Toxic Behaviors, and What To Do About Them
My father used to tell me ‘ If you don’t have something good to say about someone, don’t say anything”. Have you ever heard similar advice? Have you ever violated that advice? Has violating that advice ever cost you a friend, a relationship, a business deal, a job, or a positive referral or reference? You may have answered yes to the last question, or you may have answered no. But many people would be more inclined to say” I don’t know whether or not some negative comment may have cost me, and if it did, so what?”
I used to work with a person who would bring negative comments to me that he said were made by other people – and he was simply the messenger. He would say something like “So and so said you really made a stupid decision on that last ---------” And I would respond with something like “What the hell does he know?”
Of course, the bearer of the message would go back to the other person and dutifully report what I had said about him. This person never told people things that were not true, and yet he caused extensive damage to interpersonal relationships in that organization. And he did it through attribution – telling others what people had said about them – the fact that he had initiated the conversation that resulted in the juicy little negative tidbit was never part of his conversation.
If ever I had needed to listen to my father’s advice, it was when I was engaged in conversation with this person. Have you ever met and dealt with someone who did the same thing? There seem to be these types in every organization – avoiding them is difficult – recognizing them as toxic is difficult – and dealing with the fallout of their feedback is almost impossible. These are the truly toxic personalities that inhabit every company – they can be very good at their jobs, they are often seen as excellent sources of information, and they are often considered real players in the organization. After all, all they are doing is repeating what has been said to them, and what can be wrong with that?
I got smart about my relationship with this person. When I found out what he was doing with the results of our conversations, I was really angry and distrustful of him and wanted to confront him. Then I came to my senses and decided the only thing he had done was to repeat comments I had made to him, and shame on me if I continued to provide him with information he could pass on. I did what I should have done in the first place – I stuck to business in my conversations with him; I did not discuss personalities; and I let him know that I had no further interest in hearing negative comments others had made about me – they served no purpose other than to cause negative feelings. He was OK with that and we maintained a constructive working relationship. Would I ever trust him? No – there was too much mistrust of his use of confidential information for that. But wh0
said an effective working relationship required friendship? In many cases, the two are far apart, and that’s OK
I have had the opportunity to work with many people in helping them develop their management and leadership skills. The successful leaders all – without exception – have been people who confront and correct behavior issues by dealing directly with the person who is exhibiting the questionable behavior. The successful leaders do not discuss with others the specifics of the discussions they have had, and they take great care to not provide negative information for the story carriers in their organizations. And you can be sure that they know there are story carriers in their organization – that is a given. What the successful leaders will do is seek out constructive counsel, advice, and observations that can assist in the fixing of the behavior. And in so doing they become better prepared for dealing with this particular issue as well as with similar issues that will come up in the future. In following these steps, the successful leader is establishing trust in the organization in his or her ability to lead. People both recognize and appreciate an approach that provides the opportunity to improve and grow and overcome mistakes and failures. People will follow a leader that provides that kind of behavioral example and do whatever is needed to get the job done. In organizations where the grapevine or indirect approach is used – where the person being talked about is the last to know – where the use of gossip and innuendo is tolerated – and even perhaps encouraged, there can be little trust. The result is an organization that avoids making mistakes – that spends an inordinate amount of time on personalities rather than results – that is poorly leveraged – that suffers high turnover among the most effective people, and becomes a home for toxic behaviors that spend more and more of the organization’s time on non productive, destructive and low leverage issues.
Here is a little self-test to help you see if you live in an organization that could use improvement in how it deals with individual behavior issues:
1 -Do you find yourself in discussions about an individual’s behavior that are negative, and the individual is not present?
2 - Do you find yourself in conversations that deal with behaviors rather than results?
3 - Do you know someone in your organization who is the butt of jokes? Someone who is treated with derision and disdain?
4 - Do you find yourself slipping into the habit of discussing negative behavior issues about others as one of the first things brought up in a conversation?
5 - When you attend meetings, is there an “Object Ball” – someone that everyone gangs up on, in those meetings?
6 - Is action to correct a behavior issue more a matter of complaining without action than of taking direct action?
If you can answer Yes to any of these questions, your organization needs to change its approach if it wants to leverage its people assets. How do you change this kind of behavior? Here are some key action items and observations.
1 – You can only change how you deal with others – not how they deal with you. Start by promising yourself that you will not be party to the kind of negative discussions and behaviors that exist in the organization
2 - If you have a person that is not performing, take action – NOW!! Work to get them to at least meeting standards, and if that can’t be done, then they have to leave. To not act is to sow the seeds of discord and distrust. As a leader, the most important thing you can do is to see that your people trust your people judgments and actions!!
3 – Create a positive, results oriented work environment in your workgroup – take the lead in discouraging negative discussion of others
4 – Distance yourself from the negative and toxic people – you know who they are. Create with them a “work only” relationship.
5 – You don’t need to become the champion of the downtrodden and the under performers – in most cases they have created their own problems by their own actions. What you do need to do is reject the” behind the back” behavior that people can exhibit - it is behavior that diminishes everyone who comes in contact with it.
6 – Start today – don’t wait for someone else to take the lead – leadership in this kind of area is a very personal thing – to the extent that you exhibit positive, constructive, results oriented behavior, you will be looked at as a leader – both in your own eyes and in the eyes of the leadership of your organization.
7 – Develop the skill of Constructive Confrontation – of being able to confront behavior and performance issues directly and in a way that allows all parties to maintain effective working relationships.
Remember, the top 10% in an organization are results and opportunity oriented, the negative 10% in an organization are consequence and personality focused, and the 80% in between can be heavily influenced in their behavior either way. Toxic behavior has a way of spreading in an organization and influencing behavior that can reduce leverage and create an ineffective workplace.
Start now to improve your organization – or to preserve a positive atmosphere when signs of toxic behavior start to appear.
My father used to tell me ‘ If you don’t have something good to say about someone, don’t say anything”. Have you ever heard similar advice? Have you ever violated that advice? Has violating that advice ever cost you a friend, a relationship, a business deal, a job, or a positive referral or reference? You may have answered yes to the last question, or you may have answered no. But many people would be more inclined to say” I don’t know whether or not some negative comment may have cost me, and if it did, so what?”
I used to work with a person who would bring negative comments to me that he said were made by other people – and he was simply the messenger. He would say something like “So and so said you really made a stupid decision on that last ---------” And I would respond with something like “What the hell does he know?”
Of course, the bearer of the message would go back to the other person and dutifully report what I had said about him. This person never told people things that were not true, and yet he caused extensive damage to interpersonal relationships in that organization. And he did it through attribution – telling others what people had said about them – the fact that he had initiated the conversation that resulted in the juicy little negative tidbit was never part of his conversation.
If ever I had needed to listen to my father’s advice, it was when I was engaged in conversation with this person. Have you ever met and dealt with someone who did the same thing? There seem to be these types in every organization – avoiding them is difficult – recognizing them as toxic is difficult – and dealing with the fallout of their feedback is almost impossible. These are the truly toxic personalities that inhabit every company – they can be very good at their jobs, they are often seen as excellent sources of information, and they are often considered real players in the organization. After all, all they are doing is repeating what has been said to them, and what can be wrong with that?
I got smart about my relationship with this person. When I found out what he was doing with the results of our conversations, I was really angry and distrustful of him and wanted to confront him. Then I came to my senses and decided the only thing he had done was to repeat comments I had made to him, and shame on me if I continued to provide him with information he could pass on. I did what I should have done in the first place – I stuck to business in my conversations with him; I did not discuss personalities; and I let him know that I had no further interest in hearing negative comments others had made about me – they served no purpose other than to cause negative feelings. He was OK with that and we maintained a constructive working relationship. Would I ever trust him? No – there was too much mistrust of his use of confidential information for that. But wh0
said an effective working relationship required friendship? In many cases, the two are far apart, and that’s OK
I have had the opportunity to work with many people in helping them develop their management and leadership skills. The successful leaders all – without exception – have been people who confront and correct behavior issues by dealing directly with the person who is exhibiting the questionable behavior. The successful leaders do not discuss with others the specifics of the discussions they have had, and they take great care to not provide negative information for the story carriers in their organizations. And you can be sure that they know there are story carriers in their organization – that is a given. What the successful leaders will do is seek out constructive counsel, advice, and observations that can assist in the fixing of the behavior. And in so doing they become better prepared for dealing with this particular issue as well as with similar issues that will come up in the future. In following these steps, the successful leader is establishing trust in the organization in his or her ability to lead. People both recognize and appreciate an approach that provides the opportunity to improve and grow and overcome mistakes and failures. People will follow a leader that provides that kind of behavioral example and do whatever is needed to get the job done. In organizations where the grapevine or indirect approach is used – where the person being talked about is the last to know – where the use of gossip and innuendo is tolerated – and even perhaps encouraged, there can be little trust. The result is an organization that avoids making mistakes – that spends an inordinate amount of time on personalities rather than results – that is poorly leveraged – that suffers high turnover among the most effective people, and becomes a home for toxic behaviors that spend more and more of the organization’s time on non productive, destructive and low leverage issues.
Here is a little self-test to help you see if you live in an organization that could use improvement in how it deals with individual behavior issues:
1 -Do you find yourself in discussions about an individual’s behavior that are negative, and the individual is not present?
2 - Do you find yourself in conversations that deal with behaviors rather than results?
3 - Do you know someone in your organization who is the butt of jokes? Someone who is treated with derision and disdain?
4 - Do you find yourself slipping into the habit of discussing negative behavior issues about others as one of the first things brought up in a conversation?
5 - When you attend meetings, is there an “Object Ball” – someone that everyone gangs up on, in those meetings?
6 - Is action to correct a behavior issue more a matter of complaining without action than of taking direct action?
If you can answer Yes to any of these questions, your organization needs to change its approach if it wants to leverage its people assets. How do you change this kind of behavior? Here are some key action items and observations.
1 – You can only change how you deal with others – not how they deal with you. Start by promising yourself that you will not be party to the kind of negative discussions and behaviors that exist in the organization
2 - If you have a person that is not performing, take action – NOW!! Work to get them to at least meeting standards, and if that can’t be done, then they have to leave. To not act is to sow the seeds of discord and distrust. As a leader, the most important thing you can do is to see that your people trust your people judgments and actions!!
3 – Create a positive, results oriented work environment in your workgroup – take the lead in discouraging negative discussion of others
4 – Distance yourself from the negative and toxic people – you know who they are. Create with them a “work only” relationship.
5 – You don’t need to become the champion of the downtrodden and the under performers – in most cases they have created their own problems by their own actions. What you do need to do is reject the” behind the back” behavior that people can exhibit - it is behavior that diminishes everyone who comes in contact with it.
6 – Start today – don’t wait for someone else to take the lead – leadership in this kind of area is a very personal thing – to the extent that you exhibit positive, constructive, results oriented behavior, you will be looked at as a leader – both in your own eyes and in the eyes of the leadership of your organization.
7 – Develop the skill of Constructive Confrontation – of being able to confront behavior and performance issues directly and in a way that allows all parties to maintain effective working relationships.
Remember, the top 10% in an organization are results and opportunity oriented, the negative 10% in an organization are consequence and personality focused, and the 80% in between can be heavily influenced in their behavior either way. Toxic behavior has a way of spreading in an organization and influencing behavior that can reduce leverage and create an ineffective workplace.
Start now to improve your organization – or to preserve a positive atmosphere when signs of toxic behavior start to appear.
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