Toxic behaviour in organisations

Single-minded focus on “shareholder value,” which measures performance on the sole basis of stock price has led to a lot of pain. However, pain is part of organisational life. Pain by itself isn’t toxic. The way pain is handled (harmful Vs healing way) over a period of time results in emotional toxicity. Toxicity in the workplace appears through leadership, culture or managers. Toxicity is the pain that strips people of their self esteem and that disconnects them from their work.

Leverage from an anatomical sense causes pain and the current financial pain is also the result of leverage. In business, lack of value alignment between individuals and organisation causes pain, which if left unattended manifests as toxic behaviours at work.

The current financial turmoil can and will cause friction amongst people. When jobs are lost by the dozen, people would resort to unhealthy and unethical practices. They would resort to anything to undermine others advantage to enhance their job security. It could manifest as bullying and intimidating behaviour towards meek colleagues. It could manifest as working the rumour mills over time with heavy weighted or strong colleagues.

The impact of toxic behaviour is huge as it can upset the effectiveness and efficiency of the workforce. If employees are bullied constantly at work, their survival instinct kicks in which could be catastrophic for the individual as well as the organisation. The increased stress levels can result in erratic behaviour involving wrong decisions, costing a fortune to the organisation and eventually resulting in reduction in head count. Power play on the other hand has similar effects but on a grander scale. Toxic behaviour of two power players can lead to loss of talent which could have been retained otherwise.

There is a legal angle that organisations need to consider when they choose to ignore toxic behaviour. In a recent judgement Abbey had to award close to £2 Million to an investment banker as he was bullied at work in the UK. When there are emotional scars that run deep that stunts their confidence and paralyses the individuals ability to perform better. Its just a matter of time before the Law firms in India start representing cases like this. In addition to a huge payout the organisation deters talented people because of the negative publicity that comes associated with it.

We as human beings routinely undergo health check-up to monitor our health. Most of us , have annual maintenance contracts for our equipments to prevent failures. In a society that believes in prevention than cure, early diagnosis over surgery, shouldn’t organisations also go through a routine health check?