Surviving the Jungle of a Toxic Workplace
In truly toxic environments, the only rule that matters is the rule of the jungle, which boils down to: eat, or be eaten. In toxic organizations, people are in survival mode, which means no one is really thinking long-term. Everyone’s just trying to stay alive for another day.
Why your employees don’t want to talk about AI
We’ve moved way beyond the idea of “change is the only constant,” and are now in a space where constant change has burned people all the way out.
Is strategic planning a waste of time?
A big, complex goal sounds great, right up to the moment when someone points at you and says you’re accountable for making sure it gets done.
How your performance management system is killing your culture efforts
Some long-gone executive or HR professional cribbed the system from something Jack Welch did at GM decades ago, and because changing the system would be “too difficult,” it lumbers on, like a horde of zombies, wiping out all the good work that’s been done toward eliminating bias and making systems more equitable.
Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people
What I think many employers aren’t recognizing is that it’s not just that times have changed. Workers have changed. People whose health improved, who achieved better work-life balance, who spent more time with their kids, or their elderly parents, or even their pets, or pursuing their hobbies, etc. while working from home aren’t going to just forget about all that now that the pandemic is receding.
Cultures of Fear
Two decades later, my non-scientific observation based on years of experience working with leaders, is that Bully Bosses tend to be leaders who escalated into leadership early in their careers and didn’t go through some of the formative experiences other leaders go through – the ups and downs, failures and successes, frustrations and triumphs, that forge character and solidify values. What’s more, they haven’t spent very much time working for other people and experiencing what it’s like to be the employee, working for a boss.
Inclusion, dumbassery, and HR's "seat at the table"
Some things are wrong because they’re wrong; because they make other people feel excluded and less-than. Wrong words and wrong actions have negative consequences.
Employees trolling each other on Slack? Here's some advice that may help.
Unfortunately, having people work remotely has not put an end to employee conflict. It’s just moved to online collaboration tools - and apparently gotten as raw as a WWE match, as what feels like Internet-style anonymity allows people to get brave behind their keyboards.
The craziest story I’ve ever seen about toxic team culture in a workplace, and why and how it could happen to you.
It’s the unfortunate dark side of having a strong, cohesive team with loyalty to each other and to their leader: if the leader’s motivations are toxic, and bad behavior doesn’t get checked, a team’s actions can spiral out of control fast.