Seth's Blog : Avoiding the toxic status loop

Avoiding the toxic status loop

Organizations and cultures are build on affiliation and organized by status. And that status never stays stable.

There’s a status loop in some suburbs in how the front lawn looks. A nicely kept yard gets a nod of approval from a neighbor and might be rewarded with a higher resale price. And so one nice lawn might become three or four, and then rakes come out and the cycle continues. The same could happen with Christmas lights.

But it also happens in some law firms, where working late or weekends gets you a promotion to partner, and then the race is on, with people sacrificing years of their personal lives to earn more status.

A toxic status loop goes further. Not only might it harm some participants, it also ends up belying the larger goals of the culture. Body shaming can lead to toxic eating disorders, or a focus on sales commissions can lead to eroding standards of ethics–all of which undermine the very point of the culture in the first place.

In certain political circles, status is gained by outdoing competitors in apparently being even more true to some of the party’s stated principles–focusing on performative or fringe elements of the platform at the expense of serving the public.

The first step is noticing the loop. The second is being clear about whether the steps taken to gain more status in this area are actually aligned with why you’re awarding status in the first place (is it helping you get the job done?). And finally, either changing the systems that award status or providing support and encouragement to people who refuse to create harm by single-mindedly pursuing metrics at the expense of the work to be done.