Posts Tagged ‘bullying’

Is Anti-Bullying Training Needed in the Workplace?

March 19, 2012  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

There are laws that have made bullying in schools a crime.  Teachers are required to take continuing education courses in bully prevention.  There is an expectation (and rightly so) that school age children can and should be taught better than to bully each other.

But what about grownups?

When I was working in the corporate world I was on a conference call where a group of us were troubleshooting a problem.  I had not been involved in the creation of the problem, but I was a pretty big player in creating the solution.  About twenty minutes into the call the boss two levels up came on the line.  He didn’t ask where we were or what we were working on, or even who was on the phone, he just started screaming and cursing and threatening to fire people.  In that moment I realized that the only person on that call he had the authority to fire was me.

Once he got done screaming and hung up, I was rattled, but we went back to work and solved the problem.  Of course the screaming boss took the credit and I was told that next time I shouldn’t let problems like that occur.

When I do book signings, presentations, radio or TV interviews I am regularly asked what people can do about a bullying boss or coworker.  I even wrote this post about it in the past.  So why is bullying and intimidation in the workplace accepted?  And worse, even rewarded?

It is clear that there are a lot of bosses and coworkers out there who have not been trained how to use productive conflict resolution.  It seems that many organizations don’t care about how their managers are getting results as long as they get them.

Do you think it is a company’s responsibility to make sure they hire and train managers who treat people well and to discipline, retrain or remove bullies?  Do we need laws about bullying in the workplace like we have laws about sexual harassment?

I know I usually try to offer tips and advice here.  But today I’m asking you – does the government need to step in and require adults to treat each other with the respect and dignity we expect from grade school children?

Share your thoughts here in the comments or on our Facebook page.

Bullying Bosses

December 12, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

Yesterday I did a book signing at the IM Gallery in Highland Park New Jersey. As I do before all of my book signings, I had an informal presentation/chat with the group. The conversation turned toward the work environment and I listened as several people shared how poorly they are treated at work. A boss who is so paranoid that her employees are gossiping about her she has forbidden them to talk to each other, even during breaks. Another who uses the poor economy to threaten his employees, “If you don’t work unpaid overtime I will fire you and you’ll never find another job in this market.” And still another who demanded that employees be available to be his personal limo service to the train station.

Since the theme of bullying bosses was so prevalent in the group yesterday, I thought I would share some of the insights we talked about with you.

First and foremost it is important not to let a bully affect your self esteem. Often when someone in authority puts us down we to take it to heart and begin to think less of ourselves. Watch out for that and fight it.

Second – What is yours and what is actually their stuff? Remember the post Everybody Has Stuff? Don’t allow someone to pack their emotional stuff into boxes and make you carry them. Determine what, if anything, they are saying is useful to you. Can you use it to grow or improve? Take what can be beneficial to you and ignore the rest. It is your responsibility to protect yourself from abuse.

After you are emotionally safe, you can work on creating change. Schedule a meeting or invite you boss to lunch. Have a conversation with him/her about how you could be more productive with some changes. Outline exactly what is happening that doesn’t work for you and specifically what you would like to see happen differently. Rereading the post Six Steps to Having Tough Conversations might be helpful.

If talking to your boss does not prove to be helpful, you may want to go over his/her head. Tread carefully. It is often wise to have a meeting with your boss and his/her boss to try to sort through the options.

Finally, talk to your coworkers. I am not suggesting that you get together and have a gossip and gripe fest. Instead, brainstorm solutions. How can you work together to protect yourselves from the bully and be as successful as possible?

Don’t forget that you always have the option of leaving. Staying in a job with an abusive boss is not good for you on any level. If you are unable to solicit change it may be time for you seek greener pastures.

Have you had an experience with a bullying boss? Share it in the comments and Doc Robyn will respond with her thoughts and pointers.

Those of you who are regular readers of the Champion Performance Topic of the Week know that I like to provide tips, ideas and thought starters that show people how they can harness their potential and achieve greater success by owning the power of effective communication and productive conflict.  You know I am passionate about helping anyone who has a desire for something more than everyday mediocrity.

But lately people have started to ask me why.  “Doc Robyn, why do you care?  Why does it matter to you?”  This is a topic I touch on briefly when I give presentations but I realized I have never shared it here with you, my dedicated readers.  I could write pages answering those questions.  But I would like to share just one story with you instead:

I was not a popular kid in high school.  It was small school and had a large Latino population.  As a tall, skinny, blonde I stuck out like a sore thumb.  Add to that – I was an A student, often blamed for “ruining the curve”, more often than not I was the only girl on the track team and my Dad was the not so well liked music and economics teacher.  As a defense mechanism I could be brash and cocky.  I always told the truth; but not always in the nicest way. I had no female friends and only the guys on the fringes of other social groups would hang out with me.  I don’t remember being upset about it.  I just figured that was how it was and I was plenty tough enough to deal with it.

In the spring of my junior year letters were sent out to all of the female juniors and seniors with a GPA of 3.5 or better inviting us to enter the town beauty pageant.  The year before the response had been so poor they hadn’t even held the pageant so the girl passing on the crown had held it for two years.  She was popular and well liked.  I thought it sounded fun and that maybe it would let me connect with my peer group.  Little did I know how wrong I was.

I and four other girls entered.  We attended sessions on manners, how to walk (I still attribute my ability to walk in high heels to that pageant), and how to speak clearly.  We were models in a spring show for a local clothing store, and spent an entire day involved in interviews with the judges.  I practiced with the other girls to make sure the talent part of their show was perfect.  We worked together on the dance routine we were doing as the show opener.  I didn’t really feel like they were my friends, but I didn’t think they hated me either.

The big night finally arrived.  We danced and smiled, wore evening gowns and smiled, did our talent and smiled and answered the judges’ questions and smiled.  By the end of the night my face hurt from smiling.  But when the announcement was made that I had won I was happy to smile through it.

I went to bed that night thinking about how nice it was going to be at school on Monday morning.  I had had fun, learned some new things and was going to get to represent the town for the next year.  I expected to be congratulated and for people to be happy.  I was in for a big surprise.

I arrived on campus the same way I always did; with my Dad, my brother, a foster kid who was living in our home and a girl (who had also been in the pageant) who we gave a ride to school every day.

By the time lunch rolled around, not only had I not been congratulated, I had been asked how I rigged the judging so I could win, told that my father had pressured the judges to chose me, informed that I was only picked because the judges felt so bad for me because I made a fool of myself and that I had been involved with the judges sexually to get the nod.  I was so hurt and embarrassed.  Not only had my involvement in the pageant not helped my standing with my peers, it had made me the butt of many of their cruel jokes.

On Wednesday when the local paper came out, the pageant was front page news.  There were several pictures of the event, the runner up and of me.  Those pictures started showing up around school, taped to the walls and stuck in my locker with the word “slut” written on them and an arrow pointing to me.

I am not telling you this story because I want you to feel sorry for me.  That is not at all the case.  Instead I am trying to make a point.  I wish I had even one of the effective communication or productive conflict skills I have now.  Not because I think I could have changed how the other students behaved or that I could have explained to them how hurtful they were being.

I wish I would have had the ability to explain to a counselor, teacher or my parents how crushed I was.  Sure, I rode in parades and smiled, represented the town at events and smiled, when my picture was unveiled in the town hall, I smiled.  But inside, I was very hurt and sad.

There are other stories in my past of me being on the receiving end of other people’s hurtful comments.  Sometimes they were brought on by my own actions and sometimes people where just mean.  I know what it is like to try to fit in and feel hated.  If the skills I teach help one person take their power and express their hurt or help one parent, teacher or coach hear that hurt and know how make someone feel heard – I have made a difference.  And that my friends, is why I do what I do.

Doc Robyn’s Stop The Drama! campaign can be found at www.StopTheDramaNow.com

Can you relate to this story? Please tell me in the comments!

Did you miss last weeks topic about a skill everyone could have but only a few use it to stand out? Are you using it?  Read about it here.

Next week: Does Your Life Have a Theme Song?

Should Schools be Doing More about Frenemies?

September 19, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  2 Comments

It is mid-September and most schools are at least a couple of weeks into the new school year.  The normal classes, English, History, Geography, Math and even PE are well underway.  But what about the interactions that happen on the playground or in the halls between classes?  What are students being taught then?

Bullying has certainly become a big buzz word of late and the effects of bullying are becoming better known.  Many schools have anti-bullying rules and there is greater awareness for the damage that bullying does to students.

But what are we really doing to provide students with a healthy way to express disagreement and conflict?  There is lots of “don’t be mean”, “don’t hit”, “don’t call names”, etc.  But what can they do?  Disagreement, conflict and arguments are not something you can legislate away.  They are going to happen.  And when they do, students will often resort to underhanded, conniving and manipulative ways to get their point across.  In other words, they become frenemies.

I know you’ve seen it; maybe you have even experienced it. That person who is nice and sweet to your face but behind your back, they are meaner than an injured dog.  Even when they say nice things to your face, they aren’t really that nice.  “You are so pretty. It is too bad you have to wear ugly clothes.”  “You are a good soccer player.  Bet you wish your parents could send you to camp like mine did.”

Studies have shown that students as young as grade school age can be taught to use communication skills.  When a student is taught how to express him or herself using effective words they are less likely to resort to frenemy behavior.

But where are people supposed to learn these skills? A look at the corporate world shows that most parents don’t have them.  In the United States $2billion a year is spent on executive coaching.  A lot of the skills that coaches provide revolve around effective communication and conflict resolution.  That tells me that those skills are very valuable but are not being provided anywhere in the education system; including in college.

I propose that schools could easily teach effective interpersonal communication and productive conflict.  In the younger grades teachers could be trained in it, model the behaviors and instruct children on how to use it when they have a disagreement.  In the higher grades, experiential classes could be taught were students learn and practice the skills.

Some options for what we could be teaching are the 7 No Fail Secrets to Stop The Drama! and the 9 Secrets to Great Teamwork.  Both available for free download at www.StopTheDramaNow.com

I don’t know about you, but knowing how to deal with conflict would have been much more useful to me when I first got out of school and started working than say, calculus or Russian literature was.

What do you think?  Should schools be providing more interpersonal skills? Let me know in the comments.

Come back next week when I talk about why we all need more productive conflict in our lives.

Did you miss last week when I talked about Is Drama the Same as Bullying? Read it here.

Is Drama the Same as Bullying?

September 12, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

When I do interviews it is not uncommon for me to be asked questions about bullying.  Bullying is a hot topic right now from preschool to the corporate world.  I am often asked if drama is the same as bullying and if the skills I teach through the Stop The Drama! campaign can help with bullying.

The short answers are “no, it is not the same” and “yes, my skills can help”.  Let me explain:

I do not believe that drama is the same thing as bullying.  Bullying, as I define it, has a malicious intent.  A bully is purposefully making an effort to emotionally or physically hurt his or her target.  Drama is caused by the lack of skills to handle conflict in any other way.  An individual engaging in drama may not realize her actions are hurtful.  A bully has no doubt they are and relishes that fact.

However, drama can be a precursor to bullying.  When someone engages in gossip, backstabbing or catty behavior and achieves a positive outcome he or she is more likely to use that method again.  Over time, it becomes apparent that the behavior is hurtful but it continues to happen.  Thus, drama becomes bullying.

The 7 No Fail Secrets to Stop the Drama! (available as a free download from www.StopTheDramaNow.com) provide specific skills which allow an individual to express themselves in a way that can be heard.  These skills can help a potential bully get what he or she needs without resorting to dramatic behavior which can escalate to bullying.  Additionally, a target of a bully is likely to fair much better if he or she has the ability to articulate how bullying is affecting them to the bully him/herself, or a parent, teacher or authority figure.  Targets who suffer in silence are likely to struggle more.

All of that is not to say that drama is not as damaging as bullying.  I absolutely believe it is.  However, it is important as leaders that we understand which problem we are addressing so we can manage it properly. Providing the communication and conflict resolution skills which lead to the ability to engage in productive conflict will keep the mean behaviors of drama and bullying from occurring.  In that vein, next week we are going to discuss if schools should be doing more to address the problem of frenemies.  Frenemies certainly fall under the category of drama but maybe not of bullying.  So knowing that drama behaviors can escalate into bullying, should schools be doing more before it becomes bullying?  Come back next week for that conversation.

What are your thoughts?  Are the behaviors associated with drama (gossip, backstabbing, cliques, etc) the same as bullying?  Why or why not? Let us know if the comments.

Did you miss last week?  You would have learned how to accomplish more by doing less.  Catch up here.

Information = Power

July 18, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  No Comments

There is no question that the person who has the information about where a team is headed and how they plan to get there is a powerful person.  But what happens when that person isn’t a benevolent ruler and uses that power for their own gain to the detriment of others?

Some examples might be:

  • Ostracizing team members by not inviting them to key meetings
  • Assigning deliverables but withholding information critical to their successful delivery
  • Skipping one or more links in the chain of command to make themselves look good
  • Providing misinformation
  • “Forgetting” to copy team members on pertinent emails

Addressing the passive/aggressive behavior of information manipulation is not easy.  When you realize it is happening to you, the first response is often to be angry.  “How dare she have a meeting about my project and not invite me!”  When you confront the person you are likely to get an excuse.  “Oh, we were just tying up some details.  You didn’t miss anything.”  Or “I’m sorry, I just forgot.”  If it doesn’t happen again it could really be nothing.  If it continues to happen, even after you have voiced your concern, something more sinister may be afoot.

Here are a few options:

  • Engage in a conversation about roles and responsibilities.  Put down on paper what your roles are, the information you need to be successful and the meetings in which you expect to be included.
  • Verify with your boss and the boss of the person withholding information that their understanding of your roles agrees with yours.
  • Get a commitment, via email or in another written form, that you will be kept in the loop about anything pertaining to your agreed upon responsibilities.
  • Monitor the situation carefully.
  • Consider if your best option might be to leave the team

No matter how hard you try, sometimes you simply can not succeed when someone is purposefully trying to undermine you.  I had an experience in my corporate life when my boss regularly started “forgetting” to invite me to meetings, tell me about important conference calls and copy me on team emails.  She then used my slipping productivity as “proof” that I was incompetent and tried to have me fired.  Fortunately for me I was able to provide enough evidence to make the HR person understand that I was not being given the information I needed to be successful.  I wasn’t fired.  But I did start looking for, and ultimately took, a different job.  I knew for me the best option was to not stay where I wasn’t wanted.

Have you experienced a situation where the power of information has been used in negative way?  We would love to hear about it.

Come back next week when we discuss how teams create norms that become so embedded they don’t change even when the team members do.

If you missed last week’s conversation on how to deal with human distractions you can read it here.

What Is Emotional Bullying?

March 20, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  7 Comments

I could hear the giggling and not so quiet whispering across the room.  A few words escaped their circle, “stupid”, “ugly”, “can’t play”, “should quit” and finally, my name.  Of course they were talking about me.  They were, after all, volleyball players.  I was new to the school and new to the game of volleyball.  My Dad thought it would be a good idea for me to join a sport.  He thought it would help me make friends.  All it had done was teach me the volleyball team was made up of a bunch of mean girls who were more interested in makeup than being athletes.  It certainly didn’t do me any favors that most of them struggled to keep their grades up to be eligible to play while I got A’s.  Did they really not know I was in the classroom or did they just not care if I heard them being hateful? 

Emotional Bullying, clinically called relational aggression, is the act of attacking someone’s feelings and the relationships they have will other people. Typical outlets for emotional bullying are gossip, rumors and outright lies. Emotional bullying happens in in person, on Facebook, via text or email.  And if you think only teenage girls engage in such behavior, think again.  There is evidence of it as early as in grade school and it is rampant in the workforce.  Tearing other people down rather than building yourself up can be the go to method for leveling the playing field.  And unfortunately, it works.  When we hear negative information about someone we don’t know or know only in passing from someone we trust, we believe them.  Rather than taking the time to gather our own information we take the easy shortcut and just go with what we hear.  Not very fair, but it is what we do. 

What can we as coaches, leaders, managers or parents do about bullying behavior?  Turns out, we have more control than we think. 

One – Don’t engage in bullying ourselves.  I know you are thinking, of course I don’t bully!  And because you are here reading this post, maybe you are self-aware enough that you don’t.  However, double check.  Are you ever guilty of pushing your weight around to get your way rather than talking something through like you should?  Do you talk and laugh with your friends and ignore people you don’t know as well?  Do you find the shortcomings of others great fun to share “just for the laugh”?  You may think of those types of behaviors like you do white lies.  “I’m not really hurting anyone.”  In fact you are and as an authority figure you are setting an example. 

Two – Don’t allow bullying to take place in your hearing.  When you hear someone say something mean, be hateful or tear other people down and you say nothing, silence is agreement.  I am not saying you need to get into a verbal fray about every bullying statement you hear.  But simply saying “That isn’t a very nice thing to say” or “I don’t agree with that” will make it clear you are not in support of what is going on. 

Three – Be compassionate and teach others compassion.  It really isn’t that hard to be nice.  Check-in with people.  Ask how they are doing.  If you hurt someone’s feelings apologize.  I’m pretty sure most mothers still teach this stuff.  Use it. 

Four – Gather your own information on people.  Don’t take the shortcut and go with whatever you hear.  Find out for yourself.  If it turns out the person really is a jerk you can be confident that you learned it firsthand rather than through hearsay. 

Five – Enforce the rule that if someone has a problem with someone else they need to have a conversation about it.  I am not saying as the boss or the coach you should never get involved in situations.  But don’t get drawn into every disagreement.  Have the parties try to work it out themselves.  You are not responsible for having all the answers all the time. 

Six – Listen.  You will hear the rumblings of bullying on your team.  All you have to do is pay attention.  Don’t ignore ‘little’ things until they are big.  Address gossip, rumors and other forms of emotional bullying right away. 

What is your experience with emotional bullies?  Share your story with us.

Next week: Is your chain of command working

Did you miss last week about avoiding the volcano method to conflict management?  Read it here.

Why Are Women So Catty?

February 27, 2011  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  1 Comment

“I like your skirt. I have one just like it. Of course, mine is two sizes smaller.”
“The reason the project failed is that no one else worked as hard as I did.”
“We lost the game because there isn’t enough talent on this team. Sure, I’m a great player. But I can’t always carry the whole game by myself.”
“I saw your boyfriend talking to another woman this weekend. I guess he’s just not that into you.”

If you have worked with or been on an all female team you have seen this kind of behavior. If you have somehow managed to avoid it, look no farther than reality TV. You will find countless examples of women using gossip, backstabbing, snubbing, cliques and other drama in response to conflict. So what is the deal? Why do women behave that way?

Evolution

Thousands of years ago when humans lived in caves catty behavior actually served a purpose. Consider this:

Cavemen had basically one job; go out and kill something for the family to eat. When Caveman Bob and Caveman Joe have a disagreement they simply have a physical fight. He who wins gets his way. He who loses shuts up and deals (unless he wants to get his backside kicked again).

Cavewomen on the other hand had lots of jobs; cook, clean, gather, mend, clothe, tend to the ill, have/raise children – you see my point. In order to do all of that cavewomen had to work together. “You watch my kids and I’ll pick enough berries for both of us.” When Cavewoman Jane and Cavewoman Sally have a disagreement a physical fight doesn’t make sense. Injuring a woman in the group just means one more person to take care of and two less hands to get things done. However, if Cavewoman Sally can convince the group that Jane is a bad person the group will support Sally more and Jane less. The problem – Jane is trying to convince the group the exact opposite is true. See how clicks start to form?

Nice girl syndrome

“Nice girls don’t argue.” “Nice girls don’t cause conflict.” “Nice girls are friendly.” That is what we teach young women. That gets translated into “Nice girls never say something mean to someone’s face, better to say it behind their back.” Why do we as a culture accept emotional bullying as acceptable? All that does is create a firestorm of gossip among people who were not and should not be involved in the problem.

Not being provided other options

As a whole we are failing young women. We are not providing them with the skills to deal with conflict in a productive way. We don’t teach the communication skills they need to be able to have tough conversations, work through an issue and move on. We don’t hold them accountable to owning their own feelings about a situation and speaking directly to the person with whom they have an issue. Sadly, we even encourage cattiness and drama by glorifying it on reality TV.

What to do

I was recently told about a scientific study where male crabs where put into a jar and they worked together to pull each other out. Female crabs in the same jar pulled each other down and never got out. We are smarter than crabs. Women must to learn to work together, not tear each other down to get ahead.

We need to give young women a new set of communication skills; to transform the way they handle conflict. I am on a mission to give young women, their coaches and parents better options. It is my goal to give presentations and run boot camps that provide an alternative to cattiness. It doesn’t serve women well in college and it isn’t doing them any favors in the corporate world.

That is why I founded the Stop The Drama! campaign. If you agree, join the growing list on Facebook of those who know it is time we come out of the caves.

Tell us your story of cattiness and drama. Sports teams, cheer teams, social groups, work groups, whatever group you have – share your story.

Next week: The pitfalls of the volcano method for handling conflict

Last week we talked about the roll of emotional intelligence in success.

Everybody has Stuff

October 10, 2010  |  Posted by Doc Robyn |  6 Comments


My stuff, your stuff, everybody has stuff. I am not talking about physical stuff we keep in boxes or piles I am talking about emotional stuff. The hurts, complements, slaps in the face and pats on the back that we have accumulated over the years. Some people categorize and compartmentalize it. Others have it scattered all over their emotional space. Most are somewhere in between. Regardless of your emotional filing system or lack there of there are going to be days that someone is going to stumble into your stuff and when they do, watch out!

Here is the really strange thing about emotional stuff: we usually want to blame other people for ours and accept blame for other people’s. It is an odd way to go about life but if you think about it, it happens every day. Anytime someone starts a sentence with “you made me….” or “I did that because…” followed by something someone else did they are passing off their stuff.

Consider the leader who yells at a subordinate and then later says, “I am sorry I yelled but you made me angry.” Putting aside that an “I’m sorry” should never be followed by “but…” The leader is telling the subordinate, “I gave you control over my emotions. You managed them poorly and made me angry.” I don’t know about you but if I was a subordinate in charge of the boss’s emotions anger would certainly NOT be the one I would chose. However, a subordinate is like to walk away from conversation like that thinking “I have to be more careful to not make the boss angry.” The boss packed the emotional box. The subordinate picked it up and carried it out. Energy that the subordinate could use to be productive is now being siphoned off to working on not making the boss mad.

There are two sides to this issue, owning your own stuff and not accepting ownership of the stuff belonging to others.

Owning your own stuff: This seems like it should be pretty simple. They are your emotions. You are responsible for them. But it doesn’t work that way. It is much easier to be defensive, blame everyone and anyone and to walk away feeling morally justified; particularly because feelings are something we never allow to cloud our judgment! (Yeah, right) Clearly it must be someone else’s fault! That is not the case, it is time to own up and take responsibility for what is yours. That is not to say you can’t tell someone how you are reacting to them. Rather than saying, “You did this and made me that!” Try something like “I expected you to follow up on that project. I am very frustrated that it didn’t happen.” Or “I am offended and angry that you arrived at training camp overweight and out of shape.”

When I work with clients on this topic I often provide them with a list of feeling words. Specifically because you can’t own your feelings if you don’t understand them and you can’t explain them to others if you can’t find the words.

Not accepting stuff belonging to other people: This is a tough one too. Accepting blame, fault or just carrying someone’s emotional baggage is a bad habit I see every day. How you handle it depends on your relationship with the person or team involved. If you did the front end team development work and have a common communication fingerprint you can talk to the person about it. Maybe you come to the agreement that you will hold their emotion for a time and then talk about it later. If you have a way to talk about it emotional stuff is just one more thing to maintenance during a conversation.

The more challenging situation is when you are using the black box of communication hoping it will work. If someone is packing their stuff on you and you don’t have a common communication fingerprint you have two options. One – diffuse, “I can tell you are furious about this situation.” Two – protect yourself. If the person simply will not be deterred let them pack those boxes with their stuff, let them vent. Just remember not to take any of them with you when you leave!

Are you a master at accepting emotional boxes from people? Tell us about it. Maybe you are an emotional shipper. What does that look like? Leave us a comment!

Next week’s topic: Having tough conversations -101

Don’t miss last week’s post A Tiger Behind Every Tree!