Threats at work are toxic. They create anger, breed fear, destroy relationships, undermine trust, increase turnover, increase demands for pay, stimulate theft and fraud, degrade production quality, and introduce delays and foot-dragging through passive resistance.
Yet people use threats because they believe they work. There are those who believe that threats motivate; that a little bit of fear gets a lot of extra production. Indeed, I do believe that I could produce a study that would buttress this belief — if you'll allow me to choose the population studied, and if you'll permit me to ignore long-term effects.
But we live in a world in which we must account for long-term effects, and we cannot choose the population we work with. In that world, threats don't actually work.
Since we can't end the use of threats, we'd best learn to work around them. Here's Part I of a short catalog of threats, the particular kinds of consequences they create, and suggestions for dealing with them.
- Nonviolent physical threats
- Nonviolent physical threats are intended to arouse in the target a fear of physical harm. They include looming over the target, standing too close, touching (especially by surprise), surrounding (by several parties), or cornering.
- Sometimes physical threats are outside the awareness of the target. For example, a tall person can loom over one of shorter stature with little risk of being accused of threatening because the configuration is "natural."
- If you sense that a physical threat — even a subtle physical threat — is in progress, exit the situation with dispatch. Leave the room or walk away if you can. If you lack a real excuse, make one up. When dealing with people who take advantage of their height, try to arrange for seated conversations. If you choose to remain in a physically threatening configuration, understand the likely inevitability of escalation of the nature and severity of the threat, either in the moment, or over a series of similar incidents.
- No dessert for you
- If you sense that a physical
threat — even a subtle physical
threat — is in progress,
exit the situation with dispatch - Here the threat is the removal of something desirable — a privilege or toy, for example. But to avoid the appearance (and cost) of issuing a threat, it's delivered in a contorted way. Example: "If you tell me what I want to know, you can keep working here."
- Some people experience these threats as darkly humorous, and indeed they can be delivered with a wry wink. They make great one-liners in film scripts. But they're still threats and they fool no one. The threatener still pays the price of actually threatening.
- When you receive a No-Dessert-For-You threat, be aware that the threatener isn't being cute, funny, or amusing. That veil of sophistication covers, but does not fully conceal, a threat every bit as ruthless as a direct physical threat. More threats are likely to come, and their variety can increase.
Nonviolent Physical threats and No-Dessert-For-You are both fairly common. Next time we'll examine some differences between direct and indirect threats. Next in this series Top Next Issue
Is a workplace bully targeting you? Do you know what to do to end the bullying? Workplace bullying is so widespread that a 2014 survey indicated that 27% of American workers have experienced bullying firsthand, that 21% have witnessed it, and that 72% are aware that bullying happens. Yet, there are few laws to protect workers from bullies, and bullying is not a crime in most jurisdictions. 101 Tips for Targets of Workplace Bullies is filled with the insights targets of bullying need to find a way to survive, and then to finally end the bullying. Also available at Apple's iTunes store! Just . Order Now!
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Bullying:
- Looking the Other Way
- Sometimes when we notice wrongdoing, and we aren't directly involved, we don't report it, and we don't
intervene. We look the other way. Typically, we do this to avoid the risks of making a report. But looking
the other way is also risky. What are the risks of looking the other way?
- Covert Bullying
- The workplace bully is a tragically familiar figure to many. Bullying is costly to organizations, and
painful to everyone within them — especially targets. But the situation is worse than many realize,
because much bullying is covert. Here are some of the methods of covert bullies.
- How Workplace Bullies Use OODA: II
- Workplace bullies who succeed in carrying on their activities over a long period of time are intuitive
users of Boyd's OODA model. Here's Part II of an exploration of how bullies use the model.
- Strategies of Verbal Abusers
- Verbal abuse at work has special properties, because it takes place in an environment in which verbal
abuse is supposedly proscribed. Yet verbal abuse does happen at work. Here are three strategies abusers
rely on to avoid disciplinary action.
- Unrecognized Bullying: I
- Much workplace bullying goes unrecognized. Three reasons: (a) conventional definitions of bullying exclude
much actual bullying; (b) perpetrators cleverly evade detection; and (c) cognitive biases skew our perceptions
so we don't see some bullying as bullying.
See also Workplace Bullying and Workplace Bullying for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
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- And on February 5: On Shaking Things Up
- Newcomers to work groups have three tasks: to meet and get to know incumbent group members; to gain their trust; and to learn about the group's task and how to contribute to accomplishing it. General skills are necessary, but specifics are most important. Available here and by RSS on February 5.
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