally life-changing. Amongst other things, coaching can help people to develop boundaries which are frequently missing in their relationships with their colleagues and missing from the business.
Toxic staff and management cost an organisation money and often the collateral damage, both financially and psychologically is significant. Systems need to be in place to not only deal with people when this happens, but also to prevent it happening in the future such as with ‘Competencies & Behaviours’ appraisals and 360 Degree feedback. No matter how deep the damage, how entrenched the behaviour, new and more perfomant behaviours can be effectively learned.
The skill is in being aware, being brave and being willing to challenge behaviours. But all of this can be prevented by building sytems to pick these behaviours up at a much earlier stage.
Cognitions Business Coaching. The Power of Partnership