Five Tips for Ringing In a Civil 2011

This year my newsletters have addressed corporate policies, training programs, culture changes, and many other conventional ways you can address bullying behavior at work. As you know, however, if the decision makers in your organization are not on board with building a positive workplace, then policies and training programs will be difficult to implement.


So here are five things you can do to help keep things civil around the office without asking your boss for an entire corporate culture makeover.

1. Be the change you want to see. I know; it's cliché. But fact is we don't pay much attention to our own communication most of the time, and of course it's easy to point fingers and argue that others aren't being very nice. Awareness is half of the battle - once you start being more cognizant of your behavior and communication it becomes easier to change it. We call this self-monitoring. If you are a high self-monitor, then you probably pay close attention to your communication and adjust it as needed for the situation. If you are a low self-monitor then you probably don’t pay much attention to your communication, and you likely are treating others disrespectfully without even realizing it. Make it a goal to become a high self-monitor.

2. Stand up for others. One of the reasons I became so interested in bullying and incivility at work was the fact that they are a social phenomenon - it's never about just the bully. Bullying and other uncivilized behaviors happen at work because other people allow them to (yes that means you). If you witness someone getting berated consistently during staff meetings, for example, the chances of you or anyone else standing up for them is slim to none. Researchers call this the bystander effect, and the reason it exists is that others are afraid of being targeted next.

Forget all that. When you see a person being mistreated at work, stand up for them. Plain and simple. Something like, "Hey John the meeting will be more productive if we all try to stay calm here. I know this is a stressful project but we need to work together" should suffice. The more often you do that, the more often others will too. You and all of your peers are stronger, collectively, than one bullying person. You have much more power to end the bullying as a group, and if you band together, you will be successful in doing so.

3. Dish out two compliments a day. In today’s economy and the resulting stress it’s easy to get frustrated with others when you feel like they aren’t performing or when they make mistakes. But, that’s not helping build a more civil work environment. Of course it is important to correct mistakes or make process improvements – but it’s also important to tell people when they do things right – even the little things. And you don’t have to be anyone’s boss to pass out praise.

If you happen to be walking through the reception area and overhear the receptionist handling a call with a positive attitude, then compliment him or her on it. If you see a co-worker wiping down the counters in the break room, then say thank you. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it could make a huge difference in that person’s day, and they just might turn around and compliment someone else… even a customer!

4. Rally for your community. Volunteering provides a multitude of psychological and physical benefits. It brings a heightened sense of well-being, relief from insomnia, a stronger immune system… and it helps build confidence and self-esteem as a result of the appreciation we feel from those people we help. Take Cami Walker for example. At 35 she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and only after focusing on giving to the people around her did the pain she was feeling start to ease. Since then she’s written a book and started a movement of giving. Her website is http://www.29gifts.org/.

In addition to the personal benefits you will feel for giving your time to help others, certainly when your department volunteers to help the community together, the benefits of team building are eminent. So check out Charity Navigator and Volunteers of America to find a volunteering opportunity right for you and your team. Invite everyone to participate (even the uncivil ones). You’ll definitely notice a positive change in the way you interact with each other at work as a result of everyone feeling better about themselves and about each other.

5. Play the Best-Self Game. Kim Cameron, author of Positive Leadership: Strategies for Extraordinary Performance, suggests this activity to get the positive communication flowing and the self-esteem growing. During your next meeting, ask everyone to write down two nice things about their co-workers on separate sheets of scratch paper. At the end of the meeting, each person walks away with a list of traits others appreciate in them, an understanding of their own strengths, and a set of thank you’s for those times they stepped up and went the extra mile.

BOOK REVIEW: Road to Respect: Path to Profit

Harassment and hostility are not new concepts in the business world, nor are they legal. Businesses are required by law to develop, implement and effectively manage these behaviors, and unfortunately many do so only because the law says they have to - and not because they truly believe in the power of a respectful, positive workplace. The terms workplace bullying, abusive management and toxic bosses are relatively newer concepts in business rhetoric – and because employers are not required to address them - many don’t. What these organizations do not understand is that, aside from being just a plain ol’ sound business decision, a respectful culture in the workplace can reap many benefits. Organizations focused on a respectful culture enjoy better quality work, increased production, happier (and returning) customers, superior ability to meet organizational goals, increased learning and collaboration, better decision-making… the list goes on and on.

Road to Respect, Path to Profit – How to Become an Employer of Choice by Building a Respectful Workplace Culture by Erica Pinsky, provides solid advice for business owners, managers, decision-makers, organizational development and human resource professionals, and anyone else interested in building a respectful workplace.

Many will tell you the answer is a zero tolerance corporate policy, but as Pinsky points out, this is not the answer. Policies are only worth the paper they are printed on (about 3 cents). A respectful workplace culture is a road “paved” over time with trust and support; and Pinsky’s book provides the tools you need to arrive at your destination.

Continue reading the book review at CompulsiveReader.com by clicking here.
 
Purchase the book by visiting here.

A Strong Ethical Culture Is Key to Cutting Misconduct on the Job

ERC study shows that employees take cues from top management, pressure from peers to do the right thing

Organizations with strong ethical values – from top executives to middle managers to workers – experience less misconduct, more frequent reporting of misbehavior and less retaliation on the job, a newly released study by the Ethics Resource Center shows.

The study – “The Importance of Ethical Culture: Increasing Trust and Driving Down Risks” – indicates that strong ethical culture in a company has a “profound” impact on the kinds of workplace behavior that can put a business in jeopardy.

According to the study, organizations with stronger cultures find far fewer employees (4 percent) feel pressure to commit misconduct than in weaker cultures (15 percent). Likewise, the rate at which employees observe misconduct by co-workers is nearly twice as high in weaker cultures (76 percent) as in stronger cultures (39 percent).

The report also finds that actions by top managers (and the way they are perceived) have a significant impact on outcomes and that co-worker culture – peer pressure – is particularly powerful in cutting the amount of financial misconduct witnessed by employees.

“The work of the ERC is exemplary,” said Roy Snell, CEO of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA), which sponsored the study. “They have many years of experience and tremendous data. The ethical culture is one of the most reliable measurements of compliance and ethics program effectiveness, particularly when you have such a broad set of comparison data.” This information should help many compliance and ethics officers in their effort to build awareness and understanding of their leadership.”

“The Importance of Ethical Culture” is based on results from ERC’s 2009 National Business Ethics Survey of 2,852 respondents. The survey findings had a sampling error of +/- 1.8 at the 95 percent confidence level. For more information on methodology, go to http://ethics.org/nbes/methodology.html. The NBES survey is conducted every two years and is widely used by chief ethics and compliance officers in business and government and by academicians.

“The NBES data consistently tell us that a strong ethical culture offers the best protection against risky workplace behavior, which can easily land a company on the front page in a very damaging way,” said Patricia J. Harned, Ph.D., president of the Ethics Resource Center. “Rules and a code of conduct are always necessary, but it’s good leadership and peer pressure to do the right thing that often saves the day.”

To view the study, go to http://www.ethics.org/files/u5/CultureSup4.pdf.

Read the original posting here.

What does "positive workplace" mean to you?

We asked this question on LinkedIn, and here were some of our favorite answers...


I think the definition of this phrase is probably as diverse as the collection of individuals in the workplace being discussed... for me personally, it's a place where I am trusted and respected, where my professional growth is supported, and where I have the opportunity to act in kind towards my colleagues.

Community, fun, respect, supportive, flexible, inspiring. I start with community b/c if employees describe their work space as having a sense of community, they feel a sense of belonging, and that triggers engagement and loyalty.

Open-minded, people take and give responsibility, fair, fun, reliable, where your competence is needed and developed

A"no idiots" policy.

New ideas welcome, resources shared according to need, all roles respected (not just your own tribe's!), flexibility based on trust.

Creativity, open communication, friendliness, flexible work hours, intolerance of cattiness.

Open to ideas, trusting, energetic, light 'n airy workspaces, respectful of human beings (not cogs in a machine) coming together to tackle projects, warm, mentoring, see work as a journey toward a goal that makes a difference; work is more than just work... It should be a fun 'n exciting where we r in the zone n in our element, like children with crayons having such a fun day, bright, open, curious n embracing all that's on offer

Respectful, fun, compassionate

'I would like to come back here again and again'

I love coming to work everyday.

You must have freedom to fail to be able to innovate and grow

No egotistical, abusive managers who are protected by upper management and the lawyers in HR (does that sound bitter? :)

Challenges, growth, engaging, stimulating

Optimism, stimulating, open, compassionate, creative, fun, engaging, growth

Invigorating, energizing

Feeling supported by co-workers in a fun, collaborative environment.

Beyond Benefits

You deserve equal benefits in your job. Given. But what is your company doing to truly create a gay-supportive work atmosphere?

Equal benefits are the bedrock of any business espousing true support of its LGBT employees. A transgender man denied access to mental health services under his employer’s insurance, a lesbian mother who can’t get coverage for her partner in a conservative state that doesn’t recognize same-sex unions—these are the commonplace stories that bring inequities into focus.

The Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index, which has rated private-sector companies on gay-friendly policies since 2002, has gradually evolved its standards to press employers for greater accountability beyond the usual medical, dental, and vision care imperatives. In fact, the new corporate index standards (unveiled earlier this year for implementation in 2011) will now require companies to include other crucial benefits, such as transgender-inclusive health care. Bottom line: Companies seeking to retain their coveted 100% ratings may soon have to work a little harder.

Read the rest of this article from The Advocate here.

Healthy workplaces go beyond corporate policies: Civility is a business strategy

I've been reading a lot of online articles lately that claim the answer to your bully problem is the implementation of a corporate policy. Even BusinessWeek is guilty.

We can implement policies all day long, but unless they are in alignment with the organization's overall vision and have leadership buy-in it will be like they don't exist at all. Corporate policies are only as good as management and employee support for them.

That means we must adjust the corporate culture and obtain buy-in from everyone (or at least as many people as possible) before we can create a corporate policy that fits within the new, and nice, way of doing things. If the anti-bully/healthy workplace policy is to be effective, it will decidedly be designed to achieve the newly established vision and culture. (In other words, corporate policies do not adjust corporate culture, but they can be used as a tool in the process.)

One sure fire way to gain employee support is to get them involved in developing the vision of a healthy culture and corresponding policies. If staff helps create the vision, it's easier to hold them accountable to it. And when they feel included in the process, they are more likely to take heed to it anyway simply because they have a vested interest in doing so. In addition, when employees are involved their personal values are involved, thereby individual values and corporate values become one in the same.

Asking departments to develop action plans surrounding the new vision is also useful in obtaining support. Action plans are documented procedures directly related to meeting the new business strategy; and list the actual steps, responsible individual, resources required, measures for success, due date and actual date of completion. For example, a department might decide to perform a specific project as a pointedly collaborative team; tracking their success, how well they work together, and the accountability of each team member. The results would then be reported to management and perhaps the entire organization for accountability.

Appointing organizational champions can also be helpful. Employee assistance professionals, ombudsman, and even plain ol' employees can fill these positions. Organizational champions would then be responsible for ensuring people are treating one another with civility, respect and encouragement. Champions should also be part of the policy roll-out process in order to obtain their full support of these new responsibilities.

So, don't add an anti-bully corporate policy to the policy handbook and expect the bullying behavior to stop. If no one supports it, then who cares. Bullying behavior will stop when the corporate culture doesn't allow that type of behavior to thrive anymore... and that goes way, way beyond anything a corporate policy can do. Adjust the company vision, and then implement a policy in-line with the new way of doing things.