We are a blame-the-victim nation. Part of this is human nature. Cognitive psychology teaches us that when faced with two conflicting internal beliefs when bullying strikes a friend -- "I like my co-worker friend" and "Bad things happen only to bad people" -- there is a tendency to want to reduce the conflict, the dissonance, by changing one of those beliefs.
The result is that we individuals are more likely to abandon the bond we feel for our friends in order to support the internalized twisted worldview that if tragedy visits someone then that person must have deserved it. Sounds bizarre, right? But this distortion, called the fundamental attribution error, is our tendency to overestimate the role individuals play in their fate.
Under the artificial cover of "toughness" or "responsibility," we humans rationalize remarkable cruelty perpetrated senselessly against others. Though domestic violence is now criminalized, it is still rampant because of the insipid belief that if a spouse gets battered, the batterer must have rationally acted on the basis of something the battered one made him do. Poppycock!
When we learn that Americans now torture others in violation of all international and moral laws and against our traditions, too many of us justify the torture because we believe that innocents would not be tortured if it was not necessary. This blame-the-victim trend is becoming all too American!
Similarly when we witness a peer being bullied in the workplace, it arouses such negative emotions in us, that too often we make ourselves feel better by ostracizing the victim and ending our historical relationship with him or her. We turn our backs on our fellow human beings out of the selfish desire to not feel empathy for them when we see their pain. Empathy causes us to feel the pain ourselves. The deliberate distancing from others probably explains a growing alienation that drives epidemic levels of depression and social dysfunction in our society.
As a society, we discount or diminish workplace bullying and psychological violence with hollow, dehumanized phrases like "managerial prerogative must be ensured" "don't interfere with the ability of businesses to be competitive" or "this country was built by mean, aggressive sons of bitches ... some people may need a little appropriate bullying in order to do a good job ... they are really just wimps."
For the first decade of the U.S. movement against workplace bullying, we have applied rationality to the irrational process of destructive interpersonal bullying. We appealed to businesses with bottom-line fiscal impact. Bullies are too expensive to keep. Employers did not care. If they are in business ostensibly to make a profit or to sustain quality government services, they should care. However, our experiences on-site with employers as consultants as well as the empirical data we gathered in a series of surveys expose employer indifference to workplace bullying. Without a specific law posing a litigation threat, employers blithely carry on as if bullying never happens, even denying it when it is reported to them.
As for "personal responsibility," there is a double standard. Victims are responsible, but the bullies-perpetrators never take responsibility. Their explanations are always some form of the target "made me do it." Weak employers allow the bullying to happen with impunity, without accountability, as if helpless to stop the abuser on their payroll.
According to the 2007 WBI-Zogby poll, in 44% of cases of reported bullying, employers did nothing. (In an additional 18% of cases, they worsened the situation by turning on the victim-complainant.) Rationally, employers can afford to do this because 80% of bullying is legal.
Bullying is morally wrong.
Doing nothing is not a neutral act when an individual pleas for relief from the emotional misery bullying inflicts. Doing nothing is denying the person credibility as an adult. Doing nothing is sustaining the status quo and defending the perpetrator, however implicitly or indirectly. How dare HR, the primary agent responsible for implementing or blocking the employer's response to reported bullying, side with the bully (most often in management, 73%) against the employee who naively came to HR for "help"!
So at the beginning of our second decade, we must not be reticent about calling perpetrators and those who support them immoral. It is not our subjective morality that is violated, but the deeper sense of human dignity that is undermined when victims of bullying are not supported. We need to rekindle our compassion for those less fortunate than us whose fate was not their own making. Bully apologists have an indefensible, unconscionable position of favoring abuse.
Once we are bullied and feel the full force of a laser-focused campaign of interpersonal abuse, we drop the smug justifications for the bully. If we work long enough in enough different places and encounter enough incompetent bosses, we are likely to be bullied ourselves in our work life (37% of U.S. workers are). The only people who still doubt that bullying happens are the ones who have never suffered an unexpected, univited disaster or catastrophe. Events humble arrogant superiority known only to those lacking experience in bullying, direct or witnessed. But we should not have to wait for everyone to be personally bullied so that they understand how destructive bullying can be to personal health, careers, families, and employers.
Paraphrasing comments from a recent U.S. president: you are either with us or with the perpetrators. The fundamental question is to which side are your willing to commit?
There are not two equally compelling morally equivalent sides to the violence at work dilemma. No one targeted by bullying invited or wanted the intolerable misery. There is no "win-win" amicable mediated settlement possible in bullying situations. To tolerate a little bit of abuse, to appease perpetrators, is unacceptable. It is a moral compromise that leads to societal decline. It triggers retrospective questions such as, what have we allowed ourselves to become?
The choice is simple, actually. Do not squirm to make it complex. The ethical human choice transcends corporate or institutional needs.
Either side with the perpetrators of violence and rationalize and excuse the escalating trend toward hostility and abuse in the workplace
or
side with the targeted individuals who asked for nothing more than to be left alone to do the jobs they once loved.
From: http://bullyinginstitute.org
November 02, 2008
October 30, 2008
Avoiding Academe's Ax Murderers
Many years ago when I directed a doctoral program in my discipline, I invited a celebrated scholar to hold a daylong "master class" for a select number of senior graduate students. He lectured for a few hours and then opened the session to questions. "Dr. Famous," one student asked, "what do we need to know to survive our first year as assistant professors?"
A notorious enfant terrible, our mischievous guest stunned everyone with his reply: "Remember that every department has at least one ax murderer, but you won't know in advance who it is so you'd better be on your guard."
While our guest was clearly playing to his audience for a laugh, he was also articulating what has become a lamentable fact of faculty life: Many academics regularly engage in a kind of "gotcha" politics.
The propensity to pounce ruthlessly on a politically wounded colleague is rapidly becoming a favorite spectator sport in academe. I am continually astonished by the gusto with which some faculty members will leap to attack a colleague at the slightest hint of an allegation of misconduct, even when the accused is a close friend. Or by how vigorously some department chairs will initiate proceedings against a faculty member when informal discussions might have resolved the issue in question.
Over the years, I have served on or presided over inquiry panels convened to determine whether a complaint against a professor had merit. Invariably there would be a point in the proceedings — usually early on and before all the evidence had been considered — when some faculty member would pronounce indignantly that the accused was clearly guilty and that we should recommend the maximum penalty available. "He most certainly made an offensive remark in class; he should be suspended for at least a semester." Or, "She undoubtedly falsified her research results; she should be stripped of all future institutional support." Or, "This is clearly plagiarism; he should be fired immediately."
Although such pronouncements were always made solemnly, I could not help but detect a certain underlying glee — the kind you might find when a parent catches a child misbehaving.
When guilt is assigned before all the evidence and perspectives are heard, when the verdict is swift but premature, and when the recommended penalty is the most draconian available, we have entered the zone of gotcha politics. That zone has no room for judicious deliberation, reasoned debate, or compassion — which makes it especially out of place in an institution that has historically prided itself on championing reason, deliberation, and justice.
Undoubtedly, predatory behavior in the academic world is a convenient means of crippling or eliminating rivals. Why not accelerate your opponents' demise by advocating strenuously against them if the opportunity presents itself?
A business dean told me that one of his faculty members had become convinced that a popular associate professor regularly altered his teaching evaluations by slipping into the department late at night after students had returned their evaluation forms and removing any negative ones. The incensed colleague mounted a vigorous campaign against the associate professor, whose reputation was ruined in the process. Everyone in the college believed he was guilty. As it turned out, an extensive investigation proved conclusively that the professor was innocent; no tampering had occurred whatsoever.
The same people who are quick to ascribe guilt are often the first to violate confidentiality and fuel the engine of gossip and innuendo, which can, in effect, render irrelevant any official finding in the case. An individual may be exonerated in the end but found guilty in the popular imagination.
A favorite gambit of those who engage in such vicious politics is to enlist a student — preferably a graduate student — to do their dirty work. They will urge the student to file a complaint against a rival or spread malicious gossip. In fact, it is not uncommon to discover after some scrutiny that a student's letter of complaint against a professor was actually penned by another professor.
Gotcha politics are particularly brutal when they involve anonymity. A number of my fellow deans across the country tell me they are continually shocked by the viciousness with which some faculty members attack their chairs in end-of-year written evaluation surveys. Some evaluations contain abusive diatribes and preposterous allegations, all based on the flimsiest of evidence (or just on gossip).
University administrators regularly receive anonymous letters purporting to reveal some grievous act by a faculty member: This one has plagiarized; that one is sleeping with students; another is misusing grant money. Rarely does the anonymous revelation provide specific facts and details, much less do so in a coolly objective tone. More often it takes the form of a rant with little specificity.
The ever-increasing influence of blogs has exacerbated the problem. Blogs foster a culture of anonymity and unchecked expression without accountability. Bloggers can write whatever they want, regardless of the damage to others, and they can do so fully protected by the cloak of secrecy. In some universities, blogs dedicated to unseating the institution's president have proved quite effective. In response, some university presidents have instituted their own blogs and have made them easily accessible from the institution's Web site.
The kind of predatory politics I am describing thrive on righteous indignation and, as such, are self-serving: If you are in a position to renounce some perceived indiscretion or act of wrongdoing, then you can feel — at least to yourself — morally superior. No need to consider possible extenuating circumstances or alternate interpretations of the facts. After all, you have the high ground.
Perhaps the most extreme form of gotcha politics is the phenomenon recently dubbed "mobbing," in which a group of people collectively set out to damage or destroy a colleague's reputation. The Chronicle has reported fairly extensively on this trend and has detailed several cases in which professors and administrators have fallen prey to mob action.
We all have the right — indeed, the obligation — to point out potential misconduct when we become aware of it. Improper behavior needs to be identified and halted. But dealing with that behavior does not require ad hominem attack, abusive language, unsubstantiated allegations, or wolf-pack savagery.
It's not criticism that is in question; it's the tone and style of it.
Obviously, there is no way to legislate against gotcha politics or to prevent it by fiat. The only way to put an end to such incivility is for each of us to resolve not to be a party to such unprofessional behavior. It is in your own best interest to do so. After all, you never know when you might become the ax murderer's next target.
Gary A. Olson is dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University and can be contacted at golson@ilstu.edu. To read his previous columns, go to http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/archives/columns/heads_up.
From: http://chronicle.com
Bullying exists within the majority of organisations. To what extent is this the employer’s responsibility?
...Olsen suggests several reasons why employers are slow to deal with claims of bullying. These include fear that the lack of definition and ability to asses what is bullying and what is not bullying will give rise to many spurious or malicious complaints; there is a single-bottom-line focus and unless issues are seen to have directly affected profits there is reluctance to address them; generational cycles of high conflict, workplace bullying and harassment have created a culture that seems impossible to change; those in positions of power are afraid because they realise it may mean having to change their own style of management; they simply do not want to understand it and do not want to address it; they turn a blind eye and don’t believe it could be a problem within their organisation; they consider it to be too costly to address properly and do not see these costs as being recoverable (Olsen 2005, pp. 31).
...To examine the extent of the employers responsibility for stopping bullying, it is necessary to examine the causes of bullying. Olsen (2005) suggests several reasons including the personal need to maintain power over others; the personal need to control people, circumstances or situations; a predatory need to victimise or abuse others; wanting to have fun at someone else’s expense; stress of pressure; the need to maintain a culture and teach or toughen up newcomers (rites of passage, initiation practices); a pathological need to appear superior to others or achieve success at another’s expense (Olsen 2005, pp. 28).
She also explains the two extremes of reasons behind bullying as being ’situational’ - due to a particular event or situation - and ‘chronic’ - being within the nature of the bully under all situations (Olsen 2005). The situational bully may respond to being placed under pressure, experiencing personal problems, being threatened by others or having their own self esteem threatened by performing an isolated act of bullying. Olsen (2005) sees this as most common form of bullying and the easiest to manage, saying that these individuals will respond well to correction and training. The UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line (date not given) suggests specific psychological disorders that can account for chronic bullying. These include antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and Munchausen’s Syndrome. Olsen (2005) says that although chronic bullies are less common that situational bullies, they may have greater impact upon people and organisations and be far more difficult, if not impossible, to change (Olsen 2005, pp. 42).
From: http://www.businessteacher.org.uk
...To examine the extent of the employers responsibility for stopping bullying, it is necessary to examine the causes of bullying. Olsen (2005) suggests several reasons including the personal need to maintain power over others; the personal need to control people, circumstances or situations; a predatory need to victimise or abuse others; wanting to have fun at someone else’s expense; stress of pressure; the need to maintain a culture and teach or toughen up newcomers (rites of passage, initiation practices); a pathological need to appear superior to others or achieve success at another’s expense (Olsen 2005, pp. 28).
She also explains the two extremes of reasons behind bullying as being ’situational’ - due to a particular event or situation - and ‘chronic’ - being within the nature of the bully under all situations (Olsen 2005). The situational bully may respond to being placed under pressure, experiencing personal problems, being threatened by others or having their own self esteem threatened by performing an isolated act of bullying. Olsen (2005) sees this as most common form of bullying and the easiest to manage, saying that these individuals will respond well to correction and training. The UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line (date not given) suggests specific psychological disorders that can account for chronic bullying. These include antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, borderline personality disorder and Munchausen’s Syndrome. Olsen (2005) says that although chronic bullies are less common that situational bullies, they may have greater impact upon people and organisations and be far more difficult, if not impossible, to change (Olsen 2005, pp. 42).
From: http://www.businessteacher.org.uk
October 28, 2008
October 27, 2008
Critiques of the anti-bullying movement and responses to them - Part 2
Anonymous said:
I am struck by Kennemer's use of the term 'terrorism' because that is exactly how I described my own mobbing experience. I used to refer to my workplace as 'the minefield' because I never knew when or how the next psychological booby trap was going to explode, usually on email, like a sniper attack. When I used the term 'terrorism' in a letter of grievance, the term was then used against me in disciplinary proceedings as an example of my 'uncollegial' and 'extreme' behaviour towards the bullies. It is simply appalling the way complacent senior management reward the complacent, do-nothing, smugly self-satisfied 'hangers on', as Westhues calls them. They stick their noses into the business of their hard-working targets whose only crime is to do their jobs a bit too diligently and too brilliantly to ensure the perpetuation ad infinitum of the complacency and unambitious mediocrity of their academic workplace.
I am struck by Kennemer's use of the term 'terrorism' because that is exactly how I described my own mobbing experience. I used to refer to my workplace as 'the minefield' because I never knew when or how the next psychological booby trap was going to explode, usually on email, like a sniper attack. When I used the term 'terrorism' in a letter of grievance, the term was then used against me in disciplinary proceedings as an example of my 'uncollegial' and 'extreme' behaviour towards the bullies. It is simply appalling the way complacent senior management reward the complacent, do-nothing, smugly self-satisfied 'hangers on', as Westhues calls them. They stick their noses into the business of their hard-working targets whose only crime is to do their jobs a bit too diligently and too brilliantly to ensure the perpetuation ad infinitum of the complacency and unambitious mediocrity of their academic workplace.
October 24, 2008
Critiques of the anti-bullying movement and responses to them
...Of the 50 or so academic mobbing targets described on my website – Lawrence Summers, Ward Churchill, Therese Warden, James D. Watson, Norman Finkelstein, Sami Al-Arian, Justine Sergent, many more – few have been identified in academic or public media as targets of bullying. Many have been called bullies themselves.
The term “difficult person” is a common synonym for bully, the workmate who needs to be corrected or gotten rid of, the nail sticking up that needs to be hammered down. In the first US book on mobbing, Noa Davenport and her colleagues argue that labeling a workmate a “difficult person” is a technique of mobbing.
Robert Sutton’s popular 2007 book, The No Asshole Rule, reports and reflects the work of many presenters at this conference. Yet in her Hammerly Memorial Lecture on Academic Mobbing this spring, Joan Friedenberg criticized Sutton sharply for oversimplifying the complexities of workplace conflict. Sutton is bright and circumspect. He says he worries “slightly” that “if we are too zealous about becoming civility Nazis …it will stifle creativity and individuality.” Friedenberg’s worry – and mine – is not slight but serious, that Sutton’s book invites workplace mobbing.
A popular motto for colleges in the past, pinpointing their academic purpose, was “Doce, disce, aut discede” – in English, “Teach, Learn, or Leave.” The motto deserves renewed currency in light of Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate’s 1998 book, The Shadow University, which is about academic hangers-on who neither teach nor learn but instead meddle in scholars’ lives. Brock University philosopher Murray Miles has lately reported that his institution has a policy modeled on those at Bath, Kent, and Bradford in the UK, against “academic bullying.” The human rights officer who helps administers Brock’s policy offers a workshop entitled “Unlearn,” the first line of the description of which is, “Be nice, or leave.” I share Miles’s horror at the inversion of values this counsel implies...
By Kenneth Westhues
Professor of Sociology
University of Waterloo
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm
Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying, Montreal, 4-6 June 2008
The term “difficult person” is a common synonym for bully, the workmate who needs to be corrected or gotten rid of, the nail sticking up that needs to be hammered down. In the first US book on mobbing, Noa Davenport and her colleagues argue that labeling a workmate a “difficult person” is a technique of mobbing.
Robert Sutton’s popular 2007 book, The No Asshole Rule, reports and reflects the work of many presenters at this conference. Yet in her Hammerly Memorial Lecture on Academic Mobbing this spring, Joan Friedenberg criticized Sutton sharply for oversimplifying the complexities of workplace conflict. Sutton is bright and circumspect. He says he worries “slightly” that “if we are too zealous about becoming civility Nazis …it will stifle creativity and individuality.” Friedenberg’s worry – and mine – is not slight but serious, that Sutton’s book invites workplace mobbing.
A popular motto for colleges in the past, pinpointing their academic purpose, was “Doce, disce, aut discede” – in English, “Teach, Learn, or Leave.” The motto deserves renewed currency in light of Alan Kors and Harvey Silverglate’s 1998 book, The Shadow University, which is about academic hangers-on who neither teach nor learn but instead meddle in scholars’ lives. Brock University philosopher Murray Miles has lately reported that his institution has a policy modeled on those at Bath, Kent, and Bradford in the UK, against “academic bullying.” The human rights officer who helps administers Brock’s policy offers a workshop entitled “Unlearn,” the first line of the description of which is, “Be nice, or leave.” I share Miles’s horror at the inversion of values this counsel implies...
By Kenneth Westhues
Professor of Sociology
University of Waterloo
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm
Paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Workplace Bullying, Montreal, 4-6 June 2008
October 23, 2008
October 21, 2008
Have you seen this statistic?
Anonymous said:
Have you seen this statistic? Kingston came up as the second WORST university in the UK for bullying according to a UCU survey with 15.9% of respondents indicating that they were "Always" or "Often" bullied at work.
Have you seen this statistic? Kingston came up as the second WORST university in the UK for bullying according to a UCU survey with 15.9% of respondents indicating that they were "Always" or "Often" bullied at work.
A lifesaver...
This blog has been a lifesaver for those of us who have experienced behaviour that feels like workplace bullying.
It is a place where our experiences are validated and acknowledged.
It is also a place where we can read about the research into wpb and get information that empowers us.
We remain anonymous through fear.
Thank you for all that you do.
In solidarity,
Aphra Behn
It is a place where our experiences are validated and acknowledged.
It is also a place where we can read about the research into wpb and get information that empowers us.
We remain anonymous through fear.
Thank you for all that you do.
In solidarity,
Aphra Behn
Tell the truth about life at Kingston University
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Tell the truth about life at Kingston University":
I'll tell you why -- it's because they have friends in high places, and so who cares what anyone else thinks or feels?
Look closely at who the Tribunal Chairs/Judges are in some of these cases. See which ones worked for the bullies in the past. A lot can be gleaned this way.
Take a look at these links:-
Note who represents the Post Office:-
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/1994/728_93_1401.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/1998/1139_97_0105.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
And then note the Chair of the original Employment Tribunal:-
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/2007/0008_07_2803.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
Now note the biographies:-
http://www.ome.uk.com/members_biographies_details.cfm?member=30
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/aboutkingstonuniversity/howtheuniversityworks/boardofgovernors/boardmembers/boardmembersextra/#grencollings
Oh, but there's nothing strange going on here, is there? No, nothing at all... It's ALL above board, isn't it?
I'll tell you why -- it's because they have friends in high places, and so who cares what anyone else thinks or feels?
Look closely at who the Tribunal Chairs/Judges are in some of these cases. See which ones worked for the bullies in the past. A lot can be gleaned this way.
Take a look at these links:-
Note who represents the Post Office:-
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/1994/728_93_1401.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/1998/1139_97_0105.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
And then note the Chair of the original Employment Tribunal:-
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/uk/cases/UKEAT/2007/0008_07_2803.html&query=zuke&method=boolean
Now note the biographies:-
http://www.ome.uk.com/members_biographies_details.cfm?member=30
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/aboutkingstonuniversity/howtheuniversityworks/boardofgovernors/boardmembers/boardmembersextra/#grencollings
Oh, but there's nothing strange going on here, is there? No, nothing at all... It's ALL above board, isn't it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
I had a staff development review recently. My manager refused to fill in the section on overall performance.
I am a researcher. He cannot prove anything againts me and he cannot understand my work, but the funding body, a private company, repeatedly made comments on my work over the last year that were proven to be wrong after fighting my corner.
Can someone please advise if my manager's conduct is fair?