Creating a Respectful Company Culture Starts at the Top
America has a love/hate relationship with bullies. Despite progress made by the #MeToo and other diversity movements, we still tend to venerate volatile entrepreneurs like the late Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, infamous for hurling insults, publicly denigrating employees, and capricious displays of temper. Meanwhile, HBO’s Veep won 17 Emmy Awards over its six-year run by portraying a wholly dysfunctional Executive Branch office in which sexism, racism, homophobia, and general bad manners were on constant display. Even our real-life politics have become infused with schoolyard-style invectives, taunts and mockery. Especially in light of the recent coronavirus outbreak.
However, nowhere is the lack of respect on greater exhibit than on social media, otherwise known as The Place Where Good Manners Go to Die. On Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms, people feel free to bash, insult, denigrate, and disparage others to within millimeters of the line drawn by the Terms of Service agreements.
In the wake of common courtesy having seemingly fled the public sphere, it has become more important than ever for company management, from CEOs on down, to promote respect and civility in the workplace. To be sure, this isn’t about avoiding “hostile workplace” lawsuits, discrimination litigation, or just being “politically correct.” It’s about creating a professional environment in which people can work together, get the job done, and efficiently achieve the company’s goals. In other words, it’s about running a business.
To bring this idea home, imagine for a moment that your company is a living body. As we know, the body is made up of organs, composed of cells. Each part of the organism, from the mighty brain to the lowliest corpuscle, has a job to do. When each does its job, the body thrives. There is energy. There is growth. There is happiness. But when individual units or cells decide to break ranks and run wild, or when one system turns on another, then you get everything from rheumatoid arthritis to lupus to cancer. And, ultimately, the body dies.
To keep your company’s body strong, healthy, and growing, managers must create a workplace culture that is positive, harmonious, and respectful. This is true more than ever as a panicked world and a panicked country attempts to keep its collective wits navigating an unprecedented crisis wreaking havoc on people’s emotions.
Of course, attempting to tamp down incivility — even in challenging times — doesn’t mean all conflict should be suppressed. Quite the contrary, conflict is the source of creativity. The last thing you want your employees to become is an army of passive, soulless robots. (Today, we have actually soulless robots for that.) What it does mean is that conflict should be managed in such a way that it becomes a fuel for driving the company’s engine.
Specifically, smart employers and CEOs should:
Train their managers to respect people of various backgrounds and viewpoints;
Not allow inappropriate comments to slide or go ignored, thus giving tacit approval to toxic behavior;
Understand that kindness and respect must be given to all employees by leaders and by each other in order to create an inclusive, thoughtful culture;
Understand that differences of viewpoints and opinions are an opportunity to seek to understand, not an opportunity to reject;
Recognize that embracing diversity and seeking out the minority view or unique perspective is vital to the continued success of any group;
Realize that healthy cultures where respect, dignity, and kindness are offered to all employees yields positive business outcomes — while mitigating deleterious groupthink.
In light of these prescriptives, it’s vital to recognize a demographic sea change sweeping today’s workplace. So-called “Millennials” are now the majority cohort in the American workforce. The so-called “Alphas” aren’t far behind. Values characterizing both generations include a longing for community and a sense of purpose at work. Essentially, they want emotionally intelligent leaders. However, recognizing incivility runs contrary to the sentiments of the largest workplace demographic mustn’t be misconstrued as just some touchy-feely condemnation of the status quo. Rather, it’s a wakeup call for companies to change how they do business — before it’s too late.
Workplaces possessing the same vitriol we see online and in the political sphere can become toxic, dysfunctional, and ultimately detrimental for organizational success. Just like a healthy body, a thriving company requires its systems and subsystems to work in harmony. Companies taking heed of this reality will be the ones who don’t just weather the COVID-19 storm — they will be the new industry leaders in these unprecedented times. And that’s just good business.
Curious how creating the right workplace can help you attract top people, retain employees longer, avoid costly turnover, and encourage creative input? Then, please read about my profile in Forbes. And if you want to discuss how you can get your organization in a positive frame of mind for future successes, email me @ laura@conoverconsulting.com.