Note to managers: One mouldy employee will soon spoil the whole department. It's a shame, after all the hard work setting up the team, fostering relationships and building trust, to lose the whole thing. It's a shame to allow it to fail because you didn't deal with the mouldy one. Sure sometimes they're not right out on top where you can see them, but with a little digging, they become obvious. Deal with the mouldy ones, or risk losing everything you've set up.
Note from the field: The talent pool in the research department was astounding, with top-notch professionals from all disciplines. With excellent equipment, skilled administrative staff and seasoned management, the expectations were high for top-shelf collaboration and results. Yet, soon, it became clear that something was wrong. Despite some early successes, the department toppled - people would arrive late and leave early, absenteeism was high, collaboration was limited to a few small pockets, and morale was low. Some candid interviews with employees all pointed to one individual, one of the top professionals, who would have been covered in fluffy white mould if she'd been a raspberry. As a coworker, she was disrespectful, manipulative, cricitcal and abrasive, irritating everyone in the department. Yet, as a professional she was bringing considerable grant money into the department and the top dogs considered her essentially untouchable. Turnover escalated, morale disappeared, and the organization festered along, nowhere near the top-drawer excellence that should have been possible with the team that had been assembled.
If you've got a mouldy raspberry in your bucket, isn't it time to deal with it?
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