There has been an increase in retaliation complaints and the existence of retaliation against whistle blowers in particular is one of the main challenges of creating more ethical organizations. What is going on and how can we improve our outcomes?
I was recently asked about this in relation to current events, but because this is a common problem for all organizations, I'm sharing my answer here.
I come at this from a behavioral perspective I provide federal No FEAR Act training – which is the law protecting employees from retaliation - and refresher training for EEO counselors and investigators.
The increase in retaliation complaints – can be viewed as a good thing. It means – people are willing to report retaliation instead of be silenced by it. The problem was always there – the increase in complaints mean – people aren’t tolerating it any more. This is a necessary step to creating more ethical cultures. We have to behaviorally extinguish the unethical behavior.
Behavioral extinction is very predictable. If someone is doing something that works, and suddenly it doesn’t work. They don’t stop. They do that thing more. In bullying, harassment or other criminal activity – what has always worked is intimidation, so when someone blows the whistle – they bully and intimidate more. With bullying and harassment, we call this predicted escalation of behavior – retaliation, but it’s really – just an escalation of existing behavior. This escalation is predicted ONLY IF the behavior is established, meaning – it’s a behavioral habit of the individual. If the person does not have a habit of bullying, they will not respond to a whistleblower complaint this way at all because – there is no behavioral habit to extinguish. This behavioral escalation is so predictable with established behaviors that escalation of bullying behavior is one of the best ways to verify that something inappropriate was indeed happening.
Retaliation is a form of bullying. But you can only do that if you know the identity of the person who blew the whistle. With the current federal situation, the accused don’t know who blew the whistle, which makes putting pressure on the whistleblower impossible. This is probably why they are so desperate to know the identity of the whistleblower. And again, for people with experience in behavioral extinction, this searching for the whistleblower is quite telling. People who aren’t in the habit of doing unethical things, don’t increase their unethical behavior when accused of crimes because that is not their habit. Only people who are in the habit of intimidating people increase their unethical behavior. And intimidating people – is unethical. If the person has anxiety issues but doesn’t bully, then they would respond to being accused with more anxiety behavior. Whatever the behavior habit is - you will expect to see more of it and it will be more obvious it is happening and less hidden and more overt – which is exactly what we are seeing now.
This instinctual dynamic of someone for whom intimidation has always worked to use more intimidation to stop the accusations against them, is exactly why whistleblower identities should be held secret if possible (it’s not always possible). But they should be kept secret at least through the investigation period. It’s also why reporting of retaliation efforts is so important. They provide evidence to the investigators that something unethical is indeed happening and help build the case.
In the federal system, whistle blowers are only protected if they use a very specific process – usually involving the Inspector general. The laws against retaliation don’t prevent retaliation from happening. What they do is provide remedies for people who were materially or mentally harmed by retaliation. They aren’t set up to stop it. Just to provide economic remedies for people who were harmed by it. This distinction matters because to create more ethical workplaces and eliminate the bullying and harassment and intimidation that comes from unethical people trying to protect their power within an organization, we have to use a behavioral extinction process, which is NOT what the whistle blower system and the No FEAR Act do.
To be honest, the entire complaint system is a bit onerous and lengthy. It is necessarily that way, but it is not the sort of system a behaviorist would have set up. The system is NOT set up to stop bullying/harassment and retaliation. The whistle blower system is design for employees to report criminal and unethical activity. Which may be a discreet single instance of something or – at least – it can be reported that way and handled that way. Bullying/harassment and retaliation, by contrast, are patterns of behavior and to document it, you have to document a pattern of behavior. Not a single report – multiple reports over time. The No FEAR Act and EEO system and whistle blower system, aren’t set up to handle that. They are bureaucracies set up to handle – individual complaints. We should be creating parallel systems to handle and document ongoing behavioral problems and assist with the behavioral extinction process so that we can eliminate the problem entirely. But that is just my humble opinion.
Want to learn more - take one of my courses:
I provide federal No FEAR Act training – which is the law protecting employees from retaliation - and refresher training for EEO counselors and investigators.
I was recently asked about this in relation to current events, but because this is a common problem for all organizations, I'm sharing my answer here.
I come at this from a behavioral perspective I provide federal No FEAR Act training – which is the law protecting employees from retaliation - and refresher training for EEO counselors and investigators.
The increase in retaliation complaints – can be viewed as a good thing. It means – people are willing to report retaliation instead of be silenced by it. The problem was always there – the increase in complaints mean – people aren’t tolerating it any more. This is a necessary step to creating more ethical cultures. We have to behaviorally extinguish the unethical behavior.
Behavioral extinction is very predictable. If someone is doing something that works, and suddenly it doesn’t work. They don’t stop. They do that thing more. In bullying, harassment or other criminal activity – what has always worked is intimidation, so when someone blows the whistle – they bully and intimidate more. With bullying and harassment, we call this predicted escalation of behavior – retaliation, but it’s really – just an escalation of existing behavior. This escalation is predicted ONLY IF the behavior is established, meaning – it’s a behavioral habit of the individual. If the person does not have a habit of bullying, they will not respond to a whistleblower complaint this way at all because – there is no behavioral habit to extinguish. This behavioral escalation is so predictable with established behaviors that escalation of bullying behavior is one of the best ways to verify that something inappropriate was indeed happening.
Retaliation is a form of bullying. But you can only do that if you know the identity of the person who blew the whistle. With the current federal situation, the accused don’t know who blew the whistle, which makes putting pressure on the whistleblower impossible. This is probably why they are so desperate to know the identity of the whistleblower. And again, for people with experience in behavioral extinction, this searching for the whistleblower is quite telling. People who aren’t in the habit of doing unethical things, don’t increase their unethical behavior when accused of crimes because that is not their habit. Only people who are in the habit of intimidating people increase their unethical behavior. And intimidating people – is unethical. If the person has anxiety issues but doesn’t bully, then they would respond to being accused with more anxiety behavior. Whatever the behavior habit is - you will expect to see more of it and it will be more obvious it is happening and less hidden and more overt – which is exactly what we are seeing now.
This instinctual dynamic of someone for whom intimidation has always worked to use more intimidation to stop the accusations against them, is exactly why whistleblower identities should be held secret if possible (it’s not always possible). But they should be kept secret at least through the investigation period. It’s also why reporting of retaliation efforts is so important. They provide evidence to the investigators that something unethical is indeed happening and help build the case.
In the federal system, whistle blowers are only protected if they use a very specific process – usually involving the Inspector general. The laws against retaliation don’t prevent retaliation from happening. What they do is provide remedies for people who were materially or mentally harmed by retaliation. They aren’t set up to stop it. Just to provide economic remedies for people who were harmed by it. This distinction matters because to create more ethical workplaces and eliminate the bullying and harassment and intimidation that comes from unethical people trying to protect their power within an organization, we have to use a behavioral extinction process, which is NOT what the whistle blower system and the No FEAR Act do.
To be honest, the entire complaint system is a bit onerous and lengthy. It is necessarily that way, but it is not the sort of system a behaviorist would have set up. The system is NOT set up to stop bullying/harassment and retaliation. The whistle blower system is design for employees to report criminal and unethical activity. Which may be a discreet single instance of something or – at least – it can be reported that way and handled that way. Bullying/harassment and retaliation, by contrast, are patterns of behavior and to document it, you have to document a pattern of behavior. Not a single report – multiple reports over time. The No FEAR Act and EEO system and whistle blower system, aren’t set up to handle that. They are bureaucracies set up to handle – individual complaints. We should be creating parallel systems to handle and document ongoing behavioral problems and assist with the behavioral extinction process so that we can eliminate the problem entirely. But that is just my humble opinion.
Want to learn more - take one of my courses:
I provide federal No FEAR Act training – which is the law protecting employees from retaliation - and refresher training for EEO counselors and investigators.
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