“We’re not toxic!” is a selling point

And it SHOULDN'T be

My grad school experience was bad. Bad in that if I were given a choice between doing it all again exactly as it was and signing a billion-year contract with Scientology’s Sea Organization, I’d be getting fitted for one of those shiny naval-inspired uniforms faster than you could say “research funding”.

And it wasn’t because of the university, but a few badly intentioned individuals within it. So often, I’ve heard stories of one or two people creating a negative working environment within an organization that would have been great without them.

When I first started devising ideas for coaching and consulting services for academics several years ago, my focus was on making academia better from the inside by changing bad behavior. I naively believed that I could train an asshole not to be an asshole because I failed to realize that being an asshole was the point. Intentional. A person who builds their career on treating people badly doesn’t do so because they don’t know what they’re doing. They do it because they know exactly what they’re doing, and it works for them. It’s a cheat’s way to success—tear everyone down to clear the path for yourself instead of building connections and bringing them with you.

People who do this don’t need or want training in developing soft skills to create a positive culture because they know all about soft skills and choose to use them to create the opposite.

(Incidentally, a video by the awesome Grace McCarrick (@graceforpersonalityhires) on TikTok inspired me to write about this today, and you should go check out her content!)

I no longer care to fix the assholes. Assholes will asshole, and they’ve had enough of my time.

So, why am I still here?

Bad culture is so widespread in academic environments that it has become common for the bare minimum that should be expected—good mentorship, training opportunities, respectful communication, constructive criticism, friendly atmospheres, collaborative environments—to be touted as benefits of joining someone’s research team. “We’re not toxic!” is a selling point, and it shouldn’t be. It should be the baseline.

If being a non-toxic and healthy place to do research is the thing you’re going to use to set yourself apart from others, what that is saying is that toxicity is the norm.

We’re different because we’ll treat you right? No. The others should be considered different for doing the opposite.

I want to work with the non-toxic teams. The ones who are already doing this correctly and want to be more than just a safe workplace.

I want to work with you if you have something brilliant and want to make it even better. Because I’m no longer a “fixer” (of things that can’t even be fixed). I’m an optimizer.

Let's make non-toxic the baseline and bad behavior the anomaly.