In their book, Toxic Workplace!, Mitchell Kusy and Elizabeth Holloway define toxic personality as “anyone who demonstrates a pattern of counter productive, work behaviour that debilitate individuals, teams, and even organizations over the long term.” Harboring negative feelings could prove detrimental to not just others. It could linger within and ruin you, even without your knowledge.
I once had a manager for whom every meeting was a battle ground, an opportunity to demonstrate how he was better than others. Slowly but surely, people started avoiding him. When he began to speak, everyone would simply disengage. Work suffered initially, and the team, eventually. Some good people even left.
Time and again, we have been troubled by this question: what went wrong? What is it that made things go from bad to worse? Or worse, how do you know for sure that it was not your fault?
time to face the mirror
Heard somebody whispering and concluded that it was about you? Every time somebody at work is having a ‘personal’ conversation, do you feel the need to interfere and point out that they should be ‘working’? Somebody has an opinion that you do not agree with, do you stomp your feet and walk out of the room? Do you have a hard time appreciating others, but are quick at finding faults? These are just questions that you need to be true to. If the answer to any of these is a yes, there might just be the need to recalibrate.
the need to self-promote is masked
It all begins with a deep sense of insecurity often masked by your need to be right every single time. This plays out in different versions with different leaders, but the aftereffects are all the same. One single negative thought can ruin a beautifully crafted speech and a single doubt is usually the prime culprit. It brings along an unreasonable plague of thoughts that hits you with the pressure to succeed. But somewhere under the surface rests a fear.
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Denne historien er fra September - October 2018-utgaven av The Smart Manager.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Building A Quality Culture
A strong company culture defined by its values, beliefs, and behaviors, has a profound impact on its products and services. More so in today’s VUCA world, where to stay relevant and maintain a competitive edge, it is critical for organizations to build a culture that focuses on quality. Suresh Lulla, author of Quality Fables, elucidates through significant examples how creating a culture of quality is imperative to driving success and productivity.
Customers For Life
The history of General Motors in India can be traced back to the 1920s, when it became the first automotive company to set up an assembly plant in the country. The relationship since then has not been as fruitful as GM would have hoped. GM’s flagship brand, Chevrolet, was introduced in India to build upon the success of the popular Opel marque. However, success has been fleeting at best—an issue that GM India is determined to rectify. It aims to do so by adopting a two-pronged approach: using customer feedback to influence product development, and delivering a superior sales-to-service experience.
The Digital Shift
… technology will radically disrupt HR in the near future. Indeed, it is already changing the way HR works and the role it plays and opening the door to a new type of “digital HR” function.1 The rise of digital and social media is changing the dynamics of HR and creating new ways of hiring, engaging, and retaining employees.
The Story Of Telling
“The best brands are built on great stories,”* this remark by Ian Rowden best captures the strategy of diligent brand building. Much more than attractive logos or the products themselves, what builds a brand is how successfully a story is woven around it. Brand marketers have to be good storytellers indeed.
Complexity Is Simpler Than You Think
Kay Kendall and Glenn Bodinson, authors of Leading the Malcolm Baldrige Way, shatter myths about excellence models such as Baldrige and EFQM.
Proponents of Isolation Never Become Victors
Multilateralism in the political and economic space has always led to frameworks that favor the mighty. WTO was no exception. With agriculture kept out of its purview, it could never become a truly fair and free trading system. China was the only large emerging economy that exploited relative openness in low-cost manufactured goods to take full advantage of the system. Other emerging economies could at best garner minor gains.
A History Lesson (From Year One) for Trump and the Brexit Crowd: Isolationism Has Never Worked!
Professor Stephane Garelli on growing isolationism.
A Win-Win Game
Business is not a sport where some stakeholder has to lose or fare badly for others to do well. Building an atmosphere of trust and transparency between all stakeholders will help companies retain them even during adverse times.
A Sustainable Model
With a total market value of $4.3 trillion and an employment base of at least 1.3 million direct employees and millions of others indirectly employed, platforms have become an important economic force.*Companies today are constantly looking for ways to build platforms—Infosys Ltd announced its plans of monetizing its platforms to make them a $2 billion business by March 2021. But are all platform businesses successful?
Custom Made
…three in four consumers said they receive too many emails from brands, and one-fifth said they could not handle the current volume…69 per cent have ‘unfollowed’ brands on social media, closed their accounts or cancelled subscriptions.*In these times, when the market is flooded with products and services, the most efficent way to engage customers is to offer them customized content. To achieve this, brands need to focus on observing the nuances of individual preferences.
