In an age where company culture holds greater importance and significance than ever before, what can we do about the natural human behaviour that poses a threat to this culture?
Sadly – today’s workplace is one of distrust. You only have to look at the Edelman Trust Barometer over recent years to see the steady decline in Trust across business, government and other organisations.
It can be frustrating to work with people who don’t trust one another; this kind of environment gives rise to endless rivalries, misunderstanding and high staff turnover – none of which is good for productivity and the bottom line.
Insecurity
Dr Mark Scullard is Senior Director of Product Innovation for Wiley’s Workplace Learning Solutions division. Dr Scullard has studied distrust in the workplace and believes that individual insecurity – and the impulse to mask this – is at the heart of this pervasive and destructive corporate culture.
We all feel vulnerable at times – even the most secure amongst us. Fear of failure, concern over our performance or progression, a sense of lacking the right skills. Whatever the specific insecurity, our human need to appear invincible drives us to hide it from our colleagues and this causes no end of stress.
Scullard refers to the ‘corrosive effects of unmanaged insecurity’ and blames poor performance on this cultural dysfunction. Everything from defensive behaviour, back-biting and procrastination – all find their root in the human desire to cover up their own perceived inadequacies.
How does insecurity manifest in the workplace?
We all waste precious time trying to negotiate our own and others’ insecurities. We feign confidence, we over-estimate our ability to achieve and we pay undue attention to how others’ may respond to an unintended slight.
Worse still, we even take on more responsibility, tackling a colleague’s failed project in the false belief that doing so is better than giving the honest feedback they need. Who hasn’t been guilty of adding a seemingly innocuous exclamation mark to an email in the hope it doesn’t offend the recipient!
We do all of this to hide our own self-doubt and to mitigate against the negative impact this trait has on others.
The solution
Dr Scullard is an expert in Everything DiSC and led the research behind the assessments. He has discovered that assessments like DiSC enable people to identify their own personality foibles and – importantly – to recognise them in others.
When people can be open about their insecurities, they’re able to accept them. And they’re able to see their colleagues as complex, idiosyncratic human beings with their own needs and tendencies. The workplace becomes a no-fault, no-judgment zone, freeing coworkers to look beyond the differences that, unacknowledged, breed distrust. Once everyone’s needs are laid bare, insecurity is a blunted weapon that no longer destroys relationships, poisons culture and inhibits business performance.
The Invisible Drain on Your Company’s Culture outlines how Everything DiSC assessment and training fosters the understanding necessary for good collaboration and ultimately, good performance.
The boss no longer seems like a jerk; instead, everyone knows he’s got a D style, which means he’s driven to succeed and afraid of losing control. Suddenly, he’s a vulnerable human being his colleagues can empathise with. And when he accepts his own insecurities, he can avoid giving in to his worst impulses. Where his inclination before might have been to yell, now he sees that that just scares people and makes them less likely to ask the challenging questions they need to ask to do good work.
