Isolate Toxic Employees to Reduce Their Negative Effects

Christine Porath
NOVEMBER 14, 2016
We each have a much bigger effect positive and negative on one anothers
emotions than we might think. In their book Connected, Harvard professor Nicholas
Christakis and political scientist James Fowler show that happiness spreads not just
between pairs of people but also from a person to his friends, to his friends friends,
and then to their friends. In other words, if a friend of a friend of a friend of yours
becomes happier, you may too. Their findings show that even frequent, superficial,
face-to-face interactions can powerfully influence happiness.

Unfortunately, negative actions spread the same way. A seemingly small act of
rudeness can ripple across communities, affecting people in our network with whom
we may or may not interact directly. The odds of this negative effect increase if an
employee has a pattern of toxic actions, which I define as enduring, recurring set of
negative judgments, feelings, and behavioral intentions towards another person.
This is why its crucial that employees and managers recognize and deal with toxic
employees as swiftly as possible. Often the only way to reduce the effect of toxic
people on others is to isolate them.

Before I talk about how exactly to do that, lets look at the costs of of this toxic or
de-energizing, as I call it in my research behavior.

The Costs of Toxic Behavior

Alexandra Gerbasi, Andrew Parker, and I found that the effect of one de-energizing
tie is four to seven times greater than the effect of a positive or energizing tie. In
other words, bad is stronger than good. This means that countless coworkers are
often sucked into the negativity, bringing about a host of ill effects, such as less
information sharing, plummeting motivation and performance, and a decreased
sense of thriving at work (defined as feeling energized and alive and that one is
continually improving and getting better at ones work). Instead of focusing on how
to accomplish their task goals, employees cognitive resources are likely to be spent
on analyzing their de-energizing relationship and how best to navigate (often
around) the person. Teams experience more conflict and less cohesion and trust,
which result in a decreased ability to solve problems and overall lower team
performance.

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Negative relationships also reduce a sense of belonging. In a survey of 135 people
in the HR division of a large diverse international manufacturing firm (with locations
in over 30 countries), we found that the 10% of employees who indicated having
the most de-energizing interactions reported a thriving score that was 30% less
than their colleagues.

De-energizing relationships, whether experienced personally, or within ones

workgroup, provoke a sense of unhappiness and dissatisfaction, reduce motivation,
and increase peoples intentions to leave. For example, in one engineering firm,
those that perceived more people as being de-energizing were twice as likely to
voluntarily leave the organization. Whats more, we find that its the organizations
top talent who are most likely to exit. High performers with an above average
number of de-energizing ties were 13 times more likely to leave than low and
average performers with the equivalent number of de-energizing ties.

The evidence is clear: having a toxic or de-energizing employee on your team or

elsewhere in your organizations ranks is costly. Not only are the people around the
person negatively affected, according to research by Dylan Minor (which he explains
in this article) the people close to a toxic employee are more likely to become toxic
themselves. So what should you do?

How to Limit the Damage a Toxic Employee Can Cause

Ideally, you would be able to ask the person to leave the organization. But
oftentimes circumstances may prevent that, at least in the short term. In those
cases, not all hope is lost: you can isolate the person from other employees so the
effects dont spread. The key is to put some physical distance between the offender
and the rest of the team by reassigning projects, rearranging the office layout,
scheduling fewer all-hands meetings, or encouraging people to work from home.

This will ideally decrease the number of run-ins, which should reduce the emotional,
psychological, and cognitive losses that pull people off track, leading to reduced
performance, creativity, and turnover. Make sure to do this with discretion though.
Let employees come to you with their complaints about the toxic colleague and use
one-on-one conversations to coach them on how they might minimize their
interactions. You might also consider letting other employees work remotely or
flexible hours.

Put more focus on where the toxic employee works. Often this is more efficient than
trying to rearrange everyone elses schedules. One Fortune 100 firm I studied for
my book had acquired a talented but toxic employee for who was crucial to the
development of a key technology. They opted to create a lab for him in large part,
to keep him isolated from others. They realized that the fewer people he touched,
the better. An easier fix is if the toxic employee is able to work remotely. And, the
more independently the toxic person can work, the more you will limit the negative
effects.

I recently spoke with the CEO of a company who wasnt sure what to do about a
high-level toxic executive. On the one hand, his employees were greatly disturbed
by his conduct, and the CEO feared things would only get worse if the executive
stayed. On the other hand, the executive had made a fortune for the company, he
was well known in their small industry, and the company would not have been
nearly as successful without his efforts and talent. The executive was also a
longtime friend of the CEO and had greatly helped him over the course of his career.
After weighing his options, the CEO decided to put him on leave so the organization
could recover and thrive without him in the working environment.

When the executive returned, the CEO removed him from all interactions with
employees. The CEO then let the employees of his organization know that they
didnt need to worry anymore; while the executive would have a formal relationship
with the company, he wouldnt be able to do harm any longer.

Ive seen companies deploy this isolation strategy several times, and usually it
works. A Fortune 500 high-tech firm I worked with had acquired a much smaller firm
to help them develop a product. This smaller firms founders behaved poorly,
dragging people within the larger organization down. Initially, the larger
organization cut the smaller firm loose but it turned out they needed the firms
technology. So they acquired the smaller firm again, but this time they made the
larger organizations offices off-limits to the founders. They had experienced the
viral effects of a toxic employee, and they werent willing to make themselves
vulnerable again.

The overall health of your organization depends on how you deal with toxic
employees. Toxic employees are simply too costly to ignore. Like a virus, their
negativity can spread through your team and organization. To immunize your
organization, consider what you can do to isolate the toxic person or get rid of
them altogether. Your employees and organization will have a much better chance
of thriving. And, you will have a much better chance of retaining your talent.

Christine Porath is an associate professor of management at Georgetown University,

the author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace (Grand Central
Publishing, forthcoming), and a coauthor of The Cost of Bad Behavior (Portfolio,
2009).
https://hbr.org/2016/11/isolate-toxic-employees-to-reduce-their-negative-effects
How Successful People Network with Each Other
Dorie Clark
JANUARY 21, 2016

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As you advance in your career, you have more experience and more
connections to draw on for networking. But chances are youve also become
a lot busier as have the really successful people youre now trying to
meet. How do you get the attention of people who get dozens of invitations
per week and hundreds of emails per day? And how do you find time to
network with potential new clients or to recruit new employees when your
calendar is packed?

The typical advice thats given to entry-level employees Invite people to

coffee! Connect with them on LinkedIn! simply doesnt work for people at
the top of their careers. Instead, you need to leverage an entirely different
strategy, something I call inbound networking.
In the online world, inbound marketing is a term that was popularized
about a decade ago by HubSpot cofounders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh
Shah. It refers to the practice of creating valuable content, such as articles or
podcasts, that draws customers to you directly (as opposed to spending a lot
of time on cold calls or paying for advertising to lure them in).
Networking is facing a similar inflection point. Most professionals are
constantly bombarded with Facebook and LinkedIn connection requests, not
to mention endless requests to pick their brain. Trying to stand out in the
midst of that noise is a losing battle, and you probably dont have time to
send a bunch of cold emails anyway.
Instead, you can successfully network with the most prominent people by
doing something very different from everyone else: attracting them to
you with inbound networking. In other words, make yourself interesting
enough that they choose to seek you out. Here are three ways to do it.
Identify what sets you apart. One of the fastest ways to build a
connection with someone is to find a commonality you share with them (your
alma mater, a love of dogs, a passion for clean tech). Thats table stakes. But
the way to genuinely capture their interest is to share something that
seems exotic to them. It will often vary by context: In a roomful of political
operatives, the fact that I was a former presidential campaign spokesperson
is nice but not very interesting. But at a political fundraiser populated by
lawyers and financiers, that background would make me a very desirable
conversation partner.
The more interesting you seem, the more that powerful people will want to
seek you out. And yet it can be hard for us to identify whats most interesting
about ourselves; over time, even the coolest things can come to seem banal.
Ask your friends to identify the most fascinating elements of your biography,
your interests, or your experiences then do the same for them. At one
recent workshop I led, we discovered that one executive had been a ball boy
for the U.S. Open tennis tournament in his youth, and one attorney is an avid
and regular surfer in the waters of New York City. Both are intriguing enough
to spark a great conversation.

Become a connoisseur. Almost nothing elicits more interest than genuine

expertise. If someone is drawn to a topic that youre knowledgeable about,
youll move to the top of their list. Since publishing my books, Ive had
innumerable colleagues seek me out to get advice about finding an agent or
fine-tuning their manuscripts.
But sometimes its even better when your expertise is outside the fold of
your profession. Richard, a financial journalist I profiled in my
book Reinventing You, was able to build better and deeper relationships with
his sources after he started to write part-time about food and wine. He
discovered that his Wall Street contacts would proactively call him up to get
information about hot new restaurants or the best places to entertain their
clients.
You can also use nontraditional expertise to build multidimensional
connections. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett could certainly have a decent
conversation about business. But its their expert-level seriousness about the
card game bridge that cemented their bond, eventually leading to Buffetts
decision to entrust billions to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
When youre an expert in a given niche, you can often connect on a level
playing field with people who, under other circumstances, might be out of
reach. One friend of mine, a corporate executive who produces jazz records
on the side, recently got invited to the home of an internationally famous
rock star as Grammy campaign season heated up.
If you know a lot about wine, or nutrition, or salsa dancing, or email
marketing, or any of a million other subjects, people who care about that
topic are sure to be interested in what you have to say.
Become the center of the network. Its not easy to build a high-powered
network if youre not already powerful. But New York City resident Jon Levy
took the position that the best way to get invited to the party is to host the
party. Nearly six years ago, he started hosting twice-monthly Influencers
dinner gatherings, featuring luminaries in different fields. Levys gatherings
now attract a guest roster of Nobel laureates and Olympic athletes. But he
certainly didnt start there.
Begin by inviting the most interesting professionals you know and asking
them to recommend the most interesting people they know, and over time
you can build a substantial network. At a certain point youll gain enough

momentum that professionals who have heard about the dinners will even
reach out to ask for an invitation. As Levy joked to one publication, One day,
I hope to accomplish something worthy of an invite to my own dinner. When
youre the host, pulling together a great event liberates you to invite
successful people who you might not normally consider your peers but who
embrace the chance to network with other high-quality professionals.
Ive also hosted more than two dozen dinner parties to broaden my network
and meet interesting people. But thats certainly not the only way to
connect. These days, any professional who makes the effort to start a
Meetup or Facebook group that brings people together could accomplish
something similar.
The world is competing for the attention of the most successful people. If you
want to meet them and break through and build a lasting connection
the best strategy is to make them come to you. Identifying whats
uniquely interesting about you and becoming a connoisseur and a hub are
techniques that will ensure youre sought after by the people youd most like
to know.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategist and professional speaker who teaches at

Duke Universitys Fuqua School of Business. She is the author of Reinventing
You and Stand Out. You can receive her free Stand Out Self-Assessment
Workbook.

This article is about NETWORKING

FOLLOW THIS TOPIC

UP NEXT IN MANAGING YOURSELF

5 Misconceptions About Networking

Herminia Ibarra

UP NEXT IN NETWORKING
Learn to Love Networking

Francesca Gino; Maryam Kouchaki; Tiziana Casciaro

UP NEXT IN INFLUENCE
How Leaders Create and Use Networks

Herminia Ibarra; Mark Lee Hunter

Comments

POST
17 COMMENTS

Scott Taft 7 months ago

Hi Dorie, great tips! I think your comparison to inbound marketing is

spot on. Inbound is all about creating value for people and hosting a
"party" where they are enticed and motivated to seek you out instead
of you having to convince them cold. It's a much warmer lead and I
imagine for networking, it makes for a much stronger initial bond.
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