By Nick Wharton, JOMC Ltd
A ‘Well Poisoner’ is the term coined for those individuals in the workplace with a poor attitude (to safety) yet with a lot of influence over others. These are a dangerous class of person as they tend to contaminate their environment and infect others around them. They do this principally through:
Their weaker-minded, less influential friends are the ‘Walking Dead’ or workplace zombies. With their poor attitude but less influence, this lot are miserable, negative, looking for the easy option, demotivated and can suck the life out of a team.
The Well Poisoners get on well with the Walking Dead as they provide them with an audience and help to massage their egos, thereby further enhancing their influence. But what a Well Poisoner really craves is fresh meat in the shape of ‘Players’ (good attitude, not much influence).
There is nothing that a Well Poisoner likes more than to recruit someone new, dragging them down to their own level and growing their circle of Walking Dead followers.
You will perhaps recognise each of these characters among the people that you work with or have worked with in the past. The Walking Dead and Well Poisoners will need careful handling but the first question should be: “Why are they like that?”
Let us start with the premise that they are not just naturally bad people – very few people are – then we ask the questions:
There are many questions that we could ask but a couple stand out that we should face up to first:
Once they have been identified and we have understood their motivation, we can start to deal with them. Understanding and dealing with the causes behind their characteristics may put you well on the way to changing them.
Well Poisoners in particular must be challenged – not always easy due to their influence. Maybe they don’t recognise how they come across to others, they may well see themselves as ‘Champions’ (good attitude, plenty of influence) and don’t recognise that their behaviour gives a different impression. If you can convert these people they become a valuable asset.
On the other hand if you cannot convert them maybe you need to ask the difficult question: “Is this the kind of working environment that is suitable for someone like that?” As the saying goes: “If you can’t change the people then change the people!”
Team members can also play their part by not giving the Well Poisoners an audience, challenging the nonsense they talk and not following their example. This in turn will help to reduce their influence and isolate them.
Have you got a Well Poisoner in mind? What are you going to do about them?
Nick trained as an Environmental Health Officer, which resulted in an H&S enforcement role with a Local Authority, to which he later added the Safety Officer role. This in turn led to full-time HSE Management roles in industry. During this time Nick developed his own highly successful approach to behavioural safety. For the past 10 years he has worked with JOMC delivering Culture Change consultancy to a wide range of clients.
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