Coaching Rotten Apples?

As an Agile coach, it is too part of our exercises to identify the bad apples from the team.

If we have to establish a high-performance agile team, we require to work out this exercise. It is not only reporting manager jobs, you as a coach desire to support the manager to surmount this crisis.

How can we help the bad apples so that other apples also do get rotten!

Else all the coaching efforts will go in vain!

We have to rapidly stop bleeding to recover the team!

As the traditional maxim goes, one bad apple can spoil the whole barrel

It merely takes one “rotten apple” to influence employee engagement across your whole business. If you place one bad apple with other few good apples, it has been discovered over a period of a timeline all apples will be started becoming bad! It is an absolutely genuine fact.

First, identify those bad apples, there is a diverse school of opinion suggesting, there is no bad apple, it is the only circumstance which creates those bad apples, once you alter the condition they will spiral into a Good apple.

As a coach, we need to understand all the circumstances which induce those. It is part of the assessment and we are liable to turn a team into a high-performance team. Also a part of change management activities.

a) Find the individuals who spend most of the time complaining about the system. Whenever they comment, it commences with a complaint. Looks for the evidence if he/she has done anything to alter the situation. Or just grievance!

A recent study organized by the University of Washington Business School examines just how much damage one bad apple can inflict. The study, published in Research in Organizational Behavior, reveals that in the presence of bad apples individuals aren’t as willing to handle problems that arise, don’t communicate with one another, and generally stop functioning as a team—not a great recipe for high performance and productivity.

Let us find if such bad apples are not passing from one team to others

b) Need to coach those Bad apples. Emphasize and try to understand what kind of challenges those individuals are dealing with. Talk to the reporting manager about the strength and weaknesses of those individuals. Need to observe them thoughtfully and ask managers to talk periodically about those individuals. Provide feedback for the progress.

c) Most of the time those individuals are street smart individuals. They know extremely well how to play the game in the system. Dialogue and agreement with such individuals have to be recorded and set the expectation very precisely. Measure the outcome based on their contribution. Need to involve reporting managers in any such arrangement and improvement plan. The goal has to be SMART and evaluate with the right feedback for such individuals.

d) Those individuals have not polished themselves to stay relevant with the modern technology trend. To come out of the inability they will try to distract the attention or discussion in some other way. A coach needs to talk to those individuals structurally. Need to convey what they can contribute in 6 months and a 1-year timeline to upgrade their knowledge gaps. Coach them and update their reporting managers.

e) Those individuals(Bad Apples) due to some reason have forgotten the passion, aspiration to establish something significant. As a result, they are not capable to match the expectations organizations are demanding from them. Some way the innovation speed has diminished a contribution has come down. They have to rekindle the fire within themselves to create something worth it. Need to understand their world and point out the modern way of thinking so that they can become self-driven to rehabilitate their world.

f) Communicate to their Manager, sometimes, the ecosystem push to those team members to move to this Bad apple state. Understand what action Mangers are performing for those team members. Observe the manager’s management style and look for opportunities if we can help those managers to modify some of their styles which is not aligning with Mentoring, supporting, coaching style of leadership.

g) Coach other good apples to help the bad apples in all the desirable ways. There could be a timeline for those bad apples to turn into Good apple. Organizations can assure that there is enough support system in place, by using these approaches a Bad apple can turn into a good apple. All the other team members require to serve those bad apples by coaching, mentoring, and training based on their capacity. The coach and Reporting manager can discuss and measure improvement and progress.

h) Most of the time, bad apples will not walk the talk. These are truly typical symptoms. They will talk loud and tall. But their contribution is absolutely minimal. It takes courage and wisdom to catch hold of such individuals. As a coach, we do not stand for any such confusion. Looks for improvement, contribution, and the impact they are making month on month. Regularly update their reporting manager regarding the action you are taking for those bad apples. How those individuals are performing in their day to day progress.

i) Look for the cues from the team members, who are not taking many activities, watch for the individuals who are having maximum excuses most of the time, Looks for the individuals who are not able to accomplish their activities most of the time and what reason, look for the individuals in the meeting says many different ideas but not able to contributes as the expected level, talk to the team members. These are clues where we can make out who are the bad apples. They are great manipulators so search for those clues and reach the bad apples to diminish the damage rapidly.

I am sure you are also coming across such individuals, Let us all find those and help the organization to be a better place to work for. One day those apples will turn into a good one.

Why I am not taking Accountability?

When a high-performance team falls back to the normal team?

Accountability is the issue! If you can't find a way to get people to be accountable, you're going to find it hard to make anything else work, let alone your business. Robert Lebow; Randy Spitzer, Accountability

One of the pivotal issues I have noticed which are stopping the team to become High-Performance team is, about accountability from each team member.

I am finding leaders are screaming every issue because team members are thinking like silos, not owing end to end deliverables, criticizing each other, finding fault from each other, etc

Accountability is a statement of personal promise, both to yourself and to the people around you, to deliver specific defined results. Brian Dive, The Accountable Leader

Lack of accountability is absolutely contagious!

When we encounter our team members are not taking up ownership, our mind like viruses get infected with the same thought.

It spread like wildfire! Except for a few high energy passionate individuals, rest all to start defaulting in ownership.

When we are accountable, we take ownership of situations that we are committed in. We see them through, and we accept responsibility for what happens–good or bad. We don’t blame others if matters go awry. Instead, we do our finest to make things right.

When did Leaders fear to empower team?

When they think that team can not fulfill the deliverables which have an immense consequence in the outcome.

The moment leader realizes that team is owning and taking end to end accountability of the aftermath, leaders will slowly empower the team members. Else Control and Micromanagement!! Be content with this if you can not modify your ways of taking ownership!

When individuals don’t accept accountability and things commence going awry, as they don’t feel ownership they move into spectator mode and observe as things fail.

Whereas when individuals take ownership, if things start to go wrong, then they step into solution mode. They commence to try and figure out what’s going wrong, investigate and fix it.

Behavioral change expert, Peter Bregman, presents it effectively in his HBR article on accountability: “Accountability is not simply taking the blame when something goes wrong. It’s not a confession. Accountability is about delivering on a commitment. It’s the responsibility to an outcome, not just a set of tasks. It’s taking initiative with a thoughtful, strategic follow-through.”

Why Team is not taking accountability? How can we enhance the same?

A team’s success depends upon accountability.

It is a leader’s responsibility for designing a culture of accountability on the team. All the team members require to inspire for a common purpose and big vision. Team members require to be hooked into the common mission.

As a Leader, we have to assign accountability to the team members. They need to know that if something happens to the end result, they have to take end to end ownership.

As Leader, we require to be clear about what we are expecting. Team members are not taking accountability because they do not know what is expected of them. There could be a possibility that they do not know what to be done, as they are not competent to perform the same. Leaders need to be a mentor for them to ensure there will be assistance, but deliverable need to show up and all of us are responsible for the consequences. It is not to blame some, but to strengthen the ownership of the given assignment.

As a Leader, we need to ensure, if team members are not over-committed something. When we have too many things to be done, we occasionally can not express, but we stop taking accountability for some of the items. It is fundamental that we speak out and convey what will be the consequence to the team and leaders.

When leaders provide feedback, team accountability improves. Every team members need to express and take the feedback positively about what best can be done. Once team members know where they stand against the set expectations and leaders have given them actionable tasks to work on, it is easy for them to see a clear path for development and success.

Leaders when they establish control culture and micromanage, it generates a fearful culture. In the fearful environment, team members always serve for short-term gain. Their mind does not look for long term commitment, as they do not own the end result from their heart. As a leader, we need to create a fear-free long-term goal. No blame for any mistake, inspire, and encourage team members.

As a leader, we need to convey performance improvement points. No blame on individuals but analyze the performance gaps and what could be the steps to improvement. As a leader, we should not tolerate the poor performance and need to deal with structurally how to overcome those competency issues. Team members will feel more accountable as they are growing and will own the end to end outcomes. Understand the challenges employees are undergoing and try to coach them.

Teams keep leaders accountable for the goal. Individuals connected to no one can change the goal without accountability. John C. Maxwell, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork Workbook

In the VUCA world, things will not be very clear. All together, we need to have a mindset where we are figuring out and ensuring we do our best. This should demonstrate in our deliverables that we tried our 100% and we own the consequence.

I have visited many places in India. Every year we managed to travel to a different place to stay at. One of the stories which distinctly appear in my mind where I could discover the accountably of an individual was 100%. We were in Aurangabad to visit Ajanta and Ellora caves. The day I have booked the hotel, since day one, the individual ensures, everything goes smoothly. He ensures we get the finest room. The car he arranged, the driver we got, the places we visited, the foods and other activities that we did in Aurganbad was perfect. I have lost my sandals in Ajanta! the driver took us to the city and assure; we purchase my required sandal as well, other than sandal any other things also without any irritation. The end to end journey with very minimal affordable cost, the individual demonstrated the greatest level of accountability from his side. As a tourist, I felt wow commitment from that individual, which I yet to find another person like this. Complete end to end integrated service he has arranged for us.

I do see that when we are all accountable for what we are doing, things will start changing at the team level, we all need to look for this and remind each other, is there a possibility to improve the accountability whatever state we are in today?