Episode #289: Dealing With Really Toxic Staff

Be it big organisations or small organisations, the things nobody wants are rust or termites. Rust in your car rots out the floorboards, the metal fabric, but it does so unseen. Termites in your house silently eat out the boards, leaving a paint covered, paper thin illusion of a wall, that when you touch it totally collapses. The rust and termites in organisations are toxic people, equally quietly going about destroying the business from within.

Here are some types of toxic people to be careful of:

Negatives

They are down on everything and everyone. No one is good enough in their view, the world is bad and the future looks dismal. They are angry, depressed, frustrated people and want to enlist others to be like them. They can list long and hard all the things that are wrong with the organization. However, ask them what to do about any of it and they will quickly tell you that it is not their job to fix it. If you are the boss, you need to sort them out. Tell them to cut out the crap or leave. Don’t poison the well with these people. Before you know it their negative influence will be infecting everyone. Find out if you can help them reduce their negativity but if you find it is baked in, then they have to go and don’t hesitate. If you are a colleague then reduce your exposure to them to an absolute minimum. Imagine they have the ebola virus and you don’t want to contract it from them.

Bad Fudosans

Fudosan is a Buddhist deity who symbolises solidity and immovable determination. This can be a great thing in the face of challenges. The negative version of this phenomenon are staff who refuse to adjust to change. They resist it publically and create a headache for the leader trying to rally the troops to get behind the changes. Or they are silent anarchists within the collective, convincing people to resist and to deny the need for any change.

We need to find out why they are opposed to the change. If it contradicts their stance, philosophy, morals, ideology etc., then they can leave right now. We wouldn’t want them working in an environment that is diametrically opposed to what they stand for and believe. If they have concerns, then we need to make them part of the solution. Often people who are true believers are the ones who resist change the most. We need to get them involved in being part of the change assimilation. Rather than being outside the change, they can be tasked with sheparding the change, to make sure it doesn’t negatively impact the organisation or the people. “Join the revolution and control it or jump out” is the message they need to hear.

Teishiseitypes

Teishiseiin Japanese means taking a low profile. Keeping below the radar, staying out of the spotlight. You do your job, no more, and you head home. You don’t make trouble, but you don’t add much value either. These people have reduced their job description down to a size which can comfortably be written on the back of postage stamp. Everything outside of that micro world is not their responsibility, so don’t ask them to get involved sunshine.

These people need educating about the bigger picture here and what their full responsibilities really are. We should try and align what they want to achieve with what the firm wants to achieve. If we can’t do that, then we need to raise their temperature. We need to get them working a lot faster, harder and more vigorously. We make it clear we don’t brook any nonsense about “not my job” around here. If they don’t like that arrangement, then we need to acquaint them with the door.

Rumour Millers

Japan is a country where one of the hardest things to keep is a secret. Everyone knows a surprising amount about everyone else, (including you!). That is okay, but some people can’t be satisfied with just gossiping about others, they want to show a bit more creative flair and start manufacturing trouble. The rumour mill always flourishes in a vacuum and there are people who can’t wait to weight in with what they think is really going on.

Keeping everyone informed of changes, having transparency and communicating as much as possible will put rumours to the sword. As for the rumour millers, they need to be given a stiff talking to on the downside of destabilizing the firm. “Learn to shut up about speculations or speculate somewhere else” is the message they need to get.

Toxic people can kill your business. Like rust or termites they destroy from within. They are also the most difficult people to get out, because they worry they are unemployable. That is changing though in Japan. Nevertheless, the cost of keeping them inside is very high. If you can’t eject them, then neutralise them. Don’t hesitate to go hard because they are destroying your company. You have a duty to save the jobs of everyone else.

I know Japan is a difficult place to eject people, but you either get them into line or you go through the pain of getting them out. The pain and cost of keeping them is much greater. Given the shortage of workers in Japan, people who leave have a much greater chance of being gainfully employed than in the past. The barriers to leaving are coming down, as we get great job mobility in Japan. This is good thing for everyone.