Bullying at Workplaces: What People Often Experience at Work, But Don’t Talk About.

This is a post I have wanted to write for a long time.

I was bullied when I was a kid, while attending middle school in India. The bullying was mental, not physical.

Hateful Words, Taunts, Insinuations, Nicknames.

Over a sustained period of time.

It left a deeper impact on me than I realized at that time. It took a long time for the effects to wear off.

But, the experience made me very aware and sensitive to the effects that bullies have on people’s lives and their happiness.

Bullying at middle and high schools where everyone is a kid is one thing.

Bullying at workplaces where everyone is supposedly an adult is quite another.

And, there is more bullying at workplaces than we care to admit in public.

Bullying has everything to do with the ego. It has nothing to do with gender, title, talent or any other characteristic.

It is about power, control and a notion of superiority.

While bullies in higher positions often get away with more egregious behavior, bosses are by no means the only offenders.

Bullying at work — especially at white collar workplaces — is more indirect than direct. It expresses itself in subtle ways using signals of power, contempt and condescension.

There are four ways in which bullying manifests at work. I have used verbs to be more visual about the actual actions that occur.

1. INGRATIATE: The bully sucks up to you when he or she thinks you are important. Using flattery, praise, or even acting vulnerable. And eventually ends up using you or working against you.
2. QUARANTINE: The bully ignores you when he or she considers you as unworthy of attention. Acting almost as if you did not exist.
3. INTIMIDATE: The bully intimidates you, using both covert and overt techniques, including fear, blame and shame.
4. WHISPER: The bully whispers innuendos and insinuations into the ears of others, and indulges in a slow-drip character assassination.

The primary goal of the bully is the boosting of the self. His or her own sense of self-importance trumps everything else. Most of this is sub-conscious and the bully will most likely not have the self-awareness to perceive the under-currents of his or her own behavior.

Consider the following cases.

• Sasha is a new marketing manager who has joined Acme Inc. Victor, one of her peers, has been in Acme for the last two years. Sasha is more experienced than Victor and comes from a distinguished background. Victor is clearly threatened but cozies up to Sasha to learn more about her. In a couple of months, Victor mentions to their manager James in a 1:1 meeting that he is worried that Sasha does not understand James’s vision for the team and that her comments may be undermining James. He refers to a couple of incidents where Sasha was sharing stories from her previous employer who did things differently from Acme, but conveniently chooses to exclude the caveats and nuances she had added. James, an insecure manager himself, starts to wonder if Sasha was a good fit for the team and if he had made a mistake in hiring her.
• Salma is Vice President of Innovation at a large firm. She works for the CEO. Jordan is a peer who also works for the CEO leading new product development. Their roles overlap in some areas and the CEO has told both of them to collaborate closely. Now, Salma believes that she is the one with the broad mandate and that she should call the shots as it relates to the over-all strategy. Jordan obviously disagrees and believes that Salma’s role is more advisory and that he is the real owner of new products. The tensions grow, and they both start to build their own turfs in the company with different groups of supporters. The environment grows more toxic as they start to act as if the other person did not exist. And the teams below Salma and Jordan begin to reflect the discordant relationship. The CEO eventually ends up firing both of them, but the company has lost 12 months and also ceded valuable ground to competition.
• Hoola Inc. hired only from Ivy league schools in its first five years, but more recently, they had started recruiting from schools with lesser pedigrees. Juan , a new recruit from Malone Community College in the Bay Area, was an incredibly talented programmer. As Juan headed out to eat lunch at the Hoola Cafeteria, he heard snickers and jeers from a couple of people — Mary and Sam — crossing him. “I can’t believe Hoola is now a dumping ground for community colleges.”, Sam said when he was within hearing distance of Juan. Mary added, “This is not Hoola any more. We have a serious talent dilution problem.”

All the forms of bullying discussed above — ingratiate, intimidate, quarantine and whisper — have three things in common: Treating people with lack of dignity, putting self above customer and company, and a profound lack of empathy for the other person.

The intent of the bully is what determines if something is an act of bullying or an in-artful expression of genuine criticism.

Now, bullies are not bad people. The problem is they have gotten used to bad behavior without any real consequences.

The ego goes as far as it is allowed to go. Without threats to survival, seriously painful consequences or genuine awareness, it has a free reign.

So, how do we reduce bullying at the workplace?

If you are a CEO or a leader,

• Understand and internalize that employees can be at their very best or worst depending on the culture you create, nurture and shape.
• You and the management need to explicitly and regularly communicate on what constitutes good vs. bad behavior in very specific and tangible ways, and ensure that it plays a critical role in how people are hired, promoted and let go.
• You need to walk the talk every day. People follow what you do, not what you say. Cultivate norms that will be followed by the people in your company. Even when no one is looking over their shoulder.
• Ensure that HR looks out for all the people in the company — not just management. People who believe they are being subject to bullying need access to services that can protect confidentiality.
• Bullying thrives in toxic habitats, but will wither in a culture of truth, openness and empathy.
• It is your job to create environments that are “psychologically safe”, where people are comfortable being vulnerable.

A culture of no bullying does not mean that people cannot criticize or be direct. It means that it is fueled by a genuine desire to get the team to a better place or outcome, and is not driven by ego, emotions, personal agendas or special interests.

A culture of no-bullying also means learning to debate the issues and seeking to genuinely understand the other point of view vs. making ad hominem attacks.

While there are specific procedures in workplaces for issues like sexual harassment, bullying has never been addressed seriously. It is considered a “soft” issue that is hard to prove.

But, there is a preponderance of evidence that it is a cancer that spreads fast, saps productivity and kills employee morale. It makes teams punch below their weight and turn on each other. And leads to bad decisions fueled by hubris and lack of humility.

Of course, human nature is complicated and messy.

But when CEOs and leaders make genuine efforts to incentivize and nurture norms of behavior that engender mutual respect, encourage candid debate and value empathy, it makes a real difference.

A “no-bullying” and psychologically safe environment will not only attract and retain the best employees, but also create a workplace that is more joyful, more productive and more creative. And help every employee — and the real person behind the employee — blossom to the fullest extent of his or her talent and potential.

Happy employees who work together to create great products and services, that in turn create happy customers, constitute a significant competitive advantage, that is very hard to beat.

Some things that count a lot cannot be counted.

How do you treat bullying at your workplace?

Are you conscious of how people interact and engage with each other, and the explicit and implicit norms that govern their behavior?

As a leader or CEO, are you deliberately defining and shaping these norms?