Uncovering and Addressing Toxicity: Mastering the 6 Dimensions of Workplace Culture

Building on our previous exploration of the 5 Levels of Workplace Culture, this article dives into the 6 Dimensions of Culture within an organisation.

If you haven’t yet seen my previous piece, I highly recommend giving it a read! It provides an in-depth look at the 5 levels of workplace culture, offers strategies for identifying toxic hotspots and includes an Organizational Culture Assessment to help you uncover areas of toxicity within your organisation.

Catch Up Here

Right, let’s dive into today’s topic!

The 6 Dimensions of Culture

Building on our exploration of the 5 Levels of Workplace Culture, it’s essential to also navigate the 6 Dimensions within the PSI Culture Framework.

These Dimensions highlight the various dynamics and elements that contribute to a thriving workplace culture.

Each one sheds light on specific aspects of interactions and practices within the organisation, serving as key indicators of organisational health and potential toxicity hotspots.

Individual Dynamics

This Dimension focuses on personal thoughts, beliefs, values and attitudes that drive individual behaviour. It includes cultivating self-awareness, understanding personal triggers, practicing emotional regulation, creating a safe environment to bring your Authentic Self to interactions and developing emotional intelligence.

Aligned with Personal Culture (Level 1 of the 5 Levels of Culture), it plays a crucial role in personal development and impacts broader workplace dynamics.

Inter-Personal Dynamics

This Dimension emphasises the quality of relationships between individuals. It covers communication skills, managing complex conversations, building trust and handling conflicts effectively.

This aligns with 1-2-1 Culture (Level 2 of the 5 Levels of Culture), focusing on the interactions that drive individual and team success.

Team Dynamics

Here, we explore how to navigate and leverage team dynamics and personalities, cultivate social dynamics, establish group norms and promote inclusivity and belonging.

This Dimension correlates with Team Culture (Level 3 of the 5 Levels of Culture), enhancing team cohesion and overall performance.

Cross-Functional Dynamics

This Dimension addresses collaboration across departments, emphasising the importance of information sharing, role clarity, creating safe spaces, transparent decision-making and collective problem-solving.

It aligns with Collaboration Culture (Level 4 of the 5 Levels of Culture), facilitating seamless interdepartmental cooperation.

Workload Dynamics

This Dimension focuses on the demands placed on employees, addressing key areas such as workload management, work-life balance and task distribution. Effectively understanding and managing workload dynamics is essential for boosting productivity, enhancing individual performance, optimising team interactions and ensuring overall workplace well-being.

By striking the right balance, organisations can create a supportive environment that promotes both efficiency and employee satisfaction.

Operational Dynamics

This Dimension revolves around organisational structure, leadership practices, policies, decision-making processes and creating a conducive workplace environment for all employees.

It aligns with Organization Culture (Level 5 of the 5 Levels of Culture), ensuring a well-rounded and effective approach to improving workplace culture.

By understanding and addressing these 6 Dimensions, you can diagnose and resolve issues at the appropriate levels, ensuring a healthier and more productive organisational culture.

Unveiling Toxic Culture Hotspots

Creating a thriving work environment hinges on identifying and addressing potential toxic hotspots across each Culture Level and Dimension.

Toxicity can manifest in various forms, and recognising these signs is crucial for cultivating a positive workplace.

Think about the first 3 Levels of Culture…

Within Personal Culture, toxicity here might show up as a lack of accountability, frequent conflicts or deficiencies in emotional intelligence among individuals.

In 1-2-1 Culture, strained relationships, poor communication or unresolved conflicts with managers often signal toxic dynamics in one-on-one interactions.

In Team Culture, toxic elements might include cliques, exclusionary behaviours or a general lack of cohesion and trust within the team.

And if we take the following from the 6 Dimensions…

Cross-Functional Dynamics: Look for siloed working practices, inter-departmental conflicts or unclear roles and responsibilities.

Workload Dynamics: Indicators of toxicity can be found in unsustainable workloads, unrealistic deadlines or imbalances in work-life integration.

Operational Dynamics: Toxicity may surface through ambiguous decision-making, hierarchical communication barriers or inconsistent policy application.

If left unchecked, these issues can undermine morale, obstruct collaboration and hinder organisational success.

Tools and Frameworks to Identify Toxicity

Identifying toxic culture hotspots across all Culture Levels and Dimensions requires a sharp eye and targeted assessment.

By leveraging the PSI Culture Framework, Hierarchy of Psychological Safety and the 5 Pillars of Psychological Safety, organisations can effectively pinpoint and address root causes of toxicity.

The PSI Culture Framework locates issues within the various levels and dimensions of culture. This structured approach highlights where psychological safety might be compromised, whether in Personal, 1-2-1, Team, Collaboration or Organizational Culture, and delving deeper - Individual, Inter-Personal, Team, Cross-Functional, Workload and Operational Dynamics.

Once toxic hotspots are identified, the Hierarchy of Psychological Safety outlines organisational responsibilities for addressing and cultivating psychological safety, ranging from individual to global scales.

To translate these insights into action, the 5 Pillars of Psychological Safety (Self, Social, Collaboration, Curiosity and Creativity) offer practical strategies to effectively address and mitigate these issues. More on this can be found in my book - details here.

Ultimately, this comprehensive approach not only uncovers and diagnoses underlying problems but also provides a roadmap for implementing targeted interventions to build a healthier, more psychologically safe environment.

To Address Toxicity

Building on our previous discussion from "The 5 Levels of Culture," where you were introduced to the Organizational Culture Assessment, you should now have identified potential pockets of toxicity within your organisation. If you missed that, here is the Assessment, as a reminder.

So, what’s the next step?

To effectively tackle these areas of toxicity, it’s crucial to implement a comprehensive and targeted approach:

Diagnose Root Causes: Accurately pinpoint the underlying issues contributing to toxicity at each of the 5 levels of culture. Use Lux, our cutting-edge diagnostic tool, to collect detailed data and gain a deep understanding of these root causes.

Implement Targeted Interventions: Leverage insights from Lux to develop and implement targeted interventions that address the specific sources of toxicity. Focus your efforts on the areas most in need of improvement.

Raise Awareness: Educate all employees on the importance of psychological safety and the value of bringing their Authentic Self to work. Conduct workshops and training sessions to raise awareness, promote a shared understanding of psychological safety and emphasise each person's role in creating a healthy workplace culture.

Train Leaders and Managers: Provide leaders and managers with the skills needed to transform toxic environments into psychologically safe ones. Offer training programs that cover psychological safety, workplace culture, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution and effective leadership. We can help with that.

Enhance Communication Skills: Equip all employees with essential communication skills to support a positive workplace culture. Provide training on key communication fundamentals, including navigating difficult conversations, active listening, providing constructive feedback, resolving conflicts and collaborating effectively.

Understand Team Dynamics: Invest time in understanding your team’s dynamics. Set clear personal and professional boundaries and learn about each member’s work, communication and celebration preferences. Facilitate team discussions to share these insights, navigate differences and leverage this knowledge to create an environment where everyone can thrive and collaborate effectively.

Create Safe Spaces: Develop and maintain spaces where employees feel safe and supported to actively participate. Safe spaces encourage open dialogue and active participation.

Revise Policies and Systems: Regularly review and update organisational policies and systems to support a culture of psychological safety. Implement practices that ensure transparency, fairness and accountability.

Addressing these areas proactively is essential for cultivating a healthy and resilient workplace culture.

And, good news. We can help with all of these!

Sustain Psychological Safety

Once you’ve established a healthy workplace culture, maintaining psychological safety during periods of change becomes more manageable.

With a solid foundation in place, individuals and teams will be better equipped to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, demonstrate resilience, collaborate and navigate workplace scenarios with confidence.

The Imperative of Psychological Safety

I am often asked how to effectively navigate periods of change.

The truth is this.

The key to managing change successfully is having psychological safety firmly established beforehand. Without this foundation, even minor changes can lead to significant disruption.

To thrive during times of transformation, it’s essential for your organisation to prioritise and sustain psychological safety.

By cultivating a culture that values and upholds psychological safety, leaders can build a healthy, resilient, adaptable organisation poised to tackle the challenges that come with change.

Helpful?

I hope so!!

If you have any questions or need further guidance, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Join the Discussion

Q1: Which of the 6 Dimensions do you believe organisations typically focus on the most?

Q2: Where might you see pockets of toxicity within your own workplace?

Dive into the conversation and share your insights here.

Coming Next

?? The Dimension’s Respective Highlights

We are going to dive deep into each Dimension's Highlights next.

You will gain insights into the unique characteristics and benefits of each dimension, understanding how they collectively enhance workplace dynamics and support psychological safety.

Keep a lookout for the detailed release on August 29th, onwards!

Course Dates are Live

Elevate your understanding of psychological safety with our Psychological Safety Foundation Course.

This course is ideal for independent consultants and trainers, leaders, HR professionals and EDI/ERG leads, offering essential knowledge to advocate for psychological safety in your organisation or integrate into your service portfolio.

?

In this course, you will:

• Acquire practical skills and knowledge to champion psychological safety within your organisation or consulting practice.
• Learn to create and maintain a psychologically safe workplace by mastering core concepts, enhancing workplace dynamics and transforming organisational culture.
• Equip yourself with the tools and insights necessary to drive meaningful change and promote a culture of safety and inclusion.

We start at the end of September 2024!

Find out more and secure your spot here.