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But from a company's perspective, isn't that 23% the only number that matters? The point of the study (and I have some issues with it too) is that the 23% coul

But from a company's perspective, isn't that 23% the only number that matters? The point of the study (and I have some issues with it too) is that the 23% could be 30% if you dealt with the toxic employee, or at the very least 23% is still doable without them, even though it seems like it isn't because they're better than average.

leroy_masochist 8y ago
I get the concept of what you're saying with, "the 23% could be 30% if you dealt with the toxic employee", but I think that unfortunately is not true in a lot of cases. There are a lot of really talented, hard-working people who are also toxic leaders (some maybe not fully intentionally), and the challenge of dealing with them in an organization is that, as you point out, measurable performance is often all that matters. I think the cost-benefit in an example like this is usually not so much "replace the asshole and get a 7% bump in growth"....it's more like, "it'll cost you a point or two of sales growth but that'll more than pay for itself in terms of lower turnover because we'll save $200k a year in recruiters fees because we won't have to pay them to find replacements for miserable junior people who don't stick around for very long".
- munchbunny 8y ago
  This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but one of the best pieces of advice I've heard was this: It's never worth promoting a potentially toxic manager into a managerial role, even if they're great in their current role. If you do, the whole team suffers. If you don't and they leave because you didn't promote them, they weren't going to let you keep them as an IC anyway. Best case is you reform them, but do that before and not after you promote them. I've seen this pattern more than I'd like.
kevingadd 8y ago
There are many ways to raise your short or even mid-term numbers that have a net negative effect on the company over the long term. For example, if you want to get monthly active users up over the course of 3-6 months to get a promotion, there are lots of ways to do it - you can do discount promotions, or even pay users to download and install and use your app. But the moment you stop doing that your numbers are going to tank, and in the long run you just cost the company money while also doing damage to how people perceive it. The massive drop in numbers after that is going to demoralize the team, as well. I've worked on a couple different teams where leadership did short-term-focused things like this to get numbers up and then the company paid for it later (typically after the leadership had exited or been pushed out). This is a type of superstar toxicity that can be really harmful to your company even if people aren't quitting in droves because of the toxic employee.

leroy_masochist 8y ago

I get the concept of what you're saying with, "the 23% could be 30% if you dealt with the toxic employee", but I think that unfortunately is not true in a lot of cases. There are a lot of really talented, hard-working people who are also toxic leaders (some maybe not fully intentionally), and the challenge of dealing with them in an organization is that, as you point out, measurable performance is often all that matters. I think the cost-benefit in an example like this is usually not so much "replace the asshole and get a 7% bump in growth"....it's more like, "it'll cost you a point or two of sales growth but that'll more than pay for itself in terms of lower turnover because we'll save $200k a year in recruiters fees because we won't have to pay them to find replacements for miserable junior people who don't stick around for very long".

munchbunny 8y ago
This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but one of the best pieces of advice I've heard was this: It's never worth promoting a potentially toxic manager into a managerial role, even if they're great in their current role. If you do, the whole team suffers. If you don't and they leave because you didn't promote them, they weren't going to let you keep them as an IC anyway. Best case is you reform them, but do that before and not after you promote them. I've seen this pattern more than I'd like.

kevingadd 8y ago

There are many ways to raise your short or even mid-term numbers that have a net negative effect on the company over the long term. For example, if you want to get monthly active users up over the course of 3-6 months to get a promotion, there are lots of ways to do it - you can do discount promotions, or even pay users to download and install and use your app. But the moment you stop doing that your numbers are going to tank, and in the long run you just cost the company money while also doing damage to how people perceive it. The massive drop in numbers after that is going to demoralize the team, as well. I've worked on a couple different teams where leadership did short-term-focused things like this to get numbers up and then the company paid for it later (typically after the leadership had exited or been pushed out). This is a type of superstar toxicity that can be really harmful to your company even if people aren't quitting in droves because of the toxic employee.