At least nobody died…

As soon as you become interested in service quality, you’ll come across dramatic articles and books about plane and train crashes, leaks of toxic gasses and gross medical medical negligence. The reason is clear. People have died. Therefore an official investigation has taken place, and made public, which uncovers a catalogue of contributing factors, human and process, leading to the disaster – a carcass for any ambitious journalist to feast upon.

However, most cases of Qualitosis happen behind closed doors. No direct fatalities occur, no headlines are made. The employees become demotivated or quit, customers gradually leave and the business slips away into history. I know, I’ve been lucky enough (though it didn’t seem to be at the time) to have been working for 3 different companies that have gone bankrupt in the last 10 years alone. In each case [but for different reasons] the workplace environment was toxic and had been for some time. In each case the business had been losing competitiveness for years. In each case, a difficult and deteriorating market was blamed for the inevitable insolvency. But their competitors survived in that same market and thrived once it turned. What had caused these doomed companies to be so frail that they were the first to be picked off from the herd? What did they all have in common? A toxic working environment.

Let’s hear it straight from the Doctor’s mouth

How many of us really know how we impact others?

We came across Chris Turner through his association with Nicki Eyre and the excellent Conduct Change organisation https://www.conductchange.co.uk/ . This video bridges the gap between the emotive subject of medical negligence and how rudeness or incivility impacts everyone in the workplace no matter the organisation or industry.

40% – 60% of the variance in performance between otherwise identical teams can be attributed to rudeness

When someone is rude to another worker their “bandwidth” reduces 61%. Furthermore, onlookers’ bandwidth also reduces 20%

Take a look at the this TEDx talk by Chris and be both entertained and informed.

Qualitosis