Toxic Employees Gotta Go.

Toxic employees wreck havoc inside an organization.

There are two types. The ones that perform and the ones that don't.

Toxic employees that don't perform? That's easy, they get fired.

It's pretty easy to fire the asshole, big ego, know-it all if they suck at their job.

But what about toxic employees that are high-performers?

Ahhhhhhhhh yes, the million dollar question.

If you have ever worked in a company on PLANET EARTH, you know EXACTLY who I am talking about.

THAT guy. Or THAT gal.

Terrorists.

They infiltrate and destroy.

Creating chaos.

And Typically, leadership looks the other way.

Why?

Well, because of that whole performance thing.

People don't want to lose their jobs. Your boss, he or she doesn't want to lose their job. They have pressure from THEIR boss to hit numbers.

No one actually wants to work with these asshole toxic employees.

But bosses don't have another choice, because all bosses have a boss. And their boss is expecting to hit those numbers - and it all runs uphill in this very exhaustive cadence until we get to the VERY TOP of the organization - the owners, the board, or the shareholders.

Numbers!! Results! We must hit revenue!

The stock price must go up! We better get our dividends!

This goes back to my previous newsletter about organizations having a purpose. For a company to have a great culture it must have a soul. It must exist for a bigger purpose. What yours is is up to you. But it can't just be money.

If the organizations only purpose is revenue and profits, expect lots of toxicity.

It's short sighted. But it's the way most companies think in 2024.

Now, lets take a step back for a second.

Lets run the toxic employee scenario through a purpose / values driven company.

We will use ours because well, that's what I know. lol.

Our purpose is this: Work Doesn't Have to Suck.

This is the reason why we exist. This is our priority. It is our passion.

We choose people over profits. This is the exact definition of caring about your employees and creating a people centered company. Notice I didn't say people instead of profits. No one is saying profits are bad. No one is saying that we shouldn't want to create lots of them for our owners and shareholders. What we are saying is that we can prioritize our people while also creating very healthy profits.

But there is a clear priority. Our people come first. ALWAYS.

Lets say we found out about a toxic employee. Yes, we have hired them - we are human and imperfect and make tons of mistakes. We have had them just like everyone else. And we have had very high performing toxic employees.

We filter the decision (like all big decisions) through our purpose.

Working alongside a toxic employee sucks.

This is in direct conflict to what we are all about. Our purpose must be backed up by real life actions and decisions. If it's not then it's fake. And nothing is worse than being unauthentic. So, if we find out we have a toxic employee, we have to work on the situation, immediately! Even one freaking second of a toxic employee in our company is unacceptable to our mission/purpose/values.

WDHTS (work doesn't have to suck) Is THIS:

1. Love what you do.
2. Love who you do it with.
3. Have a voice.
4. Make an impact.
5. Make damn good money.
6. Have lots of time off for hobbies and your family / friends.

So, according to what we are MOST passionate about in our entire company, you can see how keeping a toxic employee would VERY MUCH impact #2.

I mean that's obvious right? If we want to get granular we could also say that keeping a toxic employee VERY MUCH also impacts #1, #3, and #4 as well.

We make every decision through our "purpose" lens.

We chose to fire them. Always. No matter how high performing. F the numbers. Well being of our people and work not sucking is the PRIMARY purpose of our org. It's actually MORE important than the numbers.

I want to make this very clear. There is a ridiculous amount of power once you have clarity on the reason you exist. These decisions are easy for us to make. Other companies may go back and forth on whether or not this person is really that toxic. Or they will say they can't fire that toxic high-performer because they cant afford the hit on the numbers. Etc. We are able to make these decisions very quickly with zero drama because it is in such conflict with our purpose.

We had an instance back in the day where we had to let go of three high performers - all in the same location. The year after we let them go that location lost $200,000!

Dude, it sucked for the numbers.

Another time we had to fire the highest performing sales person in the company.

It is never even remotely fun to fire someone. It always sucks because there is a relationship there - humanity right?

But, IN EVERY INSTANCE - it was the right thing to do.

Yah, it hurt the numbers for a while. But it didn't kill us. It never does.

And then, after some time, you actually get better. And better. And better.

Because healthy matters.

When you choose TEAM. When you choose TEAM, it works. Always.

That branch that lost $200,000?

They make tons of money now days.

They have grown so much they need a warehouse 4x the size. But more importantly, they are healthy. People are smiling, having fun. crushing goals.

Work most def doesn't suck over there!

We chose to think long term. The Infinite Game.

We don't think..."man, this is really going to hurt this years numbers."

We think bigger, further down the line.

What are we going to look like 5 years from now? 10 years from now?

What do you think happened when we fired those toxic high-performers?

Do you think it turned some heads inside the organization?

"Woah, they did it."

"Wow, they chose US."

"They chose my happiness over the numbers."

Do you know how powerful this is? You start to gather trust. Employees see that it's NOT just a numbers game. They have faith and trust in the company and the leaders in the company to do the right thing no matter what - even if it hurts the numbers!

Guys, when you choose values - everyone notices, and it sends a powerful message.

We are in this thing together. We are in this thing for the long haul.

We are in this for much bigger reasons than money.

Long term thinking. It's so beautiful.

Now, before I get into the RATS / TERRORISTS diagram, I want to make probably the most obvious point of them all.

****WHEN YOU ALLOW TOXIC HIGH-PERFORMERS TO STAY IN THE ORGANIZATION - ALL THE TALENT LEAVES.****

Incredible talent refuses to work in a toxic environment.

They will leave a go work somewhere else.

And this crushes the organization more than anything. Their subtraction only makes the culture worse. And so on and so forth until you look up and the entire organization is this disgusting ball of toxicity.

If you want to run a great division or business, you have to have amazing people.

And if amazing people leave toxic environments....then why the hell would you ever tolerate a toxic employee?

Okay lets get into the diagram - RATS, TERRORISTS, ROCK STARS, PUPPIES.

You see the diagram above.

Performance along the Y axis. Values along the X axis.

Rats - These are people that do not line up with your core values. They also do not perform. These people are easy to get rid of. They are rats. They don't belong in the organization.

Rock Stars - These are the people that line up incredibly with your core values, and they also perform at very high levels. This is the goal. We want a company filled with Rock Stars (obviously).

Terrorists - These are the people that do not line up with your core values, however, they perform incredibly. Because they perform incredibly, they are often allowed to stay in the organization. However, they wreck havoc inside your organization. They are toxic because they are not in alignment with the values that the organization stands for. This is easily the hardest quadrant of them all. You must make the very hard decision and get rid of them. Because they are bringing down the collective. They make everyone's life miserable and the work suffers because of them. These people are ANTI team. It's all about them. They gotta go. Choose US. Choose WE. Because we are always better together.

Puppies - These are the people who line up with our values, but are not yet performing. We have to coach and train them how to perform. But, they are very much "one of us." They are curious and humble. They are passionate and energetic. Just like a puppy! They just have to be potty trained. We fill our company with these people - "the right people" and then we train up. Because having a bunch of the "right" people is far more important and indicative of a companies success than having a bunch of really amazing "resumes." This is why we don't care much about resumes during the interview process. We "turn the resume over" and just chat during interviews. Looking to dive as deep as we can over values. Puppies. We can't get enough of em!

***I get asked all the time***

"But Gono, why not just hire a bunch of rock stars?"

This is a great question. And I have a very interesting answer here.

We have never hired a rock star. All our hires have been puppies. I'm not saying you can't find that incredible person who crushes performance all while totally being in alignment with your values. But we just haven't. Every time we thought we were hiring a rock star - meaning we went out and paid big money for this person (they are expensive) with this amazing resume (and thought it was a core value match) - it didn't work out.

Typically we ended up "talking ourselves into" the core value alignment. If that makes sense. We were just so pumped about the incredible resume and we thought, wow, this person will really be able to create results immediately - so we hired them. We were short sighted. It was a results based decision, not a core value decision.

I'm not saying you can't find rock stars. But just watch out for the mistake we always made - talking ourselves into the fact that they were "one of us." Talking ourselves into the core value alignment.

It has hurt us time and time again - so we just hire puppies. This is the model that works for us, especially since we only promote managers from within the organization. Promoting from within to management positions has really been a huge success for us. Leaning hard into the values - and then coaching the role. Again, our model - but it really works to emphasize culture and value alignment.

Toxic employees are terrorists.

Please understand the hurt they are putting on the rest of your people.

No one should have to deal with that kind of drama every day in the workplace.

It just sucks.

Of course, pull them aside, talk to them. Work on trying to see if they can get above the bar. See if you can turn them around. Maybe their toxicity is coming from some other stress in their life. Who knows.

But eventually you do have to get rid of them if they cannot change. Because its just not fair to the team - and we will never be successful as a team with a toxic individual.

I have fired so many toxic employees in my career. Even before my time at Regal, I managed retail stories - SO MANY, GUYS.

Every time it works out for the better. For the team. For the numbers.

Here's the thing I want to conclude with. And this is right from my heart guys.

Work can be so freaking fun and enjoyable when you focus on your people and creating a super healthy work environment.

Sometimes I leave the office with tears in my eyes thinking about the way it used to be at Regal vs. the way it is now. I see people smiling, having fun, closing deals - like people like each other and the place is just filled with a whole hell of a lot of joy. Joy, at the workplace!! Like this work thing can be fun. It doesn't have to be so rigid. Think of the lives you are changing when you create a work culture that is joyful. That is positive. That is heartfelt. Think of all the employees going home every night to their families. Think of the impact it has one them when people love their job and take their joy back home with them at night. This makes an impact in our communities. Like dude you can literally change lives and make this world a freaking better place through work. You can pull people out of the depths of hell by giving them a positive atmosphere to walk in to every single day. Lots of people don't have that. Lot's of people have an F'ed up home life. For whatever reason their life sucks. Maybe their marriage. Maybe they have issues - I mean shit there are so many issues out there your people can have. But if you make your work space safe, and happy, and optimistic, and loving - THINK OF HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS IN THEIR LIFE!!! Work can be the place they go to that actually brings them joy. And fills their life with love. This is what we can all do as leaders that's so much more important than any stupid number. This is the stuff - the people you positively impact - the relationships - the love - the smiles - this is the freaking stuff that you will remember on your deathbed. We need to remember this. We are all looking for belonging and we are all looking for community. And we all want to be loved. And we all deserve to be loved.

There's no reason all this can't happen at work.