Weeding out toxic culture in organisations

Introduction

What makes an environment toxic? Words like negativity, fear, discrimination, harassment, abusive and helplessness come to mind. In our vernacular, the ‘toxic’ label can be associated with any of these symptoms and is often foreshadowed by a sense that something is off – even if we can’t immediately pinpoint why.

I once joined an organisation that was highly praised for its operational resolve and effectiveness. When something needed done, they were the ones that people turned to for help. Yet over time, I noticed disturbing patterns of behaviour. Firstly, there existed a senior-junior class divide. For instance, the juniors were made to shoulder more of the laborious, mundane tasks. The rationale was that the seniors had already earned certain privileges in the workplace and now, it was the juniors’ turn. Secondly, there was an ‘ends-justify-the-means’ mentality. So long as the job was done, unethical behaviour and actions bordering on misconduct were tolerated or overlooked. Lastly, there was a common psyche that pervaded the leadership team. While they frequently got together for brainstorming sessions, part of their agenda was devising ways of doing things without getting caught. On hindsight, these were evidently signs of a toxic environment.

A toxic environment¹ harms productivity, morale and organisational effectiveness, and is anathema to knowledge management (KM) efforts. In this article, I hope to provide a perspective on a commonly experienced but lesser understood phenomenon of toxic culture in organisations, its impact on KM, and how organisations can deal with it.

In this article, we will use the term ‘culture’ to mean ‘workplace culture’ or ‘organisational culture’.

Indicators of toxic culture

What is toxic culture?

Culture², as defined by Williams and Dobson, is ‘the commonly held and relatively stable beliefs, attitudes, and values that exist within the organisation’. A popular view of workplace toxic culture is the prevalence of harassment, microaggressions, unequal treatment, or bad behaviour among³ employees⁴. One notable example was Uber’s toxic culture of gender discrimination and sexual harassment, resulting in its embroilment in legal disputes and criminal investigations⁵. This episode affected the organisation’s reputation and has made it harder for it to retain quality employees.

However, Toxic Culture is more than just discrimination or harassment as it may not necessarily be overt⁶. Moreover, it is essential to understand and recognise indicators of toxic culture so that steps can be taken early to arrest it. In this section, we shall consider three additional indicators of toxic culture.

Apathy

The first indicator is apathy which is characterised by indifference or a lack of concern in the workplace⁷. According to Shamin⁸, apathy is toxic as employees withdraw their commitment from the organisation. Furthermore, this results in employees putting in minimal effort at work and avoiding responsibilities. Employees may also start behaving in more transactional terms – ‘What is it in for me?’ Only with increased incentives would members be persuaded otherwise. Thus, dealing with apathy is challenging as the lack of buy-in from employees makes any efforts to improvements and long-term planning unsustainable⁹.

Hypocrisy

The second indicator of toxic culture is hypocrisy. While apathy generally tends towards inaction by employees, hypocrisy results in actions that are misaligned to the organisation’s espoused mission and values. One example of hypocrisy is when an organisation’s leadership makes a verbal commitment to engendering more inclusivity in the workplace but discriminates against groups of employees¹⁰. Any subsequent actions by its leadership would be perceived as disingenuous, resulting in an erosion of trust within the organisation.

Acts of omission – A subtle form of hypocrisy

Acts of omission are a subtle form of hypocrisy. While they can also be motivated by apathy, deliberate omissions reflect hypocrisy. For example, in the first few hours of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, the USSR suppressed information of the incident’s severity and risked Pripyat’s population to prolonged radiation exposure. In prioritising social order and political stability, they violated its duty of care to its citizens¹¹, Therefore, when organisations fail to address issues that conflicts with its mission and values, it breeds hypocrisy¹².

Neglect of societal well-being

The third indicator is a neglect of societal well-being. According to Horne, an organisation is a ‘bad barrel’ – unlike a ‘bad apple’ for a person – because of toxic influences which negatively impacts society¹³ The abovementioned Chernobyl incident was also an example where the public’s well-being was neglected, further reinforcing the USSR’s toxic culture of governance. Another example was the Wells Fargo Cross-Selling scandal where a banking institution neglected the interests of its customers by creating fake accounts using existing customers’ details without their consent. This harmed customers’ credit ratings and caused them undue distress. One U.S. Attorney pointed out that the bank’s incentive structure encouraged a cheat-to-compete culture at the expense of its customers¹⁴. Therefore, an organisation’s reputation suffers when it fails to consider the interests of external stakeholders and society.

Why is toxic culture detrimental to knowledge management?

To evaluate toxic culture’s impact on KM, we consider De Long and Fahey’s discussion of how organisational culture shapes knowledge-related behaviours¹⁵. Moreover, the previously-mentioned indicators – overt toxic behaviour, apathy, hypocrisy, and neglect of societal well-being – would provide the context of discussion on toxic culture.

De Long and Fahey’s discussion on culture and knowledge

De Long and Fahey identified four ways in which culture influences knowledge-related behaviours. Firstly, culture shapes assumptions about what knowledge is valued – Is expertise in procedural knowledge rewarded? Are creative expressions of new knowledge supported? Secondly, culture dictates how knowledge is distributed across the organisation – Are contributions to knowledge sharing incentivised? Do knowledge-hoarding behaviours correlate to an individual’s source of power? Thirdly, culture creates the context for social interaction – Is there an assumed power distance between superiors and subordinates which inhibits communication? Fourthly, culture shapes creation and adoption of new knowledge – Does the organisation encourage exploitation of knowledge from its external environment? How willing are employees in assimilating new knowledge at work?

In this section, we adapt De Long and Fahey’s culture-knowledge framework to illustrate how toxic culture impacts KM efforts (Refer to Figure 1).

1. Toxic culture distorts how knowledge is valued

Firstly, toxic culture distorts how knowledge is objectively perceived and valued. For example, hypocrisy leads to the suppression of knowledge which exposes mistakes or raises uncomfortable truths; instead, the organisation advocates knowledge and KM systems that focuses on performance benchmarks or political narratives rather than authentic organisational learning. Apathy also reduces the value of knowledge. According to Polchar¹⁶, apathy is closely linked to short-termism where employees tend to focus on the most immediate tasks at hand, failing to consider the long-term impact of their actions. When an organisation disregards knowledge learnt, it ends up being reactive to circumstances and prone to repeating past mistakes.

2. Toxic culture damages social interaction and knowledge sharing

Secondly, toxic culture makes social interaction unsafe and dysfunctional which impedes knowledge sharing. For example, overt toxic behaviours such as bullying or harassment leaves employees with a sense of helplessness and distrust, causing them to self-censor or withdraw from social settings. According to Karadas, when employees lose their agency, they are inclined to hide knowledge as a coping mechanism¹⁷. Apathy also affects the sharing of knowledge as employees would rather withhold feedback and ‘play along’ than to jeopardise their personal interests. Consequently, the organisation ends up with fragmented social networks, knowledge silos, and becomes easily subjected to groupthink. As trust and psychological safety declines, KM initiatives become formalistic or underutilised.

3. Toxic culture discourages knowledge renewal

Thirdly, toxic culture reduces an organisation’s capacity for knowledge renewal. As seen in Uber’s example, a toxic environment often leads to high turnover or disengaged employees which results in a loss of tacit knowledge and hinders efforts at knowledge renewal¹⁸.

In the case of hypocrisy, when leaders appear insincere, employees will be less receptive to direction and new initiatives; they revert to familiar, and perhaps outdated, patterns of problem solving. The longer an organisation remains in a state of knowledge stagnation, the higher would be its inertia to organisational learning and knowledge renewal¹⁹. Knowledge renewal is also significantly affected when it neglects the interests of the community. When an organisation becomes self-serving, it fails to consider knowledge that would be beneficial to external stakeholders²⁰. Over time, it becomes harder for the organisation to adapt and maintain their competitive advantage, trailing behind more adaptive, learning-oriented competitors.

Weeding out toxic culture – A KM approach

Having examined how toxic culture undermines Knowledge Management (KM) — from distorting how knowledge is valued, to impeding knowledge sharing and renewal — the next logical question is: what can organisations do about it?

In this article, a root-cause analysis of toxic culture was omitted as an organisation’s toxic culture could stem from a confluence of factors, warranting a more holistic approach beyond the scope of this article. Likewise, recommending a prescriptive list of steps risks alienating readers if it fails to relate to their situation. Instead, this article recommends a KM-informed approach to weeding out toxic culture. By adopting this approach, organisations would be well placed to address toxicity in a more contextually relevant and measured manner.

Diagnosing the problem

Having an objective discussion about why an organisation’s culture is toxic is even more challenging than appraising an employee. Unless one could present concrete evidence of toxicity, feedback may be dismissed as musings from a disgruntled individual or construed as an employee sowing seeds of discord, resulting in his or her termination at work. Furthermore, when toxicity is normalised over time, leadership becomes blindsided to it and the problem perpetuates.

Here, the use of a knowledge audit²¹ could serve as a diagnostic tool in surfacing knowledge gaps and cultural blind spots. The purpose of a Knowledge Audit is to ensure that an organization has the right knowledge resources, processes, and systems in place to achieve its goals²². Furthermore, to improve the value of an organisation’s knowledge assets, one must be willing to accept and remove any impediments, including a toxic culture. Such an audit should not be perceived as a ‘witch hunt’ but more of a non-partisan, neutral approach to diagnosing the problem²³. At the end of a Knowledge Audit, findings and improvement opportunities are presented to management, to get buy-in, and hopefully long-term commitment, resolving the problems plaguing the organisation.

Creating conducive spaces for communication

The next step is to create conditions where people can speak truthfully without fear of reprisal. Culture cannot change unless communication is honest, inclusive, and psychologically safe²⁴. Below are some suggestions of KM practices which could help organisations create and sustain conducive spaces for communication.

One practice is the use of knowledge cafés²⁵ or facilitated dialogues, where small groups could gather to listen and share issues of workplace toxicity in a low-risk setting. These sessions would allow for introspection while working towards a shared understanding of how toxicity is harmful in the workplace. Storytelling is also a powerful tool to facilitate knowledge transfer. Like Knowledge Cafés, employees are invited to share their personal stores of toxic culture and how it has affected their productivity and effectiveness. Stories could be anonymised and curated to identify deep-seated cultural issues. Implementing these practices would also signal that the organisation is receptive to feedback. Technology and digital platforms must also support this openness and be designed with inclusivity and confidentiality in mind. If they are seen as surveillance tools or performance monitors, it would be counterproductive to communication and openness.

Engendering commitment to detoxification

Diagnosing toxicity and creating safe communication spaces are necessary but insufficient if there is no commitment to change. KM can serve as both a catalyst and a scaffold for engendering commitment to detoxification. How so?

Firstly, there must be commitment to stewardship of an organisation’s knowledge assets. This involves practices and norms that support knowledge capture, sharing and renewal. In contrast, toxic cultures which breed apathy and fear lead to knowledge erosion instead. By embedding knowledge stewardship in an organisation’s practices such as use of collaborative tools and recognition of knowledge contributions, organisations affirm the value of cultivating its knowledge assets²⁶.

Secondly, there must be commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) which are essential to building trust in the workplace²⁷. On the other hand, toxic cultures often marginalise minority perspectives or reward conformity. DEI is important as it supports knowledge flows, allowing the organisation to realise the full potential of its workplace talent. When knowledge systems and communities are inclusive, they also foster psychological safety and counteract the relational breakdowns common in toxic environments.

Finally, there must be commitment to building KM systems that are aligned with the organisation’s mission and values. When knowledge systems are merely bureaucratic or disconnected from strategic goals, they become hollow. As discussed, such cultures are toxic and are marked by hypocrisy or societal neglect. In contrast, systems that support long-term value creation for its stakeholders, and espouses ethical conduct, are more effective in weeding out toxic culture.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed several indicators of Toxic Culture, such as apathy, hypocrisy, and a neglect of societal well-being. Applying De Long and Fahey’s culture-knowledge framework, we evaluated how Toxic culture negatively affects organisations from a KM perspective – it distorts the value of knowledge, damages knowledge sharing, and discourages knowledge renewal.

To weed out toxic culture, this article proposes three guiding principles alongside respective organisational agency and efforts. Firstly, diagnosing the problem allows the organisation to understand the extent of the situation and cater resources to deal with it. Secondly, creating conducive spaces for communication improves employee receptivity to these efforts. However, detoxification requires more than just diagnosing and open communication — lastly, it requires engendering long-term commitment to efforts, such as stewardship of organisational knowledge assets, promoting trust through DEI, and ensuring KM systems are aligned with an organisation’s mission and values.

Just as no crop field is free from pests and weeds, no organisation is spared from toxic culture. It is a stubborn virus capable of infecting every aspect of an organisation, yet with the right approach, it can be managed and treated.

Header image source: Generated by Amoz Yeo using MidJourney V6, ChatGPT.

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