Good Org / Bad Org
some pondering on toxic vs. dysfunctional
I’ve had a lot of different roles over the last thirty-ish years in tech. I’ve loved some roles, loathed others, and learned a lot about what makes organizations succeed - and why they sometimes fail.
I’ve been reflecting a bit lately about those organizations, and that has led me to ponder the differences and similarities between toxic and dysfunctional organizations.
Straight to the Ugly
Some organizations are worse than others. In 2021, Activision made the news in the wrong way due to allegations of widespread sexual harassment, discrimination, and a toxic workplace culture. I only know what I read, but it sounded like a classic case of “boys club” or “frat boy” culture - but regardless, a pretty horrible experience for a lot of employees.
To me - this is an example of a toxic culture. Toxic Workplace, by Kusy and Holloway characterizes toxic organizations as containing
Harmful Behaviors: Patterns of negative behavior, such as bullying, harassment, and discrimination, that undermine the well-being of employees.
Negative Culture: A work environment dominated by fear, mistrust, and negativity, where blame is common and support is minimal.
Stress and Burnout: High levels of stress among employees due to unrealistic demands, lack of support, and ongoing negative interactions.
Low Morale: Employees often feel demoralized, disengaged, and unvalued, leading to a lack of motivation and enthusiasm for their work.
High Turnover: An unusually high rate of employee turnover, as individuals leave the organization to escape the negative environment.
Ineffective Leadership: Leaders who either contribute to the toxic environment through their own behavior or fail to address and mitigate the toxic behaviors of others.
The authors emphasize that a toxic workplace is not simply a place where negative behaviors occur occasionally, but one where these behaviors are systemic and pervasive, and create an environment that is damaging to employees' mental and physical health.
I’ve worked in only one toxic organization in my career (not coincidentally, my last organization at Microsoft). Even that role didn’t check all six of the above characteristics, but it did, unfortunately, hit over half.
The Other Side of Ugly
Sometimes, organizations are merely dysfunctional. I’ve been in a few of these - the intent is good, the people are fine, but these organizations just don’t know what they’re doing. Primarily, dysfunction comes from lack of clarity, bad communication, and having no clear goals or direction.
Clarity on what’s important, and purposeful intention to tie work to those goals is the single most critical aspect of a healthy organization, but I’ve worked in my fair share of organizations where people - with the most positive and caring intentions, mostly did a potpourri of seemingly random things in an effort to find what’s important.
Dysfunctional organizations are generally non-productive - and while they can be confusing for employees, they don’t cause the same type of damage to mental health as toxic organizations.
Until, of course, they do.
Two Kinds of Ugly
Toxic and dysfunctional organizations both suffer from significant problems. I’ve been there, and dysfunctional organizations are no fun at all. I’m an efficiency nut, and when things are slow “just because”, I get frustrated and angry. Toxic organizations, on the other hand, are horrible and harmful. Two months before I left Microsoft, my blood pressure was awful. It had been creeping up for years, and was at an alarming all time high for me of 145/100. My doctor asked me to come back in three months and check again and said I’d probably need medication. At my return visit a month and a half or so into a new role at a new company, and my BP was down to where it’s always been at 110/70 (where it fortunately has hovered since then).
Uglier?
What happens when your dysfunctional org becomes toxic - or your toxic org becomes dysfunctional. Those scenarios are unfortunately likely, and it gets bad quickly.
When organizations are dysfunctional, it’s a thin line to fiefdoms and silos - and from there, a lot of toxic traits can begin to develop. Toxic organizations slide into dysfunction much more quickly (and likely, inevitably).
Un-Uglifying?
The good news is that both dysfunction and toxicity are solvable. In 2017, Uber responded to allegations of harassment and leadership instability by changing leadership and addressing their culture head-on. Wells Fargo publicly addressed their challenges with culture and management in 2016, and Yahoo addressed many of their dysfunctional challenges throughout the twenty-teens.
I will hypothesize, however, that fixing toxicity requires more severe action than fixing dysfunction. In the cases I could find (and remember) on the internet, toxic cultures were almost always remedied with (among other things) a leadership change. This makes complete sense from my experience, as the senior leaders in the organization either model or ignore the toxic behaviors that are pervasive in their organization.
When someone behaves badly in an organization, it’s because they’re allowed to do it.
Clarity, Clarity, Clarity
One of the best organizations I’ve ever worked in had a clear goal on what they wanted to accomplish, and alignment across the org on how they wanted to achieve those goals. The organizational values weren’t just words on a page - they were pervasive in communication, and people were held accountable for both delivery and delivering in the right way. It’s interesting in reflection to note that I watched this organization devolve into dysfunction as leaders joined who did not understand or embody the clarity that previously existed in the organization.
Clarity was lost, culture was lost, and unfortunately, their customers were lost.
Hope is Not Lost
I’ve been in - and fixed dysfunction before. Unlike fixing toxicity - which is typically going to require sweeping changes, dysfunction can be improved or cured via slightly easier - but still difficult approaches.
What I’ve found interesting is that dysfunctional organizations often don’t realize that they’re dysfunctional. Or more often, they may recognize some dysfunction, but don’t see the extent and depth of the dysfunction - they don’t know what a healthy organization should feel like, because they’ve never been in one.
There is a path to improvement, but it’s hard - especially when the organization doesn’t realize how messed up things are. But - in my experience, the following minor improvements can go a long way towards a better culture:
Clear Goals - when nobody knows what direction you’re heading, everyone goes in their own direction. Talk about where you want to be - a lot. When things change, communicate that too.
Strong Values - be purposeful on how you want the organization to behave, and hold people accountable - and also celebrate when you see people in the organization living the values
Over Communicate - building on the above, organizations become dysfunctional because they forget what’s important. Be clear, transparent and frequent in communications
It’s an over simplification, but that’s it. Big changes like this are difficult, but certainly possible. The important thing is to try. Some advice I often give that seems worthy of ending this pondering and rambling post is this nonsensical phrase (meaning you can improve what you have, or go find greener pastures)
You can change your organization, or you can change your organization.
-A 5:6