Healingtheworkplace’s Weblog

In 1996 Canadians Lesley Wright and Marti Smye wrote a book called Civilizing the Worklace. The book is about corporate abuse and the authors paint an interesting picture of abusive workplace cultures which they describe as..soul destroying!

According to Wright and Smye corporate abuse has “many faces” with the following abuses being the most obvious:

• discrimination
• overwork
• harassment
• systematic humiliation
• arbitrary manipulation
• demotion without cause
• withholding of resources

Of course there are many less obvious forms of abuse which are just as damaging to the organization and to the individual.

Wright and Smye hightlight some of the more SUBTLE forms of corporate abuse as well:

• lack of support
• penny-pinching
• micromanagement
• constant miscommunication
• hidden agendas
• surveillance

What is interesting is that they define corporate abuse as “anything that kills good ideas and innovation”.

This may seem like an unusual definition for corporate abuse but I agree that organizations which allow abuse to continue unchecked DESTROY creativity and innovation.

What I find interesting is that one of the biggest concerns of organizations in recent years is about productivity or lack of productivity by workers. I think the equation goes something like this…increased productivity = increased growth = increased profits. 

In a nutshell, that which gives organizations (not for profit and for profit) the competitive advantage is their ability to generate new ideas and innovations.

I also find it interesting the Wright and Smye wrote Civilizing the Workplace in 1996 during a time when

JOBS WERE SO SCARCE THAT PEOPLE FELT LUCKY TO BE DRAWING A SALARY!

 It was for this very reason that organizations were able to abuse people and “get away with it”.

One of the reasons for this is that abusive cultures thrive in uncertainty (you’ll find details in the book) by generating fear and dependency in people.

Sadly, corporate abuse makes itself felt in individual lives before it appears on the bottom line.  People suffer health problems such as…

• stress
• headaches
• ulcers
• exhausion
• insomnia
• anxiety
• burnout
• heart attacks
• panic attacks
• nervous breakdowns 

AND, if this is not enough there are longer term negative effects on relationships, families and individual self-esteem.

 Are things any better today? Yes and no.

In a recent edition of the Vancouver Sun newspaper Donna Jacobs wrote an article called “Mental Illness: No end in sight”.  Part of her article relates to workplace stress and its damaging effects on people’s lives…one of the experts she interviews states…

Despite all that we’ve learned in the past 10 years…chronic job stress is on the rise!

I’ll have more to say about this later on in the week!

Cheers,

Lesley

Here’s a statistic that should make you sit up and take notice. No wonder our workplaces need healing!

80% of workplace bullies are BOSSES

This startling statistic can be found on the Canada Safety Council website.

In addition, the Canada Safety Council (CSC) informs us that “workplace bullying has become an internationally recognized health & safety issue”.

The CSC defines workplace bullying in the following way:

any vexatious behavior in the form of repeated & hostile or unwanted conduct, verbal comments, actions or gestures that affect an employee’s dignity or psychological or physical integrity and that result in a harmful work environment for the employees…

Surveys show that 1 in 10 workers have been the subject of bullying.

So, who are these bullies and what can we do if we are being abused by one of them?

It should come as no surprise to learn that the bullies who torment us in the workplace were the same bullies who tormented us when we went to school. In other words, when school bullies grow up they join the workforce and continue to bully others.

These adult bullies tend to be insecure people, with poor or non-existent social skills and little empathy. They turn this insecurity outwards attacking the capable people around them.

Now, the REALLY frightening thing is not the fact that these people are bullies, which is bad enough, but that they are in positions of power in organizations where we work!!!

How do these people get into management positions in the first place?

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to that question but I would love to hear your theories.  Care to comment?

One thing I do know is that bosses who bully their employees destroy trust in the workplace and once this trust is broken it is nearly impossible to regain it.

Bullying takes its toll on both employees and employers. Bullies poisen their working environment with low morale, fear, anger and depression and the employer pays for this in absenteeism, high staff turnover, severance packages and law suits.

Obviously productivity suffers.

If you are interested in learning more about bullying and how to deal with bullying in your workplace check out the article on Monster. ca.

I believe that currently two provinces in Canada (Quebec and Saskatchewan) and 13 US States have anti-bullying laws in place.

Lesley

Did you know that spirituality at work has become a movement in North America? Not only has it become a movement but it is being embraced by conservative business institutions such as Harvard University and the American Academy of Management.

Harvard University was the first business school to offer a course in spirituality as part of its MBA program and other universities have been quick to follow suit.

In the past 10 years there have been an unprecedented number of conferences organized on the subject. The number of books and articles being written is also on the rise.

But what is spirit at work and why is it important?

Obviously it is intangible.  When it is present in a workplace there is positive energy, laughter, joy, caring, compassion and creativity.

When it is absent, both individuals, and the organizations they work in, suffer.

According to Professor Paul Wong, “many forces have contributed to the revival of spirituality in the workplace including…

• instability as a result from layoffs, downsizing, mergers and globalization
• increased stress in remaining workers who are required to do more with less
• declining job satisfaction and increasing incidents of depression and burnout
• environmental pollution
• scandals of unethical corporate behavior
• technology and its dehumanizing effect
• workplace violence…”

Wong goes on to say that “workers are trying to create meaning and purpose in the workplace and they are searching for a sense of community”.

If you are new to this subject and want to begin exploring it I would recommend C. Diane Ealy’s book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Spirituality in the Workplace. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this book is one of the “Idiot’s Guidebooks”. Diane has written an easy to read, comprehensive and extremely practical book on the subject.

In addition to this book there are a growing number of websites you can explore.

One of my favorites is the International Center for Spirit at Work.

Have a great week!

Lesley 

In my last post I provided a very short history of management. 

For today’s post I’d like to switch gears again and look at a relatively new field of psychology…called Positive Psychology.

The following definition can be found on the website of The Center for Positive Psychology at Penn State University: 

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths & virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

And, although there is no specific mention of the workplace in the above quote, one of the stated goals of The Center is to…

…build a science to support workplaces that foster satisfaction and high productivity!

This new approach to psychology is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives.

We want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives and this includes the time that we spend at work.

This means two things:

1. As individuals we need to understand and develop our strengths and talents and be prepared to tap into these at work. 
2. As leaders or managers we need to manage people by building on their strengths and helping them develop their talents.

I’ve recently discovered that there is a NAME for these types of workplaces.

They are called “strength-based workplaces” and they tend to be workplaces that are characterised by productivity, employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and profitability.

 Well, that’s all for today!

Lesley

Keep reading →

Hello, 

First I’d like to thank Ben Simonton for his recent comment and thank all of you who have submitted comments over the past few months.

In my last post I wrote, “I’m not sure that the workplace is ready for workers to stand up and take responsibility.”

After some reflection I would like to add to what I wrote.  Is it that the workplace is not ready or are the workers not ready?

As with everything in life I think that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Here are some of McGregor’s ideas relating to Theory Y:

• the average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility…
• the capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population…
• under conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.

I do agree with McGregor’s propositions.  In the right workplace, “under the proper conditions” people will flourish.

What are these conditions?

• Leaders who understand the importance of what McGregor is saying.
• Leaders who are able to put their egos aside and “invite” people to participate and contribute their talents, knowledge and skills.

People also need the resources and capabilities to do their work properly. They need to know how their work fits in with the goals of the organization. They need to be acknowledged and thanked for their contributions. They need to be respected.

What they don’t need is to be punished for speaking up and offering their ideas. Or share their ideas only to have them ignored or worse have their bosses take credit for them.

How many times will people be told NO before they stop sharing their creative ideas?

There are still a vast number of organizations in the world that want to control their employees. They still operate from the belief that people are inherently lazy and can’t be trusted.

Of course they would like to tap into the pool of imagination, ingenuity and creativity that McGregor identifed in his writings.

BUT these organizations want to do this in a top down, hierarchical non-democratic way in which management calls the shots.

Organizations can’t have it both ways!

Lesley

PS. Most of us want to make a positive difference in the world and this includes our places of work. 

PPS. We need to recognize leaders like Ben Simonton who have managed to shift the paradigm and engage workers in such a way as to “unleash their creativity, innovation and productivity”.

What does it mean to be a “company that cares”? Should we care? Why should we care?

Most organizations will tell you that they care about their customers. This is especially true in service organizations. Of course some are better at this than others.

The focus on customer satisfaction is a legacy of W. Edwards Deming the godfather of the Quality Movement. For many people CQI or QI (Continuous Quality Improvement or Quality Improvement) is about measuring quality outcomes.  The emphasis here is on measurement!

In fact, this is only half the equation. The other half of the equation involves creating an organizational culture that recognizes and supports the “internal customers”…also known as the employees.

But what about the people who work in these organizations ensuring that goods and services are provided in such as way as to ensure customer satisfaction?

Some organizations are so focused on the external customer that they don’t give their employees a second thought.

But organizations that are truly committed to customer satisfaction know that it’s really about the workplace culture or environment, it’s about enlightened leadership, and it’s about how people are treated.

I recently came across an organization that is focused on creating companies that care about their “internal customers”. 

This organization is called The Center for Companies that Care . Check out their website!

The Center’s Mission is to encourage and celebrate businesses that prize their employees and are are committed to community service.

On the website they provide the following list of 10 characteristics of a Company That Cares:

1. Sustain a work environment founded on dignity and respect for all employees
2. Make employees feel their jobs are important
3. Cultivate the full potential of all employees
4. Encourage individual pusuit of work/life balance
5. Enable the well-being of individuals and their families through compensation, benefits, policies and practices
6. Develop great bosses who excel at managing people as well as results
7. Appreciate and recognize the contributions of people who work there
8. Establish and communicate standards for ethical behavior and integrity
9. Get involved in community endeavors and/or public policy
10. Consider the human toll when making business decisions

The site is also full of ideas and resources to help companies incorporate  these 10 characteristics into their culture.

All of these provide a strong foundation…ensuring that customer satisfaction is not a slogan.

Have a great week!

Lesley

This famous quote by Mahatma Maghandi is one of my favorites. In essence Ghandi is telling us to step up and take responsibility. I think this quote speaks to the leader in all of us. And yet…so many people feel powerless to make changes in their places of work.

Over and over again I hear competent, intelligent, experienced people complain about bad bosses, co-workers who won’t pull their weight, restrictive policies and procedures, lack of information, bullying, lack of trust, and feelings of powerlessness.

Surely it doesn’t have to be this way?

What is really tragic is that many of these people LOVE the work that they do but hate the places that they work in. I have friends who have quit their jobs or taken early retirement because they could see no other way out.

One fellow worked as a professional engineer for the federal government. Toward the end of his career (he was in his early 50’s at the time) he convinced his superiors to let him work from home.

He hated going into the office everyday. But even working at home did not insulate him from the negative impact of his workplace. He eventually retired at age 55.

This man’s wife was a teacher and her story played out in much the same way. She LOVED teaching but increasing found that the work environment in the schools made it impossible for her to do what she loved.

She also took early retirement and as a society we lost two talented, highly educated, and experienced professionals.

I know that this story is being played out over and over again throughout North America.

In her book, The Tragedy in the Workplace: The Longest Running Show in the Country, Danna Beal has this to say about today’s workplace:

“Many people feel the situation is hopeless and believe they must just live with it. It is like a giant elephant in the living room. Everyone knows it is there and just keeps tiptoeing around it.”

Danna goes on to say, “The problem today is that most people are assigning responsibility for their lives and life situations outside themselves.”

Constantly seeing oneself as a victim and complaining about one’s situation is a recipe for disaster. Victims feel powerless and feel helpless to do anything about their situations.

What would Ghandi suggest? Ghandi had a mission in life. He had a belief in a better world. This is what kept him going.

In order to follow in Ghandi’s footsteps and be the change we need to be able to envision a better future.

Have a great week and don’t give away your power!

Lesley

I think that people should earn the RIGHT TO MANAGE. There are so many bad managers out there creating havoc in organizations. Somehow the selection process is not weeding them out.

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith. They were teaching a workshop on conflict resolution at the Justice Institute in New Westminster. At the end of the workshop they gave each of us a book that they had written called The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy.

Can you imagine working in a democratic organization?  Would that mean that we would “elect” our leaders as we do in our communities? What a concept!

I’ve heard it said that leaders depend on having followers and that people only follow leaders that they admire and respect. This is not a relationship that can be coerced.

In North America we pride ourselves on our democratic governments BUT the idea of democratizing our workplaces is not widely talked about.

In my last post I talked about the difference between organizations and communities. Organizations are structured as to manage (control) people’s behavior. Communities form around common needs/interests. Communities need forms of control too but we’ll have to leave that for another discussion.

Cloke and Goldsmith have some interesting propositions. “We disagree that managers are essential to the work process, that we need them to get employees to work responsibly, and that it is impossible to solve problems or get anything done without them.”

They continue by stating, “All forms of managing other people’s work hinder their responsiblity, creativity, flexibility, responsiveness, and growth, even in small subtle ways. They prevent employees from being deeply connected and passionate about their work and keep them in a state of child-like dependence”.

Even though I like what Cloke and Goldsmith have to say I’m not sure that the workplace is ready for workers to stand up and take responsibility. Some of us are but a great many people are happy with the status quo, even though they may complain loudly.. about poor management.

The unhealthy dynamic between management and workers dates back over a hundred years and although a great many books have been written suggesting ways to change this power imbalance the status quo is slow to change.

Many of today’s managers have been influenced by the work of Douglas McGregor.  McGregor’s approach to management is commonly referred to as Theory X and Theory Y.

Managers who are influenced by Theory X believe that people are naturally lazy and that they work mostly for money and status rewards.

On the other hand, managers who are influenced by Theory Y believe that people are naturally interested in setting goals and achieving them and that they take pride in their achievements in all areas of their lives.  

What do you think? Are people naturally lazy and in need of strong managment or are people ready for a more democratic style of organization?

Lesley

Why not build community in the workplace? Good question! In this crazy world of ours people are feeling increasingly isolated and lonely. The other week a friend of mine told me that her workplace was a very lonely place. How is this possible? How can one be lonely surrounded by people and activity?

There are many possible reasons of course. The organization’s culture–the values, beliefs and norms that shape its behaviour may be at fault. In other words, the organization may not place much value on human relationships.  

Perhaps there is too much to do and not enough time. Whatever the reasons given you can be sure that the organization does not consider the building of community as a priority.

Building community in the workplace may sound odd to you at first. Isn’t a community different from an organization? The answer is both yes and no!

Obviously there are some major differences between a community and a workplace.

BUT organizations that thrive have learned the importance of valuing people for their unique contributions. At the same time they provide opportunities for people to contribute to something greater than themselves.

 Most of us live in some sort of community and in North America at least we have freedom (within limits) to do as we please within our communities.

 We can live where we want to, choose the schools that our children will attend, participate in different religious groups and associate with people who have similar interests and values.

Our places of work may also be situated in the communities in which we live.

The biggest differences between a workplace and a community is the reason for its existence. 

The workplace is where I go to produce a service (some people produce a product) for which I am paid. 

Typically there are fewer freedoms in the workplace.

Workplaces are organized in such a way as to “manage” people’s behavior in order to produce the goods and services mentioned above.

In short an organization has to be economically viable. This is the same for both profit seeking and not for profit organizations.

In 1997 I wrote, “a small but growing number of organizations are searching for new designs in order to find a balance between the objectives of the organization and the needs of the organization’s members”.

At that time a number of books were written about the subject. Two books that I particularly like are:

1. Community Building: Renewing Spirit and Learning edited by Kazimierz Gozda and

2. Building Community: The Human Side of Work by Manning, Curtis and McMillen

Both are good references for anyone wishing to delve into this topic further.

 Have a great week!

Lesley