You know what makes me really mad? Cliques, gossip and bullying. Don’t believe any business owner who tells you these things have never occurred at their company. It’s very hard to avoid completely. But you can definitely minimise it, and you can and should cut it off at the source when you see it.
Last week a client shared this sorry story with me. Hopefully forearmed is forewarned.
Simon (name changed) had a digital marketing company with a genuinely caring culture he was proud of – nurturing, supportive, happy. It had been running for 3 years when he took on a senior person in the hope they would be a second income generator. When Penny started, the clients loved her. She was calm, gentle and instilled trust. Penny’s relationship with Simon was good too. He was reassured by her steady confidence and easy manner. Clients started requesting to work with her and soon enough additional revenue was generated to give the balance sheet a serious boost. This, at last, was the acceleration the business needed. What could possibly go wrong? Well you guessed it, Penny was great at managing upwards but a left carnage in her wake as she climbed.
Penny was so easy to trust that when, within 6 months, staff began coming to Simon with their confidence shattered, he almost doubted what he heard. By 6 months though, he had one member of staff in counseling, one on stress leave and Penny had entered an executive training program to help her manage her behaviour. He was reluctant to remove her – not because he supported her behaviour but because, well, surely this could be sorted out. It had taken 2 years to find an income generator – it must be possible to make this work. But it wasn’t. Penny’s bad behaviour continued in a milder form after the training and when resignations hit Simon’s desk, exit interviews revealed how bad it had got. ‘Toxic culture’, ‘lack of management support’ … Given how many hours’ sleep he’d lost over it and how many thousands of dollars he’d spent trying to rectify it, it seemed an unfair accusation. But from the staff’s perspective, he knew it was true.
Penny left after a year or so, but the fallout was grave. Within a 12 month period, he steadily lost and had to replace every single person in the company. Even those who didn’t work with Penny lost trust in Simon and the company as a place in which they could safely thrive. It was traumatic for everyone and put a financial dent in the company from which it took several years to recover. The company’s reputation as a great place to work was replaced with gossip that its culture was uncaring. Who could blame the people who’d left for sharing their hurt and disappointment? Simon didn’t.
On paper, Penny’s direct impact was positive. She had brought in and delighted two new big clients. But people’s spirits had been crushed. Their trust in Penny, the company and in Simon had been destroyed. Financially, given the huge outlay to mitigate the damage and replace the staff, the company was worse off. Simon, who always believed in the goodness of people, had been confident he could protect his staff and save his business from loss, but he was wrong and he too paid the price. The only one who didn’t was Penny.
What did Simon wish he’d done? He wished he’d been more honest with himself and started to take action to manage her out of the business as soon as possible. He had felt he owed it to her to give her every chance to change – because he thought she would. But he’d given her too many chances, and the behaviour changes required had not been specific enough.
Simon went on to recreate a great company culture, with values that had behaviours attached and which were part of recruitment processes, evaluation, and reward. Trust was the foundation and he is now vigilant to anything that may undermine it.
Simon’s Top Tips
- Recruit on people skills as well as technical skills. Get serious about it.
- Investigate problems fast.
- Have difficult conversations early and pull the plug if necessary
- Protect the culture and the staff at all costs, because anything less is expensive in every way
