How To Combat Workplace Bullying Before It's Too Late?

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Naked Insider. This is really exciting moment to have you back again. Yay. And happy New Year.

Thank you. Happy New Year to you too.

Thanks, Peter. So today we have something quite interesting and the question that I want to pose to you, my friend, is what is the real cost of bullying?

Ah, the real cost of bullying. So the question I would like to answer that with answering a question with a question is how would you like to have your critical people frozen? Totally frozen.

Totally frozen.

Immobile, Immobile.

So to find out, you have to stay in tune. So let's define what is bullying?

So bullying is an attack on a person. It is literally an assault. Most of the time it's a psychological assault, but it is one of those nevertheless. And there are some very interesting biological processes that go on inside a person who's on the receiving end of that. So they have some very tangible and very real effects on the human body.

It can be manifested in various different views. I mean, it could be verbal, it could be physical, it could be social. I mean, we know, for example, schools is rife with bullying and so forth. What's the impact?

So literally any kind of bullying triggers the fight or flight instinct, something that is perceived as an attack. And the thing is that it is the perception of a person that's receiving the bullying that makes the most difference. Literally what is happening is, in technical terms is it's called an amygdala hijack. So the amygdala is the part of the core brain that everything goes through before it goes to the rational part of the brain. Which means that in the olden days when we had saber tooth tigers, our eyes would see a saber toothed tiger. And before we even processed that, our amygdala would turn around and say, we've got to run. So, yes, it's the classic fight or flight process, but it's modified by the fact now that we are supposed to have this brain that civilizes us, the frontal lobes, that makes better decisions. It's being hijacked all the time if you are triggering the amygdala, which is essentially a surprise attack.

Correct. And we also know that different people react differently to certain situations because not only can they flight or fright, but they can also faint fear and they can fight and freeze, which is what you mentioned a lot. So from a perspective of what is the. We talked about the impact of the person, but what is the impact therefore on the organisation?

Okay, so the impact on the organization is that you have somebody who is essentially being compromised in terms of their internal communications processes. So fight or flight kicks off adrenaline, but adrenaline doesn't wind down as quickly as a synaptic response, as a nervous response. So you actually have a residual period of time where that person is still frozen or that person is still rattled I think is the non typical term for it. So the question then becomes is how does that person function while they are still under the influence of their own internal hormonal system? And how long that goes for depends entirely on the person's individual biology as well.

So how does the organization sort of, you know, you have bullying taking place in an organisation. So what's the impact to the organization then?

The impact is, first of all the organisation needs to recognise that this is a problem. I think it's so easy nowadays to say, well, it's just, you know, par for the course, everybody went through that. The reality is that it has the most profound effect on people who are still shaken. Perhaps they will send the wrong email to the competitor, perhaps they will leave out some sensitive pieces of information, perhaps they'll add up a column of numbers incorrectly. These are very real and tangible impacts.

That can happen because what's happening is you're now generating within that person a level of stress anxiety. So the ease of making mistakes just becomes so much easier because they're not thinking. And as we talk there could be freezing or the, as you say, potentially brain dead excuse the term.

Well, it's a level of incompetence that increases because of having to deal with that internal process that's going on.

But within the organisation and maybe the colleagues around will probably also find it quite tough to see that happen if they do nothing at all.

Correct.

We've got a situation where probably it's difficult to do business, potential conflict with other employees, we've got increasing stress and then I think it could get much worse. We could get to a situation where there's business disruptions. So the person is really not even working, so he's not productive, he's not performing. And so projects are way behind the potential that if the person maybe is reacting to the situation that the person might decide to leave the organization. So take all that knowledge that they've gained while working with the organization or.

A passive aggressive response.

Correct, yeah.

Because the number of times if a person feels disempowered on an overt level, there are. It is quite possible for that person to then say, well, if I can't operate and retaliate on an overt level, I can actually retaliate on a Covert level, for sure. And the question then becomes, is it just specifically to the person that did the bullying or is it to the organisation that let that happen in the first place?

Correct. And by the way, I mean, we're talking about behaviours that could actually lead to people who are trustworthy to actually commit some form of action that is either unintentional or intentional harm against the organization.

Yes, absolutely. And these people probably had no intention to do that. But there is an edge point over which if you tip a person, it becomes unpredictable. That's probably the best way of describing it.

Very much so. It is so much unpredictable. So the question is then, what are the strategies for an organisation to start alleviating this issue?

What can they do, As I said, first of all, recognise that this is something that won't be tolerated in the organisation, set out very clear rules and guidelines of codes of conduct and set up processes in place that should it actually come to their attention and obviously get the ability to report that in a safe way, that it will be dealt with in a very appropriate manner.

Well, we hope so. But I was going to suggest a few other things, I think across the organisation, I think management or an executive have got to take a decision that the policies and values as an organization all being followed because you can't have a multi tiered of, you know, all my employees will do this policy, but I won't follow.

Correct.

So that sets a tone of lack of trust or distrust. And then I think, as you mentioned, you know, you should never excuse it, you know, management should own up and say, okay, look, this is a behavior that's not part of our, you know, who we are. Yes.

Or values. We go back to values.

Values, exactly. So if you haven't seen it, go back to, I think it was the previous video. It's all about values. Another thing is really identify the source of the problem. So taking the person who's perpetuating the bullying and really identifying, well, we see your symptoms, which is the bullying part, but what's the cause? What's the root cause behind that? Yes, absolutely.

And look, many times, I'm not saying this is happening all the time, but the sense of power that comes from being able to bully someone is actually an indication in many instances of a lack of power or a lack of perceived power inside that person. So the constant having to reaffirm, yes, I am powerful, gives them a hit, if you like, for a little period of time and then just when they feel disempowered again, they conduct the behavior Once again, correct.

Correct. And there's probably another story behind that as well. There is another thing, another strategy I think most organizations should focus on is basically documenting it. So identifying the bullying, identifying what's been said, how it's been said. So it's all from a legal context, written and so forth. Look, Polly, you might want to also consider isolating the person. So if that person is continuously bullying a specific person for some specific reason, you might want to split them and move them away and see if that changes the scene. Question.

Yes.

If you saw an organization that has this challenge in bullying, what is the number one thing you would advise them to do?

Recognize it for what it is. If there is an organisation that has the fingerprints, if you like, of bullying going on, then the people who run that organization need to recognize that there is something happening and they need to be able to say, hey, this is not part of our values, this is not part of our company operation manual, if you like, and be prepared to follow through. You know, it's the old parenting adage, don't do that or do something nasty to you. Well, if you do something nasty.

Correct.

Then the child will soon learn that. Yeah, you know, that's just Mum and Dad saying that.

Correct.

Not saying that the business owners.

But they can get away with it.

But they can get away with. People will get away with what they can get away with.

Correct. So there you have it. So the real cost of bullying could lead to the real risk of insider actions that could cause severe harm to your organization. So that concludes this video, the next video. We're going to do something also very similar, which is, what is the cost of having a toxic employee? Now, by the way, if you. I was going to say what one question I forgot to ask you there, Peter, which is basically, how can you help them?

The organisation.

Correct.

So the organisation, we as a unit can sit down and work with them on individual policies, policies on how to address the situation. What's the most appropriate way of doing things? The documentation is paramount because it's so easy to just leave things unspoken and not recognise that it's happened 10 times, you think it might only happen three times. So documentation is really important and we can certainly help with that and also provide resources for the people that are on the receiving end of that. I mean, there are some pretty simple things you can do on that basis.

As well too, which is.

We can certainly help provide some ideas there as well.

Excellent. So find those details out. Just check down below the video. We've got the links that you can actually reach us. So with that, Peter, thank you very much. Much appreciated. And look forward to doing the next video. Yes, thank you.