Toxic People and What to do About Them

Today, Rod and Dale sit down to talk about the impact that toxic people can have on a project. They share some tips on how to speak to the individual and steps that should be taken to address the impact.

Resources Mentioned
Patrick Lencioni's Law of Thirds 
The Johari Window Model

Transcript

Rod: 0:08

Welcome to messy but essential, I'm your host Rod Stilwell. And this is the podcast about the people side of project leadership. It's where we help you improve your soft skills to reduce hard costs. And where we talk about the challenges of leading people to successful projects. In today's episode, we're going to be talking about toxic players or toxic members of the team. And what to do about them. Joining me in studio today is my brother Dale, who's my business partner and comes with extensive project experience around the world. And Ela is our producer and sound engineer. Let's start with a little bit about safety, though. And even though typically, we think of safety in terms of physical safety, as you if you've listened to other podcasts in this area, you'll know that emotional safety is a really important part. And toxic employees sometimes compromise emotional safety. So when I'm talking about safety today, I'm really looking at as a project leader, are you paying attention to how other people are creating or not creating a safe environment through their potentially toxic behaviors? It's not a big thing, but it's something that we constantly have to pay attention to? How are people treating each other? How are people responding to each other? are they paying attention to each other? are they helping people to be visible, all of that is creating a safe environment. And typically toxic people, people who just create stress in the team aren't very good at creating an environment that makes people feel emotionally safe. Toxic people are all around us. Some of them we know about and we kind of tolerate and some of them are, something happens in their life, and they become toxic for a period of time. And we can, in many cases, correct those. But I want to talk today about why it's important to actually take action around toxic employees. So Dale, you and I have worked with a wide variety of people both in professional roles and volunteer roles. And sometimes in volunteer roles, it's a little trickier, because it's harder to at times to ask a volunteer to leave, especially when they're hard to come by, but toxicity in the workplace in the project team and whatever that might be. What is it? What are some of the challenges that that brings to the team, from your view?

Dale: 2:44

I think it's, it's particularly difficult for a project manager and a project setting because, you know, you often don't have a lot of control over who the team members are, you know, if you're, you're a manager, a group, and these people are all your report employees that report to you, you have one set of authority that you can use, and maybe a set of processes that you can use for dealing with toxic behavior. But in the case of a project manager, often you don't have those things. So you can't, you know, you might say that, you'd want to talk to that person, and then their behavior doesn't change, remove them from the project, but that may not be your option. You know, let's say that the toxic person is the subject matter expert that the client has provided, maybe in a very difficult position, and you may not be able to you may pass to continue to work with that person. I think that's different from, as you said, pretending it's not happening, or ignoring the behavior. Right, because while you might not be able to remove that person from the project, and you may need that person to get the project through and make the project successful, that doesn't mean that you need to allow that person to harm the other people on our team to take the the way the voices of the other people on our team diminish the other people on the team's ability to be effective, you know, as the as the manager, that project you still have to get the most out of everybody on the team. And by simply pretending that this isn't happening, you're not going to do that. You're gonna let that person consume more and more of the space degrade more and more of the performance of the team members. And so you do need to deal with it. And I think you have an ethical obligation to call it out when it happens as well. And you know, simply not let people suffer the consequences or team members suffer the consequences for it. But it is a very difficult situation. If you don't have you know, all the authority involved with managing those those people.

Rod: 4:53

I think you raise a really important point, especially when we look at the difference In many cases, in projects, we end up managing through influence. We have a lot of different departments and groups and suppliers and resource people who in one way or another are either loaned to the project or seconded to the project. And we don't necessarily have direct control or authority over those. So clearly, as project leaders, we frequently end up leading through influencing behaviors rather than actually having the authority to change or, or deal with those behaviors. But it doesn't change the fact that we need to confront inappropriate behavior whenever we see it. And I'm not just talking about the difficult employee, I mean, we've all had people who are a little hard to get ahold, you know, get get a handle on a little, they might be grumpy, they might be, you know, just complain occasionally, or they'd not as participative we've had those, but I'm talking about the person who's really bringing a level of toxicity. And I don't think there's any other word for it to the team. You know, and the challenge in many cases that we have is that when we start when that individual states becoming the topic of more and more conversations, we're basically allowing them to rob the energy from the project and direct it towards themselves. And even if those conversations aren't happening with the, that toxic individual, the fact that they're happening a tall is taking away energy from other things. Patrick Lencioni talks about his love foods, which looks at you know, a third of the, of any given team, if you wish, is going to be made up of hard workers, people who are you know, they're really focused on getting the job done, dedicated to the project, there are things that are neutral, they do, they do the job, and they show up. And but they can be influenced by the other third, which is the complaint, who's the whiners and the people who could conceivably at some point become toxic, you know, and one of his points is simply which group you're listening to. If your focus is on those who are delivering those hard workers, and that's where you're placing your energy, you're going to get more out of them. The challenges, you can't just ignore the toxic person. In my experience, they don't just go away, they kind of entrenched themselves, and then they start infecting, using the term toxic and infection infecting that neutral group to recognize that, wow, this behavior seems to be acceptable this behavior, you can get away You know, I remember a poster, I think, at one point, you know, with it. that said, it's really hard to fly like an eagle, when you're surrounded by turkeys. Well, you know, ultimately, what do we want, we want people in projects to be flying like eagles all the time. But if we don't address the, that toxic element, one way or another, great people end up leaving, they leave the project, they leave the company, whatever that may be. And that's the same in any organization. So let's come back a little bit then to, you know, imagine if you will, we've got this toxic employee, we've got somebody who is really causing harm to the people around them in a variety of ways. I know Robert to said, you know, don't rent your mind out to toxic people kick them out. Well, that's not so easy to do. So one of the first things that I like to do is dig a little deeper, get some background, find a little bit of, you know, find out a little bit about this individual. My experience has been that often we don't know what's making that toxic person tech, there may be some experience some traumatic, you know, situation that they've had in their life or some bone you have to pick that nobody talks about, but it's there. So the first for me, the first thing we want to do is understand a little bit more about the situation, understand about that individual weather, there's some reconnaissance, you can do talking to perhaps people who have worked with him before, or whether it's that confrontation right with that individual to say, Hey, what's going on here. The second thing that comes to mind for me Dale is often toxic. People don't see themselves as toxic. There's that kind of a you know, if we look at a model known as the Joe Harry window, which I'm not going to get into, but enough to say that who is at times a blindside that we have, where we don't really see how our behavior is affecting others. And in fact, we can justify our behavior because we believe that we're right. We believe that you know what we stand for is important etc. So that's the other side of it is, you know that that confrontation is required in order to, in some cases, alert the individual to what may be a blind spot, something that they don't see about their behavior, but that everybody else is seeing. thoughts on that?

Dale: 10:18

Yeah, I mean, I, I think it like a lot of the work that a project manager does, a lot of it comes down to managing risk. And, and so you know, part of your job is to identify the risks, and figure out ways to either mitigate the risk, if you can mitigate it, eliminate it, if you can eliminate it, or manage it in some in some way or another. And I think that's true of people business as well. Right? If you choose to ignore it, you're simply hoping the risk doesn't negatively affect you. And that's not a good project management strategy. So I think we do need to kind of intentionally look at that and say, Okay, well, first of all, obviously, there's a difference between calling out a given behavior in a meeting, someone who's being abusive to another person, calling out immediately stopping, making sure it's not happening. That's, that's one thing, that's a different conversation. But in terms of dealing with that toxic person, you know, as you say, there's a private going to go into that person organizing a meeting just with them and saying, you know, here's some of the issues I've seen, you know, what's going on, you know, and trying to help manage that situation. If you can do that, then have a conversation with that person. And as a result of that, things change things improve whatever, that's great. If you can't do that, then, you know, is there a way for you to raise that risk to someone else? Someone you report to, someone they report to etc? And perhaps the decision would be to remove them from the project? They're just not capable of working environment or working with those people, and so maybe that's an option. And if those are well, then how do you mitigate those risks? What are the things that you can do to ensure that you have to live with a portion of this But how do we make sure that it affects the least that has the least negative effect on the project? And sometimes that's the only choice you can have. But to your point, I think it's a it's a question of intention and choosing to manage this, as opposed to just ignoring,

Rod: 12:32

Right. And in many instances, we can let things go for too long. You know, there's the concept of super keepers and keepers, and those undesirables that are out there that well, we just kind of because we have everything else is going we don't pay much attention to them. But you know, it's no different. I don't want to minimize the importance of people. But at the end of the day, any part of a system that is weak, is going to impact the rest of the system, whether that's poorconcrete, whether that's poor hosing, whether that's poor software doesn't really matter. What it is anything that is a weakness, is at some level going to affect the rest of the system, and is no different for toxic people. At some point, even those other great performers are going to be giving less, be less productive or giving less of themselves because of that toxicity. So I mean, confronting It is one thing, certainly I think it's critical to be able to sit down with the individual have that conversation, and identified the extent to which they're aware of their behaviors. So that's that blind spot, if you wish. In some cases, they may be aware of it. But my experience has been that for the most part people are, can be reasoned with helping them to understand how their behavior is actually impacting the people around them. Now, clearly, if somebody says, I don't care, well, that's a different conversation. Now you actually have somebody who is, you know, a declared saboteur in some cases. But that's not really the toxic person. For me, my experience has been, they're, they're often they have a beef, they have something that's nawing at them, it couldn't be part of the project, it can be part of the business can be operational, can be whatever. But at the end of the day, it's getting in the way of them behaving in a normal accepted social norm. fashion. So I think, you know, once we part of that confrontation, and I'm not talking about a hitting confrontation, I'm talking about, let's sit down, let's talk about this. Are you aware of your behavior? Yes. Are you aware of the consequences of your behavior, what impact it's having on our ability to deliver this project, on the team, on other deliverables and so on having that conversation. And it's we have to be careful to not simply say, Are you aware, but rather phrase it from the perspective of Tell me what impact you think this is having on the project so that we're putting them on the spot, we're actually getting them to declare what's happening here rather than us Tell, tell tell. And I found that when you get them to declare it, sometimes people will say, Well, I don't know, I, I'm not sure. In so you have to, you know, lead them a little bit. But in most cases, when people start thinking about it, and they start to realize the impact, they're having the negative impact they're having. Most people aren't comfortable with that. So there, that's a big situation there for me is really important to be able to say, Are you aware, let's talk about the impact that your behavior is having on this project. Now, the other side of that is, and I'm sure you've experienced that as well, there are some people it doesn't matter how well how much you can you confront them, how much you explain all those things, they simply will not change. And those are the people that we really need to take action with. Whether that's First of all, very clearly documenting as much as you possibly can, so that you've got a proper paper trail, because, again, my experience has been as the months go by, it's easy to forget the little situations or incidences, or to blow some up in your mind so much that they are, you know, super focused, but you also forget some of the positive contributions of that individual. So we can end up almost in a, you know, I'm not going to a witch hunt sort of thing It feels like because all you can see now is the toxicity. So documenting both good and bad, if you wish, I think is an important aspect. And then ultimately, keeping in mind that if that person still refuses to change, then there's a need to escalate it at some level. And, you know, I don't know, my experience has been that there is really nobody indispensable on a project. But there are some people who we kind of need them a little bit more than others. And that I think gets in the way of making that final call, because we say, Yeah, but we don't have anybody else who manages who knows this software, or we don't have anybody else who, you know, I mean, sometimes we kind of put in that corner, where we want to deal with it, we want to confront it, and maybe even move them off the team. We need them somehow as well.

Dale: 17:36

Absolutely. And I think that doesn't mean that there are no alternatives. But there isn't, you know, ways of managing that they may not be you know, your best alternative bringing up the the one that you would desire the most. But that doesn't mean that they, you know, he can't come to certain compromise. So I agree with you in terms of the escalation, I think that's absolutely tried to work all those things out and go to someone who can explain and you know, may have to propose an alternative arrangement, okay, this person is going to be on the project, however, they are not going to be treated as a member of the core project, they're not going to be invited to all the games, they're not going to be all these things, they're going to be treated as a supplier of x information or x resource or whatever. And we're going to interface with them on a much more controlled basis, there's going to be less people involved, etc, etc. You know, because I don't have any choice but to mitigate the possible negative effects of this. Right. And so, you know, here's a path I'm going to use to do that, whatever that that could be. But to get agreement from the people that you're escalating, I think that yes, this is a risk that needs to be managed. And yes, this is a global risk. And then, you know, it's a matter of coming out to that person. So I'm okay here, this is structures are going to change. This is how we're going to not be the favorite things, everybody, but, you know, sometimes it's the only option you've got.

Rod: 19:09

Yeah, I would agree. And that's where it really comes down then to the leader in that project, making the call making, taking action, declaring, you know, moving them aside doing it, you know, the things we've just discussed. And at the same time, you know, I want to caution project leaders, to be careful how much they discuss toxic people with other people in the project, because again, what you give no credence to what you give energy to what you give voice to just removes the energy for other things. And I've certainly seen too many teams where, you know, one individual seems to be the topic of just about every conversation, and it's truly getting in the way so taking action understanding where the person is coming from looking at the consequences and helping them to understand the consequences of their behavior, documenting the good and the bad so that you actually have something in front of you when you're talking with this individual, or to be able to escalate it and move forward. And then ultimately, reducing the amount of airplay that is shared with other people. I think those are some of the ways that we can help deal with toxic people on a project there. They are often necessary individuals because of their skill set to technical abilities or resources they bring. But we can manage and mitigate the damage they're having through using some of those techniques. Final Thoughts?

Dale: 20:48

Just I think, the most important one, is that what we started with, which is that idea that you have a one thing one can do is ignore it and hope it goes away.

Rod: 20:59

Indeed, and I think we've all been there thinking, when is the project leader going to deal with this. And I certainly don't want anybody to ever say that about me. Dale, Ela, thanks so much for helping to pull this together today. Just keep in mind that when we're working with projects, there's a lot more to projects and than just the deliverables and the timeline and, and the the budget. There's this whole messy middle, that's people and the more we can do to reduce the stress and have fun leading people through a project, the more exciting that project will be and ultimately the better results we'll have. I look forward to our next podcast and in the meantime, enjoy leading projects.