WEBVTT - EP 124 | How to Fix A Toxic Workplace 0:00:06.770 --> 0:00:14.480 Welcome back to Building Billions. Let's talk about toxic work cultures. 0:00:14.510 --> 0:00:18.710 I just finished our two day People Essentials workshop. It 0:00:18.710 --> 0:00:23.419 is two days, jam packed full of talking about people problems, 0:00:23.420 --> 0:00:26.930 talking to business owners. There was a couple hundred business 0:00:26.930 --> 0:00:31.760 owners who were interested in growing their leadership, understanding what 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:33.890 they're doing wrong in order to be able to grow 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.730 their businesses. And I get so many questions at these 0:00:37.729 --> 0:00:42.650 events from people with million dollar businesses, $10 million businesses, 0:00:42.650 --> 0:00:50.150 and 100 plus million dollar businesses about this thing called culture. 0:00:50.300 --> 0:00:54.170 How do you fix a toxic culture? It takes an 0:00:54.170 --> 0:00:58.670 aware leader to understand and recognize to begin with that 0:00:58.670 --> 0:01:02.780 their work culture is toxic, and it takes an even 0:01:02.780 --> 0:01:06.500 stronger leader to fully take responsibility for the fact that 0:01:06.500 --> 0:01:09.500 they created and allowed this culture. One of my favorite 0:01:09.500 --> 0:01:13.850 quotes from Sharon Lechter is you either create a culture 0:01:13.850 --> 0:01:19.070 by design or by default you create a culture. Either 0:01:19.069 --> 0:01:22.490 by design or by default. And if you're listening to this, 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.820 you've probably created a culture by default, which is why 0:01:25.819 --> 0:01:29.420 you're listening to a podcast about toxic work cultures. And 0:01:29.420 --> 0:01:31.429 so I want to share with you some really simple 0:01:31.430 --> 0:01:34.009 things that you can do in order to fix your culture. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:35.840 First thing is, you have to realize that it can 0:01:35.870 --> 0:01:39.440 be fixed. It can be fixed. You can have and 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:43.520 create an amazing place to work. That is possible. There 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.780 are thousands of companies that are examples of this, and 0:01:47.780 --> 0:01:51.560 you don't have to think that because Sarah works for you. 0:01:51.590 --> 0:01:54.800 Joey works for you. Zach works for you. Bob works 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.800 for you. All these people that you know who are drainers, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.890 who are negative, who create the toxicity. You don't have 0:02:00.890 --> 0:02:04.280 to get mired down in the thought that you can't 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.280 fix it because you can. So the first step is 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.660 recognizing and understanding that you can fix your culture. Second 0:02:11.660 --> 0:02:16.340 step you have to identify who the toxic people are. 0:02:16.490 --> 0:02:19.459 Who is toxic? The best way to do this is 0:02:19.460 --> 0:02:24.170 first by looking at people's stats. Not a popular conversation, 0:02:24.169 --> 0:02:26.870 but there is no way that people who are productive, 0:02:26.900 --> 0:02:30.530 who are positively contributing are able to keep their stats high. 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:34.339 So look at where their numbers are. Are they hitting numbers? 0:02:34.370 --> 0:02:38.810 Are their graphs trending up? If they're not, if there's problems? 0:02:38.810 --> 0:02:41.900 If there's issues, those are likely your toxic people. I 0:02:41.900 --> 0:02:45.320 also believe that business owners just know who's toxic. You know, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:49.639 the people that are the source of rumors and gossip 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.810 and create that environment. So you identify those people and 0:02:53.810 --> 0:02:56.720 you have a conversation with them saying, hey, I recognize 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.230 that you've been saying x, y, z thing. I've heard 0:03:00.230 --> 0:03:03.590 from these people that this is what you're talking about. 0:03:03.620 --> 0:03:05.840 This is what you're spreading. I just want to make 0:03:05.870 --> 0:03:11.810 sure we're really clear that toxicity, gossip, rumors, that's not 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.570 what we're here to do. So you confront the person 0:03:14.570 --> 0:03:17.180 head on, you have the conversation head on, you look 0:03:17.210 --> 0:03:19.940 at their stats and you say, okay, this is not working. 0:03:19.940 --> 0:03:23.960 You confront it. You are accountable. And once you've had 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:29.270 the reset, you say to them, these are my new expectations. 0:03:29.270 --> 0:03:32.390 This can no longer happen. And if it does continue 0:03:32.389 --> 0:03:36.500 to happen, you get rid of the toxicity, you get 0:03:36.500 --> 0:03:40.070 rid of them. They are no longer a part or 0:03:40.100 --> 0:03:42.290 able to be a part of what you are creating. 0:03:42.290 --> 0:03:44.570 If people are continuing to focus on what's wrong, to 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.090 focus on what's negative, to push back on you, to 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.270 cause issues, to bring up all of the failures and 0:03:50.270 --> 0:03:52.250 they aren't able to make this pivot that you are 0:03:52.250 --> 0:03:55.520 trying to make inside your business. You have the wrong people, 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.430 so get rid of them. At the same time, you're 0:03:58.430 --> 0:04:02.060 getting rid of your wrong people, the toxic people, the 0:04:02.060 --> 0:04:06.800 people who are hurting your business. That's when you start 0:04:06.830 --> 0:04:10.700 understanding what is wanted and needed from the team members 0:04:10.700 --> 0:04:14.210 who are solid on your team. So a really easy conversation. 0:04:14.210 --> 0:04:16.970 You sit down with your team members who are strong, 0:04:16.970 --> 0:04:20.359 who you want to keep, who you know can be 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:23.989 turned positively in your business, even if they might have 0:04:23.990 --> 0:04:26.060 fallen to some of the negativity or gotten caught up 0:04:26.060 --> 0:04:30.350 in it. The people who help your clients and show 0:04:30.350 --> 0:04:34.460 up on time and create the positivity that you're looking for. 0:04:34.490 --> 0:04:36.380 Those people. You sit down and you ask them what 0:04:36.380 --> 0:04:39.169 is wanted and needed from me as a leader, what 0:04:39.170 --> 0:04:42.500 is wanted and needed from me in this organization. And 0:04:42.500 --> 0:04:46.220 then to the extent that you can, you deliver it. Now, 0:04:46.220 --> 0:04:49.790 if they make crazy requests, that's a different thing. They're like, oh, 0:04:49.820 --> 0:04:54.560 we should be able to, uh, just not really clock 0:04:54.560 --> 0:05:03.110 in ever and don't really need to update our daily logs. 0:05:03.110 --> 0:05:06.740 Like at some point you don't have to deliver everything 0:05:06.740 --> 0:05:09.170 that is wanted and needed, but you do have to 0:05:09.170 --> 0:05:13.400 take a listening ear to what's not working and really 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:19.310 assess who am I? Sorry guys. 609 On Sunday evening, 0:05:19.310 --> 0:05:23.539 after four days of running an event and I'm a 0:05:23.540 --> 0:05:25.969 little tired. But this is something that I just talked 0:05:25.970 --> 0:05:29.180 to a lady downstairs about 15 minutes ago, so it's 0:05:29.180 --> 0:05:30.919 hot off the press. I want to I want to 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.679 share this with you. You take the good people, you 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.919 understand what is wanted and needed. You listen and get 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.969 feedback on what's not working, and you deliver upon the 0:05:40.970 --> 0:05:44.510 solutions to the problems that they're presenting. And you don't 0:05:44.510 --> 0:05:47.510 get defensive and you don't justify and you don't rationalize, 0:05:47.510 --> 0:05:50.599 and you be humble and you eat shit and you 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.650 understand what's not working. This is one of the hardest 0:05:54.650 --> 0:05:57.529 parts because it's such an easy thing to get reactionary, 0:05:57.529 --> 0:06:02.450 to get defensive. This is one of the things that 0:06:02.450 --> 0:06:04.549 I might struggle with the most, where it's like, oh, 0:06:04.580 --> 0:06:06.440 but I have a reason for why this happened the 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:09.710 way that it did. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't 0:06:09.710 --> 0:06:11.750 matter why things happen the way that it did. It's 0:06:11.750 --> 0:06:14.090 not the time to explain. It's the time to fix. 0:06:14.300 --> 0:06:16.909 When your house is on fire, it's not the time 0:06:16.910 --> 0:06:19.130 to be like, oh, but you know, it was just 0:06:19.130 --> 0:06:22.549 because the hair straightener, the button gets stuck sometimes, so 0:06:22.550 --> 0:06:24.500 I didn't know if it was off. Like, no, that's 0:06:24.500 --> 0:06:26.150 not the time to talk about it. The time to 0:06:26.150 --> 0:06:30.320 talk about the process, maybe like it might be later 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.570 or maybe never. What you need to do right now 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:37.310 is freaking get a hose or call. I was going 0:06:37.310 --> 0:06:40.700 to say the ambulance. Ambulance? Call the fire truck. Do 0:06:40.700 --> 0:06:43.670 not call the ambulance. Well, unless somebody is inside. But 0:06:44.150 --> 0:06:46.940 you get the point. Call a fire truck. Handle the 0:06:46.940 --> 0:06:51.610 fucking fire that's in front of you. Handle that. Don't explain. 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:58.930 Don't rationalize. And I find that good people can recognize 0:06:58.930 --> 0:07:03.790 when you care. I really do believe that good people, 0:07:03.790 --> 0:07:07.240 your good people on your team can recognize when you care. 0:07:07.300 --> 0:07:10.480 So if there is a toxic environment and you're leaning 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.300 into your good people and you're coming to them earnestly 0:07:13.570 --> 0:07:16.270 where they see that you're handling the negativity, they see 0:07:16.270 --> 0:07:18.940 that you're handling the toxicity, and you're asking for their 0:07:18.940 --> 0:07:21.850 feedback and their input in order to help make things better. 0:07:21.850 --> 0:07:26.380 You're not making them wrong. You're not justifying, justifying, or rationalizing. 0:07:26.380 --> 0:07:29.290 You can turn your culture around. And I've seen this 0:07:29.290 --> 0:07:32.679 time and time again where this fails is when a 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.900 business owner isn't willing to do what it takes. I've 0:07:37.900 --> 0:07:41.110 also seen it fail when the team that they think 0:07:41.590 --> 0:07:44.350 are the right ones are still the wrong ones. They 0:07:44.350 --> 0:07:47.740 are the toxic ones, so they take the wrong feedback 0:07:47.740 --> 0:07:52.420 from the wrong people and implement the wrong solutions. So 0:07:52.420 --> 0:07:55.239 you have to be discerning in who you talk to, 0:07:55.270 --> 0:07:58.690 who you trust, and where you get this feedback from. 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.380 I almost made this mistake earlier this week. I recognized 0:08:02.380 --> 0:08:07.630 that there was a team member who very publicly posted 0:08:07.630 --> 0:08:11.800 on social media that they are, that they just were 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.860 super ten X. They did that all through their career. 0:08:14.890 --> 0:08:17.770 Loved ten x super ten X, all things Cardone Ventures. 0:08:17.770 --> 0:08:20.860 Cardone ventures changed their life. We didn't ask them to 0:08:20.860 --> 0:08:24.550 do that. They posted these things on their own volition. 0:08:24.730 --> 0:08:29.110 And then they left a while ago. And I saw 0:08:29.110 --> 0:08:31.870 that very recently. They left a review and it wasn't 0:08:31.870 --> 0:08:33.940 a nice review, and it was actually the correction of 0:08:33.940 --> 0:08:37.330 a previous review. I was like, hmm, that's interesting. You know, 0:08:37.540 --> 0:08:40.360 I didn't realize that this team member left with such 0:08:40.390 --> 0:08:43.689 anger and frustration, and that would never be my intention. 0:08:43.900 --> 0:08:47.890 So I reached out to this particular team member via. 0:08:49.690 --> 0:08:52.930 Online methods and said, hey, I saw this review. It 0:08:52.929 --> 0:08:54.880 makes me really sad to see this. I'm open to 0:08:54.910 --> 0:08:57.940 a conversation to hear feedback, and I was met with 0:08:57.970 --> 0:09:02.530 like snarkiness and rudeness. And at first I was like, okay, 0:09:02.530 --> 0:09:04.839 I can take the initial snarkiness and rudeness. Like, I'd 0:09:04.840 --> 0:09:06.910 still like to have a conversation because I really valued 0:09:06.940 --> 0:09:10.750 their input. And then again, to the second message, I 0:09:10.750 --> 0:09:14.230 was met with snarkiness and rudeness, and at that point 0:09:14.230 --> 0:09:17.020 I was like, okay. Like there's no way that this 0:09:17.020 --> 0:09:20.500 is going to have a positive outcome. This person isn't 0:09:20.500 --> 0:09:23.260 looking to give me feedback. This person is looking to 0:09:23.290 --> 0:09:27.700 make me pander and tell me that I'm wrong and 0:09:27.700 --> 0:09:31.240 not give me, I mean, the feedback that I'm looking for. 0:09:31.270 --> 0:09:33.340 If I'm already asking you what the feedback is, and 0:09:33.340 --> 0:09:35.740 I see that there's issues, of course I know that 0:09:35.740 --> 0:09:37.329 there's something that I could do. I'm coming to you 0:09:37.330 --> 0:09:40.239 to clarify that, but there's nothing that I'm going to 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:45.579 win by asking people who are so far gone and 0:09:45.580 --> 0:09:49.690 negative and critical to give me constructive feedback. And I 0:09:49.690 --> 0:09:53.080 don't need to subject myself, nor to you, to cruel 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.560 feedback or feedback that is intended to sting. And that 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.809 was the nature of these messages. So I just realized, hey, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:00.790 you know, this probably isn't isn't the right direction. This 0:10:00.790 --> 0:10:03.729 isn't this. This person is not at a place to 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:08.800 be able to really have this conversation. So once you're 0:10:08.830 --> 0:10:12.579 able to assess who those people are that you can 0:10:12.580 --> 0:10:15.160 trust to give you feedback and give you honest feedback 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:18.819 about what's not working, then you work like crazy to 0:10:18.850 --> 0:10:24.309 implement it. Work like crazy to not let them down, 0:10:24.580 --> 0:10:29.260 and to give rationale and reasons for why you're implementing 0:10:29.260 --> 0:10:33.940 certain things. When you're implementing those things. Communicate, communicate, communicate 0:10:33.940 --> 0:10:37.180 so that they know that the feedback was taken seriously. 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:39.729 Because the last thing that you want to do is 0:10:39.850 --> 0:10:43.179 have to do this a second time. And then it's like, 0:10:43.179 --> 0:10:47.860 what was that cartoon growing up, little Red Riding Hood. 0:10:47.860 --> 0:10:50.710 I think she was the one that cried wolf. Whoever 0:10:50.710 --> 0:10:52.810 cried wolf, it's like the girl who cries wolf. Oh, 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:54.820 we're gonna. As soon as there's something bad that happened. Oh, 0:10:54.850 --> 0:10:56.830 we're gonna get your feedback. But then nothing happens. No. 0:10:56.830 --> 0:10:59.470 You communicate. Hey, this is what I heard. This is 0:10:59.470 --> 0:11:01.630 what we're going to do about what we heard. Here 0:11:01.630 --> 0:11:04.959 are the things that were pieces of feedback that were 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.170 not willing to budge on. This is why I hope 0:11:08.170 --> 0:11:12.100 you understand. And after I explain, can just have some 0:11:12.100 --> 0:11:15.880 appreciation for why I've thought thoughtfully about these things. And 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.970 this is where we're willing to land. And I find 0:11:18.970 --> 0:11:21.850 that when you communicate like that, it strengthens it strengthens 0:11:21.850 --> 0:11:24.700 your team. When you're going through a culture shock, when 0:11:24.700 --> 0:11:27.610 you're going through a culture transition, when things aren't super 0:11:27.610 --> 0:11:32.439 great and there's toxicity, those moments of like coming together 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:37.720 and being honest and being transparent really bond team members together. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.770 And it creates this stronger connection because you're both willing 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.200 to fix things. They're willing to say some things that 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.410 might have felt uncomfortable. They risk potentially losing their job. 0:11:47.410 --> 0:11:51.790 If you responded incorrectly and you risk not looking like 0:11:51.790 --> 0:11:54.820 you know everything. And if you struggle with that, then 0:11:54.850 --> 0:11:56.770 you're going to struggle having these conversations. But they are 0:11:56.770 --> 0:11:59.170 some of the greatest conversations that you can have with 0:11:59.170 --> 0:12:03.220 your team and that rebuild and will help you forge 0:12:03.220 --> 0:12:06.280 the path forward for growth. To be able to make 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:08.199 room for new people who can help you with the 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:14.710 problems that you have. So that's it. Simple as that. 0:12:15.010 --> 0:12:19.510 How you handle a toxic culture. Never forget that you 0:12:19.510 --> 0:12:22.839 don't have to deal with or allow toxicity. You can 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.090 handle it. It can get better. You can create the 0:12:25.090 --> 0:12:28.600 business of your dreams. I'm rooting for you. I'm hoping 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.980 for you. I'm on your team wanting you to win, 0:12:32.980 --> 0:12:35.980 wanting you to be successful with all of this. And 0:12:36.100 --> 0:12:37.449 you got this.