company culture

Venting: The not-so-silent culture killer

We’ve all been there. We experience frustration with a certain situation, or we simply disagree with a decision. Oh, how tempting it is to find a sympathetic ear and vent “to get it out”! Naturally, as we vent, our stories become colored with assumptions and are less focused on problem-solving. But that is just one of the many downsides of venting, which don’t just negatively affect you, but often your team and the company culture. Let’s take a deeper look at why we vent, why it’s bad for us, and how we can transition to a better approach.

Why we vent and let others vent

Venting makes you feel closer to the person that you’re venting to, says Ethan Cross in his article in EdWeek. When we are frustrated with something or someone, we look for allies and seek validation of our righteous indignation. In a post-pandemic world, a rather strange economic and quite divisive social climate, we crave a sense of support. Bonding over a perceived shared grievance seems to be an easy solution. We vent or we indulge someone else’s venting. For example, a new manager who wants to ingratiate themselves with their direct reports might not just listen to them complain, but actually fan the flames because it creates a sense of bonding. A team member who has been feeling disconnected might engage in venting with a colleague to feel a sense of camaraderie. 

Venting causes energy-levels to go up. A disengaged employee will feel energized, albeit in a negative and counter-productive way when complaining to a team member about a perceived injustice, unwanted behavior or decision. After all, the spurt of energy feels better than indifference or disengagement. 

Another reason why we vent is rooted in the misconception that it will make you feel better, which has been perpetuated for decades. It is often our go-to strategy. Even if we don’t vent in the workplace, we may go home and unleash our frustrations and the stories we’ve told ourselves on our spouses and partners, who may or may not be equipped to redirect the conversation into something more productive. 

Why venting is bad for us 

Contrary to popular belief, venting does not have the healing effects that we often attribute to it. Jill Suttie outlines the dark sides of venting in her article on Greater Good Magazine. “emotional venting likely doesn’t soothe anger as much as augment it. That’s because encouraging people to act out their anger makes them relive it in their bodies, strengthening the neural pathways for anger and making it easier to get angry the next time around”. So as we are venting, we don’t release our frustrations and grievances, but we’re making ourselves go through them again, often augmenting them, thus releasing higher cortisol levels into our bodies, which can result in a higher heart rate and even higher blood pressure, the long-term effects of which can’t be underestimated. 

Anna Maravelas’ book “Creating a Drama-Free Workplace” dedicates an entire section to the perils of venting. She points out the adverse impact on our health as well as the effects on our professional standing and credibility, and our company culture. When we’re in a venting mindset, she says, we’re “flooded”, which greatly impairs our ability to problem-solve. She also points out that venting can damage your relationships with your colleagues, who might know that if you speak ill of someone else, you likely speak ill of them as well. We could also be considered hypocritical. For example, if Bob unloads on John a litany of why Jane is unqualified, lazy, and just doesn’t care about the team and then acts delighted when interacting with Jane, John might consider Bob a hypocrite and assume that Bob will have no qualms talking poorly about him. This clearly does not foster a culture of trust. Instead, Bob does what Maravelas calls “bankrolling drama at the expense of seeking solutions.” It can even have a bigger ripple effect. If the venting revolves around the assumption that key players or leadership just “don’t care” why would team members feel that they are part of something great? Why would they continue to be engaged?

The “feel-good” sensation that we experience when venting can be compared to scratching a mosquito bite or rubbing our itchy eyes. It might feel good at the moment, but it doesn’t help. In fact, you irritate your body even more and crave more scratching. Now think about what you’re doing to the person that you’re venting to: you’re essentially scratching them or rubbing their eyes. Does that seem like a good idea? 

How to stop it

The good news is that we are capable of change. We just have to learn better techniques once we recognize the negative impact of venting. 

In preparation for one of our company meetings, we asked everyone to watch Cy Wakeman’s clip entitled “Why venting is unhealthy and wrong”. The discussion that ensued was wonderful. Many of us acknowledged that we had always thought that venting had a positive effect by getting frustration out of our system. We also admitted that we all vented at times. Looking at it from a new perspective was eye-opening. Awareness is the first step to improvement. 

Following Wakeman’s philosophy of reality-based leadership provides a great framework for establishing a culture of accountability and support. Before you go down a downward spiral, ask yourself “What do you know for sure?” For example, you may think that a team member doesn’t care about your department’s success because they missed a deadline. What do you know for sure? They missed a deadline. That’s it. Everything else is an assumption. If we follow the guideline of “the only acceptable assumption is to assume good intentions”, then we could stop our negative thoughts and start determining how we can help the situation and the team member. Similarly, we can help others by redirecting the conversation accordingly. Instead of fanning the flames of Mary’s indignation about Jack’s attitude/lack of respect/know-it-allism, you can make simple suggestions about how Mary can help Jack. This may be frustrating to Mary at first, but in the long term, you are increasing your chances of a better relationship between the two and an elevated company culture. Instead of getting a high from venting, help Mary get a “helper’s high,” as Maravelis calls it. 

You may also stress the importance of locus of control, which could be part of your company values. The team members who are most appreciated and most successful focus on things that they can control, not on external factors. They don’t play the blame game, they don’t form alliances against others, but they solve problems. Consider making locus of control part of your check-ins. 

Another technique involves talking about your own feelings and the impact on your own solution-finding abilities. How about showing vulnerability by saying “Steven, I want us to have a productive conversation that will be a win-win situation, but the way you’re communicating right now is not allowing me to problem-solve. Could we reconvene later today and focus on facts and how we all can help contribute to a solution?”

Hold yourself and your team members accountable. Stop yourself when you have the itch to vent. Find things to be grateful for, suggests Dr. Firdaus S. Dhabhar, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry. He also recommends channeling your energy into productive, healthy activities like exercise, spending time in nature, working on your hobbies, listening to music, meditating, or sleeping. Most importantly, “spend time with people you have meaningful connections with and focus on positive things.”

As there is overwhelming evidence about the negative effects of venting, let’s help each other develop healthier and more productive ways to handle frustrations. We’ll be better off as individuals and as a team. 

What about you? What are your ideas for eliminating venting and fostering a more cohesive, healthy, and positive company culture?  

The diversity challenge

In my previous post, I mentioned that company culture was not about a specific demographic, but about how each person lives and breathes the company values. Too often, the concept of “culture” is misinterpreted. Sadly, a lot of times, people confuse it with a homogenized environment in different aspects, such as race, gender, alumni, and age. The truth is that diversity can be one of your biggest assets, as it makes your team members more adept in interacting with different people and it allows you to leverage each person’s unique strengths. So what can you do to create a highly functional, diverse team? What can each team member, regardless of their role, do, to harness the benefits of diversity? In this post, let me put special emphasis on age diversity, since this has become somewhat of an elephant in the room.

Have an open mind

A great start to making diversity work for you is to make sure that you as a manager have an open mind and that you also foster not just tolerance but the full embracing of differences. Why not make open mindedness part of your company values and have it displayed front and center in your office? In addition, consider ways in which you can help team members get to know each other better. For instance, at Hannon Hill, we have “hot seats” with the new hires. It’s important for new team members to show their personalities and for existing employees to show their interest in getting to know them. Questions may range from “what’s been the biggest surprise in your first week of working here?” to “what would be the title of your autobiography?”. If you’re a manager, you’ll want to pay attention to who is asking questions and shows curiosity.

Educate yourself

If you’re not willing to learn about people who are different from you, you are hampering your own personal and professional development and your company’s. When I started working with an increasing number of millenials, I made it a priority to read at least one article a day on how to work with them, what motivates them, what scares them, and how to create an environment in which they thrive. I expect my team members to read, watch videos, and listen to audiobooks in order to always get better at their craft and that includes being able to understand, embrace, and ultimately leverage differences. Be sure to make clear to your team members that this is what you expect of them.

Have story sharing sessions

In one of our manager workshops, we went through a very impactful exercise: presenting our timeline. Each person was free to share whatever they felt comfortable with, and the idea was to present a timeline of the highlights and lowlights in their career and, if they so choose, their personal lives, and the lessons they learned from each. You wouldn’t believe how eye-opening it was, and the exercise certainly enhanced our appreciation for our teammates, and our admiration for and empathy with them.

Talk about differences

I understand the good intentions when people say “I don’t see color/gender/age”. But doesn’t that mean that you don’t see each person for the unique individual they are? Wouldn’t it make sense to acknowledge each other’s different backgrounds, personalities, and experiences and talk about them? I recommend fun exercises like personality tests. 16Personalities is a free test that only takes about 10-15 minutes. Discuss the results. Ideally, follow up with another exercise, such as having a small group present a concept (or even a sales pitch) to someone on the team with a specific personality type.

Accommodate preferences when and where it makes sense

Don’t use your background or personality type as an excuse for acting a certain way. Just because you’re an introvert doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t stretch yourself and go to networking events. Just because you’re “not a morning person” doesn’t mean that it’s you should not make sales calls early in the morning. Be sure to make this clear to your team. That being said, accommodate your team members’ preferences where it makes sense. For example, if your millenial software engineer prefers a schedule that allows him to take a break for a couple of hours in the middle of the day to pursue his passion and it doesn’t affect other team members or the desired output, consider giving your team member this flexibility. Or if one of your team members wants to take a day off to celebrate a specific holiday, allow it if it doesn’t negatively impact other people’s work.

Focus on strengths

“Oh, those millennials are so entitled! They have no idea about the real world!” The number of times I’ve heard this statement is equal to the number of times I’ve been supremely frustrated with its narrow mindedness. Instead of immediately focusing on stereotypes, which often have a negative tendency, challenge yourself and your team to look at the positives of each characteristic. So when you hear “millenials are entitled”, think about how to find the best trait in this and how to make it work for you. What about “millenials are confident and fearless”? How can you leverage that part of the equation? When you hear “Baby boomers are stuck in their ways”, think “they bring so much discipline and hard work to the table. How can we best leverage that?” You get the picture.

Involve HR

Finally, make sure to have ongoing conversations with HR. Laws, rules, and best practices change all the time, and your human resources pros make it their mission to stay on top of it. Talk to them about your initiatives. Ask them what you can or can’t do. Be open to their feedback.

You would be doing your team members and your company a disservice if you didn’t focus on embracing diversity. Consider this a diversity 101 post and stay tuned for more to come.

What about you? What are you doing to embrace diversity?

What’s company culture anyway?

Almost every candidate I’ve ever interviewed has either mentioned that our company culture was the reason why they applied for the job or has asked me to describe what our culture looks like. This is a good opportunity to dig deeper and ask the candidate “What does culture mean to you?” The answers typically cover a wide range, from “laid back atmosphere” to “wearing jeans”, and from “being able to work from home” to “young company”. But here’s the thing: none of those things define your culture. It’s not a dress code, or teleworking, or a specific demographic. Not at all.

Culture is something that is easy to see when you’re on the inside and hard to describe to anyone on the outside.

Here are some of my favorite definitions of company culture:

It’s how someone feels after interacting with someone in your company. At Hannon Hill, we want to make sure that every team member, regardless of their role and department, has face to face time with customers. That’s why it’s not uncommon for our Services Director, our VP of Engineering, or our Content Marketer to go to conferences or for a member of the Engineering team to be on a support call. One of the biggest measures of our company culture is indeed the way that our customers, prospects, and partners feel when they interact with us. This means that we need to live our values (being supportive, positive, and self-starting)  through and through, making them a part of each person’s fiber so that nobody even has to think about the right way to act. It’s part of our nature.

It’s how every team member acts when nobody’s looking. Similarly, you can look at company culture as something that is so precious to every team member that they will always act according to your common values and mission, even when nobody’s watching (including the CEO or their manager). The team member will know what to do, whether that’s watering a co-worker’s plant when they’re on vacation, cleaning the coffee maker, getting an early start to work on a special initiative, listening to audiobooks during their commute, and seizing other opportunities to get better at their craft.

I love this description from Harvard Business Review:  “Culture guides discretionary behavior and it picks up where the employee handbook leaves off.” Culture can become particularly apparent in challenging situations, such as an emergency call from a customer or a high pressure request from a prospect. Do your team members feel empowered to act? Can you trust them to do the right thing? Culture also is also reflected in the way people interact with their manager. What do they do when they made a mistake or things went wrong? How do they express themselves? How do they greet each other in the morning? Do they feel comfortable bringing new ideas to the table?

Your company values are the core around which your culture revolves. Take some time to write down those values. Here are some examples:

  • Be humble and scrappy
  • Embrace challenges and change
  • Work hard, be nice and dream big (as seen at Atlanta Tech Village)

Now let’s get back to the happy hours, the free lunches and snacks, the casual dress code, the standing desk, and the bouncy ball seats. All of those can be attractive perks that can help you reward your team members. However, the single biggest perk you can give to your team your commitment to ensuring that they won’t have to work with someone who does not live the company values. 

What about you? What’s your favorite definition of company culture?