The Teams Poison Apple

Running a business that employs people is hard enough without having an employee that infects people with hatred, distrust, animosity, contempt, slander or the myriad of other issues that a ‘poison’ personality can affect upon the wider team.

It is almost biblical, when the business owner has to try and find the teams poison apple, they need to seek out who that person might be…. it’s not easy.

The Warning Signs

A team is a group of people that trust one another to achieve a common goal or objective. Trust is the component that ties this together; the team’s poison apple will find it difficult to have trust in the business and various people within the business.

As a manager however, it is increasingly difficult to determine, who fit’s in and who doesn’t…. employing people to complete their delegated works is the main focus, it is about ensuring people can work together, that they combine efforts when it is needed to accelerate towards the end goal or objective.

The greatest warning sign is when that ‘team acceleration’ is disrupted…. the trust is tested, and a group of employees (not a team) have issues that need your ‘immediate’ attention (I stress the word immediate).

Common warning signs include:

• Pay Matters (industrial disputes)
• Employment Conditions (fit for purpose or not)
• Working Hours (start time, finish time)
• Living Conditions (when working away from home)
• Task Related (wrong tools, no materials)
• Organisation (disjointed middle management)
• Hierarchy (leadership channels are ambiguous)
• Planning (management have no tools to control efficiency or delegation)
• Employee (consistent relationship to other warning signs, commonly occurring)

Identify and Isolate

Whenever a ‘warning’ sign has triggered your ‘immediate’ attention, your priority is bringing this situation under control.

What do you do?

You need to try and identify the ‘root cause’; isolate the key issue from other similar scenarios to understand:

1. How did this become an issue, and
2. Is this a common problem throughout the business or not?
3. Are there common elements that relate between other similar cases….?
4. Will the situation require a proposed fix or is it an intermediary problem?
5. Is the proposed fix appropriate for the business needs?
6. What ‘flow on’ affects will any fix have to the ongoing business viability?

What ambiguities can affect your judgement?

Discovering the ‘root cause’ can be difficult at times, so to really understand the problem, it is about:

1. Knowledge of the situation,
2. The events that lead to the disruption,
3. The chain of sequences that created the event in the first place, and,
4. What ‘thing’ would have changed the ’cause’ in the first place…..
5. This is all about keeping everything facts, facts and more facts.

Now that you have outlined the ‘facts’ and know what the ‘root cause’ is, then we need to explore whether or not the situation has been hampered by an individual (the teams poison apple) or not?

This situation can generally be difficult to understand and identify; however, if you have had a team of people working harmoniously together for a long duration and then after a few months those people begin to show any of the warning signs. You will normally ask – what has changed?

That question can be answered with ambiguous and potentially harmful judgements. But if you quarantine the issues (such as climate, employment conditions etc.) and are left discovering the team changes, then you will begin to see the effects of the teams poison apple beginning to shine through.

Common things to look out for?

Generally the teams poison apple will blend in…. the greatest hint will be the time that it has taken them to cause disruption, and that time is normally very quick (within 1week to 3 months). If in doubt, people with a longer probationary employment period have a higher chance of being identified.

This is because they will find it difficult to blend in without disrupting, this is their nature, their personality will generally offend prior to any probationary employment period being completed.

Best method of controlling?

The best method for controlling the teams poison apple is to control the basis that they were engaged prior to any disruption beginning, this is done by ensuring:

1. There is a probationary employment period, and that period can be extended at the employers discretion,
2. The employment is controlled and monitored to ensure an accurate set of duties become the key delegations for that person to remain employed,
3. Potential employees are given an open and diligent understanding of what the proposed employment entails; duties, responsibilities, payments, conditions etc,
4. Employees have been inducted into the business, they are immediately aware of the employment conditions prior to starting anything and they know what is expected under the business “code of conduct”,
5. That the business has a clear and concise organisation structure, who is responsible for the employee when issues arise, how do disputes get handled and who do they talk to, how are disputes elevated if they are not being looked after etc.

Quarantine

In the event that all efforts have been put in place, and, the employment process has been managed properly; but warning signs are emerging… then, it comes to your attention that an employee is causing grief within the workforce (the teams poison apple).

For whatever reason, the teams poison apple is causing harm…. their mindset has changed, something has gone wrong…. but now the business is being disrupted.

The only thing left remaining is to implement a quarantine to reduce the harm. Why? Because you cannot be certain who the person is, but you have your suspicions. But don’t forget, it may be a case of not knowing where the ‘warning signs’ are being originated from:

• Quarantining a troubled person or group of people from the wider employment community (team) is a method for disrupting the disruptor/s.
• Quarantining is not a prejudicial, but merely a method for you to guarantee the effort you have made is being noticed among the regular employment framework.
• Quarantining cannot reduce the employees opportunity to grow and develop, nor can it be implemented merely to cause an employee or a group of employees any discomfort.

Methods of Quarantining?

Using a quarantine methodology is required when all other practical measures have already been taken to assess the situation; the warning signs have been investigated, and, the key business viability focus now remains with the teams poison apple.

• Finding alternative duties,
• Relocating the personnel to a new project,
• Reconfiguring the personnel to a controlled environment,
• Monitor and assess progress, hold regular updates,
• Regularly integrate communications with previous group,
• Monitor for improvements,
• Assess the clinical details of change, ensure control measures are documented,
• Re-assess that the quarantine is ‘fit for purpose’ and is working.

Once the changes have been implemented, the change has been assessed and control has been returned with minimal existing warning signs being evident; at this stage, the control has been met with proper diligence.

Conclusion

When all options are considered, it is evident for all stakeholders, that the business must remain viable and sustainable. When damage is confined to within the business; those challenges need to be met with proper controlled action.

This really leaves no other option but to control the teams poison apple, and leave the affects to a minimum wherever possible.

 

Written by Geoff Pike, Entrepreneur, Speaker & Business Mentor

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoff-pike-australia

Also, if you would like to read future posts then please click ‘Follow’ at the top of this article and feel free to connect via Facebook or visit the ‘Equipped to Discover’ Webpage, Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin page.

ABOUT GEOFF

Geoff founded a sole trader plumbing business in a remotely located and vastly underpopulated location in outback Australia. Starting business with only enough money to pay 4 weeks wages, Geoff persisted by growing the business into a multi-disciplined trade services company. Over a period of 12 years, the company Geoff established grew to employ a workforce of over 300 personnel covering an area almost half the size of Europe, receiving international award recognition with an annual revenue of over $30mil. Geoff knows what it takes to overcome adversity.