Is Your Workplace a Toxic Environment? Part One

Working in a toxic environment or a workplace where things feel hostile can make doing your job really difficult. It can even shift your sense of what is normal and acceptable in a workplace. Whilst the dangers of a toxic environment in the workplace are well-known, it is a tricky situation to overcome because it is often difficult to diagnose. If you are starting to suspect your workplace is not the fun and friendly place it used to be, here is how to recognise the signs, what you can do about it and where to go for help.

• Lack of credibility. Is there some in the team constantly taking on responsibility for tasks and then failing to deliver? When people do not do what they say they will do, they lack credibility and breed mistrust.
• Resistance to change. When the whole team embraces change, and one person refuses to move with the times and drags down everyone. Since the world is always changing and requires continuous adaptation, rigidity and resistance to change guarantee eventual obsolescence and failure.
• Narcissism. Is that person who constantly makes everything self-referential beginning to undermine the natural balance of the team? An excessive amount of self-focus interferes with the development of a positive and flexible culture of balanced negotiation and give-and-take compromises.
• Aggressiveness. Is there a person or person whose apparent ‘professionalism’ is, in your opinion spilling over into outright hostility? It undermines safety and requires people to divert resources from productive work into defensive operations such as fight and flight.
• Passivity. When the group is dynamic, and one person does not contribute. The opposite of the initiative and ownership needed for optimal performance.
•  Disorganisation. This is that one person whose professional disarray begins to wreak havoc in the office. Operational requirements for focus, structure, and discipline will not be met when people exhibit a lack of personal organisation.

Another sign that you are in a toxic environment is a complete lack of fun. Meaningful fun is about people connecting with each other. And those connections are crucial to creativity. This does not mean your office has to have an Xbox or ping-pong tables. If you never have any fun at work, then it is a further sign you are in trouble. Fortunately, this issue is easier to fix for an individual employee. And creating productive fun is contagious. This writer once worked for a company that introduced a bit of fun by installing a central kitchen where twice-weekly games, contests, or happy hours would take place around the countertop. We have also seen a company that provided scooters for getting around a concrete warehouse, and even one that hung old ski-lift chairs face-to-face in the conference room (in truth, no one ever used it, but it was a fun talking point!). If there is no evidence that people know how to have fun, or if it is not acceptable to have fun, that is a huge danger sign you are working in a toxic environment.

So how come these toxic environments not only occur but are allowed to fester unchecked? There are three main reasons why organisations are not successful in spotting potential toxic behaviour in the hiring process or fighting off an infection before major harm is done:

1. Interviews. The interview process has very weak detection sensitivity for these behaviours. Most candidates will be intelligent enough to conceal their toxic behaviours throughout the interview process. Even more troubling is the fact that many people are unaware of their own toxic behaviour, making them the interview equivalent of the person who can pass a lie detector test because they believe their own lies.
2. References. See Point 1. Plus, references are often unreliable because they do not want to stir up conflict (and possible legal and behavioural blow-back) with their current or former employees. In addition, many references genuinely do not wish to harm a person’s employment prospects by providing accurate negative feedback. Letters of recommendation are especially poor detectors of toxic behaviour, and unstructured phone follow-up is not much better.
3. Managers cannot detect it. Sadly, many managers have great difficulty detecting and dealing effectively with the dysfunctional behaviour of their direct reports. They can remain unaware of toxic behaviour for extended periods of time because employees who are aware of their own toxic behaviours are often able to mask them from their boss (just as they did during the interview process). The people who are aware of toxic behaviour (e.g., you) usually do not report it to the relevant authorities due to powerful group prohibitions against “dobbing” (an offence punishable in most groups by shunning, expulsion or worse). Employee behaviour is often not included in the performance measurement/management system (if there is such a system at all), thus communicating that technical competence is what matters, but “behaviour” is not part of the “real” job.

In our next instalment, we will look at how you can cope if you are on the receiving end of toxic behaviour in the workplace.