Toxic and Nasty Work Environment: Three Ways to Survive and Excel

Good Morning!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          You are entering your office, staggering, dragging your feet. You look awfully tired, even though you have yet to start your work. Your face looks pale and lips dried. You are feeling turmoil in your stomach and your heart is sinking down and down. It looks as if you are moving towards the electric chair---And this is a daily morning scene!

Why are you so depressed to death?                                                                                                                                                                                     You are a very good performer. You know your job well. You always work hard, with utmost honesty. Your are a sharp punctual. The reason behind your too low moral and depression is surely your work environment. The work culture is such that real performers like you cannot adjust with, and this culture has no capacity to absorb the qualities you have. If your organization has some or all of the following characteristics, then you are stuck in a dirty, negative, and the most toxic work environment ..... A nasty work environment! (In developed countries, though negative and dirty work environments, reached to the extent of being a "Nasty Environment", surely exist, but most or many of the work cultures there are employee-friendly, or near to that. Nasty work environments, however, are in abundance in developing or less developed countries.)

1. Top management doesn't have a vision or doesn't believe in it. Lack of standardized management processes, irregular organizational structure, and mis-directed flow of communication are the norms of the organization. 

2. The organization lacks the necessary resources, even to run routine operations. The major reason behind this resources shortage is the incompetency of the management.

3. Your qualification, performance, and your dedication is rated low as compared to your personal affiliation with your bosses. "Boot Licking" or "Buttering", favoritism, and nepotism are considered the best ways to survive and progress. Your hard work and your sense of responsibility is discouraged, if you are not in good books.

4. Your superiors have insufficient knowledge about their own jobs, and more inadequate about your's.

5. Your superiors normally are interested to serve their personal interests rather than the organization's.

6. Your work has usually been stolen by your superiors to score points and to let you down.

7. Your seniors have no interest in your work, to guide you, or any problem you are facing.

8. Your efforts for salary increments or promotion are highly opposed by your boss, because if accepted, you would become a threat to his/her seat, and ultimately, for the higher ranks.

9. Some of your colleagues are touts of the higher management ( you have recognized them with the passage of time). They report your every move to your seniors. They are experts to magnify your minor mistakes as huge blunders to the seniors just to remain in their good books and to provide your seniors with your weak points. Beside, leg-pulling and back-stabbing are considered the effective and well-known secrets of success.

10. You are under-paid, and over-burdened with work.You are over-burdened because of two reasons: First, you are a real performer, a rare commodity there, and practically running the department. Second, you have been put under-pressure to ensure that you do not meet the deadlines and to dis-heart you. This provides another validity to your seniors to prove you incapable, not worthy to have a pay increment or promotion.

Why all of this with you?

You are bewildered! Why all this animosity with you? You are a sincere, honest, capable, and dedicated hard worker. Then why this? You are absolutely right. You have all those characteristics, but your boss and seniors have none of them. So, naturally, you are their opponent. There are certain reasons behind the dirty attitude of your seniors with you, and you have to know and remember them:                                                                                                                                                                                                                           (i)  Most of the employees, especially on some important positions, are following the management's "personal policies of recognition". So they are enjoying the benefits. They are there because they follow the management's personal desires, otherwise, they have no capability to perform. Management needs performers like you to run the affairs but does not allow your performance to challenge their position.

(ii)  If they recognize your work, you will get an advancement. Your advancement means their positions are at risk because they have nothing practical to defend their position.

(iii) You are being overburdened with work for two reasons: First, if you do not do the work then who will? There are few real workers there. Second, You are being deliberately put under stress so that either you try to quit or to find little space to perform with excellence.

(iv) Because you are overburdened, you remain behind the schedule and, definitely, commit mistakes. This weakness of you is kept with your management as a tool to make your every advancement move unsuccessful and to get rid of you whenever they want. But they will not expel you until they find a more "economical" substitute of you.

Now, what options you have?

You have three options: First, quit the job. But is it that simple? You need a continuous stream of income to support yourself and your family. This job is your only or major income source. You have no immediate options to switch to. You have to stay here, but it's miserable. Second, adopt the dirty practices of this dirty environment, and this is not possible for you. That's why you are in so much tension. Third, Adopt Wisdom to survive.

Three Inter-related Work Approaches to Survive and Excel

If you have to be there; you must have to defend your position, your job, and your prestige; and if you have to move upward in these highly toxic and nasty circumstances, you must have to craft your ways forward. Wisdom is your base to survive and excel. You can make yourself live and recognized by following these approaches:

1. Patience with Diplomacy:

• Your patience is your main strength to keep you alive in this lethal work environment. Always be positive with everyone, especially with your boss. Never argue with them or never engage in any debate. Even if they assign you with unbearable load of tasks, never say "how the hell I would accomplish these things within this period?" Say, "OK, I will do it". Take your genuine time to do the assigned work even if it takes threefold of the time you have been given. Your boss, actually, knows that the work would take much longer than what they fixed for you. There are two reasons that he/she is overburdening you: Real worker like you are rare in their team, and that they want to hear a negative response from you when assigning the tasks. So, do understand their problem, and don't be trapped.
• Do your work with honesty and diligence and make it sure, from your end, that your boss could not find any fault or flaw with your work. A minute flaw will be their powerful weapon to keep you under-pressure.
• Be polite with every employee, especially with your boss. But within this polite attitude, make him/her clear that you give respect and expect respect. Believe me! Despite of all the negative attitudes, no senior would ever dare to disrespect you.
• Never go to your boss until they call you or when you have to bring some official matters to him/her. Talk when it is necessary, otherwise keep quite, but in a pleasing mood.
• Adopt a positive attitude with your peers and subordinates but don't try to be too close and frank. There, surely, are agents of your seniors in these cadres. Anything you say about your seniors is instantly communicated to them, of course, multiply by 4, just to score points.

2. Be Organized and Communicative:

• Try your level best to plan and organize your activities, though it might be a difficult job in such an environment. But a trace of planning and organization in your activities will save you a lot from being confused and ill-focused. Keep noting down what you have to do and when. Follow this schedule. This schedule might be regularly disturbed by your boss as newer and newer tasks are assigned to you. But keep to follow planning and organization of the tasks as much as possible.
• Try to have every activity assigned in writing from your boss. Keep everything in writing what you do. This documentation would help you huge in critical circumstances.
• Keep your boss informed about what you are doing, or the genuine difficulties you are facing in your work, via emails or in the shape of any other documentary form. Keep sending copies of this information to other concerned seniors as well. If you feel your boss doesn't like your communication with other seniors; send them using blind copies (BCC), but keep sending. This will keep informed, in an undeniable way, your boss, and more than him/her, other seniors and the top management about your actual dedication and hard work as well as the hurdles in your working.
• Go through proper channel with other departments of the organization coming in the process of your working. Keep the record of each of your official transaction or activity occurring with these departments. This will not only show your involvement level but in case an activity gets late because of another department's slow-working, you are safe to be blamed for.

3. Self-Promotion with Sensibility:

In a good organization, you don't need to speak about you, your work speaks for you. But in a badly-governed organization, it becomes mandatory for you to tell about your performance just to hold you, otherwise, none of your seniors would ever recognize it.

• Promote yourself by mentioning your achievements and your ongoing performance, but at the right place and at the right time. In case of your routine activities, use to send regular activity reports to your boss; your top, but concerned, management; and your peers. Do modify, or bring changes in, the regular periodic reports to better portray your daily routine performance. "Invent" a few new types of periodic reports that can better spotlight your contributions, but craft these reports with  utmost wits. 
• Whenever working on assignments, projects, or mentionable jobs, hectically engage, via mail or other media that can be stored, with your seniors and other related departments, not only to discuss the progress and related issues but to show that how actively you are involved.
• By completing an assignment, project, or important job, immediately inform your seniors about your achievement. If the work completed has a significance, do inform your top most management. There is a fare chance that your boss might not pass your performance information to the upper level, but you will do it your self.
• While talking to your boss, your other seniors, your peers, and other relevant colleagues, mention (in an imperceptible way) your performance and achievements for the organization. This must be done tactfully, relevant-to-the-conversation way, so that it doesn't look self-praising.
• During official meetings, when you are presenting something or discussing an issue, relate your previous performance whenever you find it suitable to be mentioned, but sensibly.

All these self-branding tactics will position you as              a performer. Despite of all the disliking of your        seniors, everybody, including the top management    would know that you are an effective worker. This    image-building will help you a lot in very               troubled situations.

 In the entire discussion, one action was insisted upon more than anything else -- That is keep your every activity documented and communicated.Why? I present my own example. I have served more than one such a selfish organization. In an such an organization, at the end of the year, best performers were being selected for the annual awards, and ACRs were being prepared. The people in personal good books had been nominated for awards and their ACRs were being prepared as "Outstanding". My name was not in the best performers list, and my ACR had a score of 40 out of 100. I went to my boss, showed him what I accomplished during the year. Everything was well-documented and well-communicated. No reason left at all for any denial or objection. He absolutely didn't like me, but he had to nominate me for the award and to increase my ACR weightage to 90. There comes several situations where your tactical playing, wise approach, organized work style, and effective communication save you from problems. You have to remember one thing always, in these circumstances: You are being managed by incompetent and selfish managers, and you are surrounded by enemies, who can back-stab you anytime (though there are a few good people like you there, but you have to be very careful anyways). Nobody will defend you, nobody will help you if you are in trouble, nobody will push you to excel; it's you who will do all the efforts for yourself.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             ********************************************************** 

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