Our KYKO personality profile is not static.  It is dynamic and changes with the working experiences of the organization environment.

The environment of the organization can be conducive or toxic. A conducive working environment gives pleasurable experiences to her employees and helps them to actualize in the five dimensions of KYKO personality profile while a toxic working environment gives painful experiences and deactualizes the employees’ behavior. Conducive environment reinforces the self actualizing traits. For example, an irresponsible employee can change into a responsible employee. On the other hand, a toxic organization reinforces the low self actualizing traits and develops the negative traits of the five dimensions. For example, a responsible and sensible employee can change into an irrational and irresponsible employee good at survival skills.

Factors that can contribute to a toxic environment.

Opaque Management

• Unclear vision and mission, goals, and objectives
• Badly defined systems, policies, regulations, rules
• Roles are ambiguous.
• Principles of management are violated
• Resources are idle and inefficiently used.
• Disruption of unity of command
• People can get away cheating and not doing work

Boss

• Boss who plays favoritism. This may even be in a broad form, e.g. having a preference for the line over the staff functions or vice versa
• Boss does not give recognition for performance
• Boss claims credit for subordinate’s achievement
• Boss censors the good performance of the employee to the higher management
• Boss breaks employee’s self-esteem
• Boss fails to give clear instructions and directions
• Boss withholds vital information from the employee, which information is vital for the efficient performance of the job
• Boss blames employee if things go wrong
• Boss says one thing and does another - i.e. there is no congruency between what is said and what is done
• Boss is not decisive - subsequently employee does not have a sense of direction
• Boss plays “God” with the performance appraisal - they are subjective
• Boss delegates responsibility without the authority to act - curtailing the employee’s self-esteem

Company Policies

• Win-lose policies
• Centralization of power
• Creating privileged groups in the organization
• Closed door policy
• Poor fringe benefits
• Too much red tape

Working Conditions

• Hot and noisy working environment
• Unsafe work conditions
• Dirty work environment
• Insufficient resources
• Old technology
• Old machinery

Interpersonal Relationships

• Unhealthy politicking
• Lack of cooperation among workers
• Back stabbing
• Empire building
• Rumor mongering
• Alienation
• Mistrust
• Sabotage

Pay

• Pay below the market rate

A toxic organization is a breeding ground for problem employees. The impact of a toxic company can be envisaged in the vicious cycle below:

An unhealthy organization creates a toxic environment. The toxic environment gives psychological pains to the employees. Psychological pains deactualize their personality changing them for the worse. The good employees will deactualize into problematic ones. Problematic employees are insensible and irresponsible. They will cheat and sabotage the organization at the slightest opportunity. Their negative manipulative traits are developed in the process, giving them the skills to play a survival game. The marginal employees will become worse and as a result, shirkers, deadwoods and laggards are created. Dissatisfied and frustrated with the organization each time they experience the psychological pain from a significant other they will adopt a very negative attitude towards work. Productivity and quality plunge. Cost of operation escalates. Complaints are badly entertained. Customers are frustrated with its service and products. Consequently the organization loses her customers to the competitors. Eventually, the organization suffers from recurring loses. Downsizing takes place and in the process employees are retrenched. The better employees would look for greener pasture while the problematic ones behave like chameleon to survive within their rights embodied in the labor laws. Cash flow problems surface and the organization is forced to cut down further cost adversely affecting the remuneration package and fringe benefits. The war between the union and the management begins causing greater damage to the organization and eventually kill it.

In view of the survival and growth of the organization, it is imperative for the management to continually make a concerted effort to remove the factors that contribute to the toxicities of the working environment to improve her health. A healthy company provides a conducive environment and its impact is envisaged in the diagram below:

Healthy organizations create a conducive working environment. A conducive environment breeds happy, motivated, satisfied and committed employees. Good employees will become outstanding in their performance as their self actualizing and positive traits are reinforced. Marginal and problem employees will change for the better as they experience pleasures in the working environment. The process of self actualizing for this group will be on going. Productivity and quality of products and services would be greatly enhanced. Operation costs dip and resulted having a competitive edge with their competitors. Customer base expands as the organization penetrates into the competitors’ market. Profit escalates. The demand for products and services of the organization will soar. Company expands regionally and globally. More employees are required to meet the demands of the customers. The hiring of more new employees offers the outstanding employees good chances for upward mobility. The win-win policies would also improve the remuneration package in terms of better fringe benefits, bonus and facilities. The better reward system reinforces the self-actualizing and positive traits of the employees as they continue to change for the better in terms of their competencies and attitude. Resources will be efficiently used to achieve the bottom lines. Wastages, rejects and accidents would be minimized, productivity and quality shoot up and the cycle continues in a recurring manner.