Home Talent Management in Asia 4 Lessons to Learn from Bad Employees

4 Lessons to Learn from Bad Employees

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There are times when instead of learning form the perfect leader or amazing person, you learn from the people who are actually misfits in an organization. These are the people who step on everybody’s toes, do stupid things, have a “can’t be bothered attitude” and are simply not interested. They’re just there to collect a pay-check. Rather than a “Role Model” they’re bad employees or what I like to call “Rogue Model”.

Over the span of my career I have come across plenty of Rogue Models – people you don’t want to emulate. That said, there’s still a lot you can learn from them by understanding what they do wrong.

Lesson 1: Respect the Environment

My first expatriation was in China. I landed in Shanghai in 1997 and the culture shock coming from the Netherlands couldn’t have been bigger. The challenge of getting people to Agree on Details there was just mind boggling. My learning curve went through the roof from getting things done in an environment that was diametrical different to what I was used to. It was an amazing time.

There was a leader who was transferred from Belgium and came with a reputation of delivering results by Bullying People Into Submission. During a strategy session on how to grow our business in China, he made the legendary comment that “China was not much different than Belgium”. You should have seen the body language of my Chinese colleagues when he said that. Comparing a developed country of 11 million people with a country of more than a billion consumers, a proud history that runs back 3000 years, and consumer preferences that could not be more different just wasn’t smart.

Lesson: Respect the environment that you’re in, engage people from their point of view and don’t share too many stories of how good other countries / companies / people are that you’ve worked for. 

Lesson 2 – Weed Out People Who Don’t Fit Your Company’s Culture

My second expatriation was in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam from 1999 – 2002. A tremendously rewarding experience not only because the Vietnamese are a wonderful people with an amazing Work Ethic and Desire to Learn but also because we were able to build a tremendously successful business and develop Vietnamese talent. However, at the same time, adherence to business ethics was a relatively new concept and it was normal for people to creatively find all kinds of ways to supplement their meager salaries.

Two Rogue Models I will always remember, simply because the ‘gullible me’ was not able to comprehend how people could think this way were:

  1. A factory line manager in Hanoi who was caught asking employees for a ‘kick-back’ for giving them a higher performance rating, which would lead to a higher salary increase.
  2. A company recruitment manager who routinely asked new hires for a “one month salary bonus”. He thought it was only fair that he received a reward for providing people a good salary.

Lesson: People who want to ‘benefit’ themselves will always find ways. It’s impossible to ‘control’ every possibility or loophole. Instead, people with the right values should be recruited and focus should be placed on building the right ethics while getting rid of people that don’t value them.

Tip: I received a great tip from an ex-boss: He said the best way to develop processes that are robust and have a good level of control is to ask people who work with these processes to come up with ways on how they would cheat the company through them. You’ll be able to identify all loopholes and ideas on how to exploit the system, which you can then address. 

Lesson 3 – Invest in People Who Value Your Culture

My next Rogue Model was an employee that I hired for my own consulting firm (actually they were a few!). When I started the company I had these big ideas on the culture I wanted to build. A company culture that would simulate the concepts of Linda Green in the Democratic Enterprise and a culture in which talent, as Alain de Vulpian said, were interested in meaning and not so much in money. In this culture I would not insist on strict rules, office timings or performance targets. No, in this culture I wanted employees to be driven by meaning, by a drive to achieve, by a work ethic in which they were able to manage their responsibilities with freedom. For some this worked and they’re still working for me. For others, it didn’t work at all. They were completely unable to manage their freedom and took full advantage of it by coming late, surfing the net, not delivering on mutual agreed goals, always coming up with excuses and being an extremely bad role model for other colleagues.

Lesson: Spend time hiring the right people – the ones that fit in the culture you want to build and when you notice you made a wrong decision, act swiftly and boldly. People are unlikely to change and you can create more value by spending your time on people that “get it” rather than trying to change people that don’t. 

Lesson 4: Take Time Before Making a Decision About People

The final Rogue Models (for now) were members of my team when I was working in Unilever Pakistan. They had convinced me that one of my team mates who had spent 25 years in the company and was responsible for the HR policies and procedures in the company, was unlikely to grow any further and because of coming up cost cutting exercises, it would be wise if I propose to ‘early-retire’ him.

At first I agreed with their assessment and indicated during my talent review that I didn’t foresee any future for this manager in the organisation. A few months later Unilever decided to implement a global HR system that required all HR processes and systems to be aligned. Out of necessity I made him the project coordinator for the company and liaison with the regional office. This gentleman relished in his new assignment and was quickly known by the regional project director as the most competent team member. After completing the project in Pakistan, the regional office asked me whether he could be seconded to Malaysia for 6 months to help the company there do the same. This was very unusual for Unilever – to second a person of that age and potential to another country. For me however, it was a great opportunity. He went and conquered: did a stellar job and soon became a global expert in Unilever. His name is Burhan Beyabani and he is my role model!

Lesson: Don’t always make decisions based on first or even second impressions. Give people an opportunity that’s out of their comfort zone. You’ll be surprised with how often that individual will take up the gauntlet and delivers. 

Lots of lessons to be learned from all kinds of people – the good and the bad. Do you have any stories on bad employees Rogue Models you’ve come across? I’ve got lots of interesting stories coming up so sign up to the blog to get updates to your inbox. Have a great weekend!

photo credit: Rainy Day Business via photopin (license)

Author: Paul Keijzer

Paul Keijzer is an innovative business leader and HR professional with more than 40 years of experience. He is the CEO of The Talent Games & Engage Consulting, a sough-after speaker and renowned name in the HR technology space. Been an official member of the Forbes Business Council 2020 and still contributes his thought leadership insights on various online platforms.

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Hello Paul. I will counter Lesson 2. By weeding out an employee who doesn’t fit your company culture, you may lose the opportunity to find out what’s ‘wrong’ with your company culture and fail to improve it. You’ve given examples of unethical employees; how about employees with higher ethics that display better values than those displayed by Leadership? I would expect these types of employees would find a new employer and not mention the issues they encountered on their way out the door. What’s left? A company that’s convinced they’ve got it figured out.

  2. Hi Paul.

    I totally agree to and can correlate to Point 4. In big companies, especially in under developed countries, there is tendency that the executives or high ranked people with fat pay checks start becoming complacent and easy going. This brings an unseen heavy negative pressure on company’s work ethics and work environment starts deteriorating. Any body who challenges such situation becomes their first victim and they write such persons off quickly as like you mentioned in your example.

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