Fighting a toxic workplace culture: Specific actions for leaders who want change

Author’s Note: This weekly column delivers real-time, easily digestible leadership actions you can take to build a better workplace, become a highly productive, future-ready leader and improve your leadership impact right now, today. Stay tuned to WRAL Techwire each Wednesday for the next edition, as lessons build atop each other. Most recently, we talked about improving productivity through prioritization.

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Your company culture is not beyond your control, no matter how big it might seem. As a leader, you set the tone for what’s acceptable, what’s excellent, what gets rewarded and amplified, and what will absolutely not be tolerated. As William Craig writes in the Forbes article “How Leaders Shape Company Culture,” “It’s the job of your company’s leaders to provide an example worth emulating and an environment worth working in.”

Stepping into that function means you need to have a clear idea of the culture you want and whether your own actions are worthy of emulation, but it doesn’t mean you need to be perfect. In fact, some false idea of perfection will only get in the way. What you want is a culture that consistently emphasizes progress, iteration and growth – one where every employee understands how their personal development contributes to the growth and development of the organization. Here’s why.

An overwhelming body of research shows that organizations with positive workplace cultures outperform those with toxic cultures – and also ho-hum, lackluster cultures – by a tremendous margin. In fact, they’re 3.7 times more likely to be top performers in their fields. With such a clear return on investment, the question for leaders is not why culture matters, but how to kickstart culture transformation and maintain forward momentum.

Donald Thompson

Not sure what sort of culture you have? I recommend reading this piece from the MIT Sloan Management Review: “Why Every Leader Needs to Worry About Toxic Culture.” Specifically, be sure to note “The Toxic Five” attributes they pinpoint to help you classify your own workplace culture.

Yes, it’s true that culture change takes time, but first steps in the right direction are worth taking. Here’s how to get started immediately.

NAME YOUR VALUES

Often, when leaders sit down to name their company values, the list they write is more aspirational and inspirational than true. As Traction author Gino Wickman explains, “If you are creating a core value to solve a problem — for instance, being profit-focused, being accountable, working hard, being respectful, problem-solving — it’s not a core value. These may be core values for other companies, but if they’re not yours, they’re aspirational and destined for failure.” Instead, I recommend crowd-sourcing your value list by asking your team to contribute their ideas and looking for themes and trends in their submissions. Aim for three to five core values.

I’ll use my own organization as an example. We named our values in late 2020. At the time, our Vice President of Client Success, Jamie Ousterout – who was recently awarded a “40 under 40” leadership award by Triangle Business Journal – had just joined the team. Jamie is an expert in helping organizations write authentic mission, vision, and value statements, or what she calls “organization anchors.” Jamie led our team through a series of conversations focused on identifying the specific actions we believe contribute to success as business strategists with a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) lens.

Because these conversations were centered around action, not just high ideals for what we wanted to become, we were able to move quickly past aspirational concepts and focus on what was authentic to our brand. The six values we came up with – curiosity, compassion, flexibility, resilience, honesty, and action – still feel true every hour of every day.

IDENTIFY BEHAVIORS THAT ALIGN WITH YOUR VALUES

Next, identify the granular actions employees can take to demonstrate your organization values. For instance, which specific behaviors show flexibility versus resilience? By tying values to behavior, you eliminate or at least reduce opportunities for miscommunication and misunderstanding. For instance, if curiosity is a value, what does curiosity look like in action?

Again, I’ll use my own organization as my example. For each of our core values, we worked to name at least three specific employee actions we had already witnessed and wanted to see more often. For instance in our definition, curiosity means competitive learning. It means a continued desire for self-improvement and learning which is demonstrated through the persistent pursuit of learning opportunities; by reading, watching and listening to expert content; and by asking for – and knowing how to receive – ample feedback that helps you iterate with pace.

I love this quote from Bain and Company that “culture is behavior at scale.” For leaders, it’s key to keep behavior and action at center of mind when you’re working toward culture change. Otherwise, core values can feel more like high ideals.

HIRE, REWARD, AMPLIFY AND PROMOTE PEOPLE WHO DEMONSTRATE THOSE ACTIONS

Once you’ve identified the employee actions that demonstrate your organization values, it’s time to figure out how you will reward them. Break down each stage of the employee life cycle to align your values with specific rewards. What questions will you ask job candidates to test their value alignment? Once they’re hired, how will you amplify employees who demonstrate your values consistently? Which specific actions trigger a reward? And, how are you documenting each employee’s behavior to be sure that rewards are evenly applied?

If curiosity is a core value for your team, how are you providing opportunities for continued learning and development? How – and how often – are you encouraging people to block their time for professional development? How are you structuring your PTO policies so people can use paid time off for education and skill-building?

Remember, amplifying and rewarding employee behavior doesn’t always have to mean a pay raise or promotion. Of course, more money is a powerful incentive, but along the journey to a promotion and pay raise, there are hundreds of small ways you can reward and incentivize good behavior. Some examples are posting about someone’s achievements on your social media channels, sending a shout-out via email or Slack, dropping by their desk to say thank you and good work, or mentioning what you liked about their behavior in team meetings where others can witness it. Negative feedback should always be given privately, but I’ve rarely met anyone who doesn’t like to be praised in public.

Another piece of advice I’ll give here is that you need to be specific about what the person did and how their behavior aligns with and demonstrates your organization’s core values to create the culture you’re chasing. “Great job on that client call” is not nearly as effective as saying “I really appreciate you restructuring that client call, so we could spend some time responding to their urgent email this morning. Your work today aligns directly with our core values of flexibility and resilience.” Read more of my tips for giving feedback here.

IDENTIFY EMPLOYEE DETRACTORS AND CORRECT INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

How do you deal with employee behavior that doesn’t align with company values? The way I like to think of it, there are three tiers of behavior editing here. If the behavior seems to be a one-off situation and not yet a pattern of behavior, deal with it immediately in the flow of the work.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re in a meeting, and two of your male colleagues are repeatedly interrupting one of the women on your team. Don’t wait for a private moment to address this sort of non-inclusive workplace behavior. Course-correct immediately. By doing so, you ensure their interruptions will not become a regular habit, and you act as an ally to your woman colleague.

Any time you can work as an ally by gently interrupting non-inclusive behavior, that’s what you should do. In this instance, I might say “Hang on you two. I want to hear what Lauren has to say. Lauren, what’s your perspective on this?” Or, something more pointed could be appropriate: “I know we’ve got big ideas and feelings in the room today, but let’s be sure we’re making space for everyone to participate in the conversation. I’d like to hear from Lauren first, and then we’ll make our way around the table.”

If negative employee behavior is becoming a pattern, you’ll need to sit down for a quick, private conversation with each individual. I suggest just five to ten minutes. Don’t dwell on the moment. Say what you need to say, give the employee time to respond, and wrap it up quickly with positivity.

My advice about giving specific and value-centered feedback also holds true when confronting negative behavior. Tell the person exactly what you are seeing, how their behavior misaligns with company values, and what you want them to do instead. For instance, if you notice a certain team member is not implementing feedback as quickly as you want, you might say “The changes I’d like to see in this process are not happening fast enough. For me, this ties directly to our core value of ‘action.’ I need to see you act at a faster pace. Is there something else we need to move off your plate, so you can make this happen?”

The third tier of behavior editing comes into play when an employee has been given multiple chances for correction and continues to display misaligned behavior, thereby contributing to a negative or toxic workplace culture. In these cases, I suggest you work with the employee to create a 90-day action plan. Give them the chance to fix what’s wrong, and in the meantime, explore other options for their role in case their behavior does not change or – as is common – they decide to look for work elsewhere. Losing an employee is always hard, but people who are actively inhibiting the growth and development of a healthy workplace culture have no place in your organization.

By aligning your values with specific behaviors, rewarding employees who demonstrate those behaviors, and correcting behavior that does not align with the culture you want, over time you create a healthy, vibrant culture. You ensure the people being promoted and rewarded are the same people who are moving the needle internally, and you build a team that lives your values as part of their daily work flow.

Culture transformation is no easy task, but knowing these first few steps on the journey will help you build a more clear vision of the culture you want and how you plan to get there.

About the Author

Donald Thompson is co-founder and CEO of The Diversity Movement which offers an employee-experience product suite that personalizes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) through data, technology, and expert-curated content. Their microlearning platform, Microvideos by The Diversity Movement, was recently named one of Fast Company’s “2022 World Changing Ideas.” With two decades of experience growing and leading firms, Donald is a thought leader on goal achievement, influencing company culture and driving exponential growth. An entrepreneur, public speaker, author, podcaster, Certified Diversity Executive (CDE) and executive coach, Donald also serves as a board member for several organizations in marketing, healthcare, banking, technology and sports. His autobiography, Underestimated: A CEO’s Unlikely Path to Success, is available for pre-order now. Connect with or follow him on Linkedin to learn more.