Inside Out Culture
Cath Bishop and Colin Ellis - two people who have been at the heart of workplace culture for over 3 decades host a regular podcast that offers an insider’s view on culture and provides tangible actions that you can take on the outside.
As best-selling authors and consultants who work with cultures around the world, they not only talk about what's happening in the world of work right now, but also provide evidence and commentary to help you change the way you do things too.
From kindness to toxicity, from values to high-performance, Cath and Colin discuss a breadth of topics relevant to the way work gets done. Both are keen to help leaders, managers and colleagues gain competence and confidence to contribute more positively and proactively to their workplace environments.
Please do send in your questions for Cath and Colin to answer. You can email them at insideoutculture@gmail.com or message them on LinkedIn.
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Inside Out Culture
Detoxing Your Culture
Toxic culture is the biggest risk that every organisation around the world has. It can ruin lives, ruin reputations and of course, ruin results.
To celebrate the launch of Colin’s new book ‘Detox Your Culture’ we talk about what toxic culture is, the conditions that cause it to arise and what organisations can do to mitigate the risk of it ever occurring in the first place.
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Join us as we reveal strategies to close the gap and craft a workplace where values are not just spoken, but lived and breathed, paving the way for a more authentic and engaging organisational culture.
Instagram: @insideoutculture
Email your questions to: insideoutculture@gmail.com
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Welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast, where we look at insides of working culture and provide ideas, insights and actions for you to take on the outside.
Cath:I'm Colin Ellis and I'm Cath Bishop, and in each episode we'll examine a different question or a different organization, and we'll use case studies, research and our own insights and experiences to help you change the way things get done in your world.
Colin:We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please like, subscribe and, of course, let us know what you think. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Inside Out Culture podcast, and today we are talking about detoxing your culture. I feel like there's a lot we can talk about, Cath.
Colin:So this question of toxic culture is still frequenting newspaper headlines and you see it in every section. You see it in the sports section, you see it in the society and politics section, you see it in the business section. We've had numerous examples over the summer. We've had numerous examples over the summer. We've had strictly and the furore there, um, hitting the headlines about, yeah, toxic cultures inside those dancing practice rooms. We've seen issues come up around sports, the olympics, and we've actually just had the grenfell report come out this week and that makes really hard reading where you see toxic cultures across manufacturers, governments, you know everybody involved really. And so that's what we want to do is to think about what is a toxic culture? Do we understand it enough? And then what are the things that we need to be doing as leaders, managers, colleagues, in order to guard better against it? So how do you define what toxic culture means? It's quite a broad term. It can look really different, can't it, in different contexts. How do you start to define this, colin?
Colin:Well, I think that's true. I think it does look different in different contexts, Cath, and I think one of the things I'm always at pains to point out is just because somebody says something's toxic doesn't necessarily mean that it is, but it's a signal that something should be investigated. And often when we think about toxic cultures we kind of go to the most harrowing elements of that bullying, harassment, racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, ageism. You know kind of assault, you know physical, verbal. It can be as simple and I use that word advisedly as a lack of trust, poor communication, hubris, inequity of pay, poor work-life balance. You know, we've had the.
Colin:Australia are the latest company to implement the rights to disconnect laws. We're now legislating culture because we don't trust business to not impinge on time. So you know there are real gradings. I always say there's like three grades. There's like a level where it's consistently combatant, where everything feels like a fight, everything feels like a battle. There's a corrosive culture and that's really around bullying, harassment, where we're slowly ebbing away at someone's kind of personal physical safety and then there's harmful. So yeah, it exists at different levels for different people. I feel.
Colin:And you've been really collating stories, information, details, advice, tips, strategies, tools in a brilliant book that's just come out Detox your Culture. So we're going to come. I'm going to ask you a bit more about that sort of later in our discussion. But, yeah, one of the things that comes out of your descriptions there is that we are thinking about human behaviours and to understand how toxic a culture is, we need to be tuning into that, we need to be noticing that, caring about that, rewarding or shaping or changing or commenting or acknowledging behaviours.
Colin:And it's almost when that level is absent from our goal setting, from our conversations, from how we want to improve, how we have meetings, when we don't talk about the behavioural aspects, then chances are something's happening under the surface we're all aware of but we're not dealing with, and then that kind of escalates often doesn't it to a point then we've hit a crisis, and so I still see there's this sort of transactional world in lots of organisations.
Colin:We're talking, talking about tasks, we're talking about numbers, we're ticking things off. We're not talking about human behavior and how we went about those tasks, the experience we created together as teams in pursuit of the numbers that we're now looking at in the spreadsheet. It's this sort of disconnect, but you know, an instrumental view it's sometimes described of as the organisation, as something quite clinical, quite material, and ignoring this really, really important human behavioural aspect of what's going on. And that's for me a sign of a culture that isn't in a great space is where nobody's really able to discuss role model and be comfortable calling out behavioural issues. You know it's almost a non-topic and that means then you're no longer shaping it positively. What do you think are some of the sort of key things that we need to do more of to guard against a toxic culture?
Colin:Given it's quite broad. How do we help people navigate something that they perhaps feel quite uncertain of, unsure of, because it's not one thing, is it? It could be lack of trust, could be lack of inclusion, could be something really clear, a breach of a rule over here around safety or respect.
Colin:But, given that breadth, what are the approaches that leaders should be following, thinking about involving their teams in Well, I think, Cath, it starts with as simple as recognising that every human being within the workplace is just trying to do the best with what they can with what they've got, and I think there's a real lack of humanity sometimes in our organisations. Empathy is missing a lot of the time and empathy is really really hard to do, but it's really really worthwhile. Interestingly, there was an interview with Luis de la Fuente, who is the national coach of Spain, who won the World Cup, and we talked about him on the podcast. There was an interview with him in the Guardian today and he said you know, he said something along the lines of you know, it's okay to show humanity, it's not a weakness, and I think often our workplaces they lack humanity and this is what leads to toxicity.
Colin:Now, there's still this view and we discussed it on our questions episode last week around the sense of fluffiness, the fact that it's triggering is humanity is that basic sense of every human is here to do the best that they can with what they've got.
Colin:And what we need to do is set expectations, not only about the work that we expect, the quality levels, all of these kinds of things, but also about the behavior that we demonstrate towards each other, and so every time I work with an organization Cath, on their culture the first thing that I do is I spend literally spend half a day almost just on humanity, emotional intelligence, building connections between people, because when you can see that the person that you're working with is someone's father, son, daughter, mother, you know, whatever it might be, you see them in a completely different light, different light, and I think that's where it starts. You know, when we're mitigating the risk of toxicity is to recognize you're working with other human beings who are just trying to do the best they can with what they've got and that is for me part of a, you know, more holistic approach.
Colin:Perhaps you know a whole, a wholeness approach to what, what, who we are. So I'm not just a lawyer or an athlete or an engineer or whatever it is. On my job title, yeah, as you say, I'm a person that, as well as being a lawyer or an engineer, I'm a mother and a daughter, and you know, I've got these challenges here, and health things are important to me and I like to play netball, whatever it might be. It's that kind of wholeness that actually enables us usually to turn up in a much better way in what we have to do as a lawyer, an engineer, whatever it is. But it also then means we're in this very human context rather than a kind of machine-like context that we've been in before, and for me, this often ties into one of the angles I like to come into. It is to be thinking about what does success look like? So, not in terms of just the numbers 10% growth, this kind of sales target but actually situating those numbers in a human context. So who's going to be impacted by those? What will you know? How will that help this community, these clients, this society? How are we impacted by this, when, if you achieve all of these numbers, what's the human results at the end of that? And to always kind of keep putting in the human stories behind things. So we have that sense of we're part of something greater than ourselves, we're connected, we're clearer about what the purpose is, and that's, you know, again, the power of purpose is something that is often a factor in a culture. That that not toxic, because we know why we're here and why it matters and why we need to deal with difficult stuff and why we might need to change our behavior, because otherwise we won't have the impact on society or on our customers that we want to have.
Colin:And so I, you know, often find that it's building out and deepening that picture of success, bringing in more intrinsic measures, the meaning for this, the human impact that something's going to have, how we're going to learn and grow through what we're doing, how we're going to contribute in some, maybe small way to the communities we're involved with, society, perhaps beyond that, maybe the next generation. And so it's that sort of lengthening of time perspective that I think is really important, so that we know why we're doing something today and why we shouldn't cut corners, why disrespecting somebody is actually going to have so many consequences for us. So I find sort of building a bigger picture is really important, and it doesn't matter where you are in the organisation. You then need to know how you connect into that and thinking about what I call the long wind, but this sort of bigger sense of why we're here, that can be a useful curb on those difficult behaviours.
Colin:Because I think one of the other issues is in organisations. If you've got something happening you don't like, you can sort of say don't do that and you mandate that. But actually a much more powerful way is for that person to understand how it doesn't serve them and it doesn't serve the community and actually it's going to lead to lots of negative consequences. So how we manage bad behavior, I think is really important as well, but we need to do it in a way that will actually create the change, rather than telling somebody off, shaming them, humiliating them and then telling them not to do something often isn't very effective and that's how we see sometimes cultures that struggle to change even when they know they need to. What sort of things? When you've been in a situation where there's like a toxic team or a kind of organisation and leaders are thinking what do we need to do, how, what sort of practical things do you help them to kind of plan and work out?
Colin:Well, you know, the root cause often is the behavior of an individual or a group of individuals, and so often the first conversation is with the HR department to talk about well, what's the jeopardy? You know kind of what. You know what's the consequence if you behave poorly? If we truly want to change the culture, you know and I mentioned just before we started recording, I read the Grenfell report last night that there has to be jeopardy, there has to be accountability. We still see it within the post office now. There are still people on the payroll that contributed to the toxic culture, and so at that point, you know, we can't go kind of deal with our cultural trauma in order to be able to redefine, reset and create something for the future.
Colin:Too often one of the things that I see either in my work or when I'm doing my research is and you alluded to it is there's this sense from leaders that, oh, it's up to the next generation to change it. My point is always no, it's up to you to work with the next generation to help them to undo some of the things that you've implemented. Not only do you learn about yourself, but you create this fantastic evolution pathway for the culture into the future. We're not giving you know, kind of, we're not passing on to them a deflated rugby ball for them to catch. You know it's actually pumped up and it's ready to go. So I think you know, when I actually look at the strategies, I make culture easy to understand, because most people still put it in this too hard, too difficult basket. You know, you and I, whenever we do speaking engagements, whenever we do programs, you know people are like this is really great. Finally, I've got this understanding of what it means to create great culture.
Colin:But then they need the actual tactics and the strategies to be able to do something different immediately. Otherwise it will always stay in that basket. People will never, ever deal with it. They'll never pick up the baton and go okay, I'm mixing my metaphors all over the place, but they'll never say right, this is something that we can actually do something with.
Colin:What's the first thing that we're going to do? What's second thing? You know, over over the summer I worked with a team in a pharmaceutical industry and their engagement score went up 10 in two months because of the work that they did. And all of a sudden, you've got this real sense of optimism, this real sense of positivity and the commentary in the in their engagement survey was like we've made a good start, now we know what to do to keep it going, and so there's less of a reliance on somebody to come in and help you re-energize, you know and more of a realization that we now have the skills ourselves to be able to do culture in the way you know kind of that we want, such that we get maximum happiness out of our job. I always say you get the culture that you choose to build, and when you teach people how to do it themselves, then there's really no excuse for building a great culture every day.
Colin:What sort of things Can you give us examples of in that pharmaceutical company? What sort of things they started doing or chose? Give us some examples.
Colin:Yeah, so I teach people how to communicate with each other. So there has to be this recognition that there are different personalities working in the workplace and therefore there has to be different ways of communicating with each other. It's being able to recognize this as empathy in action. Right, we talk about empathy, but in practice it's me recognizing Cath as a slightly different personality than I do and me adjusting my communication style, and that's a skill in itself. So I teach that.
Colin:We created a vision statement, short, sharp, five words, easy to remember, something that they can keep front of mind, and every strategic decision has to line up with the vision. So now they're asking themselves the question if we undertake this, how does it contribute to the vision? So all of a sudden it becomes very, very easy prioritize work. And it does become easy because they're like it doesn't line up to the vision. And then another thing that we did is we created new cultural norms. We said we you know, I get teams to list here's the dumb stuff that we do, here's the good stuff that we do. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. We don't, you know, we want to keep all of the good stuff. I say, okay, well, let's address all of the good stuff. I say okay, well, let's address all of these things that we don't like.
Colin:And typically when you work with office-based teams emails, meetings they're relatively straightforward to change, but you have to make an agreement that actually our cultural norm is to value and respect each other's time. Okay, well, what does that mean in practice? And you get them to list five to 10 things and then immediately they can go away and say, all right, well, we're going to have 20 minute meetings. All right, we're going to stop copying people into emails. You know, one team reduced their email that I work with reduced their email by 30% in six months just because they I helped them create a new cultural norm. So it's these kinds of practical things that not only enhance the wellbeing and the sense of achievement that people get, but they also then de-risk the culture from ever becoming toxic, because people know the actions they need to take to maintain that sense of vibrancy.
Colin:Brilliant. So that's really why we started the podcast as well, isn't it? To help people think about culture, get more comfortable with it, get some practical ideas, have a space, ask us some questions and, yeah, to kind of really make sure it doesn't get put in that too difficult basket. Now, another thing that you've been working on for the last year or so to help leaders have better ideas of how to approach this and practical advice, and that's all come out in your book, which has literally come out a few days ago, and it's called Detox your Culture, deliver Results, retain Staff and Strengthen your Organization's Reputation. And so, yeah, tell us a bit about why you chose to spend all that time and I know it takes a lot of time to write a book. Tell us a bit about why you've written this now.
Colin:Well, I wrote Culture Fix in 2019, Cath, which was kind of a blueprint, to sort of say. Here's the way you go about building culture, and very much inspired by the work of other culture authors. So, you know, people like Erin Mayer wrote the Culture Map, yourself wrote the Long Win, daniel Coyle wrote the Culture Code, and what they provide is this real context for why building culture is important. And yet, you know, I still read all of these stories. One in four people dreads going to work. People with high levels of stress are 22 times more likely to think suicidal thoughts. Employee turnover triggered by toxic culture costs business $22 billion a year. So what I wanted to do was take some of those statistics and almost create a risk management plan for organizations to sort of say toxic culture is not inevitable, it doesn't have to happen.
Colin:I think sometimes, people there's almost this expectation that, oh, from time to time that's going to happen and we'll deal with it when it arises me and a real desire to continue to educate leaders on not only why culture building is important so that's to add to the work that's already out there but also here are some very, very practical things that you need to be thinking about and that you need to be doing in order to get to the point where the culture doesn't become toxic. You know so someone said to me it's like oh, so I only buy this when I've got a toxic culture. I'm like, no, no, no, if you waited until then it's probably too late. You buy it. You know, when you're even thinking about how do I keep my culture great. Well, one of the things you do is you get the book and you can go down and go well, we're doing that, great, we're doing that. Oh, we're not doing that, we're not thinking about that.
Colin:You know the other thing, the other reason, Cath, is that I saw a spokesman and it was a spokesperson talk about a toxic culture in New Zealand, a particularly harrowing case and I'm like how is it that leaders avoid accountability for toxic culture by sending a spokesperson? And it's things like that that made me angry. I was like I really do have to write the book here to make sure that they understand that. What's the response when things do turn toxic? But my hope is that people read it and get a sense of here's the work that I need to do to make sure this never happens in my place of work.
Colin:So I've read it. It's a great read, totally recommend it. And it has what I love it's got loads of case studies throughout, loads of examples, and you realise, yeah, just how prevalent this is and at the same time, because of all the practical strategies you offer, you also realise how necessary it is. I think that's our frustration, isn't it? Again, if we are all aware of this, if we understand it's just part of our role, you know we're always shaping culture and if we choose not to, then we're still affecting the culture, just probably not in a positive way. And what are the things that you know when leaders are kind of? You know some of the feedback you've had. What are the things that people are kind of you know talking to you about the book? What is it they're saying? Oh, you know, this surprised me. Or you know what sort of feedback have you had kind of about it? What are people kind of coming back to you with?
Colin:Principally, I would say that it's brought clarity to areas of culture that they didn't necessarily have. So I write you know, there's a chapter on purpose and there's a chapter on values. And I'm just about to start working with a startup and the founders had created a purpose and created a values. And one of the guys who approached me having read the book, he was just like I had no idea that that's how they were used. I'm like I'm just interested, like why did you create them? He's like well, it's what you do, isn't it? And I still think there's that sense of culture. So I think, you know, on the one hand, people have been kind of grateful for the knowledge, grateful for the clarity. There was one potential client or someone who's read the book and he said, based on what I read, he said I had no way of understanding what kind of culture that I had. He was like you make it really clear, because I talk about the fact there are five types of cultures. He's like you make it really, really clear. He's like now I'm able to walk into the office and say, right, it's a pleasant culture. Right, it feels combatant today. Right, it feels vibrant. And what I've been able to take from that is the strategies that I need to employ in order to shift the dial even a little bit.
Colin:And the last bit of feedback that I got was around evolution of culture, because one of the things I'm at pain to talk about and you and I talk about this, you know, you talk about it in the long win is cultures don't change, they evolve, and what you can't afford to do is just expect them to evolve positively. You know, and I was talking to this, he was on the board of directors. He said he said I said I hadn't thought about that at all. He's like I just assume that when we hire the best people, the culture will, you know, kind of evolve positively. I was like no, it's not, it's not the case.
Colin:You have to do specific work, not only on the culture but only on yourself as well, to make sure that you're evolving with the times. You know, one of the things I talk about in the book is different generations in the workplace, and I'm not keen at putting people into boxes, but you can only have empathy for another person if you understand the generation in which they were born, kind of the things that they've been exposed to, that you haven't such that we actually grow, evolve, build together. So that's some of the feedback. I think, more than anything else, people have been really, really grateful to have the clarity not only about these specific elements of culture that you and I talk about in the podcast, but also actually what they can do about it to bring about the change that they see.
Colin:Yeah, and it's interesting you mentioned the intergenerational piece. I think we should probably have a conversation a bit more depth on that in one of our upcoming sessions that I'm seeing a lot of research now coming out around generation alpha and you know, just just as when people have maybe started thinking about the millennials, on gen z, now there's a sort of oh wait for it. There's there's a whole different context now for people who have kind of grown up, born, uh, since 2000. So I again always feel really uncomfortable stereotypes. But you're right, there's a context, there's a historical, political, social context for people born in particular generation.
Colin:You know people who've experienced whatever it is the Ukraine war, who've grown up with Brexit, who you know all of these things that shift some expectations, and I'm really always interested in sort of the differing views about work norms and what somebody wants from their career, because I think that's the thing that employers are now a bit nervous of and needing to think very carefully about, because I think it's going to look quite different by the time, uh, well, yeah, as they start entering the the workplace. What are the key books that influenced you in writing yours around culture? So we both like books. You mentioned the Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, so we'll put a kind of link to that. That's one that I like, one of the ones I go back to quite a bit, and Erin Meyer's Culture Map.
Colin:Yeah, yeah, which I really like the culture map, because what that does it provides context to understand how social cultures have an impact on working cultures, Cath. So I talk about that in the book specifically to give people a sense of, well, how is working culture built? Because, again, it's, you know, not that leaders should study anthropology, but certainly consultants and speakers and authors like us definitely should is, you know, really provide that sense. But also it's books like Mindset by Carol Dweck. You know I'm a big fan of that. We talked about it in our books episode. Tony Hsieh wrote Happiness. Thich Nhat Hanh wrote I can't remember the exact name. He used to work at Google and he talked about you know kind of how to bring emotional intelligence into the workplace.
Colin:Amy Edmondson's books have been a constant source of inspiration. Amy Edmondson's, you know, a perfect example of someone who has been talking about psychological safety for probably almost two decades. You know, one of my mates said to me he's like your life seems exhausting. He's like, do you never just think of just giving it all up? I was like, well, no, because you know, I feel like I've got a message that people need to hear and I want to keep adding value in the hope that I just I get to someone different kind of every day. And you know, you look at people like Amy Edmonton. You look at people like Brene Brown on vulnerability. You know Brene Brown was talking about vulnerability for 15 years before people took her seriously. So the words that they write are an inspiration and the people that they are are an inspiration, Cath. And so you know, for me it's finding those books that can add to my own thinking, challenge my own thinking. You know, like I like Yuval, noah, harari's books, you know, and Sapiens.
Colin:Yes, wow, yeah, very book provoking, yeah, and in that bigger context of humanity, not even just society, he's thinking humanity, millennia, of human progress and what characterises us. Yeah, I love his writing.
Colin:Yeah, and all of those things you know. Again, if I can read that huge, thick book, you know I read Ray Dalio Principles. You know someone who has got a new own company, bridgewater Associates, got a fabulous culture and he wrote this really big, thick book. But I see it as my responsibility to read that, make some notes, distill it down into core themes Don't let AI do it, it's my own learning as well and then present it back in a way that makes sense to people so that they can better understand human dynamics. You know and I've talked on the podcast in the past I'm a relatively basic and inverted commas. You know I like to use language that I feel is easy to understand at the first time of reading so that people can really get a sense of what's immediately possible. And yeah, so those are some of the books that have inspired me.
Colin:Great. So we always like to offer some practical tips. So I think you withdraw largely on your book, but give us perhaps what that first step might be, a sort of action If you want to think about detoxing your culture. I mean, one action is buying your book, obviously, and then you know what would you recommend people to do as the first step?
Colin:Well, for me, catherine I mentioned this at the start is develop an interest in human dynamics, and you don't have to go on a course and you don't have to read loads and loads of stuff you know, but recognise that you know. Loads and loads of stuff, you know, but recognise that you know. The thing to do is, if you make time to build a relationship with another human being, then the capacity for empathy grows, and empathy is the glue that really binds great cultures together. So do actually make relationship building a priority.
Colin:Yeah, I absolutely love that. I think, you know, we've got to really switch away from tasks as a priority and thinking about the relationships through which we might deliver some tasks, but to really focus on how have I done this week, have I done today? And you know, deepening, strengthening, broadening relationships. So absolutely, it's a great action. And so what we want people to do is to then get curious about what sort of culture you have. So you might want to look at the five types of culture that Colin talks about in his book and has been writing about. But take a step back, be a fly on the wall. Think about someone coming for the first time. What would they notice about how things get done? So get curious about the type of culture you have and then uncover we want people really to sort of uncover what might be those toxic elements that lurk within the culture.
Colin:Yeah, because I think they're often not as visible as people think that they are. And it can just be somebody made a complaint about something, or someone shared with a friend that they didn't feel safe to raise something. They can be incredibly minor, but they still warrant investigation. And I don't mean a formal investigation, I don't mean bringing a load of auditors in, but it's worth just asking the question because, left unchecked, then these things will just grow and grow and get worse and before you know it, your culture will be in the media and you'll be asking yourself the question well, how did we get here? And it's because you didn't actually take the time to uncover what was behind the way that an individual felt.
Colin:Yeah, it is often these things they seem small, but in human terms, so if we put a different measure on it, they're really significant. They really impact someone's experience in the workplace. So, yeah, actions around really focusing on relationship building, getting curious about the sort of culture you're in. Are you aware of that, are you noticing it? And then, yeah, uncover some of those behaviours that are maybe planting some seeds of what could become toxic if we don't notice and adjust them. So, great conversation. Congratulations on your book publication, thank you, and do send in any questions that you've got around. Culture We'll be. Yeah, we've got no shortage of topics to dive into and looking forward to the next conversation.
Colin:Thanks, Cath.
Cath:Thanks for listening to today's Inside Out Culture Podcast.
Colin:Please remember to like, subscribe and, of course, share with others who you think may be interested.
