What happens when you have a Top Performer with Toxic Behavior in a Team?

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There are bosses who care about their managers' personalities and management styles if it fits the company culture and there are also bosses who don't really care about personalities and management styles as long as their managers get things done - no matter what.  I think each one has its own merits depending on one's objectives.  For me, the former's impact is more long-term while the latter may be ideal to achieve immediate results. Then I read the leadership fable "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni where the protagonist shared an insightful anecdote.

The protagonist, Kathryn, is the new CEO of a Silicon Valley company and she shared a story with her management team.  In her younger years as a manager, she had an analyst who produced more reports than anyone else. She shared - 

This guy took any assignment I gave him and he became my most reliable employee. But no else from the department could stand him and to be honest, he annoyed the heck out of me too. He didn’t help anyone with their work and he made sure everyone knew how much better he was in his job which was undeniable even to the people who hated the guy.  Anyway, my other staff came to me a number of times complaining about him and I spoke to him about adjusting his behavior.  But he mostly ignored them... I was also not about to come down on my top performer. 

Eventually, the output of the department began to slide and so I came to him who complained a little but managed to get it all done. In my mind, he was carrying the department. 

Pretty soon, morale in the department began to deteriorate more rapidly more than ever and our performance slid further. Again, a number of analysts came to me to complain about him and it was becoming clear that he was indeed contributing to the problems of the group more than I thought. After a tough mind of thinking and losing sleep, I made my first big decision. 

At that point, one of Kathryn's mancom members interrupted her and made a guess - You fired him?

She replied - No, I promoted him.

Everyone in the room was shocked.

Then Kathryn continued - Two weeks later, 3 of my 7 analysts quit and the department fell into chaos. We dropped way behind in our work and my manager called me to talk about what was going on.  I explained the situation and why I had lost the other analysts.  The next day my boss made a big decision.

One of Kathryn's mancom members interrupted her again and guessed - Your boss fired the guy?

Kathryn replied - No, my boss fired me.

The mancom members were shocked.  Then one of them asked - What happened to the guy?

Kathryn replied - He resigned a few weeks later and they hired someone to run the department. Performance improved dramatically within a month a after his departure even if the department had 3 fewer analyts than before.

One of Kathryn's mancom members asked - Are you saying that his behavior alone hurt the production of the group by 50%? 

Kathryn replied - No, it wasn't his behavior.  It was my tolerance of his behavior. They fired the right person.

Very insightful, right?  And packed with a lot of lessons ranging from accountability, prudence, objectivity, among many others. 

The author shares that it's not finance, not strategy, not technology but it’s teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage both because it is so powerful and so rare. He said that a founder of a startup that grew to a USD1B annual revenue best expressed the power of teamwork this way:

If you can get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you can dominate any industry in any market against any competition at any time.

So the next time you have a performer who is rowing alright but rows alone and demoralizes other good performers, it's time to re-read Kathryn's story and practice good judgment no matter how tempting it is to just ignore what everyone else is saying.  But of course, you have to exercise due diligence and validate if everything is true and make sure the others who are giving feedback are really good performers and are not just ganging up on the top performer. 😉