Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com www.Ebook777.com Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com BEATING THE WORKPLACE BULLY A Tactical Guide to Taking Charge LYNNE CURRY Foreword by Gary Namie, Ph.D. American Management Association New York ❚ Atlanta ❚ Brussels ❚ Chicago ❚ Mexico City ❚ San Francisco Shanghai ❚ Tokyo ❚ Toronto ❚ Washington, D.C. American Management Association • www.amanet.org www.Ebook777.com This page intentionally left blank American Management Association • www.amanet.org To Ben, Jenny, and Ma’Hayla, and, like the rest of my life’s work, to God. To show the courage of your convictions requires you to have convictions. —Doug Rice American Management Association • www.amanet.org Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com This page intentionally left blank American Management Association • www.amanet.org www.Ebook777.com CONTENTS FOREWORD BY GARY NAMIE, PH.D. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION: Intimidated No More—You Can Do It 1 CHAPTER 1 Are You a Bully Magnet? 9 CHAPTER 2 You Can Run, but You Can’t Hide: Bullies Don’t Go Away on Their Own 21 CHAPTER 3 Doormats Can Change: Here’s What It Takes 25 CHAPTER 4 Wounded Rhinos, Shape-Shifters, Character Assassins, and Other Bullies 32 CHAPTER 5 It’s Your Choice: To Confront or Not to Confront 47 CHAPTER 6 Put on Your Game Face: Don’t Play by the Bully’s Rules 60 CHAPTER 7 The Eight Most Common Bully Traps and How to Avoid Them 69 CHAPTER 8 How to Overcome the Bully’s Favorite Weapon—an Outpost in Your Mind 84 CHAPTER 9 Countering Bully Tactics and Bully Speak 92 CHAPTER 10 Turn the Tables on a Bully with One Easy Move 103 CHAPTER 11 Create the You Who Won’t Knuckle Under 108 American Management Association • www.amanet.org CHAPTER 12 How to Silence the Angry, Aggressive Jerk 117 CHAPTER 13 How to Handle a Scorched-Earth Fighter 124 CHAPTER 14 Defusing the Silent Grenade 131 CHAPTER 15 Seeing Through the Shape-Shifting Mr. Hyde 135 CHAPTER 16 Pierce the Facade; Topple the Narcissist 142 CHAPTER 17 Take Down the Rhino Before It Charges 148 CHAPTER 18 Undoing a Character Assassin’s Wounds to Your Reputation 152 CHAPTER 19 The Newest Character Assassin: The Cyberbully 156 CHAPTER 20 How to Survive the Bully Boss 164 CHAPTER 21 Handling the Bully Employee Without Getting Burned 173 CHAPTER 22 Nine Essential Strategies for Creating Your Game Plan 182 CHAPTER 23 The Right Way to Ask Managers and Others for What You Need 189 CHAPTER 24 Anger, the Bully, and You 197 CHAPTER 25 What Every Leader Should Know About Bullying 202 CHAPTER 26 What Human Resources Can and Should Do 209 CHAPTER 27 Bullying Isn’t Illegal—or Is It? 216 CHAPTER 28 The Times Are Changing: Have You? 224 INDEX 237 ABOUT THE AUTHOR 244 FREE SAMPLE CHAPTER FROM TALKING TO CRAZY BY MARK GOULSTON 245 COPYRIGHT 258 American Management Association • www.amanet.org FOREWORD The Workplace Bullying Institute’s 2014 U.S. Workplace Bully- ing Survey documents that 65.7 million working Americans either experience or witness abusive conduct during their workday. Despite this, bullying remains a “we don’t talk about that” topic, making it the “silent epidemic.” Lynne Curry has plenty to say that breaks the silence. In this book, she makes it clear that the shame-targeted indi- vidual’s experience is undeserved. In this practical book, she sheds light on the phenomenon and provides aggressive steps a targeted worker can take to stop the bullying. Lynne, once a target herself, brings to the topic an overflowing bushel of tips, tools, and strategies that only a veteran workplace coach could bring. She leads you on a challenging journey made treacherous by obstacles put there by coworkers, supervisors, exec- utives, and even society. It’s an uphill battle for bullied individuals to be sure, but Lynne’s realistic steps give the reader the best chance to succeed, which she defines as getting to safety with one’s dignity intact—a worthy goal. You will especially love the vivid case descriptions illustrating a different aspect of bullying that open each chapter. Lynne is a superb writer. In her abbreviated but fluid style, she manages to infuse suffi- cient detail to make several points at the same time. You will recog- nize the familiar tactics of perpetrators, targets, witnesses, and man- American Management Association • www.amanet.org viii ❚ FOREWORD agers. Soon you’ll be putting faces on those she describes because you know someone who did the exact things Lynne portrays in this book. At the Workplace Bullying Institute, we have heard and read more stories about people targeted by bullies than any other group in the country. Lynne’s anecdotes, woven together with strands from different cases, are completely authentic and believable. Some skep- tics might not believe the outrageousness of some tactics she depicts, but they actually do happen as Lynne describes. Lynne tells us that her approach is based on learning and memory theories, but in her consulting practice, as well as in this book, she eschews theory, preferring to give us practical examples. As she says, this book is a personal training manual not a recitation of theories. The welcome change is that Lynne not only teaches us “what” targets can do but also compels us to dig in, to engage, to rehearse the sug- gested tactics so we can get to the “how.” It’s so refreshing to see an author admit that there is a huge gap between knowing and doing. I credit this to Lynne’s unique perspec- tive as a workplace coach. She obviously learned that her effectiveness depends on whether the person she advises can implement her sugges- tions to make sustainable changes. Brilliant delivery of advice does not guarantee efficacy, but Lynne wants readers to succeed. For this reason, she ends each chapter with “Your Turn,” a list of questions and exercises. The questions make the learning memora- ble by engaging simultaneously the reader’s intellect, emotions, and physical actions. Please don’t skip these exercises; they make this book special. I heartily endorse the author’s technique. In the early days, I learned the hard way what not to do when advising targets about workplace bullying. Back then we offered free advice to bullied work- ers who reached us on a toll-free line. Targets typically spent a long time describing their horrific experiences. I’d listen, then launch into a lengthy list of suggestions that I considered brilliant. At about item number twelve on a list of twenty things to do, and some forty-five American Management Association • www.amanet.org Free ebooks ==> www.Ebook777.com FOREWORD ❚ ix minutes into the call, the caller would interrupt my monologue to ask whether to get a pencil to write down the advice. Wow—ingratitude, I thought. But I was wrong to assume that emotionally injured people could calmly follow complex instructions. Dr. Ruth Namie, my wife, whose case launched the U.S. work- place bullying movement, taught me to stop bombarding targets with advice they were temporarily incapable of comprehending. I learned to tailor the complexity of my advice to the targets’ capabilities. The “Your Turn” section of each chapter ensures that the reader is not overwhelmed. Lynne is immersed in real-world problem solving. Her preference for directness leaps off the page. Her education and background cer- tainly qualify her to understand and formulate theories. However, what I most appreciate is her ability to translate abstractions into actionable steps that effect change for her coaching clients. It is her most important contribution to the field. Lucky readers of this book will benefit from that talent. Lynne brings considerable how-to experience to handling bully- ing and helping targets, bullies, and organizations. She writes a Q & A newspaper column in which she summarizes complex workplace dilemmas and offers sage advice to help those who write in to free themselves from the situations. The wisdom contained in this book derives partly from answering those tough bullying-related questions. Bullying problems are among the most resistant to easy solutions. Sadly, they are incredibly common. The 2014 national prevalence survey found that 27 percent of adult Americans have personally experienced abusive conduct at work. I am delighted by Lynne’s sensitivity to the plight of bullied targets, who never invited the misery dumped on them. She never condescends. Rather than victim blaming, she delivers good advice showing readers how to shore up personal vulnerabilities that bullies may use to justify an attack. Most of the book’s chapters are devoted to understanding why targets become targets and showing them how American Management Association • www.amanet.org www.Ebook777.com x ❚ FOREWORD to empower themselves to wrest control of their lives back from the bullies. Though there are multiple explanations for why bullies bully, Lynne is no apologist for bullies. She deserves a great deal of credit for not falling into the trap common to myopic, less capable coaches: blaming victims and being conned by charismatic Machiavellian bul- lies and their executive sponsors. She clearly states that bullies have a conscience “with as many holes as a thin slice of Swiss cheese.” This book is target-centric. The concluding chapters telescope back from the interpersonal dyad of target and bully to prescribe what the employer should be doing. Here Lynne brings the same confidence that something is pos- sible and doable that she granted to targeted individuals. According to one of our Institute’s studies, 68 percent of C-suite dwellers consid- ered workplace bullying “a serious problem.” In practice, however, there is a knowing–doing gap.