Welcome back to Building Billions. Let's talk about toxic work cultures. I just finished our two day People Essentials workshop. It is two days, jam packed full of talking about people problems, talking to business owners. There was a couple hundred business owners who were interested in growing their leadership, understanding what they're doing wrong in order to be able to grow
their businesses. And I get so many questions at these events from people with million dollar businesses, $10 million businesses, and 100 plus million dollar businesses about this thing called culture. How do you fix a toxic culture? It takes an aware leader to understand and recognize to begin with that their work culture is toxic, and it takes an even stronger leader to fully take responsibility for the fact that
they created and allowed this culture. One of my favorite quotes from Sharon Lechter is you either create a culture by design or by default you create a culture. Either by design or by default. And if you're listening to this, you've probably created a culture by default, which is why you're listening to a podcast about toxic work cultures. And so I want to share with you some really simple things that you can do in order to fix your culture. First thing is, you have to realize that it can
be fixed. It can be fixed. You can have and create an amazing place to work. That is possible. There are thousands of companies that are examples of this, and you don't have to think that because Sarah works for you. Joey works for you. Zach works for you. Bob works for you. All these people that you know who are drainers, who are negative, who create the toxicity. You don't have to get mired down in the thought that you can't fix it because you can. So the first step is
recognizing and understanding that you can fix your culture. Second step you have to identify who the toxic people are. Who is toxic? The best way to do this is first by looking at people's stats. Not a popular conversation, but there is no way that people who are productive, who are positively contributing are able to keep their stats high. So look at where their numbers are. Are they hitting numbers? Are their graphs trending up? If they're not, if there's problems?
If there's issues, those are likely your toxic people. I also believe that business owners just know who's toxic. You know, the people that are the source of rumors and gossip and create that environment. So you identify those people and you have a conversation with them saying, hey, I recognize that you've been saying x, y, z thing. I've heard from these people that this is what you're talking about.
This is what you're spreading. I just want to make sure we're really clear that toxicity, gossip, rumors, that's not what we're here to do. So you confront the person head on, you have the conversation head on, you look at their stats and you say, okay, this is not working. You confront it. You are accountable. And once you've had the reset, you say to them, these are my new expectations. This can no longer happen. And if it does continue to happen, you get rid of the toxicity, you get
rid of them. They are no longer a part or able to be a part of what you are creating. If people are continuing to focus on what's wrong, to focus on what's negative, to push back on you, to cause issues, to bring up all of the failures and they aren't able to make this pivot that you are trying to make inside your business. You have the wrong people, so get rid of them. At the same time, you're getting rid of your wrong people, the toxic people, the
people who are hurting your business. That's when you start understanding what is wanted and needed from the team members who are solid on your team. So a really easy conversation. You sit down with your team members who are strong, who you want to keep, who you know can be turned positively in your business, even if they might have fallen to some of the negativity or gotten caught up in it. The people who help your clients and show up on time and create the positivity that you're looking for.
Those people. You sit down and you ask them what is wanted and needed from me as a leader, what is wanted and needed from me in this organization. And then to the extent that you can, you deliver it. Now, if they make crazy requests, that's a different thing. They're like, oh, we should be able to, uh, just not really clock in ever and don't really need to update our daily logs.
Like at some point you don't have to deliver everything that is wanted and needed, but you do have to take a listening ear to what's not working and really assess who am I? Sorry guys. 609 On Sunday evening, after four days of running an event and I'm a little tired. But this is something that I just talked to a lady downstairs about 15 minutes ago, so it's hot off the press. I want to I want to share this with you. You take the good people, you
understand what is wanted and needed. You listen and get feedback on what's not working, and you deliver upon the solutions to the problems that they're presenting. And you don't get defensive and you don't justify and you don't rationalize, and you be humble and you eat shit and you understand what's not working. This is one of the hardest parts because it's such an easy thing to get reactionary,
to get defensive. This is one of the things that I might struggle with the most, where it's like, oh, but I have a reason for why this happened the way that it did. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why things happen the way that it did. It's not the time to explain. It's the time to fix. When your house is on fire, it's not the time to be like, oh, but you know, it was just because the hair straightener, the button gets stuck sometimes, so I didn't know if it was off. Like, no, that's
not the time to talk about it. The time to talk about the process, maybe like it might be later or maybe never. What you need to do right now is freaking get a hose or call. I was going to say the ambulance. Ambulance? Call the fire truck. Do not call the ambulance. Well, unless somebody is inside. But you get the point. Call a fire truck. Handle the fucking fire that's in front of you. Handle that. Don't explain. Don't rationalize. And I find that good people can recognize
when you care. I really do believe that good people, your good people on your team can recognize when you care. So if there is a toxic environment and you're leaning into your good people and you're coming to them earnestly where they see that you're handling the negativity, they see that you're handling the toxicity, and you're asking for their feedback and their input in order to help make things better. You're not making them wrong. You're not justifying, justifying, or rationalizing.
You can turn your culture around. And I've seen this time and time again where this fails is when a business owner isn't willing to do what it takes. I've also seen it fail when the team that they think are the right ones are still the wrong ones. They are the toxic ones, so they take the wrong feedback from the wrong people and implement the wrong solutions. So you have to be discerning in who you talk to, who you trust, and where you get this feedback from.
I almost made this mistake earlier this week. I recognized that there was a team member who very publicly posted on social media that they are, that they just were super ten X. They did that all through their career. Loved ten x super ten X, all things Cardone Ventures. Cardone ventures changed their life. We didn't ask them to do that. They posted these things on their own volition. And then they left a while ago. And I saw
that very recently. They left a review and it wasn't a nice review, and it was actually the correction of a previous review. I was like, hmm, that's interesting. You know, I didn't realize that this team member left with such anger and frustration, and that would never be my intention. So I reached out to this particular team member via. Online methods and said, hey, I saw this review. It makes me really sad to see this. I'm open to a conversation to hear feedback, and I was met with
like snarkiness and rudeness. And at first I was like, okay, I can take the initial snarkiness and rudeness. Like, I'd still like to have a conversation because I really valued their input. And then again, to the second message, I was met with snarkiness and rudeness, and at that point I was like, okay. Like there's no way that this is going to have a positive outcome. This person isn't
looking to give me feedback. This person is looking to make me pander and tell me that I'm wrong and not give me, I mean, the feedback that I'm looking for. If I'm already asking you what the feedback is, and I see that there's issues, of course I know that there's something that I could do. I'm coming to you to clarify that, but there's nothing that I'm going to win by asking people who are so far gone and
negative and critical to give me constructive feedback. And I don't need to subject myself, nor to you, to cruel feedback or feedback that is intended to sting. And that was the nature of these messages. So I just realized, hey, you know, this probably isn't isn't the right direction. This isn't this. This person is not at a place to
be able to really have this conversation. So once you're able to assess who those people are that you can trust to give you feedback and give you honest feedback about what's not working, then you work like crazy to implement it. Work like crazy to not let them down, and to give rationale and reasons for why you're implementing certain things. When you're implementing those things. Communicate, communicate, communicate so that they know that the feedback was taken seriously.
Because the last thing that you want to do is have to do this a second time. And then it's like, what was that cartoon growing up, little Red Riding Hood. I think she was the one that cried wolf. Whoever cried wolf, it's like the girl who cries wolf. Oh, we're gonna. As soon as there's something bad that happened. Oh, we're gonna get your feedback. But then nothing happens. No. You communicate. Hey, this is what I heard. This is
what we're going to do about what we heard. Here are the things that were pieces of feedback that were not willing to budge on. This is why I hope you understand. And after I explain, can just have some appreciation for why I've thought thoughtfully about these things. And this is where we're willing to land. And I find that when you communicate like that, it strengthens it strengthens
your team. When you're going through a culture shock, when you're going through a culture transition, when things aren't super great and there's toxicity, those moments of like coming together and being honest and being transparent really bond team members together. And it creates this stronger connection because you're both willing to fix things. They're willing to say some things that might have felt uncomfortable. They risk potentially losing their job.
If you responded incorrectly and you risk not looking like you know everything. And if you struggle with that, then you're going to struggle having these conversations. But they are some of the greatest conversations that you can have with your team and that rebuild and will help you forge the path forward for growth. To be able to make room for new people who can help you with the problems that you have. So that's it. Simple as that. How you handle a toxic culture. Never forget that you
don't have to deal with or allow toxicity. You can handle it. It can get better. You can create the business of your dreams. I'm rooting for you. I'm hoping for you. I'm on your team wanting you to win, wanting you to be successful with all of this. And you got this.