Guest Post: Civility in the Face of Bullying

The following is a guest post by Jay Remer, known across Canada as The Etiquette Guy.

Bullies seem to rule the world today. Thanks to the abuse of power that fuels their egos, society feels the heavy burden of injustice and discrimination on many levels. There is little or no time set aside for dialogue or discussion. Every day we see news headlines demonstrating this sorry and frightening state of affairs. The rhetoric of fear used by today’s leaders to gain and maintain control over their employees and constituents has led many of us to step out of the fray and become bystanders. This is exactly what helps perpetuate the culture of bullying that is so prevalent.

Now is the time to stand up to bullies and take action. If we put ourselves in other people’s shoes to understand what it feels like to work in an environment where the deck is stacked in favor of aggressiveness, to feel oppressed, and to carry these feelings back to our homes and families, we would understand why we become frozen and unable to know how to make things better.

I have written about The Golden Rule and Common Sense for many years. We are inching closer and closer towards an Emotion Revolution, when we will understand how feelings drive our behavior and injustice will no longer be tolerated. A time when we understand that diversity, inclusion, and equality are essential to living the fulfilling life we all deserve – as a right, not as a privilege.

The question arises – what steps can we take to make that change? How do we go about moving from the awkward and uncomfortable position of the bystander into the role of resister and activist? Naturally, most of us are reticent to take on such a mantel for fear that we will lose our job, our friends, and even our families.

These changes must begin at home where our support systems are usually the strongest. As we build foundations of trust within the family, we can continue them into our communities. At work, leaders must understand that their employees’ engagement and productivity is dependent upon the support they are provided.

High-stress jobs, such as the armed services (including the RCMP), health care, and education, require far more support than they presently receive. We have all heard the old argument: that people who enter these professions should know ahead of time that the jobs are high stress. This argument does not mean that appropriate support is not essential. 

No one is going to argue that first responders and others are very susceptible to PTSD. For those of you unfamiliar with living with this painful condition, I can assure you that the agony endured on a daily basis is at time unbearable, hence the hundreds of suicides victims commit annually. Psychological and physical support must be improved and increased significantly to realize any real improvement. The change needs to be systemic; the old band-aid approach no longer is sufficient.

Most of us have experienced or have friends who have experienced difficult situations at work. These difficulties can take on a whole range of manifestations, none of which are enviable. What we can do about these issues is found within the Six Pillars of Civility, a framework I have devised that incorporates the essential life principles needed to create and maintain a sustainable and healthy society and a psychologically safe and fair workplace.

Our elected officials and corporate leaders must take the lead and be held to the highest standards. Inclusivity should be the goal of any healthy organization, where diversity is valued and recognized as an engine for creativity and innovation and is an automatic part of any workplace.

I was criticized lately for a stance I took on the radio about equality. I stated that I was baffled by the need to have such discussions anymore. Not everyone agrees with me, nor does everyone believe equality is realistic or appropriate. Some early scientific studies suggest that men and women have clearly differing skill sets, thus justifying such companies as Google to hire a widely disproportionate number of men for programming and other high-tech jobs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The work currently being carried out at Yale University’s Center for Emotional Intelligence provides quite a different and enlightened understanding of the subject. If we are to achieve cultural changes within organizations, we must treat everyone equally and with respect. Our communications must be honest and open. Remember the etiquette rule espoused by Stephen Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where he advises us to never speak ill of someone not present to defend him or herself. 

Human beings have many more shared qualities than divergent ones. While both are essential, focusing solely on our differences allows us to fall into the trap of tossing out the baby with the bathwater. I suggest that we must refocus our attention on positive virtues, on encouraging others to achieve their best with the support required for the job at hand, and on insisting, either vocally or by the written word, that fairness must replace bias; that humility must replace bullying; and that honesty and civility must replace the distractions, diversions, and denials that allow bullies to run the show. The time to begin is now – first with us, then with our families, our community and our places of work. Imagine what a different world we would be leaving our children and grandchildren!

Illustration credit: Mike Shapiro/For Capital Business

Beware Twisting Science to Justify Prejudice

The tech industry was rocked last week when Google engineer James Damore wrote a memo in which he was trying to justify why 80 percent of his company’s employees were male. The questionable science he used to justify discrimination in Google’s employment practices illustrates how the biggest barrier to diversity today is still bias. What we are witnessing is people feeling empowered to express their hate and use false narratives and junk science to validate their prejudices.

The Globe and Mail article by Deborah Soh continues to perpetuate the idea that women and men are more or less suited to various jobs based on assorted scientific research. This perspective raises a number of questions. My primary concern is that the results stemming from this approach are misleading, and in some cases untrue. Broad stereotyping, while arguably more efficient, is inappropriate from every other perspective.

Scientific studies, based as they are on objective data, are open to interpretation. Although according to earlier research, men may score higher in certain skillsets, when we take the time to examine the situation from a broader perspective and look at more current studies, real balance emerges.

According to emotional intelligence expert David Caruso, PhD. of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, “when we look at data on our ability test of EI (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test), women score a bit higher on all four abilities. They score slightly higher on ‘Facilitating Thought,’ suggesting that women, as a group, have more emotional empathy than do men (feel what others feel). That could be problematic and lead to burnout, compassion fatigue, etc.; but the biggest gender difference (although none are huge) is for the ‘Manage Emotions’ ability. Women outperform men on that ability. This means that you can have empathy, but if you manage the emotions you feel, you can achieve your goals (the ‘what’ of performance) as well as be a decent person (the ‘how’ of performance).” 

Because of the culture of fear that power-hungry executives instil in their employees as a way to control them, many people who do feel compelled to express their opinions, do so rather thoughtlessly, by only going after the low-hanging fruit. This is a dangerously slippery slope to follow as one usually only finds the obvious glaring faults, rarely ever seeing any virtues.

Ironically, it is the bullies of the group who themselves are fearful of losing their power. By swiftly disseminating false narratives, more thoughtful and reasoned perspectives can be avoided, deflected, and ignored.

This toxic dynamic, if allowed to continue unchecked, will lead to the downfall of organizations.  In my book, From Bully to Bull’s Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, I discuss bullying and the attraction and retention of talent, whereby the top talent finds more verdant pastures; those who remain disengage further; and profits plummet.

Instead, we need to encourage systemic change within an organization’s culture, in order to make true progress towards diversity. The necessary change can only happen if organizations commit to making inclusion part of the foundation of company culture.

This can be achieved through the Ethic of Reciprocity, allowing organizations to balance profit with employee engagement, productivity, and retention – a real cultural about-face.

Image credit: International Business Times

Why Women in Power Keep Getting Interrupted

Disrespect toward women who had achieved the highest levels of power was rampant on Tuesday. At the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was interrupted during her questioning of Attorney General Jeff Sessions by Sen. John McCain, who was frankly out of order. Meanwhile, at a meeting of board and employees to discuss sexist practices at Uber, a male board member tried to shut down a female. As Arianna Huffington discussed how one female director makes it possible for others, David Bonderman quipped, “more women means more talking.”

As Susan Chira pointed out in New York Times Business section, social media outrage ensued and Bonderman resigned from Uber’s board. But that doesn’t change reality—study after study proves that when women speak up they are shut down. Who can forget the fracas when Sen. Elizabeth Warren was determined to read Coretta Scott King’s letter on the floor of the Senate? Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shut her down with a little-known rule.

“Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech,” he said. “She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” Those last three words became a rallying cry—but as Tuesday showed, they’ve done little to move the bar toward equality.

The truth is that without a systemic change, no amount of public chastisement is going to help. I’ve seen this repeatedly in the corporations I’ve worked with—they throw millions of dollars at diversity programs, but little ever changes. Without a complete overhaul of the culture of a company, no amount of pithy sayings or public outrage will make the slightest bit of difference.

Photo credit: MMM

Why Do the Big Tech Companies Drive Away Women and Minorities?

There are toxic workplaces and then there are toxic workplaces in the tech industry. Up until now the evidence was heavily anecdotal. There was the female employee who revealed sexual harassment at Uber, followed by the heart-wrenching tragedy of the African-American engineer at Uber who took his own life as the stress became unmanageable. There is the gay employee taking on the Omnicom Group for horrific abuse and the well-known story of Ellen Pao, whose gender discrimination suit made national news.

At last we have some data to support the chorus of diverse voices begging us to pay attention to the working conditions they’ve been forced to endure. The Kapor Center for Social Impact and Harris Poll just conducted a study to explore the reasons why people leave tech companies. What they discovered was that the outpouring of first-person stories of sexual harassment, gender discrimination, bullying and racial bias is borne out by the numbers: eight in 10 employees who left tech said they did so due to unfair behavior or treatment.  Eighty-five percent observed such behavior and 37 percent left their jobs because of it.

Women experience and observed far more toxic behavior than men, with women of color being most likely to be passed over for promotion. In addition, LGBT employees endured the most bullying and public humiliation leading to the decision by 64 percent to leave their company.

Given that employee retention problems due to toxic workplaces are costing $16 billion a year, one would think that the tech companies would use their brain power to work harder at a solution. However, Facebook, whom we recently praised for its new policy about gender-diverse legal teams, has been cited in the Wall Street Journal for its hidden biases against female engineers. Perhaps Cheryl Sandberg might want to figure out how to help her company lean in. Right now it’s not getting the job done.

Andrew Faas is the author of From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

Illustration credit: Womena/greenlining.org

Facebook Takes a Stand for Inclusion

It’s one thing to talk about diversity; it’s something entirely different to change policy to make the core culture of a business embrace inclusion. Facebook has been criticized for favoring white males as employees and board members. However, they have clearly recognized the problem and are now making diversity a priority.  The company has just added to last year’s initiative to increase diversity in hiring and retention to include a new policy requiring that 33 percent of its law firm teams include women and ethnic minorities, according to the New York Times.  For this reason, we are applauding Facebook as our Revolutionist of the Week.

As I discuss in my book From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, I believe that systemic change is the only way to tackle the problem of increasing diversity. No amount of awareness seminars or momentary hiring spurts will change a corporate culture. However, by restructuring the company’s hiring and retention policies from the ground up, lasting change can be implemented.

It’s true that Facebook has a way to go in this regard—as of June 2016 new senior leadership hires improved slightly: women from 27 to 29 percent; African-Americans from 3 to 9 percent; and Latinos from 3 to 5 percent. To move this along further, Facebook is focusing on recruiting talent as well as creating programs to help students at all levels who are interested in coding and engineering.

Since this may take some time, I applaud the fact that Facebook is pushing ahead by applying this to legal counsel, since law firms are willing to go out of their way to please clients, especially major clients. By using this opportunity to promote truly inclusive workplaces, Facebook joins other enlightened corporations such as MetLife and HP in building psychologically healthy, fair and inclusive workplaces.

Photo credit: BIGSTOCK

Equality on Ice

When you think of a sport that is willing to be a trailblazer for diversity and inclusion ice hockey might not be the first thing that comes to mind, but the aptly named Calgary Pioneers are doing just that. Without any fanfare the 96-team WinSport Hockey Canada League, one of the largest men’s non-contact leagues in Calgary, created the first openly gay men’s hockey team in Alberta. I have to especially applaud the additional steps the league took to create a psychologically healthier—and more enjoyable—sports experience for everyone involved. Allan Maki captured what inclusion looks like in his article “Being Able to Play the Game we Love” in the Globe and Mail.

Credit: Pioneers Hockey