What's something I wish managers would know?


That giving training to an abusive person - will not fix the problem. The people who need to be trained - are the people around the abusive problem. Can't tell you how many times I've gotten calls to train - A person. And I never get the details - but eventually read about it in the paper. Trainings, don't actually change behavior.


Why?


1)  If you have a bully in the workplace - they are doing it and getting away with it - because it works. They have no incentive to stop. It's everyone else who wants them to stop. Everyone else is motivated to learn how to get them to stop. The bully is not interested in learning to stop. So right off the bat - you have someone attending a training and committed to not learning anything. Meanwhile - the people who are motivated to learn - aren't trained at all. 

2) A training can only bring awareness to a problem. It doesn't change behavior. It can give people the tools they need to change behavior - but changing behavior is a process that takes place over time and the individual needs to want to change. If they don't - the training is pointless and I refuse to provide those sorts of - fix this person for us training for this reason. 

3) The underlying reason I get these requests is because managers want me to fix a "problem person," but they don't want to learn how to change themselves or improve themselves so that they can help their employee behave better. It's their responsibility to fix this problem if they are the leader. They are abdicating their responsibility and refusing to learn how to be a better leader. They just want someone else to fix the problem so they hire someone to give a training to the problem person - and it accomplishes absolutely nothing.  I refuse to do these sorts of training and tell them flat out -if you aren't willing to learn how to manage this problem  I can't help you. 

4) our goal should be to help people behavior more pro-socially and that requires conditions and conditioning that encourages and rewards pro-social behavior.  If the conditions around the person don't change - the behavior - probably won't change. You have to empower the people around the problem person so they can help create the conditions in which bullying isn't rewarded. It's the only thing that works.

Contact me: 

Contact me if you have a problem person - or would like training - that will actually help fix the problem. But only if you all are willing to do the work to fix the problem. 

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