Episode #6: "Snitches Get Stitches?" An Anti-Snitch Theory
Apr 03, 2024
Joy
Join us, Sharon Wilson and Cindy LaCom, as we peel back the layers on workplace violence and the daunting anti-snitch culture in this episode. We share stories and strategies from our personal experiences that highlight the delicate balance between maintaining ethical standards and navigating the potential backlash of breaking silence. As we unravel the complexities of bystander advocacy, we're not just speaking to victims and witnesses but extending a robust challenge to empower those within the workplace to stand against harassment and violence.
We believe in creating a workplace community where everyone can thrive and hope that, as part of this, you'll consider joining our free virtual community to make that happen at your own workplace. We offer a space to collaborate, share best practices, and cultivate a culture of safety and respect. Our conversation extends beyond personal anecdotes, delving into the real-world applications of fostering inclusive work environments and the moral imperatives that drive us to action. Join us for a dialogue filled with courage, strategy, and the promise of transformation in the modern workplace.
Join us, Sharon Wilson and Cindy LaCom, as we peel back the layers on workplace violence and the daunting anti-snitch culture in this episode. We share stories and strategies from our personal experiences that highlight the delicate balance between maintaining ethical standards and navigating the potential backlash of breaking silence. As we unravel the complexities of bystander advocacy, we're not just speaking to victims and witnesses but extending a robust challenge to empower those within the workplace to stand against harassment and violence.
We believe in creating a workplace community where everyone can thrive and hope that, as part of this, you'll consider joining our free virtual community to make that happen at your own workplace. We offer a space to collaborate, share best practices, and cultivate a culture of safety and respect. Our conversation extends beyond personal anecdotes, delving into the real-world applications of fostering inclusive work environments and the moral imperatives that drive us to action. Join us for a dialogue filled with courage, strategy, and the promise of transformation in the modern workplace.
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 a hand with me today are the Cindy LaCom, who is our chief impact and inclusion officer. In our last podcast we talked about bystander advocacy and intervention strategies, and also how tough it can be to step up. Sometimes this may be for safety reasons but, as Cindy mentioned, another prohibition might be an anti-snitch culture, where telling on someone is frowned upon and so-called tattletales are often condemned and critiqued.
Cindy LaCom:
Exactly. You and I have talked about this at some length, sharon, and I just want to reiterate here that we begin it. There are a lot of reasons we don't want to snitch, and there are actual prices that we may pay for doing so, but remaining silent has impacts too, and silence can really support harassment and also talk to meanness. Even more than that, though, an anti-snitch culture can actually foster a culture of workplace violence. I think that most of us practice a kind of magical thinking, imagining that it would never happen where we were.
Cindy LaCom:
You know it's an out-there kind of a problem, right, but the data says otherwise. Workplace violence, which is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation or other threatening, disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site, this kind of violence is increasingly common, and that's more true in some professions, like healthcare and the service industry, than for others, but probably all of us are at some risk, and while some kinds of workplace violence have, in fact, diminished in the last five years, non-fatal workplace violence actually increased between 2015 and 2019. And some predict that, as more and more workers are compelled to return to the workplace, that number may actually increase. I think this is all fairly unnerving, but we know that ignoring it isn't going to make the problem go.
Sharon Wilson:
Right. So one question per hay-ass becomes this how do we address workplace violence when we're taught from childhood that tumbling is bad? You know, I was telling Yusendi about a situation I had when I was in corporate America as an employee and I was actually just right out of undergraduate school in college and I was hired to be a sales rep for a large manufacturing company and one of my responsibilities the primary responsibility was to go into restaurants and to have them buy truckload of our product. So that was really the job, and early on in my training I find out from my sales manager and the other sales rep that all happened to me mail, but found out that one of the things that they were doing was to actually write off and write checks to the owners of the restaurants for damaged product. Now this was a normal kind of thing where something gets damaged on the truck and then the sales rep would go in and say, oh okay, well, that was damaged, we will write you a check. And we actually had physical checks from our company back then that we were able to write on them. But what was happening, cindy, was that they were actually writing checks for product that wasn't damaged, and it was unbelievable to me that this was something that was normalized and where these have been going in a number of ways. Restaurant owners actually started to expect that, and me coming into a new territory and brand new and young coming into a new territory.
Sharon Wilson:
I was just so really I couldn't believe it that first of all, people were doing that, they were stealing from the company and all of those things that were happening, and I really refused to do it and there was really no way, as I think about it now, that I could have was so ingrained in the culture there was no way I could have done anything. So what I chose to do was I got a promotion pretty quickly and I was promoted out of that department into marketing and then, as a manager, one of the opportunities I had when we were interfacing with the sales department was to say something about maybe we should look at how much we're spending in damaged product, and that actually was kind of something that got the ball rolling and that practice ultimately was eliminated because it became clear that there were hundreds of thousands of dollars over years that was being written off and soon the salespeople's checks were taken away. So that was one example of a way, I guess that I kind of round about, sort of impacted, but there's no way I could have done anything.
Sharon Wilson:
And, as you pointed out before, culture is a set of values, beliefs and behaviors that we learn as kids from our families, our communities, our friends and our neighbors. Over time, those values and beliefs, behaviors are normalized, just like I talked about. That was a normalized behavior right from my manager, probably from his manager and they come to seem natural, just the way things are. And this is true of anti-snitch culture. If you look at parenting advice, for instance, you can find article after article that counsels peers about how to deal with a child who tattles, and a majority of the advice focuses on teaching your kid not to tattle. And that position continues into their teens, continues on into college, continues on into work. When they look online, I find far too many advice sources for youth that repeat the same message Don't be a snitch. Oh, isn't there another phrase in these snitches get stitches.
Sharon Wilson:
Yes, I saw that one in a movie. But how can we practice bystander advocacy if we aren't willing to intervene when something wrong is going on? Cindy, do you want to talk about an example from your years at the university?
Cindy LaCom:
Yeah, I'm actually fascinated by this anti-snitch culture. I used to talk about it in my classrooms. I would ask my students, given this scenario say that you have to get a good grade in this class and you know that admission into a really good graduate program or instance or job depends upon your earning a good grade in this class you find out that there's a small group of students say three people who have stolen the answers for the final exam. They're not sharing them with you or anyone else. Knowing this, knowing that it might affect the grading curve, you take your test. The curve is changed because they cheated and you end up earning a B in the class and this, in fact, can damage your likelihood of being accepted to this grad program that you wanted or this job that you want.
Cindy LaCom:
I asked them if you knew who had stolen the test responses, would you report it? Just unanimously, they said no. I said, even if it damaged your opportunities for the future, they said no. When I asked them why not? Most of them said they didn't want others to find out that they had been a snitch. But when I asked the same students okay, different scenario what if we could guarantee your anonymity? Would that make a difference. Very few changed their minds and I had more than one student regularly would say this to me. I still wouldn't tell on them because it just wouldn't be ethical. But what struck me about this last response is that it leaves out how unethical it is for this small group of three students to feel answers in the first place right, thereby changing the grading curve and negatively impacting everyone else in the class.
Cindy LaCom:
But for a host of reasons, that behavior is more tolerated than telling on the cheaters. It actually reminds me of something we touched on in an earlier podcast when we talked about calling an advert. It's calling out and the reality that in almost every workshop I facilitated on this, someone has said something like this well, I don't want to call out someone because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable or embarrassed. And this is true even if the person that has not been called out has said something that was really egregious or harmful. And what I think is my God, we're going to spare the person who has said something awful, we're going to spare their emotions at the cost of damage done to others in our circle and our workplace. So I say this to recognize that it's a very complex, dynamic and when we break apart an anti-sonic culture. We really do want to be cognizant of all of these different pieces, because it's not as simple as saying simply you should report that there.
Sharon Wilson:
Well, absolutely. I mean to extend that a bit in terms of the dynamics. I want to just add that when we look at the data, one thing that strikes us are gendered differences. Men and women experience different worlds in terms of how we're perceived, the biases we navigate and the expectations that we negotiate. That actually something we'll talk about in our next podcast, and I mentioned to the. Actually, in that example I gave, I was the only woman. I remember telling you I was the only woman in that whole division, and so not only did I have men, older men, and I was young, just out of college but I also.
Sharon Wilson:
That particular division was in the area where people are very tough. You know, I'm not saying there were mafia ties or things in our company, but those people that I worked with had come, grown up in tough situations. So there were some really interesting dynamics going on. But for now we just want to briefly talk about some of the data on gendered differences of workplace violence. Women are statistically more likely to be victims of workplace violence, but men are more likely to die of fatal injuries. Statistically, according to recent data, 71% of victims were female, but 82% of fatal workplace violence victim were men. Women face higher risk of sexual violence and stalking, for instance, while men face higher risk of physical assault, and this kind of data might make a difference when we think about workplace policies on violence, reporting procedures and advocacy.
Cindy LaCom:
I'm so glad you made that point, sharon, and I'm really glad that you do attention to the reality that workplace violence is not culturally neutral, in fact, but we don't have time today to discuss this in this podcast. We do want to recognize that vulnerability to workplace violence is variable. For instance, when we think about systemic discrimination, we know that disabled workers, slaves of color, workers who for home English is not a first language, and LGBTQAI plus workers, they might face particular vulnerabilities too and risks of workplace violence. And if we don't acknowledge this and center it in our efforts to stop workplace violence, we are simply not doing enough. For that reason, this is something that TCC addresses in our workshops, because you can't address the problem without naming all aspects of it, and we want to recognize there's no guaranteed way to stop workplace violence, but there are some action steps we can take to create a workplace culture where employees feel valued, respected and safe.
Cindy LaCom:
One is to believe in yourself and to believe others if you think that you've experienced or witnessed violence. Another is to know your company's policies on workplace violence and on reporting violence. Are there policies on non-retaliation if you don't file a report? You're not sure? Or if this generally workplace violence seems to be falling under the radar. Ask about a company training or ask for a series of regular trainings Because, though violence in the workplace is more common than we want it to be, there are ways to proactively respond Becoming more aware of both of the barriers to reporting workplace violence, and also action steps that we can take to challenge those barriers in order to be better allies and advocates. It's just a critically important first step, and we're glad you're here with us today to share that.
Sharon Wilson:
Thank you for that.
Sharon Wilson:
It's really important, as you were talking about giving some tips.
Sharon Wilson:
It's important for HR professionals, for executive directors, for managers, to really understand and become more aware of this, because it really is something that can so significantly impact workplace culture, and it's our intention to be a support and resource for you to help navigate these challenges in our workplace cultures and create thriving cultures that have a ripple effect that impact us all in positive ways. We'd love for you to join our community of HR professionals, executive directors and managers that are wanting to create and grow more empowered workplaces and organizations, and you can get free tips and resources and opportunities to attend free virtual gatherings where you can engage with industry leaders and innovators, exchange ideas and strategies and best practices. Just go to transformingcultureconsultantscom. We're also available to provide you with a free virtual consultation to explore any challenges or opportunities in your workplace culture. You can apply for that at 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. Thank you for being a part of this vision.
