Is it the organisation or is it me?

[Menstrualcycledisplayteam]

Clickbait title, to a degree as I know none of you are going to be able to answer that specific question for me, BUT I feel like I am failing in my role and I cannot work out if it is the organisation or me.

Has anyone fundamentally failed in a role and then gone onto succeed somewhere else? I need to move, but I'm worried that the problem is actually me and the workplace isn't actually "toxic" which is how it feels.

I am a senior professional, working in industry. I held a very high profile position for 10 years before I had my child and moved whilst on maternity leave. The first place that headhunted me turned out to have questionable moral/ethical processes, so I left there very quickly. I then moved into another organisation, but I cannot get anything done. I'm not alone in this, our organisation is seemingly incapable of planning a project and seeing it through to completion, but this is a rarity for me in my career - I've always seen things through, albeit not naturally been a completer finisher. We also just seem to lurch from one crisis to the next, everyone being busy but no-one doing anything productive, if that makes sense? Lots of talk, a huge amount of inter-departmental stonewalling, and then 6 months later, nothing actually achieved.

I can't take not achieving anything anymore, but equally I feel like this will be the second role that I've "failed" in and I'm starting to think that is me. Surely if I was as good as I (previously) thought I was, I'd be able to make at least some progress?

I guess I'm hoping that people will have experience of leaving organisations and regaining their mojo, rather than a load of "yes, it is you" responses....!

Doesn’t sound like you ‘failed’ in either role. Suggest moving organisations again, but first trying to get information on the organisations you’re considering.

How long have you been in the current role? If under 2 years might make sense to wait a bit before moving.

Whilst you’re there are there things you could progress that are both useful and feasible to achieve within a reasonable time?

What have others that have left gone on to do? Have they been successful?
I say this because I was in a similar situation however it was clear the environment was toxic.
People that left or were terminated for poor performance have all, without exception, gone on to excel in the field we work in. This field is quite niche and the organisation has a poor reputation amongst senior people in our industry to the point that they now struggle to fill senior posts.

Can you elaborate a bit on what ‘not getting anything done’ means? Do deadlines just keep getting pushed back, or what? Surely clients / customers notice after a while?

In my experience an organisation’s culture is shaped from the top. If the chief exec / MD / whoever is disorganised, can’t meet deadlines, etc then the organisation will be like that. There are some companies which seem to manage to stagger on for a surprisingly long time while underperforming chronically. Maybe your current employer is one of these? In which case it probably has a reputation in the industry which means that you don’t want to stay there too long, for the good of your own reputation. If they are mediocre then after you’ve been there a while you risk being seen as mediocre too.

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat, I mean that the day to day work gets done. So my department, for example, processes all of our invoices on time (that's not what we do, but just by way of example), but any big project, like installing a new software system to improve risk management, or a business process review and remediation, or fixing fundamental historical poor practice just get endlessly talked about and never resolved. System upgrades/migrations aren't communicated internally well or at all, leading to last minute scrambles to notify clients, review contracts to see if those changes breach client terms. That sort of thing. And I can feel myself starting to just engage in "busy work" myself, because it is exhausting scrambling from one crisis to the next.

@RoseyLentil, yes, all leavers are going on to better things and flourishing. But I think my confidence has been so knocked by the first poor career move and now this one that I'm worried that I won't be the same. I know that sounds self pitying.

Ok so yeah it sounds like one of those mediocre companies that manage to keep staggering on. I’d look to move. It won’t do your CV much good to stay there too long and it sounds as though you’d do well at a more dynamic company.

The fact that you've got a track record of getting things done in your previous job, suggests that it's the organisation and not you. In your shoes I'd leave, you cant single-handedly change a workplace's culture. I can only imagine how frustrating and exhausting it must be.

‘all leavers are going on to better things and flourishing’

As the PP says

There are lots of organisations that aren’t great places to work, aren’t ‘on the up’ and so on. As an ‘outsider’ it can be very hard to work out which those are!

It’s not necessarily a sign of anything about you personally.

Just move on. Crap cultures are crap cultures. It'll damage your mental health long-term.

Yes, lots of people have weird ideas about "how long" to stay somewhere but the pandemic has shifted a lot of perceptions and recruitment is so hard now that many places are having to be more flexible. Take advantage.

I've experienced some hideous workplaces; boring, egos, 15 years out of date, unethical etc and honestly they traumatised me! (I'm not being hyperbolic here, I really thought the problem was me).

I work in a nice, non-political, well resourced place with talented colleagues now and I often look back and shudder.

I'm not someone who can phone it in every day. I'm a reliable and dedicated employee . I'm nice to colleagues and I try to do the right thing. I am surprised at how many negative work behaviours are tolerated and how poor lots of leaders are.

Thank you, that's helpful. I don't think I'm perfect, but some of the behaviours are like nothing I've seen before and it's really started to shake my confidence.

I'm updating the CV and starting to apply for jobs so hopefully I'll find something soon. I appreciate all of the replies.