"My highest performer is the most toxic"

How we dealt with it

Performance improvement plan here.

In October last year an accountancy company reached out to me - their growth had been lagging, and after experimenting with marketing, sales and recruitment changes - they couldn’t figure out why.

When they reached out, their ultimate goal was to increase revenue.

They’d heard about the high return on investment with leadership training, so took a risk and brought me in to work with the team to figure out why their growth was so stunted.

I got curious, asking the team:

• What is one thing you love about the culture?

• If you could change one thing about the management of this company, what would it be?

• What is something you wish you could change about the culture?

The outcome was so, so interesting…

Regarding culture, they felt as though there was toxicity coming from one member of the team.

Regarding management, it was “I wish they’d deal with this one person”.

It turned out, there was one member of the team who was gossiping, causing high stress and anxiety and making the team generally feel belittled.

But they didn’t ‘dare’ report this person, they didn’t feel they had a leg to stand on because…

They were the highest performer.

They were the person that clients enjoyed working with.

They were bringing in the most sales revenue (The exact thing I’d been brought in to improve).

So we had a problem. The most toxic person in the team was also the highest performer. 

But whilst this 1 person was achieving 100%… His impact on culture meant the other 15 people were only performing at 40%.

So here’s what we did about it…

We needed this person to either change their behaviour (fast) or be removed.

The very first thing I had to do was convince the business owner of the impact he was having on the rest of the team.

The business owner only saw those sales numbers. I knew it would be hard.

But I started getting really specific with my questions to the team, with everything remaining strictly confidential and anonymous.

I found out, because of this team member:

• 4 members of the team said they were scared to speak up in meetings because they felt their opinion wasn’t important

• 6 members of the team clearly mentioned they had stopped trying on sales calls with clients, because they felt embarrassed and as though he would belittle them ‘trying’

• 3 members of the team said they had actually considered leaving as a direct result of this person

• 1 person had faked being ill because they were too anxious to come into the office 

After the business owner was on board, we dealt with it in 3 clear steps…

1. Start with a conversation (always)

We pulled the team member into a meeting and outlined the impact they were having on the rest of team (whilst keeping everyone anonymous).

The important part of this conversation was to outline his actions, and understand if he was willing to take responsiblity or not.

When someone takes responsibility for the problems they are causing, it’s much easier to help them fix it.

When they don’t, and they move straight to blame or denial, it’s much harder.

In this instance, he took no responsibility whatsoever, and actually threw the “But I’m hitting all my targets and nobody else is” in there.

2. Next, performance management 

This is where we had to start taking things seriously using performance management (PIP), but relating to behavioural and cultural performance (as opposed to KPIs). Get my full performance improvement plan here.

For example, weekly behavioural goals would include:

• Has exhibited our ‘honesty’ core value, by giving direct praise to a team member in private where it’s due (to avoid gossip and help build relationships)

• Has exhibited our ‘team’ core value’ by offering sales training help us-skill other team members 

Always incorporate your core values into a behavioural PIP as it ensures clear direction.

3. Lastly, we let them go

They didn’t improve.

He took everything very badly, and actually started openly looking for another job where he’d be ‘respected’ for his hard work.

Showing those true colours.

The result?

He left in November, and by March this year, I got the message to say they were back on a 20% YoY growth trajectory once again.

This isn’t the first time one toxic member of the team has caused so many problems behind the scenes that they can ultimately hold back the entire company.

I’ve witnessed this over and over.

The problem is, very few leaders are willing to take action.

Especially when they’re the high performers.

Final reminder

Nothing will lose you great employees, faster than them watching you tolerate a bad one.

Peace,

H