[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Jamie Cochran.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Lake Babin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Weed wind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm extreme watershed podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're back from another episode of the lead wind pod cast with life-babin Carlos Mendez and this week I want to talk about a conversation I had recently with a client and they were describing someone in their organization one of their top sales guys is guys killing it and he's driving it on a revenue driving a lot of value to their bottom line but the issues they're having on the back end is that he's talks that he creates a lot of contention across the team a lot of friction across the team he's caught up a lot in the drama there's some toxic cities surrounding him and the
[SPEAKER_00]: Conversation we had was how do you manage these high performers who are seemingly so valuable of the organization?
[SPEAKER_00]: But how do we measure the impact that they may have over a long period of time when they're potentially fracturing the culture within an organization?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you manage this balance between your top performers and poor behavior?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that makes me think of one of the stories that I tell during my workshops.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was this gentleman, let's say, we'll call him Fred, right here at Ashlong front.
[SPEAKER_01]: We like to call out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, talk goes favorite.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's either Fred or Jamie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I figured out when he's giving a bad example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think Fred is like a good friend for now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this in Fred was a seal that I used to work with in the teams and he was actually extremely talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a very good seal, very good at what he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's a good guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fred was one of these types of people that, you know, he was the best at everything he did.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you ask him, he did it better than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's say you climb Mount Everest once.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did it twice.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a one-uper.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's an enormous one-uper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody here knows what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the SEAL teams, how it works sometimes, depending on what team you're at, is sometimes in your teams, you'll have what's called a draft, where you get the pick your team.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have the team leaders in a room, you have their pictures, and their name up on the whiteboard, and you take turns.
[SPEAKER_01]: choosing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why we call it the draft.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at this point of my career, I'm one of the team leaders and we're going through the draft and, you know, everybody's going through in the last guy on the board.
[SPEAKER_01]: is Fred.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now remember what I said, he's actually extremely talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that should tell you something that he's that talented yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the last guy picked.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they go to the team leader who's turned it was and they're like, hey, do you want Fred?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love how he actually took the time to look through his roster and pretend like he was counting the people in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, you know, I think I've got enough people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they go to the next team leader and he says something similar, and then it's my turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, hey, low Street, do you want Fred?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't even political about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't stand that guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, no way, he's coming onto my team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, the part of the story that I haven't told you is besides the fact that I didn't like him and he'd, exactly, rub me the right way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had come to my attention that he was angry about the fact that I had been chosen to be a team leader before him because he was senior to me and every way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had joined the teams before me, joined the Navy, before me, he was older than me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he made it no secret to everybody know that he should have been a team leader because he was a better sealed in all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I said, he's actually really good at the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I go home for the weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was on a Friday of a three day weekend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody ended up picking him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody, he ended up staying up on the board.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I go home for the weekend and I start to slowly consider bringing him onto my team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not because I'm super wise.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just trust me that's not the case, but he was really good at something that I was horrible at.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you see, I came up to the SEAL teams as an enlisted guy, so I'd always been on the enlisted side and started office in E1 in the Navy because I had that opportunity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to work my way up through all these different leadership positions and I became decent on the battlefield.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now at this point in my career, I was an officer and I had to be good at a completely different skill and that was the administrative side of the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: And quite frankly, I didn't know how to do a lot of those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And guess who knew how to do all of that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was actually extremely talented at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fred.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fred was really good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I called one of my mentors up, and I shared the story that I'm sharing with you now, and I said, hey, man, I'm thinking about bringing Fred onto the team, but here's the thing, man, I can't stand that guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though he is a super high performer, I can't stand that guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he asked me a couple questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you know, he said, hey, let me ask you this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me all the reasons why you don't want him on the team.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought about it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized that all the reasons that I had in my head, that by the way, in my head sounded really great.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as I wanted to say them out loud, sounded petty, childish, because if I didn't bring Fred on to my team,
[SPEAKER_01]: who was going to suffer and it was my team and the reason I say that is because I needed him for the admin part of it and I needed him for the admin part of it because at that point of my career I had never done the officer type things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd never done the administrative side of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to start building out power points which I didn't know how to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to start briefing now on these missions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know how to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to write awards for my guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to write evaluations for my guys, and all that is a structured process, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to use certain forms, I have to reference certain manuals, I have to use certain verbiage, and I knew how to do none of that, but Fred did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought about it this way, I'm like, okay, well, if I don't bring Fred onto my team, my team is gonna suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're never gonna improve for any of these awards, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: We're never gonna get the evaluations that they deserve and the promotions that they serve,
[SPEAKER_01]: ego and so I thought about it and I said you know what I'll take Fred.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I go back and I go to the CEO's office and I said hey sir I'll take Fred and listen I wish I could tell you that it was rainbows and butterflies and that it was awesome it was not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was probably two of the most challenging years of my career but I did the things that I was taught to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I start off by showing Fred that I cared about him.
[SPEAKER_01]: That I cared about him, I cared about his will be and I cared about his success.
[SPEAKER_01]: I look for ways to show him that I trusted him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to look for these opportunities to show them that trust.
[SPEAKER_01]: When a wartime came around, I let the other puttunes put their awards in first, because I knew that a lot of them were going to get rejected or kick back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you want to know why that is?
[SPEAKER_01]: because Navy seals aren't known for being articulate writers.
[SPEAKER_01]: At least not until they retire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we write all of these awesome books, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But listen, while we're still active duty and we're working out the Kings, we're not great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew a lot of those awards were getting rejected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, knowing what you know about Fred, what do you think his reaction was to that when he heard the news of the other Patuens of Workin and kicked back?
[SPEAKER_00]: If he's a one-up, or he wants to go and win, he wants to get those done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, he literally says to me, pff, these morons, if I would have written the award, they would have got to approve the first time around, because I'm the best at writing awards.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: You're dang right you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're the best at writing awards.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why you're in charge of writing them for our platoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And guess what he did?
[SPEAKER_01]: He knocked it out of the park.
[SPEAKER_01]: I look for ways to allow him to influence me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I look for ways to listen to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you want to take six humbies on that mission?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of five?
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha, okay, cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go with your plan.
[SPEAKER_01]: I allowed him to influence me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more I did these five things, the better our relationship got, and the better our relationship got the more influence I had over him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more influence I had over him, the better off our team was, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I was able to lean on all the expertise that he had that quite frankly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't have, so I think that starting there by building a relationship to gain that influence is a start before we go on to, hey, maybe we need to get rid of this guy, I think that we could be probably the last option because they are good at their job, and we want to keep them as part of team, but we do need to somehow correct that attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: you're describing an interesting take on this topic because there's kind of two different buckets we could look at and one bucket what you're describing is taking a high performer who maybe you know it isn't a great team player maybe has some toxic uh... behavior and finding a way to put them in a position where they can win and you can utilize their effort that's going to benefit the whole of the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's this other bucket which is we have high performers who are delivering at a high level, but creating real tension on the rest of your organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you do in those situations?
[SPEAKER_00]: When you've got someone who's helping with that bottom line contributing to the long-term goal, but meanwhile the team is starting to suffer because of the toxicity that they create and the way that they engage with other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, those are the worst people to deal with, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel if you look at someone who is a poor performer, bad attitude, that's super easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we need to find an exit for this person.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if they're really performing for the team, and they've got a bad attitude, I feel like that's a really difficult place to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's definitely a leadership challenge.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think some leaders, it's a balance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And leaders have to evaluate, what is this person actually bringing to table?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are their strengths and weaknesses?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, do the positives outweigh the negatives or vice versa?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've seen this on both sides with leaders that we worked with.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've had a number of people over the years that will say, this person just doesn't get along with other people and doesn't work well with others and creates functions in the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I'm frustrated with them and we just need to find a finder and exit for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: We need to let them go and then you say, well, what do they contribute?
[SPEAKER_02]: And you find out that they're the top sales person that's accounting for 80% of the company's revenue.
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounds like maybe not the right person to let go.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's probably going to be catastrophic to your team.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that actually what you want to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: And said, you need to take the attitude that Jaco and I wrote about in
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... dacotomy leadership uh... in in the chaper window mentor window fires at most under performers don't need to be fired that need to be led and it's the same thing for someone that's a high performer in one area you should talk to them about what winning actually looks like because a lot of those people are are focused they're so focused on the goal that's what their measure of successes hey look at the numbers that i'm putting up you know look at the sales that i'm i'm uh... i'm locking it look at what i'm contributing to the team
[SPEAKER_02]: but they don't see getting along with other people and building relationships across the team as a measure of success and you have to help them see this concept of cover move right if it's not about you it's about the overall team and the overall mission and that's a real measure of success that you can't get along with others that now help me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't be a team player.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't be a contributing member of the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think sometimes you get a high performer that's frustrated with other people that aren't as high performing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so if you can encourage them to be a good teammate and it help others do better, maybe use some of your knowledge and skill set to train other people around you and help them get better, that's a great way to do that and channel that in a positive direction.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then sometimes I think it's just helping them see that maybe some of the toxicity or the negativity
[SPEAKER_02]: how that actually impacts others on the team and how it's actually dragging the rest of the team down.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is critical as a leader that we recognize the impact to the culture because culture always outweighs individual output and we have to be mindful of that as a leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to protect the team, not just the metrics, so there's definitely the balance you're talking about about taking a high performer, helping them understand that they're attitude and the way they engage with other people on the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: is critical and maybe getting them to a place where they can contribute in a way that's meaningful for the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a line that we cross, where now we have someone on our team who's a hyper-former delivering things at a high level, but is truly starting to erode the culture of our organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the type of toxicity that we as leaders have to take action on.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't anchor to the short-term impact of what that individual is contributing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it's going to erode the long-term strategic mission of us creating a culture of decentralized command and covering move and working together, that becomes really difficult in an organization that is prioritizing those high performers over the culture of the rest of the organization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Lave you said something interesting that I really liked when you said getting them to see that building relationships and having that good culture is a metric of success.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if we can get them to focus obviously they're good performers for a reason, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we can shift that focus and tenacity towards those metrics and showing them hey actually this is what winning looks like that's fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now we go to your point, Jamie, where you're talking about, hey, we can't get them to that point.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to draw a line and we have to protect the culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things that I talk about with our clients when they ask me this question is I tell them, listen, in all my years of being in the teams, when we have come across a person like that, that's super talented.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's really toxic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we simply can't get them to see what winning truly looks like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whenever we've gotten rid of them,
[SPEAKER_01]: not once have we ever looked back and regretted it and you know what actually ends up happening is the rest of the team starts to step up to a larger level because that particular person has just eroded that culture so much that it just wasn't allowing everybody else to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: It reminds me of the quote that I heard from you early at my time at Eschlan front, which is it's not which you preach, it's what you tolerate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if we preach at Eschlan front that we're going to implement, cover, and move, and keep things simple, and work together, and we're going to have this strong culture of ownership, and yet we're tolerating that bad behavior, then that's ultimately what the team sees as the example of what we're actually setting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just what you preach within your organization, those values are critical, but it's what you tolerate in a high performer,
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if they're adding value, if they're impacting the rest of the team, you can't tolerate that because in the long term, that is so much more difficult to overcome than the short term impact of addressing that individual head-on.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, military historians call this the disease of victory or victory disease, and this comes from the fact that when you have successes, success after success after success, where you think, hey, this is, I'm awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: You start to overvalue your contribution or your own tactical prowess.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you start to underestimate your enemy, or your competition.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that creates all kinds of problems as you become arrogant, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You go from confidence to arrogance and you're setting yourself and your team up for failure when you do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's what happens here.
[SPEAKER_02]: When someone has these series of wins,
[SPEAKER_02]: they start to get this disease of victory that creates, you know, this arrogance of like I'm awesome, look at me, no one else is as good as I am and it becomes all about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, unfortunately, when people are doing well, I think as leaders, we have to be careful not to feed into that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if Carlos is doing some stuff that's great, it's easy for me to buy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hate Carlos all some job, and so Carlos is like, yeah, I need to do more of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to do more of that, but what I have to realize is like, look, if Carlos has got some friction to other people in the team, I need to say, hey, Carlos, great job on the sales numbers, but hey, man, we got some friction on the team, what's going on with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I have to be able to address those things, and I think as leaders, we're not
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not doing people any favors if we don't have those hard conversations to talk about where people can actually improve because even if we can talk about it behind closed doors and express frustration, but the moment that we call somebody into the room and talk to them about where they need to improve and if it just sounds like, hey, you're doing great and these numbers are awesome and oh, there's a couple of things that work on here, they don't even hear that.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just, they're thinking, I'm great and we're not actually even
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not even hearing that they need to improve in any area.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just thinking that they're awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to keep doing what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have to let someone like that go.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a total surprise to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if that's the case, then you're failing them as a leader.
[SPEAKER_02]: You really have to let them know what success looks like here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is building relationships with people on the team, showing them that a lot of people that are good performers, what do they want?
[SPEAKER_02]: They want the opportunity to
[SPEAKER_02]: have greater responsibility or take on, you know, have more compensation or get promoted up the chain of command.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you can show them that in order to do those things, here's what we need to see from you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not just to achieve your numbers here or hit these KPIs or, you know, perform in these metrics, but it's actually to get along with other people, to share resources, to build relationships, to work together as a team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you got to put some metrics around that so that they can strive to achieve it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is really about how do we do with these individuals?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the feedback component.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we teach all the time the indirect approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think in certain situations, we have to go a little more direct.
[SPEAKER_00]: You hear the sandwich theory, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like start with something positive, throw in what they need to work on, and then end with something positive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not a believer in this, because I think to your point, they always leave with, I'm awesome, or they only anchor to the bad too.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's got to be this balance.
[SPEAKER_00]: part of what we have to do is lead us to set the right standards, but set those standards for everyone so that feedback is critical.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a way that I like to purchase with my team is it's good to tell your team, hey, lay if you're doing awesome in these areas and you're doing a great job.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want you to be aware of a little bit of a perception or a reputation that you're building in this other area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And tell your people the truth, you can be more direct, not harsh, I'm not saying being harsh in that, but more direct.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be aware that there is a perception that you're not a team player.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a perception that you look only for yourself, that you're not willing to help and support other people on the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to be aware of that reputation that you're building.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an effort of giving feedback in a way that's more direct, that can help them feel encouraged by the work that they're doing, the positive things that they're adding towards.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also make sure they understand the potential challenge on the backend if they don't get some of these fix, it's going to impact their long-term reputation at the organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were at one of our field training exercises years ago, and that we run with our laser taggers, who's experienced learning and putting people in these kind of mock combat scenarios, so they can really experience the laws of combat and learn them in real time and take back some application directly to their worlds.
[SPEAKER_02]: And during the debrief from this, at this point, Joccon, I've been working together for
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, 17 years or something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I pretty much know what John was going to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like I understand the principles that we teach and how they're applied, and he asked a question that I didn't really know the answer to.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, what makes a good seal?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, oh, this could go in a few different directions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I was kind of waiting to hear what he said.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as he said, the answer, I knew that was exactly right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was like, it's not the person that's, you know, the most efficient shooter, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The person who's best with their weapon, that's an important part of the job, we can teach that, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not the person who's got the greatest skydiving skills, and the best diving skills, or any of these other individual skills that you need, it's somebody that puts the team and the mission first.
[SPEAKER_02]: And as soon as you said that, I know that's exactly right, because we've worked with people who have that individual skill set that's better than anybody else and yet if they can't get along with other people, if they can't support the team, that they create frictions and don't contribute to the team and maybe you're somebody that we just don't want to be a part of the team.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that applies not only to the SEAL teams in the business world anywhere in life that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your measure of success is, how do you get along with other people?
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you support other people on the team so that you can work together?
[SPEAKER_02]: You should support one another to accomplish the mission and when that should be your metric, and you need to help the people around you recognize that that's the metric.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not some individual skill set that you can hit the numbers better than anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's our immediate action drill for this episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: Identify one behavior that you have been tolerating as a result of positive performance, and then schedule a conversation and have that direct feedback that individual to help them understand what the long-term goal is, which is for the sake of the team, not just the metrics that they're driving.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you have that conversation, make sure they know that you care about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: You want them to be successful.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the basis for a strong relationships that you can provide some feedback to them so that they can take that on board and get better as a result.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you do that, you and that high-performing toxic leader will improve and get better and you and your team will be able to lead and win.