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.

Common ground

Sometimes when issues are complicated, it is quicker and easier to react and justify our actions than to admit there may be errors and uncertainty.  To admit that we are fearful, shocked.  To admit that we don’t know what the solution is.  To admit that we want a particular outcome for a particular reason.  But the admittance of these things is what connect us to each other.  These are the very things that give us commonality to the person we disagree with. 

And finding common ground is where to begin to work together.