In today’s competitive business landscape, building trust, and fostering a productive work environment is crucial for success.
What this means is that leaders at every level must understand how to manage conflict and quickly address issues before the issues create a toxic work environment.
Unfortunately, many organizations unknowingly fall into a culture of avoidance, where critical issues are swept under the rug, and accountability is non-existent.
The avoidant culture hinders growth, breeds dissatisfaction, and ultimately drives away top talent.
How can you tell if your company is plagued by a culture of avoidance? Here are some red flags that you may have a culture of avoidance.
- A poor performer continues to collect a paycheck.
- Excessive turnover in at least one department.
- There’s an “elephant in the room.”
- There’s a top performer who’s a bully.
- People walk on eggshells with their manager.
- Employees have to be micromanaged.
- You don’t know how to fix a pre-existing problem.
- Poor performers are shuffled off (reorganized) to other departments.
- Behavior is not considered part of performance.
All problems that escalate in an organization can be traced back to a conversation that should have happened but didn’t! Once avoided problems reach a certain level it takes more than a single conversation.
The truth: These issues are complex and multi-faceted. There are many reasons these problems exist including lack of training, silos, lack of support at the top, inadequate resources, and outdated systems that haven’t kept up with change.
This article is simply offered as a snapshot to increase awareness of small problems that can have a domino effect on the culture if left unnoticed.
If any of these red flags resonate with you, take this easy assessment
(https://marlene-ug3lcjxo.scoreapp.com) to gain new insights.
Or reach out to me to schedule an informal conversation where I might be able to give you some first steps.
Best,
Marlene Chism
