As the meeting continued, and her task list grew, Ellie got anxious. Making any changes so close to the demonstration was risky at best. But the number and complexity of these changes meant that she would be working long hours under pressure. So she spoke up. "I'm getting a little worried," she began. "This is a lot of work, and it has to be done right or we could be in trouble."
Warner didn't miss a beat. "We'll be in bigger trouble if it doesn't get done."
Threatening was one of Warner's favorite tactics, and Ellie had had enough. So she called him on it. "Oh? What kind of trouble?"
Warner escalated. "Do you like having a job?"
Ellie and Warner were now officially in a tangle — one of the many serious consequences of using threats as a tool of influence. Their relationship had been in tatters for a while, in part because of Warner's persistent use of threats.
People use threats
because threats seem to
be extremely cheapPeople use threats because threats seem to be extremely cheap, if they work. Threats can achieve quick results for very little effort. All you have to do is deliver the threat. But the real costs are high, and they're often invisible to those who threaten.
- Eroded credibility
- To maintain the credibility of the threat tactic, occasional demonstrations are necessary. But since the goal of most threateners is influence or compliance, and since the threatened typically do comply, opportunities to carry out personal threats are rare. Over time, the threatener's credibility inevitably erodes.
- Damaged relationships
- Threats erode our sense of safety. They reduce our willingness to disclose anything that might add to our sense of fear. These conditions lead to distrust and speculation, and they make healthy relationships difficult.
- Feelings of resentment
- When threats are personal, as Ellie experienced with Warren, they can lead to resentment and an I'll-show-them attitude. For instance, the threatened might engage in conspiracies of silence or even of action. Those less comfortable with overtly destructive acts might choose passively destructive acts, such as withholding information about problems for which they aren't directly responsible.
- Decline in motivation and creativity
- People who feel threatened might begin to husband their output, reserving it for use when they need to respond to the next threat. Certainly the atmosphere on the job becomes unpleasant, and the thrills become hard to find. The threatened often adopt a get-through-the-day attitude.
If you're subjected to threats at work, and you notice the effects on your level of joy, do what you can to lift yourself above it. Recognize the emptiness of the threatener's toolkit, and resolve to find a different way to influence people yourself.
If you use threats now and then, I hope you'll look for alternatives. Or else. Top Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
One form of threat people feel comfortable using is the indirect threat. The comfort comes from the ambiguity of the threat; if "caught," the threatener can claim, "Oh, I didn't mean that." Despite the indirectness, the threat is still destructive. For more on indirectness, see "The True Costs of Indirectness," Point Lookout for November 29, 2006.
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Bullying:
- What Is Workplace Bullying?
- We're gradually becoming aware that workplace bullying is a significant deviant pattern in workplace
relationships. To deal effectively with it, we must know how to recognize it. Here's a start.
- Workplace Bullying and Workplace Conflict: I
- Bullying is unlike other forms of toxic conflict. That's why the tools we use to address toxic conflict
simply do not work for bullying. In this Part I, we contrast bullying and ordinary toxic conflict.
- The Paradox of Structure and Workplace Bullying
- Structures of all kinds — organizations, domains of knowledge, cities, whatever — are both
enabling and limiting. To gain more of the benefits of structure, while avoiding their limits, it helps
to understand this paradox and learn to recognize its effects.
- Strategy for Targets of Verbal Abuse
- Many targets of verbal abuse at work believe that they have just two strategic options: find a new job,
or accept the abuse. In some cases, they're correct. But not always.
- What Micromanaging Is and Isn't
- Micromanaging is a dysfunctional pattern of management behavior, involving interference in the work
others are supposedly doing. Confusion about what it is and what it isn't makes effective response difficult.
See also Workplace Bullying and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming April 3: Recapping Factioned Meetings
- A factioned meeting is one in which participants identify more closely with their factions, rather than with the meeting as a whole. Agreements reached in such meetings are at risk of instability as participants maneuver for advantage after the meeting. Available here and by RSS on April 3.
- And on April 10: Managing Dunning-Kruger Risk
- A cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger Effect can create risk for organizational missions that require expertise beyond the range of knowledge and experience of decision-makers. They might misjudge the organization's capacity to execute the mission successfully. They might even be unaware of the risk of so misjudging. Available here and by RSS on April 10.
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Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group