Toxicity Defined More than just difficult people and

Toxicity Defined More than just difficult people and management situations First used in late 1980 s in business literature (Peter Frost) An ongoing work situation that is painful, personally difficult and uncomfortable through a special combination of factors Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Toxicity Defined Hostile, unreasonable or emotionally distressing behavior with many causes Temporary toxicity – things happen, like illness and death, to upset situations Inevitable toxicity– Structures and people Hypotheses: A serious problem in libraries Seven main reasons Worse in some areas Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Web Survey Done in early 2007 Widespread interest confirmed our first hypothesis (almost 3000 respondents!) Results confirmed our second (the reasons) Results did not confirm our third (differences) Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Methodology Survey Monkey online tool Posted link to seven different library listservs Covered all types of libraries with no restriction on location One respondent per IP address Questions based on hypotheses Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

How Does This Help? Find the questions, find the answers Emotional intelligence is a powerful tool We can recognize and deflect toxicity Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Toxic Personalities and the People Who Enable Them Mary P. (Mollie) Freier Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

How serious is the problem? Selected results from a survey of emotional toxicity in the library workplace Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Are you currently in a workplace with hostile, unreasonable, or emotionally distressing behavior? Yes 1, 359 47. 6% No 1, 498 52. 4% Total Respondents = 2, 857 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Have you experienced significant problems in a workplace due to emotionally distressing behavior by your colleagues? No 344 12. 0% Yes 2, 531 88. 0% Total respondents = 2, 875 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

How serious were/are the problems in the workplace caused by this behavior? Minor 96 3. 5% Major 812 29. 6% Moderate 159 5. 8% Noticeable 626 22. 8% Serious 1, 048 38. 2% Total respondents = 2, 741 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

People are thinking of leaving Yes 1, 311 46. 4% No 1, 513 53. 6% Total respondents = 2, 824 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

“I will be leaving this library as soon as I find other employment. ” “If I'd known professional life was like this I'd have stayed at Target. ” “it's making me consider leaving the library profession” Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

People are leaving Yes 897 31. 7% No 1, 935 68. 3% Total respondents = 2, 832 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Causes of workplace toxicity Ill-defined job duties or Illness or unqualified employee death 299 of relative 11% 6 Employee illness 0. 2% 33 1% Temporary personal situation 57 2. 1% Other or no idea 102 3. 7% Permanent personality reasons 1, 469 54% Administrative or structural Employee death problem in library 0 757 0% 28% Total respondents = 2, 723 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Area in which Toxic Situation is Most Prevalent No difference between areas or no toxic situations 1, 499 53. 5% Technical Services 353 Public 12. 6% Services 385 13. 7% Administration or other 565 20. 2% Total respondents = 2, 802 Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Reasons for toxicity (frequent open-ended responses) Unions/tenure—or lack of unions/tenure Poor communication/lack of communication Administration/manager/supervisor It’s innate Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Unions/Tenure Both of these make it difficult to correct toxicity in personnel situations Both of these also protect employees from arbitrary personnel actions Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Communication Many survey respondents commented on poor communication Rude communication is apparently a problem for some workplaces Unclear or nonexistent job descriptions make it impossible to convey expectations Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

“Bad administrators can ruin your whole day” “My first boss was certifiable to the point that I daily looked for ways to push her over the edge so she would go home. ” Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Administration/supervisor Toxic administration outside of library No supervisory training for managers Administrator/supervisor modeling toxic behavior Micro-managing Not being aware of toxicity in the library (and not being interested in finding out) Not doing anything about toxicity Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Question? What’s the distinction between micro-managing and taking a healthy, supportive interest in your staff’s well-being? Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

You said it (not me!). . Women can’t work together. The kind of people who are attracted to librarianship are just not good at working with other people Librarianship attracts people who are conflict-averse, so they won’t do anything to fix a toxic situation if it might provoke a confrontation Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

“Women should unite instead of taking every chance to bring each other down. ” “women shouldn't work with other women” “women tend to target other women” “males tend to beat on their chests when other males approach 'their' territory” Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

“menopause--I have asked again and again for this to be addressed through workshops or at conferences” Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Women have been conditioned to compete for male attention Even when women try to support each other, problems arise in terms of who is supposed to take charge, what happens when a mentee becomes an equal, and how women deal with competition for promotions Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Women need to learn how to compete with other women without feeling betrayed when competition happens (and it will) Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

“The profession attracts strange and wonderful people, sometimes they're just strange. ” “Insane, anti-social, misfits, a. k. a. , librarians” Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Who are we attracting to librarianship? If we are attracting difficult personalities to librarianship, why is this happening? How can we keep it from happening? Are the people who are already here incapable of working effectively with others? Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007

Conflict-averse? Librarians are passiveaggressive Librarians avoid conflict People who came to the profession thought that librarians were timorous, and have learned differently (to their cost) Librarians are apparently quite capable of being assertive—when they’re being toxic Caution! Hazardous Substances: Recognizing and Deflecting Toxic Personalities in the Library Workplace Bennett, Freier, Riley ACRL Baltimore March 30, 2007