Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library...

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



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



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)



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



How Does This Help?

Find the questions, find the answersEmotional intelligence is a powerful toolWe can recognize and deflect toxicity



Toxic Personalities and the People Who Enable Them

Mary P. (Mollie) Freier



How serious is the problem?

Selected results from a survey of emotional toxicity in the

library workplace



Are you currently in a workplace with hostile, unreasonable, or emotionally

distressing behavior?

Total Respondents = 2,857

No1,49852.4%

Yes 1,35947.6%



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%




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?




No1,51353.6%

Yes1,31146.4%

People are thinking of leaving



“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”




Yes 897

31.7%

No1,93568.3%

People are leaving




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




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



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



Unions/Tenure

Both of these make it difficult to correct toxicity in personnel situations

Both of these also protect employees from arbitrary personnel actions



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



“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.”



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



Question?

What’s the distinction between micro-managing and taking a

healthy, supportive interest in your staff’s well-being?



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



“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”



“menopause--I have asked again and again for this to be addressed through workshops

or at conferences”



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



Women

Women need to learn how to compete with other women without feeling betrayed when competition

happens (and it will)



“The profession attracts strange and wonderful people, sometimes they're just

strange.”

“Insane, anti-social, misfits, a.k.a., librarians”



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?



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

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Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library...

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