“Toxic” is a word we hear a lot in business today especially when talking about teams. But as leadership coach Dan Urquhart reminded us on The Good Builder Podcast, most building businesses don’t start out toxic. They drift there slowly through a string of small, unhealthy behaviours that seem harmless at first.
This conversation hit home for many listeners, because every builder has felt it: that sense something isn’t quite right on site or in the office, even when the numbers look fine.
Dan’s advice was simple: don’t wait for things to turn toxic. Spot unhealthy early and fix it fast.
Defining Toxic vs Unhealthy
On the podcast, Dan broke down the difference perfectly.
“Toxic is the late stage, when someone’s behaviour has crossed the line and keeps crossing it. Unhealthy is everything that leads up to that point,” he said.
Toxic is the explosive argument, the HR incident, the point where trust breaks.
Unhealthy is the slow leak, the missed meetings, the quiet blame, the sliding standards that build pressure over months.
As Dan put it, “Most organisations that haven’t faced it yet, will. The key is leadership. Toxic is what happens when we don’t lead early.”
And that’s the trap many builders fall into. They spot the problem too late because they confuse results with health. The sales numbers look good, the jobs are moving so we look the other way. Until suddenly, culture becomes the biggest job no one quoted for.
The Small Habits That Destroy Culture
Drawing from both his own business experience and the teams he now coaches through Thousand Feet Deep, Dan listed the everyday habits that slowly eat away at team health.
1. Lateness That Becomes Normal
Turning up late to pre-starts or joining calls with cameras off might not seem like a big deal but it sends a message that time and discipline are flexible.
“Lateness teaches everyone that commitments don’t matter,” Dan said. “If you’re OK being five minutes late, someone else will be ten.”
2. Blame Instead of Ownership
Builders know the script: ‘Estimating stuffed it.’ ‘The client changed their mind.’
It’s easy to fall into. But as Dan pointed out, “When blame starts creeping in, accountability disappears. The energy that should go into solving the problem goes into protecting ourselves.”
3. Inconsistency in Standards
One site cleans up daily, another doesn’t. One supervisor enforces safety paperwork, another waves it off. Inconsistency, Dan said, is one of the clearest signs a culture is unhealthy. “Good people leave when the game keeps changing. Bad behaviours stay.”
4. Praising Results, Ignoring Behaviour
Every leader has been tempted by this one the ‘gun’ team member who drives revenue but leaves chaos behind. Dan calls them “high-performing headaches”. “If you reward results without checking behaviour, you’re teaching the team that how we win doesn’t matter,” he said.
5. Meetings That Don’t Teach
Dan’s mantra: ‘Ways to think, not more to do.’ He introduced the idea of weekly Thrive Meetings, short sessions focused on thinking, behaviour, and reflection rather than task lists.
“They’re about developing people, hand, head and heart,” he explained. “Because skill set will only take you so far. Mindset and character decide how far you go.”
The Leadership Reflection: It Starts with You
When Az from The Good Builder shared his own story of hiring a brilliant but toxic designer years ago, Dan’s response was blunt and true:
“When I had toxic people in my own business, it was my lack of leadership that allowed it.”
That’s not blame; it’s ownership. As leaders, the culture we tolerate is the culture we create.
Dan uses what he calls the Four Foundations of Leadership:
- Capacity-driven leadership
- Systems and process
- Roles and responsibilities
- Cultural health
“If you get those four right,” he said, “you’ll get performance. If any one of them is weak, the whole structure tilts.”
He also reminded builders that culture starts long before recruitment or performance reviews. It starts with clarity clearly defining mission, vision, and core values.
“If you don’t set the expectation, you can’t hold anyone to it,” he said. “You can’t build accountability on a mystery.”
That line became one of the most replayed moments of the episode.
Practical Tools to Reset Culture Fast
1. Define Your Core Standards
Dan recommends writing your mission, vision, and core values in a way that’s memorable, rally-worthy, and measurable. “Too many builders have a paragraph on a wall that nobody can remember,” he said. At his former G.J. Gardner franchise in Tamworth, their mission was just two words: Experience Quality. Simple enough to repeat. Powerful enough to measure.
Ask yourself:
- Can my team remember it?
- Can I hold people accountable to it?
- Does it burn in their hearts, not just mine?
If not, start again.
2. Run a Weekly Thrive Meeting
Borrow Dan’s formula: 45 minutes, same time every week, cameras on if online.
Agenda:
- Wins: Behavioural wins tied to values.
- Lessons: Mistakes owned and shared.
- Scoreboard: Key health metrics, not just profit.
- Focus: Two decisions that move jobs forward.
- Shout-outs: Peer recognition for living the values.
This turns meetings from calendar clutter into culture builders.
3. Measure What You Value
Builders are great at tracking margin and timelines. Few track behavioural indicators like:
- On-time meeting starts (%)
- Defect close-out time (days)
- Client response time (hours)
- Site cleanliness audit scores
“When you measure behaviour, you prove that culture matters,” Dan said.
4. Use the “3 W Note” for Feedback
Dan’s simple framework for clear accountability:
- What happened (facts)
- Why it matters (link to values)
- What happens next (action and timeframe)
It turns awkward feedback into process — and stops unhealthy habits before they harden.
5. Run a 14-Day Culture Reset
Dan’s coaching team at Thousand Feet Deep often runs this sprint with clients. It starts with declaring a cultural reset, auditing behaviour against the company’s values, and locking in three rhythms:
- Weekly Thrive Meeting
- Friday Site Walk
- Monthly All-Hands session
Two weeks of clarity, consistency, and accountability is often enough to turn a business around.
The Moment It Clicks
In the episode, Az recalled visiting a builder whose young operations manager was leading with calm confidence and a clear sense of mission.
“The whole team held each other accountable,” he said. “It was wild to see they were genuinely aligned.”
Dan smiled: “That’s what it looks like when mission, vision, and values are working. You don’t have to push people. They pull each other forward.”
That line captures the whole episode: healthy culture isn’t a buzzword. It’s what lets good builders perform without burning out.
The Takeaway
A healthy culture is not just smiles and Friday beers. It’s consistency, clarity, and care.
As Dan summed it up:
“Healthy culture is about health and performance. If you haven’t defined what that looks like in your business, the weeds will grow by themselves.”
So before you label something “toxic,” take a closer look at what’s merely unhealthy — and fix it early. Start with one Thrive Meeting, write your values on a single page, and have one honest conversation this week.
Because the standard you walk past today is the business you’ll be running tomorrow.
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