The Waterloo Anti - Mobbing Instruments

Name the process

Workplace mobbing is an impassioned, collective movement by managers and/or co-workers to exclude, punish, and humiliate a targeted worker. A desperate urge to crush and eliminate the target spreads through the work unit, infecting one person after another like a contagious disease. The target comes to be seen as absolutely abhorrent, outside the circle of respectability, deserving only of contempt. A steadily broader range of hostile words and actions toward the target are to be deployed.

About 5 percent of workers are targets of mobbing sometime during their working lives. Most workers see the process from the other side: as instigator, chief eliminator, collaborator, or bystander, or as the target’s guardian or rescuer. The same individual may play different roles in different cases. Mobbing is a drama performed on a real-life stage; workmates make their respective exits and entrances, and play their varied parts.

Mobbing is distinct from penalizing or firing a worker who, on the basis of evidence, does not measure up job requirements. The latter is a reasoned, routine managerial procedure, normally directed with regret at an underachiever. Mobbing is a furious collective attack made with undisguised glee on an overachiever or someone seen as threatening to good and decent employees.

Workplace mobbing is like bullying, in that the object is to rob the target of dignity and self-respect. Here, however, it is not a single swaggering bully that the target is up against, but the juggernaut of collective will. The message to the target is that everybody wants you out of here. Bullies often play leading roles in mobbing cases, whether as targets or perpetrators.

Understand the stages of the process

No two cases are alike, but mobbing typically proceeds from subtle, informal techniques of humiliation and exclusion to overt and formal measures. Five stages are commonly distinguished:

1. Avoidance and ostracization of the target.
2. Petty harassment: making the target’s life difficult.
3. A critical incident that triggers formal sanctions: “something has to be done.
4. Aftermath of the incident: hearings, appeals, mediation.
5. Elimination: target quits, retires,, is fired, becomes disabled, dies of stress-induced illness, or commits suicide.

Recognize the signs of ganging up

The first step toward prevention and remedy of workplace mobbing is to recognize the behaviours that constitute it and call the process by its name. Here are signs to look for:

1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”
3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is.”
5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson.”
6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.
7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for”or defend the target.
11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action
12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

Question what is going on

What does the evidence show? Has the target really committed an unpardonable sin? Or might this war of all against one be merely a cruel way of trying to avert a war of all against all?

Educate yourself about humans in mobs

Workplace mobbing springs from elemental impulses common to many mammals. The term pecking order comes from what chickens routinely do: gang up on one of their number (often a new arrival), each pecking the target and keeping it away from food and water. Although individual pecks do little harm, their cumulative effect is to kill the targeted bird.

There is no quick fix for something so instinctive and primordial. Reducing the incidence of mobbing and healing its effects require not just training but education: critical reflection on the human project, insight into the complexity of life, knowledge of right and wrong, self-knowledge above all.

Literature

Classic novels like these shed light on mobbing:

• Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of Seven Gables (1851). The hunt for witches, Hawthorne writes, “should teach us, among its other morals, that the influential classes, and those that take upon themselves to be leaders of the people, are fully liable to all the passionate error that has ever characterized the maddest mob.”
• Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Foretopman (1924).

Films

In many movies, ganging up is a basic theme. Six examples:

• The Crucible (Arthur Miller play; Daniel Day-Lewis; 1996);
• Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, dir.; Robin Williams; 1989);
• Dogville (Lars von Trier, dir.; Nicole Kidman; 2003);
• The Human Stain (P. Roth novel; Anthony Hopkins; 2003);
• Joan of Arc (Roberto Rossellini, dir.; Ingrid Bergman; 1948);
• Malena (Giuseppe Tornatore, dir.; Monica Bellucci; 2000).

Research summaries

In the early 1980s, the late Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann spearheaded the research effort on psychological terror in the workplace. Here are three practical summaries:

• Noa Davenport et al., Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace (Ames, IA: Civil Society, 1999). Engaging.
• Gary and Ruth Namie, The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job (Benicia, CA: DoubleDoc, 2000). Well-researched, helpful.
• Judith Wyatt and Chauncey Hare, Work Abuse: How to Recognize It and Survive It (Rochester, VT: Schenkman, 1997). Key concept is shame. Profound, easy to read.

Web-sites

Do Google searches for “workplace mobbing” or “bullying,” or for Australian researchers like Charmaine Hockley, Brian Martin, Linda Shallcross, Michael Sheehan. Look at mobbing.ca

Be at once kind and careful

Lying low, keeping your head down, following the crowd, and kowtowing to the boss are poor defenses against being mobbed. Nobody is safe in workplaces of chronic scapegoating, mobbing, and nastiness. This year’s mobber may be next year’s target.

Practical suggestions researchers commonly offer for personal conduct include the following:

• Keep your mind on the job. Mobs form when people lose sight of the organization’s purposes, turn their attention inward, get caught up in power struggles and one-upmanship.
• Plan carefully before blowing the whistle on managerial misconduct. Managers tend to go after whistleblowers, and elites close ranks. See Brian Martin, The Whistleblower’s Handbook (Annandale, NSW: Envirobook, 1999).
• Get a life away from work. Cultivate social relations in many different groups – family, school, church, community. If managers and workmates turn on a person who lacks alternative sources of social support, the target is easily destroyed.
• Show kindness to the target. Instead of joining mobbers or bystanders, find ways to affirm the target’s humanity. The mob may then turn on you, but you may possibly save another’s life.
• Nietzsche said it best: “Distrust all those in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”

Promote workplace decency

Keeping a workplace free of scapegoating and terror takes more than good intentions on the part of the managers and workers involved. Some organizational structures and procedures work better than others, for getting work done well and for discouraging people from ganging up. Here are possibilities:

• Spread power around. Pluralism, countervailing power, checks and balances, bring out the best in people. Concentration of power in a single hierarchy brings out the worst.
• Minimize adversarial, zero-sum proceedings. Quasi-judicial tribunals unleash groupthink and the impulse to scapegoat. Productivity, truth, and justice are better served by open administration and straight talk, with cards on the table.
• Discourage a culture of grievance and legalism. Given the choice, wasting hours in occasional arguments is less costly and stressful than wasting years in arbitration or in court.
• Avoid “neutral” mediators. They usually side with whoever has the upper hand. An effective mediator is committed to truth, fairness, give and take, productivity, quality, efficiency.
• Provide opportunities for dialogue. If people have the chance to voice concerns, air differences, listen to one another, and seek common ground, the threat of mobbing is reduced – see Daniel Yankelovich, The Magic of Dialogue (New York, 1999).

By: KENNETH WESTHUES, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, ON N2L 3G1, CANADA – kwesthue@watarts.uwaterloo.ca

Academic Bullies

I received a call from a former client this afternoon. This morning, a senior faculty member, who teaches the same subject matter as her, "summoned" her into his office where he proceeded to berate her, call her names and threatened her. He repeatedly screamed that he was tenured and she was still untenured and that she had to answer to him.

Over the phone, she still sounded very shaken and wanted to double check that her reaction and plan of action were on target. She was fighting the urge to simply withdraw from the world and quit her job on the spot. She told me that she never wants to be alone with him again. I was proud of her. Her plans were right on target. This bully had already been warned about his behavior before. She is reporting his behavior to the appropriate people, documenting his bullying, and reaching out to other senior faculty women on her campus for the best ways to deal with him. In essence, she is calling upon her inner warrior princess to shore up her boundaries and is drawing a line in the sand by stating that she refuses to be bullied.

Hazing and bullying have gone on for far too long. Afraid of the bully, colleagues and administrators look the other way as women, especially, are subjected to an extremely hostile environment. Too often, the bully relies on the knowledge that the junior faculty member is too afraid of jeopardizing their chances for tenure and promotion to say anything. But, if you read discussion forums, the end result is that the environment becomes so unbearable that the faculty member ends up leaving for what she hopes are greener and kinder pastures (after all sense of self-confidence in one's abilities have been destroyed).

Bullying has been the elephant in the room. But I am hopeful that people are starting to finally address it. Lately, I have seen a lot of conversations about "faculty incivility" on professional forums for faculty development specialists as well as timid forays into the subject by the Chronicle of Higher Education (Click here for an interesting op-ed about tenure that states that tenure encourages bullying). Let's hope that these conversations develop legs and are the beginning of real change.

I have not had the chance to read Twale and DeLuca's book Faculty Incivility: The Rise of the Academic Bully Culture and What to Do About It that was released earlier this year, but my colleagues are all giving it a thumbs up on how to deal with bullying and how to deal with a culture that encourages the chewing up and spitting out of junior faculty.

Let's join my former client in drawing the line in the sand. Let's conjure up our warrior princesses and remind the bullies that we expect to be treated with respect.

From: http://aroundtheacademy.blogspot.com

Informal complaints: handle with care

Statutory grievance procedures continue to plague employers. For example, in Procek v Oakford Farms Limited, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) found that a grievance which had been labelled by Mr Procek, a Polish farm worker, as "informal" did satisfy the requirements of the statutory grievance procedures. Consequently, the tribunal was able, not just to hear Procek's claims, but also to slap a punitive 50% uplift on any award of compensation it made against his employer.

This case shows that although the statutory grievance procedures have been with us now for more than four years, the basics of their application continue to be debated at tribunal.

Past case law tells us that grievances can be "minimal" in terms of content do not need to refer to the statutory procedures nor even indicate that the sender requires the complaint to be dealt with. Now with the decision in Procek, a grievance that the employee had labelled as being informal, and which specifically indicated that it was not intended to satisfy the statutory procedures, has been determined as being sufficient to satisfy the statutory requirements.

Some may see this ruling as unsurprising, but the statutory procedures have real bite, and failure to comply with them has serious consequences for both the employee and the employer. From an employee's perspective, they can be prevented from having their claim heard from an employer's perspective, they can face an uplift in the damages that have to be paid if they are unsuccessful in defending a claim.

This may seem like a fair quid pro quo. However, the link between an employer's failure to comply and the potential award a claimant could receive has been the source of much discontent among employers. The volume of cases on this issue is testament in itself to the difficulty the procedures have caused for them. When an employer's failure to comply hinges on its inability to recognise a grievance (rather than from inadequate internal procedures, a disregard for the law, or behaviour in any way culpable), an uplift of up to 50% hardly seems proportionate.

In Procek, the EAT considered this point but found that since the uplift was determined at the tribunal's discretion, rather than being an inevitable outcome, the argument was insufficient to dissuade them from finding that the grievance did not satisfy the statutory requirements.

So how should employers react to this decision? Most employers' grievance policies provide for a grievance to be dealt with informally. Arguably, this is the best way to resolve employment disputes, nipping them in the bud at an early stage before the parties' positions become entrenched. If the position cannot be satisfactorily resolved, then the grievance procedure will go on to suggest that the employee raises their concern in a more formal way.

Following Procek, the era of the informal grievance is over: any employee who writes an e-mail to HR raising a complaint should expect the response to set in motion the full force of the statutory procedures, whether they like it or not. The message for employers is clear: any written complaint must be dealt with in accordance with the statutory procedure, or a 50% uplift in compensation may result.

It would seem the informal grievance has breathed its last breath.

From: http://www.personneltoday.com

Don’t sue–run for your lives! Part II

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s post, which was about workplace bullies and the ways in which they can come to dominate a work environment by driving away some people while turning those who remain into bullies themselves. According to Robert Sutton, “[R]esearch on emotional contagion, and on abusive supervision in particular, finds that if you work with or around a bunch of nasty and demeaning people, odds are you will become one of them.” This describes many of the people I worked with in my first tenure-track job, which I resigned seven years ago.

My major foe at my former university was someone who was tenured but simultaneously (and humiliatingly) denied her promotion to Associate Professor. She had published a book after all in a department that didn’t require a book, whereas men in the department had recently been promoted to Associate Professor before tenure and, in one case, without a book at all. (That’s right: men without books? Can’t wait to promote you! Women with books? Wait a year or two, then apply again.) There was a whole class of women assistant professors who got that treatment right around the time I was hired, either within their department or at the college review level. Need I point out that the curious creature known as the tenured Assistant Professor was a pink-collar only rank? Unfortunately, this individual’s experience resulted not in anger and radicalization, but in shame and internalization, which was then directed outward not at the people who caused her misery, but at other targets below her on the hierarchy.

This was a pattern that repeated itself many times in that department. People were filled with ressentiment about the way they were treated, and most of them either became bullies or apologists, explaining that “don’t worry, you’ll still be tenured. That’s just the way we do things. Everyone goes through it, so you’ll just have to suck it up.” There were a few good people who tried to make changes–but they have been easily defeated by the others. Those who were my friends and allies were valiant in their optimism and their commitment to change, but in the meantime, what a life: stomping out flaming bags of poop that someone else is leaving on yet someone else’s doorstep.

One of the effects of this kind of work culture is that it stifles new ideas, fresh methodologies, and innovative research and pedagogy, because of the rate of turnover among those who leave, and the inner turmoil suffered by those who stay. (Bullying academic departments tend not to allow Assistant Professors to follow their own bliss, either in the classroom or in their research agendas. This is sometimes the very motive for the bullying: many departments really don’t want anything–or anyone–new or innovative around. And, scrutinizing other people’s work to belittle it is one of the pleasures of academic bullying!) Unsurprisingly, women’s history and histories of other not-dominant groups and historically marginalized perspectives have a hard time gaining purchase in an environment like that. For example: Historiann was hired to be the American women’s historian in that department, a position that had been a tenure track line for thirteen years but one that had never seen anyone progress to tenure. (Historiann was number five in the long line of historians who had held that position.) And guess what, girls and boys? Twenty-four years later, no one yet has been tenured in that line! That’s right: success beyond anyone’s wildest antifeminist dreams in 1984, when the position was first established. Of course, the fact that that position was the only line dedicated to women’s history was doubtless a major factor behind the abuse and harassment suffered by all of the historians who hopped on and off that merry-go-round.

So, who says cheaters never prosper? Bullies may not be happy people, but it seems to me that they get what they want, and that really sucks. (The woman described above is probably one of the unhappiest people I’ve ever had the misfortune to know–a truly wretched creature.) But what might suck more is staying in an abusive job because you’re determined to be SuperProf who’s going to vindicate herself and save her department of its destructive culture. We don’t encourage people in abusive relationships to believe they can make the abuser change–why should we expect people in bullying work environments to stick around and try to change the culture, when they have little if any power or influence to force reform?

The million-dollar question is, of course, how can anyone turn a bad department into a good one? Who can get control over bullying work environments and force change upon them? My sense is that it takes a strong-willed dean who’s not afraid of the bullies and who’s got a healthy budget to clean house with brutal post-tenure reviews (including perhaps buyouts), and to support lots of new hires. But–in the arts and humanities–what deans have that kind of time or money, outside of elite universities and SLACs, where the humanities are central rather than marginal to the identity of the institution? My guess is that most departments have to shift for themselves, so how do good people leverage their goodness to isolate, marginalize, and/or drive out the bad?

From: http://www.historiann.com

The formula...

Witness Intimidation Declared Legal by Crown Prosecution Service

In January, 2007, solicitors for Dr Howard Fredrics, claimant in a pending case before the Employment Tribunal of whistleblower victimization, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal informed his former employer, Kingston University, that Mrs Lori Fredrics, who had attended the proceedings on behalf of her husband, who had become ill, had inadvertently recorded several tea breaks during an internal grievance appeal held before the University’s Board of Governors. The recordings allegedly contained statements by the Governors, Personnel Director, University Secretary and Vice Chancellor that were of an inappropriately pejorative and prejudicial nature and which suggested that the Governors had no intention of hearing the facts of the case in an impartial and unbiased fashion. Clearly, the University would be quite embarrassed were this damaging evidence of corruption to see the light of day in open court.

Instead of admitting wrongdoing, the University’s response was to have its University Secretary, Mr Donald Beaton, send a series of allegedly threatening and intimidating letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics and to their solicitor in which Mr Beaton accused them of having committed crimes in the collection of evidence, and accused their solicitor of having been “complicit” in the commission of these alleged crimes. Mr Beaton threatened to report Dr and Mrs Fredrics and their solicitor to the Information Commissioner for criminal prosecution under the Data Protection Act 1998 and to seek a court injunction with attached costs unless Dr and Mrs Fredrics turned over all copies of the recordings and transcripts thereof.

Dr and Mrs Fredrics, not being legally qualified, were terrified by these letters, believing that they might, indeed, have inadvertently committed the crimes alleged by Mr Beaton, who cited all sorts of obscure provisions of the law to justify his accusations of criminal wrongdoing. At the time, they were residing in virtual exile in the US, having lost their right to live and work in the UK after Dr Fredrics’ dismissal, where they were awaiting the outcome of Dr Fredrics’ application for Highly Skilled Migrant visa status. Their immigration solicitor advised them that were they to be charged with a crime or even simply reported to the Information Commissioner, they could very well be barred from entering the UK, where they had all their worldly possessions, including their 21-year old cat. Not having access to a criminal solicitor, they remained in a state of panic for several months until Dr Fredrics’ visa was approved and they were able to return to the UK.

Once they returned to the UK, they sought legal advice and were told that Mr Beaton’s accusations were entirely without merit, that they had done nothing illegal and that they were simply the victims of witness intimidation. Mr Beaton and the University took no action as they had threatened to do, and Dr and Mrs Fredrics held on to the recordings and transcripts, as to turn over all copies would be to risk their becoming compromised or destroyed altogether.

The next step for Dr and Mrs Fredrics was to seek redress and a stop to the alleged ongoing acts of intimidation by filing criminal charges against Mr Beaton. Thus after a hearing on the facts, a panel of three Magistrates duly advised by the Clerk of the Court issued a summons on 20 April 2007 to Mr Beaton to appear to answer charges of Witness Intimidation, a violation of the Criminal Justice and Police Act of 2001.

Once the charges were filed and the summons issued, Mr Beaton allegedly continued through his solicitors to send intimidating letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics, despite the fact that their solicitors explicitly wrote to Mr Beaton’s solicitors asking that no further direct approaches be made to Dr and Mrs Fredrics. Accompanying a letter of 1 May were copies of one of the earlier letters sent by Mr Beaton to Dr and Mrs Fredrics. Interestingly, this letter contained a dated fax header, which was clearly marked “Office of the Vice-Chancellor”. The date of the header was 6 March 2007, the date of one of Mr Beaton’s letters to Dr and Mrs Fredrics, and prior to their having filed charges against Mr Beaton. This gave rise to Dr and Mrs Fredrics’ suspicion that the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof Peter Scott, had been aware of the sending of these letters and that he had in all likelihood authorized their sending, which would, therefore, implicate him in the acts of Witness Intimidation. Given that Prof Scott had been recently nominated by the Prime Minister for a Knighthood, it was quite troubling to Dr and Mrs Fredrics that he might have been inappropriately involved not only in the allegedly corrupt grievance appeal hearing, but also, in the alleged attempts by the University to cover up the evidence of the conduct of these proceedings.

After a preliminary hearing on 10 May 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service, in an apparently political decision, took over the case from Dr and Mrs Fredrics and on 22 June 2007, dropped the charges on the grounds that there was “insufficient evidence” that a crime took place. The basis of their decision was that the Act does not explicitly refer to Employment Tribunal proceedings under its list of “relevant proceedings”.

Could Parliament have intended for witness intimidation to, in effect, be legal when it involves parties to an Employment Tribunal, a bona fide civil proceeding with the full weight of law behind it? Or was this merely an oversight in the wording of the Act? Could a panel of three duly advised Magistrates have got it all wrong? In any event the implications are positively chilling – parties to Employment Tribunals and their witnesses can now be freely intimidated with an eye towards perverting the course of Justice. Whistleblowers who take their employers to Tribunal must now be especially careful that they do not fall victim to such acts, for which they will have little or no recourse under the law.

From: http://www.freedomtocare.org

Also from Freedom to Care: Three Fundamental Human Claims

• Every human being has an inalienable right to accountable behaviour from organisations (whether public, private or independent) whose activities significantly affect their quality of life and that of future generations.

• Public officials and private sector directors and managers (whether of for-profit or non-profit organisations) have a duty to explain and justify their intentions, actions and omissions to all those whose quality of life is affected thereby.

• All employees have a right to freedom of conscience and speech in the workplace.

The shocking cost of workplace bullying

The world's biggest anti-bullying project reveals that employers' failure to tackle the root causes of bullying in the workplace is costing the UK economy GBP13.75 billion a year.

The project also reveals that Black, Minority and Ethnic (BME) workers are more likely to be targets of workplace bullying and harassment than other workers yet are less likely to have a support network to help them through the experience.

In 'The Costs of Workplace Bullying', the project has estimated that some 33.5 million jobs were lost by UK organisation in 2007 as a result of bullying-related absenteeism. Almost 200,000 employees considered leaving their jobs and the equivalent of 100 million days in productivity were lost as a result of bullying.

Cath Speight, Unite acting head of equalities said: "Employers can no longer be in any doubt about the business case for tackling bullying. It has a devastating impact on individuals, but businesses suffer too. Workers who suffer from bullying, and those who witness it, experience low morale and are more likely to take time off or leave their jobs."

A second report, 'BME Employee Experiences of Workplace Bullying`, is calling upon employers to improve anti-bullying activities in their workplaces.

Cath Speight added: "The shocking truth is that Black and Minority Ethnic workers are more likely to be targets of workplace bullying. Employers need to recognise this and take action to combat this."

The report's main author, Dr Sabir Giga from the University of Bradford, said: "Bullying is impacting on Black Minority Ethnic workers' job satisfaction, promotion opportunities and health. Employers must develop a zero tolerance to bullying so that all workers are treated with dignity and respect."

The Dignity at Work partnership project is also publishing its 'Action Pack', offering solutions to employers and union representatives seeking to tackle workplace bullying.

Baroness Ann Gibson, Chair of the Dignity at Work Project, said: "Workers who experience bullying are more likely to go off sick or leave and colleagues who witness bullying are also less likely to stick around. Employers who choose to ignore bullying do so at huge costs to society."

From: http://www.itnews.it

Download the report

The Abilene Paradox

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea." The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time."

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it." The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

The phenomenon may be a form of groupthink. It is easily explained by social psychology theories of social conformity and social cognition which suggest that human beings are often very averse to acting contrary to the trend of the group. Likewise, it can be observed in psychology that indirect cues and hidden motives often lie behind peoples' statements and acts, frequently because social disincentives discourage individuals from openly voicing their feelings or pursuing their desires.

From: Wikipedia

Why?

Anonymous said:

It is the sort of policies that encourage fraud of this sort at universities (i.e. in effect, misrepresentation of academic standards and/or refusal to make concrete improvements in quality) that lead directly to bullying of staff and students. When staff come forward and tell the truth about what's really going on, they are targeted for elimination rituals.

Wouldn't it just be easier to actually do something to improve the quality of education, rather than wasting resources by silencing and eliminating ethical and accomplished academics, as well as later being forced to waste hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money on defending the inevitable lawsuits that result from bullying the staff and students?

That's not even taking into account the extremely negative impact on the university's reputation and income stream when these things eventually come out in the wash -- and they nearly always do. Tsk, tsk, penny-wise and pound-foolish.

A question for Sir Peter Scott: Wouldn't it be wiser to take advantage of the energy and ingenuity of staff members to do GOOD for the University rather than wasting their talents by eliminating them?

Just imagine how much good these people could have done for the University if they weren't bullied out of their jobs when they voiced GENUINE concerns for the well being of the University?

Is there, indeed, no room for constructive criticism at Kingston University?

Why aren't those staff members who call for maintaining and/or improving standards listened to and rewarded?

The Universities Secretary John Denham had told the House of Commons that he condemned the attempt at Kingston University to distort the survey

A university department is to be excluded from this year's official league tables of student satisfaction. The removal of Kingston's psychology department data follows a recording which caught staff instructing students to falsify their approval ratings.

Students were told by staff if they gave negative responses "nobody is going to want to employ you". The government-funded National Student Survey is intended to help applicants decide where to apply to university.

Kingston University says it accepts the decision and will work "to avoid any repeat of this incident". The decision to remove Kingston's psychology department from the 2008 National Student Survey, set to be published in September, has been taken by the Higher Education Funding Council which runs the survey.

'It might sound biased...'

"It's very important that people believe in the findings," said a Hefce spokesman.

The Universities Secretary John Denham had told the House of Commons that he "utterly condemned" the attempt at Kingston University to distort the survey.

There have been claims in e-mails sent to the BBC News website that the survey, part of the quality assurance system, was being used by some universities as a way of improving their public image - including an internal university e-mail describing the survey as part of "reputation management".

Along with removing Kingston's psychology department, the funding council is expected to issue tougher guidelines to protect the credibility of the survey.

Staff at Kingston University were caught in an audio recording encouraging students to dishonestly answer the survey - telling students that inflating the ranking of the university would be to their own advantage. "If Kingston comes down the bottom, the bottom line is that nobody is going to want to employ you," staff warned students.

"The reason it's important is the results of this survey get fed into a national database which then feed into league tables - and it's the league tables that prospective employers and postgraduate courses use to assess the value of your degree," students were told.

The briefing from staff presented this official survey as an opportunity to promote a positive image for the university. "In effect you're competing against lots of students at other institutions who also want their university to look good," students were told.

"Although this is going to sound incredibly biased, you rate these things on a five-point scale, if you think something was a four - a 'good' - my encouragement would be give it a five, because that's what everyone else is doing."

'Reputation management'

The recording showed students being told specific areas in which the university wants to change its "profile" by fixing the results of the survey.

The staff member tells students that there is a "dip" in the university's profile in giving students feedback. She says they might be failing to recognise the amount of feedback they are receiving.

"Feedback, in terms of this questionnaire, means what happens in seminars. Every seminar you have you get some interactive feedback from the person giving it.So if I ask a question and no one answers, and I start banging my head on the table, that is feedback. If I'm smiling and going 'yeah great', you're getting feedback. If you get a mark for a piece of work, that's what we mean by feedback."

Another member of staff in the recording instructed students not to use the survey for negative comments if they were unhappy about the modules they had been taught. "All that garbage you're spewing out about us" should not be included in the National Student Survey, students were warned.

The spokesman for Hefce says that the survey is intended to help to inform the decision making of university applicants and to give universities feedback about their courses.

It is also part of the quality assurance to make sure that public money is being well spent in higher education. The survey is carried out in universities in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and in some participating universities in Scotland.

A statement from Kingston University said that it accepted the decision and "has been aware that this was the most likely outcome since this isolated incident first came to light".

"Kingston University has taken this situation very seriously and co-operated fully with Hefce as it has looked into the matter. The university plans to introduce an agreed script in the run-up to the next National Student Survey which will be widely circulated to students and staff to avoid any repeat of this incident."

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk