Contact:

The publicist for The Bully At Work at
Sourcebooks, Inc.
Naperville, IL

Phone: 1-800-432-7444, x334

The repeated, heath-harming mistreatment of a one or more people (targets) by one or more perpetrators that characterized by: (1) verbal abuse, or (2) threatening, intimidating or humiliating conduct, or (3) work interference -- sabotage -- that prevents work from getting done, some combination of the three categories of misconduct. (This is codified in the Healthy Workplace Bill.]

It is driven by the bully's need to control the Target. It is illegitimate because it defeats, rather than serves, a meaningful business purpose. Psychological violence not only affects the health and career of targeted individuals, but paralyzes the workplace with fear, eventually escalating into an organization in crisis.

Source: Workplace Bullying Institute

Screaming Mimi: Fist-pounding, vein-bulging maniac who thrives on public displays of rage. Intended to instill fear in not only the targeted person but all witnesses so they are too afraid to act against the tyrant. Poster boy -- Bobby Knight. The stereotypical bully, but statistically rare.
Two-Headed Snake: Smarmy, Jekyll and Hyde, backstabber, duplicitous liar. To your face, she "luvs ya," but she is destroying your reputation to everyone else. Even if you transfer, Snakes poison your reputation. Difficult to catch. They may be your lunch buddy. The most common type.
Constant Critic Nitpicker, Liar. Prefers to do her damage behind closed doors one on one, for future deniability in the form of she said/she said. The Critic chips away at your confidence in your own competence, despite years of demonstrated excellence. After the average 16 months exposure to this type of bully, normal people become neurotic and self-blaming.
Gatekeeper This type of bully finds out what you require to do your job, then sees to it that you are denied. If you need time, you get an unreasonable deadline; need money to complete the project? the budget was just cut; need the skills of others on the team? they are somehow assigned to do other work. This bully controls by withholding.
Skilled bullies adopt one or more of these "styles" to fit the situation. Regardless of tactics -- ALL BULLYING IS DRIVEN BY THE BULLY'S NEED TO CONTROL SOMEONE ELSE!

Source: The Bully At Work by Gary and Ruth Namie (Sourcebooks, 2003)

Return to top

FACTOR 1. Employer designs work using zero-sum, cutthroat competition principles that creates OPPORTUNITIES to harm
Employees are pitted against each other in positions or tasks that allow only one winner to emerge from deliberate battles, creating many losers. Zero-sum is the winner wins at the expense of the losers; victory is carved out of the hides of the vanquished.

FACTOR 2. People willing to exploit others work there, the MACHIAVELLIANS
A small percentage of manipulators see the Opportunities and are willing to harm others. They are Machiavellian, not necessarily disturbed or psychopathic (see the description under Bully Personalities). When rewards are re-engineered, all bullies except the truly incorrigible will stop because the effort will bring the same payoff.

FACTOR 3. Employer REWARDS BULLYING
If positive consequences follow bullying, the bullies are emboldened. Promotions and rewards are positive. But it is also positive if they are not punished. Bullies who bully others with impunity become convinced they can get away with it forever. They will continue until stopped.
Employers can alter the work environment by changing how jobs are designed and how bullying is treated when exposed. The solution to bullying (as captured in Work Doctor's Blueprint for a Bullying-Free Workplace) emphasizes factors that are in employers' control, rather than people.

- Cardiovascular problems: hypertension to strokes, heart attacks
- Adverse Neurological changes: neurotransmitter disruption, hippocampus shrinkage
- Immunilogical impairment: more frequent infections of greater severity
- Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

- Debilitating Anxiety, Panic Attacks (>80%)
- Clinical Depression: new to person or exacerbated condition previously controlled (39%)
- Post-traumatic Stress (PTSD) from deliberate human-inflicted abuse (30% of targeted women; 21% of men)

- Lost ability to be left alone to do the once-"loved job"
- Forced to transfer from loved job, often a punitive transfer (13%)
- Constructively discharged without reasonable cause (24%)
- Target quits to reverse decline in health and sanity (40%)

Return to top

- Turnover -- staff coverage, recruitment, interviewing, time-to-proficiency delays
- Absenteeism/Lost Productivity -- includes resentment by present workers
- Increased health care utilization -- by targets seeking help before loss of insurance
- Workers comp claims -- stress claims in the few states that still permit it
- Disability insurance claims -- short- and long-term

- Risk of employee sabotage and undermining
- Violence risk escalation
- Tarnished reputation as NOT an Employer of Choice or a Good Place to Work

1. Name it! Legitimize Yourself!

Choose a name -- bullying, psychological harassment, psychological violence, emotional abuse -- to offset the effect of being told that because your problem is not illegal (yet), you have no problems. This makes people like you feel illegitimate and the cycle of self-blame and anxiety begins.

The source of the problem is external. The bully decides how to target and how, when and where to harm people. You did not invite, nor want, the systematic campaign of psychological assaults and interference with your work.

The journey toward healing begins with naming.

2. Seek Respite, Take Time Off Accomplish five (5) important tasks while on sick leave or short-term disability (granted by your physician).

a. Check your mental health with a professional (not the employer's EAP). Get emotionally stable enough to make a clear-headed decision to stay and fight or to leave for your health's sake. Your humanity makes you vulnerable; it is not a weakness but a sign of superiority. Work Trauma, by definition, is overwhelming, an extraordinary experience.

b. Check your physical health. Stress-related diseases rarely carry warning signals (e.g., hypertension). Read the current research on work stress and heart disease.

c. Research state and federal legal options (in a quarter of bullying cases, discrimination plays a role). Talk to an attorney. Maybe a demand letter can be written. Look for internal policies (harassment, violence, respect) for violations to report (fully expecting retaliation).

d. Gather data about the economic impact the bully has had on the employer. Discover turnover rates. Calculate the costs of replacement (recruitment, demoralization from understaffing, interviewing, lost time while newbie learns job), absenteeism, lost productivity from interference by bully.

e. Start job search for next position.

3. Expose the Bully The real risk was sustained when you were first targeted (you have a 7 in 10 chance of losing your job, involuntarily or by choice for your health's sake). It is no riskier to attempt to dislodge the bully. Retaliation can be expected, but what's new. Good employers purge bullies, most promote them.

a. Make the business case that the bully is "too expensive to keep." Present the data gathered (in step 2) to let the highest level person (not HR) you can reach know about the bully's impact on the organization. Obviously in family-owned, or small, businesses, this is impossible (so leave once targeted). b. Stick to the bottom line. If you drift into tales about the emotional impact of the bully's harassment, you will be discounted and discredited.

c. Give the employer one chance. If they side with the bully because of personal friendship ("he's a great conversationalist and a lunch buddy") or rationalize the mistreatment ("you have to understand that that is just how she is"), you will have to leave the job for your health's sake. However, some employers are looking for reasons to purge their very difficult bully. You are the internal consultant with the necessary information. Help good employers purge.

d. The nature of your departure --either bringing sunshine to the dark side or leaving in shrouded in silent shame--determines how long it takes you to rebound and get that next job, to function fully and to restore compromised health. Tell everyone about the petty tyrant for your health's sake. You have nothing to be ashamed about. You were only doing the job you once loved.

Source: The Bully At Work by Gary and Ruth Namie (Sourcebooks, 2003)

Contrast our approach with traditional models.

Things NOT to do after you discovered that you were bullied.

- Do not trust HR -- they work for management and are management. Simple facts.
- Do not ask for relief from the bully's boss. That is the person who loves her or him most. (And if there is no love there, there is fear. The boss fears the bully and cannot stop him or her.)
- Do not tell your story from a purely emotional injury angle. It scares away potential supporters.
- Do not share your voluminous documentation with anyone at work. No one cares as much as you do. In the wrong hands, it can be used against you.
- Do not ask others (HR, union reps, management) to make the bully stop for your sake. They will disappoint you. Rather, you will make the business case and ask them to stop bullying for their own self-interests.
- Do not pay a retainer to an attorney until you've exhausted cheaper alternatives to get your employer to take your complaint seriously.
- Do not confide in anyone at work unless they have demonstrated (and not just talked about) loyalty to you in the past.

Return to top

1. Stand by a bullied co-worker immediately after an attack. Go up to her or him immediately after a closed-door session that leaves the person obviously beaten.

2. Refuse to betray their friend when the bully boss tells them to. This is the "divide and conquer" game. Siding with the bully brings short-term immunity but at what ethical cost? How can you have integrity and stand by watching a fellow human being being mistreated?

3. Sit in on meetings with the bullying manager as a witness, a representative. The option to have a representative was provided by the National Labor Relations Board in 2000. It applies to non-union and union employees. Witnesses can temper the most outrageous bullies who are careful to not show their tactics in public for fear of exposure. Witnessing is a deterrent to some cruelty instigated by some bullies.

4. Provide testimony at hearings, arbitrations and mediation sessions. This can be as simple as a written statement or in-person testimony. Of course, this carries the risk of retaliation by the bully. But if the workplace is that fear-laden, the outcome you fear most is no worse than your current reality. Ethical, courageous behavior will liberate your soul. If it liberates you of a paycheck, too, then that employer never deserved to have you produce for it.

5. Gather the group when a co-worker is being bullied (even if behind closed doors) and invoke what operating room nurses call 'Code Pink.' Circle the bully as a unified group. Tell her or him to stop; make it clear that the outrageous tactics are unacceptable and unprofessional. Threaten to stop all productive work if the bully does not stop with that targeted person or attempts to attack anyone else in the group (good for government). If you are all employees with skills hard to replace, threaten to quit together and to tell the CEO why (great in hi tech). All groups can threaten to tell management at least 2 levels above the bully. Essentially Code Pink shames the shaming bully. Most, if not all, back down when challenged or exposed.

Sources: The Bully At Work by Gary and Ruth Namie (Sourcebooks, 2003)

- Targets underreport it (2007 Zogby results show that 40% of targets never tell). Employers simply may not know about it.

- Most (80%) bullying is legal, rendering laws and law-compliant policies inapplicable

- Thus, 62% of employers either do nothing or worsen the situation (retaliation) because they can do so with legal impunity.

- The majority of bullies (72%) are managers; senior managers and HR reflexively side with management when disputes arise.

- Bullies derive 73% of their support executives, peer managers and HR

- Bullies (an unknown percentage) are following orders from above

- Executives have been bullied by the bullies. They 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, individualistic, and competitive. Hostility is more normative than the exception. A nation de-sensitized to torture is not likely to grow upset over stress-related health problems caused by workplace bullies (some would consider organizational terrorists)

Return to top

1. Immediately separate the perpetrator from the target. The Target should not have her economic livelihood cut off as a consequence of seeking help. If the business is too small to transfer a person, then put the Target on paid administrative leave until resolved.

2. Confront the aggressor with consequences for committing psychological violence. Cite the workplace violence policy will little to zero tolerance. Bullying is a form of violence, not an easily discounted "personality conflict." The employer created the opportunity for the bully to attack. So, the employer is responsible for solving the problem.

3. Fact finding is difficult because witnesses will not talk for fear of retaliation. Invent a method that guarantees safety for witnesses. Bullies are repeat offenders. The pattern of abuse is evident to all HR departments. There is some guilt implied because of this pattern. Take into account the perpetrator's record. Incidents are not unique and isolated. Risk management has data about litigation or settlement costs associated with repeat offenders.

4. Treat seriously stress claims and reports of psychological injury. They are as counterproductive as physical injuries and last longer. Stop blaming victims. Learn about Work Trauma and how it destroys a person's life. Bullying is a safety and health issue.

5. Do not compel the injured target to participate in a dispute resolution process in which she or he faces directly the perpetrator. Think how unconscionable it would be to ask a battered wife to compromise herself further in negotiations with her abusive spouse. Interest-based conflict resolution models suggest that the needs of each side must be met. Why should the needs of the hyper-controlling, aggressive bully be met in a mediation process? The bully has had her way during the years the abusive relationship was allowed to run uninterrupted by management.

6. Purge, don't promote, the bully. It will send a positive message. And most everyone has been waiting for management to do the right thing. Fire her or him, even if a relative or one you hired for their "aggressive, turnaround, results-oriented" style of management. The loose cannon crossed the line that the employer can no longer afford.

Source: Dr. Gary Namie, Principal Consultant, The Work Doctor®, workdoctor.com

1. Create an explicit anti-bullying policy that forbids all forms of harassment and destructive interpersonal conduct regardless of the legally protected status of victims. Make a stand against psychological violence. Extend civil rights protections and safety assurances.

2. Develop a credible and fair (to employees) enforcement mechanism that promises to be free from interference from senior management. Progressive discipline is warranted for violators. But guilty violators must be punished. The first "trial" will be watched by employees to test its fairness and credibility. If the complaint system turns into politics and favoritism as usual, the policy is rendered useless. Reverse the upside down world of rewarding aggressors and expelling the more competent targets.

3. Educate all employees to recognize bullying and its impact on recipients, the targets, regardless of its source--management, peers or those of lower rank. Relate humane treatment of employees to the organization's Values and Mission.

4. Re-educate managers that destructive misconduct is not a component of acceptable management practice. Encourage fellow managers who witness bullying to report peers known to abuse power. Redefine the role of HR and other complaint takers to be advocates for complainants. Engage HR in a new role of ensuring employee safety and dignity.

5. Recruit employees on the basis of being a 'bully-free' workplace. Work hard to sustain that reputation.

This plan becomes the components of the system:
The Blueprint for a Bully-Free Workplace program

Source: Dr. Gary Namie, Principal Consultant, Work Doctor® Inc., workdoctor.com

• Strong Business Lobbyists (led by state Chambers of Commerce) are organized, effective oppponents of workers' rights.

- they contribute to candidates election campaigns (which we do not) that buys credibility
- they blackmail states by threatening to move companies and jobs to another state if lawmakers dare to regulate or hold accountable employers with unsafe business practices
- they falsely brand the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill (HWB) a "Job Killer"
- they define all workers' complaints as potentially "frivolous" lawsuits
- they claim that current laws are adequate, that "hostile work environment" is actionable by everyone (it is not)
- they misrepresent the bill by claiming that the HWB will mandate compliance (it specifically does not)
- they used to claim that bullying did not exist; now they admit it happens but implore lawmakers to allow employers to deal with it voluntarily, just be patient, more time is needed ...

• Weakened Unions deprive lawmakers from hearing the workers' perspective

- unions are too busy struggling to survive (only 7.5% of non-govt workers are unionized); the quality of worklife issue like bullying is easy to ignore
- unions are ambivalent; member-on-member bullying paralyzes unions

• Widespread Misunderstandings about the Phenomenon

- confusion of serious, health-harming abusive conduct (in the HWB) with incivility, rudeness, awkward glances, an inadvertent slighting of one person by another, small stuff which is not bullying
- erroneous belief that bullying cannot be defined precisely

• Occupational Health/Epidemiological Research Findings Undervalued

- the well-established scientific literature buried in obscure academic journals remains inaccessible to politicians who respond to crises and societal issues that dominate headlines, little else
- most of the studies originate in Europe; state lawmakers tend to be Euro-phobes, or at least to discount findings from other countries
- the necessary conservatism of scientists (refusal to draw causal conclusions in non-experimental studies such as surveys based on self-report data) is mis-portrayed and exploited as equivocation by political opponents

• Political Partisanship

- though bullying ignores membership in political parties when it finds its targets, pro-worker protections are rarely supported by Republican lawmakers (though we have had Repubican prime sponsors for the HWB)
- workers' rights, women's rights, and human rights have been defined as "liberal" issues, a label tainted from 30 years of right-wing, reactionary mudslinging
- to date, committee votes on the HWB follow strictly partisan lines

Return to top