Egg Sucking Dogs

Sometimes key employees whom you rely on for everything become a liability.

By Charles Vander Kooi

When I'm consulting with contractors and we're discussing their problems, they often bring up a subject that I have come to know as the "egg-sucking dog," the good employee who may have been with you for a long time-a key person who is making big money-who has adopted a bad attitude and has become a liability to your company.

The egg-sucking dog label came to me during a seminar break when a person came running down the center aisle to talk to me. "I'm from Tennessee ," he said. "Do you know that there are such things as egg-sucking dogs? We had one down on the farm; a big golden retriever. He was friendly and loyal and loving. He would come up to you wagging his tail with egg yolk coming out of his mouth. He had been in the hen house rousting out the chickens and sucking down our egg money."

Don't get too close

An egg-sucking dog can have a devastating impact on your company. It can be costly, not only to your company's finances, but also to your sanity. How do you keep it from happening and what do you do when it does happen?

First, as much as possible, do not hire friends or relatives. If you do, or if you already have, demand that you keep a professional, non-friendship relationship with them.

I find that too many contractors want to develop this friendly relationship with their employees. They want to have family Barbeques together, and to go to outings together, and make their company just one big happy family.

Early on, this type of approach has its benefits. But as time goes on, it will usually come back to haunt you. Not because people are purposefully going to take advantage of your friendship, but because somewhere down the line, they may begin to expect special favors because of their special relationship with you. When those things do not happen, their attitude will begin to change, and you will find yourself in a very tough position. Or this old friend may have old resentment toward you that will begin to affect his behavior-and your company.

Friends forever - a tragic tale

I know someone who was the quarterback of the football team in high school, and he had a friend, the friend of a lifetime, who was the halfback. They dated two cheerleaders who were also friends of a lifetime. When they graduated from high school, they later married their high school sweethearts and they all continued to be friends.

A year and a half after graduation, the quarterback's dad died. He had owned a small construction company, which the quarterback took over. He hired his halfback friend. Together over 18 years they built the business into a $25-million construction company. Then, after 18 years, his executive vice-president and friend of a lifetime began turning into an egg-sucking dog.

He was good. He could bid jobs, troubleshoot jobs, negotiate jobs, negotiate change orders and even read financial statements. He was loyal to the company and his friend. But he had become an egg-sucking dog.

Later, the employee told us what had gone wrong. "When we were in high school and we won a football game, the quarterback was in the middle of the field surrounded by people who were giving him all the accolades. He didn't have a grass stain, mud stain or blood stain on his uniform. He had never even hit the turf the whole game.

I stood on the sideline with very few people saying anything to me. But my uniform was covered with mud stains, grass stains and my own blood stains. He just gave me the ball and I hit the line. When someone was gang tackled, I was gang tackled and when someone stepped on a hand with their cleated shoes, it was my hand that they stepped on. Yet, he got all the accolades. And now, he is the president of the company and I am just his vice-president. I have been living in his shadow all my life."

Those 2 men are still friends of a lifetime. The president of the company found a way to confront him and let him go. The egg-sucking dog now has a $10-million construction company and my client is still running his $25-million construction company.

Since this happened, the egg-sucking dog has said to me, "I was too loyal, but did not have the guts to quit. I am glad my friend had enough guts to let me go." Sometimes a good, old employee needs to get a new start somewhere else. And, as for the owner of the company, as Kenny Rogers sings, "You've got to know when to hold them, and know when to fold them."

It's lonely at the top

Now, I will admit there are exceptions to this rule, but they are just that, exceptions. The rule still remains that you should not develop overly friendly relationships with your employees.

One of the reasons why many people get too friendly with employees is that they find that it is lonely at the top. This is why I feel that every owner needs to be a part of some organization of peers in which he can share his or her problems openly with others who are in the same position. This way, they can avoid this kind of relationship with their employees.

Don't ignore the warning signs

Another thing to do is to look for early warning signs that a good employee is becoming an "egg-sucking dog," and then take action while he or she can still be turned around. One of the great regrets expressed by those who have faced this problem, is that they did not take action soon enough. They saw the change slowly taking place but did not want to acknowledge it, or deal with it at the time.

They kept telling themselves it was a temporary problem that would fix itself, and they kept blaming it on something the employee was going through. They convinced themselves it would change very soon when the employee passed through the bad time.

Many of those who did not take action until it was too late felt that if they would have done something sooner, there would have been a much better chance to save that employee. We walk a very fine line between overreaction and procrastination in these cases, but with very few exceptions, it is better to confront the situation sooner than later.

Rehab seldom works

There is a sad fact I must point out: Most people with whom I have talked feel that, in the majority of cases, the only solution for good employees who have gone bad, is to fire them.

Everyone agrees that every reasonable attempt should be made to salvage them. But eventually you must be enough of a realist to know that, in most cases, those efforts will fail. You must decide on how far you can afford to go with this person, setting a limit on your time and efforts to salvage them, and then when those are not met, be at peace in letting them go, knowing that you have done all you could.

Do not internalize the guilt. My client, the quarterback, kept asking himself what he had done to his friend of a lifetime. Well, he was not perfect in all of his dealings with him, but he had not done anything that bad. His friend was paid a six-figure salary, had a company car, bonuses, and stock options.

Employees need motivation

How can you make up for a friend's feelings that go way back to high school? That fact leads me to one final thing that can be done to keep a good employee from going bad. I feel that sometimes this problem occurs because the employee loses one of his most important motivators, that is: The need to impress someone.

He has worked for you, has done his best, and now feels that he has nothing else to prove. Your job is to keep that type of person in a position where they feel that they must prove themselves every day. This can be done by giving them more difficult jobs, working with owners and architects who are more difficult to please, or by giving them more responsibility.

However, this may be something that just keeps them for as long as possible. There may very well come a time when they think that they are better than you, and that you cannot do without them, and that there is nothing left for them to prove. At that point do yourself-and them-a favor. Send them down the road to another company where they must start proving themselves to someone else all over again.

I cannot say it enough: This is a people business. The most successful people in this business are savvy about the dynamics of human work relationships.