The Difference Between Toxic Superstars and Type A Team Players

Welcome to The Contractor's Daughter, your go-to podcast for eliminating random acts of strategy and marketing in your highway construction business. Hello, friends. I'm your host, Jeani Ringkob. I'm a third-generation asphalt contractor and an absolute brand strategy and marketing geek.

Welcome to The Contractor's Daughter Podcast, where we're going to dive into the world of growing your business in the highway paving construction industry. I'm thrilled to have you join me today. I am your host, Jeani Ringkob, and we're going to be talking about the difference between a toxic superstar that you might be bringing into your company versus a true type-A team player.

What's the difference? So much of the conversations we've been having, even just coming out of World of Asphalt, my first presentation was on eliminating random acts of sales and marketing, my second one was on leveraging marketing to support your HR, recruitment, and retention, even a lot of the questions in the first presentation circled into some of these challenges that we're having around workforce.

When I came home and I continue to work on several of these workforce-focused projects because that's the bottleneck in the growth to my clients growth, we are working on things like implementing really incredible interview processes into the business, identifying the best-fit candidates which a certain element of that, if you put the cart before the horse, has to be what are good-fit candidates based on who is your company?

What is your culture? What is the work ethic? What are the growth strategies that you're trying to put in place? How quickly are you trying to grow? All of those kinds of things. Are you wanting a lot of autonomy inside of the company? Are you very process-oriented? All of those things go into consideration.

But I've had several conversations about we want to hire the best. We know that workforce is tight, but we know that it's also there. They just have more choices and they're more of a discerning chooser at every level. Whether you're getting that entry-level laborer, whether you're getting supervisors, operation managers, all of those things, we want the best, but sometimes in going out and trying to find the best, it backfires and we end up with somebody toxic inside of our company.

That's what we're going to be talking about today. As we dive into this problem, I want you to know, we're building these processes, we're talking about all of these things, and we have to identify what is right for you and what is right for you might not be right for everybody else.

But there are some things when it comes to avoiding making toxic hires, hires that based on research we know can have a terrible impact inside of our businesses, and how do we still get high-performing, grade-A, type-A really strong players at every single role inside of our company?

First, let's talk about what a toxic superstar is. Sometimes they are what we might deem as lazy, avoiding responsibility, or lying. These are all things that can come up. Unfortunately, toxicity inside of our company can come in so many forms. Really having a strong workforce strategy and messaging to attract the right type of people to our company early on, that is the first filter.

It's one that I want you to be thinking about. But we're going to move into a very actionable thing, even past that as you get into that hiring process today. Watch for that as we move through this episode. I talked to you about it, and I'll let you know when I get there, because you're going to want to take notes. I'm even going to talk to you about how you might do it inside of your company.

But these superstars that are toxic can be showing up in so many forms. I've had scenarios where people have salespeople or folks that are out really critical interacting, bringing in the work, managing the work, building those relationships that are so good but they're so isolated, they're so egocentric, they're totally in it for themselves that they're actually creating more tension inside of the company.

They're creating problems for operations. They're absolutely unreceptive to integrating into the processes and the policies for the company at large. It can be incredibly toxic.

Actually, research shows that if we have these types of toxic superstars inside of the company, in a lot of ways, we can look at them and justify and say, “But they're working at such a high level. They're so good at their job. I give them a task and they're really, really hitting it,” but yet they're leaving a weight.

A lot of times, research shows that these types of performers inside of our company actually sometimes diminish the performance of those around them, those around them that are still high quality, still great to good performers, and people we want and we even want more of inside of our company, if they're performing well but they're diminishing multiple people's performance around them, even in multiple departments of your company.

Somebody in sales, as I mentioned, can be diminishing the impact or the performance of not only other salespeople but of customer service, of operations, of management, and leadership above them, even because they're taking so much time to manage.

All of those things have to be taken into consideration. Even though we may have toxic players inside of our company, what we're really focusing on are the toxic superstars.

The reason I want to focus on those ones is also because they're the ones that were the most reluctant to get rid of or to address the problems with them and oftentimes there's just no addressing it. It's really hard to get them. There's something at their core that makes them very difficult to make them not just strong performers, but actual team players.

You need to look, if you think you have this type of scenario going on in your business, or you know this is something you want to avoid in your business, look around and look at, “Are there multiple people in your company not performing?” This could be something that's impacting them. Not necessarily, but it definitely could be, especially if you know you have somebody that really shines great, but also tends to suck the air out of a room or make extra work even though they're reaching their goals or objectives and shining bright, they're making extra work for those around them or you're seeing people actually lean out of being part of the team because they just don't want to work with that person.

Now on the flip side of that, let's talk about what we call when I work with my clients and we're talking about the interviewing process who we're trying to really identify when we're really trying to weed people out, we always say we're trying to look for that type-A team player.

This doesn't necessarily mean type-A personality. I know my husband and I joke that we are both type-A's. Not every role requires a type-A. Absolutely not. We need a good variety. But who are those top players that are really going to contribute?

There are lots of characteristics. The most important thing that you need to know is, first, are they the most qualified? But to know this, you have to also have done the front work on what is the role that you're hiring, what does that role require inside of your company, and what are the skill sets that they're going to need to have to perform at that.

That's one of the things is, are they the most qualified of all the candidates in front of you? But you have to do the homework to know what that qualification is. I can't tell you how many times we don't do that work and we're hiring really based on a misconception of what that role requires. Put in that work so that that's very clear. That's a whole other podcast episode.

Another thing that I think we're all typically looking for and there's some common characteristics is they're putting in their best effort on a consistent basis. We can't perform at 100% all the time. This is not healthy, it is not actually normal despite what maybe historically we wanted to think about ourselves and our abilities to do in the past, but are they consistently showing up with a high level of effort and performance?

Are they a team player? Do they care also about how those around them and those that they impact, how they are performing, and how they might impact that? Are they adding to or even enhancing the culture? In all of the research that we've been doing, because we are very research-focused on the front side of our workforce projects, one of the things we absolutely know to be true is people stay because of the other people that they work with.

Somebody that is taking away, not enhancing that culture probably isn't going to be somebody that you want to be putting in key roles in your team or exposing to the other great team members that you've already spent a lot of time bringing into your company.

This means they're cooperative. They're supportive. But then another characteristic means are they growth-minded? Do they fit also the values of the company? If you haven't identified your values and you can't translate that into the employer brand and the messaging, that's something that you should be thinking about. It can be a great way to eliminate bad candidates before your HR team and your supervisors are wasting time on them.

But there's one key difference. I told you I was going to give you a gold nugget today, here it is. If your brain is starting to drift, come back to me right now. One key difference that you absolutely should look for in any role inside of your company is the individual's willingness to be coachable.

What does coachable mean? I'm going to tell you a little bit about what coachable means, but guess what? I'm also going to tell you a quick way that you could actually integrate this into your hiring process as well.

If you've been to my presentations, you know I like to over deliver, so I want to give you some actions today that you can take away with you. The key difference for somebody who is coachable is they have a willingness and an ability to seek, be receptive to, and to act on constructive feedback to drive not only their individual development, but also to improve their performance and their ability to impact that growth of the company and those around them.

I'm going to say that one more time. It's an individual's willingness and ability to seek, be receptive to, and act on constructive feedback to drive individual development, improve their performance, and also even improve the performance of everybody around them. That's what coachability is.

But the question I always get when coachability comes up is “How do I know if somebody is coachable? That seems a little bit intangible, Jeani, how am I going to know this in an interview or a screening process or what types of assessments does it take?”

There are assessment tools that can tell you these things so we're going to dive into what technique to do that. Before we do that, though, remember we have created a Workforce Health Assessment tool, which is going to help you identify some of these answers around maybe the employer brand.

We've mentioned several things up to this point, your employer brand, knowing your values, having messaging all around your recruiting and retention that helps people self-select out if they're a poor fit and attracts those folks that are just right for your unique team or the specific role.

If you want to understand more about what is the current health of your internal workforce process, system, and strategy, we actually made an assessment for that. We're going to have a link in the show notes for you to get a hold of that and later on, I'm going to give you the website, the landing page that you can go to to actually take that assessment. It takes like five minutes and it's going to really help you understand “What do I need to be working on?”

But as part of that process, if you're working on really attracting any talent and you're really wanting somebody who's coachable, here's a quick actionable tip for you. You can assign a task during the interview process.

This is hard for a lot of companies because it's really out of the box. They're like, “Wait, before I even hire them, you want me to have them do almost like a test project or a test example of one of their main responsibilities?” Absolutely.

Taking more time on the front side can pay dividends on the backside. The higher up this role is in your company if you're talking about a sales manager and operations manager, things like that, building in something like this into your interview process can be incredibly powerful and so, so important.

What you can do, we actually build a whole interview process for some of our clients and there are different types of interviews that happen during that time. Some of them are much easier and quicker and take less time commitment upfront, but they help us quickly and efficiently eliminate folks that aren't a good fit, and then they get a little bit more deeper and in depth and they ask very specific types of questions as they go.

If you want to build coachability testing into that process, in the middle of that process, you can actually assign them a task. Maybe it's to role play with somebody else inside of the company to provide a project estimate if that's the position that you're looking for and that's what the example we’ll use right here, and then whoever might be a manager, a supervisor, or was previously in that role might go through that with them acting as the client, the customer.

They would go through the entire process, they would prepare the estimate, then they would deliver it to them and then you could give constructive feedback. Remember if we go back to that definition of coachability, do they ask questions? Are they willing first to take the feedback? Do they ask good questions during this process to make sure that they really understand the feedback that they're getting and ask maybe inquisitive questions to understand it better?

Then are they receptive? After you give them that feedback, you ask them to go back, make some modifications, make some adjustments, maybe role play part of that out again, and then you see, how do they actually improve?

Remember, part of that definition was individual development and improvement of their performance. Can you actually see improvement? Are they taking what they learn from you and are they actually applying it? How do they handle this? Is there friction? Do they get tense? Do they get up in arms? Do they ignore recommendations? Do they come up with some additional ideas or ask great questions during the process?

This is a great way for those critical roles that you want to make sure that you get top performers for. This is something that you can implement into your interviewing and hiring process. It can even be part of an onboarding process. I've done it both ways. Integrated both ways into that.

There's nothing wrong with letting people know that you're going to be doing this. I know in marketing, a lot of times, people are given assignments for given projects and it is like a test run. Part of that always is giving that kind of constructive feedback.

I did promise you access to that resource. I gave you this quick tip. I want you to go think about, are you really hiring for coachability? Are you hiring players that are going to bring your company up and elevate everybody around them? Or are you hiring players that might be sucking stuff out of the room and actually diminishing the efforts of those around them?

How could you add some kind of coachability test into your systems and processes to make sure that you're getting those best players? What is it that you're going to want inside of your business?

We have the link for that Workforce Health Assessment in the show notes so that you can grab it, click on it really quickly. Like I said, it is designed to in five minutes help you really understand what parts of your overall recruitment, retention process, and strategy are actually working well, what parts may have gaps that you need to be paying attention to.

You can also find that at storybuilt.marketing/workforce-strategy-assessment, and it'll be right there for you to take that. Also, not the best link I know, so make sure that you just jump into the show notes and grab it there as well, so you don't have to type all that in.

This wraps up another insightful episode of The Contractor's Daughter, a huge thank you to everyone for showing up, being with me, following along, and I hope that you really remember what is it that might be some of the characteristics of those toxic players?

Then what is it that you're looking for when you get a real high-performing type-A, somebody who benefits the entire team and elevates everything around them, what does that type-A player look like inside of your business? In particular, are they coachable? That's what I want you to think about and try to implement some kind of coachability test into a system or a process. Think about where you might be able to do that.

If you have questions about that, if you want to think about that, if you want to maybe play that out with somebody, what could that look like inside of your business, or you have a different unique role that you're wondering, “How do I do that for this type of role?” I'm always there for you. You guys can always hop on my calendar. I always include a link to capture some of my time in the show notes as well. Remember that I'm here for you.

Also, go take that Workforce Health Assessment. It also will give you some great ideas about how you can overcome some of these workforce challenges. Now, again, if you enjoyed today's episode, do not forget to subscribe and to leave us a review. That helps us get more great content out to everybody else in our industry. Until next time, keep growing your business and keep thriving at life.

Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of The Contractor's Daughter. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and review. But most of all, share this with all of your friends, partners, and customers in the highway construction business. Thank you for building the infrastructure that we all rely on.