On Thursday, October 23, 2008, the Oklahoma Business Ethics Consortium’s Tulsa Chapter held its monthly luncheon with national guest speaker Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute. Why would an ethics group invite a workplace bullying expert to speak, you might ask?  The answer is simple: How can the same organizations who promote a code of conduct, health and wellness, community involvement, employee volunteerism and corporate giving, also allow workplace bullies - psychological office tyrants - to run rampant inside their organizations while targets of their brutal violent episodes suffer physical and mental repercussions?

Allowing workplace bullying to occur is not right. It is not moral. It is not ethical.

According to Dr. Namie, “Workplace bullying is a health hazard. Cardiovascular diseases are the most common stress-related physical problems for bullied targets.”  He further stated, “Psychological injuries caused by bullying range from debilitating anxiety and panic attacks through clinical depression to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the bullying.  And it’s all unconscionably legal, though morally reprehensible,” states the passionate Dr. Namie.

Clinical depression is experienced by 39% of targets and post traumatic stress disorder is experienced by 30% of women targets.

Is it ethical for an organization to do nothing?

Doing nothing is not a neutral act, according to the founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute.  In fact, Dr. Namie calls it “cruelty by indifference.”  I agree wholeheartedly.

If your organization allows workplace bullies to conjure up their cancerous potions of fear and psychological violence and tyranny, it is time to take action.  It is wrong to sit silently and do nothing.  Taking no action is not an option for good corporate citizens. It should not take enacting anti-bullying legislation to do the right thing, although that is probably where this country is headed.  Let’s do the right thing today.

Does your company allow bullying to occur in your workplace? If so, does your company also promote themselves as a responsible corporate citizen, espouse social responsibility, healthy living, nutrition and exercise, and charitable giving? If you answered yes to both these questions, welcome to Corporate America’s Hall of Contradictions.

Let’s talk about one of those big, nasty, dirty secrets hanging in the Corporate Hall of Contradictions: workplace bullies and the adverse health affects levied on their targets.  Left alone, workplace bullies cause a rolling tide of unjustified terminations, needless resignations, disrupted careers, tormented families, plus excessive and needless medical expenses on their unsuspecting targets.  With limited support, denials and misunderstandings by coworkers and family members, feelings of embarrassment, suicide is sometimes the  eventual self-prescription for targets looking for escape from these ruthless corporate terrorists. Does this sound like corporate social responsibility?

Workplace Bullying Defined

The Workplace Bullying Institute’s definition of workplace bullying is “repeated, health-harming, mistreatment of one or more persons by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms:

• verbal abuse,
• offensive conduct/behaviors (including nonverbal) which are threatening, humiliating, or intimidating,
• work interference - sabotage - which prevents work from getting done.”

Workplace bullying is much more than simple incivility. It goes way beyond rudeness.  The problem is that bullies are quite clever in their attacks.  With limited or no training to deal with ruthless workplace bullies, the executive team rarely comes to the aid of the target.

When Human Resources is Not Humane

Think your human resources department will help?  Think again. Human resource professionals have largely sided with workplace bullies because they lack the fortitude to stand up against tyrants who typically carry political clout inside the organization. Most human resource professionals are more interested in career preservation than upholding a positive and humane corporate culture.  Without a CEO who demands zero tolerance for bullies, the inmates soon take control over the prison, if you know what I mean.

The Health Effects

As a result, the continued abuse leads to health-harming treatment.  According to the 2007 Workplace Bullying Institute - Zogby Survey, 45% of targeted individuals suffer stress-related health problems, which include:

• Hypertension, strokes and heart attacks
• Neurotransmitter disruption, hippocampus shrinkage
• Immunological impairment; more frequent infections of greater severity
• Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Debilitating anxiety, panic disorders
• Clinical depression
• Post-traumatic Stress Disorder from deliberate human-inflicted abuse
• Lost ability to be left alone to do the once-loved job

The Career Affects

According to the WBI-Zogby Survey, the future is not very bright for the targets of bullying.  In most cases, the clever corporate terrorist wins, as depicted below:

• 13% of targets are forced to transfer from their once loved job (a punitive transfer)
• 24% of targets experience constructive discharge without reasonable cause
• 40% of targets quit to reverse decline in health and sanity

Take a Stand

If you have a coworker currently encountering a workplace bully, assemble as many employees and managers as possible to calmly and respectfully fight back.  Faced with numbers, a bully will typically back down because deep down they are weak and frightened.  Silence, fear and a culture where employees do not come to the aid of their coworkers is an environment that allows this corporate terrorism to thrive.

If you have a friend or family member who is currently encountering a workplace bully, listen to them and become their advocate.  Encourage them to seek professional help from a qualified counselor who has dealt with workplace bullying cases. At some point a decision will need to be made whether a job change should be made and the target will likely need your objective opinion and guidance during a tumultuous time.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

– Edmund Burke

CEO’s find the truth hard to handle at times.  Especially regarding employee relations issues, and their resulting effects on morale, quality and productivity.  For example, the CEO may have a hard time believing one of their top performers is a certifiable asshole who is damaging the company’s morale and causing a deterioration of trust in leadership.

The good news is there is a five step program for ridding your company of corporate assholes who have burrowed themselves inside your organization.

Step #1 - Admit assholes are bad for business. Recognize that assholes are bad for the organization. Yes, take that truth syrum and walk over from the dark side to the light.  Believe it or not, there are some CEO’s who think a few assholes scattered throughout the organization actually increase productivity. If this is the case, why not give those assholes some chains and whips to help their cause and instill greater fear.  If fear really works, why not increase the fear for greater effect? Nonsense!  You know it and I know it; assholes must be terminated.

Step #2 - Understand assholes are expert kiss-ups. Understand that assholes are masters at managing up, kissing up and brownnosing, all while causing terror down the corporate ladder.  While you are feeling good about your asshole, he is instilling fear in your organization. As the CEO, the asshole who is your direct report typically makes you feel good when you are around them.  It feels good to have your back end massaged by these clever manipulators.  They are experts at massaging your backside in order to protect theirs.

Step #3 - Adopt, model and promote your company’s code of conduct. I recommend your company also adopt an Anti-Bullying and No-Jerk policy.  Why?  The Workplace Bullying Institute and Zogby research indicate that 37% of American workers have been bullied at work.  That is almost 4 out of 10 employees.  Bullying is four times more prevalent than illegal harassment, yet most companies overlook it.  Because this has become such a prevalent workplace problem, a number of respectable companies have adoped No Jerk Hiring Policies:

“No Jerk Policy” Hall of Fame Companies

Barclays Capital | SPM Communications | Lloyd Gosselink Attorneys at Law

IDEO | Sterling Foundation Management | Gold’s Gym | van Aartrijk Group

Robert W. Baird | The Wine Buyer | Mozilla | Washington Mutual | SuccessFactors

Arup | Goldcorp | Hamilton Canada

Step #4 - Require thorough investigations and no cover-ups. Make sure human resources completely investigates claims of workplace bullying by corporate assholes.  The typical response will be for HR to conspire with or feel pressure from the asshole manager and eventually assist in the firing of the targeted employee or employees.  This allows the evidence to be terminated and walk out the front door.  In other words, assholes like to eliminate their dirty laundry.  Require HR to document the behavior, obtain witness accounts and submit a full written report to the CEO office.  Identify patterns of behavior and provide support to human resources when they recommend bullies and assholes undergo counseling.  Finally, terminate jerks if they don’t straighten up, regardless of their position in the company.

Step #5 - Communicate to stakeholders your company is a Jerk Free Zone. Communicate to employees, applicants and stakeholders your company is a Jerk Free Zone.  Don’t even permit customers to treat your employees terribly.  If you want to create a high-performance team environment, protect your employees.  Sure, develop lofty goals for your team members and create high performance expectations.  Driving out fear in the workplace will almost ensure your organization will be successful. Do this and success will follow you wherever you go.

One by one, a long line of unsuspecting recruits accepted, and eventually quit, the marketing assistant position. The problem was the department manager. Although clever and politically connected, her devilish ways wreaked havoc on her people. Each time the position opened up, recruiters would search for the right candidate with Teflon skin and stone-cold emotions. Most victims, however, transferred to another department or altogether quit within a few short months.

It didn’t usually take more than a week or two before the next new recruit would schedule their first meeting with our employee relations manager to solicit advice in dealing with their bully boss. With a leadership blind spot the size of Nova Scotia, the marketing manager was convinced each new recruit was a complete idiot. She never accepted individual responsibility for her own department’s revolving door.

Then there was the employee who had a nervous breakdown during the lunch hour.

After just a few weeks on the job, the assistant had to be hospitalized in a mental health facility after she was found by police, dangerously parked on a busy expressway. Apparently she mentally shut down after experiencing weeks of severe anxiety trying to cope with the maddening manager.

As the HR director, I expressed my deep concern to the president that it would be completely unethical to hire one more potential target for this inhumane manager. Her evil management style literally caused the employee’s nervous breakdown.

You think this decision would be a no-brainer, right? Wrong! Although she was the queen of caustic culture, the president felt she was technically competent and too valuable to terminate.

Why do companies put up with bullying managers? According to the 2007 Workplace Bullying Institute-Zogby Survey, bullying is inhumane but not illegal. Results of the survey showed the following reasons workplaces continue to employ health destroying bully managers.

• Forty percent (40%) of targets do not come forward.
• In 80% of cases, bullying is legal.
• Sixty-two percent (62%) of employers either do nothing or worsen the situation by retaliating against the target.
• Seventy-three percent (73%) of bullies are managers - senior managers and HR reflexively side with management when disputes arise.
• Bullies derive 73% of their support from executives, peer managers and HR.
• Executives are afraid to act. They have a disproportionate fear of lawsuits brought by the bully if they dare investigate or sanction the bully.
• Bullies invented their reputation as indispensable high-performers in case they were ever exposed. Target complainants are then not believed.
• Employers don’t actually know how to stop it. They forgot the lessons learned from having to correct and prevent illegal discrimination.
• Employers don’t recognize bullying as violence in the workplace. The problem is erroneously defined as “conflict,” and the wrong solutions are applied.
• Our society is highly aggressive and competitive. Bullies embody these two popular tactics. Hostility is more normative than the exception. So, bullying, abuse and psychological violence at work is positively embraced more often than despised.

Your chest is pounding. Anxious feelings resurface as painful office altercations replay in your mind causing a sick feeling in your stomach. Your shoulders and neck begin to tighten and ache. Your mind ruminates over last week’s noxious encounter with a bully manager and his evil recruits. Although Sunday is supposed to be a restful day to invigorate your mental and physical wellbeing, you find yourself mentally clocked-in at the office, clocked-out at home, and woefully dreading the next day to begin. Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, this is a common Sunday afternoon mental exercise American workers relive at the beginning of many work weeks. Sadly, the recurrence of fear and trepidation on Sunday is well-founded. Researchers discovered a few years ago the deadliest time of the week is Monday morning as workers return to their job. There are twenty percent more incidents of heart attacks on Mondays due to the stress of returning to toxic company cultures with abusive managers.

Although brave soldiers have sacrificed and the United States have spent billions to stop violence against defenseless countries and our world allies, our nation has not gained control of the increasing psychological violence inside the borders of the American workplace. Civility, trust and respect seem to be losing ground to schoolyard-type bullies who work in the corner office. Competition for promotions, raises and bonuses can bring out the worst in people. If results at any cost are rewarded, company managers and employees may resort to bullying behavior to get things done; an unethical, inhumane, but perfectly legal management technique in America.

Although it is illegal to discriminate against women or minorities based on sex or race, it is perfectly legal in the United States for an unreformed-schoolyard-bully-turned-executive to yell, scream, berate, curse, belittle, exclude, or be downright cruel to employees. According to Dr. Gary Namie, Workplace Bullying Institute, “Bullying is mostly legal. Employers can ignore it with little risk. However, it is four times more prevalent than illegal status-based discrimination.”

Some companies encourage and reward bullying tactics that force employees to cower and passively accept their role to do what you are told. Typically, an employee who complains of such bullying behavior to human resources will eventually be terminated in a matter of days, weeks or months. Although human resources should review, investigate and resolve each employee relations issue in an objective manner, human resource professionals and friends of the bully tend to turn against the target of the bullying behavior.

When company leadership adopts, models and promotes positive people practices and initiates the process of creating a great place to work, the toxic levels inside the organization will begin to fall and employee energy and engagement will begin to rise.