Toxic Commodities

Here are few “commodities” at work that, when valued over people and true collaboration, may indicate that a toxic culture pervades: Job grades, power plays such as making people always walk to you, protecting common information, gossip, and presuming the worst the most of others & having the freedom and audience to share it.  This list is not exhaustive.  

Ideally, commodities at work would include some of the following: ability to create solutions, being curious, willingness to seek others’ input, giving credit publicly to other people and teams, right-placing people in roles, and possessing a spirit of teaching and sharing knowledge.

Struggling with failure

For the past several weeks, I’ve been struggling with both recognizing and owning my own failure. Before sharing this with some friends, I found that I was more sensitive to successes of others – seeing others’ success as a comparison against my current situation, which then only heightened the growing sense of “lack” that I felt.

I’m being open about this for two reasons.  1. I don’t think the world authentically shares their failures in the moment.  2. Even if privately, I want to encourage you to share your struggles and failures with those you trust.

Once I shared with my circle, I found that they were able to help me process what was happening and ensure that I was separating what I’m facing from my identity.  And, as a result of “shedding light on this truth”, the angst I felt when seeing and hearing about the success of others began to evaporate.