Recruiting Gone Wrong, Part Two
Jun 22, 2018
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Team Builders, It’s bad enough to hire unproductive new agents who burn your leads and steal your focus, but there are, in fact, ways to mess up your staffing that are much more destructive than hiring a team of time-wasters. More undermining, morale-killing personnel choices exist, and they may take much longer to reveal themselves. Here are two classic situations to be on the lookout for when building out a real estate team: The Negativity Gremlin: The best word I can use to describe this person is ‘insidious’. It might start as a an eye-roll here, a sour look there -- but the Negativity Gremlin’s true damage is likely inflicted when you are just out of earshot. His malcontented disposition gnaws at him to find fault with just about everything in your organization, be it your splits, lead quality or leadership style. Negativity Gremlins may masquerade under a pretense of benign concern, i.e. just wanting your company to be better for your sake. But vigilantly they stand watch, continuously scanning your organization in search of reasons to feel offended, disappointed or victimized. Though the Negativity Gremlin’s communication style is indirect, he is more than willing to share his laundry list of grievances with anyone BUT you. Unable to recognize the pessimistic web woven by the Negativity Gremlins, those around them will internalize their discontent and leave the team, often with little or no warning that there’s a problem. When you finally backtrack the problem to the Negativity Gremlin, he may deny that he has any problem at all with you and your system. The net effect of this downer personality’s passive-aggressive campaign against you is that his neighboring teammates dread working alongside that kind of energy and leave demoralized at the end of the day. For many, the toxic environment alone will be enough reason to look for a new opportunity, while others will believe this person’s venomous narrative verbatim and direct their own ire your way. The Untouchable: This former success story probably got in on the ground floor of your team’s catapult to success. She found prosperity in your Early Climb growth phase, when opportunities are plentiful and loads of your personal attention and praise were largely focused on a few individuals. As your team grew, you raised the standards and this once-stellar performer’s commitment and skill level were eclipsed by newer, hungrier associates who don’t share The Untouchable’s same sense of entitlement. This “Big Dog” may consider herself above the grind of doing the proven practices that made your team great to begin with, like daily role play and weekly training exercises. The sense of entitlement will probably extend to her availability and flexibility when it comes to the type of leads that she will accept. Inside Sales agents will complain that The Untouchable makes their jobs more difficult as she’s never available nights and weekends, or declines appointments under a certain price point. The ballooning ego of The Untouchable may feel bearable in the short term -- especially when taking into account her previous performance in the Early Climb -- but the real trouble starts when your fresh recruits begin to see this person as the example of success in your organization. One Untouchable tends to breed others, so ignore this threat to your company culture at your own risk. How do you root out these personalities? The answer is simple. You need to listen. None of these people ‘turn’ without throwing up red flags with your team members. When I look back at my own experiences here, I can remember many instances when both sales and support staff raised concerns of varying intensity about each person. The writing was on the wall, but I didn’t want to believe there was a problem. Or maybe I knew good and well that there was a problem, but would rather pretend it didn’t exist. I’ll leave you with two questions:
Looking forward to hearing your war stories, Chris Watters + Bradley Pounds P.S. Happy 1st Birthday to this lil' guy:
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