Surviving The (Mis)Education of Toxic Company Cultures

Toxic Company Culture, don’t worry, I eye-rolled too.?

Anyone who knows me knows that I believe toxic company culture is a farce, a cover-up for people who don’t understand what company culture is.?

Ask people what toxic company culture is, and you’ll undoubtedly get a list of characteristics and outcomes; burnt-out employees, bullying,? boredom.?

While these outcomes affect people physically, mentally and financially, labelling these outcomes as toxic company culture when the definition of company culture is unknown to the mass is impractical and unhelpful to all change processes and recognising micro and macro wins and obstacles.?

More problematic are the vague answers to what is company culture???

Answers like:?

• Shared values and beliefs
• When everyone is making healthy choices?
• How people feel about their work?

Although these are outcomes or systems that many companies use to cover up symptoms of being untutored in company culture, this still doesn’t answer what company culture is.

This uncertainty about what company culture is is coming at a cost to companies and people. Many companies are on a never-ending cycle of trying different ‘fixes’ to mitigate outcomes that endlessly rear their head because they’re still unsure of the core issue.?

As companies continue to do this dance, the bigger the cost will be. The UK economy is currently sitting on a growing ￡20.2 billion per year debt [The Culture Economy Report 2021] due to inaction to remedy company culture confusion.?

It’s time to stop calling a company culture toxic when a company is unsure of its culture.?

So Smarty Pants, What Is Company culture??

A question I’ve been asked many times!?

In a nutshell, company culture is what you do when you think no one is looking.?

Your people are watching, even if you think they aren’t. So what you do will influence patterns of behaviours, and all the outcomes you see reflect your beliefs, actions and interactions.?

Even with aspirational values and public solidarity, your beliefs, attitude, and actions will determine your company culture when you think no one is looking.?

...So yes

Those offline, off the record, “let’s leave it for the pub” conversations reflect your company culture and determine your business outcomes.?

And even with the most well-intentioned strategies, wellbeing initiatives, diversity and discrimination workshops, happy hours, ping pong tables, your company culture will still be determined by your beliefs, attitudes and uncertainty of how your decision-making and interactions impact people.?

So How Do I Stop My Beliefs From Influencing My Company Culture??

I get asked this a lot, too, especially by leaders.

As a leader, it’s unlikely your beliefs will ever stop influencing your company culture. Some of your beliefs likely are why you are a leader and heralding the responsibility of influencing others.?

However, for leaders who want their company to propel forward and not get caught up in a toxic company culture circle jerk, moving away from company cultures based on beliefs and values and looking at why designing a company culture is vital.?

Beliefs are not binary; they are nuanced, which ultimately makes them immeasurable as outcomes become based on how people interpret good and bad instead of what is a good and bad result for your company.?

Everyone has a different view on what things like honesty, success, authenticity means, and we all have another way of implementing these values into our day to day practices. Designing a company culture that influences people to view ideas differently and challenges beliefs allows people to measure outcomes consistently.?

Company culture design alleviates everyone from the stress and costs of keeping up with people’s evolving beliefs and values and keeps you and your people committed to growth.?

Designing your company culture with important factors at its foundation gives everyone the tools to confidently implement and execute activities and processes. Three essential elements in your company culture design add a layer between your beliefs, how everyone understands what success looks like and the best way to measure it at your company.

The three essential elements:?

• Community?
• Purpose?
• Efficiency

Why Are These Elements Essential??

Now you’re asking the right questions!?

All good designs include a foundation that helps improve communication, increase productivity, inspire innovation and create a buzz—having community, purpose and efficiency at the foundation of your company culture design covers all bases. They serve to reinforce an environment where people can work effectively and realistically address productivity and performance issues.

Community?

It's imprudent to always believe our bunk is true for everyone or that everyone will believe in it in the same way we do. Creating a community helps everyone understand how differently people respond to new ideas and that our stickiness for them differs. The most valuable way leaders can view how their ideas impact people is through creating a community that allows for discourse and cynicism. You don’t know what you don’t know, but creating a community and being an active member will help you learn more about how your new ideas impact people.

Good company cultures work on building affinity for ideas, not retaliation for misunderstanding them. Hence, it’s essential to stay open even if what you hear is a hard pill to swallow. Good company cultures give their community something concrete to chew on and have community-driven systems that encourage team building and a collective commitment to the company goals and scope to identify how they contribute to the big company’s missions and visions. A company culture with community building at its foundation motivates people to engage with an idea actively and share real insights of why and how some ideas may present obstacles.?

Purpose

Helping people understand why your company exists and why you do things the way you do gives everyone a sense of belonging and connection, especially when you tell them why they are an integral part of that purpose. Clearly defining your companies missions, visions and goals and openly sharing this clearly, loudly and boldly will positively influence everyone across your supply chain to do the same. Your honesty and assurance about your purpose will inspire people to align current trends with your purpose and understand what theirs is, increasing people’s trust and loyalty.?

When people know yours and their purpose in a company, they are naturally inspired to review what does and doesn’t align with your company’s missions and visions. The belief then moves away from people’s values and towards people organically building trust and communicating your company’s purpose with the same gust as you. Having a definite purpose creates a sense of collective belonging in everyone and promotes longer-term thinking rather than short term profitability or furore. Your company’s purpose is the building block that boosts motivation and transformative ideas in everyone.?

Efficiency

Efficiency at the workplace is the backbone to creating a good company culture. The company systems that support efficiency boost everyone’s understanding in finding the best way to get projects and tasks done and achieve goals and good results that promote inclusivity.?

When you aid people to be efficient, you give them the tools to help them perform at their best. They learn how to prioritise tasks and how to delegate tasks to somebody else under their supervision. Efficiency creates greater productivity and less time and money exhausting practices.?

Efficiency creates a sense of purpose and belonging. It allows everyone to work smarter, not harder, reduces frustration and burnout and allows everyone to know how to organise their time and efforts to complete the correct tasks in the right way.?

Summary

Your company culture is the one thing that gives you, your people, your supply chain and customers the opportunity to make decisions and effectively measure results.?

Paradoxes like toxic company culture stifle decision making and are unhelpful to endorsing people to commit to supporting transformative change in the workplace.

The vagueness and lack of clarity about company culture contribute to adverse and costly outcomes, and for any company to survive in 2022, company culture education is imperative.?

Written by Dannique Blake [2021]

About the Author        

Dannique Blake is a Company Culture Consultant and Founder of Cultured Insights.?

She’s on a mission is to save 1000 UK startup founders time and money by making their employees happy, motivated and productive, by 2025.

Dannique is a people operations extraordinaire with 16 years of experience in employee coaching, behavioural change and company culture development. She now walks startup companies through their company culture, employee engagement and performance enablement transformation to support their brand, culture and everyone’s wellbeing and aids start-up companies with company culture strategy and implementation of employee experience practices that encourage inclusion, engagement and productivity.?

Dannique’s “Let’s Get Real” masterclasses take a modern approach to support leaders and managers with achieving company culture and organisational design success. Her next masterclass, What Is Company Culture Design? ? on the 9th of September 2021 will be no expectation.

To learn more about her work, email her at [email protected].?