Reversing a toxic workplace cultures

Question: What steps can a company take to reverse a toxic workplace culture? On average how long does it take to overhaul a toxic workplace culture?

Answer: Let me answer the 2nd question first.  It will probably take about 2 years to reverse a toxic workplace culture.

Now let’s talk about how and what steps to take.

If you have a toxic workplace culture, it can either be a culture or it can be an individual creating a culture.  Often, it’s an individual. Once you get rid of them, things fix themselves. 

You have a couple of challenges: Identify who is behaving toxically. Figure out if they are doing so because they are an instigator or follower.   

Instigators generally have to be let go otherwise, their toxicity will continue to impact and infect the organization.  Then, it’s just a matter of helping the people remaining rebuild trust and positive working relationships and new collaborative work patterns.

The steps to do this are:

1. First, create clarity.  What are the job descriptions? What are the ethical principles you expect people to follow.

2. Document every interaction with the suspected toxic individual.   Just follow up on every conversation with an email documenting what was discussed and agreed to and timelines etc.

3. Treat everyone with dignity including the suspected toxic person.

4. Look at how people respond.  A toxic person will not like their power being taken away from them. And their toxic behavior does give them power, that’s why they behave that way.  Or, it could also be mental illness, which is why you should treat everyone, including them, with dignity.

5. If there is a problem, clarify and document resolution. Work on the assumption that everyone wants to work well with others.  

6. If someone routinely violates the ethical principles of how you treat colleagues with dignity, document it.  It isn’t unusual for toxic people to bad mouth others and spread rumors.

7. Research to see if the rumors are true. This will help you know who is really being a problem vs who is accused of being a problem.  Toxic people engage in behavior known as DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse the Victim and Offend.  People accused of being toxic may just be the victims of the toxic person. Make sure you don’t get rid of a good person and keep the toxic one.  This mistake happens a LOT – like 75% of the time according to a study that I can’t remember, but it was from the Workplace Bullying Institute. 

8. Keep documenting. Eventually the toxic person reveals themselves and behaves so egregiously that it’s undeniable what they are doing – and you can get rid of them.

9. Keep monitoring. Expect a backlash from their allies and perhaps them. 

10. Continue working on clarity as clarity creates trust.

11. Continue treating every interaction as a collaboration. 

And yes, I’ve done this at a few places I’ve worked and have mostly been successful.  

Here is an example. http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/2019/03/rebuilding-toxic-culture.html 

 If you want me to teach you how to do this too- take one of my classes at: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

And yes, I do group training as well. 

Signs of a Toxic Workplace Culture

I have personally experienced the negative effects of toxic workplace cultures and I have the experience to provide insight into how to recognize toxic workplaces, but more importantly, how to fix them. 

My experience with toxic workplaces: 

In my first job out of college – I was a volunteer manager for a non-profit. One of our volunteers was toxic. After I fired her – she tried to get me fired. I endured 8 months of all sorts of crazy horribleness.  Among other things, I was accused of sexual misconduct. I not only survived, I got through to the other side with my reputation intact and the toxic volunteer, eventually gave up.

At that same job,  one of my colleagues was super passive aggressive. I was able to work around her and eventually the board asked me to set things up so they could fire her.  I succeeded in that too. 

I live in FL now. I had a boss once who was not only racist he was incredibly sexist. When I say sexist, I mean he used to rub himself in front of me. It was disgusting. I didn’t succeed there, but I did get out ok and into another better job where I was appreciated and supported.

I now teach how to get unwanted behavior to stop using behavioral psychology techniques known as operant conditioning. Specifically I teach the technique known as extinguishing a behavior.  I learned this while training dolphins for a dolphin language cognition research lab in Hawaii.  

That's me. I really did train dolphins. 

How to fix it:

The great thing about truly toxic people is a) they aren’t very creative and b) they are super predictable which makes controlling their behavior easy. 

I caution people all the time: truly toxic people are really really rare. Most people you have problems with are NOT toxic. The ones who are have mental health issues that are usually untreated.  The great thing about my approach is that to do it well, you have to treat people with dignity and give them opportunities to change and embrace you as an ally.  If they just can’t, that’s on them.  

Most people respond super well to these techniques. I have created allies out of enemies with this technique.  That’s the ideal outcome and it’s doable assuming the person is … neurologically normal which most people are. 

But if the person is truly toxic and not in control of their behavior what will happen is they will expose themselves as toxic to the point no one can deny it anymore. You can do this while maintaining your dignity and grace and without fighting them.  And yes – it works. 

Learn more:

All my harassment courses teach these behavioral conditioning skills. They will allow you to deal with people effectively and with dignity and grace. And if you do come across someone with problems that need, more professional help, you will be able to help your organization cope without violating their dignity. 

https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Fixing a Toxic Employee Problem - a real life example

Last week I posted about how to identify and deal with a toxic employee. This week - I want to expand on it and give you a real life example.  

These are my answers to the reporters questions about dealing with a toxic volunteer and the damage that was caused. 

We keep referring to “toxic,” but not describing what it looks like. This one volunteer was toxic in what manner? What was he or she doing?

This volunteer was acting as if she was in control of the volunteers. She felt her job – and therefore the job of all the volunteers – was to spy on staff and report them for – behaving “badly” however she defined it. This created toxic staff volunteer relationships – because – no member of the staff wanted to work with a volunteer who thought it was their job to get them in trouble. No one would want to voluntarily work with someone who was out to get them fired! This – approach – her approach - killed – trust.

Also, are we saying that this one toxic volunteer affected 10 other volunteers such that they were contributing nothing to the organization? Can we describe this more specifically? Morale was low because of this person? Or something else?

Yes. This is exactly what I am saying. This one volunteer – destroyed staff volunteer relationships by acting as if – every member of the staff was a horrible person up to no good.  She was actively threatening people’s jobs if she didn’t get what she wanted. She didn’t trust anyone and her actions and “assumed authority” meant that there was no trust between the staff and the volunteers.  And that meant – the staff didn’t want to work with volunteers. The volunteers had no direction from staff. The relationship between staff and volunteers was toxic.  The volunteers weren’t being given the opportunity to contribute. Their only impact on the organization was the fear and intimidation campaign this – “head volunteer” waged. The staff that could have done something – and should have done something to stop this volunteer – were scared of her and scared of the impact she might have on donors. So – they allowed it to get out of control. They felt they needed her – because – non-profits rely on volunteers and donors. And we had so few when I arrived. Only 10 – at a major non profit in Los Angeles with a good national reputation!  They wanted it fixed – but didn’t know how to do it without making things worse – because – again – this woman was threatening to destroy everyone’s reputation and the organizations reputation.

How did you fix this?

The way I fixed this was – 1^st – I consulted with staff to find out what volunteers could do that would be helpful. I then wrote up a job description and interviewed the volunteers to see if they wanted to do the volunteer jobs we had created. All but the toxic one were thrilled to finally have some clarity around what they were supposed to be doing and how they could be helpful and that finally – they could ignore the toxic volunteer and not have to deal with her anymore. The staff who had agreed to experiment with volunteers loved having the help and the volunteers loved being helpful – finally.  And the program took off.

The one who refused because – she thought it was her job to spy on staff and get them in trouble – was fired. And that was the end of that. Literally – one toxic volunteer – destroyed trust to the point that she was holding an entire organization hostage.  Trust was pretty easily rebuilt once we had some structure and an authority (me) who held her accountable. As much as this one volunteer tried to get back into the organization – absolutely no one wanted her back.

She was not collaborative at all. She was just – very authoritarian. Her way was the only way – and no one could be trusted – and that attitude – is what caused the toxic relationship between volunteers and staff. The fix – was to build in and reward collaboration and – to fire the toxic person so they could no longer hold anyone in the organization hostage with their threats.  

 If you want to learn how to do this - I provide online learning programs that teach behavioral based approaches to harassment and conflict situations. 

https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ 

Identifying toxic workers before they can do damage

I teach how to stop bullying and harassment in the workplace using behavioral science. My company is Humanist Learning Systems.  I also teach humanistic management and leadership techniques as well as critical thinking.

1. What kind of damage can a toxic worker do to a company or team/dept. operating in a company?  

A toxic worker is expensive. And not just because of the potential for lawsuits. Toxic workers kill productivity because they kill trust.  One of my first jobs out of college was the director of volunteer services for a non profit.  We had toxic volunteer staff relations when I was hired and I was hired to fix it. And I did – and was able to fire the toxic volunteer.  We went from 10 volunteers contributing – basically nothing of value to the organization to 500 volunteers donating 20,000 hours a year in 3 years. One toxic part time volunteer was literally costing the organization – the equivalent to 10 full time employees in productivity.  Now imagine what kind of damage a full-time paid staff member can do.

2. What are the early signs or red flags that a toxic worker is hurting workplace performance? 

Negativity. Lack of psychological safety. Though I want to caution – people who are negative – may not be toxic – they just may be responding as any normal human does when they encounter a toxic individual that they can’t get away from because they work with them.  My point is that if morale starts to get bad, and social trust starts to erode and the gossip/whisper network starts to kick in – you have a problem – and you need to identify the person who is causing that and get rid of them.  Don’t assume the people complaining are the problem. They are just the ones telling you – you have a problem – pay attention. 

3. What are the first steps a manager should take to deal with a toxic worker and why?  

1st step – don’t assume they are toxic.  Everyone has dignity and worth and you do not know what is going on in a person’s life.  Also – the person you are being told is the problem – might actually be the victim of bullying and harassment and a rumor campaign. So do not jump to conclusions about anyone.  Instead – investigate. 

2nd step – set up conditions for people to succeed.  Often – a toxic worker manifests as conflict.  So – you have a conflict situation. You don’t know what is going on. I give people guidelines for my expectations on how they will handle the conflict – using a mediation model. Meaning – if whatever you are complaining about keeps happening – let me know – and I will handle it. Generally speaking – the people who work the system – are not the problem. The people who keep doing the inappropriate thing – are the problem.  I have entire courses dedicated to how to do this.  People who are in control of their behavior – will behavior appropriately. People who are not  will not.  

Your goal is to determine what is going on – assuming that all parties are well intentioned until proven otherwise. And let people live up to your fine expectations for them. Most people will do well with this if given the support they need.   The mistake I see managers make at this stage – is that they don’t want to put in the effort to moderate a dispute and they don’t understand why  - after telling people to come to them if there is a problem – that they keep coming to them with their problems.  So  - instead of rewarding the people telling you there is a problem – the manager gets frustrated and then – starts believing the bully that the victim – is a complainer and toxic and needs to be let go – when it’s the bully who is causing the problem.

When you set people up to either behave professionally or not – and you set up a system to report – reward the people who use the system. Not the people who spread rumors and sabotage other people’s work.  What I tell people – is start to document everything. And I mean everything.  It’s the documentation that surfaces the true problem employee – whose behavior will get worse and worse as they can no longer hide. 

4. If a toxic worker does not respond to direct interaction from a manager or HR, what are a company's options? 

If a suspected toxic worker does not respond to the changed expectations for behavior – and instead fights it and starts spreading rumors about the manager and their behavior escalates – only then can you really decide – well – I guess they are toxic and not simply cranky or frustrated.

5. Is termination the ultimate answer? Or, can a toxic worker be salvaged and kept on a team, or at least moved to another department or team? 

 If someone is truly toxic – it’s not really worth the time and resources to salvage them in my opinion. And I say this as someone is a huge fan of giving people additional changes. In fact - I used to work in a department - that actively hired people that had been fired from other departments. We were the most effective department in the company - built entirely of people who had been kicked out - of other departments. 

But with toxic people - we are not simply talking about people who are cranky and negative or who don't get along with someone. We are talking about people who are actively sabotaging the work with their toxic attitudes and behavior by destroying trust and psychological safety required for an effective work environment.  Everyone is already spending so much time working around the toxic person just to get things done – do you really want to invest even more time trying to get them to behave better.  Remember – you gave them and everyone else – an opportunity to shape up earlier in the process. If they could change and were amenable to change – they would have already – changed.  Their failure to change is what gets you to this point. And at this point – don’t sink any more costs in – get rid of them. You should experience an immediate relief from everyone else in the workplace and an increase in productivity as people – can now – put 100% of their mental energy into their jobs without having to spend any time thinking about how to politically maneuver around the toxic worker. 

 

How I beat a bully in the workplace without stooping to their level.

I went through a really bad situation when I first was a professional. To be fair – I was hired to fix a really bad situation and the result was – I became a target of the bullies – and that targeting continued – after I fired them.  

I now teach how to make unwanted behavior – like workplace bullying stop.  (https://humanistlearning.com)  I also teach these skills to kids and their parents for free through my website The Bully Vaccine (https://bullyvaccine.com)

First – the background. I was hired by a non-profit that had toxic staff/volunteer relations. We had 10 volunteers who thought their job was to spy on staff. The result was – staff didn’t want to work with the volunteers.  I was hired as the director of volunteer services to turn this around. I knew up front – this was going to be difficult and I accepted the responsibility to make this happen.

First – the good news. I succeeded. And within 3 years I had 500 volunteers donating 20,000 hours a year (the equivalent of 10 full time employees). Our volunteers were assisting every aspect of our agency’s work. I was being loaned out to sister agencies to help them learn how to do this and was often the point person to help organize volunteers for disaster response.

How did I do it? A combination of professionalism, honesty and behavioral science.  Was it easy to do? Nope. At one point – the blow back against me was so bad – I thought about quitting. I didn’t because I had enough allies asking me to stick it out for the good of the organization. That is the only reason I didn’t quit. Being targeted can be brutal.  REALLY brutal. To get through it – you need allies who need you to succeed to improve the organization.

What did I endure? 

Seriously? What didn’t I endure? I was accused of sexual misconduct. My reputation was routinely attacked. What I was wearing was attacked. I literally had to endure a formal investigation into my wardrobe choices and my dating life to get through this. And I did – because a) I hadn’t done anything wrong – these were all lies and b) I had allies.

So – what happened and how did this all go down?

When I took the job, the first thing I did was consult with staff and find 2 that were willing to work with volunteers. I asked them what would be the most helpful thing a volunteer could do. I wrote up a job description (including who to report to and what exactly the work was). I went to the volunteers – explained to them – what we needed them to do. Why we needed them to do it, why it was so important that it needed to be done. And then gave them a choice – do you want to do this – or not? They all agreed. And were paired with staff and staff and volunteers were nurtured in their new relationships so that the volunteers could be productive assistants to the staff.  

9 out of the 10 – were so grateful that I had made this change and created clarity around their volunteer work as they a) had not liked the old toxic environment (who would) and b) they now knew that their time was being used to help make things better.  The one volunteer who did not like it – was the person who used to be in charge of the volunteers. She did not get on board and would not do the work we had requested of her. So I fired her.   That’s when things went south.

She had allies within the organization. Other directors of other departments.  She spread lies and rumors about me. She continually tried to get her job back and make it seem like I was a horrible person who had to be eliminated for the good of the agency. 

I ignored that and just kept growing the volunteer program. As we had successes – other people requested help and I followed the same process. Drew up job descriptions, trained the volunteers and coached the staff in how to manage and work with volunteers successfully.  The more we had success, the more staff wanted volunteers. And it just kept growing. 

Our reputation and my training program were so successful – we got a discount on our liability insurance as our accident rate had dropped substantially – even though we had exponentially more volunteers working with us. I had people requesting internships. I developed a mentorship volunteer program so people with dual diagnosis (disability and mental health) could volunteer with a volunteer partner.  We had adults with the boys and girls club – bringing in their little brothers and sisters in to volunteer as a team. And still – our accident rate dropped. 

The attacks continued for a year

But .. this fired toxic volunteer – was still attacking me. And as she failed to succeed in ousting me, her rumors and lies got worse and worse. It didn’t help that I had broken past the gender roles and joined the old boys network which really wasn’t and old boys network – just the 2 senior males in the organization liked to have coffee in the morning and discuss issues relating to our work. I used to join them – even though I don’t drink coffee. The other female directors were really upset I had broken through when they hadn’t – so they became allies of the toxic volunteer.

It all came to a head in the formal investigation that was requested. I actually requested the investigation to put an end to the rumors and dispense with it once and for all. The people spreading rumors were asked to file formal complaints and those complaints against me were investigated. I was cleared – and that was the end of it. 

Welcome an investigation

I always tell people, welcome the investigation. If you are innocent – the investigation will clear you and the people who made the complaints and started the rumors – will lose. It increases the cost of spreading rumors. They can no longer hide what they are doing. They either have to put their own reputation on the line, or shut up. If someone is spreading false rumors – and they are found to be false – it’s the rumor spreader that is hurt, not the target. 

This wasn't easy 

The stress was immense. My reputation and honesty were being questioned. I was enduring attacks from all directions. I got through it by being honest, competent and professional, and – because I had allies who were rooting for me. I got through this – for them. To make their lives better! 

It is much easier to endure the sort of backlash stopping bullying in the workplace generates – if you know you are helping to make things better.  And we must do this. If one toxic part time volunteer can cost you the equivalent of 10 full time employees – imagine how much productivity a full time employee with authority is costing you!

Companies need to take this seriously

 Support your whistleblowers and change agents. Most importantly - you MUST be willing to fire the toxic person or things will never get better. 

Learn more:

If you want to learn more about how to do what I did - take one of my online courses: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Fixing a toxic workplace culture and surviving to tell the tale.

It's possible to fix toxic workplaces. I've done it multiple times. It isn't easy to do though and - if you try, the toxic people will attack you. You can survive this and I have. In this video - I share a personal story I don't talk about much, to let you know how bad it can be but more importantly - that you can get through this and that it's worth it.

Learn more and take one of my courses at: https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Managing conflict in the workplace before it turns toxic

I am the founder of Humanist Learning Systems. I teach how to stop bullying and harassment in the workplace using behavioral science and a focus on dignity and compassion.

What needs to be done? 

First – understand that is totally ok to disagree in the workplace. What isn’t ok – is to turn a disagreement into a conflict.  Disagreements are things you discuss and work through to get to a good solution to whatever the problem is. Conflict is when you decide to not like the person you disagree with and instead of solving the problem, you fight them. Conflict is actually an irrational and emotional response to what should be – just – normal problem solving 101.  People who routinely respond to disagreement by turning into a conflict – either need to be taught collaborative problem solving so they don’t jump to conflict, or they need to be let go so that the people capable of rational collaborative problem solving – can get on with it!

Who needs to handle it? 

The managers do. If a conflict arises in a work team, there are a few things that could be happening. It’s up to the manager/leader to figure out what is going on and help redirect the team out of conflict into collaborative problem solving. IF that is even possible. Because – sometimes it’s not possible.  So – what are the things that could be going on?  Welll.

1. You could have a disagreement and the people don’t have the skills or a tie breaker to make a decision so the team can move forward. In which case- make a decision and help the team move forward.
2. You could have a personality that is sensitive and through past experience assumes disagreements are conflicts and so enter fight mode instead of collaborative problem solving mode.  In which case the manager can help coach them into collaborative problem solving.
3. You could have a bullying masquerading as conflict. In which case, you need to figure that out – and get rid of the bully. Bullying is NOT conflict. It’s not a fight. Bullying is bullying. It is one person harassing another person – for no good reason. They might rationalize doing this as – they are in a conflict as if that makes inappropriate harmful behavior ok  - which it doesn’t. Harassment/bullying serves no legitimate purpose.  How can you tell if it is conflict or bullying? By redirecting people into collaborative problem solving.  People who can move into collaborative problem solving are capable of it. Bullies – usually can’t – because the problem isn’t a disagreement. It’s that one is harassing the other because they can. Just – don’t allow the behavior and the person who is doing it – needs to be let go if they continue.

What issues commonly trigger conflict that lead to bullying, intimidation, harassment, etc.

This question is framed wrong.  Conflict isn’t bullying and doesn’t lead to bullying. Bullies excuse their behavior by saying – they are in a conflict – as if that justifies their behavior. It doesn’t. People in conflict – can be talked down into collaborative problem solving. If someone is a bully and they are using conflict to hide what they are doing – then nothing actually triggers this to become bullying/intimidation/harassment. It already is bullying/intimidation/harassment and it’s inappropriate in the workplace.  Heck – it’s inappropriate to turn a disagreement into a conflict. Bullying and rationalizing it as a conflict – is just – really horridly not ok.   Can bullying/harassment/intimidation escalate?  Of course it can. And it will. That escalation is one of the ways managers can know – this isn’t a conflict. It’s bullying. Because – normal people – when they have a disagreement and start to move into conflict – can easily be redirected to collaborative problem solving if they have support for that. People who bully, will bully more and escalate. It’s literally predicted to occur in bullying/harassment situations.

How does conflict impact a workplace? 

All businesses are in the business of solving problems. The better you solve problems, the more successful you will be. This is just common sense. What conflict does and – what bullying does – is it prevents problem solving from happening. Instead of a team deciding on the best course of action, teams decide based on who is the most popular or – who is the louded or who dominates meetings. Our goal – should be good collaborative problem solving. Period. Anything that gets in the way of that – or replaces good problem solving with a popularity contest – is going to hurt your business. It’s also going to cause good people – who are really good at collaboration – to leave. And that will also harm your workplace – because all that will be left  - are the bullies.

With retaliation being the biggest fear (and stats showing how common it is) is it worth speaking up?

It may or may not be.  I don’t recommend it unless you have allies above or parallel to the person who is doing the bullying. And notice – we are now talking about bullying – because – conflicts aren’t actually a problem. Because disagreements aren’t a problem. Inappropriate behavior – ie: bullying/harassment is – inappropriate. So – here’s the problem. A bully bullies because it works. They get rewarded for doing it. Basically – they are creating in groups and out groups and by bullying – they can ostracize someone into an outgroup – which gives them power over the group and over problem solving and decision making within the group. When a behavior – that has been rewarded, stops being rewarded, that behavior will escalate as the person tries to get their reward back. In bullying situations – this is experienced as – retaliation. It’s predicted to occur. How bad it will get depends on how long the behavior has been happening and whether the person is doing it adaptively or pathologically as well as how naturally aggressive they are. This is why – unless you have allies above and parallel to the individual you are in “conflict’ with – it’s not a good idea to take this on because – you won’t win and all that will happen is – more bullying/harassment etc. Just – find a new job if you can.  If, however, there are allies, then – taking this on is worth it. It’s hard. It’s emotionally draining. But you will be doing your company a favor by dealing with this and changing the culture for the better. But again – unless you have support and the company will support you through this – no – it’s not worth it because – you won’t succeed. I don’t like giving people bad news, but I do believe in being honest.

What should the typical course of action look like when a workplace is already toxic? 

Let’s start with behavioral psychology 101.  Specifically, operant conditioning – extinguishing a behavior.  Extinguishing a new behavior is pretty easy to do – you just don’t reward it or negatively respond to it and it never gets established. Prevention is preferable. Once a behavior is established – it’s exponentially harder to eliminate. This is especially true with humans – because we are free range animals. If one human does not give someone a reward – they will work harder to get it or go get it from another person.  Regardless – the protocol is the same. What has to happen to get a new behavior to not establish is the same thing that has to happen to get an established behavior to stop. So – if a workplace is already toxic – you enact a behavioral conditioning techniques – to extinguish the unwanted behavior.  And you do this by targeting the unwanted behavior and making it not work anymore. Then, you keep doing that until the behavior extinguishes. Which is the simplified way of explaining what needs to happen. In reality – what this looks like  is – you eliminate the reward for the unwanted behavior. You train up new behaviors. You go through a change process, and reward the collaborative problem solving and just keep at it.  What normally happens is that almost everyone – likes the changes and are happy with the new way of doing thing. Usually one person – just won’t get with the program. Either encourage them to leave or fire them. Takes about 1 ½ years if done right.  And yes – I’ve done this. I was hired in to do this at a nonprofit. We had toxic volunteer staff relationships. Volunteers thought their job was to spy on staff. Staff didn’t want to deal with volunteers who were spying on them. We reset the relationships. Retrained the volunteers. Assigned them staff partners and fostered collaborative relationships. 9 of our 10 volunteers LOVED it. Staff loved it too once their trust levels went up. One volunteer – the toxic one, just refused. She fought, spread rumors about me. Tried to get me fired and eventually – we fired her. And then she spread some more rumors about me and fought some more. She was gone in 6 months and her influence over the organization was over in 1 year. From their – we could build up the program. In 3 years we went from 10 volunteers with toxic relationships to 200 volunteers donating 20,000 hours of time a year and helping every department within our organization. That’s the equivalent of 10 full time employees.  They key – resetting towards collaboration and not tolerating conflict – not by fighting about conflict, just – keep redirecting to collaboration. The only reason I succeeded – or rather – stayed and kept at it – was because upper management supported me and begged me to keep at it. Had I not had that support, things would not have changed.

What about when it's on the verge of turning toxic? 

Redirect to collaboration. Things will only turn toxic if someone isn’t capable of collaboration.  You can use the same behavioral approach. Remove the reward for the unwanted behavior – conflict. And reward collaboration. Actively. Be aware that the individual in question – might already be wielding a lot of power and likely has been doing these behaviors successfully before they got to you. If that’s the case – then removing the reward will cause them to escalate and fight. Just keep focusing and rewarding the behavior you want – collaboration and don’t allow the person engaging in “conflict”/bullying behavior to succeed.



Hope this helps. Again – I train on this approach and have both individual course and a conflict bundle - https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/ 

Dealing with passive aggressive toxic women in the workplace

I got this question from a woman I know. She was commenting on a post about how high IQ people need help leading because it's not enough to know what needs to be done to fix a problem, leadership skills involve helping rally people to collaborative problem solving.

A friend of mine had this to say:  I agree with your premise. I don't want leadership types to dumb down so what to do? And a similar issue, why do bright people, women more than men, seem to be so passive aggressive when it comes to problem solving with each other. Might be an interesting topic to discuss sometime. I made a list of toxic women in my life and they are feminists, Humanists, and well educated, etc. 

So - let's look at the science: Here is an interesting thesis paper on gender differences in subtypes of aggression in the workplace: 
http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5619&context=etd

What they found should not surprise anyone.  Men and women are equally aggressive. But men tend to be more openly directly aggressive and women tend to use indirect aggression. There are many hypothesis why this might be so - mostly that men's direct aggression is such a threat that to survive and get their way - women use indirect aggression to control relational dynamics.

Does it matter that the toxic person is a woman?

No. It does not. The reality is that all genders engage in these behaviors. And it's important to know how to neutralize someone who is being aggressive in a passive or indirect way.  It isn't actually helpful to focus on the gender of the individual.  

My friend's list of toxic people is probably predominantly female because that is who is more likely to perceive her to be a threat. Aggression is more likely in situations where there are limited resources or competition, they are more likely to occur. If a woman feels another woman is a threat - she might use these indirect methods to control and neutralize that threat. 

When we move from examining the problem to thinking about solutions - the gender doesn't matter. What matters is a human is behaving aggressively and we need them to stop.

From the paper: 

"Since passive aggression is more efficient in terms of maximizing the
effect/danger ratio (Bjorkqvist et al., 1994)  and less likely to be noticed (Baron &
Neuman, 1998) than active aggression which always involves direct contact, it is
reasonable to believe that passive aggression is utilized more than active aggression in
the workplace. Empirical research supported this notion by finding that both genders
reported using passive aggression more frequently than active aggression in the
workplace. Therefore, in the current study, passive aggression is expected to be used
more frequently than active aggression in workplace." 

Fixing it:

The solution to this problem isn't more aggression.  It's professionalism and dignity.  I have an entire course on this.

https://humanistlearning.com/passiveaggressivepeople/

Basically - document everything and force their aggression into the open. Make them be more direct as opposed to indirect.  Think of this as counter moves. They are trying to hide their aggression - so pretend you didn't see it and proactively and professionally propose solutions and cc others on the chain.  The more people who can see what is going on - the less a passive aggression person can hide what they are doing.

That's it. Don't allow a passive aggressive person to control you or make you feel bad. If they are being aggressive, that's on them. You control your response.  And you can control how others perceive you making it hard for the passive aggressive person to sully your reputation by being overtly polite and professional and by NOT fighting.

When you do this - the other person will gradually become more overtly aggressive and that is costly to them which is why they try to hide it. 

To learn more - take my course or get the book. Good luck. . 

How to deal with toxic bosses

https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

I just delivered a program for FL SHRM on How to Humanistically Handle Bad Bullying Bosses. It should be available through my company Humanist learning Systems soon.

I teach how to use behavioral techniques to get unwanted behavior to stop.

 The short version of how to deal with toxic bosses is this: 

1. Be explicitly about what the behavior is that is problematic.  Do they eat too loudly during lunch? Are they punching people? Withholding information? Calling people names?
2. Think of your boss compassionately. Most people don’t behave well when stressed out – help manage things so that they are less stressed.
3. CYA by documenting EVERYTHING. Do this to help clear up communication problems (and toxic bosses – have communication issues). And keep doing that. This will help make sure that a) you behave at your best and b) will encourage them to act good too.

When you do this – if they are well meaning – they will respond to your attempt to reset the relationship with good intentions.  The good news is that most people fall into this category.

If they are really toxic and not in control of their behavior – they will start to behave worse as they lose control over the dynamic.  Most toxic employees and bosses – are toxic because they are bullies. When bullies are no longer able to use aggression to intimidate people into doing what they want – they do the one thing that has always worked for them – which is to get more aggressive. Just keep documenting and being professional.

The bad news is – if your boss is truly toxic – you won’t be able to change them.  Your only realistic goals is to either get them fired or to find another job.  But you won’t know if they fall into this category until you at least try to reset the relationship.

Finally – dignity – it’s key.  Treat them with dignity – even if they don’t treat others with dignity. Here’s why.  No one can take your dignity away from you.  No one. If someone fails to treat you with dignity – that is a reflection on them, not on you. The more dignity you give – the more dignified you are.  It’s an unlimited resource.  If someone else is set on being undignified – don’t’ join them. You can politely and professionally – encourage them to choose a more dignified and professional course of actions – but if they are toxic – they are going to behave toxic-ly. All you can do is maintain your professionalism and your dignity. Feeling compassion for them will help you not be bothered and not take what they are doing personally.

If you want to learn how to deal with bullies and other toxic people in the workplace - consider taking one of my online courses - or hiring me to do a group training - https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

Rebuilding a Toxic Culture

I have done this and am an expert on how to use behavioral conditioning to make it happen. What follows is both an explanation of how I did it, what to expect when you do and the science of why this works. If you like what you read and need help at your company - contact me! I provide training on how to do this.

I used to work at the LASPCA. We had a toxic volunteer and staff volunteer relationships were beyond horrible. We had 10 volunteers who thought their job was to spy on staff and report them behaving badly. The result was no staff wanted to work with any volunteer. I was brought on board to change that dynamic.

The first thing I did was meet with staff to find out what they wanted help with and would allow volunteers to do. I then wrote volunteer job description for those jobs. These included what exactly was expected, who they reported to. Standard stuff. I then spoke with each of the 10 volunteers to find out if they were willing to volunteer in these new roles working with staff on work the staff needed help with. All but one were excited as they wanted to be helpful. Those volunteers were placed with staff mentors to work with them and alongside them. There were only a few staff members willing to take this on at this time. That was fine. The volunteers were now considered assistants to a staff member.  Once those relationships started flourishing most staff members began asking for help.

I created a volunteer recruitment process where people wanting to volunteer were interviewed, oriented and onboarded and then placed into work. As staff/volunteer relationships improved, I started getting more requests for help from other departments. The process was the same. Create a job description. Recruit in volunteers, orient them, train them and then pair them with a staff member/supervisor. I spent as much time training staff on how to work with volunteers as I did with recruiting in new volunteers.

Within 3 years we went from 10 volunteers and toxic staff/volunteer relationships to 500 volunteers donating ~20,000 hours of time each year. That’s the equivalent of 10 full time staff members.  That’s how much productivity a toxic environment was costing us.

Now – this process wasn’t without it’s hiccups. The one volunteer who did not agree to the new system and new roles had been “in charge” of the volunteers and she did not take kindly to losing her power and being excluded from the shelter. But since she did not agree to the job description, she wasn’t allowed to work with us. She fought it. Recruited in some allies, who were other directors in the organization. She tried to get me fired, failed. And eventually she gave up and went away. It was a rough first year as I got accused of all sorts of really horrible things, none of which were true.

Let’s move on to why this worked.

1. I created clarity. I wrote down actual job descriptions and made it clear – they worked for and supported staff. 
2. I made it clear that anyone who didn’t follow the rules would be fired – even if they were a volunteer and I followed thru on that.
3. I had the support of upper management who hired me in to create this change and when things got nasty – and they got REALLY nasty – I had their support so that the person trying to maintain the old toxic system – would fail.

It’s this last bit that is key and it has to do with how behaviors are extinguished which is the realm of behavioral psychology.

How behaviors are extinguished

When a behavior has been rewarded for a while, in this case a toxic volunteer wielding power over an entire organization, getting that behavior to stop follows a very specific pattern. There have been over 70 years of research on behavioral extinction and every single study shows the exact same thing. There are no counter examples. This is established science.

What happens is that when you remove the reward or withhold the reward, the individual will escalate their behavior in an attempt to get their reward back. If you continue to withhold reward, they will escalate more and more. How bad it gets depends on how long the behavior has been established and how naturally aggressive the individual is.  If the reward does not materialize after this period of sometimes rather intense behavioral escalation, the individual gives up.

This is exactly the pattern that played out in my organization. I removed her ability to get rewarded for her toxic behavior. She was given an opportunity to find a place in the new system, but she refused and fought it. This ‘fighting’ is predicted to occur in the behavioral model. She fought more and more and even tried to get me fired. This is again, consistent with what we expect to see using a behavioral model. But because I had the support of upper management she failed. Upper management did not give into her demands and she was not allowed to regain control over the organization. Upper management treated her with dignity. They investigated all her claims about me diligently. Found they lacked merit and in this way allowed her behavior to “blow out.” And as is predicted when an individual fails to get their reward, she eventually gave up and went away. This took a little under 6 months to accomplish.  From then on – we experienced exponential growth in our volunteer programs adding in a youth volunteer program, a program for people with dual diagnosis, and we even had volunteers working with our law enforcement arm and fundraising and donation processing unit. Basically – all areas of the organization were using volunteers within 3 years.

Rebuilding Expectations

If you want to rebuild a toxic culture, you have to be clear about what your behavioral expectations are. This can be done with job descriptions, but it can also be done with behavioral agreements. What are the behavioral expectations. What is the behavior you want, what is it you don’t want. Make it clear and make it clear that inappropriate behavior won’t be tolerated.  Then, you start enforcing the rules and it is absolutely critical that upper management be ok with letting the people who don’t want to change – go. If they don’t leave – you won’t succeed.

From there – if I am doing a cultural transformation – I actually do it in stages and do it work group by work group. I insulate my first work group so that individuals who do not like the changes in that first group – can’t derail it. And they will try. Once that group is behaving according to the ethical norms I have set, I bring in another work group and help them transform. And again, they have to be protected against the people who are going to try and derail it. Those people might come from within that group, or they might be from outside. Often, it’s outside the group. Once my 2nd group is going well – you usually then get groups asking to be next and asking for help as they see the success that has occurred in the initial groups and the rest becomes easier as a new cultural norm is established.

But again – there are going to be people who fight this and try to derail the process by accusing the change agent of – some pretty horrible things. Those must be investigated to provide clarity and dignity to the process. But if the change agent is acting ethically then the change process must not be derailed by those attempts to stall it. Eventually – the hold outs will either change and adopt the new processes and ethical norms or they will be asked to leave or they will leave on their own accord making accusations about everyone else being brainwashed or whatever the complaint is.

It is absolutely critical that the change agent has the support to ride of upper management. They become the point person for all the negativity that is thrown at the process and they must be supported to get through this. Failure to do that will cause the change process to fail.

Learning more:

To learn more about me and what I teach - check out my bio and courses offered at: https://humanistlearning.com/jennifer-hancock/ and do contact me if you need help with this.