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THEBULLY-FREEWORKPLACE

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THEBULLY-FREEWORKPLACE

STOP J E R K S ,W E A S E L S , a n d S N A K E S

F R OM K I L L I N GY O U R O R G AN I Z A T I O N

G A R Y N AM I ER U T H F . N AM I E

JohnWiley & Sons, Inc.

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Copyright# 2011 Gary Namie, PhD, and Ruth F. Namie, PhD. All rights reserved.

Published by JohnWiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in anyform or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise,except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, withouteither the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of theappropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers,MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requeststo the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley& Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, oronline at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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ISBN 978-0-470-94220-8 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-06724-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-06728-4(ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-06729-1 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

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To Ike, beloved by all

‘‘Bullies cannot exist unless the Employer tacitly permits or encouragesbullying behavior.’’

—Bernice L. Fields

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Contents

Foreword by Robert I. Sutton, PhD ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Preface xv

1 Bullies and Bullying 1

2 Workplace Bullying Defined 11

3 Impact on Targeted Employees 21

4 How Bullying Kills Good OrganizationsLike Yours 29

5 An Illustrative Case 37

6 Why Bullies Bully 51

7 Social Influence: How Others DefineOur World for Us 61

8 AModel of Preventable Causes of Bullying 67

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9 Mobilize Your Organization:Leaders’ Preparations 75

10 Mobilize Your Organization: Managers’ andSupervisors’ Preparation 99

11 Preliminary Steps to Address WorkplaceBullying 115

12 A New Role for Human Resources 125

13 The Namie Blueprint to Preventand Correct Workplace Bullying 131

14 Sustain the Bully-Free Culture 153

Appendix A: Macro-Bullying Trends ThatMake Workers Dispensable 161

Appendix B: The Namie & Namie Bibliography 169

Appendix C: Bullying Is Domestic Violence when theAbuser Is on Payroll 173

Notes 177

About the Authors 181

Index 183

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Foreword

Gary and Ruth Namie are heroes. No one has worked harder,longer, and more successfully to stem the tide of workplace bul-lying in the United States and beyond. They started with a moregeneral approach with The Work Doctor1, but narrowed theirfocus some 15 years ago to become the world’s leading crusad-ers against the ‘‘jerks, weasels, and snakes’’ who infect our orga-nizations—and for too many of us—the teams and workgroupsthat we find ourselves in at this very moment. This book, TheBully-Free Workplace, brings together their wisdom, passion,dedication to hard facts, and relentless attention to practicalsolutions.

Many crusaders become so wrapped up in their goals thatthey lose the ability to make fact-based decisions and to givevalid advice. The Bully-Free Workplace does a splendid job ofavoiding this problem, bringing the most rigorous evidenceavailable to the table. One of the most difficult problems associ-ated with studying workplace abuse and related topics is thatthere are so little valid data about prevalence and patterns. Weall should be skeptical of web-based surveys that are answeredby biased samples, which often reflect a dedication to somepolitical motive rather than to discovering the truth. By far,the most useful and rigorous surveys on bullying have beenconducted by the Namies’ Workplace Bullying Institute inconjunction with Zogby, a respected survey research firm.

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The results of this research are important in many ways, show-ing, for example, the huge amount of money that workplacebullying costs organizations and the diverse ways in whichsuch abuse damages victims’ emotional, physical, and financialwell-being.

In particular, these studies provide strong evidence to jus-tify the Namies’ focus on organizations and people in positionsof power as root causes of workplace bullying. Yes, the Namiesshow how personality and upbringing can play a role in creatingpeople who are prone to bullying their peers and followers. Yes,they provide detailed and useful advice about how victims canfight against their tormentors. But I believe that the most im-portant and impressive contribution of this useful and compel-ling book is that it demonstrates that when workplace bullyinghappens, the organizations where it happens (and the peoplewho have leadership and managerial positions in them) are theprimary culprits and even more important, the primary point ofintervention for creating bully-free workplaces.

Perhaps the single most important takeaway for me was, asthe Namies’ advise in Chapter 5, that leaders and organizationsought to start by drawing a firm line in the sand. Drawing a linein the sand, as the Namies show us, is so important because evensmall incidents of bullying—those little glares and insults, forexample—are dangerous signs that more vile and damagingbehavior exists or will be tolerated. Once the decision has beenmade to draw a line in the sand—to me the single most impor-tant decision—then both the motivation and logic for building abully-free workplace start falling into place. Then the range ofpowerful methods that are proposed and explained here can beapplied to each context.

In particular, I urge every boss to study the Namies’ list inChapter 5 of a dozen ways to intervene when bullying incidentshappen. Unfortunately, this list runs counter to what happens inmost organizations that I know, and if just this set of practices

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alone were used widely, enormous progress would be madetoward building workplaces where jerks, weasels, snakes, and ty-rants either change their ways or run for the exits. Consider theNamies’ vehement advice: ‘‘Do not attempt to put the bully andtarget across the table from one another to find common ground(mediation) unless the bullying has caused no severe conse-quences for the target.’’ Yet, time after time, bosses and victimstell me horror stories about the results of forcing victims andtheir tormentors to ‘‘work it out together’’ even though the vic-tim is terrified of the bully and—especially in the case of smart,powerful, and deluded bullies—such conversations provoke around of revenge that makes the victim suffer even more.

This is just one small example; The Bully-Free Workplace ischock full of other equally useful tips. I especially like how theNamies take considerable pains to show how people in positionsof power often do things that unwittingly make it safe for bulliesto do their dirty work or, worse yet, are bullies themselves (butare unable or unwilling to admit it to themselves). As I’ve writ-ten elsewhere, especially when people are in power and workunder severe pressure, the chances that they will act like assholesand treat people with less power like dirt are quite high. TheNamies provide remarkably helpful action steps—developedthrough their years of practical experience—to help workplacebullies, and those who enable these jerks to do their dirty work,to reverse their vile and destructive ways. I was especiallypleased to read that ‘‘We’ve been tough on executives with ourcandor that they need to stop coddling friends who are bullies.We even invited them to gauge whether or not they arethe problem themselves.’’ The next step is for people in powerto be as tough on themselves as the Namies are on them!

Finally, not only is the Namies’ book well crafted and use-ful but, as I read it, I realized how much progress this duo hasmade in the last 15 years (many others have helped, but they’vebeen the most persistent, at least in the United States). They

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have brought workplace bullying center stage through theirwritings, proposed legislation, media appearances, expertwitnessing, rigorous research, and via so many other ways. As aresult, there is now more hope for the victims of bullying thanwhen the authors first started on this crusade. Cynics sometimessuggest to me that it is a waste of time to write and talk aboutworkplace assholes because no matter what anyone does, thesejerks will always be with us. The Namies’ accomplishmentsought to give even the most pessimistic of these cynics cause foroptimism. It’s a lot harder to get away with being a bully than itused to be. Organizations and their leaders worry about it morethan ever before. Victims don’t feel alone any longer, and thereis an increasingly long and effective list of ways victims can fightback against their tormentors. More than anyone else, we haveGary and Ruth Namie to thank for these improvements. Andwe have every reason to believe that our workplaces will con-tinue to become more humane as the Namies persist in theircrusade and inspire everyone from executives to workers tounion leaders to lawmakers to join them on this quest.

—Robert I. Sutton, Stanford Professorand author of The No Asshole Rule

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Acknowledgments

Suffolk University Law Professor David Yamada deserves spe-cial mention as a partner in the movement for over a decade.His legal treatise in 2000 introduced workplace bullying to thelegal lexicon. He is the author of the Healthy Workplace Bill(HWB). David has worked tirelessly in Massachusetts as educa-tor, advocate, and founder of the NewWorkplace Institute.

Because our work is evidence-driven and research-based, weare indebted to several researchers. Their work is cited throughoutthe text and in the Notes section. We express thanks to a specialfew whose work, more than others, informs ours—Peter Schnall,Stale Einarsen, Loraleigh Keashly, Helge Hoel, and CharlotteRayner.

The legislative campaign is accomplished by a network ofvolunteer State Coordinators who are the boots on the ground.Every legislative season, they are more successful as amazingcitizen lobbyists. When an antibullying law for the workplace iseventually enacted, they deserve the credit. There would be nonationwide campaign without them, and we are grateful.

Our work in organizations is made possible by the countlessinternal champions who fought uphill battles to bring us intotheir workplaces. The Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention,Cindy Waitt, director, funded the nation’s first Workplace

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Bullying in Schools intervention, proving that adults in schoolsdeserve to work in a bullying-free environment, too.

At WBI, we have accomplished small miracles with thehelp of a too-low-paid staff in recent years—Jessi Brown, DavePhillips, Noelle Stransky, Carly Morris, and Noel Newell. Theyaccepted jobs but actually serve at the front lines of the nationalmovement. Helping us help organizations implement the WorkDoctor1 Blueprint program is our team of consultants—Dr. Matt Spencer, Sean Lunsford, Carrie Clark, and BettyWierda.

This book was a dormant project on a long-postponed ‘‘todo list.’’ Wiley editor Lauren Murphy recognized the appropri-ateness of the timing and prodded us into action. She and editorsChristine Moore and Deborah Schindlar have made the bookunderstandable. Renee Maine and Jessi Brown also generouslyoffered editing help.

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Preface

Ever since Ruth’s experience as a mental health provider in apsychiatry clinic, where she was ravaged by a female supervi-

sor, our lives have been immersed in others’ misery. Everyone wehave met in the past 14 years since launching the U.S. workplacebullying movement has been touched in some way by bullying.They seem to find us everywhere we go. And although it’s cer-tainly been fraught with difficult moments, it’s been incrediblyuplifting as well.

We’ve helped the media tell more than 900 heartfelt storiesabout the plight of individuals bullied at work. We started ourwork in mid-1997 and hosted a toll-free help line. We heard thestories that flooded our phones in excruciatingly painful detail,one hour at a time. We stopped counting at 6,000 tales. Themovement was necessarily framed through the lens of theabused worker. The research done by those of us at the Work-place Bullying Institute (WBI) and our academic colleagues hasfocused on targets’ experiences, because they are the ones read-ily available for study. Bullied individuals, however, cannotchange their employer’s practices from the bottom up. It takesleaders within organizations to do that.

We both had had stints as corporate directors in human re-sources departments in the hospitality and health care industries,

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which helped to complement our clinical and management pro-fessorship roles, respectively. For more than 25 years, we havecrafted all kinds of consulting solutions for businesses such asThe Work Doctor1. We moved to an exclusive focus on work-place bullying solutions as described in this book when our liveswere irreversibly detoured by bullying.

Increased awareness and a future legal mandate have con-vinced today’s employers to finally take action against this timeless,ever-present problem. In 1998, few organizations acknowledgedthat bullying even existed, let alone took steps to stop it. However,the market is catching up. With the exception of employers in theprovinces of Quebec, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Manitoba,North American employers do not face legal repercussions whenthey choose to ignore internal reports of bullying. Empirical find-ings from the WBI national surveys propelled the dialogue aboutbullying, and denial began to fade. The Healthy WorkplaceCampaign, which we launched in 2002, has led 18 states to intro-duce some version of our antibullying legislation. After the senatechambers in both New York and Illinois passed the bill in 2010—only halfway to passage—employer interest in voluntarily control-ling bullying rose significantly. We believe that employers arefinally ready for this book.

A feature of the best laws, specifically, our Healthy Work-place Bill (HWB), is that the threat of litigation provides theleverage that convinces employers to take voluntary action. TheHWB exempts good organizations from liability for the harmcaused by abusive employees when those employers developand establish policy and enforcement procedures as described inthis book. So, this book provides the path to compliance withthe future law.

Millions of workers who currently suffer at the hands of anabusive boss or coworker will get the relief they deserve whenemployers understand that it is in their best interests to stop

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bullying. Only employers can affect the masses—and theyshouldn’t wait until there is a legal incentive to do so.

Right now, an antibullying advocate in hiding lurks insideevery organization. Given the fact that you have purchased thisbook, chances are that you are that lone person in the organiza-tion who has been eager to tackle this issue. You are likely sick-ened by what you have witnessed. Maybe it has happened to you,and you escaped to safety; or perhaps you were told to identifysolutions by a higher-up who cares. In either case, we wrote thisbook for you, the internal champion. Be aware that you havemuch alliance building to do before executives willingly endorse aprogram to stop bullying. We’ve included a section on mobilizingyour organization to focus on the support-building phase of theproject. That’s the preamble, or the warm-up. Details on exactlywhat needs to be done—the explicit ‘‘how-to’’ instructions—canbe found in the Blueprint.

We love champions. People like you seek our guidance everyday. So, we know that we must warn all antibullying advocates:there will be enemies within your organization. They will expendunlimited time and energy to undermine your admirable workand will attempt to defend the abusers’ ‘‘right’’ to abuse. Althoughbullying is a totally irrational and indefensible process, bullyingapologists defend their friends with no regard for what is good forthe enterprise or public agency. Furthermore, they seem not tocare about the detrimental effect on the targeted employee’shealth. Do not be surprised at how heartless they can be.

Advocates like you are on a moral mission, and unfortunately,capitalism has no morals. Some believe that the modern corpora-tion acts very much like psychopathic individuals. This phenome-non is the conflict that maintains bullying as a routine way ofdoing business. That is why the forces against you are united andstrong; they have the status quo on their side. So gather allies; donot be the lone advocate. Make sure you have a high-ranking

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friend who is disconnected from the worst bullies. That person—the authentic leader—is the one who can convince others to takeaction to stop bullying. That leader can take credit for sustainingthe organization for the long run.

This book cannot prevent your career assassination. Never-theless, it is your guide to finding the right leaders for the initiativeto purge the jerks, weasels, and snakes from your organization.Welcome to the movement—the employer-based version. Getstarted today. The task ahead is enormous.

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1Bullies and Bullying

Work is, by its very nature, about violence to the spirit as well asthe body. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations.To survive the day is triumph enough for the walking woundedamong the great many of us.

—Studs Terkel

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