I first came across the powerful workplace advocate and coach Nicholas Whitaker through our mutual connection Dr. Doreen Downing. Nicholas is a Co-founder of Changing Work, a community based on improving and elevating the current atrocious state of work (learn more at changingwork.org).
What he’s going to share with us is incredibly deep and moving. Buckle your seatbelts, as we’re in for one heck of a ride.
Childhood Trauma as One of the Root Causes of Workplace Dysfunction
“Nicholas, I know some of your story from your LinkedIn posts as well as our previous conversations,” I said to him. “Tell me more about what you experienced and what happened to you.”
“First off, I believe that a lot of the dysfunction in corporate comes from our experiences in childhood,” Nicholas said. “Many of us experienced a lack of nurturing and a lack of care, and as adults it shows up at the workplace. Workplace trauma then becomes more and more problematic as we each play our roles.
“For example, I grew up in a violent household with absentee parents. There was abuse in the house, inconsistent parenting, inconsistent reward mechanisms, and I had a narcissistic father.
“What happens with many is that they’re triggered by narcissistic and traumatized people in the corporate world who mirror the dynamics that were at play for them as children.”
“Wow, that’s absolutely spot on,” I said. “And it explains so many people’s experiences in struggling to deal with disturbed leaders.”
Joining a Completely Toxic Team
“Yes,” Nicholas said. “So, I came into corporate in 2010 – I was an entrepreneur before that. This experience is regarding my time at Google.
“I joined in as a temp, then became a contractor, and from there became a vendor. I was officially hired in 2015, joining a very high-performing team. I had an overbearing manager who did not have good communication skills. He was a bit of a bully.
“Because of my upbringing, his management style triggered the hell out of me. I developed imposter syndrome, anxiety, and workaholism as a maladaptive coping mechanism, which others on the team struggled with as well. But it was never enough.
“I left that team and then I bounced around for a while within the company. That’s when I found a “golden opportunity” to join HR, and bring my very specific skillset to bear to drive production efficiencies for L&D efforts across the company.
“Unfortunately, it was one of the most toxic teams I ever experienced. It was an older team, with the leaders deeply entrenched in their patterns. It was a Game of Thrones feeling and a House of Cards approach to growing their empires, growing budgets and authority. It turns out that the change I was hired for would jeopardize their empires and hold them accountable, so my role remit was a threat to everyone on the team. I got pigeonholed into this role where I wasn’t wanted on the team, and I wasn’t well supported.
Toxic Work Environment = Health Issues
“I developed gut health issues, and this was directly attributed to the toxic work environment, and the way I was coping with it,” Nicholas said. “I started taking medication for IBS, and more medication layered on top of that to manage anxiety. When that didn’t work, I self-medicated using cannabis. Eventually I had a mental health collapse.
“There were a lot of factors at play here with the leadership on this team. I worked for a very toxic leader. There was clear mobbing, where people were supporting the toxicity if it supported their own agenda.
“This was during COVID, and it was a big shift from being in-person to being remote. I started a mental health awareness discussion group to help myself and others. I started talking publicly about what I was seeing and experiencing, which probably put a target on my back.”
“In what ways did you speak up about it?” I asked.
“I was very aggressively sharing Harvard Business Review articles on LinkedIn talking about the crucial importance of mental health awareness and psychological safety in the workplace,” Nicholas said. “But the biggest way I spoke up about it was by trying to hold truth to power. In town hall company meetings, I would ask the highest leaders, How are you going to rebuild our trust?
“After speaking out in these meetings, that’s when the mobbing happened. While some people were thanking me for expressing what so many were feeling, but not sharing publicly. Others were trying to maintain the status quo. There were a handful of colleagues who defended the leader and helped maintain the system as it is because it benefited them.
“Someone once told me, Nails that stick up get hammered down on this team. Be careful. Another person said to me, The things you’re saying are making some people uncomfortable. Who exactly was uncomfortable I would never learn, but my guess is that it was leadership.
“I give you so much credit for speaking up,” I said. “I’ve spent a good part of my career speaking up in these toxic work environments and that’s what I encourage others to do. You were powerfully leading by example and those bullies who tried to knock you down were sad people acting in unacceptable ways.”
Time Off Leads to Rock Bottom
“I was thirteen years into my career at Google and getting treated like complete trash,” Nicholas said. “I was now getting written up about all this unnecessary stuff. For example, I was suddenly told I couldn’t have my coaching business anymore, even though I had previously gotten approval from a manager. Also, suddenly my contributions to the meditation and mindfulness community became a problem.
“I rolled through a retaliation claim against my manager and talked to HR about it. This led to me taking off three and a half months for mental health leave. That’s where things spiraled.
“I was experiencing paranoia and suicidal ideation. The depth of hopelessness and the depth of the corporate struggles were very real. I didn’t see a path out.
“It was such a fucked up situation. Both my ex-girlfriend and my best friend died by suicide, so I was carrying an awareness of the impact that it had on those left behind, but also a deep understanding of how that could seem like a reasonable option in the face of such despair and hopelessness.
“The gut medication was the real culprit as I came to find out, because I went on vacation and forgot the medication, which caused me to feel better a few days later, with the paranoia and suicidal ideation going away like clouds parting. If it wasn’t for this vacation, I might not be here anymore. That’s thanks to my wife who encouraged us to go on this trip, who knew that I’m at my best when I’m in nature. We were in Moab, Utah, and being in the wilderness helped me to reconnect with my core.”
Google Tosses Away Nicholas
“When I got back from my leave of absence, over the next year, just like before, there were even more violations brought against me. They kept moving the goal posts for performance reviews. It was obvious that I was being pushed out.
“I spoke up about it and I was about to change managers again, but that’s when Google rolled out a mass layoff of twelve-thousand people, and I lost my job by email after thirteen years at the company.
“After leaving Google, it took me a couple of years to just get back to where I was. All my attention and energy was on healing and learning to trust myself.”
Nicholas’s Words of Wisdom to Someone Who Feels Stuck
“Thanks for sharing all this,” I said. “You have a very powerful story. From the bottom of my heart, I’m so glad you’re still here. What advice would you give to someone stuck?”
“A common worry for people is money,” Nicholas said. “There are a lot of ways to figure out solutions to have the kind of life you want to have. If it’s a decision between multi-six-figures at a tech company or contemplating suicide, the math doesn’t work with that at all. There’s no amount of money that can balance that out.
“What are your values? What’s important to you? Take the time to be introspective. Work with a coach, a therapist, or a mentor. You can even use AI for this. If you can do the monthly Tesla payment, you can go to a therapist. Also, keep in mind the sunk cost fallacy, and choose to make your decision based on how the situation is today, not based on what you did or didn’t do in the past.
“Two years out from working at Google, I do need to think about where I go grocery shopping, but I don’t go to sleep with anxiety and wake up with panic attacks anymore. That’s priceless, and that’s the value of inner work.
“We always have a choice. Change yourself first. Once you have yourself on solid ground, you can build from there. In my experience, the rabble rousers sometimes get crucified. But I still advocate for you to speak up, with the key being to focus on what you can control while understanding the consequences. Sometimes the best protest you can make in an unjust situation is to leave.”
Trauma Causing Neurodivergent Qualities
“Everything you’re saying is gold,” I said. “In our previous exchanges you mentioned being neurodivergent. What do you mean by neurodivergent?”
“Trauma is one of those things that can cause neurodivergent traits,” Nicholas said. Gabor Maté talks about how the overdiagnosis of ADHD is actually often related to undiagnosed trauma.
“The story of my first panic attack was while I was in Hong Kong. The day before being in Hong Kong, I was in Thailand. There was a political protest against the current regime, and we had to evacuate on the back of taxi motorcycles. A grenade blew up outside of the hotel.
“In Hong Kong, everything finally hit me. My work lifestyle. Unresolved horrors and traumas. The incident in Thailand. I had a full on panic attack, but I thought I was dying. After that trip, I started going to therapy, and yes, the root cause of my neurodiversity was those traumas. This was in 2014.”
On People Being Unconscious…and Evil?
“Mind-blowing to hear how close you were to being hit by that grenade in Thailand.” I said. “And big props and kudos to you for starting to go to therapy. Another question I’d like to ask you is regarding these bad eggs in corporate: are they unconscious? Are they evil?”
“The Stanford prison experiment is where they brought some students into a prison,” Nicholas said. “Some were placed as guards and others as prisoners. People assumed the identity of the role they were in, which shows how some people mold themselves into the roles they find themselves in, whether they’re aware of it or not.
“Michel Foucault talked about the panopticon in the book Discipline and Punish. The idea is that the systems we’re in dictate the behavior that can occur in these systems. All this ties back to what we see happening in workplaces.
“People haven’t dealt with their personal trauma. People are inflicting their own trauma onto others – and then others are getting attracted to those toxic leaders because it’s a pattern and role they’re familiar with and it maladaptively helps them get through the environment.
“The script is to climb the ladder at all costs. People have the mindset, I’m going to protect mine and my own. It’s reductionist to call them evil. It detracts from the reality that these are people who are making choices. It’s about if it’s conscious or not and calling them evil is a cop out.
“People can be fired for no reason at all. In corporate America, the leverage you have is relatively small. There’s a long list of people waiting in the wings to take your job. We don’t have strong labor laws. There’s not a lot of protection from corporatocracy, late-stage capitalism, and other systemic challenges. This exists in other countries too. People don’t have protection and it creates fear.
“People think, Where am I going to find another job? The job market is a dumpster fire and is brutal. This leaves people stuck dealing with these challenging environments and systems.”
How Much Toxicity is Truly Out There in the World of Work?
“You’re on fire, man,” I said. “I know you are deeply involved in changing work from the inside out and helping so many. Roughly speaking, how many work environments are toxic?”
“I’ve had individual conversations with a thousand people,” Nicholas said to me, “And the vast majority shared how awful it is. Well over 50% of work environments I hear about are experienced as toxic. There are so many bullies and so much mobbing that’s happening. Far more than most realize. It’s commonplace for people to dote or fawn on a narcissistic leader to protect their stability and for others to suffer because of the choices these leaders and colleagues make.
“There are also a lot of people who are in a toxic environment, but aren’t willing to admit it, or don’t recognize it. People are taught to put their head down and internalize mental health issues, which leads to performance problems.
“Elon Musk laid off something like around half the workforce at Twitter. This created a domino effect, where companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta started laying people off in large numbers too.
“If I had to guess, consulting companies are a part of the problem as well. Someone gave these companies a playbook to follow, to squeeze the most profit from companies, impacting employee livelihoods over shareholder value.”
Dealing With the Job Market and the Broken System
“I know you mentioned the job market being a shit show,” I said. “How can someone navigate through it and land somewhere at least halfway decent?”
“It depends on the individual,” Nicholas said. “There’s no one size fits all. With the rise of AI tools, and with LinkedIn’s ‘easy apply’ button, recruiting and hiring is broken.
“Traditional roles are becoming less clearly defined and accessible, and people are finding it increasingly challenging to secure meaningful or stable roles. It’s a really difficult market. It also depends on the sector you’re in. There are no easy answers.”
“I hear that,” I said. “It comes down to persistence and consistency, continually putting yourself out there and playing the numbers game. And like you said earlier, utilizing resources, and getting help from others. There are possibilities, and it takes a focused effort to access them.”
Will It Ever Get Better?
“Regarding toxic workplaces, is this ever going to get better?” I asked. “Or will it always be there?”
“We can’t adopt the mentality that it’s unsolvable,” Nicholas said. “There are better opportunities out there. Seek help through community and collaboration. Systems are designed to be extractive, depleting the individual. We’re not in capitalism, we’re in another type of system now. This model that big tech has adopted of growth at all costs and shareholder supremacy – these systems will start to dissolve and eat themselves. We’re already seeing this happen.
“Will labor reform help? Perhaps. We can’t change these systems at large, but we can change individuals and how we experience them. It’s crucial to support individuals with resources. While collectively we can have it swing in the other direction, there’s a lot of harm along the way.”
“Nicholas, I so appreciate you,” I said. “You’re doing absolutely incredible and life-changing work on so many levels. Keep up the great work.”
“Thank you so much,” Nicholas said.
Nicholas Whitaker is a powerful coach for midlife professionals ready to take back their time, energy, and attention. A Co-founder of the Changing Work community, he’s focusing on changing work from the inside out.
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