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Workplace bullying: Escalated incivility By Gary Namie Reprint # 9B03TF09 IVEY MANAGEMENT SERVICES • November/December 2003 COPYRIGHT © 2003 To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials,please contact: Ivey Publishing,Ivey Management Services c/o Richard Ivey School of Business The University of Western Ontario London,Ontario N6A 3K7 Tel: (519)661-3208 Fax: (519)661-3882 Email: [email protected] Ivey Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction,storage or transmittal of this material without its written permission.This material is not covered under authorization form CanCopy or any other reproduction rights organization. Ivey Business Journal Online is published by Ivey Management Services a division of the Richard Ivey School of Business. For subscription information,please contact: Tel: (519) 661- 4215 Email: [email protected] or visit www.iveybusinessjournal.com I M P R O V I N G T H E P R A C T I C E O F M A N A G E M E NT

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Workplace bullying: Escalated incivilityBy Gary Namie

Reprint # 9B03TF09

IVEY MANAGEMENT SERVICES • November/December 2003COPYRIGHT © 2003

To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials,pleasecontact:

Ivey Publishing,Ivey Management Servicesc/o Richard Ivey School of BusinessThe University of Western Ontario

London,Ontario N6A 3K7Tel: (519)661-3208Fax: (519)661-3882

Email: [email protected] Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction,storage or

transmittal of thismaterial without its written permission.This material is not covered

under authorization formCanCopy or any other reproduction rights organization.

Ivey Business Journal Onlineis published by Ivey Management Services

a division ofthe Richard Ivey School of Business.

For subscription information,please contact:Tel: (519) 661- 4215

Email: [email protected] visit

www.iveybusinessjournal.com

I M P R O V I N G T H E P R A C T I C E O F M A N A G E M E NT

- 1 - Ivey Business Journal November/December 2003

The time has come to treat workplace bullyingthe same as sexual harassment or racialdiscrimination, to identify the perpetrators,establish rules of conduct and penalties, and evenpass laws prohibiting and penalizing bullying. Thisauthor, an expert on the subject, draws acompelling picture of workplace bullying andsuggests a blueprint that can help employersreduce or even eliminate it.

By Gary Namie

Gary Namie is co-founder of The WorkplaceBullying & Trauma Institute, an education,research and advocacy organization(bullyinginstitute.org) and co-author of The BullyAt Work (Sourcebooks, 2003). He is a socialpsychologist and consultant, and former professorof management at the University of SouthernCalifornia.

"Violence in the workplace begins long beforefists fly or lethal weapons extinguish lives.Where resentment and aggression routinelydisplace cooperation and communication,violence has occurred."Bernice Fields, Arbitrator

The bullying phenomenon

Bullying in the workplace is far too widespread today,but before we can come to understand it, we mustunderstand that bullying is different from harmlessincivility, rudeness, boorishness, teasing and other well-known forms of interpersonal torment. Bullying is aform of violence, but only rarely involves fighting,battery or homicide. It is mostly sub-lethal, non-physicalviolence. And as our research data show, bullyingcrosses boundaries of gender, race and organizationalrank.

Workplace bullying: Escalated incivility

Consider that workplace incivility, bullying andphysical violence lie on a 10-point continuum oforganizational disruption. Incivilities range from 1 to3, while bullying covers mild to severe interference withthe accomplishment of legitimate business interests,reflecting scores of 4 to 9. The highest score is reservedfor battery and homicide which grind work completelyto a halt. A parallel dimension views the consequencesfrom the perspective of the mistreated individual.Incivilities cause little to no harm, bullying can causemild to severe harm, and physical violence can result indeath.

A short history of workplace bullying

The founder of the international anti-bullyingmovement, Heinz Leymann, cared most about bullying'simpact on the health of individuals. Leymann was aGerman psychiatrist who established the world's firstWork Trauma clinic in Sweden in the 1980's. Hedocumented the traumatization that can result fromsustained "psychological terrorization" in the workplaceHe used the term "mobbing." The term "workplacebullying" was coined by the pioneering British journalistAndrea Adams in 1992, who applied bullying toadulthood misery.

Dr. Ruth Namie and I introduced the term "workplacebullying" to the U.S. in the popular press in 1998. Ourassociate, David Yamada, professor of law at SuffolkUniversity in Boston, wrote the seminal article for thelegal community in March, 2000 (Georgetown LawJournal, 2000, vol.88, issue 3, "The Phenomenon ofWorkplace Bullying and the Need for Status-BlindHostile Work Environment Protection," Pp. 475-536.)

We define workplace bullying as "status-blind"interpersonal hostility that is deliberate, repeated andsufficiently severe as to harm the targeted person's healthor economic status. Further, it is driven by perpetrators'

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need to control another individual, often undermininglegitimate business interests in the process.

The best estimate of bullying's prevalence in the U.S.comes from a year 2000 survey that randomly sampledMichigan residents. The researchers found that 16.7percent of respondents reported a severe disruption oftheir lives from workplace aggression. Thus, we canextrapolate and say that about one in six workers isbullied. (Loraleigh Keashly and Karen Jagatic, WayneState University, 2000.)

Characteristics of bullying

How can a problem so prevalent not trigger societaloutrage? Silence by targeted persons is understandablebecause shame stems from being controlled andhumiliated. Co-workers' silence makes sense in a fear-

plagued environment when people are unsure if theymight next be targeted.

More puzzling is the typical employer response in lightof internal anti-harassment and anti-violence policies.In a survey conducted by the Workplace Bullying &Trauma Institute, respondents described the nature ofsupport, or lack of it, provided by others at work. Targetswho had reported the abusive misconduct to theperpetrator's (bully's) manager and had asked for relief,elicited positive, helpful responses in only 18 percentof cases. In 42 percent of instances the bully's bossactually compounded the problem. And in 40 percentof cases, the boss did nothing, which is not a neutralresponse after help was explicitly requested. HumanResources and anti-discrimination officers weresimilarly unhelpful: 17 percent took positive steps tostop the bullying, 32 percent reacted negatively, and 51

percent did nothing.

Bullying encompasses mistreatment that includessame-sex and same-race harassment. Our researchdiscovered that in only 25 percent of bullying cases doesthe target have protected group status and thus qualifythe offenses as sexual harassment or racialdiscrimination. A university survey conducted byUniversity of Illinois researchers found a similardominance of bullying over forms of illegal harassment.The fact that bullying is not illegal makes it easy toignore even though it is three times more prevalent thanits better-recognized, illegal forms.

Women and men are bullies. Women comprise 58percent of the perpetrator pool, while men represent 42percent. Our research also shows that when the targetedperson is a woman, she is bullied by a woman in 63percent of cases; when the target is male, he is bulliedby a man in 62 percent of incidents. Most bullying issame-sex harassment which is ignored by laws andemployer policies. Overall, women comprise themajority of bullied people (80 percent).

In fact, WBTI research shows that half of all bullyingis woman-on-woman. Unless the target enjoys protectedstatus based on race, ethnicity, religion or disability, itis not likely that the current laws will provide the targetwith legal redress. Without laws, employers are reluctantto recognize, let alone correct or prevent, destructivebehavior, preferring to minimize it as "personalityclashes."

Bullying is nearly invisible. It is non-physical, andnearly always sub-lethal workplace violence. Workplacehomicide grabs headlines as vivid rare events even inthe violent United States. Corporate decision makersinvest heavily in prevention and response processes,complete with zero tolerance policies.

In contrast, bullying is psychological violence, mostlycovert and sometimes overt. It is psychological violence,both in its nature and impact. Regardless of howbullying is manifested -- either verbal assaults orstrategic moves to render the target unproductive andunsuccessful -- it is the aggressor's desire to control thetarget that motivates the action. The major risk ispsychological damage, but counseling is not offered byemployers to complainants who report bullying.

Regardless of how bullying ismanifested -- either verbalassaults or strategic moves torender the target unproductiveand unsuccessful -- it is theaggressor's desire to control thetarget that motivates the action

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A recent study by the United States Postal Serviceprovided comparative frequencies: physical assaults, 1in 25; illegal harassment 1 in 8; and verbal abuse 1 in 4.Employers are not interested in the most commonnegative trend in contemporary workplaces, abusiveinterpersonal relationships. But changes in related arenasgive hope that the silence about bullying is crumbling.

Employers have begun to consider the impact ofnegative emotional behaviour on work productivity.Depression impacts work and employers are takingnotice. Also, thanks to the Corporate Alliance to End

Partner Violence (CAEPV.org), employers are learninghow domestic violence impacts the workplace. First, itis easy for abusive spouses to kill their victims at work.Abused workers miss a great deal of work and aredistracted and unproductive. Enlightened CAEPVmember firms believe that employers should be sensitiveto traumatized victims as injured people deservinghuman compassion.

Bullying closely resembles the phenomenon ofdomestic violence. Both were shrouded in silence beforebeing brought to public attention. Partner violencevictims initially were blamed for their fate. Eventuallythe behavior was deemed unacceptable by society ascodified in law. Workplace bullying deserves the sameevolution from recognition to prohibition. The glaringdifference between domestic and workplacepsychological violence is that the latter finds the abuseron the employer's payroll.

Damaging people

Bullying impacts targeted employees by causing a hostof stress-related health problems. The WBTI 2003

survey polled self-described targets. Stress effects rangefrom severe anxiety (76 percent prevalence), disruptedsleep (71 percent), loss of concentration (71 percent),PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder, 47%), clinicaldepression (39%), and panic attacks (32%). Leftuntreated, and with prolonged exposure, cardiovascularstress-related diseases can result from pathophysiologicchanges to the body that transform social factors intodamaging biological consequences.

PTSD is a psychological injury. Few blame victimsfor having it when causes are natural. Yet the experienceis just as strong when trauma is induced by intentionalhuman design. Leymann documented Work Trauma asproblematic in Sweden, the result of psychosocialworkplace stressors. He also estimated that 10 percentof his country's suicides were related to workplacetraumatization.

Targets of workplace bullying endure their pain, onaverage, for 22 months. The attribute common to alltargets is that they are unwilling or unable to react tounwarranted aggression with aggression. Research andanecdotal evidence show that it is the emotionallyunintelligent perpetrators who escalate their tyrannicalmisconduct when they feel threatened by, and react inresponse to, targets' asserted independence, technicaland social skills or ethical whistle blowing Targets donot seek to be tormented any more than sexualharassment targets invite undesirable assaults ordomestic violence victims seek to be beaten or verballyabused.

In an individualistic culture, people tend to blamevictims for the harm they endure and make themresponsible for solving their unprovoked problems.Cavalier justifications for accepting psychological injuryat work include "that's why they call it work,""capitalism depends on competition," and "get used tohim, he's just that way, grow a thicker skin."

For a bullied target, health impairment is coupled witheconomic setbacks that begin when the bully appearsin her life. Bullied targets have a 70 percent chance thatthey will lose their jobs, either voluntarily or throughconstructive discharge, after being targeted. If thebullying has stopped, it is because 17 percent of targetstransferred. In only 13 percent of cases are perpetratorspunished or terminated. Destructive aggression carries

The characteristic common to allbullies is that they are controllingcompetitors who exploit theircooperative targets. Most bullieswould stop if the rules changedand bullying was punished

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few risks for perpetrators.

The bullies

Though bullies torment peers and sometimes thoseabove them in the organization chart, WBTI researchshows that 71 percent of bullies outrank their targets.Most bullies are bosses. If strict competition is theoperating principle at work, then it is a zero-sum game--personal gains made at the expense of others.

It would be convenient to categorize all bullies aspsychopaths. Then, all solutions would be focused onrehabilitating individuals. However, only a smallproportion of bullies (approximately 4 percent accordingto the American Psychiatric Association) may havegenuinely disordered personalities--antisocial ornarcissistic. The characteristic common to all bullies isthat they are controlling competitors who exploit theircooperative targets. Most bullies would stop if the ruleschanged and bullying was punished.

We sort bullies into four categories, based on the widerange of tactics employed, and which are too numerousto list here.

• The Screaming Mimi, the stereotypical bully,controls the emotional tone for everyone else. Hetoxifies the workplace with mood swings andunpredictable displays of anger. Targets arepublicly humiliated to convince witnesses that thebully is to be feared. He usually stops short ofphysical violence, but this volatile individualposes the violent risk employers fear most.

• The Constant Critic is the hyper-critical nitpicker.Her attention to minutiae and obsession overothers' performance is the way she hides her owndeficiencies and insecurities. This bully resortsto name calling. She loves to complain abouteveryone else's "incompetence." She inventstargets' "errors" to belittle and to confuse them.Though she prefers behind-closed-door settings,she can berate targets in public, too.

• The Two-Headed Snake slithers up theorganization chart, reserving brutality for those

below. Snakes defame the reputation of targetsto boost their own self-image. The Snake spreadsrumors and engineers "divide and conquer"schemes within work teams to turn co-workersagainst the target. His version of events is alwaysbelieved while the target's perspective isdiscounted.

• The Gatekeeper is obsessed with control. Sheallocates time, money, staffing and informationin ways that ensure her target's failure. Then, shehas an excuse to complain about "performanceproblems." One ludicrous bully actually set officeclocks so that everyone seemed to come to worklate and leave early.

Solutions should be focused less on personality thanon altering the rewards and punishments that would-beaggressors experience as part of a workplace culture.

Characteristics of the bullying-prone workplace

• "Making the numbers," an obsession withoutcomes is uncritically adopted

• Recruitment, promotion, and reward systemsfocus on individuals' "strength of personality" orinterpersonal aggressiveness while ignoringemotional intelligence

• Short-term planning, e.g., to meet quarterlyinvestor projections, governs operations.

• Internal conduct codes limit prohibitions tonarrowly defined illegal incidents.

• Executives give higher priority to personalfriendships than to legitimate business interests.

• Fear is a dominant, desired workplace emotion,whether deliberately engineered or inadvertentlycreated.

• Misuse of performance appraisal processes occurwith impunity.

Why employer$ $hould care

In Canada, there exists an implied contract invokingan employer's duty of care for employee safety.Employers are liable for the sexually harassingmisconduct of their supervisors. Liability stems fromemployers' control over the creation and maintenanceof the work environment: roles, responsibilities,

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behavioral expectations, and the workplace culture'shealth or toxicity.

Here are several reasons why employers shouldaddress workplace bullying:

1 It is 3 times more prevalent than sexualharassment. Illegal discrimination and harassmentrequire significant investments of time and moneyto identify, correct and prevent. Employersalready know what to do about harassment.

2 It is costly: Employment practices liability canbe substantial. Bullied targets, often the mosttalented employees, are driven from theworkplace. Turnover is expensive. Increasedhealth care utilization can result in heftierpremium costs borne by employers.

3 Data to prevent bullying-related losses exist.Because the complaint system gatekeepers (inHR) hear all the stories, the employer has evidenceof bullying's prevalence. Everyone knows whothe repeat offenders are.

4 Witnesses know when bullying happens, whetheror not it was behind closed doors. When a high-performing employee is fired and humiliated by"exit parade"--given a box to take privatebelongings, escorted by HR and security--orsimply disappears without explanation one day,fear dominates the workplace. Fear-drivenworkplaces with poor morale undermineemployee commitment and productivity.

5 Employee recruitment and retention are mademore difficult when the employer's reputationsuffers from the antics of one or more pettytyrants.

A blueprint for employers

Employers and their representatives should care aboutbullying for the reasons outlined above. Employer-led,voluntary solutions are the most likely to succeed. Herewe suggest four steps for employers to pursue. Thesystem follows a path familiar to any company that hascoupled recognition training with a prohibitive policyand enforcement mechanism.

1. Create A new values-driven policy

Ideal provisions in the policy include:

• Declaration of UnacceptabilityThe organization must state its displeasure withthe misconduct

• Hostile Workplace Protections for EveryoneTo extend rights to everyone regardless ofprotected group statusMay extend, combine or replace existing anti-violence & anti-harassment policies

• Inescapable DefinitionTo reserve prohibitions only for severeincidents, to clarify the threshold for takingaction

• Non-Punitive Separation for SafetyTo appropriately place bullying in the healthand safety domain

• Documentation of Adverse ImpactTo discourage frivolous complaints or abuse ofthe policyTo incorporate perpetrator pattern & practiceover time

2. New, credible enforcement processes

• Credible Third-Party Investigation &Adjudication Process

To foster employee trust, to remove influenceof personal relationships

• Progressive Disciplinary ActionNot zero tolerance, to allow for change inconduct

• Retaliation ProhibitionTo count offenses of retaliation separately,to stop the cycle of violence

3. Restorative interventions for at-risk teamsand individuals

• Coaching for identified perpetrators withemployment-contingent change contract

• Interviewing affected workteams to identify thosemost harmed, to provide counseling

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4. General and specialized education

• Executive orientation & commitment• Managerial training• Specialty preparation for HR, Anti-discrimination

Officers, Risk Managers• All-Hands training coupled with policy

implementation

Despite obvious economic advantages of followingthis blueprint, employers rarely pursue this tack. Theyface no sanctions for ignoring generalized workplaceharassment or bullying. It is easier to stay in denial orto ignore complaints when they surface.

A Legislative Solution

A 1998, a Washington Post newspaper editorial calledon federal lawmakers to write specific anti-harassmentlaws without restriction to discrimination againstprotected groups. The editorial, written in response toSupreme Court decisions extending employer liabilityfor discrimination, stated, that "what bothers peopleabout abusive workplace conduct, after all, is not thefact that it may be discriminatory but that it is abusivein the first place." (Washington Post, March 8, 1998.)

In Quebec, in December, 2002, the province's LabourStandards Act was overhauled. For the first time inCanada, there will be a ban on "psychologicalharassment" in the workplace. That term is vaguelydefined as any "vexatious behaviour in the form ofrepeated and hostile or unwanted conduct that affectsan employee's psychological or physical integrity,"including unwanted attitudes, comments and gestures.

Employers have until June, 2004 to prepare for thelaw's implementation. They need only show they havetaken "reasonable action" to prevent or stop theharassment to avoid possible penalties that range frompaying the victim's psychological treatment expensesto "punitive and moral damages." The four-stepemployer Blueprint outlined above would affordadequate protection for conscientious employers.

Starting in June 2004, employees experiencing

psychological harassment (bullying according to mostof our definition), may begin to file complaints withthe Quebec Labour Standards Commission.

The WBTI has sponsored the first U.S. proposedlegislation in California, scheduled for consideration in2004. Its language is more precise than the Quebec law,relying on demonstrated health impairment as thecriterion for bringing legal action.

Of course, the real value of having a law in place forbullied employees is to legitimize targets' complaints,compelling employers to correct and prevent "status-blind," health-impairing abusive misconduct. Whenemployers take such steps, the bullies can be heldaccountable. The Quebec provincial law is a first step.Canadian employees' quality of life at work dependsnow on conscientious employers.