Being in the Pacific Northwest is amazing. The food is excellent, and we have so many trees and lots of kombucha. And the weather is great, with rare extremes in temperature or natural phenomena. And sometimes we see orcas in the water and eagles flying around! Or eagles in the water and orcas flying around, if you eat certain types of mushrooms.
But like other places, we have challenges, one of which passive-aggressiveness. I think I have tons of haters in the city, but I can never be sure who they are, or why they hate me, since folks rarely confront anyone directly or say what’s on their minds. Ryan, stop glaring at me at the farmer’s market!
The passive-aggressiveness, however, though more present in certain geographic areas like the PNW (and, cough, Minnesota), is pervasive to our entire sector. We attract and reward people who tend to be nice, compassionate, and community-minded, whereas other sectors attract and reinforce those who are more assertive and aggressive, and nice people can be conflict-avoidant.
Meanwhile, the constant presence of power dynamics means we often can’t be as direct; or else I’m sure a lot more nonprofit staff would be telling their funders and donors to take their money and shove it where the sun don’t shine (e.g., Seattle).
One of the results of this indirectness is something called triangulation, and it happens a lot. Triangulation is when Party A has issue with Party B, but instead of confronting them directly, they go to Party C to vent and complain.
Now, all of us vent to our friends and colleagues, that’s normal and when done right, even helpful. But in triangulation, Party C then may get mad at Party B on Party A’s behalf without understanding the full picture. It forms a triangle of drama, and left unchecked often becomes a pentagon or octagon of workplace toxicity. In extreme cases, it can devolve into what I call the Wheel of Disillusionment.
Here are some examples:
· A colleague is annoyed that a new team member skipped the post-event cleanup. Instead of talking to her directly, he complains about her to another colleague. The two of them create a narrative that their new colleague is selfish and not a team-player.
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