Innovators: Do You Feel Beat Up At Work?
Personality conflicts that arise between people is human nature. But when you are working in a challenging culture the person with the greater title always has the advantage. Over time you probably feel beat up.
What is interesting is that resistance in a dysfunctional culture follows a patternable path, regardless of the organization. The efforts by people who seek fairness and justice is consistent and the punishment doled out by corporate conformists is consistent as well. According to a research paper written by Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik entitled “Take This Job and … : Quitting and Other Forms of Resistance to Workplace Bullying” the pattern is repeated in all places where the culture is challenging.
So here is how it goes. People like us see injustices happening and set foot on a path to do something about it. We believe that rational conversation will change the bad behavior and we make a decision to stand up for what is right. This is a perfectly natural response in a functional system. It is a mature response to conflict.
However in a system that exudes fear, workers who speak up are often punished for their efforts, rather than rewarded for bringing up the issue. They are labeled troublemakers by those who are threatened by the issue. Co-workers who witness this retaliation then become extremely anxious and decide that they don’t want to get in trouble by saying anything, so they keep their heads down to avoid having them cut off.
I call this frustrating experience “The Path of Hopelessness.” You realize that something is not feeling right on the team and you want to help course correct to make the uncomfortable feelings go away.
When You Feel Beat Up at Work You Aren’t Alone
1. Individual effort to address the issues — One-on-one
You might arrange for a meeting with your manager to address the issue, but then nothing happens. This makes you even more mad, sad, or scared about what is happening at work.
2. Individual team members effort to address the issues — One-on-one
When individual efforts fail, you tend to see hints that other individuals on the team are thinking similarly to you. Your entire team tries individually to move a person to center through humor, one-on-one talks, lunch, coffee, or whatever opportunities they have. Meaning that Jane might take the person out for coffee to “have a talk” or Jimmy might travel with the person and “bring him around.” However, these efforts are bound to fail as well as the responses in a dysfunctional company fall along the line of passive aggressive statements like “I’ll look into that issue” where nothing is reported back or “That is my responsibility and you don’t need to worry about it” where the intention is for you to back off.
When these individual/team efforts fail, the team then gets back together and openly strategizes to address the dysfunction. The entire team has a role to play to move the dysfunction back to something sensible with some people playing the good cop, others the bad cop, with all others in between. The stress levels of the team continue to escalate at the lack of resolution to the issue.
3. Transparent team effort to address the issues — Many-to-one
Eventually another attempt to address the issue presents but this time it is more out in the open, like in meetings or in other group settings. The team might try to inject humor about the situation out in the open, with multiple team members chiming in. For example, team members might openly showcase the feelings of being powerless by using minimizing language like calling the line workers “minions” or “the worker bees” or they might be more direct, talking about the “elephant in the room.” However, these efforts tend to fail as well resulting in more formal punishments for speaking up, which is addressed to the entire group in the form of either a stern lecture or individuals being written up for insubordination.
4. External push by team to bring in advice or help in some way to address the issues — Many-to-one
At this point, the entire group is stressed. Individual team players go to their outside networks to find people who “get it” and who might be able to help with ideas on how to survive. Eventually news gets back to the person in the seat of authority, and again, the minion or minions are punished. Stress levels start to manifest in ways where good employees don’t even recognize themselves because tensions are so high.
5. Individuals or the group seek official channels (HR, etc.) — Many-to-one/One-on-one
Finally, individuals step up and file formal grievances with HR or other official offices where the dysfunction has been documented line-by-line. There is enormous hope that HR will be balanced in its assessment, and will come to the obvious conclusion that this person is a tyrant. However, all hopes are dashed as these actions fail to produce a just result despite everyone’s efforts. On top of that, people like you are being monitored by HR as troublemakers.
6. Individuals either Exit or go Underground
People are left with a difficult choice to leave the job that they love or go underground.
The Emotional Results of the Failed Efforts
Sometimes individual behavior of resistance manifests by people shutting down. Some individuals may just not work — some might go to the gym, others for long lunches in essence avoiding the situation. They aren’t thinking of going above and beyond to do anything extra and just “do their job.” Some might take orders literally, like making sure a manager is informed of all activity, and fill his inbox with minute-by-minute details of actions taken. Another resistant behavior is just doing what they are told to do and only that. Some folks might avoid talking to leadership or avoid the office altogether.
If you are an at will employee the retaliatory culture will punish you if you get too loud. The sad truth is that bad guys win more often than the minions when there is a disproportionate number of a corporate conformists at the organization. It is very difficult to win by being overt in a dysfunctional culture unless your entire team marches forth with you. Even then it is risky.
The Greater the Dysfunction, the Greater the Resistance to the Dysfunction
But you know what? The greater the dysfunction, the greater the resistance to the dysfunction. Smugglers are created by the dysfunction because they refuse to let the bad guys win. Smugglers are the antibodies to the dysfunction. Smugglers are created by dysfunction which forces them to achieve their goals in a different way.
The quicker you come to grips with the fact that no one is going to help you from above and that good does not always prevail over evil, the better. This blog is to help you determine if you are on the path of hopelessness so you can get off of the path early and avoid the inevitable frustration. This has been researched folks. It’s a consistent pattern.
Look that truth square in the eye. Own it. Know that you have been taking jobs that promise to have a cooperative and amazing culture but don’t live up to the hype. Know that there is a different set of rules in these companies and that the rules change depending on the players. Because you aren’t going to be passively influenced by organizational conformists any more–you now play by your own rules and on your own path.
What do you think? Have you ever been in a situation like this? Leave your comments below.
~N
P.S. For further reading on challenging cultures, check out www.smugglinginnovation.com.
