Terrorism In The Workplace
By Rhiannon Hill-Lewes
I've been having an interesting exchange with someone here about motivating people and getting the best out of the workforce.
He felt that if you took a positive motivational approach this was all that was needed.
But my business is based on long personal and professional experience which demonstrates that this is not always enough.
I don't disagree overall with training and leadership philosophies on how to get better responses from your workforce but most people don't have a real understanding of the power of unconscious sabotage or how to deal with it. This is usually carried out by one or two people and can be rooted out in group sessions.
The sort of thing I am talking about is bullying, manipulation, undermining, sabotage, instituting systems which make it difficult for others to work, bringing personal problems into work, games aimed at gaining unfair advantage.
It doesn't matter how much people are motivated by money or pride or even interest in the job, many people will operate the above behaviours without realising it. People do accept it up to a point but a couple of people exhibiting and acting out these behaviours, sometimes with great subtlety, can cause low productivity, demotivation and unwanted churn if left unchecked. This obviously affects the bottom line.
It comes under the general heading of stress management - it's other people's negative personal behaviours which cause most of the stress in the working environment. Both Clare Evans and I have worked for big corporations and organisations and we have seen it wrecking things over and over again. The boss is mystified because actually, most of these behaviours have not changed since we were in the playground and people think it's normal; they turn a blind eye unless they become victims.
Good HR departments will often identify that there is some sort of problem and may call in coaches because they promise a quick fix and can market themselves in ways not available to psychotherapists, but coaches are simply not qualified to help people get to the bottom of things at a deep level and change their bad behaviour for good. I have been involved in management training myself and what sounds good on Sunday often evaporates by Tuesday.
It's been proven time and again that supporting people in arriving at self insight is the single most powerful tool to orient people towards discovering what they are actually doing. Well facilitated interventions during group sessions plus feedback from peers is absolutely the best way to do it. We don't get involved in shame and blame, everyone is respected, and the person who needs to moderate their behaviour gains all round - including in their personal life. About a third of my practice concerns people who are having problems with others at work. Please don't respond to this blog telling me that people just need to toughen up. Sometimes this IS enough, some people are naturally 'tough' but when it gets serious it can be a major factor in psychological breakdown, long term complex post traumatic stress disorders, abuse of families and children, alcoholism and even suicide.
I can't break client confidentiality to give case studies unfortunately, but here's an example from personal experience.
Last year, I signed up with an employment agency for temp office work for a while as I had just moved back to Hove and knew it would take a while for my former practice to pick up. I was asked to work as a receptionist in a local solicitors' office.
I was hired and went along at the end of one day for a few minutes just to meet them.
The second person I met was really rude and insulting to me, and no one seemed to notice. Although the red flag went up, I needed the job so I let it go.
I arrived and met the person who's job I was taking over. It was a difficult, demanding job, especially as you can't afford to make a mistake when dealing with legal material. The woman whose job I was taking over took me to lunch and launched into a bitter, angry description of her disastrous personal life. I just listened, but did not say much. I assessed her as probably suffering from some serious psychological problems but as at first we managed to interact on the work front they weren't mine!
As the days wore on, it was clear that there was already a very bad atmosphere in the office. At first all went reasonably well. Fortunately I have a quick brain and qualified in secretarial skills at school and in a couple of days quickly learned the systems and was going along quite nicely.
I was there because the woman hated the reception job which had taken her a year to learn, and had decided she wanted to be an audio typist. She had very poor IT skills, judging by the abc way she tried to teach me. I finally figured it all out for myself. She could not even touch type or spell properly and was struggling with the new role. She got more and more grumpy and miserable as it dawned on her that she had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire! She constantly complained about pain in her hand, the uncomfortble headset, and sighed on the few occasions when I did have to ask her about some new procedure.
Gradually other co workers, who seemed to like me, intimated to me en passant all the little rivalries and hatreds and jealousies going on in the office. They nearly all centred on her.
I kept clear, but the woman was furious that I was doing such a good job. After about 4 days, she began to slam the connecting door from reception to her office, which had until then been open all day previously, whenever she saw me coming in the morning, or back from lunch.
On day five I was asked by one of the solicitors to begin doing pointless and humiliating tasks. I had been told to do something one way, now they wanted it another way. By day 7 she did not speak to me at all. By day 8 no-one else did. She had been working away at undermining me behind my back to the entire office, that much was clear.
The following week the agency told me that although my work had been outstanding I had been sacked due to a 'personality clash.' I told my agency what had happened and they admitted that they had placed several other part- time receptionists there in about the past year!
I was determined to have my say, so emailed the senior partner's wife who had been on holiday during my tenure.
She ran the office admin from home (tellingly) but I had her email address. I described the problems and said I thought I had been unfairly treated. I got a fullsome apology. She said my work had been fine and that she had spoken to them, no one could really say precisely what I had done wrong, and she realised that they had behaved like children.
You can keep replacing people at a low level, but not if the job carries a high salary, high responsibility position including company intellectual property sharing and customer relationships, and replacements involve a lot of expenditure on recruitment, if either new employees are bullied out, or others leave because the atmosphere is intolerable, then it gets serious.
If you think this is happening in your company, believe me, there is a remedy.I've been having an interesting exchange with someone here about motivating people and getting the best out of the workforce.
He felt that if you took a positive motivational approach this was all that was needed.
I've also read Peter Hunter's excellent book which was praised again here yesterday.
But my business is based on long personal and professional experience which demonstrates that this is not always enough.
I don't disagree overall with training and leadership philosophies on how to get better responses from your workforce but most people don't have a real understanding of the power of unconscious sabotage or how to deal with it. This is usually carried out by one or two people and can be rooted out in group sessions.
The sort of thing I am talking about is bullying, manipulation, undermining, sabotage, instituting systems which make it difficult for others to work, bringing personal problems into work, games aimed at gaining unfair advantage.
It doesn't matter how much people are motivated by money or pride or even interest in the job, many people will operate the above behaviours without realising it. People do accept it up to a point but a couple of people exhibiting and acting out these behaviours, sometimes with great subtlety, can cause low productivity, demotivation and unwanted churn if left unchecked. This obviously affects the bottom line.
It comes under the general heading of stress management - it's other people's negative personal behaviours which cause most of the stress in the working environment. Both Clare Evans and I have worked for big corporations and organisations and we have seen it wrecking things over and over again. The boss is mystified because actually, most of these behaviours have not changed since we were in the playground and people think it's normal; they turn a blind eye unless they become victims.
Good HR departments will often identify that there is some sort of problem and may call in coaches because they promise a quick fix and can market themselves in ways not available to psychotherapists, but coaches are simply not qualified to help people get to the bottom of things at a deep level and change their bad behaviour for good. I have been involved in management training myself and what sounds good on Sunday often evaporates by Tuesday.
It's been proven time and again that supporting people in arriving at self insight is the single most powerful tool to orient people towards discovering what they are actually doing. Well facilitated interventions during group sessions plus feedback from peers is absolutely the best way to do it. We don't get involved in shame and blame, everyone is respected, and the person who needs to moderate their behaviour gains all round - including in their personal life. About a third of my practice concerns people who are having problems with others at work. Please don't respond to this blog telling me that people just need to toughen up. Sometimes this IS enough, some people are naturally 'tough' but when it gets serious it can be a major factor in psychological breakdown, long term complex post traumatic stress disorders, abuse of families and children, alcoholism and even suicide.
I can't break client confidentiality to give case studies unfortunately, but here's an example from personal experience.
Last year, I signed up with an employment agency for temp office work for a while as I had just moved back to Hove and knew it would take a while for my former practice to pick up. I was asked to work as a receptionist in a local solicitors' office.
I was hired and went along at the end of one day for a few minutes just to meet them.
The second person I met was really rude and insulting to me, and no one seemed to notice. Although the red flag went up, I needed the job so I let it go.
I arrived and met the person who's job I was taking over. It was a difficult, demanding job, especially as you can't afford to make a mistake when dealing with legal material. The woman whose job I was taking over took me to lunch and launched into a bitter, angry description of her disastrous personal life. I just listened, but did not say much. I assessed her as probably suffering from some serious psychological problems but as at first we managed to interact on the work front they weren't mine!
As the days wore on, it was clear that there was already a very bad atmosphere in the office. At first all went reasonably well. Fortunately I have a quick brain and qualified in secretarial skills at school and in a couple of days quickly learned the systems and was going along quite nicely.
I was there because the woman hated the reception job which had taken her a year to learn, and had decided she wanted to be an audio typist. She had very poor IT skills, judging by the abc way she tried to teach me. I finally figured it all out for myself. She could not even touch type or spell properly and was struggling with the new role. She got more and more grumpy and miserable as it dawned on her that she had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire! She constantly complained about pain in her hand, the uncomfortble headset, and sighed on the few occasions when I did have to ask her about some new procedure.
Gradually other co workers, who seemed to like me, intimated to me en passant all the little rivalries and hatreds and jealousies going on in the office. They nearly all centred on her.
I kept clear, but the woman was furious that I was doing such a good job. After about 4 days, she began to slam the connecting door from reception to her office, which had until then been open all day previously, whenever she saw me coming in the morning, or back from lunch.
On day five I was asked by one of the solicitors to begin doing pointless and humiliating tasks. I had been told to do something one way, now they wanted it another way. By day 7 she did not speak to me at all. By day 8 no-one else did. She had been working away at undermining me behind my back to the entire office, that much was clear.
The following week the agency told me that although my work had been outstanding I had been sacked due to a 'personality clash.' I told my agency what had happened and they admitted that they had placed several other part- time receptionists there in about the past year!
I was determined to have my say, so emailed the senior partner's wife who had been on holiday during my tenure.
She ran the office admin from home (tellingly) but I had her email address. I described the problems and said I thought I had been unfairly treated. I got a fullsome apology. She said my work had been fine and that she had spoken to them, no one could really say precisely what I had done wrong, and she realised that they had behaved like children.
You can keep replacing people at a low level, but not if the job carries a high salary, high responsibility position including company intellectual property sharing and customer relationships, and replacements involve a lot of expenditure on recruitment, if either new employees are bullied out, or others leave because the atmosphere is intolerable, then it gets serious.
If you think this is happening in your company, believe me, there is a remedy.
Rhiannon Hill-Lewes
Consultant on Working Relationships
www.evanshillzarebas: Making Work A Great Place To Be
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