A toxic project environment
will not only hinder your project,
but it'll also create stress
in your personal and professional life.
That's something you don't want.
In this video, I'm going to share with you
how to identify a toxic environment,
and ways that you can combat it.
And stay tuned to the end of this video,
'cause I'm going to share with you
how you can get your hands on my checklist
on how to avoid the top 10 project mistakes
most project managers make.
Hi, if you're new here, welcome.
My name is Adriana Girdler,
and you landed on the Practical Project Management Channel
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Anyway, I'm really proud of it,
and I hope that you're enjoying it too
if you've been here for a while,
and if not, welcome.
But consider subscribing, as it helps our channel grow
so that we can get more great content out to you.
On that note, let's figure out
how to deal with toxic environments,
the signs, and what we can do about it.
Project confusion.
When no one's on the same page
or if people are not really clear
with the roles and responsibilities,
this is your first sign
that you are heading towards a toxic environment,
and you must, must, must, must pay attention to it
and do something about it immediately,
because the unclarity of expectations
and roles and responsibility can snowball into dysfunction
if you don't tackle it right away.
So this is your warning sign.
If you have any of that, then you must do the following.
You have to get the group together.
You're going to have to really address what is the
confusion. Go through the roles and responsibilities.
Ensure that everyone is agreeing to them.
And if you're doing this virtually,
have everyone put their camera on
so you can see everyone's faces
to see who it really is agreeing to it,
'cause again, our facial expressions
can give us so much information
than them just giving you a verbal agreement
and you can't see if they really mean it or not.
'cause I've called people out on that,
saying, "Look it, I don't think you really mean it,
so let's talk about it a little bit more,"
just to get that information out there.
That becomes really important.
And best yet, take out your charter and review it again
and ensure that everyone is in agreement and has signed it.
And if they don't like something about it, spend time in it.
Now if you're asking yourself right now, "What's a charter?"
oh my goodness, you need to get one right now.
And if you don't have a charter for your project,
you have to create it immediately,
'cause it's going to help you keep everyone on track.
Lack of or no communication.
Now this is tying into the first tip I just said, right?
It's actually a little bit of a snowball of it.
So if you haven't dealt with the project confusion,
you probably are now experiencing
lack of communication or no communication.
Everyone's in their lane, everyone is siloed,
they may be doing their own thing,
they may have hidden agendas.
Those hidden agendas may be coming out
and no one's talking to you about it,
or they're ignoring you, worse yet. (groaning)
How do you deal with it? That's a toxic project environment.
So how do you address that?
Well, it becomes really important
that you're really clear as a project manager
what the expectations are with the team.
And part of that is communication, is to say to them,
"If you have any issues or questions,
we're supposed to address it in this meeting first,
not outside the meeting with senior executives."
So call people out.
Do it respectfully, do it compassionately,
because people don't wake up going,
"I'm going to wreck that project."
They're waking up and they're dealing with politics,
or their own issues, who knows what it is,
but you just need to rally everyone back together.
Now what's also going to help is in your meetings,
document everything.
Yes, I know, sometimes as project managers
it's like. (groaning)
I mean, if I'm not babysitting, (chuckling)
I'm documenting and writing everything. (laughing)
I'm laughing 'cause it's so true.
I'm in a project right now
and that's basically what I'm doing. (laughing)
But I promise you, it helps, 'cause it gets clarity.
And when you have everything properly documented
as you're going along,
and if you need to get a scribe
or someone to kinda take those minutes
as the meetings are happening,
it's worth the investment to do that.
Because I don't know how many times it saved me
when I've gone to my meeting notes
and I've pulled up agreements,
or I've pulled up ways of working,
and it allows me, without emotional charge,
to challenge people in a respective way to say,
"Look, we had an agreement, we agreed on this date to this.
What's changed since then?"
And so now they now know, okay,
communication is out there, it is being documented,
it's going to get you out of that toxicity,
and people are going to start
communicating with you in the project.
But that's your job as a project manager.
You have to kinda set that tone
and ensure that you're also giving communication
and calling it out when it's not happening.
Before we jump into the next tip,
I just want to remind you to stay tuned
to the end of this video, because I'm going to share with
you how you can get your hands on my free checklist.
All right, so what is that next tip?
Constant gossiping and/or-
♪ Drama ♪
(groaning) Why, why is there drama?
Why can't people just do their job?
Don't we all get the same paycheck?
Why is it that politics plays a role in stuff? (groaning)
If I had answers to all of that,
every project would be perfect.
Life would be perfect. (laughing)
I'm laughing 'cause it's not, all right?
So I can only control what I can control.
I can't control all of that.
But what I can do is set up the expectations really clearly,
if I come across in my project team's meetings any drama,
gossiping, stuff like that, nip that in the bud.
In fact, make it part of the expectations
you have of behavior from your team.
And ensure that you do it respectfully
when you call people out,
because again, that becomes an emotional charge topic.
But that all being said,
what can you do when you do get some gossiping,
when you do get some drama?
Well, if you did your kickoff meeting correctly-
And how do you know
if you did your kickoff meeting correctly?
Well, if you check out my course Slay Project Management,
shameless little plug here,
but I actually walk you through how to do a project kickoff.
It really sets the tone on how to ensure
you don't get into a toxic environment in your project.
Link is below this video if you wanna check it out.
But by setting up your kickoff-
Oh, and by the way, too, I have a video on it.
So search YouTube, Adriana Girdler kickoff meetings.
And I'm telling you, that can help immensely
with ensuring that you don't have the drama,
and you don't have the gossiping,
because when you set things up with expectations
and you set it up well from the beginning,
it gives you permission to call people out
as it's happening, before it goes into toxic waste,
toxic dump, it's that toxic environment,
before it even gets there.
You have to keep on top of it.
Don't worry about, oh my goodness, I'm calling somebody out.
No, if you set it up properly at your kickoff meeting,
it's not that big of a deal, 'cause you can say,
"Hey, guys, do you remember at our kickoff meeting
we had those behaviors of expectations
or expectations that we all agreed to
and signed off on our charter?
Well, I just want to call out,
I'm hearing a little bit of this gossiping going on.
Let's get back to the facts
of what we're trying to do here."
It can really diffuse the situation,
but more importantly, stop you snowballing
into a toxic environment on your project.
Working all the time.
Okay, this is a little bit different in essence,
in regards to a toxic environment.
In projects, I'd like to say
there's balance in life, and there's not.
So let me tell you what I mean by that.
So balance usually infers that things are 50/50.
It's like a scale,
there's an equal and evenness to everything.
So when we talk about work-life balance,
that's not realistic.
In fact, that's a false expectation
and it will just create more issues for you.
I always call it harmony, right?
Think of it, harmony.
There are always going to be times within a project
you're up and down,
particularly in the life cycle of a project
that you may need to work a lot more
than you will at another portion of the project.
So there are times,
particularly in the beginning of a project,
I am working my tail off, like constantly,
weekends, evenings, but I know that and I'm okay with it.
Why?
Because as a project progresses
into the other framework and life cycle,
I know my amount of work backs off
because I did all the prepping and planning up front.
But if we're constantly at an even keel of working
and revving high without stop,
what happens is we get resentful.
What happens is we burnt out,
and that leads to a toxic project environment,
because if the team doesn't feel like they can get a break,
or they're constantly on and like, supercharged, (sighing)
it's just going to snowball into other resentments,
gossiping, complaining, not communicating.
It's a little bit of that snowball effect
that starts to occur.
So really be aware, take care of yourself.
If you're working constantly,
ask yourself a couple of questions.
Am I doing this to myself?
Is it my standard that I'm expecting?
Am I behind for whatever reason?
I might have too much on my work plate.
Do I have to talk to my manager?
Do I have to talk to the project manager?
So it's things like that.
It becomes our responsibility to ensure
that we don't contribute to the toxic environment
by taking care of ourselves.
But understand that it's called a work-life harmony,
not a balance.
So again, be aware that there's going to be ups and downs.
But if you're just revving all the time,
that's not good for you either.
You need to take care of yourself,
'cause it will lead to toxic environment.
Low team morale.
Okay.
This is like a cultural issue in the organization, I find,
because if you have low team morale,
and you set everything up
for your project properly, by the way,
it usually has nothing to do with the project,
but what's happening outside of the project,
within the organization.
Maybe people are just finding,
"You know what, I bring things up,
nothing ever gets solved," and morale goes really low.
Maybe there's something happening in the industry,
maybe there's something happening
in the organization itself,
but if you don't address that low team morale,
then it will lead to a toxic environment in your project.
So how do you do that?
This is where if you set your project up properly,
you have project sponsors, you have a steering committee,
you need to go to them and either,
A, deal with what's happening outside of the project
that's creating low team morale.
You may need to find out
if you can do anything to lift up the morale.
Maybe it's taking work off of people's plate
so they actually feel they have the time to do things.
Maybe you just need to all get together
and have some really fun team bonding exercises
if that's what's going to solve the root cause
of the low team morale to begin with.
Okay, I'm not saying doing team bonding exercise
is going to solve low team morale.
It really is dependent upon
what is causing the issue of the low team morale.
So you gotta have to do little digging in figuring that out.
But don't ignore that,
because again, that's a snowballing effect
that can get you really into
a toxic, dysfunctional project work environment,
which is so hard to get out of if you're there.
It's not impossible, it's just a lot of work.
So really take note of this
as kind of a warning sign as well,
'cause that's going to be really important for you
to really ensure that your team
is feeling good and connected,
and has really good morale around the project.
Now that you know how to spot a toxic project environment
and some of those really important warning signs, okay,
'cause that's half your battle
is don't even get in to toxic environment,
try to even stay away from it,
but understand the warning signs, you now need this.
Oh my goodness, this.
Ooh, you now need this. (laughing)
You now need this.
Why projects fail, the top 10 reasons,
'cause this can contribute to the toxic environment.
It's my gift to you, free.
It's underneath this video,
the link is below.
Grab it, thanks.