Resist auto-immune disorders

Beyond maintaining decorum, leaders must be vigilant in preventing the organizational equivalent of an auto-immune disorder, where teams, departments, or individuals turn against one another. Management is inherently about navigating “messy people problems,” but if you find that most of your meetings are consumed by discussions about personalities, politics, or intra-departmental conflicts, you have a serious issue to address.

One key metric to assess is how often leadership teams are discussing the work itself versus the people involved. When the focus shifts too much towards personalities and conflicts, it’s time for an intervention. If this behavior persists, you cannot afford to keep those individuals on the team. It only takes one toxic personality to poison the atmosphere and slow down the entire team’s velocity.

There is no need to compromise here, for every “asshole superstar” you tolerate, there’s a non-asshole alternative in the talent pool who will make your team exponentially more productive. Don’t let toxic individuals undermine the team’s potential. Your team’s competition should be external, not internal. If your team needs an adversary to rally against, focus that energy on outperforming competitors, not colleagues.

Stamp out any internal conflict the moment you see it, and ensure your team is focused on continuously beating its own performance, not each other.