“If you have a culture of dog-eat-dog, and the only way you can get ahead is by putting yourself first, even at the expense of your colleagues, how do we fix it?” 

Simon Sinek asked this all-important question of Alexandra Hudson on his “A Bit of Optimism” podcast. 

In her recent book, “The Soul of Civility”, Hudson highlights the difference between politeness, a superficial appearance of good manners, and civility, a respect for the personhood and dignity of others. When we practice politeness—when we say and do what appear to be the right things—this may seem great, but rarely leads to progress, growth, or improvement. By practicing civility, it’s possible for people who disagree to have respectful, productive conversations. It is these productive conversations that are necessary to bridge divides. 

Sinek and Hudson believe that this same message can be used to address cultural issues in the workplace, as well. 

Hudson empowers everyone to focus on what we can control: ourselves, and to take steps to initiate those difficult conversations. “If enough of us decide to change ourselves, we might be able to change the world we live in, too.”

I absolutely love her message. When conversations are handled respectfully, with civility, it’s possible for anyone to have a productive conversation with anyone else, regardless of disagreements. 

Then Sinek interjected, “This is all beautiful and magical and idealistic, and trust me, when it comes to idealism, I mean, hook, line, and sinker, you’re in the right place. However, putting my cynical hat on, if you have a culture of dog-eat-dog and the only way to get ahead is by putting yourself first, even at the expense of [your] colleagues, how do you teach people [civility when they have a warped incentive structure]? When there’s no incentive to be civil?”

Hudson continued to speak about the idealistic benefits—that civility is an inherent good and an instrumental good, resulting in a stronger democracy, more human interactions, and a more beautiful society. But how do we make it happen?

So I put my program manager hat on and considered his question more deeply. While Hudson is right that civility is the answer, how do we communicate her message so it will be heard and that broad-scale behavior will be changed? How do we fix a dog-eat-dog culture, in practice, efficiently and effectively? 

If I imagine myself speaking to a large group of people, and I tell them I am there to help them fix their dog-eat-dog culture, it occurs to me that every single person in the room would honestly believe I was talking about someone else. Regardless of whether they were one of the primary contributors to the toxic culture, most would believe that they are part of the solution, but not part of the problem. 

This is because most of us—and this is an important point here—believe we are good people who don’t choose to succeed at the expense of others or at the expense of the organization. We may do it unintentionally, every day, in small decisions that create an environment that is a little less civil than it could be. We may be a very small part of the problem, but we’re still part of the problem.

A few examples:

• We gather information and don’t share it with others
• We don’t speak up immediately with ideas, or constructive criticism
• We complain or vent to coworkers
• We don’t offer to help as often as we could
• We don’t always consider other people’s opinions or ideas

We’re all somewhere on the selfish-selfless spectrum. On one end are people who go through their days actively looking for ways to get ahead at the expense of others. On the other end are people who consider others all the time, asking “How can I help?” Neither extreme is ideal for individual or company performance, and most of us fall somewhere in the middle. 

Which brings me to my second important point—the assumption of positive intent. We’ve all learned how to work in an environment that celebrates and rewards building ourselves up. It’s how we get hired, keep our jobs, get promoted, build our “brands, and get recognized for what we’ve accomplished. Things have gotten much worse lately with massive layoffs and lower corporate loyalty. We’re doing our jobs the way we were taught to do them in an attempt to stay employed, so we can support ourselves and our families.

It is this “us vs. them” mindset that makes cultural problems so difficult to solve. If we successfully remove it from the discussion, we can focus instead on identifying the behaviors that contribute to the toxic culture and brainstorm on ways to reduce them. Behavior-focused discussions are much more likely to reach people on the selfish end of the spectrum. 

So, with just a slight adjustment in mindset, assuming positive intent, and recognizing that we are all part of the problem and the solution, those all-important conversations that Sinek and Hudson suggest will be much more likely to be successful. This will result in greater collaboration, more productive conversations, improved innovation, and better collective performance. Oh, and we might enjoy our jobs more, too. 

Putting it in Practice:

• Meet with leadership to prep, and ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding the intent to fix the negative culture.
• Ask influential team members to be prepared to speak in support of this effort.
• Hold a meeting with the team in question.
• Communicate the goal of the meeting: to create a more positive and collaborative culture
• During the meeting, you will collaboratively establish a set of standards for how you would like to work with each other going forward.
• Kick the discussion off by sharing the first two standards: 1) assume positive intent and 2) acknowledge that we are all part of the problem & the solution.
• Ask the team to commit to the final list of standards. The team will have created them together, so they will likely be on board.
• Empower everyone in the organization to speak up if standards are not met.

Listen to Simon Sinek and Alexandra Hudson on A Bit of Optimism

By D. E. Richards