Taking Over a Toxic Workplace

Josh Harris, the new leading partner of the Washington Commanders, just spent over $6 billion to inherit a teardown.

He bought a once-proud franchise with a 20-year season ticket waiting list that was systematically destroyed by its former narcissistic owner, Daniel Snyder.

Replacing Snyder will be viewed positively and allow Harris to bask in the sunshine for a brief moment. But once he removes his coat and enters his new workspace, he will learn the mess is bigger than he could have imagined.

Since Snyder purchased the team in 1999, his horrible leadership style and poor behavior have been engrained throughout the organization. Though employees have come and gone, the scars remain.

A toxic culture never immediately vanishes with a simple changing of the guard. It lingers, hiding in small places.

Removing those scars won’t be easy. It will take time, supreme effort, and most of all, it will require Harris to prove his trustworthiness.

Before changes can occur, Harris must gain a true understanding of the deep-rooted issues of the franchise and learn these himself; he can’t simply rely on others to “bring him up to speed.”

The “bringing up to speed” method for any leader is risky. It relies on the evaluator being correct when the leader typically hasn’t “evaluated the evaluator.” If the evaluator is wrong, this shortcut proves to be a major waste of time — and time is of the essence here.

Almost every new leader enters with a 100-day plan — a new direction and vision created from afar, mostly by those involved. But how can the leader know the path without truly understanding the real issues?

For Harris to develop trust and understanding of the central concerns, he must announce to all, in a fully transparent manner, that he will spend the next few months collecting data from those in the entire organization, from the cleaning services to the president.

A leader cannot develop complete trust when there is the potential for bias — and relying on the evaluations of those in the building regarding others could easily destroy his intentions of building a new culture.

To rebuild the culture properly, Harris cannot allow bias to creep into his decision-making. When people in the organization see Harris acting independently, they will trust his decisions. If they see him relying on the former top brass, they won’t.

In taking over a toxic culture, Harris needs to demonstrate fairness, let the employees speak for themselves, and not rely on what others might believe.

Every Commander employee believes he or she knows the problems and how to quickly repair the team — only from their perspective and their self-interest.

Most will blame Snyder. But while pointing the finger at him for all of the problems is easy, it will never allow Harris to fully understand what he needs to do to establish the culture.

Digging deep, independently spending time around everyone, observing, and listening are the only ways he can dig himself out of the mess he just purchased.

Harris must be the culture changer and the instrument of change.

Only he can return the franchise to its days of greatness.