Do you have crabs in your business?
You know, the kind of team members that keep the best people from rising and performing at their very best. There is a toxic environment that exists in some companies called the “Crab Mentality” and that is when the average employees don’t want anyone or anything to come in and change the status quo.
This moniker comes from watching what happens when a crab fisherman places his or her catch for the day in a bucket. If a single crab is placed in a bucket, they struggle but will manage to get to the top of the bucket and successfully crawl out on its own. So, if he or she doesn’t want to lose the first catch of the day, they must put the lid on the bucket.
However, if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, you don’t need the lid because every single time one of the crabs reaches the rim, the other crabs pull it back down and another crab tries to reach the top.
Consequently, not one crab succeeds in getting out of its current situation. They are all stuck.
The theory is that “If I can’t have it, neither can you.”
I’ve seen this happen in companies large and small. Once, I was the HR director in a company, long before “Undercover Boss” became a hit TV program. In this case, the new vice president of operations put two “employees” on different shifts and they were told to watch and listen to what goes on while they did the same work as the others and then report back their findings.
We were shocked there were employees – and sometimes even supervisors – in almost every department that would take the new employees under their wing and teach them what to do.
That, in and of itself sounds like a good thing, right?
And it would be if he was teaching them how to do the job well but that wasn’t the case.
Bottom line, the unofficial leader didn’t want anyone rocking the boat by raising the activity level which would cause unwanted attention from the “White Hats” and force them all to have to work harder and faster. So, even though the new employee wanted to impress the manager by doing a great job – it would be at his or her own risk.
If they did a great job to please themselves and the manager, the other employees were instantly bullying the new hire to slow down and quit trying to make them look bad. If they didn’t do a great job, they risked being fired for poor performance. What a dilemma!
A few of the new hires would look for an opportunity to move to another shift or another department so they could succeed. Unfortunately, many would go with the flow as required by the other “crabs.” And the company lost some of the best new hires because they weren’t going to lower their standards.
Needless to say, the reports were disappointing. Fortunately, the leadership team took quick action and worked together quickly to remove the toxic behavior throughout the organization and begin a journey to create a winning culture.
Being a great leader and running a profitable business requires you to be in tune with what is always going on within your organization, at all levels. If there are people on your team who are only looking out for themselves, you need to address them right away. If they don’t step up, then you will know what you need to do next. If they aren’t helping you achieve your business goals – then they are hurting you.
There are some key things you can look for that are strong indicators of the crab mentality. For instance, when one employee accomplishes something significant, if another employee is underplaying it and saying that it isn’t a big deal or that he/she could have done even more – take notice.
Or if they often come to you complaining about other employees and making themselves out to be the “good guy” to gain your attention, that may be a sign of jealousy and they probably aren’t doing anything to help the team accomplish the goals you’ve set for them. If you don’t solve this problem quickly, the crab mentality will become the norm and your business will not come close to what it is capable of being.
Here’s an example: Chris is a new sales rep. He’s nervous and is aware that all the other sales reps are older. He senses that they resent him for being younger and making the same salary, so when Chris lands a big sale he’s met with criticism by the sales team leader, Jay, about how the sale only happened because the business owner told him to try that account.
Chris now loses his motivation and his overall sales suffer, which in turn makes the whole sales team (including Jay) look bad to the owner.
What happened? Both jealousy and personal goals on the part of Jay.
In trying to impress the owner and make a passive aggressive critique of Chris, the sales team leader shot his team in the foot and now not only did the team fail to meet its sales goals, Jay failed to impress the boss.
You’ll see this behavior everywhere once you recognize it.
On a personal level this can be very obvious. Have you started going to the gym and people are noticing that you are getting stronger as well as losing weight? If a crab amongst you sees this and knows they should probably be hitting the gym too they’ll probably (and maybe even without realizing they’re doing it) relish in any attempt to get you to cheat on your diet or skip the gym.
After all, they say, it’s only one small piece of chocolate cake…it’s not like it’s going to kill you and you know chocolate is your favorite. Right?
Rather than see you as an example to follow, the crab mentality sets in and they’d rather grab a hold of you and drag you back down instead of watching you escape the communal weight loss bucket you’re both in.
It’s everywhere really and all it takes is one or two people.
You may refer to them as rotten apples or problematic team members.
Those that would rather belittle others than try themselves are sure to drag everyone down whenever they see an opportunity.
So, what can you do when you see this crab mentality at work in your team?
The answer is you need to change the environment.
That can mean splitting up the team, changing the internal structure, or some other creative method that creates a new environment for the team members.
This is quite a difficult issue because it’s symptomatic of other larger problems. While it’s the team that broke, it may have been a result of how you set have set the tone as a leader in the first place.
Assess what went wrong and how you may have inadvertently contributed to the problem. This in no way indicates a problem with you as a leader or your leadership but it might show you why you could benefit from professional leadership coaching and learn new strategies that work.
Look at how you laid out the process of remuneration within the team. You may have thought by setting competitive based goals you incentivized hard work, but in doing so turned a team into an outright competition where the business goals the team was set up to address became secondary to the individual goals.
If you’re sure it wasn’t you then it’s time to look at the team itself.
Draft a short bio on each member and then sit down with each of them and talk to them about their career goals, what they think is holding them back from achieving their goals, what you observed and see if you can peel back the layers to help them identify why they are sabotaging themselves, the team and ultimately your business.
Most likely, they’ll treat the one-on-one time with you as another opportunity to belittle others or ingratiate themselves to you. You’ll see clearly their personal intentions take precedent above what they’ve been hired and paid to do.
The crab mentality can be addressed.
Take the crabs out of the bucket and let them all have an opportunity to be successful!
Swapping team members is a great idea if possible. If not, then breaking the team up into smaller teams can work.
Put the crabs on their own team and watch. While the new teams, absent of the selfish crabs, succeed the team infighting will be left behind.
Poor work performance is then the issue at hand and if you have invested a lot of time in the employees this is when to shine as a leader and lead!
Let them know what you observed, what you did, and why they need to change their ways. Explaining it honestly and clearly may illicit resentment but at this point if they demonstrate additional negativity, it will help you make a tough decision if they don’t do a 180 turn towards being a team player.
If it’s the latter what you’ve done will have shown them they have a great leader and why they shouldn’t act with personal agendas in mind when working with a team. You can move forward together as a more productive and positive team.
If you’re struggling with a crab in the bucket mentality on your team(s), get in touch. After a long career in human resources and almost a decade as a business consultant I know how to spot this flaw clearly and my leadership coaching techniques will make addressing it much easier!
To Your Inevitable Success,
Katherine Hartvickson