Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

Surviving Toxic Systems 197
identify potential defects of character that may have contributed to our
involvement in this particular type of organization, role, or situation.
The second area of inquiry requires a cold and unfiltered examination
of the organization. Here we ask the following two questions: What
conditions in the organizational environment have created or contributed
to my distress? What actions or inactions of organizational
leaders have created or worsened this distress? These questions help us
diagnose environmental stressors as objectively as possible and to discover
if our distress is unique or shared by other workers.
The third area of inquiry is the relationship between the individual
and the organization. This inquiry explores the potential of restructuring
this relationship for mutual benefit. It places blame not within yourself
or the organization but with the space in between the two: the
relationship.
Based on what we have discovered in our exploration of these three
areas, we can begin to formulate our response to the most important
question: What do I need to do? But before detailing potential responses
to that question, let’s explore our preliminary questions in a bit more
depth.
How Did I Get in This Situation? It is only natural for someone in a miserable
work situation to blame themselves for their decision to come to
work with the particular organization. There are the inevitable questions:
Why couldn’t I have seen what was going to happen here? Why
couldn’t I have waited for a better situation? But unless such decisions
are part of a chronic pattern, a subject we will return to shortly, there
are many reasons why we can find ourselves in unbearable professional
situations.
Some of us may have been in a situation in which our financial needs
left us no choice but to accept the position we did. Even if we had other
choices, it is important to understand how easy it is to misread the nature
of toxic systems. As we noted earlier, some of the most toxic systems
seem wonderful from the outside looking in. It is also probably
true that we all share some attraction to such systems. Closed systems
are attractive because they dramatically simplify the process of day-today
living. We plug ourselves into the closed system, and it initially
acts like a backup generator. The more of its power we use, the less we
need to use our own power. Our autonomy and strength weaken
through such reliance, as our personal comfort and harmony in the