What would you say if I suggested there’s no such thing as a toxic culture?
Ridiculous? Lies? Agree?
For me the word “toxic” is banded about too freely.
Just this morning, I’ve received two email newsletters about identifying toxic cultures.
But what is “toxic”?
Toxicity causes “death” or “serious debilitation”.
It’s from the Greek root “toxikon” into the Latin “toxicus” – meaning “poisoned”.
Something that’s toxic is poisonous to all people all the time.
But, in some of these so-called “toxic” cultures, some individuals seem to thrive.
Take X/Twitter.
Musk has been vocal in his view that, if you want to work at X, you will be expected to work hard, sleep in the office, deal with his berating feedback, and the unplanned, free-wheeling pace of change.
Personally, that doesn’t sound like my cup of tea.
Yet there are people queuing to be involved.
They want to work in that culture.
How can it be toxic?
My view is that there are three factors involved:
1. What does the company claim to be?
This is what we sign-up for.
It’s what attracts us to an organisation. Their vision, their purpose, and the difference they make.
2. What is the reality of the company?
How is life at the organisation in reality?
Does their walk match their talk?
3. The delta between those two statements
“I was attracted to the organisation, because I perceived it to be x, y, and z. But the reality is it’s a, b, and c”.
This is the root of the issue.
If the organisation claims to be one thing (e.g.; We trust and empower our employees) but the day-to-day has no or contrary evidence to that promise (e.g.; Micromanagement and observation of employees), then the walk and talk don’t match.
That is a mismatched culture.
However, each individual bought in to that initial promise and are now being asked to behave in a way that they did not agree to.
In some cases, that behaviour might be incongruent with their personal values.
This can then become toxic for that individual.
It can affect their health (both mental and physical), their relationships, their behaviours. It can cause trauma.
A mismatched culture is inefficient to the org as a whole.
But it can be incredibly impactful on the individual who was missold a dream.
This is why a culture isn’t toxic.
Musk is open with the reality – and that reality matches the promise. The walk matches the talk*.
The question is:
How many organisations claim to be like Richard Branson, but are really like Elon Musk?
* There’s a separate discussion about whether X’s culture actually achieves their strategy.
One could argue that X requires innovation. The cultural approach for this normally requires openness, the ability to fail and try new things, to recognise and reward those “failures”, and cross-departmental transparency to share those learnings.
It doesn’t seem that X’s culture supports that strategy.
