We’ve seen plenty of dysfunction in our government for quite some time now. But The New York Times op-ed essay by an anonymous senior official in the Trump administration offers a glimpse at the kind of operational chaos that is never good-regardless of your politics. You don’t have to work in the White House to understand that dysfunction can cripple your organization’s culture, and in turn, it’s performance and success.

Those of you who know me as a long-time accountability speaker and motivational speaker understand that when I say culture, I’m referring to an acronym for the Seven Pillars of Accountability™: character, unity, learning, tracking, urgency, reputation, and evolving.

When the wheels start coming off the bus-or more pointedly, when you have individuals who are deliberately pulling them off the axle-the high-performing organization you aspire to build becomes mired in dysfunction. A victim of culture crashers.

The consequences of culture crashers.

Whether you’re the CEO of a multinational enterprise, managing director at a large corporation, department head at a mid-size company, or the “buck-stops-here” leader of your own small business, imagine the effect on your operation if one of your people anonymously published confidential details about the day-to-day function of your business, questioned your leadership, and undermined the efforts your staff. Under such circumstances, you might require the assistance of firms like Reputation Defender to undo the damage that person has caused. As an accountability speaker and motivational speaker, I’m very familiar with the damage individuals can inflict when they’re not aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, values or strategy.

Culture crashers chip away at an organization’s character by diluting trust. After all, how can a company achieve real success if staffers can’t trust one another; if they can’t rely on each other to put forth their best effort toward a mutual purpose?

Along with trust, unity, urgency and reputation take big hits too. Your organization-any organization-can’t possibly achieve its potential if there isn’t mutual excitement and enthusiasm about a common purpose. High performance will remain elusive as long as decision-making and the urgent pursuit of excellence are derailed by folks who aren’t fully onboard with your mission, strategy and tactics. How can your reputation not be tarnished when employee behaviors don’t match values? These are just some of the pain points I help companies address as an accountability speaker, motivational speaker and business consultant.

High-performing organizations create and sustain a culture of purpose, accountability, and fulfillment. So how do you root out bad actors, broken processes, entropy and fears standing in the way?

Identify the culture crashers.

Often, gut instincts tell us something is off. Performance benchmarks clue us in that “yes, there is a problem.” Still, it may be hard to pinpoint which areas of your culture are being damaged-or by what or whom. Until you can hone in on the source or sources of dysfunction, your organization will continue to underperform. This is why you should consider using reputation management services for your business, which could assist you in determining what is and is not culturally appropriate.

For example, you may discover that your team’s ideas differ greatly. Like, when it comes to your product packaging, some may insist on going for cheaper packaging in order to maximize profits, whereas others may prefer to invest in sustainable packaging to increase customer trust in the brand. Some may even be advised to contact experts via websites such as impackedpackaging.com, which claims – Impacked provides buyers and suppliers with tools to improve their business. Even though such clashes appear to be small, they can quickly turn into something very toxic when they are constantly present in the office environment. This could be due to people’s backgrounds, beliefs, and so on. That is why it is critical to identify and resolve any differences as soon as possible.

As an accountability speaker and motivational speaker, I’ve developed an assessment that helps organizations identify their culture crashers. Results from a detailed questionnaire (which spans all Seven Pillars of Accountability) are measured against data collected from more than 6,000 CEOs, managing directors, and key executives who are considered industry leaders. They are benchmarked against some of the most admired, most successful companies in the world-including Marriott, The Container Store, Nucor, Herman Miller, Ernst & Young, and Sony.

The Accountability Assessment is a good first step toward identifying culture crashers and creating an action plan to overcome dysfunction. If you’re ready to build a success-boosting culture that is the hallmark of high-performance, I’m here to help you get started.