The Myopic Dysfunctionals

You know the myopic dysfunctionals.

You've seen their sarcasm, negativity, and general jerkiness leave a wake of hurt feelings and anger in the workplace. You seen them clear out a break room as quickly as a stink bomb, transform a committee into warring factions, and drive off good people who are tired of their abrasive personalities.

Well, let me tell you a secret about them.

They think they're great.

Yes, hard though it may be to imagine, these walking bundles of poison and low morale think they are the real defenders of quality and that the rest of you are giving away the store. In their eyes, your "namby-pamby" efforts to respect people are only so much fluff. They're the ones with the real interests of the organization at heart. They are the stellar performers.

At least, they think so.

And in many cases, their delusions are understandable. For years, their supervisors, thinking that technical expertise is synonymous with excellent performance, have given them inflated performance evaluations. The unspoken message has been, "You may be a loathsome personality but if your numbers look good, we're willing to look past that."

Of course, that is a ridiculous way to rate job performance - technical expertise can mean little if some rude weasel sparks lawsuits or destroys a team - but many a manager has bought into the notion that people rank way below machinery. Fortunately, many more regard that as rubbish. As a manager recently mentioned to me, "If we caught an employee abusing one of our trucks, we'd take action and yet some of them expect us to look the other way when they routinely abuse co-workers."

It's way past time to confront the myopic dysfunctionals. They need to be told that far from being the best performers, they rank among the worst, and that the organization is tired of having to walk behind them on a weekly basis to sweep up the broken china they produce.

Their reaction to this hard truth will be predictable: They'll moan, groan, and feel highly offended. But that's just too bad. Their day is over. Organizations and individuals should not have to tolerate - much less reward - disrespectful and divisive behavior.

Let the myopic dysfunctionals soak in one final message in the sort of blunt language they'll understand: Shape up or Ship Out.