Criticism
Criticism is the perfect bad culture trait. It plays to many natural tendencies, appears to add value and assumes no risk. Any group of 10 or more will have at least 1 person prone to criticism as a primary work tactic. Here's why it works so well in the office...
Us vs. Them
The typical critical employee generally gripes about a trait or condition of another group such as "management" or "finance" or "marketing" or what have you. This is typical watercooler talk and can vary from mild to severe. But regardless it is a foot in the door to bad culture. In this situation criticism is easy to hand out because the subject of the criticism is not present. Oddly, one of the underlying causes of this tactic is the need to be more included in a team. The negative employee is attempting to identify himself with the person he is talking to be on "their side" or win the employee over to "his side". Bad cultures tend to appear in companies that are not peforming all that well. Folks like to distance themselves from the problem and point fingers. The critical employee is trying to be on the wining side--we all want to be on the wining side so often we jump in this type of criticism without even thinking about it. We become problem solvers and we find the problem (them) and we begin to talk about how to fix the problem (lay blame).
I'm protecting the company
This is my favorite and the most insidious. I have seen many managers buy in to this tactic and *encourage* it in their employees. The basic premise is this, by poking holes in bad proposals, I am *saving* the company money. In a problemed company, this is the perfect strategy. Some one else has done all the work to research a proposal. The critical employee usually hasn't invested anything in researching the plan so being critical is very low effort. It seems to add value to the proposal by pointing out its flaws. There is a difference between pointing out a weakness and offering a solution than simply saying a plan won't work. It's a fine line, be careful how you navigate it. Finding problems in another plan is zero risk. No one is going to blame the critical employee for "finding" these problems. It is a great way for an employee worried about their position to divert all attention away from themselves. This is the real purpose to unconstructive criticism... A good offense makes a good defense. Never forget that when you deal with the overly critical employee. They are making low level fear based decisions. Find out what is making them fearful--that is the real issue.
Criticism swirls in on itself like building firestorm. The heat circulates and builds. More and more employees will be drawn in to it if it goes unchecked. Let it go too long and some employees will become so negative that your relationship with them will be forever broken. The critical employee is subconsciously looking for validation that something really is wrong. Once that validation is achieved then the employee can absolve themselves of all blame for everything wrong at work. They can then stop working--after all, the problem is "marketing", right? Nothing I do will matter because it's all them. Someone else is to blame--I'm covered.
What starts as mild watercooler chat can lead to widespread unjustified negativity. No organization is perfect--many flaws are certain to be present. The goal of all organizations should still be to do the best you can realizing that perfection is goal to be attempted, but never quite achieved. Always remember that in an imperfect world there will always be imperfect solutions.
