First,
though, let’s quickly outline what “toxic” actually means. It doesn’t
refer to the misunderstandings, tensions, and conflicts that are a
natural (and needed) part of any healthy organization. Nor does it refer
to a one-off incident or a coworker who is a jerk every now and again.
These kinds of irritations, for the most part, are best thought of as
normal parts of (working) life.
So, what actually is considered toxic? A study by Donald Sull and his colleagues identified five attributes of a toxic culture:
disrespectful, noninclusive, unethical, cutthroat, and abusive. In a
recent discussion I had with two colleagues who are experts on the
subject, Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School and Constance Hadley
of the Questrom School of Business, we agreed that toxicity also implies
the behavior in question is both pervasive and ongoing. And that, we
believe, is what makes bad behavior rise — or perhaps fall — to the
level of toxic. Toxicity carries a sense of inescapability, which is
part of what makes it so painful to experience at work.
Undeniably
negative as these attributes are, there is no absolute, uniformly
accepted scale against which we can measure any of them — all five are
subjective, anchored in each person’s experience. Making matters more
complicated, a hybrid environment by definition means that employees are
experiencing their work in very different contexts — some face-to-face,
others remote — and those may vary by the day. As a result, hybrid
workspaces aren’t uniform; some people may experience a hybrid
environment as toxic while others do not. That does not make a toxic
hybrid environment any less painful or damaging to those who experience
it as such. However, it does mean that some behaviors may be toxic even
as a result of well-meaning — or at least not ill-meaning — actions.
When
talking with executives about toxicity, I encourage them to think like
social scientists, to understand the mechanisms through which hybrid
working can lead to increased toxicity. Here’s what they should know.
How Hybrid Work Can Lead to Toxicity
My
research and consulting experience has led me to think in terms of four
mechanisms through which hybridity can lead to toxic behaviors.
1. Remoteness changes dynamics
Working
hybrid means that, compared with full-time in-office work, more
communication will take place via technologies like email, text, phone,
or video. One of the early findings in research on the effects of
technology-mediated communication was that people become more
disinhibited and exhibit less self-monitoring and self-control when communicating through technology.
In other words, when we talk to one another electronically, we are more
likely to blurt out things that might be hurtful. Think about heated
exchanges you’ve had with colleagues both in person and electronically —
chances are, you were much more tempted to try to slip in a sharp quip
in an email than face-to-face.
This
dynamic is not (necessarily) about being a nasty person. We all have
moments of anger, frustration, or passion, and if handled badly, those
feelings have the potential to turn toxic.
In
face-to-face interactions, though, the human on the other side of the
conversation is far more salient to us, leading most of us to recognize
the potential costs of a less-careful word and bite our tongues. The
point isn’t that we shouldn’t speak our minds (if we feel that we can’t,
that’s bad for psychological safety), but that we should choose our
words well. While the reduced self-monitoring and self-control that come
with remote interactions do not necessarily cause toxicity, they
certainly make it more likely for disrespectful or abusive (two of Sull’s toxicity characteristics) comments to come out.
2. Hybridity is fundamentally imbalanced
Hybrid
also means different people are working in different contexts. Some may
be at home, while others are in the office — and those locations have
undeniable differences. People in the office have greater access to
resources and higher visibility, often leading to more credit and
quicker promotion as a result. Remote workers, meanwhile, often feel
left out and shunned. Negative as these effects may be, they are not
strictly toxic if everyone is equally disadvantaged at some point. The
problem is when some people (likely remote/hybrid workers) feel consistently excluded — as was the experience of one manager I recently worked with.
Company
policy was to allow all employees to work remotely two days a week, and
the manager had allowed her team members to choose those days. She
quickly discovered her team had effectively split on the basis of
different (but consistent) patterns of which days people chose to come
into the office. Compounding the issue, team members’ remote-work
choices were heavily driven by commutes and children’s school schedules,
which aligned them with demographic differences in the team. Problems
arose when some team members felt they were being excluded from the
discussions and meetings that occurred on the in-office days of the
other group. The split led to interpersonal tensions and conflict,
people feeling excluded and disrespected (two toxicity characteristics), and it ultimately resulted in turnover.
3. Hybridity can reduce cohesion and trust
Research shows
that lack of close contact reduces connection and trust, which are key
elements of a healthy culture. During the pandemic, I spoke to many
employees who had started new jobs remotely, and I consistently heard
that they hadn’t gotten to know their colleagues and felt disconnected. Research from Microsoft found remote working leads employees to have smaller, less-well-developed networks.
Remote
(and by extension hybrid) working does not necessarily mean
organizations will have a weak or inconsistent culture. Take Linux as an
example. Its open-source software development from day one has been
carried out by a loosely structured community of developers who have
never met in person, yet extensive research on the group has found it
has strong social norms governing behavior. However, it is hard to deny
that the group’s structure (or lack thereof) removes or impedes many of
the mechanisms we traditionally use to establish, transmit, and maintain
culture. Note that Linux started with
a remote, dispersed culture. While many companies have embraced remote
and hybrid since the pandemic started, their cultures were already
established and then adjusted to handle the crisis.
Culture is so important because it is the compass organizations use to eschew cutthroat and, in more extreme cases, unethical
behavior. To be clear, hybridity does not inherently lead people to be
more cutthroat or unethical (though one might argue the sense of
distance between people makes them less aware of the negative
ramifications of their actions). However, in every social system we find
a range of behaviors, and culture typically helps us rein in the
negative ones. On top of that, while people are less likely to exhibit
toxic behaviors toward those they feel close and connected to, the
distance that a remote/hybrid environment brings makes us more likely to
view some of our colleagues not as “us” but as “them” — and it’s much
easier to act poorly toward “them.”
4. Hybridity makes it hard to resolve issues
There’s
one more key challenge in remote and hybrid work: We have fewer
face-to-face interactions with colleagues, and research shows that it is
harder to resolve disputes (like those around toxic behaviors)
virtually. Think about trying to address a sensitive topic over Zoom
with someone and worrying about everything from where they’re looking to
how fast they reply. Are
they giving me their full attention? Am I sure my sincerity is coming
through over video? Was their slow response because they disagreed or
are just lagging?
When
we’re face-to-face, we have more interpersonal tools at our disposal.
We have better data, as we can more easily read facial expressions and
can see off-camera behaviors. We also have better tools, as face-to-face
interactions allow us to synchronously work together to resolve
differences. And the propinquity effect (essentially, we like people we
have more exposure to) means all of this happens from a starting point
of a closer relationship.
One
other issue it’s important to mention is microaggressions, which some
people have argued happen less often in remote settings because we’re
around one another less. However, I would caution leaders and employees
alike to stay vigilant for signs of microaggressions (often reflected in
toxic behaviors like noninclusion)
in hybrid settings. While these settings may have fewer touchpoints
where microaggressions can occur, they do not remove the underpinnings
of why microaggressions happen — nor do they prevent them from coming
out in other outlets, such as Slack, messaging apps, or
videoconferencing. In effect, hybrid work can obscure the problem
without resolving it.
What Leaders Can Do
I
advise leaders to approach toxic behaviors in hybrid work in four ways:
educate, lay a foundation, have ongoing conversations, and intervene
quickly.
Educate employees
The
first step toward avoiding toxic behavior in hybrid teams is to help
people learn how it can arise. You may think, “Of course they know not
to be disrespectful, abusive, or noninclusive,” but that’s not the
issue. Sit down with your employees and have a conversation about how
these outcomes can happen as unintended consequences of hybrid work
arrangements and decisions. Remind them that toxicity is about behavior —
and that what matters isn’t what your intention was but how others
perceive your actions. A good starting point is to ask employees to
reflect on hybrid work behaviors they may have experienced as toxic (for
example, feeling routinely excluded from a social group or reading
comments on Slack that they found abusive or disrespectful). The goal of
this step is not to identify particular issues or point fingers but
rather to increase employees’ self-awareness and the number of eyes out
there looking for toxic behaviors or their antecedents.
Lay a foundation
As
Benjamin Franklin famously said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a
pound of cure.” One of the most effective tools you can put in place is a
culture with built-in antibodies against toxic behaviors. In
particular, focus on promoting empathy and psychological safety. A
culture with a core of empathy encourages employees to consider the
impact of their actions on their colleagues, increasing the likelihood
that employees catch themselves before behaving in a way another might
find troubling. In turn, a culture that includes psychological safety is
critical for those cases that empathy doesn’t prevent. We don’t always
recognize the impact of our actions, and building psychological safety
ensures that employees can speak up about the behaviors they perceive as
toxic. Research has provided excellent practical advice for promoting
both empathy and psychological safety.
Have ongoing conversations
Because
the experience of hybrid work is different among employees and dynamic
over time (someone may be in the office today, surrounded by colleagues,
and at home alone tomorrow), toxicity is a moving target. The only
truly effective way to manage such dynamism is with an ongoing process —
and the cornerstone is repeated, ongoing conversations. I encourage
hybrid teams and organizations to have periodic check-ins where everyone
is encouraged to raise concerns or flag toxic experiences. There is no
hard-and-fast rule for frequency, as it depends on how dynamic the
organization’s hybrid environment is: The more and faster it changes,
the more frequent those conversations should be. As a starting point,
aim for a monthly check-in and adjust as needed. Make sure the
psychological safety foundation is in place if you want people to share
honestly, and treat these conversations as more than a superficial
box-ticking exercise.
Intervene quickly
Even
with a good understanding of the issues, a positive cultural foundation
in place, and ongoing discussions, hybrid working may still lead to
behaviors that your employees find toxic. A big problem with toxic
environments is that they tend to get worse: Toxic behaviors either feed
on themselves, breeding more toxicity, or cause disgruntled employees
to disengage, creating new tensions due to workloads needing to be
redistributed. To break the cycle, you need to not only keep an eye out
for toxic behaviors but also be ready to move fast when you see them,
help all parties engage in a dialogue, and work to reach a mutually
acceptable solution.
Let’s
say you notice a situation like that of the manager whose team was
split over their WFH days. In a case like that, call a team meeting and
share your concerns of how the situation might feel exclusionary. It may
turn out your concerns aren’t shared — but you’re still creating buy-in
and ownership of the issue, making it easier to address later if it
does become a problem. If, however, you’ve recognized a budding concern
for some of your team members, you have a forum to discuss and
collectively resolve it before it gets too far along.
. . .
Toxicity
can be an unfortunate reality of some work environments. While hybrid
work does not necessarily cause toxicity any more than in-person work
does, it is important to recognize that hybrid introduces some different
mechanisms through which toxicity may arise. Keeping these in mind can
help leaders recognize, guard against, and eliminate toxicity when it
occurs — or ideally before.
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