The document addresses the issue of toxic staff, highlighting how their negative attitudes can harm team dynamics and overall performance. It emphasizes the importance of identifying toxic behaviors during the hiring process, advocating for the use of emotional intelligence assessments to gauge candidates' potential impact on the workplace. The author suggests that by focusing on emotional intelligence, organizations can improve hiring outcomes and foster a healthier work environment.

1. Toxic Staff
By Andoko Darta, Chief of Change Catalyst – Ad Consulting Asia
"Holy smokey.., he was so good when I interviewed him, he has good backgrounds, reference letters
and passed the probation with flying colors! But now, it has not been even a year, look what he has
done!, we lost one of our clients because of his attitude. ot only that, he also spreads his bad attitude
to the whole team. Seems the bad side of him has just emerged out of nowhere. It is expensive to let
him go, how can we be sure we do not hire that kind of staff in the future?"
Ring a bell? that was one of CEO's challenges in all industries particularly in our industry where
people are our most important assets. When your most important assets begin to show their true colors,
the only color you will get is red alert.
The look good candidates during interview that gone bad after being accepted are often called toxic
staffs. Toxic staffs are like virus, they can spread their negative attitudes and impact to the whole
departments.
When they are in the creative department, they usually mess up their own department as well as the
account management department, and vice versa. They are harmful, contagious to other staffs without
a strong immune system or adequate information to understand what's happening and become victims.
Leaders at all levels from CEO to Creative Group Heads/Account Directors/Account Managers/
Finance Directors and other leadership positions should be aware when their staffs begin to increase
the frequency of the following symptoms:
- Arguments between staffs especially in account management, traffic and creative departments
- Not willing to go the extra mile
- Impulsive, does not account for impact of choice
- Ignore feelings, seen as cold, isolate themselves
- Motivated by outside forces only (money, title, company car, status, etc)
- Blaming others, using victim thinking
- Negative comments and personal attacks
The Harvard Business Review summarizes a study by Christine Porath and Christina Pearson that
offers insights into How Toxic Colleagues Corrode Performance. Porath and Pearson polled several
thousand managers and employees from a variety of U.S. companies about the impact of toxic people
at work. These people have given negative impact to the rest of the employees and on overall
performance as follows:
48% decreased their work effort
47% decreased their time at work
66% said their performance declined
78% said their commitment to the organization declined.
Forum Corporation on Manufacturing and Service Companies, USA, has done a research and
indicated that 70% of businesses were lost because of behavior related, not because of service quality
or business benefits.
PT. RADANI TUNAS BANGSA – EI CENTER
Plaza 5 Pondok Indah Blok D-18 Jl. Margaguna – Jakarta Selatan 12310
Tlp : 62.21.726 6636 / 726 6651 Fax : 62.21.7262319 www.adconsulting.asia

2. So we can just fire them, right? If you have been long enough in this industry and in a leadership
position, you remember how costly and difficult it was to fire toxic staffs. They don’t make it easy for
you to fire them especially with the protective Indonesian manpower law. Some of you have fallen
into inaction which only makes things worse. Toxic staffs are not dumb, they are smart, they just
toxic.
It sounds doom and gloom so far but the farther down this page you read, you start to feel better
because as leaders we could do better to prevent from hiring toxic staffs at the first place.
Of course it is difficult to notice how toxic the candidate is with two or three interviews only.
Remember, they are masterful to look good, can hide their true colors and they can be found in any
position levels.
With the advancement of social science the good news is that now we could identify behavior issues
the candidates may have by measuring their Emotional Quotient (EQ) score.
Emotion is not touchy feely or being the sweetest guy on the block. Emotions drive behavior for good
and for ill. Measuring candidates' EQ will equip us with insightful information before we make
important hiring decision.
Emotions are data, signals about the candidates. Most likely we are not picking up these important
signals by only doing a couple of interviews with the candidates.
Now we can ask the candidates to take Emotional Intelligence assessment as part of the hiring process.
Emotional Intelligence assessment provides a clear and practical assessment of key emotional
intelligence skills such as understand habitual reactions, understand others, managing feelings,
intrinsic motivation and how to respond to other emotion. These skills are essential for agencies
health.
EQ measurement has been used in a variety leading organization such as FedEx, Daimler-Benz,
General Electric as well as US Navy & Marine Corps
Just imagine days from now we have good staffs with good behavior. Definitely we will have more
time to grow the business faster.
Did you just ask me how to deal with toxic boss? I believe you have the answer for that ☺
The author can be reached at: andoko_darta@adconsulting.asia
Ad Consulting Asia is a consulting company specializing in change management to help corporations enhance
business growth by providing transformation management tools based on neuroscience.
PT. RADANI TUNAS BANGSA – EI CENTER
Plaza 5 Pondok Indah Blok D-18 Jl. Margaguna – Jakarta Selatan 12310
Tlp : 62.21.726 6636 / 726 6651 Fax : 62.21.7262319 www.adconsulting.asia