The Bully-Free Workplace: Stop Jerks, Weasels, and Snakes From Killing Your Organization

Unaddressed Bullying Exposes the Organization to the Risk of Violence

The documentary Murder By Proxy: How America Went Postal was released in 2010.¹⁹ Experts in the film analyze the background stories of several workplace massacres. Although it does not excuse the shootings or the murders, experts all cite work conditions prior to the event that organization leaders clearly should have noticed. Warning signs were present in almost every single case. Troubled, toxic workplaces are potentially incendiary sites where violence can explode with lethal force. For example, prior to the fateful November 14, 1991, massacre at Royal Oak, Michigan, by Thomas McIlvaine—who killed five, including himself—there was a systematic campaign of intimidation and humiliation by a team of postal managers new to Royal Oak. They tormented the employee who loved his job and happened to be a “tough guy” because he fought in martial arts, stood up to abusive managers, and was a Marine Corps veteran. Fifteen months passed from the time of his termination as a result of a manufactured charge of “insubordination” to the time of the massacre. The film's message is straightforward and unquestionable: these horrific consequences were indeed preventable.

The “going postal” incidents, each with a deeper, more complex story behind the gruesome headlines, all suggested that there were warning signs ignored by the employer. The previously discussed cases at the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech illustrated ...