Ruining The Workplace

This American Life's episode 370, "Ruining it for the Rest of Us" starts with an interview with Will Felps, an academic who's been looking at bad behavior in work groups and asking if one bad apple can ruin the barrel.

Felps says bad apples exist and they fall into three personality types:

1. The jerk, who attacks or insults others.
2. The slacker who does less than he can.
3. The depressive pessimist.

Apparently any one of these personality types can undermine the productivity of an entire team off workers.

As usual with management issues this seems so obvious that it's hardly worth mentioning. But it can be hugely damaging in a work environment and can't be tolerated if management really wants to get stuff done.

Groups with a bad apple are 30 to 40% less productive, according to Felps, they stop communicating and it's not unusual for other group members to start adopting the jerk, slacker or depressive pessimist behavior.

Summing up, Ira Glass, host of This American Life, says it all comes down to the worst person in the group. "The teams with the worst person at the bottom. Those teams will perform the poorest."

Felps is apparently currently working on a project trying to find out whether a good manager can counteract these behaviors by asking questions and getting team members to listen.

Going over this in your head you'll probably be thinking of Jack Welch's policy of terminating the worst performers in a group as a matter of course. An idea that looks less harsh in the light of this research.

In the interview Felps offers no solution for this issue. Managers will have to turn to HR departments for that.