Toxic Culture and How To Avoid It

Establish a system you believe in, and operate within it

I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations over the past few days about bad workplace habits and how they can quickly become pervasive.

Are people ultimately destined to conform to the practices that surround them?

The story, so it goes, is that if you observe that going to lots of meetings and working more hours than is healthy is a way to get on — you’ll be tempted to follow it. Even when you know it’s not the best use of your time and that it could even harm your wellbeing.

There’s something in this. The anthropologist Joseph Henrich writes of the ‘cultural learning’ that surrounds us and sets the standards with which we judge ourselves.

We start mimicking other behaviours from about 14 months old — and are much more easily influenced than we realise. As adults we pick up ‘prestige cues’ from those we hold in positions of authority or influence — and signal our deference entirely outside our conscious awareness.

Basically we follow others.

So if we promote being busy as an ideal.

If we boast how many hours we pull.

If we celebrate how swamped by emails we are.

If we cram our diaries full of meetings.

Then we unwittingly set a social norm for others to conform to.

The only way out is to set up systems that promote meaningful work and time well spent - and make them a ritual.

Others are watching — whether we know it or not.