How to Get Rid of "Staff

Infection"
The doctor said to me, “I am admitting you to hospital immediately to do
emergency surgery. We are going to replace your prosthetic hip.” You
can imagine my shock as I had just gone to the Mayo Clinic to have the
doctor check out some odd swelling around the hip. The doctor said I
had a staph infection. I had to call my wife and tell her I was not coming
home for dinner, or for days. She knew what this meant because I had
my first hip replaced just a year and a half before. Maybe it was the
skydiving and bull riding, maybe it was bad genes plus running too
much, but it was definitely bad luck.

At 39 years old, I sat on the edge of the bed stunned because this
meant months of recovery. I would have to go from a wheelchair, to a
walker, to a cane, to my feet again. Because of the staph infection, I
would be on IV antibiotics for six weeks. At that time, it seemed like a
sentence more than a solution. Just then the physician’s assistant said,
“I have a 12:30 p.m. opening in the operating room.” To which the
doctor said, “That is not soon enough. If you have to get me a room at 5
a.m., get it!” It was then I knew the severity of a staph infection.

If your organization went to the doctor, would they diagnose something

dangerous lurking just beneath the surface of your organizational skin?
Is it possible that you are, like I was, going through the motions and not
knowing the severity of what lies just below the veiled veneer? What if
you have a staff infection? A living organism in the body you lead that is
undermining the health, draining the energy and sabotaging the success
of your team? In this article, I will highlight three types of influential
infectious diseases that are silent killers to the health and organizational
momentum of any team.

Staphy(negative)itus: A staff infection that is derived from a pervasive

negative attitude and outlook.

Have you ever met someone who was so negative, if you put him or her
in a dark room, they would develop? Perhaps they have
staphy(negative)itus. As a young leader, I used to think if I were
positive enough, I could convert the negative person to my positive
ways. I would spend time trying to motivate, stimulate and emancipate
this person from the bondage of negative thinking. On a scale of one to
Zig Ziglar, they might be a negative one, yet I thought I could help them
be free. While there were times I could at least get this person to stop
being negative around the team, the fact still remained, the effort that
should be poured into creating positive momentum in the organization
was spent coddling the critical nature of these individuals. That is the
nature of these types of organisms. They require energy to live. If they
can’t produce the energy, they will rob it.

Symptoms: You begin to hear one person’s negative view repeated by

others, as if it were their own thoughts. If there is anything modern
North American politics has taught us, it is this. If it is repeated often
enough, it becomes a true issue even if it is not a true statement.

Treatment: You have to, as Jim Collins puts it, “Get the right people on
the bus.” That means you have to move some people around. If you are
a church leader, move the negative person away from working with
people to working with things. Continue to cast vision, lead them,
encourage them, but move them.

Staphy(non-urgent)itus: A staff infection that drains the sense of

urgency that should drive the passion and purpose of your team.

Staphy(non-urgent)itus occurs when individuals lose or never had a

sense of urgency about their objectives and mission. Sometimes this can
be a result of unclear directives by the positional leader or unclear
objectives from the team members themselves. This can happen over
time, and is not as obvious as Staphy(negative)itus. However, it is just
as deadly to the organizational health. This infection has broad
implications as it slowly lowers the bar of excellence to the point where
leading becomes a maintenance task rather than a visionary function.
Five-year plans take a back seat to five-o’clock quitting time. “That will
work,” replaces, “I will work on that,” and the disease creeps into the
lifeblood of the organization.

Symptoms: There is disconnect from purpose, and decisions are made

not for what will cause more growth but for what will cause less grief.
The high-risk, high-reward atmosphere is traded for a low-risk, low-yield
environment that is safe.

Treatment: Revisit your mission statement as a team. Create buy-in by

asking everyone to engage in a strategic planning session for the
upcoming year. Ask each team member to bring three ideas to the table
that will meet the goals laid out in this strategic planning session. Ask
everyone to share their vision of where they would like to see their
department in five years. Praise the ambitious and take note of the
ambiguous. After prayer and vision casting, if a team member has a
difficult time describing an ideal future then that could be the source of
staphy(non-urgent)itus.

Once you have identified the source, then go into investment mode.
Unlike staphy(negative)itus, staphy(non-urgent)itus is less resistant to
the antibiotics of “Transformational leadership” (Peter Northouse’s
phrase). Reconnecting one’s purpose to an ideal future can create
urgency. If they cannot see themselves in that ideal future, then a
transition is imminent.
Staphy(division)itus: A staff infection that consists of multiple visions
fighting for dominance in an organization.

This disease is more obvious and lethal than staphy(negative)itus or

staphy(non-urgent)itus. The systemic nature of this infection tends to
absorb all of the vision energy of the organization, feasting off of the
less assertive team members, as well as passionate yet discontent team
members.

Symptoms: Staphy(division)itus can be seen in the pronouns. Hearing

words such as “they,” “us,” “them” and “we,” while talking about the
same team, denotes key insight into the fact that there are perceived
factions, if not actual dual visions, at large. It is what Daniel Pink calls
the “Pronoun test.”

Treatment: The leader has the task of aligning the passions in a

cohesive vision that can be embraced by all, or in some cases, removing
the source of the division. It is possible to redirect the people at the
source of the division, but it will only come with candid and clear
conversations about what is expected and what will happen if there is
not a shift in this direction. Often in the church world, it is not as easy as
firing a disgruntled staff member. It can involve people that you need to
get on board as leaders. This takes time, it takes intention and it takes
initiative. However, when the leader is willing to sit down, engage people
at a high level, listen to their concerns and find common ground, most of
the time they can leave a season of treatment with the divided leader on
their page.

Sometimes splitting ways is the only treatment, like Paul and Barnabas
whose “contention became so sharp that they parted from one
another.”[1] Not too different than the daily IV treatment I received in
tackling my staph infection, this infection has to be treated regularly and
constantly monitored to assure that it is no longer taking the energy of
the organization.

Sew It Up

The thing about staff infections is they don’t get better with time. In
fact, like staph infections, they will eventually infiltrate the bloodstream
of the organization and can bring death to an otherwise healthy team.

I know you are thinking, do you know how much pain is going to be
involved in addressing these issues? Do you know how inconvenient it is
going to be? Do you know how this is going to slow down the
organization? All questions I asked myself when the doctor told me the
dreadful news on a random Tuesday. This infection is not going to cure
itself. It must take priority, and there is no time to delay the decision.
Move wisely and with surgical precision. Have the tough conversation,
schedule the meeting and make the move. Before you know it, your
organization will be on a fast track to health, yet again.

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