Are your employees being gaslighted?

Individual solutions to structural problems is gaslighting!

Gaslighting is an insidious form of manipulation and psychological control. Victims of gaslighting are deliberately and systematically fed false information that leads them to question what they know to be true. I go back to W. Edwards Deming, to achieve success focus on improving the system not on individual performance. “A company could put a top man at every position and be swallowed by a competitor with people only half as good, but who are working together.” Today there is a heavy focus on individual performance and rewards over focus on the organization as a system. We still see annual performance reviews and individual bonuses. Fortunately, the use of rank and yank or firing the lowest 10 percent annually, has decreased.

Deming’s understood that it is easy to optimize components within a system which can lead to systemic issues within the whole system. We find the same concept in investigating value streams for local optimizations.

Blaming the individual can have consequences:

• It can focus attention on single component instead of the whole value stream.
• Systemic change at the organizational level can become more difficult.
• It can allow those with power and influence to control dissident within the organization.
• Many times, it can reinforce stereotypes.
• People can play the blame game and look for scape goats instead of identifying the real issue.
• A culture of keeping one’s head down and other negative behavior can become part of the organizational culture.

I can go on, but you get the point. Organization can morph into dysfunctional workplaces. Just Google “Toxic workplaces” and you will find tons of article on this. In these toxic work places gaslighting is common. For the organization does not acknowledge that it is a toxic work place. So, the issue must be with individuals. A false paradigm is created that protects the status quo against any meaningful change.

Read some of the article on toxic workplaces and you will see so many of the negative consequences fall on the individual in such an environment. For seldom can an individual fix a toxic workplace. Those individuals who do take on a toxic culture should be prepared to leave the organization! Generally, it required dedicated leadership with enough influence and power to turn things around. For we are talking about the organizational culture. Upper management acknowledging that a problem exists is the first and most important step to dealing with it.

Why am I writing about this? I have been writing about the only constant being change. However, the problems above are some of the very things that can create an organization culture that will be resistant to change. Just having a toxic workplace puts an organization at a major disadvantage with regards to dealing with change from the organizational level down to the individual level. When an organization is in the middle of change it is way too late for management to acknowledge that a problem exists. For they will likely have to deal with both the change and toxic workplace at the same time! Those at the edge of leaving due to the toxic workplace are much more likely to leave with the added stress of dealing with change.

So are your employees being gaslighted?