Episode #3: Confronting Workplace Bullying and Cultivating a Culture of Graciousness
Mar 21, 2024Season 1Episode 3
Joy
When whispers of bullying infiltrate the corridors of our workplaces, the chill can be as subtle as it is pervasive. We, Sharon Wilson and Cindy LaCom, have seen the ripple effects firsthand, and in our latest discussion, we lay bare the often-ignored undercurrents of intimidation and disruption that so often sustain a bullying culture. Join us as we share not just stories but also strategies, empowering you to recognize and challenge the bullying that may be eroding your organization's culture from within.
Venturing further into the realm of positive workplace transformation, we examine the powerful potential of fostering 'gracious spaces'—environments ripe for growth, inclusion, and the kind of constructive engagement that can turn toxic settings on their head. We shed light on the brain science that supports initiating meetings with positivity and how this simple shift can radically alter the collective mood. It's about building a community of empowerment, one conversation at a time. Tune in for a dialogue that promises both professional insights and actionable wisdom, equipping you to not only spot the shadows but also to be a beacon of change.
When whispers of bullying infiltrate the corridors of our workplaces, the chill can be as subtle as it is pervasive. We, Sharon Wilson and Cindy LaCom, have seen the ripple effects firsthand, and in our latest discussion, we lay bare the often-ignored undercurrents of intimidation and disruption that so often sustain a bullying culture. Join us as we share not just stories but also strategies, empowering you to recognize and challenge the bullying that may be eroding your organization's culture from within.
Venturing further into the realm of positive workplace transformation, we examine the powerful potential of fostering 'gracious spaces'—environments ripe for growth, inclusion, and the kind of constructive engagement that can turn toxic settings on their head. We shed light on the brain science that supports initiating meetings with positivity and how this simple shift can radically alter the collective mood. It's about building a community of empowerment, one conversation at a time. Tune in for a dialogue that promises both professional insights and actionable wisdom, equipping you to not only spot the shadows but also to be a beacon of change.
Welcome everyone to Transformation Talks. The intention of our podcast is to provide tips, strategies and inspiration to transform workplaces, communities and lives. I'm Sharon Wilson. I'm the co-founder and chief mindset and growth officer at Transforming Culture Consultants, and I have with me today our other Cindy LaCom, who is our chief impact and inclusion officer. Today we want to talk about how we might better see bullying and understand this dynamics. We have to name a problem before we can see it and we have to see a problem in order to solve it. In our last podcast, we talked about having a Martian perspective. It's really what TCC does is to have an objective perspective and these kinds of topics, so we invite you into that perspective, cindy.
Cindy LaCom:
Yeah, so I think, as you say, it's really often difficult to see a dynamic when you're in the midst of it, and one of the ways in which we know that that happens is with the example of bullying. Bullying can impact us even if we're not the victims. In fact, often if we're not the victims, we're still impacted by it. I think that the stereotype is this playground bully who demands money and threatens to beat you up if you don't hand it over. But it's often, I think, a lot more subtle. When we look at definitions of workplace violence, it's actually defined as any act or threat of physical violence, which is perhaps what most of us think about, but also harassment, intimidation or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. So it can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and in the work week scenario, of course, we think of workplace shootings. So I think that we need to really understand the dynamics of bullying.
Cindy LaCom:
As you said, sharon, this is a quote actually taken from Kimberly Crenshaw, who coined the concept of intersectional oppression. We have to name a problem to see it and we have to see it to solve it. And when we think of bullying as the most extreme example, it means too often that we actually aren't able to see bullying dynamics, even when we're working in the midst of them. So I know, sharon, you and I have talked a little bit about your own experience in the corporate world. You want to say a little bit more about that now.
Sharon Wilson:
Yes, I would. I've had a number of experiences where there's this experience, I would say, of bullying at a very high level. In one company I was a senior vice president of marketing and the CEO actually really had an approach with another senior vice president that was very demeaning. He would put him down. I didn't know how much of it was really between male egos, but it was the kind of thing that was passive, aggressive. It was something that, you know, I really wished I could have said something and we all really wish we could have said something. But this was the CEO and even when I spoke with someone in HR about it she said you know well, what are you going to do? I mean, it's the CEO of the company. How do you really approach that person and tell them that they're being inappropriate? But it made everyone very uncomfortable. Oftentimes, cindy, it would be kind of approached in a joking kind of manner. So I think there was something that sort of made that more normalized. But as I watched it going on between these two people a hour within the company, you know where one was doing everything he could to make the other feel small. You know from jokes or just comments, or even comments about his appearance or anything of that nature. There's just was a constant kind of thing that was going on. It just made me very uncomfortable.
Sharon Wilson:
First of all, I wasn't the one being bullied, but I really didn't know. I felt so disempowered because I didn't know what I really could do. So shortly after that, I was contacted by a recruiter and they were asking me about another position. And the one thing I said to the recruiter which ultimately I did lead that company, primarily because of that situation. But I told the recruiter you know, I need to know what kind of culture I'd be joining, because it was very important to me not to be in a toxic culture, which is really what I felt that really was.
Sharon Wilson:
We really work a lot with people in the place of toxic cultures and what our toxic cultures and how to be able to make shifts in that. But it absolutely is a very demoralizing place to be and it happens at all levels of an organization. But because that culture was so toxic for me, I couldn't continue to stay in that situation, even though I wasn't the one being bullied. Matter of fact, I didn't have any experience like that with the CEO or anyone in my organization, but it was something that just impacted me so significantly that I ultimately left the organization.
Cindy LaCom:
I think that's really a profound insight. I'm thinking now about all sorts of things. I want to say one thing. That is, that your example does reflect national dynamic. What we know is that over 70% of employees need their jobs and I think we mentioned this last week it's not because of salary or benefits, but because of bad management, and I'm not saying that managers are bullies or that they bully more often, but, as you just said, when management accepts bullying behavior, workers don't feel like they can respond to that actively. They often don't stay.
Cindy LaCom:
I think about another thing is that is the barriers to reporting, and this is something when we do workshops on workplace bullying and workplace violence, we talk about those barriers to reporting because they're very real, they're incredibly powerful, but they can lead to, if you are a witness to bullying, to feeling disengaged, disempowered and even guilty. We also know that the costs for workplace violence are incredibly high. A couple of years ago, what we know is it cost businesses in the United States about $36 billion per year. So the costs and the stakes are really high. I also want to say you and I have thought a lot and talked a lot about the shift to social media and online work, and there's something that I want to share with listeners, and that's what's called, in social media theory, the Gaijis Effect, spelled G-Y-G-E-S, and it's the idea that, simply put, anonymity thoughtsters mean this. It's based on an old Greek myth about a shepherd who finds a ring that gives him a cloak of invisibility and now he's wearing the reed a nice guy, right. He finds this ring, he tries it on, he goes to the court, where he would never be allowed, but he can go in because he's invisible. He falls in love with the queen and so he kills the king. And the point of this myth is exactly the Greek the Gaiju's effect theory, which is that when we're behind a screen and we feel anonymous, we can say and do things that we would never do or say in person, and that includes bullying behaviors. So in some ways, if such toxic meanness as you'd said, sharon, it's increasingly normalized and I think that it is I just want to point out that we also have the capacity to challenge and change it in our workplaces, because any cultural shift like this one has the capacity to be changed.
Cindy LaCom:
In my work and I've done a lot of work in very difficult workplace cultures I used to talk about creating a safe space and I stopped. I'm in a think tank and we open every meeting with a comment about what's called a pre-shaced space, and it's the concept coined by the Center for Ethical Peace Studies, the University of Washington. In a gracious space, you invoke a spirit and a setting that invites the stranger to learn hublet. So you don't guarantee a safe space, because when we're in a potentially toxic or bullying workplace culture, we aren't probably going to feel safe, even if, as you said, we're not the victims. Though a gracious space creates room for discomfort, it recognizes that there are voices which are the present and which might not be heard, and this goes back to the barriers for reporting. We live in a really anti-tattletale world and that's one strong barrier to reporting. So even when we have, for instance, a workshop or a meeting about workplace bullying, there's still a possibility that a voice may be present at that table, but choose to be silent because of all the pressure not to snitch. So what I like about the gracious space is one that both recognizes that there are people who could be present that weren't, and it creates a space to try to listen to and seek out those voices that are often it's a practice, really Gracious space is a practice, and when we join a group where respect is the norm, where we listen to others and invite the stranger to learn in public, then it becomes easier, I think, to recognize, to name and then to call out or call in bullying behavior.
Cindy LaCom:
And I just used a phrase which you may or may not know, but when you call someone in, that's really different. It's when someone does something that is potentially harmful or offensive. You talk to them one-on-one, you talk to them. Later, you might give yourself or them a little bit of time to think about it. You might start with that's not how we do things at this picture. It's really different than calling someone out, which you do in the moment in public, and it's often because of behavior that's so offensive or egregious that you cannot let it go uncalled. Well, I think that even that, something that we talk a lot more about in the workshops, I think, can be really a powerful tool to diminish bullying dynamics.
Cindy LaCom:
Oh, I worked with one agency where, when we talked about navigating difficult conversations and calling out versus calling in across the board, the response initially was if this happened, I'd call HR. If this happened, I'd call HR. We were using scenario trainees, and what blew me away was that some of these scenarios were pretty wild. It seemed to me that in a powered workplace, staff would feel like they could stay. To a coworker hey, I wanted to talk to you. I heard you say something the other day and it didn't sit well with you, but it didn't even feel that they could say that. So I think that this is a mark of a workplace culture where bullying is a kind of invisible norm. Someone offered just one small tip, and this is it Try to start your meetings graciously, start with a gracious statement, and I think starting with something positive really works. It can matter.
Sharon Wilson:
Yeah, we talked in our last podcast about the whole concept of starting your meetings with something positive in some kind of way, because that really does raise the energy that really does create more of a positive mindset, and so this really piggybacks on that as well, this whole idea of having a gracious space. What was really interesting to me too, as we were talking about this in the, is that so often the kind of behaviors that we might see in our organizations, you know, we might not consider those bullying is the definition of bullying. I know when my daughter was in high school, they said that they had a zero policy zero tolerance, zero tolerance policy for bullying, and yet so many things.
Sharon Wilson:
She would come home and tell me about that. She would say I think that's bullying. They say you know well what is the definition of bullying. And if they really do have this zero tolerance, or is that just, is that just what they'd like to have? And it really is lip service. So this is a really complicated and can be a very challenging experience.
Sharon Wilson:
I know, having worked in that particular situation where I was, you know, reporting to the CEO. Yet the CEO was the one that was really driving that kind of normalized behavior. And what's also interesting, Cindy, is that, as you would expect, that behavior, because it was normalized, because it was tolerated, accepted, it also had a trickle down effect from other managers into their departments. And so you know there really is this, there really is this, this top down effect, there really is this ripple effect. So you know that really becomes a challenge when you're talking about people in higher positions that are, that are really modeling this kind of behavior. How do you make changes, how do you impact things like that? And so you know, as you said, we can start with starting our meetings with a gracious space, starting our meetings in a positive looking for what's working. As we talked about our last podcast, it really is, you know, a concept of called appreciative inquiry, and it really does make a difference because when people focus on something that's working, we really don't access the part of our brain which is about problems and challenges. We're focused more on solutions, and that really comes from brain science.
Sharon Wilson:
So, you know, it's our intention to be a support and resource for you all to help navigate these unprecedented challenges in our workplace cultures and create thriving cultures that have a ripple effect that impacts us all in a positive way. So we would love for you to join a community of HR professionals, executive directors and managers that are wanting to create a more empowered workplaces and organizations. You can get free tips and resources and opportunities to tend free virtual gatherings where you can engage with industry leaders and innovators, exchange ideas, strategies and best practices. You can go to transformingcultureconsultantscom slash hr. We are also available to provide you with a free virtual consultation. Maybe there's something like this going on in your own workplace and you don't know how to even approach what's happening. So this is an opportunity to have a free virtual consultation. You can apply for that by going to transformingcultureconsultantscom. Slash free application. You can connect with us on LinkedIn at transforming culture consultants, and our vision is a world where employees feel happy, respected, valued and safe, and thank you for being a part of this vision.
Cindy LaCom:
Thank you very much and I hope that you'll let us be your merchants. We'll see you next time, okay.
