Turning toxic behaviour into a trusting community
Public Shaming. Rebuilding Trust. Holistic Development.
The Situation:
An international staffing organisation grappled with leadership gaps in three crucial areas — delivering constructive feedback, managing energy and time, and communicating digitally. Left unaddressed, these issues had a domino effect that rippled through the team and extended to their clients. Leaders' handling of negative client feedback turned into public shaming episodes; team members’ low time and energy management skills led to burnout; and communicating bluntly and reactively was eroding trust. Collectively, these issues lowered the energy in the team, put a damper on productivity, and caused regular misunderstandings. The need for a skill upgrade was both urgent and crucial for their team members’ wellbeing, and the negative client outcomes they were starting to see more and more of.
What They Did:
Working with the client, we rolled up our collective sleeves and mapped a series of tailored online team learning experiences to bridge the skills gaps.
Feedback Training: Using a tried and tested framework, we trained all team members to shift from delivering personal criticism to constructive, behaviour-focused feedback that inspires change.
Time Management Training: We introduced frameworks and techniques to help the team manage their time and energy effectively. This is designed to increase productivity, but also improve wellbeing.
Communication Skill Training: We educated the team on expressing themselves with clear emotional intelligence in their written and digital communications. This empowered them to build trust and speak confidently and effectively in their interactions.
The Impact it Made:
The results were multifaceted. The people and culture department embedded the learning within their internal onboarding process, so all new team members were brought up-to-speed, and they added coaching check-ins to their team members’ calendars. Over the next 10 months, the days of public shaming and toxic blame games became less and less common. Instead, a new expectation for positive and constructive feedback and communication took hold. Additionally, all team members who’d created a personal plan continued to work through it with their leaders’ supervision, focusing on the things that made them feel energised and healthy — psychosoical enhancements that made them both happier and more effective at work.
Note:
The client's specialty has been changed slightly to protect their privacy.
