Episode #8: The SILENT TREATMENT GAME

Hello and welcome back to Mind games that people play within an organization. And in this video, episode eight, we're going to be talking about the silent treatment. Peter, welcome back.

Thank you.

And don't give me that silent treatment.

Okay?

Okay. So let's define what we mean by silent treatment.

Silent treatment is where you're literally punishing somebody by not talking to them, by not communicating with them and not interacting with them, leaving people to wonder, what did I do wrong? And the punishment in that is obviously in your own mind. You can make up way more worse things than what they may be thinking of you.

Correct. Is there a different level of that sort of silent treatment? So, for example, compare that between someone who's like a co worker to, so a co worker giving you the silent treatment and then to maybe your manager or boss is giving you the sort of the silent treatment.

Absolutely. It has a lot to do with the impact this particular person can have on your life, whether personally or professionally. If it's a co worker and they're just having one of those days, then the impact on you may be a little negative, but not as negative as if all of a sudden the boss or the boss of bosses completely ignores you and ices over you. So that's when you start to think, oh, my goodness, I wonder what's going on here.

Yes. There's sort of repercussions in your head that goes.

And that's it.

But there's also a message that gets sent out that when the boss does it.

Yeah.

And if the others see it.

Yes.

It's also a reflection that, you know, don't get on the wrong side of.

Yeah. So there's two things that go on, especially in the workplace is, number one is that it's a salutary, salutary experience on all those people that are not getting the silent treatment. They go, oh, I never want to be in that position ever.

Correct, correct.

And then also there is at times a, a herd that goes towards the person who's giving the silent treatment almost to say, hey, I'm creating rapport with you, because I'm with you on this one. And that then doubles and redoubles the effect on the person who is experiencing the silent treatment.

Correct.

Yeah.

What are some examples in the workplace that you could see? Oh, this is sort of the type of behaviour that typifies silent treatment.

So if you are in a conference situation and you make a comment or you ask a question and that's not even addressed, that becomes, especially if that happens a number of times, then you suddenly go, I think I'm getting the silent treatment. If you're being addressed as a group and you're being not, you're being singled out by not being talked to, or not being engaged with or not having your opinion asked when probably more than likely you have something positive to contribute, that can be very, very important. Also small things like social engagements, you're suddenly not invited to the drinks at 3 o' clock in the afternoon or something like that, or you know, everybody else is invited and you're sitting there alone on your little lonesome, then that becomes very, very obvious.

Yes, it does. What is the repercussion? What's the actual impact on actual individual?

The individual, obviously their mind races in overtime and their mental capacity is more about spinning out. What could it possibly be that they've done wrong or that they could be looked at as being outside of? It affects their work, it affects their concentration, it affects their output, it affects attention to detail. And if you want to put all that into one bucket, productivity more than anything else.

That's very well said there. From the other side, if you looked at the person that's perpetrating that silent treatment, what's in it for them?

Yeah, very good question. So there's a couple of things at play. It's a power game first and foremost. So there is an ego, ego involvement there where somebody will not step down. I'm going to call it a royal position. They do not deign to get themselves involved in this. And there's also a plausible deniability as opposed to having a go at somebody which is an activity that you can pinpoint and say, hey, that was unfair. There's a lot of plausible deniability inside of the silent treatment. What? I didn't say anything.

Yeah.

What's your story?

Yeah, because that was probably not a question I was going to ask down the track, or we can ask it right now, which is what's the difference between that, the silent treatment or ostracism and harassment.

Harassment is more than likely going to be something active. It's going to be something visible, whether it's. It's something that you cannot deny has been happening. And sometimes it's very hard to have witnesses to that. But with a passive voice, with a passive aggressive. The passive basically says, I'm not doing anything and I'm going to just sit there and let you figure out what you need to do and how you need to do it and why I'm upset. Whereas if in a harassment it's almost. You could Almost. It could ramp up from a nitpicking to a full on yelling spot.

Well, it's more, it's more of an aggressive confrontation. You've explained it pretty well, the passive aggressive. So you know, we talked about ostracism. Now if it's done by let's say a co worker. How do managers identify that this sort of game is taking place within their workforce?

It comes down to being connected with the people that are inside of your sphere of influence. There's a concept that I haven't mentioned for a long time now. It's called management by walking around.

Yeah, that's true.

And it's amazing what you pick up.

Correct.

It also has an attentive effect on people when you do walk past, but it keeps you in touch with what's going on. A lot of times this, this kind of game playing can be all. Game playing, whether it's passive aggressive or not, all kinds of games can be kept under wraps and monitored if you are in touch with what's going on. And also when you see that a person has a slant towards doing a certain thing, you'll pretty much pick up when that, when that activity. If you know, for instance that person X has the ability to be doing the silent treatment and you find that some of their people that are directly relating to them are not performing properly, then you pretty much likely already to understand that this is a game that's being played.

Yeah, but it's funny that I think usually they only find out once the chit, excuse the language, chit has hit the floor.

That's right.

And so you sort of realize what's going on here? Why are people screaming at each other? Why is this person, you know, walking out the door?

Exactly. And I suppose from a managerial point of view, prevention is better than cure. So you know, it's harder to put the horse back in the stable than to lock the door.

Oh, that's true. Once the horse is gone, bolted.

Try that with chickens.

Yeah, you got it. What is the downside for, for an organization? So if this sort of game behaviour is taking place?

Well, we talked about the productivity and that's one thing. But you also need to look at it. There is a person exerting control over the people that work to them, whether that person is now prosecuting, if you want for a better word, their discipline in line with company policy or not in line with company policy is really, really important to understand. Because a lot of times people that do this, do this out of an ego perspective and many times I'M not saying every case, but many times it's a situation where people say, well, this is the way I want it done and this is the way it will be done. So you conform to my norms or your copper?

Correct.

So as a manager, you've got to look at that and say, are these people. Is this behavior reinforcing what the management and companies operating rules and standards are? More than likely you'll find that there's a personal kingdom that's being developed here.

Oh, very much what I call it is asylum bullying and so forth. Here's a side question for you, Peter. What's the greatest misconception? Well, whether it be the greatest, you know, that's debatable, but what's the misconception of such a behavior of ostracism, that.

But there is a reason behind it. Most of the time. And look, this is just a practicality that most of the time people who sort of display this kind of ostracizing behavior are just feeling really terrible on that day.

Yeah, but the other thing we talked about that it can be considered as no big deal. Oh, we didn't invite this person to lunch or we excluded. We didn't answer his question. Question. Yeah, what's the big deal?

And that gets back again to the norming side of things as well, too. Plausible deniability. Well, we didn't invite Harry to the do. So, you know, what's the big deal there? So that's that plausible deniability going on again. Whereas if you said, no, you're not coming, that's active. That's harassment.

That's harassment. Okay, so let's finish it up with what's the key takeaway?

I'm going to quote my favorite source for all of this about games, which is Eric Byrne in his book Games People Play. If you name the game, it's sure to go away. So somebody needs to take a little bit of spine and say, hey, especially if it's happening to you. Hey, this is what's going on. This is what I think you're trying. This is what I think you're trying to tell me. Let's just front this up straight up and down on. Oftentimes you'll go, oh, no, no, no, I wasn't doing that at all. I didn't understand that. That's fine, that's fine. But at least you've named it and you brought it up in the open because that's what it means. Cool.

So with that, if you like this video, you will like also the next video. Which is called the Guilty Game. Oh, my God. Are you guilty with that? Thank you very much and look forward to seeing you again.

Thank you.

Thank you.