For the first time in my career, I was fortunate enough to work in a team with a truly demotivated person.

He was a highly-skilled developer that joined the company with the best intentions to invest his time, skill and diligence in its growth.

But it so happened that his leadership qualities and perfectionism faced opposition from the principals and a general rejection of the team, painfully accepting the amount of direct criticism they got from the newbie.

The consequence of this was an invisible transition from a proactive team member to a certain hermit. He began to do the "buzz off" work, ceased to take an active position in discussions and followed the least resistance path. This transition happened within months.

I read a lot about what trust in a team is. How difficult to build it and how easy to lose, but this is the first time I encountered such a pronounced problem within our small company.

I joined the team later and began to work with him side by side on essential tasks. In the beginning, I did not yet realize the seriousness of the situation. Still, very quickly the smack of apathy, lack of involvement in the current situation began to cause me to reflexively try to compensate for this by more dynamic scheduling of tasks, sessions of pair programming and discussions about problems and improvements.

All this was not easy. We had to constantly admit that the problems are bigger than us. Our efforts are in vain, about a disagreement with the team point of view and its incompetence.

But the worst was yet to come - at some moment, I realized that I did not trust this person, I did not see the point in discussions, I did not trust him to control my work, and most of all I did not trust his work.

Two correct decisions were seen in this situation: either transfer him to the greenfield team or retire. The latter has happened.

The problem is not only in the hero of this text. But other team members who are the majority that makes a culture (the effect of a jar with a brine). It led to quality and velocity loss, but the worst of all it demotivated other people.

After all, a team is not just a group of people who work together. These are people who trust each other.