Why do organizations keep causing harm? And how do we cure toxic cultures?

“A timely, rigorous, and deeply unsettling book.”—Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of The Fearless Organization

Not a week goes by with out yet another major organizational scandal: Open AI’s agents going rogue, Volkswagen’s emissions cheating, Boeing’s persistent safety issues, endemic police misconduct at the Oakland PD, and sexual abuse at yet another Roman Catholic Church. So why do do organizations keep causing these harms?

Benjamin van Rooij and Nicholas Lord argue that to truly understand and address the impacts of dysfunctional organizations we must look beyond leadership and understand the deeper problems in the organization itself. To do so, Toxic uses dozens of in-depth case studies to connect the dots between various scandals and illustrate the deeper toxic patterns within organizations that lead to them.

Each chapter recounts compelling stories of individuals caught within these toxic systems and addresses urgent societal challenges such as environmental degradation, the opioid epidemic, the harms of social media, and police abuse. Stories include:

Facebook sought to grow from 1 billion to 5 billion users, leading it to enter Myanmar’s volatile ethnic context without having the knowledge or capacity to do proper content moderation, and thus contributing to genocide.
Don Parus, a BP engineer made an all-out effort to warn company leaders to invest in safety, just months before a major explosion killed fiteen and injured hundreds at its Texas City Refinery.
Keith Batt, a rookie at the Oakland Police Department, was made to witness, condone and participate in falsifying arrest records, planting evidence, and even in unsanctioned violence, all within two weeks on the job.

Revealing, accessible, engaging, and unsettling, Toxic breaks down the core characteristics of toxic organizations and shows readers how to recognize and address toxicity in their everyday lives.

“Toxic is a timely, rigorous, and deeply unsettling book. Van Rooij and Lord show that devastating organizational failures need not be caused by a bad actor or an isolated lapse in judgment. They arise instead from systems that set unrealistic goals, suppress inconvenient information, normalize harmful practices, and evade responsibility when warning signs emerge. Drawing on a wide-ranging and well-documented set of cases, this book offers a framework for recognizing the red flags of organizational toxicity before it’s too late. It also offers leaders, employees, regulators, and citizens practical insight into what it takes to interrupt these destructive dynamics and build organizations capable of learning, accountability, and repair. This is an important book for anyone who wants to understand not only why organizations go wrong, but also what it will take to help them do better.” —Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, Harvard Business School, and author of The Fearless Organization

“We are drawn to stories about villains: the corrupt executive, the rogue employee, the one person whose removal can supposedly set everything right. Toxic shows why that explanation is so often inadequate. By focusing our attention on organizations as systems serving as a crucial middle layer between individuals and society, van Rooij and Lord offer a compelling framework for understanding the role and importance of institutions today.” —Renee DiResta, author of Invisible Rulers

“Through real-life case studies of corporations and organizations gone rogue, van Rooij and Lord bracingly analyze how once-healthy entities descend into causing real harm—and point to ways to avoid such damaging trajectories.”—Dominic Gates, co-recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Boeing 737 Max crashes and investigations

“Comprehensive yet readable, this essential work explains the forces that cause corporations to transform into criminal organizations.”—Jack Ewing, author of Faster, Higher, Farther

“Rich with vivid stories from an extraordinary range of people, places, and organizations, this book makes complex ideas both fascinating and relevant for anyone curious about how organizations can sometimes go so disastrously wrong.”—Hui Chen, former Compliance Counsel, US Department of Justice

“Scandals and disasters just don’t happen. Toxic is essential reading in understanding the organizational factors that set them into motion.”—Barry Meier, author of Pain Killer

“Benjamin van Rooij and Nicholas Lord stand at the forefront of scholarship on how and why organizations falter. Anyone who wants to know how harm takes root inside institutions and how it might be prevented should read what they have to say.”—Eugene Soltes, Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and author of Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

“Every corrupt manager, every abuser needs an enabling system. The problem isn’t a few ‘bad apples’—it’s organizational breakdown. Toxic is terrifying and salutary.”—Chris Blackhurst, author of Too Big to Jail

“The world needs this book.”—Robert Cialdini, author of Influence and Pre-Suasion

“An astute, useful book that distills the essence of how organizations go bad and how redemption is achievable.”—John Braithwaite, Distinguished Professor, Australian National University

Toxic

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By Benjamin van Rooij and Nicholas Lord

By Benjamin van Rooij and Nicholas Lord

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