EMBiz: Picking Out the Bad Seed

Laurel Mintz

Hi guys, Laurel Mintz here with Elevate My Brand. We’re bringing you a series on how to create kick ass company culture. Now as much of the positive we’ve talked about, it’s also just as important for us to talk about how to deal with a bad seed because we all know that a bad apple spoils the bunch.

As a leader here it’s really important that I am really aware of how the team is interacting both with me and with the team as a whole, and calling people out if there is an issue that is starting to poison the well. Now, obviously we don’t all have perfect days, so I think as a leader, it’s important for me to make sure that I am differentiating between if someone is just having an off day, if they’re tired and just need a break, or if they really are just unhappy here. I’m really of the mentality that you can’t be a victim of my success. If you’re not happy in a position, or you’re not happy in a company, it’s time for you to gracefully exit and find something that really lights you up. Life is too short to be working in a place that doesn’t get you excited and make you happy.

In the same respect, I think it’s also just as important to make sure that you’re not kind of over-thinking it and thinking that everyone is unhappy when there is a rough day at the office. So often times I’ll go into the fem-pen, which is what we call our bull-pen cause we’re all women and I’ll see that the energy is a little bit low, so you guys know we like to play a lot of games, so we’ll play a game to get energy up, but if one person is particularly having a bad day, I’ll often times have them just get up, go take a break, go take a walk or even just clip them for the day and just give them some time to recalibrate.

I think we forget that we’re just humans at the end of the day, we’re not robots, we’re not going to be here happy and smiling and perfect every single day, and you know what, that’s ok. I’m not perfect either, I know it’s hard to believe. So just really being aware of the difference between a rough day and someone who’s really poisoning the rest of the team and bringing the team down. It’s a big differentiator and it’s really hard to lead if you have a team that isn’t standing behind you. So, I hope that you can take these and go back to your team, recognize if someone just needs a break and give them that break that they need, but more importantly I really like to hire and fire quickly so if there is someone that isn’t good for the team, you’re moving on because you’re doing a respectful things for them as well if they are not a good fit for your company culture also.

That’s all for now and stay tuned for more from Elevate My Brand.