Creating Culture Change: How to Leverage Your Voice to Positively Impact Workplace Culture with Jess Pettitt
Are you looking for a practical way to create positive change in your workplace, but aren't sure how to? In this episode, we discuss how to use your voice as a tool to positively impact workplace culture.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
Demystifying workplace culture
Conversations that matter
How to influence positive change
FREE Career Accelerator Workbook: https://bit.ly/3xXy8U
Want to work with Danielle? Schedule your call today: https://bit.ly/3OnuLLO
Let's Connect!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MsDanielleCobo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedaniellecobo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanielleCobo
Website: www.DanielleCobo.com
Book Recommendations: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-de49157c/list/2W8I8NWS6N4C
About our guest:
Our guest today has, Jess Pettitt been stirring up difficult conversations for over a decade performing as a stand-up comic, speaking on stage as a diversity expert, and moving teams from abstract to action.
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
"Danielle is so Uplifting." <-- If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more women -- just like you -- accelerate their careers. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dream-job-with-danielle-cobo/id1571797640
Also, if you haven’t done so already, follow the podcast. I’m adding a bunch of special release episodes and, if you’re not following, there’s a chance you may miss out. Follow now!
Dealing with Workplace Toxicity
Let's dig in a little bit about it, before we jumped in, we were talking kind of about some of the challenges that we see in the organization.
There are a lot of discussions right now on workplace toxicity and how we approach it. What do we do? There are situations where we might be seeing and observing something in our organization, and we may not know how to approach it. Whether it be, do I go to my manager, do I go to my, above my manager? What if the person that I'm observing is the challenge? And I gotta make sure I follow that, that corporate escalation and ladder.
What advice would you give if you're seeing a toxic environment? What advice would you give to those individuals, as to how they might take that first step in approaching it?
I appreciate the question, and I'm probably gonna be mildly annoying. But what I think is the most impactful way of addressing the question: if I'm experiencing a toxic work environment to your question, what am I supposed to do if I'm experiencing this? It's too complicated for the short window of time we have of what that person should do to protect themselves or maybe rest the people on their team that is equal to them of how to navigate up.
And it's always important to remember that HRs main goal is to protect the company, not the employee. Sometimes, that feels like part of the toxic environment. Here is what I would advise doing, but it's gonna make people mad. There is your warning, everyone who's gonna be mad grab candy or something.
If you are experiencing a toxic environment and there is anyone in the company who is under you-not above you, but under you-you have an opportunity to have a conversation with them to find out what they would need to make it less toxic. You have the ability they see yourself as having resources and access. Now you may not feel like you have resources and access, but per that person, the intern, the person in the mail room, the new employee on your team, somebody looks to you as if you are more resourced. The best thing to do is to have a conversation and find out how you see what's happening.
Maybe they don't experience it. Maybe they do experience it. If they do, imagine what it would be like for you if someone above you said, "Hey, I wanna check in with you and see how things are going." Well, now you would have a window to talk, right? Then by providing the window to someone who's underneath you,, you might actually find out that you have similar experiences, but now you've allied with someone else. Then they might be able to feel like they're being heard, which is automatically gonna make them feel like they have less of a toxic environment. But now you are also not alone. You're not crazy. You've sought validation. Now we can talk about confirmation bias at a different session, but like maybe this is what you needed to feel better about being able to voice and advocate for yourself to whoever that might be.
What if you see and observe a situation? Maybe it is your manager who is bullying someone? Maybe it is, you have somebody on your team who, when it comes to a group environment, has the expectations for everyday contributions, but maybe somebody is not contributing to the level of the expectation of everybody else, and it's affecting the overall culture amongst the team.
There are different scenarios that we possibly see within our culture in our organization, but it's always the, I don't know how to approach this. Who do I talk to? Even if it's necessarily not affecting us, maybe we're seeing affect somebody else. What's interesting about culture is that it's happening whether you're paying attention to it or not. And you become very conscious of when you are going with the grain or against the grain and you get to make choices. I have a monthly newsletter and in last month's newsletter I wrote about this thing that came to me during my dream of people telling me, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. You can't do this. And my response to them finally saying that you're rubbing people the wrong way. My response was, and that is how we will both become polished stones. Now again, this was in my dream and I always remember my dream, so like it's a little woo-woo for me, but I would invite people to remind themselves and others that you get better and other people to get better by having these challenges conversations.
If this is the case, so if it's merit-based or there's power dynamics, et cetera, you have the opportunity to open a window, an invitation. If it's happening to someone else, even just having the conversation with the target, that's not you. I'm noticing this is this, is this something you are noticing? And they might say, "Oh no, it's totally fine. Like we're just old friends and it just carries over sometimes at work." Sometimes they might be like, "Yes, thank you." You've provided a chance for them to be seen and that's shifting their culture and what they're experiencing at work where they can't talk about it.
If you are noticing something, like, it's just like see something, say something. We are taught to like avoid terrorism or violence or bombs being left places, but that doesn't end bombs. It does make us collectively know that we are responsible for seeing something and saying something, just like we are collectively under the impression that someone else will do something, and that's where we're wrong. It is a very good possibility. No one else is doing anything. And it's our opportunity to extend that conversation. If you don't feel like you're in a place of power to extend the conversation or address the bully, or address the bully supervisor, you can always extend it down to see if you can build comradery and build community, that shifts culture.
Now, at the moment when the person is doing the bullying and you are present, I use the word safety on purpose because I don't mean discomfort. It's always uncomfortable to tell someone a superior, they're doing something wrong. But if you feel like you could say something and you are not going to now become a target of bullying-and don't-that is also cementing the cultural norm that this behavior is okay.
You have to say something to keep the culture changes evolving to where that behavior's not tolerated. Even if that person's fine with it, you can say, "You can't do that around me, because it doesn't align with the integrity of where I see it being okay, whether it's in the workplace or without the workplace."
What’s Okay and Not Okay in the Workplace
Now, bullying is sometimes a broad word, and I know I have been the one that kind of initiated this word, bullying in our conversation. But let's define what is okay or not okay within the workplace because sometimes the lines get blurred. I would say when I first started in corporate and I was very young, I did not always align my actions with what I believe to align with my integrity and core values because I wanted to be part of the crowd, the cool salespeople. I wanted to be part of the inner circle. I've learned as I've become more mature and has become more confident within myself, to check in with myself at all times with any actions that I do.
But what are some actions that you observe where this is an opportunity for us to talk about what's okay and not okay in the workplace and get that line drawn for us?
What's beautiful is that it's like a line in pencil that varies and changes per person, per context. Before we started, I was telling you about this client I have, I'm working with her, it's one client with two different kinds of mechanics. And it's a very west-side story. There's this kind of mechanic versus this kind of mechanic, and the only time they unify is when it's mechanics versus administrators. The administrators have hired me to like go fix their communication problems. And what's interesting is at the mechanic's house, they all work in the same building. They just have different kinds of mechanic work that they do, and then there are who work four tens. There's the Monday shift and the Friday shift, and that's how they identify. But they work together Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It's fascinating to me. I love people.
What is fascinating is that, let's take two, two guys individually. This actually just happened. They cuss at work, they call each other names, et cetera. And it's just the culture of what happens in the mechanic office. When they leave the mechanic space, they know that they have to like clean up, and they like to wash their hands like they're going to a meeting or something.
I did a training for them recently in person. Everyone had, the mechanics all start working at like 6:00 AM and then my training started at nine. They were all driving however they were going or carpooling or whatever from the mechanics shop to my house. They all came in different teams and this side parked on this side of the building and this type, type on this side of the building, west side story is alive and well. Two of the people from the same kind of mechanic office that are having communication issues didn't carpool together. And one person brought like three or four people in a company car and the other person had to drive their car and didn't even wanna go to the training. They're coming up and the one who had to drive by themselves would like very confrontational, very emotionally expressive, lots of cuss words at the person who had carpooled and didn't ask him to carpool.
But in the context of the shop there, that same group team language would've been fine. But because it was on the steps of a different building with different people from different offices to come to different training, that guy's getting written up by HR now. But had it been two miles away in their own office, it would've been like a Tuesday, no big deal.
The context matters, and at the root of it, what he was angry about was that he had to leave the shop to come to my stupid training and he's in the middle of a really big fix work, and he had to like take time away from fixing the thing he needs to fix. I was talking to the supervisors after the training because now they're gonna have to write this guy up. And I just said, "I just want you to know this, while you're writing him up, that if the location and the time had been different, that behavior would've been completely acceptable." And they were all like, "Yeah, absolutely, but you can't do that here. Not in front of other people from other offices, my training, things like that." And I was like, "Right, you are manifesting this cultural divide." The training hadn't started yet. It was outside of the building. It was two people on their team, but because there were other people around, you pulled this like an HR paperwork process. Now, it becomes a conversation for me as the consultant. It becomes a conversation on the supervisor level of when you use the HR tools and when do you not because you're also in control of these levers.
We did the training. They sat together, they like everything was fine and at the root of it, the one guy felt left out. He didn't wanna come to the training and was in the middle of a really big project that you have to stop in the middle just because they need to come to my training. All of that was manifested by the supervisors, so who needs to be written up? That's the conversation that real leadership, real managers, whether they have it on their job title or not, need to have a conversation of when are they outsourcing these challenging conversations and when are they able to manifest them in real-time.
Part of this is about direct communication being emotionally expressive. When is that acceptable? When is that not acceptable? When do you need to tap it down a little bit more because of context, time, or personality? And that depends and as we are saying beforehand, I notice it's a very long answer, but as we are saying, it depends on the context and the information that you're providing. And that group of mechanics, the big theme that came out, was that they didn't view emotions as facts and emotions are factual, they exist. And they said like, tiptoeing around just makes the matter worse.
I used this as an example, and this is to the group of leaders, is I want you to come up with an example where indirect communication is preferred and they absolutely couldn't do it. I was like, all right, and they're like, this is dumb. Indirect communication's never appropriate. It's finally what they agreed to. I said, "Fantastic. We live in a small town. I saw your wife with somebody else, and I think your wife is having an affair with you. How do you want me to have that conversation with you?" They were like, "Well, we would have no idea. You can't just blurt it out like that. "And I was like, "Right because more indirect would be more effective?" Or what if I'm a doctor and I think you're in an abusive relationship and your partner is sitting in the room, so I need to talk about this history of fractures in your bones? I am planning a surprise party for you, and there's a reason I can't tell you what I'm doing Thursday after work. There are a lot of reasons for how we communicate and the more we're in a leadership position, the more it's our responsibility to shift. And then going back to the previous stuff is that sometimes we're viewed as leaders, even if it's not our job title. Can we take it upon ourselves to shift for someone else and also pay attention to when we need to shift up as well?
The Role of Leaders in the Workplace
There is a lot to unpack with that, but those are real examples, not only in our everyday lives but in these leadership roles, whether it's within the title or not. Where we are seeing these conversations happen. What resonated with what you said is, as leaders, what culture are we, from what I heard with that particular scenario with the mechanics, it's like, in this particular building, it's okay and we're that that culture is okay, it's allowed, it's a safe environment, but wait, all of a sudden you're moving to a completely different building and we've gotta shift our language a little bit.
But is leadership setting the tone, are they sharing with them that that's the, the changes that need to be made when they go into that building? How is it coming from the top level down on where that is being taught and modeled?
And is that lesson gonna come out of the actual manager, or administrators writing them up in HR? No, I feel if that was in a situation that I, if I were that manager, then it would've been, "Hey, have a conversation outside the building with that particular individual." And it could be along the lines of, "Hey, I know that this way, maybe the way that we talk to our, to each other in the building, because we've agreed that that's okay in how we talk to each other, but while we're in front of this building, that that perception might be perceived a much different way."
And so it's a matter of shifting our language when we're going into a different building. And even the liminal space between the training hadn't started yet. Like we were all out on the street waiting for the door to get unlocked cuz the person was late. It was that in-between space. Then, you have people who are like, "No, no, do not let people see what our actual workplace culture is like." And then you have other people who knew this going in, so they're not remotely surprised. During the break in the training, I asked the supervisor, not the highest ranking person in the room, but the supervisor related to those two men.
Can I use this as an example in the training afterward and use it and work through it now instead of you writing the person up in HR? The supervisor was like, "I've already contacted HR. The process has already started." I was like to get it done, versus actually developing the culture has now caused a problem. Now, I'm supposed to go up and do a follow-up training in April. Who wants to come to my follow-up training? They might get written up. They just made this even more complicated and they hired me to work with this group of people on their communication skills, without even realizing it, they've actually made this even more difficult.
Interestingly, you allowed him to say, "Can we make this a coaching opportunity, a training opportunity while we're in this session together?" But he had responded by saying, "Well, I've already contacted HR so it's done." Versus, just because you've contacted HR doesn't mean that that could potentially open up a discussion as to a verbal warning. Does it need to be a written warning? I mean, there's so much opportunity here.
There is so much opportunity and HR was in the room like I invited HR and I invited the union representative to the training so that nobody could triangulate what happened. It's an awesome opportunity. I'm not saying I could have fixed it, but I feel in the moment example that all of the leadership saw didn't get addressed by the communication consultant, because it got outsourced to paperwork. That told me more about the culture of the organization than anything I'm gonna get from a listening session.
Lack of Communication in the Workplace
What are some other examples where you see some breakdown in communication? And possibly, how might individuals approach it where you're seeing some other examples? I think when before we had jumped on, we had talked about you were working, you had read a case on the military, a military scenario where some people were contributing more to the project than other people. And that feeling sometimes that we get where it's like, here we are doing all of this work, but we're getting paid the same, and other people aren't holding their weight, and how do we approach that? Because that can create a very toxic workplace culture as well. And if management isn't doing anything about it, then it can be very frustrating.
A lot of that has to do with just kind of the individual versus the collective. I don't do that much military work, but my sense of commonalities of the work that I have done is that it's the very collective mentality and that as long as X gets completed and it's been assigned to this small subgroup, it is irrelevant who in that group did. But for the individuals in that subgroup, it is incredibly relevant. Who did it and who didn't do it, but it's not a merit-based organization. "X" got done, that's all that matters, "X" got done.
Now, I would imagine, that ER nurses are very similar when they are in a crisis, they are synchronized swimmers. But in between, there are all kinds of toxic businesses going on because they got time and their bored. And they're very aware of who's not doing it and who's not pulling their weight, and then who's overworking or possibly even making fun of people for being overly ambitious, overly eager. They're too new to the job yet they haven't gotten jaded yet, or it's part of a hazing process for new people. Again, the soup, the managing supervisor needs to be conscious of that experience, and what tends to happen is they survived it, and got elevated to the manager and now they don't want to deal with it anymore because they quote unquote got out. Except now they're in a position that is perceived to have the resources to do something about it.
But when you get elevated into a leadership position, you're now the new kid at the table overworking and getting hazed at that table, so you don't have time to remember what it was like down there. Like you guys duke it out. I'm dealing with different stuff now because I feel all isolated and all by myself. All this is doing is creating my job security. But in theory, what you could do is work your way back down. We constantly are looking up and I think that that's by design because we're intimidated to always do work up or it's too much risk for us. But doing work down, there's no risk. You are perceived to be more powerful and have more resources, so do something with them. Even if it's not true, you're still perceived that way by somebody and not doing something with that opportunity is sending a message of what happens.
I've seen that before within organizations where, when it's not addressed, it actually causes more of a toxic work environment because the perception is, "Oh, well if Susie isn't gonna be doing the job, then I'm not gonna try either. Why would I do it if they're not." Or here this person is creating a toxic work environment, but if no one addresses it, then it sends the message that we as an organization are okay with it.
Doing nothing is the equivalent of endorsing something. That's a really important thing to understand because if you think of the amount of time a committee has spent on how to say they are doing something. The reality is the most efficient way is to do nothing. And that is exactly how you're telling people what you're doing. Part of the reason the committee has to wordsmith it is that they're wordsmithing what they ought to be doing because we won't take the time to articulate what we are doing.
The challenge too, I've noticed from being this in a leadership role is there have been times when I did not approve of the behavior of an individual on my team. I was working with HR on the situation, however, it was taking time to gather all of the information, the customer complaints, the frustrations from the team, and the way that this particular person was talking, not only to customers but people on the team. But it was taking longer than anybody wanted. The perception was that I wasn't doing anything, even though I was. And that can be a very challenging situation to be in as a manager, too.
Well, and that's what came up actually in the one-on-ones if we go back to the mechanic. There's this loud message of like, you know, we've been complaining about communication here forever, and nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happens. It's so bureaucratic. They're making sausage. Nothing happens. And I was like, "Hi, I am here. Something has happened." Maybe it took a long time. Yes, it's a bureaucratic thing. You work for the state like you're a state employee, and by definition, you work for the county is going to be bureaucratic. But enough complaints came in, that funding was found, a consultant was found, and I am sitting here listening to you telling me that no one is listening to you. I'm right here. I am here to listen to you. I am evidence that you have been heard. What do you want to say?
And that I think that it becomes part of their identity to be unheard. So when they have the opportunity to be heard, they don't know what to say. What ends up, like part of the reason why I think consulting work can be kind of pricey is that I now have to dig and dig and dig and dig to find the patterns to then tell them what they have known all along, they just haven't been able to articulate. Now, that we've identified the problem, now what are we gonna do? Lots of digging.
How Do We Create a Positive Culture in the Workplace?
What I'm hearing from you is, number one, if you're observing something that doesn't align with your values, your morals, or your integrity, speak up. Don't just like internalize it, because doing nothing that doesn't help the situation at all. And also in addition to speaking up, it's about taking action as well.
And never underestimate somebody who looks at you like you're a leader. You are probably complaining about the people you look to as a leader, so break the cycle. You can do what you're doing and try and change them, which is not happening. Or you can do something different and be a different leader for people who look to you for leadership, guidance, for management. That's a conversation that you can have at zero risk. Be the leader for somebody else. It's not a matter of having the title to do it. We can show up as a leader in all areas of our life, and it's reaching down and being a leader too.
