Job One: Banish Bad Apples

I’m delighted to announce that my new book, Bullies Among Us. What To Do When Work’s No Fun, is now available at Amazon Online and Barnes & Noble bookstores!

Here’s what one reader says:

” Jean McFarland’s Bullies Among Us needs to be put ahead of pivotal business books like Winning and Built to Last -– for the simple reason that winning cultures and sustainable growth cannot be fostered without first addressing bullying. Put another way, identifying and throwing out the Bad Apples is job one.”--Tricia Hamrin, UpFront Productions

Bullies, the worst of the Bad Apples, abound in workplaces all around the world. Look around you. Two out of every five Americans have experienced bullying at work. As though bullies don’t cause enough devastation through tormenting their targets, they also cost businesses billions of dollars each year in obvious and hidden costs.

Bullies Among Us tells you as a manager or as a target how to deal with the bullies in your workplace: Job One!

Bullies and Nice Don’t Mix

Now, be nice! After all, you don’t want to burn any bridges behind you!

How many times in childhood did you hear the statement, “Now, be nice”? As an adult, how many times have you heard or thought, “Don’t burn your bridges behind you” —another way of saying, “Be Nice”?

Generally, when people are nice, they are treated nicely in return, but that’s not the case when you are the target of a bully. In my personal and professional experience, behaving nicely, pleasantly, or kindly to your bully simply elicits more bullying behavior directly aimed at you, the target. Bullies can view your pleasantries and niceness as yet another way that you surpass or threaten them, or they may see your behavior as a weakness. Regardless, your behavior fuels their desire to be rid of you.

Remember, bullies and psychopaths rarely think and respond as their targets would. More likely than not, reasoning won’t work and niceness will aggravate the situation.

Higher Education Bullies. When will people learn?

Last week, I had a very meaningful conversation with a woman who, as the first female president of a 100-year-old state college, battled against two bullies for more than three years before she felt compelled to resign due to their complete undermining of her position and career. At the same time, despite attacks on all fronts, this amazing woman racked up numerous successes in developing, advancing, and promoting the college.

From the time Dr. Uma Gupta assumed the position of President of the college until her resignation, she was systematically bullied by the Vice President of Administrative Affairs and the Vice President for Academic Affairs in a detailed, joint plot to remove Dr. Gupta and make the VP of Academic Affairs interim president.

The two VP bullies lied to Dr. Gupta and lied about her, not only among administration and faculty, but also to students, campus-wide. They phoned her house during the night, and hung up without speaking. They pulled their cars in and out of her driveway in the middle of the night. They stalked her when she was on personal errands and shopping. They began sending emails via her college ID code. In a word, the bullies were relentless, but Dr. Gupta managed to deal with it until they launched an anonymous, mean-spirited blog, available to the entire campus and the world.

“At that point,” said Dr. Gupta, “it became so big, there was no way you could get your arms around it.” Despite the evidence against the VP bullies, for the sake of her family, the college, and herself, it was time to resign.

Today Dr. Gupta is a successful entrepreneur with particular focus on India. Her consulting company, Global Cube It, (http://www.GlobalCubeIt.com) brings insight and expertise to three practice areas: global business development; internationalization of universities; and educational, spiritual, and service-oriented tours.

For Dr. Gupta’s official account of her experience as the target of malicious workplace bullies, visit http://umaguptatheofficialstory.typepad.com/officialstory/tipoff.html.

Small Town, Big Bullies

Rosalea Hostetler contacted me a few weeks ago and began to tell me her story, but stopped in frustration, saying it was too much to talk about, to relive in a few communications. Now, she is writing her story of working endlessly to preserve the history and culture of her home county in Kansas.

The following is excerpted from an article by Rosalea Hostetler, (Harper, KS, USA) titled Bullying on the Prairie.

"You know how you sometimes have an “eureka” moment in life, when you “finally get it”? Recently I had that moment when it finally sunk in that the reason my journey for the past 40 years has been so hard in Harper County Kansas has been the incessant bullying. It took me my entire life to finally truly understand that I had been a target and of the brutal impact Harper County bullies have had on my life, my health and on the 501(c) (3) nonprofit I established to preserve the history, art & culture of the prairies for future generations. Tragically, this abuse of power has also nearly obliterated our small town. It is not Wal-Mart -- rather, it is the abuses bestowed by bullies in “leadership” on the good people, the talented people who do not have the energy or knowledge to fight such rotten apples."

"Because I have stood up to the bullies, told the truth and stayed the course, I have lost virtually everything once important in my life: my Mennonite church, my family ties, two husbands (also bullies) and school chum friendships. For years I was taunted as “the problem.” (I cried a lot in those days.) I’ve lost so much in my life that there is nothing left to lose so now I am ready to speak up wherever I can to tell the world about the horrors of small town bullies with the hopes of bringing Hope to our small prairie towns."

For more from Rosalea on this topic, visit her new blog: http://overcomebullying.org/bullying-on-the-prairies.html.

Bullies Among Us

This is the first announcement of my new book, which is scheduled to be published next month. It is titled—but what else?—Bullies Among Us. What to Do When Work’s No Fun and is a resource for targets of bullies and for managers of bullies and targets.

Among other places, it will be available in the bookstore of the Human Resources-Southwest Regional Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, when I co-present with Bonnie Mattick, www.bonniemattick.com, on workplace behaviors as related to employee engagement.

I am most grateful to Bob Kelly of www.WordCrafters.info and Vickie Mullins, www.mullinscreative.com, for their help and guidance in producing this book.

International Workplace Bullying Conference

The Sixth International Workplace Bullying Conference came to North America for the first time when convened in Montreal, June 2008. During the Conference, the Founding Board formed a new organization, The International Association on Bullying and Harassment in the Workplace.

Founding Board members stem from
• The National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Denmark
• University of Quebec, Montreal
• Centre for Research on Workplace Behaviour, Wales
• University of Bergen, Norway
• Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki
• Portsmouth Business School, UK

The origins of the Board members testifies to the fact that Workplace Bullying is and has been taken very seriously in European countries, more so than in the United States. Yet, the problem is rampant here as well.

Cultural characteristics account for some of the difference in outlook and approach to workplace bullying. For example, overall, United States culture is more individualistic than that of any of the countries mentioned above. That people should take care of their own problems is common thinking. Also, Canada, Finland, Denmark, and Norway have been characterized by research as Feminine cultures, that is, more concerned about people and relationships than are Masculine cultures, such as the U.S., which focus on achievement above relationships.

However, the United States was represented at the Conference by Pamela Lutgen-Sandvik, Ph.D., University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, who was voted to the Inaugural Board of Directors of the new International Association. Dr. Lutgen-Sandvik has conducted in-depth research on workplace bullying.

The anti-bullying movement is gaining strength in the U.S. Thirteen states have introduced anti-bullying bills, some repeatedly. None have passed—yet. As was the case with legislation against sexual harassment, it’s only a matter of time.

Meanwhile, helping targets of bullies to take self-defensive action is key to their survival.

Political Parties Differ in Response to Bullying Question

In this year of the presidential election, it is interesting to note the difference among members of the three political parties in terms of workplace bullying. When asked who had NEVER seen or experienced bullying, 57% of Republicans responded, 43% of Independents, and 39% of Democrats. Would knowing these differences affect your choice of presidential candidate?

Source: Workplace Bullying Institute and Zogby Interntional’s U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey, 2007. www.BullyingInstitute.org.