For those of us used to a healthy organizational culture, joining an organization with a toxic environment can be a difficult adjustment. Changing a toxic culture is challenging but entirely necessary to ensure the survival of any organization. The challenge can be made more difficult if an organization is still moderately successful and has not yet suffered the ravages of its toxicity.
Toxicity happens for many reasons: new or disconnected ownership or leadership; insufficient care when hiring new people; the failure to consistently enforce organizational standards; the list of scenarios is quite lengthy. Regardless of the cause, in order to ensure long-term viability, the leadership of organizations with a toxic culture must take action sooner rather than later.
The signs of toxicity are readily apparent when an organization is faced with adversity. Effective organizations with strong cultures respond to adversity by willingly looking for and implementing new ideas: they collaborate, and individuals work hard to improve their own skills. Alternatively, people in toxic organizations don’t like or resist change. They are quick to blame others without accepting any blame for themselves, they undermine, they gossip and engage in whisper campaigns, and they actively or passively resist any action by leadership that threatens the status quo.
Dealing with a toxic culture is something many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or organizations require care and attention. Too often organizations attempt to change everyone: in the process, they often alienate their good people and fail to address their toxic people. Toxic situations are complex, so the following analogy might be helpful.
Imagine you are the captain of a sinking ship and you have ten people in your lifeboat. Three of the people will follow you just because you are the captain. These three believe in you, respect you, and will follow your direction. Another three people blame you for the sinking. They will actively or passively undermine and sabotage your efforts, up to and including drilling holes in the bottom of the lifeboat and using the bailing buckets to put water in the boat. They are so ingrained in their thoughts they are unable to comprehend the damage they are doing to themselves if the boat sinks. The real challenge for you as the captain is to convince the remaining four people to follow your lead. They are scared and could go either way: if the toxic people sway them, then you will have a majority against you; if you can get them to help, then the toxic people are isolated and you will prevail. As an organizational leader, you will not likely ever convince all three toxic people to your cause. If you can get 70% of the people to help, however, the organization will likely survive in the short term and over the medium and long-term, some or all of the toxic people will leave the organization.
To change a toxic culture …
Start with a plan. Decide what your desired outcome should be. Involve your key people.
Be prepared to adapt your plan depending on what works, and what doesn’t work; however, appreciate implementation will not be easy and you should expect challenges and setbacks along with much resistance and outright sabotage.
While adapting the plan may be necessary, do not give in to placating those three toxic people and “buying back” your actions. Too often, managers or owners falter or doubt their plan will work and give in to the complaints of the dominant toxic people.
Another common problem is that managers or leaders have to be prepared for their plans to take time. They fail to accept the short-term pain the organization will have to endure. The change of culture will take upwards of three to six months depending on the skills, attitudes, and behavior of the people. Once embarked on the path for change, stopping will not allow them to return to the previous status quo, the situation will be even worse because the toxic people will have won.
Introduce and incubate new people. Finding and recruiting new people will change the dynamic in any organization. Train and immerse them in the culture you will create while taking care to ensure they are aware and prepared to deal with the old toxicity. Resist the urge to have the toxic people involved in their training.
Practice consistency. While it is important while changing your organizational culture to be fair and consistent for all initiatives, for organizations experiencing toxicity keeping all short/medium/and long-term objectives within a tight arc will help keep everyone focused.
Leadership must have the fortitude to stay on course throughout the change process. While the toxic three will fight the changes, it is important to support the three who support the organization and not give in to the pressure faced by those aligned against the changes.
You will lose some people. It is not uncommon to lose one or more of your new people if you have not prepared them well enough to deal with the toxic minority. Do not underestimate how strong an influence the toxic may wield.
Isolate and bypass the toxic people. Many toxic people believe they speak for more people than they do; by isolating them, toxic people will lose their influence. I am not suggesting any overt activities, such as purposely ignoring the input of toxic people, I am saying that limiting their audience is important. However, they have the option to participate but if they choose not to, then they actually contribute to their isolation.
Remember your goal is to sway the four undecided people. While few organizations are democratic, having 70% of your people “on-side” will allow for easier implementation of new ideas and positive change.
Do not shy away from difficult decisions. Changing toxic cultures will require leadership to make decisions, defend direction, and end bullying; each instance is a test watched not only by the toxic people but also by those people who support leadership. Failure to be consistent, supportive, and stay on track could undermine the entire change process.
Use fact, not opinion. People who resist, undermine, and sabotage will use slogans and make claims based on their opinions. Successfully defeating toxicity will depend on showing, through facts, that those opinions are unfounded and untrue. Having a plan, successfully implementing that plan, tracking the results, and demonstrating through facts is a key element to swaying people who are undecided.
Resist the urge to “blow hot air up the toxic peoples’ asses.” Some toxicity is created when leaders and managers try to flatter their toxic people to facilitate change. This will not work with toxic people and it will only cause resentment among those who support you already. Toxic people are not “good” workers, toxic people are holding your organization back, they need to change or they need to go.
Don’t get too many balls in the air at once. To change a toxic culture and to implement change, it is important to control how many organizational elements are changing at any one time. Change too few and everyone, including those who support you, gets frustrated. Change to many and you will find you cannot deliver on your promises and everyone, including those who support you, will get frustrated. Like in poker, show what you need to, deliver what you promised when you promised it, and then move forward.
Toxicity is like cancer to any organization. It doesn’t matter how it was allowed to develop: all that matters is acknowledging it exists, creating an action plan to eliminate it, implementing your plan, and monitoring and adjusting your plan as necessary.
Good luck,
Paul.
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