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

Poor-Quality Partial Steps

Few organizations jump right into a comprehensive, systematic solution to stop workplace bullying. Most decision makers are timid and want to take small steps. Partial solutions range from the ineffective, which are covered first, to activities that after completion will justify longer-term solutions as the next step. Finally, we make the case for a broader, root-cause driven, systemic approach.

Approaches Based on the Bully's Personality

Three common “solutions” to the bullying problem are based on the “bad seed” model. The reasoning here is that you have only a few bad individuals, so if you fix them, you've solved the problem. Typical responses are to send the offender to one of the following:

• Communications skills training
• An anger management course or courses
• Remedial supervisory skills training

However, training is an inadequate answer—for several reasons. First, it generally fixes only deficiencies in skills. Furthermore, the trainee has to be willing to learn something new. Bullies already overestimate their personal capabilities and believe they can be taught little. Training, therefore, is a far from ideal way to handle them. And yes, some bullies do have anger issues. However, if the problem is the bully's prefrontal cortex (the brain area associated with impulse control), then no amount of training will mitigate it. Our system will change the environment to suppress emotional outbursts.

Remedial supervisory training is seen as punishment ...