Toxicity
Toxicity
Meet Your Host, Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it.
His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on several boards of directors in various capacities.
His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 30th year and sixth edition. His newest is Your Legacy is Now: Life is not about a search for meaning but the creation of meaning (Routledge, 2021). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages.
Get to know AlanShow Notes
- Suddenly we have “toxic workplaces” (and need “psychological safety” and have “unhoused” people and “food insecure people).
- We try to wallpaper over real problems with euphemisms and ideologically-biased language.
- Can you have a “toxic workplace” without toxic employees? Chicken and egg?
- On social media we see complete nonsense such as “52% of all workplaces are toxic,” which is preposterous and without any valid study.
- Can we have so many successful businesses with such malicious management?
- I’ve witnessed the opposite: Leadership doing its best to deal with underperforming and entitled employees.
- The story of Burlington Industries and Bill Klopman.
- If people want to do the job but don’t know how, they need skills training.
- If people don’t want to do the job even if they do know how, they need coaching (attitude adjustment). If they still refuse to do it, they need firing.
- It’s an entitled age, and people demand certain treatments and conditions that please them, but may not please others, and don’t help the business or its customers.
- My work at the post office.
- “Toxic” often means “I’m asked to do too much, to meet deadlines, to fulfill commitments.”
- There are, of course, bad bosses, and hungry people and homeless people. Let’s not conflate the truly bad with those who are merely discontents.
- I have to conclude here, I feel “food insecure” so I’m going out for lunch, which would make me, for the moment, “unhoused.”
Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.
Introduction to the show recorded by Connie Dieken
