Effects of a Toxic Culture towards the Companys Performance - Case Study Example

Report on Effects of a Toxic Culture towards the Company’s Performance Student’s Name: ID Number: Date: Effects of a Toxic Culture towards the Company’s Performance Introduction This is a report on the effects of a toxic culture towards the negative staff productivity and performance in the company’s Brisbane branch. In this report, APA is the main style of reference. This report is because of the continuous negative output of the company’s staff member based on the current culture survey carried out. The aim of this report is to try to pinpoint the main causes of the negative results and come up with possible solutions. Definition Based on the recent cultural study, it has come the realization of the company’s attention that the Brisbane branch has been performing decimally in customer satisfaction. This is due to the recent unproductivity and poor performance of the staff, which is a result of the emergence of a toxic culture. To solve this problem the Chief Executive Officer of the company has requested all employees to submit a report addressing the root of this issue and outlining various possible solutions. The issue has highly affected the company’s main marketing strategy, which is the cost leadership strategy. By definition, a toxic organizational culture is a culture that prompts intense, widespread, negative energy-sapping feelings that disconnect individuals from their co-workers, jobs or organization. An organization’s culture is passively involved in the company’s daily performance. The culture of an organization also affects its association with external parties such as donors, promoters and beneficiaries like shareholders. Based on my point of view, the toxic culture has affected the Human Resource Management Department the most. It is the duty of this department to ensure that the company relates well with its target audience and all stakeholders. As a result, if any negative culture evolves in the organization the department would greatly feel the impact (Kellerman & Barbara, 2010). Analysis There various signs, which indicate an organization’s culture, is becoming toxic. These signs include rampant gossip, ‘them or us mentality’, retaining poor ability, toxic leaders or team members and inconsistency (Frost, 2004). This signs are also tools of evaluating an organization’s culture. When rumors become the key mill towards a company’s productivity, the performance of the company tend to lean towards a negative side .In most cases majority of the target audience will relay on the rumors for their consumption decision. If these rumors are false, this definitely yields negative results. The Human Resource Management department should ensure that they effectively deal with any emerging rumors to avoid any anticipated or further harm towards the company’s marketing strategy. Weak team leaders also put the company’s culture on jeopardy when they promote the “us or them mentality”. This mentality is a result of the leader’s fear to implement issues that their team may not comply with and the team members may push them away. They are afraid others will view them as weak if people realize that the team did not adhere to the leader’s policies. As a result, they end up compromising the whole team’s performance. In Human Resource Department, such leaders should receive warnings not to be lenient especially if the general result affects the gross performance of the business. Some workers also lack the abilities and required attitude to do a specific work. This is evident in workers who think they are irreplaceable in their field of specialization. These individuals consider themselves as untouchable beings and tend to do their work shoddily. They may have the required set of skills but lack the needed attitude or approach and abilities to produce high-class quality work .Mainly, this is a result of the pride they possess about their working or professional skills. For example, a team leader in the Human Resource Department might perform decimally in a given assignment since they feel they do not need any advice from any of the team members under them. This pride tends to act as a block towards perfect communication; in turn affecting the team’s produce. The presence of toxic team leaders or team members highly promotes a toxic cultural environment in an organization (Martens, Gagné, & Brown, 2003). Team leaders who hold indispensable technical skills tend to be favored even if they greatly contribute towards a company’s negative cultural environment. The longer they stick around the greatly their impact is towards the culture of the organization. In the worst scenario, these individuals effect the core values of the company especially if they hold higher positions. In addition, if the individuals are highly influential this may affect the employees at the lowest level thus affecting the net productivity of the organization. Similarly, this will affect the net outcome in the Human Resource Management department producing similar decimal results (Lavender & Cavaiola, 2011). Inconsistency highly affects the cultural environment and social mood of a company. Inconsistency promotes incompetence, which in turn promotes poor results while delivering intended products to the consumer. In case any member of the Human Resource Management department has some aspect of incompetence, the average output of expected work quality will lower to the unexpected. This is crucial especially when incompetence spreads across the department. Recommendation There several strategies that I believe if incorporated will yield positive results and will help solve the current unfortunate situation. These strategies include inter team communication, vision sharing, continuous training, and rule setting. Team leaders should promote intra team communication. This is communication between members of a given team within the affected department. Through this, team members are able to monitor each other’s activates and correct themselves where necessary. This maintains high-level coordination and understanding among the teammates. This reflects to a positive a yield in the company’s performance. This approach can also help in maintaining coordination among individuals in the whole department by promoting communication between different teams in the department. This results to collective sharing of ideas for the ultimate produce (Durré, 2010). It is important for every leader to constantly remind their team on the company’s main vision and agenda. I highly campaign for frequent team meetings to realize this. It is through such techniques that the leader will constantly be in touch with the subordinates. Through this, the leader will achieve frequent motivation of the team members. In order to kick out incompetence frequent training projects and programs are highly recommended .This will help the workers to familiarize themselves with the new developments in their specific line of work. This is highly applicable to the old members who sometimes tend to lose touch of what is required of them especially when tackling modern issues. This equips them with the up to date skills require to combat various modern issues. This technique effectively tackles the issue of incompetence leading to better the company’s performance. It is important to set rules that govern the daily activities of the organization. These rules will help define the required steps to deal with specific situations. They help the organization fight against toxic leaders and team members. Those who do not follow these set of rules should face various consequences based on the mistakes they make. Internal operation policy may work well in this regard which sets standards for each member. This aspect helps in effectively eradicating toxicity within the organization itself (Kusy & Holloway, 2009). However, these rules should be objective such that they are directed towards achieving healthy working relationship rather than creating rigidity in an organization. Conclusion I believe if these strategies are adhere to, the company’s performance will pick a positive trend and it will help eradicate the current problem effectively. As a result, I highly advocated for the adoption of the all techniques discussed in this report in order to realize the expected results. The company can only thrive when members of staff work as a team in every aspect. Although individual effort is essential, success comes as a result of combined deliberation of all stakeholders especially employees. In most cases, companies fail due to lack of this aspect of teamwork. To facilitate teamwork, communication is the ideal tool that ensures results. There is no way people can work together without continuous consultation. Team members need to develop a culture of being together and constant consultation. It entails reporting progress and evaluating goals together by holding regular consultative meetings. The team leader is in position to identify areas they have weaknesses and bring the same to the team for discussion. Consequently, people in the team get motivated due to involvement in making resolution on internal matters. Meetings are also good platform for sharing company vision. Continuous training is an essential approach for maintaining sustainable performance within the organization. The management should base training sessions on needs of employees and organizational objective. Unless this is done, it is possible to have employees who do not understand their roles in the company which leads to performance challenges. Regular training is also essential in the event a major change happens which may have impact on organization performance. Training is used to familiarize employees with the change thus gaining knowledge and necessary skills to handle it. References Durré L.2010 .Surviving the Toxic Workplace: Protect Yourself Against Coworkers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day. Frost, P. J. 2004. Handling toxic emotions: New challenges for leaders and their organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 33, 2, 111-129. Kellerman & Barbara.2010. Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters Harvard Business School Press. September. Kusy M & Holloway E .2009.Toxic workplace!: managing toxic personalities and their systems of power. Lavender NJ & Cavaiola AA.2011. The One-Way Relationship Workbook: Step-By-Step Help for Coping with Narcissists, Egotistical Lovers, Toxic Coworkers & Others Who Are Incredibly Self-Absorbed. Martens, M. L., Gagné, M., and Brown, G. 2003. Toxin handler behaviour: An initial assessment of a new measure. Proceedings of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, 24, 5, 95-105. Read More