Why does a top producer's behavior cost more than it shows?
A top producer's number lands on one report. The cost of their behavior lands on others, as regrettable attrition and as effort that drains away.
A 2015 Harvard Business School working paper by Michael Housman and Dylan Minor covered 58,542 hourly frontline service workers across 11 firms, many of them outsourcers. Avoiding one toxic worker saved an estimated $12,489 in the cost of replacing coworkers who left. A top 1% performer's extra output was worth at most $5,303. Toxicity counted only when it ended in termination for an egregious policy violation. The authors call the toxic cost a likely lower bound and say the gap may be smaller elsewhere.
Christine Porath and Christine Pearson polled 800 managers and employees across 17 industries and reported in 2013 that 48% of people treated rudely at work cut their effort on purpose. Twelve percent said they left, and 25% admitted taking it out on customers. The answers are self-reported.
What questions help you handle a top producer who hurts the team?
Six questions, and one that sits under all of them.
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What exactly is the behavior, and who has seen it?
Write down what the person did and who was in the room, in words a stranger could check. Labels like difficult or abrasive are verdicts. Taking over a colleague's account is behavior. The EEOC's 2016 task force on workplace harassment noted that the conduct of high-value employees "may go on outside the view of anyone with the authority to stop it," so ask what people below you have seen that you have not. If what you find is harassment, discrimination, threats or any other misconduct, take it to HR and counsel at once, whatever the person sells.
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What does it cost the team, the customers and me?
Put the producer's quota attainment next to everything else the seat touches. Count who left or asked to move, and whose numbers fell after time near this person. Customers count too. Porath, Debbie MacInnis and Valerie Folkes found in 2010 research that consumers who witnessed one employee being uncivil to another drew negative conclusions that reached well past the incident, to other employees and to the firm as a whole. Your own cost is the hours you spend smoothing things over and the credibility you spend each time you look away.
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Have I told this person plainly, and in private, what has to change?
A top producer may never have heard it said straight, because each manager before you found a reason to wait. A 2006 review of research on negative group members, by Felps, Mitchell and Byington, describes how teammates respond. As UW News summarized it in 2007, correcting the person or pushing them out takes some power, and teammates without it grow frustrated and defensive. Terence Mitchell, one of the authors, told the same outlet that most organizations lack effective ways to handle the problem, and that this is "especially true when the problem employee has longevity, experience or power." Next to a top producer, the power sits with you. Listen for whether the person can repeat the specific behavior and why it matters. If the first time they hear it is in a performance review, you waited too long.
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Am I holding them to the same standard as everyone else?
Status bends judgment. In experiments reported in 2010, Hannah Riley Bowles and Michele Gelfand found that higher-status evaluators judged misbehavior by higher-status people more leniently than the same misbehavior by lower-status people. The studies manipulated status and did not look at sales teams. You are a high-status evaluator, and your top producer has earned status. The EEOC task force co-chairs, writing about harassment risk, told employers to "apply workplace rules uniformly, regardless of rank or value to the employer." Look at the exceptions you have made on account rules or discount approvals, and ask whether you would grant each one to your newest seller.
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What is the team learning from what I allow?
Antisocial behavior clusters inside work groups. In a 1998 field study of 187 employees in 35 groups across 20 organizations, Sandra Robinson and Anne O'Leary-Kelly found that a person's antisocial behavior at work tracked that of their coworkers. People who behaved better than their group were less satisfied with their coworkers. The study shows an association and cannot say which came first. Peers give stars room too. Three field studies by Matthew Quade, Rebecca Greenbaum and Oleg Petrenko, published in 2017, supported the idea that strong performance weakens the link between unethical behavior and ostracism at work, because results may give coworkers "a motivated reason to ignore moral violations." Listen to what newer sellers believe the rules are.
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What in our pay plan or account rules rewards this behavior?
Some behavior grows from the system around the seat. Loose rules on shared accounts invite a strong seller to take them. A plan that pays only on individual bookings gives nobody a reason to help a teammate. Fix what the system rewards, so the conversation with the person stays about choices they made.
"What am I tolerating from this person that I would not tolerate from anyone else?"
Every answer above traces back to this question, which is why it closes the list. Each cost and each silence began as an exception you made for this person. List those exceptions honestly and you know what the team has been watching, and what you change first.
What are the signs you are handling a difficult top producer well?
Good signs
- You can describe the behavior in specific terms, with dates and who was present.
- The person heard about it from you, in private, before it reached a review.
- Teammates raise concerns with you directly and see something change.
- The rule on shared accounts reads the same for the top producer and the newest hire.
- You weigh departures and customer complaints alongside bookings when you judge the seat.
Warning signs
- Concerns reach you through exit interviews instead of one-on-ones.
- Newer sellers go quiet in bid reviews when the top producer is in the room.
- You have bent a rule, or let one slide, for one person.
- Customers ask for a different seller after working with this one.
- The team explains the behavior away as part of the person's style.
Case study Fictitious numbers
A PE-backed commercial elevator services company runs 12 sellers in one region. Its top seller books $1.5M a year in new maintenance and service agreements, the most on the team. He also takes over shared accounts and talks down to newer sellers in bid reviews. The regional manager has heard complaints for a year and said little, because the number held up.
A new CRO counts the whole cost. In the prior year, the other 11 sellers booked $6.0M. Over the next 12 months, three of them resigned, and two named the team climate in their exit interviews. Those three had booked $1.2M the year before. Their replacements booked $0.3M in their first months. The eight who stayed held flat at $4.8M. The team without him fell from $6.0M to $5.1M. Region bookings fell from $7.5M to $6.6M, while his own $1.5M never moved.
- The top seller
- The sellers who stayed
- Replacements, $0.3M
- Bookings lost
His own number never moved. The team's did, before counting manager time or the customer who asked for a different seller.
The $0.9M drop equals 60% of what he books, before counting manager time or a customer who asked for a different seller. The CRO names the behavior to him in private, with the dates, and holds him to the account rules every other seller follows. Her question now is what keeping him unchanged has cost.
FAQ
Should you fire a toxic top performer?
Make that decision with HR and counsel, under your own policies and the law where you operate. Misconduct goes to them at once. For behavior short of that, weigh the whole cost against the output. In Housman and Minor's data, avoiding a toxic worker was worth more than twice the gain from a top 1% performer. They studied hourly service workers and say the gap may be smaller in other settings.
Are top performers more likely to be toxic?
Workers later fired for toxic behavior in Housman and Minor's data were faster than average, though the authors say they were not necessarily more productive once quality counted. Overconfidence and a self-regarding outlook predicted toxic termination. Bowles and Gelfand found that the experience of higher status reduced rule observance, and the EEOC task force warned that "superstar status can be a breeding ground for harassment," because privilege can lead people to see themselves as above the rules.
How do you tell a top performer their behavior has to change?
Plainly and in private, with the specific examples you wrote down. What matters is that they understand the behavior, why it matters and that the expectation is the one every seller on the team meets. If the behavior could be harassment, discrimination or other misconduct, take it to HR and counsel first and follow their lead.
What if the team resents the top producer for winning?
Resentment of success is real, and a top producer deserves the same fair look you would give anyone. Check whether the complaints describe behavior with dates and witnesses, or describe results and pay. Complaints about who got which accounts often point to rules that need fixing. The evidence from the first question settles which story is true.
Sources
- Toxic Workers (Housman and Minor, Harvard Business School Working Paper 16-057, Nov 2015) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The Price of Incivility (Porath and Pearson, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb 2013) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Research shows rude behavior at work is increasing and affects the bottom line (Thunderbird School of Global Management release via Newswise, 30 Jan 2013) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Witnessing Incivility among Employees (Porath, MacInnis and Folkes, Journal of Consumer Research, Aug 2010) checked 10 Oct 2026
- How, when, and why bad apples spoil the barrel (Felps, Mitchell and Byington, Research in Organizational Behavior, 2006), Erasmus University repository checked 10 Oct 2026
- Rotten to the core: How workplace 'bad apples' spoil barrels of good employees (UW News, 12 Feb 2007) checked 10 Oct 2026
- Status and the Evaluation of Workplace Deviance (Bowles and Gelfand, Psychological Science, 2010), Harvard Kennedy School checked 10 Oct 2026
- Monkey See, Monkey Do (Robinson and O'Leary-Kelly, Academy of Management Journal, Dec 1998) checked 10 Oct 2026
- The interactive effect of unethical behavior and performance onto relationship conflict and workplace ostracism (Quade, Greenbaum and Petrenko, Personnel Psychology, 2017), Baylor University repository checked 10 Oct 2026
- Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, Report of Co-Chairs Feldblum and Lipnic (US EEOC, Jun 2016) checked 10 Oct 2026