Tales of WOE: Whacked-Out Environments and Their Impacts

Abstract

Insight into this paper: Since 2020, when the pandemic upended the world’s equilibrium, Whacked-Out Environments (WOEs) have actively reshaped our public, private, and working worlds. Customers, employees, consultants, contractors, students, and clients caught in WOEs are cracking under the pressure, while fear stymies and silences those without power. This paper describes WOEs and sets the foundation for a 3-year research study about the role fear plays in their creation and perpetuation. The paper hypothesizes a potential playbook for how leaders can rebuild their WOEs into functional and healthy organizational environments, while acknowledging that research is needed to truly understand how to end this phenomenon. Creating a WOE framework that can be identified, measured, and described could pave the way for a future where WOEs are eliminated (i.e., “whacked” out of existence – which could also be appropriately nicknamed WOE).