The Broken Window effect
I have heard it said that if a building or car has a visible broken window, the surroundings or other parts of the car or building will follow suit in being dilapidated and looking generally in bad shape.!
Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point, refers to the Broken Window theory whose Brainchild was James Q. Wilson and George Kelling who had argued that "crime is the inevitable result of disorder'.
A small crack causes people to ignore other small and not so small cracks leading to a downward spiral. The same is true when it comes to ethics in an organisation. Lets say for instance an organisation subtly allows foul language or outright insults to go on in meetings. Firstly , those to whom the foul language or insults are directed, are unlikely to look forward to those forums or meetings where this happens. They are unlikely to bring their 'A' game to the forum or meeting choosing rather to focus their energies on how to survive. They would also feel defenseless seeing that there is nobody who cares enough to change the situation.
Following the broken window effect theory the unethical behavior is then seen to mean that nobody is in charge and in fact there is an open licence to be unethical at the organization. Wilson and Kelling from their perspective as criminologist put it thus- "In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling are all equivalent to broken windows, invitations to more serious crime'
The challenge with unethical behavior being tolerated in an organisation is that it becomes malignant and spreads sometimes taking new and possibly worse facets as it spreads. For example the foul language could be carried to customers or worse seen as a licence to engage in workplace physical and sexual violence.
Creating Ethical workplace cultures is thus not only good for the individual but good for the bottom line as well as all involved focus their energies to achieving the organisations objectives rather than surviving and spreading the broken window effect.
You can catch some of my thoughts on toxic work places from this webinar on the link below.
https://youtu.be/LrTrNCw_NT8