S1E2 The Needs of the Many

Welcome to Everything Is A People Problem; a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people-centric solution with host Dia Zafer-Joyce. 

In this episode, Dia explains the concept of toxic individuality and how it thrives in an unhealthy work environment. Good News: leaders can do something about it! Listen along to learn how to transfer that toxicity into trust so that they become a meaningful contributor to their professional community.

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Transcript

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Hi there. Welcome to Everything is a People Problem, a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people centric solution. I'm your host, Dia Zafer Joyce. Let's talk about people. 

Welcome or welcome back. I'm Dia, and I'm so glad that you're joining me today for Everything is a People Problem.  Before we jump into our spicy topic of toxic individualism, mmm, I know, right?  I want to tell you a story of young enterprising Dia early in her career. I went to college at Clemson University, go Tigers, and after school I came back to Chicago so I could work as a stringer photographer, so basically a photojournalist for various newspapers in Chicago and the Chicago suburbs. To supplement my income, I was working part time in the beginning at an Apple retail store. And one thing led to another, and I received a full time position, and then I ended up letting go of the photography for a bit so that I could focus on my career at Apple. 

When I became full time, I moved to a new store, a new team, a new team culture, and a new manager. At first, I didn't really feel like I fit in with the group. And so, even though I went in with a team mindset, I quickly started to look inwards and start to feel as though I needed to just perform at my best so that I could achieve my goals the way in which I wanted to achieve them.  This all culminated in one memorable moment. There was a personal shopper position open and I expressed my interest to my manager. Now as a side note, I was also engaged at the time and in a few months I was going to be moving to Alabama once I got married to my partner. That didn't happen, but that's a different story. It's important, because in my email to my manager expressing my interest for this role, I said that I could do more in two weeks than anyone else could do in two months; two months being about the time that I had left at that store.  

I am horrified thinking back at that moment at young Dia, because that was such an egotistical thing to say. Don't get me wrong, confidence is nothing to be ashamed of, but my motivation was not in the right place. My store leader, Kelly, a woman who I greatly admire and who shaped me into who I am today, mostly because of this moment, graciously took me out to coffee, sat me down, and said, “I hate to break it to you, but it's not all about you.” I, of course, disagreed with her.  But she pushed me to invest in my team instead of myself. And to make them as good as I thought that I was. 

This story is important because it showcases how I didn't trust my team at the time, nor did I try to proactively collaborate with them, or cooperate even. And that's a big lead in into the term toxic individualism. It's also known as rugged individualism, but it's a rabid notion of individual freedom and compromises. Basically, it encourages behavior that puts others at risk because you're prioritizing yourself as the individual. In my case, I was prioritizing my career and career growth over the performance of the store and of my peers. The concept of toxic individuality has existed for a while, but the term itself was coined right around 2020, so the start of the pandemic. It actively fights against collectivism, which is the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each of the individuals within it. The thing is that when you have a strong community, that community also becomes beneficial to the individual. So when you have toxic individualism, you are actively degrading the quality of your own life. 

This term has economic origins. In fact, in 2009, the first woman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for a topic that discussed how to avoid toxic individualism in a community. That woman was Eleanor Ostrom. She was an American political scientist and political economist. She shared her '“analysis of economic governance, especially the commons” with Oliver E. Williamson, and they identified eight design principles of stable local common pool resource management. Basically eight things that help you focus on productivity for the community over yourself. Past Dia could have really used this list of eight principles, but they include things like group boundaries, accountability, leadership, organization, many behaviors that lead to successful and healthy team cultures and work environments today.  

So how is this a people problem, and why do we care? Well, we care because toxic individuality can lead to a toxic work environment and a toxic team culture. MIT did this incredible analysis around toxic company culture. The keys of a toxic culture are lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion and often employees will feel disrespected or observe unethical behavior within an organization and that makes it toxic, but that kind of an environment can lead to high employee turnover, low morale and decreased productivity. So back when we were talking about lower profits from disengaged employees, toxic environments do the exact same thing.  In a 2023 Work in America survey that was conducted by the American Psychological Association, they found that employees in toxic environments were three times more likely to experience mental health issues as compared to those in a healthy workplace, and 19 percent of those workers participating in the survey reported their workplace as toxic. That's a yikes.  

So if you spend 40 hours a week working, and I say if because work from home culture has really encouraged and sometimes idolized offline work at home during off hours. If you work 40 hours, and you spend, let's say, six hours a night sleeping because you're stressed so you're not going to sleep for 8 hours, you're spending 48 percent of your waking life at work. When you have a toxic environment, people aren't even going to show up for their job. There's going to be a higher rate of absenteeism. There's going to be higher turnover and frequent conflicts between employees. They're going to fight because there's negativity, there's cynicism and overall low morale. So this lack of enthusiasm to do your job because of the toxicity around you will mean the company will result in lower productivity.  

Quick sidebar, because you could hear the impact of a toxic work environment and think, “Hmm, that just sounds like someone Quiet Quitting.” I have a lot of feelings about the term Quiet Quitting. Short version, I hate it. Slightly longer version. Quiet Quitting is someone who's fulfilling their job requirements to the expectation of the job description. They're not necessarily taking initiative or working overtime or volunteering for anything else, but they are doing their job. That is a form of balance. A toxic work environment degrades the employee to the point in which they're unable to even do the job per the description. So it is different and more harmful than this term of Quiet Quitting all of this started with toxic individualism because this behavior thrives in a toxic culture and environment and it can't be solved or rectified unless the culture itself is healthy.

So, how do we cultivate a healthy work environment? Well, it starts with leadership. I know, I know. Hold your shock and surprise. Now, anybody can showcase these behaviors and make a change, but it's really going to be up to leadership to combat toxicity and set the tone. And there are three things when you're either establishing or rebuilding trust that you should embody. Number one, accept accountability, and that's for past mistakes or even current shortcomings. There is power in vulnerability and accepting that you've made a mistake makes it more likely that an employee will also recognize when they've made a mistake and feel safe sharing that. Number two, follow your words with actions. Demonstrate that you're committed to change. When you say you'll do something, follow through and do it. And number three, embrace ongoing transparent two way communication between you and your employees. Make feedback a two-way street. Don't just give it, be willing to receive it. Ask your employees how you're doing. Ask for feedback so that you can understand your performance and how that's impacting their work. 

A toxic individual doesn't want to give up their freedom, even if it's temporary. So they require a high level of trust in their community and their leadership that they will still remain free while being part of the larger organization. As a leader, let people make decisions. Now give them feedback on those decisions, so that way they can make better choices that are more in alignment with the business moving forward, but avoid micromanaging because that's going to constrain freedoms. We were talking earlier about Eleanor Ostrom and her principles that help avoid toxic individuality. And a couple of those that are important are accountability and consequences. Hold those employees that are exercising their freedom accountable. If they say they're going to do something of their own free will, then make sure that they do it. At the same time, hold yourself as a leader accountable, so that that way you're fostering that behavior out of your entire team. And establish consequences. Those don't necessarily have to be personally destructive. They might be unfavorable business results. That's a consequence of a decision that somebody makes. 

A healthy culture comes from a healthy community. And you can still achieve as an individual within a community. In fact, you can usually do it better because you have a community and not just yourself at your disposal. It's good, sustainable logic to think about the community. And there is a wildly logical character that helps bring home this concept for us today. 

Spock from Star Trek classically says, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Now this is a quote originally from Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, but I think Spock executes it brilliantly. Spoiler alert, although I'm spoiling a movie that was released in 1982, Star Trek Wrath of Khan, so you've had some time to watch it, but regardless, spoiler alert: Spock sacrifices himself in order to save the Enterprise. In this scenario, the needs of the many, or more, the lives of the many, outweighed the need, or the life, of the one. 

Now, not all of us, but many of us, are not in life or death situations while at work. But, we can really learn something from embodying the needs of the many being more important than the needs of the few.  Going back to my original story, I was not thinking about the needs of the many. I was thinking about the needs of me, of myself. And when my leader at that time told me it wasn't all about me, I took her seriously.  I invested in my team. I started training them first at a store level and then expanded to a regional level. I exchanged my professional sense of glory for my own individual accomplishments for joy at seeing their careers flourish.

Toxic individuality is not a death sentence to team culture, but a toxic workplace is a people problem. One that starts with compromised mental health and ends with unsustainable business practices. So let's be inspired by Spock and see how the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, together. 

You've just finished the latest installment of everything is A People Problem. You can find episode transcripts with work cited on diazaferjoyce.com/podcast. Find me on Instagram @EverythingIsAPeopleProblem, and tell me what you thought of the episode.  If you like what you heard, please subscribe so that you're notified when new weekly episodes become available. Once again, I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce, thanks for joining me and see you next week.  

Today's episode was written and produced by Dia Zafer-Joyce. It featured insights and statistics from the American Psychological Association, GreatPlaceToWork.com, Harvard Business Review, Personio, LinkedIn, the Los Angeles Times, Wellable, and Wikipedia, and royalty free music provided by Sarah, the Instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound.