Tell me how to deal with bad apples on your team

Superstars among employees attract the boss's attention, but the black sheep may get even more attention.

More and more research shows that no matter how good the other employees are in a team, as long as there are a few annoying, lazy or incompetent people, they can destroy the team and even the performance of the entire company.

These "bad apples" are frustrating and holding everyone back, and their destructive behaviors—such as anger, laziness, and incompetence—are quite contagious. Leaders who bring in bad apples in exchange for governance benefits, or who let rude or incompetent employees run their course, are actually setting the stage for the failure of even their most capable employees.

It is critical for leaders to weed out the bad apples before hiring. If these people are lucky enough to pass the screening, the boss must find ways to change them or (if necessary) fire them.

It’s easy to understand why bosses are committed to attracting and developing superstars. Mountains of research show that stars and talented employees can do amazing things for companies. And it’s clear that focusing on the highest-performing, motivated employees will make bosses feel happier.

But some research on issues ranging from romantic relationships to office interactions shows that negative interactions in relationships can build up more energy than positive interactions. The reason is simple, as psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues concluded: "Bad is more powerful than good." The negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors these bad apples generate among coworkers are much greater and last much longer than the positive reactions among coworkers who are proactive employees.

Look at Will Felps, Terence R. Mitchell and Eliza Byington. Research on the relationship between bad apples and team effectiveness. They looked at the impact bad apples had on the entire team. These bad apples include shirkers (people who are unwilling to put in the effort), losers (who display feelings of pessimism, anxiety, insecurity, and irritation), and nerdy people (people who violate interpersonal norms). An experiment by Phelps found that as long as there is a lazy or annoying person in a team, the team's performance will drop by 30% to 40%.

Usual screening methods are often insufficient to determine whether a candidate is a bad apple. Job candidates may have attended the best schools, or appear charming and talented in every interview, hiding their laziness, incompetence, or disgusting qualities.

So one of the best ways to screen your employees is to see them actually working under real-world conditions. Akshay Kothari and Ankit Gupta favor this approach. Their company, Pulse, is based in Palo Alto, California, and develops news-reading apps for mobile devices. When Pulse hires new employees, they consider reviews from colleagues and supervisors who have worked with the candidate and conduct multiple rounds of interviews. But they say the most effective way is to have candidates come to the company for a day or two and let them complete some short-term work (these are paid jobs, and the company will pay them).

Kothari and Gupta say they not only learn a lot about the candidates' professional skills, but they also learn about their personalities - how do they deal with setbacks? Do they know when to ask for help and when to help others? Are the candidates the type of people that company employees are willing to do things for? They said that there have been some candidates who looked very good based on their resumes, and they also They were highly recommended by past colleagues and supervisors, but ultimately failed to get the job—the reason was that weaknesses in their professional skills and interpersonal relationships were exposed during the selection process.

Look at Robert W. Baird & Co. The financial services company has a reputation as a great employer.

The company is serious about building a culture that excludes disrespectful and selfish behavior at work. They call it the "Don't Be an Asshole Rule" (although actually, they use a fancier word than "asshole").

The company's CEO, Paul Purcell, said the company will start sending messages during the hiring process. "During interviews, I look candidates in the eye and tell them, 'If I find out you're an asshole, I'm going to fire you,'" he says. "Most candidates don't get upset by this, but from time to time they still get it. Some people turned pale after hearing this, and we never saw them again. They found some excuse to withdraw from the selection process.” When there is a bad apple who always puts his or her own interests ahead of others, Baird will quickly deal with or terminate the employee.

Biographer Thomas McNamee describes how Waters' care for people and food rubbed off on those around her. While many bad apples have been kicked out over the years, Waters hasn't always left the door open. The process of firing an employee usually begins with one of Waters' colleagues gently conveying the message that Waters is now "not very happy." If the hint didn't work, Waters' coworker or someone else close to Waters would fire the employee.

A spokesperson for Panisse House said that Waters did sometimes fire employees herself, and "she made those employees feel as if they were making the decision to leave. It seems like it would be better for them to continue looking for new job opportunities." The spokesperson also said that a large proportion of the restaurant's current employees have served the restaurant for decades.

Isolation Of course, there are always times when a company can't (or won't) fire a disruptive employee. For example, maybe this employee is a black sheep but is also a star, or maybe this person is important to the running of the company in other ways. In such situations, leaders may try to limit the behavior of “toxic” employees through discipline, warnings, and incentives. Another strategy is to physically separate bad apples from other employees.

In one company, there was an engineer who was very skilled but annoying. Unable to bring himself to fire him, the company's leaders rented him a nice office just for his own use a few blocks from the building where the entire staff was housed. His colleagues are happy, and so is he—because he likes to keep to himself.

A word of warning, though: Leaders who believe that certain disruptive superstars are “too important” to the company to fire them often underestimate the damage these individuals can cause. The case of a clothing retail store cited by Stanford University researchers Charles O’Reilly and Jeffrey Pfeffer is instructive. The company fired a top-performing salesperson who was also a bad apple. After he left, although none of his former colleagues could match his personal sales performance, the store's total sales surged by nearly 30%. The lesson, two researchers say, is this: "One person drags everyone down, and once he's gone, everyone else can do their best."