How do we get rid of workplace bullies?

I teach a behavioral approach on how to eliminate abusive behavior. Bullying is a behavior – it needs a behavioral solution.

How we can get rid of workplace bullies when those bullies are workplace leaders?  

Well – it depends. Are they the ultimate boss? If so – you can’t. If they are a middle manager and have people above them – you can, but ONLY if upper management supports the effort and understands how their responses either support behavior elimination or support the continuation of the behavior.  In other words, people need to learn what actually works to get unwanted behaviors to stop and to take their role in making that happen seriously.

If you're a workplace that has turned a toxic culture around, how did you do it? 

I was hired once to fix a toxic volunteer culture at a nonprofit. Staff volunteer relations were toxic. Volunteers thought their job was to spy on staff and turn them in for malfeasance. The result is no staff wanted to work with volunteers.  When I came in – I created job descriptions for volunteers and did a training on what we expected them to do. Most were quite happy to actually be of help. Only one person was not. We gave that person time to adjust to the new role expectations and when she failed – we fired her.  She attempted to retaliation (which is normal and predicted using a behavioral model) and she failed.

Relationships and culture improved from there.  The big thing I did – was I recruited volunteers willing to help me change the culture and staff members who were willing to experiment with the volunteers. I helped the people with good intentions willing to experiment and reset the relationships. I helped them work through initial difficulties and trust issues until – they were working well together as a team. As I had success with individuals – other staff members requested I help them too. At each stage – I put in the time to coach and help the participants – establish positive working relationships.  We went from 10 volunteers with toxic relationships to 500 volunteers working in every part of the agency – including our law enforcement aspects (we were an animal welfare agency in CA).  My volunteers put in over 20,000 hours a year – which was the equivalent of 10 full time employees.   Let me help you understand this. 1 toxic volunteer was costing us 10 full time employees! That’s a lot of lost productivity. Now think of how much damage one toxic employee can do. It’s important to tax this seriously and put in the work required to reset relationships and build trust.

What advice do you have for companies to do the same?

1. Be realistic. I get calls all the time from companies who ask me to train a toxic employee to be less toxic. I can’t do that. No one can.  If you want to fix the problem, you have to take responsibility for fixing it. There is no magic way to fix it and you can’t offload the problem either.
2. Take responsibility for fixing the problem. If you want to eliminate toxic workplaces you must eliminate the toxic individuals. And then, you have to do the work to re-establish trust in the teams and between people. This takes time and effort and if you don’t put the time and effort it – it won’t happen.
3. Don’t assume people are toxic. Most people want to be in positive work relationships and respond well to coaching. Always go in assuming people will surprise you and will respond well to support and coaching. But if someone does not – eliminate them.

What role does HR need to do (and step up to) to stop bullying?

HR needs to help upper management learn what exactly needs to happen to get bullying to stop. That means – if they don’t know exactly how to get unwanted behavior like bullying to stop – they need to learn it – because until they know the behavioral science behind how to get unwanted behaviors to stop  - they won’t be able to help upper management. Often – all that is required is tweaks to some of the systems, a compassionate attitude and consistency. The first step is to learn the behavioral science so you can make those tweaks.

Who needs to be involved? 

If upper management is not on board – any effort to  change culture will fail. Bullies will not be eliminated.

HR needs to be involved to help create the processes that help support the change and the improved methods for stopping bullying behavior and resetting relationships. Again – what needs to happen to reset relationships – is time intensive. And – some people – won’t respond to coaching  - so having compassion based processes to help people learn to behave better and to eliminate them if they don’t – are what HR should be helping with.

Middle managers need to be trained on these new processes and they need to be coached on how to properly handle problems as they arise. Middle managers are the key. You either help them succeed or the initiative fails.

What do they need to do? What resources should be in place?

Everyone needs to be trained on how to eliminate unwanted behaviors and how to reward wanted behaviors and people need to have a clear understanding of what exactly those behaviors are that we are reinforcing and rewarding and what exactly to do when an unwanted behavior occurs. So – a training on behavior modification is needed along with ongoing support and coaching so that middle managers can actually reset relationships and build positive trusting teams. HR and upper management need to know what to do if – a middle manager is a bully and how they handle their non-compliance with the new processes. Everyone should be on the same page – because – when it comes to eliminating unwanted behavior – consistency is key.


Let me know if I can be of any further help. I have a variety of online programs that teach these techniques – and also do in person trainings. https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/

How to fire people with dignity

How do you 'let go' of an employee without humiliating them?

Sometimes positions are eliminated and the employee isn't needed anymore.  The basic rule of thumb of how to treat them with dignity - is how would you want to be treated.

Explaining the reasons why they are being let go can help. Offering them a letter of recommendation is also much appreciated. Treating them fairly with regards to their severance.  Offering to put them in touch with other companies that might hire them.  All this goes a long way to helping people leave with dignity.

What if they are being let go for cause? 

Of course, this assumes, you are letting a person go who has done nothing wrong.  If they have misbehaved and are being let go with cause, then again - nonjudgmental - reasons why they are being let go and that what happened was not consistent with the expectations of the company. Understanding that what happened - they may and probably do view as unfair - allows you to be compassionate while doing what needs to be done. And again - treating them fairly with regards to severance and what is owed them will go a long way towards helping people leave with dignity.  It helps when you focus on the behavior being unacceptable, not that they as a person as unacceptable.

Most importantly - if something happens and someone is let go with cause - then - no gossiping. No bad mouthing the person. No rumors. Understand that good people sometimes do bad things. It's enough to remind staff that - your organization treats people with dignity. And leave it at that.

What are some of the best practices you use in terminating employees?

Best practices involve - treating people fairly and with dignity and making sure the paperwork is processed properly and making sure they are treated fairly with a severance and that any questions they have about what happens next - are treated with compassion and truth.

Getting fired is upsetting. It's scary. There is a lot of unknown.  Employers can make a difficult situation less difficult by being honest and open and fair and by having compassion for the person being fired.

The person being fired may not and probably won't reciprocate with dignity. That's fine. Their behavior defines them. You - should act with dignity and compassion at all times, even when and especially when you are dealing with people who aren't.

Treat all people who are being terminated with dignity and compassion. All of them.

How should HR deal with a stubborn boss?

Question:

How should HR deal with a manager who refuses to see the world from other people's perspective? We are talking here about a manager who works at the company, but not the HR professional's direct manager. In other words, a member of management whose stubborn behavior is causing problems within a particular team, and perhaps one whom an employee has raised a complaint about.

Answer:

There is what ideally should happen – and what will realistically happen. And the HR professional has to decide – which they are going to fight for.

A manager who refuses to see the world for another’s perspective – is simply a bad manager. Let’s be clear about this.

What ideally should happen Is coaching – to help that manager be a better manager.

Realistically  – someone who is an adult – who refuses to see things from other’s people’s perspective – probably isn’t going to respond well to coaching.  You have to want to improve what you are doing to actually improve.  And if they have a habit or an attitude – of not listening to constructive feedback – there is really nothing someone who doesn’t have authority over them can do.

Which leaves HR in a quandary. They know they have a manager that isn’t really a good fit for the job, but they don’t have the authority to deal with it.  Which means – to deal with it – they have to get buy in from upper management to work to fix the problem.

Ideally – an HR professional should have a working relationship with upper management to be able to consult on staffing issues – including management staffing decisions.  Ideally, they should be able to use those relationships to point out the staffing problem and suggest ways to fix it – that would then be implemented. Those remedies – would start with coaching and potentially end in the re-assignment to a more appropriate position (that makes use of their expertise – if they have any) or firing of the manager who isn’t doing a good job being a manager if their only skills is – management.

Realistically – most HR professionals don’t have that sort of relationship with upper management. They are not considered trusted partners. They are viewed as paperwork pushers that help make sure staffing accounting is complying with the law and payroll etc and that benefits are being administered.

How can they fix that? By actively talking about these things with upper management. Is that scary? Yes. But there is only one way to get upper management to view you as an equal partner – and that is to act as if you are an equal partner.  Does this carry risk?  Of course, it does. But nothing is going to change – if you don’t change it.

The alternative is to just allow the company to suffer as a result of the bad manager.

If you want training on how to handle difficult conversations or on how to train someone to behave better - I have HRCI & SHRM approved courses - here:
https://humanistlearning.com/programsoffered/

Evidence Based Solutions for D&I in the workplace

Anyone involved in HR and Diversity Issues knows - what we are doing isn't really working. We still have bias. We still have discrimination. We still have problems with inclusion. And none of the initiatives seem to make a dent. Some do, it specific cases, but as a problem plaguing society and our workplace, it's pretty sticky.

This is why I want to share the Evidence Based D&I HR Magazine article: https://www.dropbox.com/s/amz5hisptr6d036/Evidence-Based%20D%26I%20HR%20Magazine%20May17.pdf

We need to use more science to help us solve these problems.  One of the ways we try to solve D&I problems is by compiling reports about experiences of black, asian, minority and ethnic people in organizations to ask about their experiences. And these stories are useful to help us understand the impact of the dynamics and experiences that people are having in an organization.

What this doesn't do is help us come up with solutions to fix them. It is simply not enough to tell stories to try and get people to care. There are other sciences we can bring in to help us. Like, behavioral science, or sociology or psychology.

Another thing that won't work is "solutioneering" which I refer to as proxy problems. Where people decide that the problem is we have not instituted a particular solution. When that might not be the problem at all.

One of these "solutions" is unconscious bias training. But the evidence is that this training doesn't actually change behavior. (http://humanisthappiness.blogspot.com/2018/11/does-unconscious-bias-training-work.html) There are several reasons why that is the case - one of which is what I teach - the science behind how behaviors are actually changed. https://humanistlearning.com/change1/

The advice they give is please don't just act so you can be seen to be doing something. Do something that will actually work. This requires decision makes to be conscientious, explicit and judicious in seeking out and using evidence to design your intervention. 

FYI - I will be interviewing Rob Briner (one of the co-authors) regarding using evidence based management practice. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/evidence-based-practice-to-make-better-decisions-humanistic-professionals-lunch-and-learn-tickets-53964850320

And if you want to learn some of the science on how to actually get behaviors to change - contact me for a training. https://humanistlearning.com/contact-us/

Positive Employee Experiences When Company Culture Changes

I was recently asked by a reporter about to create positive employee experiences when a company culture changes. Here are my answers to their questions.

In your opinion, why do some employees view a change in company culture as a negative? 

Resistance to change is instinctual. It involves unlearning and unlearning in all animals, including humans, follows a very specific pattern and that pattern involves initial resistance to change. The key for leaders is to understand that resistance is not necessarily a reflection on employee desire. Though it can be if the culture is changing for the wrong reasons on in a less ethical direction.

How do you communicate those changes to keep employees on the same page? 

It can help involve the employees directly in the planning. If a manager says – we are doing this differently – without input – they risk creating changes that make things worse for employees. When employees are involved in the discussions on WHY changes are being made – they are less likely to resist.  It’s the difference between dictating change and co-creating change.   If you want to establish new rules for handle interpersonal disagreements for instance, telling people – here is the new complaint process yields very different results from having conversations where individuals agree on a new process together. When people co-create new social rules, they are accountable for the rules they helped co-create and agreed to.  If they didn’t agree to the new rules, they aren’t accountable to them – as much as a manager might like them to be.

How do you help employees remain positive as the company culture evolves?

Positive reinforcement and support through the process and regular check ins to make sure the new culture being co-created is still moving in a good direction – so that course corrections can occur quickly and that people are rewarded for pointing out the problems with implementation – will help employees remain positive. It is when people don’t feel like they are being heard – that they get really negative. Culture must be co-created. It cannot be dictated and people who don’t like where the culture is going, have a right to be heard. But the process through which these conversations take place – should be positive which is why appreciative inquiry works so well.


I teach both humanistic management approaches and behavioral science based approaches to change management. https://humanistlearning.com 

Confessions from a polite passive aggressive individual in the workplace.

I am working on a talk for the next HR Florida conference in August. It’s on how to deal with passive aggressive people so they don’t wreak havoc in the workplace.  In my mind, I was thinking of the bullies who control workflow by passive aggressively withholding information needed by others to get the work done.  I asked my friends and followers for input. One of them admitted he was passive aggressive at times and why.  He allowed me to share this in an article in the hopes that it would help managers understand their employee’s behaviors better so that people like my friend, don’t have to “scream” at you with their behavior. This just reconfirms my belief that when employees fail – it’s because their managers failed them. Keep that in mind when reading this.

(PS names have been changed to protect the innocent or not so innocent.)

Hi, my name is Joe (crowd: "hi Joe!") and I'm a hard core passive aggressive, not that any of you would care ("we feel your pain, Joe"). I've been a passive aggressive my entire life ("yeah, yeah, we know"), probably as a result of being raised in a very authoritarian household where overt defiance was an extremely bad choice ("ooh, yeah, confrontation sucks").

As a single data point, I can say that my passive aggressive comes out when I'm frustrated. At work this usually means that I'm frustrated with a policy or a boss that I think is screwed up but that I know I have no power to change, or else it's a situation where my time and effort have been committed to something by a boss where my input wasn't asked for or my assent was assumed - particularly when the activity in question is diverting me from my main purpose or goal in my job. Case in point: my district has a number of staff development days that are mandated. In past years, they took place during school days, so a substitute would be doing the job I love, badly, while I was off being walked through meetings full of jargon and buzzwords about teaching techniques that meant nothing to me. The crux of my frustration is that it feels like my district is deciding that we must have staff development (because that's what they're supposed to do), but they don't really know what they want us to learn, so they just throw stuff at us that doesn't seem to have relevance or a coherent plan behind it. So now I feel like I'm wasting time, _not_ getting my real job done, while some boss is checking off a box that they did their job to satisfy some boss above them. So I'm frustrated, and I show up with a big pile of personal work to do while fairly well ignoring the presenters that are spewing the jargon and buzzwords. Passive aggressive, big time. 

So in my case, in those instances, the solution is to give me a voice - give me some choice about whether I want to be involved in the dog and pony show, or would I rather get my real job done. My passive aggressive behavior is screaming at you that I'd rather be grading - and I hate grading - than be sitting in your meeting. If your meeting really is relevant and I'm behaving this way, then clearly I don't see the relevance - so perhaps the solution is to share the big picture with me and get my feedback about it. Maybe I don't sense that you, the boss, are really committed to the direction of this meeting or project or goal, and I think that any effort put into it is ultimately going to be wasted as the company shifts directions (again) and the old plan full of buzzwords is thrown out in favor of the new plan, full of new buzzwords. Regardless of what it is, I'm not being passive aggressive because I'm an a-hole, I'm doing it because I have a dissenting opinion that I don't believe I can openly express, so it's leaking out as passive aggressive behavior. Maybe we need to have a private meeting where my boss looks me straight in the eye, says "hey, this is all off the record, no repercussions - what's the matter?" If the boss and I can find common cause or make changes where my effort will be channeled into an activity I believe in, my passive aggressive will go away. Maybe I'm just a hard core introvert who wants to work in my cube, undisturbed, and you're throwing group activities at me left and right and it's putting my right out of my comfort zone. If we really cannot agree on a common path or a solution to my dissent, then perhaps I'm working in the wrong place. But I'd say that the number one thing passive aggressive people are looking for is the opportunity to have their voice heard and acted upon, probably in private, because if they felt comfortable enough bringing up their dissent in public, they'd have done it by now instead of being passive aggressive.

BTW - proud moment from my passive aggressive past: had a lab boss who could. not. run. a. meeting. She couldn't keep to a schedule or move a meeting along to save her life, so every time we had a meeting with her in charge there was no end in sight - it could drag on forever. So, I started taking a lab timer to our weekly lab meeting, setting it for 1 hour, and when it went off in the meeting I'd say "I have to go deal with my experiment" and leave. Was I running an experiment? Hell no. Half the time I'd go read email or something and then get back to work. My passive aggressive behavior was screaming "hey - keep yer damn meeting to an hour, would ya?", but she had no clue, and I was never going to say that out loud.

What lesson should you draw from this?  If you have an employee who is “not participating” the way you want – have a private conversation with them and LISTEN!  REALLY LISTEN. Give them a voice. Respect them. Employees aren’t robots. They are human beings. They deserve respect and if you treat them as a slave – you should expect them to behave in a passive aggressive way.

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Learn how to avoid these mistakes with my online course: 7 Sins of Staff Management.

Dealing with Sexual Harassment - from Hillary Clinton?

It recently came to light that Hillary Clinton did not fire a man on her 2008 staff who had harassed a young lady on her team.  Hillary responded by posting an article on Facebook about what she did and why she did it in response to what happened.  I don't want to discuss the relative merits or demerits of Hillary as a political candidate, but I do think her sharing of her thought processes and how she handled it is worth discussing from an HR/humanistic business management perspective.  So here goes.

First - her essay:

Key points:

1) She believed the alleged victim and took immediate action to make sure the accused no longer had access to this person. She also gave the victim a better job - promoted her.
2) She demoted the person accused but did not fire him. She did ensure that his access to other people and women in particular was limited.  She says she took this route because as far as she knew it was an isolated incident and she believed in giving him a second chance - but in a trust but verify sort of way so that he would not be able to hurt others on her campaign.

While it is very easy to second guess her decisions given that the man in question did go on to harass someone else at another job. I will not be doing that here. Instead I want to highlight what I thought she did right.

Too often, when people complain, they are isolated to protect them while the accused is left free to do whatever they want. This has the impact of socially isolating the victim and limiting their ability to do their jobs. When we do this - we are punishing the person who was brave enough to come forward and report what happened. Hillary not only supported this young woman - she rewarded her for coming forward.

Now, before anyone gets all antsy about how if we reward people for reporting crimes we are going to end up with a lot of false reports, don't worry about that. False reports are pretty easy to spot and don't stand up to basic scrutiny and investigation. Also, the rate of false reporting is quite low. Our problem isn't that we have a bunch of false reports, it's that people aren't reporting crimes of this nature when they happen in the workplace.

The person who was isolated and demoted was the harasser, not the victim. She gave him the benefit of the doubt, but did not leave him free to hurt others. He has monitored so he would have no opportunity to hurt other women on the team. Yes, that seems harsh - but it does give the accused the benefit of the doubt.

We do not know what actions Hillary took to verify the story of the young lady. I assume she did not demote someone without first verifying the story.

What I do know is that unless you take reports seriously and verify them - you won't know. So take reports seriously. Verify. There are not 2 sides to this. Either someone behaved inappropriately or they did not. If they did - they should no longer have access to other members of the team. If you don't fire them, isolate them so that they no longer have the ability to harm others.

And, if you verify that a claim was true - reward the person who came forward and notified you.

Which is worse? Dealing with someone who has behaved inappropriately - or allowing a predator to prey on your staff for years because people are too afraid to come forward? In case you are wondering - it's the latter. Not only in terms of harm done but this impacts workflow and is an enormous legal liability. People with courage to honestly tell you what is going on and that crimes are occurring in your workplace - should be rewarded.  People who are found to have behaved inappropriately need to be monitored closely and if necessary isolated so they no longer have access to their victims and other potential victims.

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To learn more about how to stop harassment and bullying in the workplace take my online course: Workplace Bullying for HR Professionals

https://humanistlearning.com/workplacebullying1/

Overcoming challenges facing women in the workplace

One of the biggest challenges for women in the workplace is harassment - which can take many forms. 

  

At my last live training on how to use behavioral science to de-escalate conflicts, I got several questions from women that all amounted to the same thing.  How can I, as a woman, assert myself without being a bitch.  How can they stand up to their male colleagues, demand respect and be heard without pissing off the guys?  I get this question in some form in every single training I do. Sometimes it’s phrased as how do I stop being a doormat and stand my ground without being a jerk.

This shouldn't be a problem. Women should be able to assert themselves in the workplace without triggering a sexist response in others. But ... assertive women are viewed negatively by not just men, but by other women.

The solution to this problem has to do with being professional and realizing that some men and some women can’t handle professional assertive women. At all.  That's the bad news.

The good news is that most can.

I’ve only ever been in 2 work environments where a man didn’t try to minimize my contribution simply because I’m female. It’s very very very common. My focus when dealing with these situations is not to try and fix the offending male, but making sure the other males – who aren’t jerks – understand my value. 

I do this by being professional and firm.  If something isn’t right or can’t be done in the timeframe or the request was inappropriate – I say no. Sorry – that can’t be done. Then I pivot to problem solving mode. Perhaps we can do this another way?  This technique is so simple I’m always surprised that more people don’t use it. 

Despite having been subject to attacks and rumors, I have always enjoyed the confidence and support of my supervisors. I don’t allow others to sideline me and I make sure the people who matter, know I matter. All by being professional and firm about my boundaries.

To learn more about how to win arguments without arguing - take my course on Socratic Jujitsu

https://humanistlearning.com/socratic-jujitsu/

Imagine if we treated sexual assault like we treated embezzling.

In light of the recent revelations about Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men assaulting employees and potential employees, Anita Hill wrote a very interesting essay on the subject making the case that our indifference to this crime, just because it’s sexual in nature is doing more harm than good.

Anita Hill’s essay is called Women face creeps like Harvey Weinstein everywhere was published by the NY Daily News:http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/women-face-pigs-harvey-weinstein-anita-hill-article-1.3563555 

My favorite quote from the essay is this one.

"Companies founded and led by powerful men often effectively put chronic sexual harassment by men in a separate basket, as though it was a “personal problem” rather than a serious business one. Imagine decades of rumors that Weinstein was an embezzler. Would his boards have shown the same level of disinterest and inattention? When does indifference amount to enabling? The question answers itself and the catastrophic results of the board’s flawed thinking speak for themselves."

I have 4 points I want to make on this.

1. People who abuse other people don’t just abuse one person. This is never just an interpersonal matter. It’s usually serial. Multiple victims. If you give them a pass, you are allowing them to harm other people and that makes you complicit.
2. This doesn’t just happen to women. I know men who were raped. There are men in Hollywood speaking out against the abuses they experienced, some as children! 
3. Assault is assault is assault. It’s a crime. Treat it as seriously as you would any other crime reported to you. And yes, harassment is a crime too. Every state in the country has laws against harassment. Criminal laws against harassment. Don’t just assume you only have to do something if the victim qualifies under to special categories. Everyone in your workplace has a right to not be harassed.
4. The lessons we learn from the Harvey Weinstein scandal can and must be applied more broadly throughout American society.

If you were never taught how to make this stop and how to deal effectively with these problems or you are dealing with it now, take one of my courses on how to apply behavioral science to the problem of bullying.

https://humanistlearning.com/category/bullyingharassment/