"Toxic"

"Toxic"

"Toxic" doesn't mean much.

Not when it comes to personalities and culture anyway, unlike when it comes to chemistry.

The problem is that it's vague. "Toxic" could mean any of the following:

  • Illegal
  • Meanspirited
  • Disagreement
  • Constructive feedback

"Toxic" is the new, punchy way to say "not nice", which is rightly fading in use as people widely recognize it as a highly-debatable judgement.

It can be a handy shortcut to say "Toxic", but there are better options...

Alternative: Be specific.

  • "Gary betrayed my trust 3 times this year and I don't want to work with him anymore"
  • "Sally gossips a lot"
  • "I'm angry because my boss I said I was incompetent"
  • "The leaders openly talked about their obviously-incorrect political views"

Robert Turner

Director of Information Security at BISSELL Homecare

4 个月

There are 366 books that contain "toxic culture" at Amazon. A web search produced 1.8m results in 0.25 seconds. In 2022, Forbes reported it as the number 1 reason that people cited for leaving jobs. There are 100s of research studies and articles suggesting it is a severe problem, impacting many workplaces and that it continues to be on the rise. To what do you attribute your observation of "...rightly fading..."? I don't necessarily agree on it being too vague, when it is a very broad problem. You can say, "what a beautiful view" without having to articulate every tree, lake, wildlife, terrain feature, etc.. I would further submit that you shouldn't be vague with an individual, calling them toxic. When at the individual level is when you can address individual behaviors. There, you can be very specific.

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Geoff Schalow

Google Business Profile Expert | Local Business Ally

4 个月

I absolutely agree with your thoughts on this, Matt. When people are too vague about the issues they may have with somebody, it can come across as not being legitimate.

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