I had a piece appear today in the Wall Street Journal called "How a Few Bad Apples Can Ruin Everything," a topic I have written on before and her, especially, in Good Boss, Bad Boss. A fun discussion of bad apples can also be found on This American Life; check out the opening interview of this episode with Will Felps, who has done some cool research on how bad apples have a disproportionately negative effect on group performance.
The underlying theory and evidence for my argument that bad apples do so much damage, and more broadly destructive emotions and incompetence undermine performance and well-being so much, that the first order of business for any boss is to eliminate the negative rather than accentuate the positive (I am not discouraging goodness and excellence... but getting rid of the bad is importance for achieving greatness). This perspective is inspired by a masterpiece of an academic article called "Bad is Stronger Than Good," which was published in 2001 by Roy F. Baumeister and three other colleagues. If you want to really dig in, I invite you to download Bad is Stronger Than Good.. it is very detailed but readable.
Essentially, the authors meticulously go through topic after topic -- personal relationships, learning, memory, self-image, and numerous others -- and show that bad packs a much stronger impact than good. They review a couple hundred diverse studies to make this point, and as they say at the end, the consistency of their findings about the disproportionate impact of bad things (compared to the power of good things)-- like negative emotions, hostility, abuse, dysfunctional acts, destructive relationships, serious injuries and accidents, incompetence, and on and on -- is depressingly consistent across study after after study.
One implication for managers and numerous other influencers in organizations is that, while bringing and breeding great people, and encouraging civility, competence, effort, and other kinds of goodness is an important part of the job, such efforts will be undermined if you aren't constantly vigilant about eliminating the negative, which includes dealing with people who are bad apples. Baumeister and his colleagues also do suggest that another implication is sheer volume -- overwhelming strong bad stuff with lots of weak good stuff. I will discuss that approach at the end of this post.
By coincidence, my doctoral course on leadership is reading and discussing this article today, so I re-read it closely this weekend, and it just knocks my socks off. Here are just a few quotes from the article that got my attention:
This one explains why bad could be so much stronger -- we are selected to focus on it:
From our perspective, it is evolutionarily adaptive for bad to be stronger than good. We believe that throughout our evolutionary history, organisms that were better attuned to bad things would have been more likely to survive threats and, consequently, would have increased probability of passing along their genes. (p. 325)
On bad versus events:
A diary study by David, Green, Martin, and Suls (1997) examined the effects of everyday good and bad events, as well as personality traits. Undesirable (bad) events had more pervasive effects on subsequent mood than desirable (good) ones. Although each type of event influenced the relevant mood (i.e., bad events influenced bad mood, and good events predicted good mood) to similar degrees, bad events had an additional effect on the opposite-valence mood that was lacking for good events. In other words, bad events influenced both good and bad moods, whereas good events influenced only good moods. (p. 327)
How long the impact of everyday events lasts was studied by Sheldon, Ryan, and Reis (1996). Bad events had longer lasting effects. In their data, having a good day did not have any noticeable effect on a person's well-being the following day, whereas having a bad day did carry over and influence the next day. (p.327)
On close relationships. Note the implication is that if you do something bad in a close relationship, you've got to do at least five good things (on average) to make up for it:
On the basis of these results, Gottman (1994) has proposed a revealing diagnostic index for evaluating relationships: He proposed that in order for a relationship to succeed, positive and good interactions must outnumber the negative and bad ones by at least five to one. If the ratio falls below that, the relationship is likely to fail and breakup. This index converges well with the thrust of our argument: Bad events are so much stronger than good ones that the good must outnumber the bad in order to prevail. Gottman's index suggests that bad events are on average five times as powerful as good ones, at least with regard to close relationships. (p. 329)
The article goes on and on in this vein, digging into seemingly every possible nuance, and constantly concluding that "bad is stronger than good.: Here are a some excerpts from the wrap-up toward the end:
Let us briefly summarize the evidence. In everyday life, bad events have stronger and more lasting consequences than comparable good events. Close relationships are more deeply and conclusively affected by destructive actions than by constructive ones, by negative communications than positive ones, and by conflict than harmony. Additionally, these effects extend to marital satisfaction and even to the relationship's survival (vs. breakup or divorce). Even outside of close relationships, unfriendly or conflictual interactions are seen as stronger and have bigger effects than friendly,harmonious ones. Bad moods and negative emotions have stronger effects than good ones on cognitive processing, and the bulk of affect regulation efforts is directed at escaping from bad moods (e.g., as opposed to entering or prolonging good moods). That suggests that people's desire to get out of a bad mood is stronger than their desire to get into a good one. (p. 362)
Bad parenting can be stronger than genetic influences; good parenting is not. Research on social support has repeatedly found that negative, conflictual behaviors in one's social network have stronger effects than positive, supportive behaviors. Bad things receive more attention and more thorough cognitive processing than good things. When people first learn about one another, bad information has a significantly stronger impact on the total impression than any comparable good information. (p.362)
Bad stereotypes and reputations are easier to acquire, and harder to shed, than good ones. Bad feedback has stronger effects than good feedback. Bad health has a greater impact on happiness than good health, and health itself is more affected by pessimism (the presence or absence of a negative outlook) than optimism (the presence or absence of a positive outlook). (p.362)
Their closing paragraph, implies -- albeit weakly-- to one solution to overcoming the power of bad.
Although it may seem pessimistic to conclude that bad is stronger than good, we do not think that such pessimism is warranted. As we have suggested, there are several reasons to think that it may be highly adaptive for human beings to respond more strongly to bad than good. In the final analysis, then, the greater power of bad may itself be a good thing. Moreover, good can still triumph in the end by force of numbers. Even though a bad event may have a stronger impact than a comparable good event, many lives can be happy by virtue of having far more good than bad events.
I think this implied solution of working extra hard to crank up the good to drown out the bad is certainly part of the answer. But, to me, another and probably more effective solution for managers is to work doggedly to screen out and stop bad people and bad behavior at every stage. This means dealing with it via big things like recruiting, selection, training, rewards and punishments, and removing people; and, just as important, paying attention to the little things like giving people feedback when they are destructive. Another implication I emphasize is that self-awareness is important so that we realize when we are being bad and damaging others -- and damn well better work on changing our attitudes and actions.
I know this is a long and detailed post. My view is that you can read the lighter and more bouncy piece in the Wall Street Journal, so I thought I would use this post to geek out a bit and dig into the underlying research.
Reminds me of an experience I had at church. Every Easter I worked with others to prepare Easter breakfast. Year after year I noticed the dishwasher silverware basket had a bad bacteria smell that never went away. Made me wonder why good smells fade and bad smells last forever. Like you said,
someone posted on a forum that it is nature's mechanism to detect the bad. In this case, bad bacteria. If the bad smell faded, it would be a health risk. I threw out the basket without even asking for permission to do so. Good smells do not last and that will keep the fragrance companies in business.
Posted by: Dori Wittenberg | November 05, 2012 at 07:15 AM
Very interesting article. I need more reflection, but I wonder how this would work as a teacher in a higher education classroom? And how would this work in a unionized environment where whether someone is kept is a job is controlled by a contract (and where performance evaluations are inadequate).
Posted by: Idajones.wordpress.com | June 18, 2012 at 08:24 AM
Is Bill Gates a "bad apple"? Or Rupert Murdock, or Charles Keating, or Dick Cheyney, or Richard M. Nixon, or William R. Hearst, or Kobe Bryant, or Kenneth Lay? I believe sometimes the "bad apple" may not only be the best employee, but may even be the founder of the company. In such a situation your advice would be considered suicidal.
Posted by: RG | May 02, 2012 at 06:21 PM
Dear Bob. You just saved us students at Royal Norwegian Naval Academy for 48 pages of reading! This was much more to the point and gave us a brilliant overview of the text. Thanks!
Posted by: Myhren | April 11, 2012 at 11:05 AM
I appreciated Mark Kiefaber's comment about "abdication of leadership". When a supervisor or manager avoids conflict by always "trying to see the best in everyone" instead of confronting toxic behaviour, it doesn't inspire anyone's respect. Workplaces need more leaders, not more enablers. If you can't handle the hard stuff, don't accept the job of overseeing people. Thanks again Bob Sutton, for a great post.
Posted by: Wearier but Wiser | January 06, 2012 at 02:37 PM
It is interesting to note that in 1981, the late Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa wrote in his book "Something Like an Autobiography" the following remarks made by his former school teacher on a similar topic for a student appointment. His teacher Mr Tachikawa remarked "...if we put someone who was not very good at the job now, that person would would be sure to shape up and prove worthy."
This was of course a mere observation only by his teacher who made those statement in Japan in the 1920s.
Posted by: clk | November 12, 2011 at 10:51 PM
After learning many lessons many times over, i am vigilant about keeping good,positive people and removing the bad ,negative energy. I take on the biggest, meanest bully and break him or her down. They have a choice to get on the team or be miserable somewhere else. This message is clear. This is my team and we will be positive, respectful and productive...and most important..a highly effective team.
Posted by: mark arnao | November 12, 2011 at 05:03 AM
Bob: Terrific article. In my over 20 years or working in 360 degree feedback leadership programs, the item that ALWAYS has the lowest average score for a group is "confronts problem performance" or wording like that. We try to stress in these programs that not dealing with what you call "bad apples" is an abdication of leadership. Now I have more ammo to make that point even stronger. Thanks.
Posted by: Mark Kiefaber, Focus Leadership, LLC | November 11, 2011 at 06:57 AM
Bob: This blog makes a truly great point about ensuring success on a project or a program. Negative factors or team mates can break a project. In my own experience, projects break because of a surplus of negative factors rather than a lack of positive factors.
Focusing on mitigating negative factors is an incredible tool for ensuring success. This is so obvious, that we often forget that we need to explicitly deal with these negative factors. GREAT BLOG!
Posted by: Chris Niccolls | November 11, 2011 at 06:25 AM
"overwhelming strong bad stuff with lots of weak good stuff. I will discuss that approach at the end of this post."
You never did. You owe us that post ;)
Posted by: JACH | November 01, 2011 at 02:44 PM
I do think it depends on the trait your are focused on, whether eliminating bad is more important than accentuating the good. However, for some vital traits, such as trust, this certainly seems true to me.
One person who deliberate manipulates their employees in deceptive ways (and gets caught doing it) will quickly erase 5 other managers who work in transparent ways. What's worse is that some bad managers actually know this and use it to their advantage. I recently was talking with someone who was dealing someone that was highly manipulative and deceptive. She was wondering how she could see through his "crap" and my answer was "become a cynic." That of course wasn't the answer she wanted. But this other person will always be better at manipulation than the trusting person will be at seeing through it. And the manipulating person knows it. That's the kind of bad apple you need to pick from the tree.
Posted by: Jamie Flinchbaugh | October 29, 2011 at 08:20 AM
Hi Bob,
Another fun article! Thanks...
Here's my question: Steve Jobs was an intense leader, demanding of his staff to the point that some would consider his behavior... negative (OK. I have heard many times from primary sources that his colleagues actually lived in constant fear). And yet this was only one theme among many of a complex and high performing executive. My question is whether Steve was a bad apple? Was his negative behavior useful? More importantly, how should colleagues respond? How about the board of directors?
Thanks,
Matt
Posted by: Matthew Freshman | October 28, 2011 at 11:26 PM
I agree with this, but what can be done when one of the top managers is the bad apple? None of us on the lower rungs of the ladder can figure out how she stays in her position, but it is ruining our worklives, and ruining the business. Is our only solution to bail out, which most of us have already done?
Posted by: Suzanne | October 28, 2011 at 10:56 AM
Hi Bob,
As a point supporting "Bad is stronger that good". I wanted to mention something I said in your doctoral seminar. While I was studying for the GRE Verbal, trying to memorize those thousands of words :-S , I could clearly saw that most words (don't know the exact proportion) of our language are use to denote "bad things" (adjs.), to refer to bad things (nouns), or to express bad actions/behavior (verbs)
... I get the feeling that this "bad is stronger" phenomenon is even reflected in our language!
Now, regarding you WSJ article, you advice to isolate the bad apple (if is not possible to "let it go")... but what's your advice if you can't isolate it... if is so much important to your business (a brilliant jerk), and it *must* interact constantly with others.
(e.g., imagine a brilliant professor attracting millions of dollars of funding, but making miserable his doctoral students, staff and other professors).
(my hint: I get the feeling that in this case you should attempt to change his behavior (have not idea how though)... this is related to what CindyOKeeffe was asking).
Cheers!
--
Gonzalo
Posted by: Gonzalo Valdés | October 25, 2011 at 11:06 PM
Great bracing reminder of why we need to step up to the hard stuff - dealing with the bad apples. I also like the focus on self-awareness; it's fundamental to my coaching work. Clients, however, have self-selected, so the execs that show up are relatively open to change. Have you seen any research indicating the percentage of people get that they "damn well better change" once theyrealize they're causing damage to others? I'd like to believe everyone would, but I'm guessing that's not the case.
Posted by: CindyOKeeffe | October 24, 2011 at 06:58 PM