Dealing with "bad apples" in team

When someone is unhappy in your team, be swift in actions to deal with the problem because negativity of one team member (“bad apple”) reverberates in the entire team.

In case of teams, negatives spread faster than positives and it is a manager’s challenge to spread the positives as fast and balance the overall positivism quotient of the team.

In case of a smaller team where managers have an opportunity to know the individuals closely, it becomes easier to gauge what someone would “not” like and what could potentially cause negativity. In larger teams, it helps to have an organization structure and process to foster mutual understanding. It helps a manager be pro-active.

While something can be done to manage temporary people problems – little can be done in cases of perennial bad apples (attitudes, work styles etc.) and the best strategy would be to get rid of these.

How do you deal with “bad apples” in your teams?