Good Apples in a Bad Barrel

When productive and committed team members are thrust into situations and environments with disgruntled colleagues, they are highly likely to be influenced negatively by them. Research over decades has confirmed that good apples placed in a bad barrel will turn sour.  

It’s not that team members are too easily influenced by the gripes and grievances of colleagues who have become embittered.  Rather, their positive qualities of fairness, empathy, objectivity and compassion encourage them to listen more attentively than perhaps they should. After a continual deluge of complaints and protests, even the most dedicated team members will come to adopt some or all of the criticisms the negative colleagues hold.  

This is why it is so important for leaders to quickly address those team members who are bitter and see the organization as a bad or ineffective place to work. Leaders who ignore those who feel disenfranchised or invalidated are likely to find productive team members with an increasingly jaded view of the organization. Peers have an instinctual desire to defend and support their peers. Allowing those who openly slander the leader and team to operate without constraint is a recipe for a growing barrel of discontent.  

Good leaders move swiftly to turn a negative team member into a positive force or remove them from the playing field. While they can inoculate positive team members to the issues and people involved by warning them of the unfounded complaints, this can further exacerbate the situation. Negative team members point to this attempt to negate them as further evidence of why the team and leader stink.  

More than 50 years ago, Stanford professor Philip Zimbardo proved in a series of controversial experiments that people are likely to conform to the social influence of peers even when their viewpoints go against their personal experience. Team members are even more susceptible to criticisms about the organization when a group of peers paints a negative picture of the leader and organization. 

Leaders don’t need to worry about the everyday criticisms, complaints and negative feedback that are normal within a team. There are no perfect organizations, and learning how to make the team better depends on critical feedback from the group.  

But when one or more team members go negative and lodge complaints and criticisms to negatively influence others, leaders must act swiftly to curtail the virus that is likely to spread. They do this by confronting the bad apple and working through the reasons why this team member has abandoned their positive views. In many cases, simply hearing the team member out and addressing their concerns stops the potential rot.

When a team member can’t surrender their distaste for the leader and organization, they must be removed quickly from the barrel. Waiting and hoping for the best is how good teams turn sour.