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78 Examples of Negative Culture

John Spacey, updated on March 05, 2024

A negative culture is an organization that suffers from failures and inefficiencies due to poor habits, norms, expectations, morale and working conditions. Culture is an intangible asset or liability that emerges with the shared experiences of groups. It can't be controlled directly by management and tends to be slow and difficult to change. As such, a firm with a negative culture is likely to underperform for an extended period of time. The following are common elements of a negative culture with examples of each.

Leadership

The norms and habits of the leadership of an organization.

Conflict of interest	Cronyism
Disregard for stakeholders	Fail to clear issues
Failure of imagination	Failure to lead change
General incompetence	Inconsistent
Inflated sense of entitlement	Lack of accountability
Lack transparency	Mediocrity
Mushroom management	Narcissistic leadership
Neglect of due diligence	Neglect of fiduciary duty
Neglect of risk	No values
Out of touch with operational realities	Perverse incentives
Sacrifice future for quarterly results	Say one thing but do another
Set a bad example	Unimaginatively copy the competition

Mushroom management is the practice of keeping employees in the dark and throwing manure on them once in a while. This is an analogy to mushroom farming.

Communication

A counterproductive culture of communication such as a habit of over-communicating propaganda-like messages or large volumes of information such that employees simply stop listening.

Avoidance of necessary conversations	Discussing confidential matters in front of customers
Failure to listen	Failure to manage expectations
Failure to set expectations	Inefficient meetings
Information silos	Messages perceived as disingenuous propaganda
Miscommunication	Misinformation
Overcommunication	Overuse of jargon
Rumors	Unnecessary secrecy

Motivation & Engagement

Expectations and conditions that cause low productivity. For example, norms that allow knowledge workers to avoid committing to projects and action items such that they do little work.

Defeatism	Disengaged employees
Failure to deliver to commitments	Gaming the system
Hands-off culture	Lack of shared experiences
Lack of trust	Low attention to detail
Low confidence in management	Low confidence in strategy
Low productivity	Malicious compliance
Poor attendance	Resistance to change

Office Politics

Office politics is the defacto process by which firms make decisions, allocate power and get things done. This is a social process that can turn negative and counterproductive in countless ways.

Abilene paradox	Bozo explosion
Failing upwards	Low cooperation
Passive-aggressive behavior	Petty authority
Prioritization of group harmony over rational action	Promotions not based on merit
Schadenfreude	Setting up to fail
Sidelining	Workplace bullying

A bozo explosion occurs when an executive hires friends and former colleagues with inflated job titles in order to build their power base. This can fill an organization with inflated job titles as each hire goes on to hire their friends and former colleagues.

Working Conditions

Elements of culture that impact the health, safety and quality of life of employees. For example, a work culture where nobody goes home before their boss such that they may work long hours despite a lack of work.

Blaming low level employees for failures not within their full control	Expectation of long hours
High stress environment	Inappropriately high workload
Poor safety culture	Pressure not to take time off for any reason

Customer Experience

Elements of your culture that impact the customer. For example, a culture where designers don't use their own products and have never met a customer such that products are disconnected from customer needs.