Don't let bullies create a hostile workplace

Work bullies can ruin a culture, destroy productivity and make your life – and the lives of everyone else they target – miserable. And it’s not just bullying bosses who are the problem.  Co-workers and employees also use bullying behavior that creates a hostile workplace.

Excluding lethal weapons, here are the top dozen techniques bullies use to ruin a workplace.

To read the rest of this article from the Dallas Business Journal, see: Don’t let bullies create a hostile workplace http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/06/09/smallb3.html

Most bullies use combinations of these methods.  The relentless application of these harassing, abusive techniques reinforces humiliation, pain and fear.  Cliques and mobs rapidly form. Bullying can make the targets feel helpless and situations seem hopeless.

These methods cause increased hostility, tension, selfishness, turf wars, sick leave, stress-related disabilities, turn over and legal actions.  People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes of bullying.

Effort is diffused instead of aligned.  Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks are decreased.  Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.  The best people leave as soon as they can.

Your operational system may look wonderful on paper, but the wrong people in the wrong culture can always find ways to thwart it.  Your pipeline leaks money and profits plummet.

A common mistake in dealing with repeated bullying is to spend much too much time and effort trying to educate, explain, understand, accept, forgive, beg, bribe, ignore, reason with or appease them.  These approaches won’t convert dedicated bullies into reasonable, civil and professional people. These approaches only stop people who aren’t really bullies, but have behaved badly one time.

During the time well-meaning or conflict-avoidant supervisors, human resource and civil rights professionals are trying these techniques to educate or rehabilitate bullies, they’re actually victimizing everyone else in the organization.  The monetary and emotional cost of tolerating or enabling bullies can be astronomical.

Determined bullies don’t take your understanding and acquiescing as kindness. They take your giving in as weakness and an invitation to abuse you more.  Bullies bully repeatedly and without real remorse.  They might appear to apologize sincerely, but you should accept only behavioral change, not good acting.

The best way to stop a bully is to stand up to them.  Expose and isolate them.  Or catch them doing something outrageous or illegal in front of witnesses.  Stopping them and having serious consequences for repetitions are also the greatest stimuli for change.

Learn what you can do to eliminate the high cost of hostile attitudes, behavior and performance.

All tactics are situational.  Expert coaching and consulting can help you create and implement a plan that fits you and your organization.

What to do if you're stuck with bully for boss

What do you do if you end up with the boss from hell? Someone like Char – critical and nasty to everyone, an equal opportunity bully.  She shot down whoever got in her sights.  But she never went after people face-to-face.  So, no one had the opportunity to question her or to present their side to her as she was making her attacks.

Anyone who missed a meeting, no matter the reason, could count on being raked over the coals.  She’d point out all their mistakes and lack of effort, and suggest that the “offending” party probably won’t last until the next meeting.  The public humiliation in absentia was crushing.

Nothing anyone did was ever good enough for Char.  She could make everyone feel small and incompetent; much like when they were bludgeoned by their parents’ sarcasm and abuse.

To read the rest of this article from the Denver Business Journal, see: What to do if you’re stuck with bully for boss http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2010/09/13/smallb1.html

In general, my advice to people who find themselves with controlling, bullying bosses and no way of changing miserable situations is: “Get a life away from work hell!”  The continued abuse will destroy you.  The longer you endure bullying, the more your confidence and self-esteem will be beaten down.  Eventually your spirit will shrivel up and you’ll feel too damaged to leave.

The better your performance results are, the easier it will be for you to find a different company to work for.  But don’t act too hastily. Being without a job is its own form of hell.

All tactics are situational.  Expert coaching and consulting can help you create and implement a plan that fits you and your organization.

Sexting Suicide: Vicious Boys, Mean Girls and Self-Bullying

Andrew Meacham in the Tampa Bay Times article, “Sexting-related bullying cited in Hillsborough teen’s suicide,” reports on the suicide of Hope Witsell.  Witsell’s death follows the sexting-triggered suicide of Jessica Logan who was taunted, harassed, bullied and abused for similar reasons. Of course, ultimately the choice was Hope Witsell’s, but the principals and district administrators at Beth Shields Middle School and at Lennard High School took the wrong approach.

According to the article, 13 year-old Hope sent a photo of her breasts to a boy she liked.  Bad choice.  A rival girl saw the photo on the boy’s phone and forwarded it to other students.  The photo went viral.  Like piranhas, mean girls and vicious boys at the schools joined the general feeding frenzy.  Hope was accosted as a “whore” and harassed for more nude photos at her school and also at a Future Farmers of America Conference.

Let’s focus on only three aspects of this terrible situation:

1. The school principals and teachers who didn’t stop the frenzy.
2. The mean girl who first forwarded the photo, the other vicious kids who passed it on and the predators and bullies who attacked a wounded target.
3. Hope’s self-bullying.

The middle school has a policy against sexting and disciplined Hope: Suspension and loss of honors and privileges.  But, even though the principal and teachers were aware of the taunting, harassment and bullying, there is no report that they did anything to the predators – No all-school meetings about how wrong the behavior is; no follow-up with the police to see who was illegally forwarding the nude photos; no action in the cafeteria when Hope was being harassed by other students.  Even though they knew what was happening, there was no extra vigilance to protect Hope from the attacks.

They did follow up with Hope’s parents to explain their punishment of her, but they took no action to stop the mean girls and vicious boys.  Also, they never called Hope’s parents when they found out that she was cutting herself.

There’s no much you can do once a feeding frenzy has started, but the legitimate authorities at school and the police can be talking to the kids and their parents.  You must make an attempt to rally parents and students to stop the attacks, even though you think Hope was a dope.

Hope’s diary and conversations with her friends were full of self-bullying.  This negative, critical self talk destroys self-esteem and self-confidence.  Self-bullying makes any kind of setback or embarrassment into a humiliating catastrophe that seems to destroy the child’s life forever.  Looked at through self-bullying eyes, the future will seem hopeless, the person helpless to redeem herself.  As Hope wrote, “Secretly TONS of people hate me.”  That’s the wrong conclusion to draw.

Obviously, there are many places Hope’s parents could have intervened had they known how serious the situation was.  But I think the first one is here: Parenting bully-proof kids begins with helping them stop self-bullying, with helping them build strength, courage, resilience and determination in the face of humiliation, disaster or abuse.

Laws are good, but they aren’t enough to stop foolish girls from sexting.  Laws against forwarding pornographic pictures are good, but aren’t enough to stop people from distributing them.  It takes a concerted effort by adults to set the tone; to create an atmosphere in which all students and parents are aware of the stupidity involved and the harm that can be caused.

Teach Empathy in Middle School? Can we? Should We?

A recent article in the New York Times illustrates attempts of one middle school of privileged kids in Scarsdale, New York, to teach empathy for those less privileged.  The less privileged included examples from great literature, of old, disabled and autistic people, and even of those students who didn’t get invited to last weekend’s social activities by the “in-crowd.”  Similar efforts are being considered by many other middle and high schools. Can such programs succeed?  Should schools engage in social engineering?

Education, in the root of our word and from its earliest time, was based on “cultivation” in the sense of cultivating a crop of good and virtuous citizens capable of leading a society that does good and supports the virtue of all citizens.  Leading was usually the vocation of only the privileged.  Education of the less privileged also emphasized creating good and virtuous citizens, but was focused more on what we might call vocational training for productive labor.

We can’t convert all schools – elementary, middle or high schools – into strictly vocational training and expect to produce good and virtuous citizens, capable of self-government.  In our democratic society, we treat all kids as privileged in the sense that they get training in virtue and being a good citizen.  They all also have the potential of serving at the highest levels of government, instead of such service being the privilege of only those born to privilege.

Empathy is a necessary element of being a good citizen, as well as a necessary component of great leadership and management.  For example, it’s one of the leadership and management training sets promoted by all business schools.  And the current economic recession or depression has a large component of greed and unethical and un-empathetic behavior at its core.

Parents should be teaching empathy to their children even before they’re developmentally capable of it, instead of thinking that a course as part of an M.B.A. training will ever do any good.  Since many parents don’t teach empathy, and also in support of those who do, I’m glad that elementary and middle schools are intentionally making that a part of the curriculum, in addition to academic subjects.  The key to teaching empathy and virtue is the character of the teacher, not the syllabus or lesson plan.

But teaching at home and in programs at school can’t be expected to solve the problem for every one, even though results in schools in the south Bronx are also encouraging.  Many children and teenagers will get it; others won’t.  One of the most famous examples of the impossibility of teaching everyone is Alcibiades, a brilliant, rich boy taught by Pericles at home and Socrates at school, who grew up to be unethical, unscrupulous and un-empathetic.

Humans do have free will, but that doesn’t man we stop trying to teach them.  We simply try with our eyes wide open.  Even in Scarsdale, as the article says, “mean girls are no less mean, and the boys will still be boys.”  Also, there’s still “name-calling, gossip and other forms of social humiliation.”  Bullies and bullying will always exist.

But now the schools make clear that such behavior is frowned upon.  Punishing it can be very difficult because it’s such a tricky area to find appropriate responses.  However, the clarity with which we label uncaring and unacceptable behavior gives every student a clear chance to judge the perpetrators and decide whether to try to join the in-crowd, ignore them or stand up for the students who are targeted..

We can’t and shouldn’t count on schools to protect our children from hurt feelings all the time.  We must help our children know what’s important to them and whose opinion matters to them.  We must also help them develop the inner grit and resilience to know how to protect themselves from verbal harassment as well as from physical abuse.

How to correct your children and say "No" to them

Recently, I’ve seen articles and heard parents saying that since words can hurt, we shouldn’t deny our children what they want or ever say, "No" to them.  They think that if we deny them or say "No", we’ll damage their confidence and self esteem.  But if we give them continual praise and approval, we’ll help them develop high self-esteem and a willingness to take risks.  Some studies are even quoted about the harmful effects of the words parents use. I disagree with that advice and parenting style.

Of course words matter; and even more important is how they’re delivered – frequency, voice tone, body language and with beating or caressing.

Of course, unrelenting yelling, insults, criticism, humiliation, shame, guilt, dismissing, ridicule and rejection are harmful.  Personal insults hurt little children.  Hostility and personal attacks tell children that they are bad people for wanting what they want or for doing something wrong or for not doing something right.  It’s easy for children to think their identity is damaged, defective or blemished in ways that cannot be rectified.

A few days ago, I saw a chilling video made at a car wash.  A mother was holding the arm of an approximately 3-4-year-old child while torturing her with the power washing hose.  The child was screaming in pain and writhing to break free.  The mother was screaming that the child had better respect her.  Of course, we don’t need research to tell us that’s lousy parenting and abuse.

Such unrelenting viciousness isn’t confined to parents; it’s also dished out at work.  It’s as if some people really believe the motto attributed to Captain Bligh of the “Bounty:” The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

Don’t live a life fueled by such anger and viciousness.  Weigh your life heavily toward approval, encouragement and praise.  After all, children naturally want to learn, explore and imitate their loving parents.  Maintain control of yourself during moments when your frustration might break out into emotional abuse and intimidation, or verbal and physical violence.

Create a background of loving physical and verbal caresses for all your interactions with your children.  Against that background, it’s critically important that you correct, deny and say "No" sometimes.  Don’t give children everything they want.  Set age-appropriate limits on their behavior.  Teach them how to get along socially.

Most important: Teach them that they can be denied and be told "No", and the world doesn’t end.  Their lives go on just fine without getting everything.  Maybe they’ll get what they want another day.  Or maybe, they’ll have to grow up and earn the money to get what they want for themselves.  Or maybe, as they grow older, they’ll become more aware of the consequences of what they want and they’ll learn to not want it.  That’s called self-discipline, character and integrity.

If you never say "No", you end up with spoiled, selfish children like Veruka Salt from “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”

Teach them to be resilient so a "No" doesn’t crush their spirits.  Then, denial doesn’t stop them from ever wanting or asking again and a "No" isn’t emotional abuse and doesn’t cause emotional damage.

Teach your children what’s safe and unsafe, what’s right and wrong, what’s worthy and not good enough, what’s honorable and dishonorable.  Without your guidance, TV will teach them.

Some people still have scars because of what their parents said and did repeatedly.  And, of course, some have more and deeper scars.  But let’s be clear.  All of us ultimately have the same task: to get over our childhoods and create better lives for ourselves and our children.  Whether the scars were caused by parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, teachers, school bullies or rotten strangers, the task is the same. How can we do that?  I always look to the people who had it worst: The ones who survived genocidal wars, prison camps, slavery.  How do they look at themselves and the world that they can still laugh and sing and dance and love?  And it’s our job to become like them also.

In addition, we can now resist the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual attacks by spouses, co-workers and bosses.  We can now resist putdowns and bullies; we can now reject their opinions or fight back. We must now train our own memories and fears: The future does not have to be as bad as the past was.  Otherwise we become adult victims to what they did to us when we were children.

Don’t let those ruin the rest of your life.  Grow up.  They might have been in charge of the past, but you’re in charge of the future.

History is not destiny.