The Danger of the Bad Apple
Each of us has, over the years, found ourselves as part of a team. In most corporate settings, we are not able to select our teammates, and may not even know some of our colleagues well, and so the formation of a new team means that its members often begin by sizing each other up. Typically, leaders (or a leader) are quick to assert themselves; styles and personalities begin to manifest; introverts and extroverts show their colors; and the team dynamic begins to form. In short order, we are able to determine which of our teammates we like and which we prefer to avoid, intuitively separating in our minds the “good apples” from the “bad” ones. Not surprisingly, we tend to gravitate toward those who share our enthusiasm and commitment to the assigned project, who value and respect good ideas no matter what their source, and who leverage their own competencies in a way that magnifies and expands our own. In working with such people, we find our own skills are honed and magnified, our own contribution increases, and our sense of interconnectivity with teammates grows. We at Ascentador refer to this positive, interpersonal interplay as “activation” and have long expounded to our clients the belief that the best and highest performing teams are those with high levels of “activation” between the members.
Sadly, not all teams enjoy this level of activation and, without it, may struggle to achieve the goals set for it or to provide a working environment that evokes the best performance from the individual team members. In forward thinking organizations, a “deactivated” team is a serious matter and not one that is easy to solve. In the past few years, a number of our longstanding clients have called upon Ascentador to intervene, to determine the source of the issue, and to address it through whatever means are necessary.
Although it would be misleading to suggest that the source of every underperforming team’s problem is the same (there are numerous reasons a team may fail to perform that have nothing to do with problems between the members), most of the time our work in this area has uncovered for senior management what the team members themselves already knew: a ”bad apple” was present and had begun to spoil the whole barrel.
But what is a “bad apple” exactly and how is that the presence of even one can spoil a whole barrel? Why wouldn’t the “good apples” - - so much more numerous than “bad” - - apply pressure or set an example or use some other means to “convert” the offending member to a more positive way of working?
These are complex questions for any organization and have been studied extensively by both business psychologists and researchers alike. Perhaps one of the most insightful papers I have ever read on the topic - - and on which I will lean somewhat heavily here - - is Dr. Will Felps’ paper, “How, When & Why Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel” (Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2006). Although Dr. Felps is a senior professor at the Business School of the University of New South Wales in Australia, his academic and research observations have been borne out in the “real world” consulting work conducted by Ascentador since opening its doors in 2008.
According to Felps, there are essentially three types of behavior on the part of “bad apples” that can disrupt the efforts of a team to perform. Such individuals may be the type who a) withhold effort, b) project affective negativity, or c) violate interpersonal norms. The study is not suggesting that these are the only three types of negative behavior a team member might display. For example, an individual team member might lack the competencies to contribute properly to the team’s effort and this would certainly be “negative”, but a mere lack of competence on the part of one individual would be unlikely to stifle the achievement of the overall team. In sharp contrast, the three undesirable behaviors identified by Felps are almost certain not just to “deactivate” many of the team members but to undermine any opportunity for successful achievement of shared goals.
I suspect that very few readers will have trouble recalling at least one “withholder of effort” whom they have met during the course of their professional journey. We all know the type. Such people seem intent on avoiding their responsibilities to the group and are content to take the “free ride” made possible by the efforts of others. The negative behavior of these colleagues consists mostly of not doing something: not completing tasks, not accepting risks or responsibilities, not allowing adequate time or focus for the team, or not disclosing information that would benefit others on the team. Some might argue that a Withholder is easily spotted and ejected, but in fact many Withholders are so adept that they can project (typically upward, to senior management) an air of busyness and activity that hides their underlying tendency to be a slacker. “A withholder may appear to be a fully-engaged professional,” a psychologist friend of mine once wrote, “But under scrutiny is shown to have plenty of light, but no heat.”
Although the phrase “projecting affective negativity” may sound a bit academic, its manifestation in the real world is all too painful. For “Negatives”, as I have dubbed such executives, the habitual response to any question or situation is “no”. Expressions of doubt about the quality of colleagues, declarations of the impossibility of a given task, proclamations that the team lacks senior management support (or tools or resources or something else) - - all these are the stock-in-trade of the negative team member. Sadly, simply disagreeing with a Negative does not fully blunt their impact on the team’s dynamic. “The problem with [negative thinking],” says Tony Schwartz (New York Times, “The Power of Starting with ‘Yes’”, April 17, 2015), “is that polarizes people, prompts defensiveness, and shuts down innovation, collaboration and connection. By projecting their negative views on us, Negatives stress the bonds that tie us together as a team. They stoke our own, inward fears about the future. They taint the environment with doubt.
The third type of “bad apple” - - an executive prepared to violate interpersonal norms, or “Bully” - - is perhaps the easiest one to spot. Such violations can take many forms, of course, but Felps says most such behavior can fall into one of seven basic categories, including “making fun of someone, saying something hurtful, making an inappropriate ethnic or religious remark, cursing at someone, playing mean pranks, acting rudely, or publicly embarrassing someone.” It is worth noting that most companies have specific policies in place to punish these behaviors, but they are seldom exercised either because the Bullies themselves are in a leadership position on the team or because their actions are simply are never reported.
The responses available to a team that has discovered a bad apple in its midst are unfortunately few. In the early stages, when we still believe that a change in the offending colleague is possible, we may try what Felps calls “motivational intervention” in order to turn things around. This may include withholding praise, respect or resources until the individual changes his/her behavior. Confrontation, requests for an apology, special rewards/punishments - - each of these may be used in an effort to awaken our teammate, sensitize him/ her to the issue, and evoke a behavioral change that brings him/her back into line. If s/he can hear the message and internalize it, the situation may well turn around.
In many cases, however, the source of the troubling behavior is deep and motivational intervention is too weak a response to result in anything but lip service, a temporary change, or outright contempt. When this occurs, Felps notes, teams will often move on to the next stage of response, rejection. In its most virulent form, rejection can involve removing a “bad apple” from the team entirely, but this is often a difficult, perhaps even unworkable solution, given the political environment in which the team operates. Instead, rejection most commonly results in the offending teammate being ostracized, excluded from communication and social interaction, cut off from the decision-making process, and effectively remaining on the team in name only.
Like motivational intervention, rejection is a relatively positive approach to resolving the problem. Indeed, Felps cites examples from his research of teams that have successfully used such “bumps in the road” as a means of “strengthening members’ efficacy in dealing with difficult social situations and reaffirming the team’s normative order.” In this way, a potential negative is actually rendered into a positive.
But what if these approaches are unsuccessful or - - and, in my own experience, this is most often the case - - what if the very fact that there is a problem is disputed? Many of us have, at one point or another, found ourselves as a member of a dysfunctional team where we seemed to be only team members able to spot the dysfunction! As time goes on, and the problem remains unnamed and unaddressed, our individual sense of despair may grow and lead us to the final type of response: defensiveness.
In this context, says Felps, “Defensiveness means those acts which intend to protect and repair one’s own sense of autonomy, status, self-esteem, and well-being.” By the time we reach the point of defensiveness, we have on some level given up on the idea that the team can ever be functional while the “bad apple” remains. We have begun to turn our attention away from the team’s goals and reverted to a more primal ambition: the protection of ourselves. As such, defensiveness can show itself in a wide array of dramatic behaviors, including lashing out at the offending colleague, seeking revenge, exaggerating the negatives, minimizing the positives, or simply withdrawing, yielding the field to the source of the problem and retreating into a limbo in which s/he is unable to trouble us but equally we are unable to play our own, positive role on the team with any efficacy.
And ultimately, this is why even a solitary “bad apple” has the power to spoil the whole barrel. As we have seen, unless the team is able to use motivational intervention to nip the problem in the bud, and quite quickly too, the presence of a “bad apple” begins to undermine team formation, effectiveness, and ability. The two other available “solutions” to this type of dysfunction - - rejection and defensiveness - - may provide “good apple” team members with some relief from the unfair, negative influence of a “bad apple” team member, but they do not stop that individual from continuing to drip poison into the lifeblood of the team or from subverting its likelihood of success.
For this reason, progressive companies understand the importance not just of empowering team members to speak their minds, but providing a safe mechanism for them do so. Only by identifying any prospective “bad apple” as the barrel is being filled do we stand any chance of addressing and containing it before it begins its nefarious work among the other fruits.
Chris van Someren