Protecting Your Team Against Toxic People Picture this: You have a new bag of oranges. You go away for a weekend, leaving them on the table. What you didn’t know was that one of those oranges in the bag was moldy. When you return home after a few days, you’ll find that all the oranges that were touching the moldy one are now moldy as well. Having a toxic person in your organization is similar to having a moldy orange you didn’t know about. While a company’s culture can vary depending on the industry and size, what works for one company doesn’t work for another company. It’s important that as business owners and leaders, we are intentional about the culture we allow in our business. When an employee doesn’t fit in with your company’s core values, they can be an unhealthy influence on your other employees and can hurt your

If you have been reading my articles, you probably know that my beloved chickens are afraid of me. And they have been from Day 1. The first day I brought my chickens home, they flew the coop. I guess I should have known that since they are birds, they can fly. I’m a little embarrassed to share that I went up to the coop during the first few days and tried to get them to come to me. I sat down on the grass not far from the coop with little pieces of pancake and said, “Here, little chicky” in my softest, sweetest voice. Well, it didn’t work. They stayed away from me. Knowing what a great person I am, I figured it was their issue and not mine. Chickens just don’t like humans. Period. I held this belief for quite a while. Then I met the Chicken Whisperer next

Worry is a miss-use of your imagination. I heard this from a pastor, Andrew Wommack, during a time when I was fearfully paralyzed from making the right decision for my business. I had convinced myself that no answer was right and I was motivated to avoid failure. Fear holds us back from making the best decisions, or motivates us to make poor ones. Fear causes us to avoid potential outcomes, go into analysis-paralysis, rationalize not taking any action, and camp out on what-if questions. We detach from and resent those around us who can help, treating them as enemies. Fear causes our brain to anticipate a poor outcome – often an unlikely lie that we’ve come to believe. Fear will paralyze you from stepping forward. When we dwell on the truth of the good that has occurred, the right decisions made, and the outstanding – sometimes miraculous – things that

As we mentioned last month, Professional EOS Implementers® have two expectations for the sessions that they facilitate with their clients: That everyone is both open and honest. Let’s learn about “honest.” When people are honest, they are exercising two characteristics: 1) they humbly value themselves enough to state their own opinion and perspective, and 2) they are being vulnerable with the team. As God’s creation, we all matter and have value. To think too highly of ourselves is considered arrogance. To think too lowly of ourselves is also arrogance. Humility is accepting the value that God has of us – valuing yourself and others as God values us all. “People with humility don’t think less of themselves, they just think of themselves less,” (Ken Blanchard, Mission Possible: Becoming a World Class Organization While There’s Still Time). In his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni says “Great teams do not hold back with one another.