Top Ten List for Spotting Toxic Organizations

Maybe it was what I learned by co-teaching a doctoral course on organizational performance earlier this summer. Or maybe the trouble started when large celestial bodies achieved apogee. From wherever source, I've spent some effort lately trying to understand toxic organizations and the damage they cause themselves and others. Whether they've learned to be bad on purpose or not, I've concluded that it's not just their ineptitude that should be the focus. The wider point is that by blowing themselves off course, they lose the capacity to serve.


The skill set for consultants who practice for more than money should include spotting low achieving organizations. Once spotted, a cautious consultant needs to determine whether an organization's toxic behaviors can be overcome so that progress toward a greater good can occur. Next, the consultant needs to make a judgement about whether working with a bad organization is worth her or his professional energy.  My bet is that even the most gifted of consultants can't turn around a purposefully toxic organization and I'm an optimist!  Let me explain.


We are all human and like most organizations, we all make mistakes from time to time.  Blindly making the same mistakes over and over again, however, is not just silly, it's beyond stupid. Learning is key and most organizations don't know what they don't know, a very human condition. But let's not confuse that with toxicity.


Losing organizations cling to old, familiar behaviors while actively resisting efforts to turn ignorance around. A learning organization--on the other hand--understands the value of being wrong and celebrates the journey necessary to getting better. Bad organizations believe they are better than they are based on faulty internal perceptions. These misperceptions cause them to stumble but most bad organizations whistle by this graveyard. Denial almost always leads to consultant abuse.

Several weeks ago, I fired a toxic organization after a steadily devolving relationship spanning five years. This organization (who'll won't be named here) had been given a sweetheart role in a national initiative that far exceeded its own experience and expertise. The gap between the goals of the project and the organization was to be filled with consultants who, in turn, would serve education providers.  All went reasonably well in the early years of this work as the organization and its first wave of consultants coalesced around the mantra of "building a bicycle while riding it."  Sadly, though, as the work became more complex and trust between the organization and its partner organizations deteriorated, the organization began sliding down the slippery slope named "control."  Those of you familiar with Theory X management will quickly recognize this behavior.

Most organizational consultants naively believe in the existence of surefire cures for bad organizations. I'm no exception. As the story goes, bring them to understand their own shortcomings and possibilities to do better--painful as that process may be--and they'll get better by leaps and bounds, right?  Well, no. Organizations don't get better unless they sincerely want to. Consultants who are in the field solely for the money develop ways of sidestepping repugnant organizational behavior.  However, for those who come at their work for the greater good and service to the bottom line, there are abundant clues that should guide whether an organization is worth the outlay of spend professional energy.   Here's Rick Voorhees' Top Ten List for Spotting Toxic Organizations:

1. Does the organization truly understand the expertise that consultants bring?  Organizations that hire consultants realize that there are some things they don't know but does the organization recognize that its consultants are critical internal customers?  Or are consultants seen only as economic units?

2. What is the organization's track record in dealing with consultants and other partners? Have other consultants told the organization to take a hike?  Why?  Finding out why others won't work with the organization can save valuable time.

3. What is the trust quotient within the organization? Fear causes weird behaviors including micromanagement. The exemplar organization became increasingly paranoid, bureaucratic, and controlling over time. The pinnacle of dysfunction came for our poster child organization  when they blithely announced that their consultants would be required to sign agreements that would have required the organization's approval for consultants to work with other partner organizations. Since the work isn't exactly top secret, say, like the Manhattan Project, there really was no reason for such a requirement other than the aforementioned paranoia. Organizations that truly understand that a networked world also understand that they can't regulate expertise.

4.  Does the organization treat its consultants like employees?  There's a distinct role for consultants (and the expertise they bring and work they perform) versus what the organization can require of its own employees. I once was told by a junior staff member that the organization could require servile behavior from its consultants since they were, in fact, the same as employees. This has obvious and dangerous legal implications for the organization including workmen's compensation, health insurance, Of course, the junior staffer now denies ever saying this. I wouldn't admit to such an ignorant, dangerous statement either.


5. Does the organization have have a transparent and systematic way of evaluating its own performance?  It seems disingenuous that a national organization underneath the umbrella of data-driven decision making would never consider gathering data about its own performance.  Good for the goose but bad for the gander.


6. Does the organization communicate internally? If not, it can't communicate externally. The exemplar organization attempted to double their dues for constituent institutions shortly after a national meeting in which the leadership of these institutions were present.  It wasn't mentioned at the national meeting; instead they learned about it through email two weeks later. Neither a good communication strategy nor a way to inspire confidence.


7. How does the organization hire consultants?  Is there an open call for expertise or is it done by word-of-mouth only?  Do candidates have to be a club member or are credentials and expertise the criteria?  


8. Does the organization hire its own staff and family members as consultants?  In other words, does the organization condone nepotism and cronyism?  

9. Are ego needs out of whack? Do lurking psychological needs outweigh the importance of the work?  Our toxic organization felt very threatened when given opinions opposite of those their controlling nature believed.

10. Finally, does the organization actually consult with its own consultants?  Or, is their advice ignored except when very convenient.  Consultants are a critical internal resource and organizations who are too hidebound to learn from them probably ought not to have them.

No single flaw by itself is fatal if the organization can identify it and turn it around. When two or more appear in combination, however, a train wreck is in the offing. Bad organizations can't identify the signs of impending doom without expert intervention. But when #10 is in play, their chances of getting better are zilch. Better to walk away than to be like Sisyphus, constantly pushing a ball up a hill. Sometimes, you see, it's just the wrong hill.