A workplace culture is observable. It always happens in plain sight, and the most important people in maintaining a dysfunctional culture are those who enable the harm to continue.
It has been quite a week for our political elite. The Prime Minister’s apology in Parliament has been dissected syllable by syllable and frame by frame. Whatever you think of him, his leadership or the situation, we have all now glimpsed his workplace culture and, I suggest, it is somewhat sub-optimal.
I occasionally need to vent my frustration and rant, but to be honest I feel too tired to make the effort. I don’t have it in me to find a clever put-down or to take comfort in retweetable indignation. When we feel worn down by the relentlessness of a situation, we stop trying to find a solution and start to think about how we can just endure things until they pass.
Two groups emerge when there is such dysfunction. The first group (often small and senior, but nearly always invested in the status quo to meet their needs) will defend the achievements of the leader to excuse his failings. The second group (often larger, but much less powerful, and less invested) will seek change for a while, but when trying to change things fails, this group becomes diminished and exhausted.
If you have ever felt bullied at work, or if you are a person of colour or a woman who has felt side-lined, ignored or undermined (or worse) so that you felt diminished and exhausted by a workplace culture, I am certain you will also be able to point at those who kept the status quo intact and who made fighting against the harm seem pointless.
A workplace culture is observable. It always happens in plain sight, and the most important people in maintaining a dysfunctional culture are those who enable the harm to continue.
I was once invited to dinner in one of London’s fanciest restaurants. The food looked amazing, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. I was the guest of a law firm partner, and I was his newly won client. The evening was memorable however not for the food, but for how rude the partner was to a young waiter. At one point in the evening, he called the waiter over and said loudly enough for many tables to hear “I said I wanted my coffee WITH my dessert. Are you DEAF or STUPID?”
I am rarely shocked, but for a few moments I was left utterly speechless. I sat back in my chair, gathered my thoughts, and told the partner quietly that I had made a mistake and that I would not be using the firm. He was of course immediately mortified and contrite. He blustered excuses about having had a stressful day and said he would leave a super generous tip, but I knew (as you do, reading this) that if he could behave like this in front of a newly won client, the behaviour behind closed doors would not be kind, thoughtful or caring. I also know that my small decision did nothing to change the culture of the firm. My host went on to be “award-winning”, and a celebrated rain-maker in his firm, his harm enabled for more years to come by those excusing his weaknesses.
A workplace culture is observable. It always happens in plain sight, and the most important people in maintaining a dysfunctional culture are those who enable the harm to continue.
Just before Christmas I spoke to a General Counsel who had been informed that her chief executive had lost confidence in her judgement. This, as we know, is a pathetic and cowardly euphemism for being told he couldn’t do something he wanted to do. She had decided to leave and was negotiating her exit. My sense, sadly, was that she was also now trying to manage her own crisis of confidence as well as the uncertainty of what happens next.
I have a great deal of concern for the well-being of senior in-house lawyers facing up to bullying executive colleagues. These hyper-competitive environments where there is often a personality cult around the chief executive, are incredibly destructive. So why does it keep happening? It happens because Boards, especially non-executive directors, do not see the chief executive as a conduct risk if he is hurting people, only if he is hurting shareholder value.
A workplace culture is observable. It always happens in plain sight, and the most important people in maintaining a dysfunctional culture are those who enable the harm to continue.
The Prime Minister, the client partner in the fancy restaurant and the bullying chief executive are not kept in power because of their gifts, but because their weaknesses are excused.
We can change this. It is not inevitable, but we need to notice the harm, and then we need to believe that stopping the harm is more important than continuing the apparent success.
Take care. Paul xx
