NEW YORK -- Superstar employees get a lot of attention from bosses. But bad apples deserve even more.
A growing body of research suggests that having just a few nasty, lazy or incompetent characters around can ruin the performance of a team or an entire organization—no matter how stellar the other employees, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Bad apples distract and drag down everyone, and their destructive behaviors, such as anger, laziness and incompetence, are remarkably contagious. Leaders who let a few bad apples in the door or look the other way when employees are rude or incompetent are setting the stage for even their most skilled people to fail.
It's crucial for leaders to screen out bad apples before they're hired, and if they do slip through the cracks, bosses must make every effort to reform or (if necessary) oust them, the report states.
One study found that having just one slacker or jerk in a group can bring down performance by 30% to 40%.
How can organizations squash those negative influences? The easiest way, obviously, is to avoid hiring bad apples in the first place, and that means taking a different approach to assessing candidates for jobs.
Beyond smarter screening, it's important to develop a culture that doesn't tolerate jerks, according to the report. The best organizations make explicit their intolerance for bad apples; they spell out which behaviors are unacceptable in the workplace and act decisively to prevent and halt them.
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