Everyone likes to think that their office is highly effective. But, in a place where employees do not feel safe and valued, you are not going to get the sort of feedback and innovation that makes a company a winner. How confident are you about your company culture? Here are several common signs of a toxic organizational culture.

Are you drowning in a sea of undone to-dos and action items you haven't acted on? Do you have a list of 50 unprioritized goals to accomplish by some unspecified date and another 100 things that you just might get around to one of these days? Are you surrounded by sticky notes and find yourself bouncing from one half-done task to another?

Well, then, I can confidently predict the future. Most of those goals, action items, and ideas aren't going to get dealt with. They won’t get scratched off your list, and they will add to a continuing mountain of stressors that eventually keep you up at night and ruin most of your days before they’ve even started.

Companies are made up of people. And sometimes people don’t get along. Sometimes people are inconsiderate or forgetful. Sometimes people lack motivation and stop caring whether they produce good work. And all of that has the potential to hurt your business.

Few executives enjoy sitting an employee down to have the “we need to talk” talk. But sooner or later, it becomes unavoidable. How can you have that difficult conversation in a way that promotes positive results?

I recently proposed to implement EOS for a large business in a big city. As sometimes happens, the potential client was interviewing another EOS Implementer, as well, and each of us was aware that this company was talking to the other.

In fact, before either of us actually met with the company, we each let the other know when we had spoken to this prospect. We talked together about what he is looking for in an Implementer and how we might be able to help him. We even agreed that we should go after clients together more often because it’s fun!

The camaraderie and spirit of cooperation that exists among EOS Implementers showed in our talks with our potential client, and I could tell he found it a little puzzling. After a few interactions, I received an email from him saying, “I’m curious. It doesn’t appear that the implementers care which one we use. How was that culture developed?”

Last month, a good client came to me with some concerns. He felt that his organization had been making great strides in defining their purpose, vision, and core values. He also felt like the work we had done together had really helped to restructure the organization and improve internal processes so that the organization was positioned appropriately to meet future goals.

But now, he felt the really hard part was kicking in – people issues. One of the key strengths of the EOS system is to help business owners get the right people in the right seats. However, sometimes that means moving or letting good people go, if there is no longer a seat for them.