When I originally shot IT.tv Episode 69 talking about the big management mistake of greasing squeaky wheels, I got a lot of feedback. Most of it was positive and some people even said that I had given them new perspective on an age old problem: employee morale.
I like to think that a new perspective is what I bring to KnowHR. I’m not in the “biz” but I am an employee, and I have been working full time since I was about 16 (yes, I did work off the books for awhile) and I’ve seen lots of mistakes made over and over by different people. This, however, is the biggest and the one that rubs me the wrong way most often. On Thursday, Yahoo! Finance published an article from the New York Times. I want to cite a little bit from it because I think it’s very relevant to what we discuss here on a day to day basis.
About 10 years ago I was having my annual holiday party, and my niece had come with her newly minted M.B.A. boyfriend. As he looked around the room, he noted that my employees seemed happy. I told him that I thought they were. Then, figuring I would take his new degree for a test drive, I asked him how he thought I did that. “I’m sure you treat them well,” he replied. “That’s half of it,” I said. “Do you know what the other half is?” He didn’t have the answer, and neither have the many other people that I have told this story. So what is the answer? I fired the unhappy people. People usually laugh at this point. I wish I were kidding. I’m not. I have learned the long, hard and frustrating way that as a manager you cannot make everyone happy. You can try, you can listen, you can solve some problems, you can try some more. Good management requires training, counseling and patience, but there comes a point when you are robbing the business of precious time and energy.
It’s important to recognize that not only are you responsible for your company, but its morale, its employees, and the general tone of the office. If you allow a toxic person to hang on and keep bribing them to not be toxic, you’re only reinforcing the negative toxic behavior. That’s not to say you terminate every employee who’s not happy. Some have legitimate gripes, and some, while wrong, might give you the knowledge you need to steer the company in a certain direction that you hadn’t thought of. That being said, though, there’s no shame in cutting your losses and there’s an extra special non-shame in cutting your losses with someone who was only dragging down your company to begin with.
Don’t take my word for it, though. Don’t even take Jay Goltz’s word for it. Talk to your employees. Get to know the squeaky wheels and see how the atmosphere changes when they aren’t there. If you see a big change, then get rid of that wheel. Yes, this requires a lot of hands-on management and you may not be used to that, but the benefits far outweigh the amount of elbow grease they’ll require to get done. If you’ve had a similar situation, let us know in the comments how you handled it. Did you grease the squeaky wheel? Or did you change the tire?
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My father-in-law was a turnaround specialist. He used to say that some people just have to go. Bad apples? Bug-bye.
Identifying them as bad apples is often the part most companies seem to be unwilling to do. I can’t fathom why a toxic person would be kept around, but toxic is toxic and they need to go.
Everyone has a day where they’re spreading the foulness around, but man, if someone is doing it on a regular basis, they need to be out on their proverbial tuchus.
Thanks for this. I need to think about this for a while (that is a gift that I appreciate you giving me Vincent.)
The basic premise is pretty sound. I know from experience that this works.
The hard part is distinguishing between legitmate concerns and different points of view, versus the toxic squeak. The counter axiom might be, “if you want to make sure that no one tells you things you don’t want to hear, fire everyone who does.”
You have given me a lot to think about – again, thank you.
It’s definitely worth considering if the criticism is legitimate or not, and there are plenty of people who think it’s a good idea to fire all dissenters. That being said, the toxic ones are atmosphere destroyers and it’s probably worth the effort in the end.
Be not afraid!
Vincent,
I agree with Bill that there is a fine line as to whether you only keep people who like or are like you and others become labeled as toxic.
I have also been part of some fantastic people turnarounds and I hope the your readers focus on what seems to be a throw away comment in the NY Times article, “Good management requires training, counseling and patience”.
Having said all that we are considering pulling the plug on a person who is hitting performance by the numbers but fits the toxic description.
It’s very subjective, really. Toxic is one of those words that is open to interpretation depending on the manager and the environment. Someone who’s completely miserable and complains to other employees about the company all day isn’t really being productive and is only harming morale and the company itself. Someone who tries to offer suggestions for improvement in a constructive way isn’t.
It does take management skill to deal with people who are toxic, but giving in to them in a constant effort to make them less toxic to the people around them is more the kind of thing I’m hoping management types don’t do after they read these two pieces.
My experience from the employee end: I worked at a fast food place that was not managed well. In six months we had gone through three managers. In that amount of time I became the hourly who had been there the longest.
An assistant manager who I worked with a few times in the past was assigned to my store. One day I was griping about things. He asked “Would a ten cent an hour make you feel better about things?” to which I replied “Yes!”
The effect on me was two-fold. Fast food wagers were meager (this was the days of $3.35 minimum wage) so everything counted. I was also very happy someone on a management level cared.
A couple weeks later I was on break. He sat down and asked me how thing were, how I was feeling about my job, the company. I told him “Great!”
He said “I’m glad. You have become much more positive over the last couple weeks. I was really concerned when I first came over here, with your attitude, I was afraid I would have to let you go. Thanks for coming around.”
That was a huge life lesson for me.
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