What makes a dysfunctional work culture?

BY NOW, most would be acquainted with Peter Drucker's one-liner mantra when it comes to the merits of organisational values: culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Strategy is important - and precisely for that to be executed, the right culture that institutionalises corporate values, pushes it through.

Organisations that were woefully unprepared for the effects of remote work may think that the future involves packing everyone back to the office, 5 days a week.

There is some truth that returning staff to the office sometimes can make discussions more effective.

But that's not to blame remote working itself for weakening culture.

It's likely more accurate to say that the remote way of working has revealed how many organisations did not have a strong or attractive working culture to begin with.

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Prior to the shift to work-from-home arrangements, office workers had to accept The Cubicle Life because it seemed there was no other way to work. Now there is.

Four walls - no matter what fancy colour they are - making up a physical shell to hot-house staff logically cannot be the key to defining culture. It is literally a limiting view.

Culture is about how an organisation treats and values its people, wherever they may be.

So a dysfunctional remote-work culture mirrors - and then enlarges - a dysfunctional work culture.

That culture unmasks how an organisation hangs on to traditional power structures, how it devalues staff empowerment, and how it poorly conducts itself to manage constructive disagreements.

Professional hazing

One definitive way to examine workplace culture from a power structure point of view is to see if it practises professional hazing. In some cases, it involved the lowest on the rung to "pay your dues", as a recent BBC article pointed out.

It's the "cost of entry" into an established group, a professional one, in this case.

The issue here is that bad practices can recycle through the years as tradition.

In its most negative manifestation, it's much like how abuse perpetuates - the same bad practices are carried on for tradition's sake by the same people who were once hazed. Because it is seen as only fair.

But that simply means that typically younger staff find themselves carrying the weight of grunt work - not to learn, but because they are paying some kind of co-opt tax.

The problem isn't grunt work in itself, it's the commonly severe disproportion.

It's seen in work cultures everywhere round the world, but in Asia, the deference to the hierarchy and authority means the youngest Japanese workers are the first to arrive and last to leave the office. Workers in Korea are forced to attend excruciating alcohol-fuelled dinners with their bosses.

Singapore can't be an exception.

Grunt work is easily "arrowed" and sprayed out to staff, but without a system to more consistently track workload, the burden can fall heavily on some more than others.

At organisations here where such practices are calcified, managers who reject disagreements over work allocation may value hazing traditions over a progressive growth mindset.

Without more exact measures of work performance, criticism is designed to have dissenting views fall in line.

To further appear harmonious, some managers opt for vague passive-aggressive communication.

This is particularly damaging for high performers - the objective of managers with a hazing mentality is to cut such staff down to size.

One sign of a tall-poppy syndrome is to discredit achievements of high performers by nit-picking on minor issues, with the aim not to improve them, but to diminish credibility.

It is a sure form of corporate gaslighting.

Myth of family

Then, there is the myth of family.

There are some benefits to creating a warm working culture, but this is often conflated with an acceptance of a lack of professional boundaries.

Add that to a deference to authority, and what results is diminished value placed over constructive reasonings when disagreements occur.

What also results is a depriorisation of mutual respect, as rank-pulling and kiss-up practice take precedence over making the best calls for the overall benefit of most - if not all - staff in the organisation.

Besides, not all families are the best versions of a collective unit.

Guilt-shaming and emotional manipulation rank high on the list of problems in dysfunctional families.

In a patriarchy-driven society, sexism barely registers as a problem too, so expect gender diversity to be dismissed.

When these behaviours are brought into a corporate structure where strangers are arm-twisted to become a version of a family, then work interactions are not so different from family members held hostage in extended-family Whatsapp groups, where tired tirades abound.

Too much Kool-Aid

Combine gaslighting with a lack of professional boundaries, and what shows up is the risk of leaders drinking up their own Kool-Aid. They are told what they want to hear, and see what they want to see.

The common defensive stance to take is that they as leaders have worked hard and should therefore deserve unquestioning loyalty.

But leadership is not about spinning endlessly on a wheel. To Jeff Bezos, 3 good decisions a day is good enough for him. It forces him to think long term.

Without a focus on the big picture, some leaders embrace hustle culture without purpose, and despite their multiple distractions, reject any suggestion of impaired judgement.

A LinkedIn podcast on The Great Resignation brought together those who had quit their jobs recently. One common thread was that the breathless work forced them to prioritise what matters to them. It is a privilege to pursue what they value - and it took a global pandemic to give them confidence to fly with it.

In the same breath, anger rises for us when core values are in jeopardy, pointed out organisational psychologist Adam Grant.

Dysfunctional workplaces that remain clueless about their bad practices are due to see talent walk out the virtual office.

They will be angry - you just won't hear the actual door slam on their way out.