caution! hazardous substances: recognizing and deflecting toxic personalities in the library...
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Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Toxicity Defined
More than just difficult people and management situationsFirst used in late 1980s in business literature (Peter Frost)An ongoing work situation that is painful, personally difficult and uncomfortable through a special combination of factors
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Toxicity Defined
Hostile, unreasonable or emotionally distressing behavior with many causesTemporary toxicity – things happen, like illness and death, to upset situationsInevitable toxicity– Structures and peopleHypotheses:
A serious problem in librariesSeven main reasonsWorse in some areas
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Web Survey
Done in early 2007Widespread interest confirmed our first hypothesis (almost 3000 respondents!)Results confirmed our second (the reasons)Results did not confirm our third (differences)
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Methodology
Survey Monkey online toolPosted link to seven different library listservsCovered all types of libraries with no restriction on locationOne respondent per IP addressQuestions based on hypotheses
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
How Does This Help?
Find the questions, find the answersEmotional intelligence is a powerful toolWe can recognize and deflect toxicity
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Toxic Personalities and the People Who Enable Them
Mary P. (Mollie) Freier
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
How serious is the problem?
Selected results from a survey of emotional toxicity in the
library workplace
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Are you currently in a workplace with hostile, unreasonable, or emotionally
distressing behavior?
Total Respondents = 2,857
No1,49852.4%
Yes 1,35947.6%
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Have you experienced significant problems in a workplace due to emotionally distressing
behavior by your colleagues?
Total respondents = 2,875
Yes2,53188.0%
No344
12.0%
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Total respondents = 2,741
Serious1,04838.2%
Noticeable626
22.8%
Moderate159
5.8%Major812
29.6%
Minor96
3.5%
How serious were/are the problems in the workplace caused
by this behavior?
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Total respondents = 2,824
No1,51353.6%
Yes1,31146.4%
People are thinking of leaving
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
“I will be leaving this library as soon as I find other employment.”
“If I'd known professional life was like this I'd have stayed at Target.”
“it's making me consider leaving the library profession”
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Total respondents = 2,832
Yes 897
31.7%
No1,93568.3%
People are leaving
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Total respondents = 2,723
Permanent personality reasons1,46954%
Administrative or structural problem in library
75728%
Employee illness 331%
Ill-defined job duties or unqualified employee
29911%
Temporary personal situation
572.1%
Employee death00%
Illness or death
of relative6
0.2%
Other orno idea
1023.7%
Causes of workplace toxicity
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Total respondents = 2,802
Administration or other
56520.2%
Public Services
38513.7%
Technical Services
35312.6%
No difference between
areas or no toxic
situations1,49953.5%
Area in which Toxic Situation is Most Prevalent
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Reasons for toxicity (frequent open-ended responses)
Unions/tenure—or lack of unions/tenure
Poor communication/lack of communication
Administration/manager/supervisor
It’s innate
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Unions/Tenure
Both of these make it difficult to correct toxicity in personnel situations
Both of these also protect employees from arbitrary personnel actions
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Communication
Many survey respondents commented on poor communication
Rude communication is apparently a problem for some workplaces
Unclear or nonexistent job descriptions make it impossible to convey expectations
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
“Bad administrators can ruin your whole day”
“My first boss was certifiable to the point that I daily looked for
ways to push her over the edge so she would go home.”
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Administration/supervisor
Toxic administration outside of libraryNo supervisory training for managersAdministrator/supervisor modeling toxic behaviorMicro-managingNot being aware of toxicity in the library (and not being interested in finding out)Not doing anything about toxicity
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Question?
What’s the distinction between micro-managing and taking a
healthy, supportive interest in your staff’s well-being?
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
You said it (not me!) . . . .
Women can’t work together.The kind of people who are attracted to librarianship are just not good at working with other peopleLibrarianship attracts people who are conflict-averse, so they won’t do anything to fix a toxic situation if it might provoke a confrontation
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
“Women should unite instead of taking every chance to bring each other down.”
“women tend to target other women”
“males tend to beat on their chests when other males approach 'their' territory”
“women shouldn't work with other women”
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
“menopause--I have asked again and again for this to be addressed through workshops
or at conferences”
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Women
Women have been conditioned to compete for male attentionEven when women try to support each other, problems arise in terms of who is supposed to take charge, what happens when a mentee becomes an equal, and how women deal with competition for promotions
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Women
Women need to learn how to compete with other women without feeling betrayed when competition
happens (and it will)
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
“The profession attracts strange and wonderful people, sometimes they're just
strange.”
“Insane, anti-social, misfits, a.k.a., librarians”
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Who are we attracting to librarianship?
If we are attracting difficult personalities to librarianship, why is this happening?How can we keep it from happening?Are the people who are already here incapable of working effectively with others?
Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL
Baltimore March 30, 2007
Conflict-averse?
Librarians are passive-aggressiveLibrarians avoid conflict
People who came to the profession thought that librarians were timorous, and have learned differently (to their cost)Librarians are apparently quite capable of being assertive—when they’re being toxic