Laws and Attitudes

Regardless of the progress made through legislation over the years, discrimination and bigotry still exist. Subtle tactics are utilized to exclude perceived undesirables from groups and organizations of all kinds. Mobbing also can be used by some to mask discrimination directed at individuals associated with those groups protected by law. Utilizing tactics such as isolation, intimidation, questioning someone’s work or credentials to discredit, withholding information someone needs to do the job and similar activities, Mobbing is engineered to make the target appear to be at fault.

Being subjected to Mobbing does not excuse someone of reprehensible conduct. It can, however, explain some of the dynamics that can lead up to acts of workplace violence. Some common characteristics of the perpetrators of mass killings are isolation, paranoia, feelings of persecution, preoccupation with survival. People who are being mobbed are often isolated first by others and then engage in self-isolation due to fear and uncertainty. They can develop feelings of paranoia and not know who can be trusted. Personality changes may occur. They often suffer from acute anxiety and/or post traumatic stress disorder just as those who have witnessed disasters, have been mugged, raped, or gone through war may experience. Knowledge of the Mobbing process, its impact on the individual and consequ! ences to others help with prevention. Laws , regulations, policies, and procedures may limit behavior but they do little to change attitudes. Schools may state that they have an anti-bullying policy while mobbing and bullying remain rampant. Organizations have codes of conduct and both discrimination and harassment policies in place while side stepping enforcement intentionally or unintentionally. That is why dignity and respect principles being included in stated expectations of conduct, while being important, are not enough to stop Mobbing or other forms of harassment and discriminatory activity. These concepts must be learned through deepened insight and then demonstrated by acting with expanded awareness.

Each of us is a precious, one-of-a-kind human being separate from our behavior or what we may represent to others. Understanding this is the doorway to treating each other with dignity and respect. How we treat othe! rs says more about who we are than who they are. We can’t just say we believe in dignity and respect. We must act as if we do.

Anticipate a great day. It’s YOURS!
Gail
——————————————————————————-©2012 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved. Gail Pursell Elliott, “The Dignity and Respect Lady”, has over 20 years experience in middle and upper management, founded Innovations Training in 1998, and is author of several books including School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse and co-author of the book Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace. Her weekly Food for Thought is read by people around the world. Gail trains employees for corporations, associations and universities, designs sessions upon request to address specific needs and timely issues, and is a featured speaker at conferences as well as! a media expert on workplace and school violence. Gail has been a guest on such programs as MSNBC’s Deborah Norville Tonight, ABC World News NOW television programs and the Workplace Violence Today program on talk radio.
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——————————————————————————-Gail Pursell Elliott, The Dignity and Respect Lady
Mobbing, Bullying and Harassment Expert
Professional Development Consultant

The Common Thread of Communication

The Common Thread of Communication: Mobbing Behavior Categories
©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott

The workplace mobbing research done by Dr. Heinz Leymann in the 1980’s identified 45 behaviors that emerge during a mobbing process. They were then grouped into five categories as follows:

1. Attacks on self expression and communication.
2. Attacks on a person’s social relations.
3. Attacks on a person’s reputation.
4. Attacks on the quality of a person’s professional and life situation.
5. Direct attacks on a person’s health.

All of these categories include various forms of negative communication as well as other activities. Although much of the workplace bullying literature has addressed supervisor bullying of employees, recent studies have found that a large percentage of the disparaging communication and behavior is peer to peer. The fragile state of employment and the uncertain nature of the current economy serve to exacerbate these situations. Regardless of whether mobbing is initiated laterally or supervisor to employee or employee to supervisor, eventually the targeted individual is attacked from all directions.

When my coauthors and I wrote Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace in the late 1990’s we interviewed people from a variety of industries and occupations. Incidents of aggressive forms of communication intended to humiliate or denigrate were consistently described to us. Some of the behaviors that were identified by our interview partners ranged from laughing in the person’s face and making inappropriate jokes about him or her to yelling, slamming doors and pounding fists on the table. However outrageous and unprofessional these may seem,not only did they occur but also when some sort of action was attempted, targets generally reported that the situation became worse rather than better. One of the main points made during our interviews as well as in Leymann’s research was that help consistently was out of reach.

Willingness to report misconduct is a key to maintaining an ethical workplace culture. In organizations in which retaliation goes unrecognized or uncorrected, conduct violations go unreported. Mobbing inhibits needed communication when not only targets but other employees are reluctant to report what they observe or experience. It must be remembered that communication consists of more than just verbal elements. Non‐verbal signals, intonation, innuendos, implication and written communication also are included. Some more recently, commonly reported behaviors include glaring at the target, others storming out of area when the person arrives, being given “the silent treatment”, derogatory name calling and negative comments about intelligence. Although some of these seem reminiscent of adolescent behavior, they are indeed reported workplace activities. Others even have reported being subjected to mean pranks. Though it is not unusual for employees to have occasional conflicts, to engage in good natured humor or joking or even to occasionally make a joke about someone, what we’re talking about here is quite different.

Withholding information necessary to do the job, interfering with work activities, failing to return calls or emails, spreading rumors or gossip, failing to deny false rumors about the target or refusing requests for assistance are more indirect forms of negative communication. The subtle, less obvious behaviors are engineered to confuse, intimidate, isolate and to set up the target for vilification. Managers and supervisors may either perpetrate deliberately or participate unknowingly. Some of the behaviors exhibited by management that have been reported are being accused of deliberately making an error, attempts at turning other employees against the person, being constantly interrupted when speaking, demanding attendance at a meeting then being treated as invisible, reprimanded or “put down” in front of others. When a manager or supervisor is the target, he or she may be falsely accused of some of these behaviors.

While the behaviors themselves are indicative of mobbing, patterns of behavior are equally important. If the woes of a department are blamed on one individual or if complaints of being set up or work being sabotaged are reported, it is time to take a closer look. Unreasonable workloads, unrealistic deadlines or changes in reporting or accessibility to others in the organization are also indicators that there is more going on beneath the surface than may be apparent. Mobbing is an organizational dynamic that requires correction on more than just the interpersonal level. Protecting employees, by creating an organizational culture that exhibits dignity and respect as the standard and demonstrated expectation will experience fewer instances of abusive, retaliatory or unethical conduct. This results in more than just controlling the damage that can be done to individuals. It also helps build employee morale, sets an important ethical tone and encourages an environment that leads to success.

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Gail Pursell Elliott, “The Dignity and Respect Lady”, has over 20 years experience in middle and upper management, founded Innovations “Training With A Can-Do Attitude” in 1998, and is author of several books including School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse and co-author of the book Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace. Her weekly Food for Thought is read by people around the world. Gail trains employees for corporations, associations and universities, designs sessions upon request to address specific needs and timely issues, and is a featured speaker at conferences as well as a sought after media expert on workplace and school violence. Gail has been a guest on such programs as MSNBC’s Deborah Norville Tonight, ABC World News NOW television programs and the Workplace Violence Today program on talk radio.
Contact Gail through her website: http://www.innovations-training.com

We Don’t Do That Here

Today’s article is excerpted from my book School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse: See It Stop It Prevent It with Dignity and Respect. The book is available from Amazon and other online retailers. To order directly from the publisher contact taylorandfrancis.com
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©2003 Gail Pursell Elliott

Teachers can establish clear lines of conduct in terms of dignity and respect without being heavy handed, then model that behavior in front of students for the time that the students are in the classroom. Regardless of what may occur elsewhere on campus, “We don’t do that here.” This creates a safe zone in which expectations are clear. It is important that this is reinforced consistently rather than sporadically or in a piecemeal fashion.

Most teachers, as well as other adults, are accidental mentors. In other words, they are teaching more than the subject. Mentoring is rather like diversity, it is part of life whether we recognize it or not. There are plenty of programs these days that promote formalized mentoring. It’s become a buzzword for positive youth programs and the concept is great. But it’s also nothing new – it has just been given a name and a formal structure.

We are continually being encountered, overheard, and observed by others, setting an example, perhaps giving people ideas or arousing suspicion, planting all sorts of seeds. We can be either a good example or a good example of a bad example. Teachers have a tremendous impact with their attitudes towards students. And each student will react differently to negative communication. One student may take it as a challenge while another will be crushed. Regardless of the reaction, all will take communication very personally.

The more classrooms that are safe zones when it comes to conduct, the more the behavior has an opportunity to be practiced and extend itself to other situations. Before this can happen, however, it is necessary that people see each other as human beings with wants, hopes, needs, dreams and desires. Most people, regardless of age, do not feel comfortable intentionally engaging in behavior that is harmful to another person. When people lash out or treat each other in harmful ways they often either lose sight of this truth or they block it so that they can react to what that person represents to them. Creating a safe zone makes it safe for everyone.

Reacting in a heavy-handed manner does little beyond addressing immediate behavior. What is necessary is insight and awareness. Then changes in both attitude and behavior can be the personal decisions that they are intended to be.

Have a great day and be good to yourself and those you encouter. You all deserve it!
Gail
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Gail Pursell Elliott, “The Dignity and Respect Lady”, has over 20 years experience in middle and upper management, founded Innovations Training in 1998, and is author of several books including School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse and co-author of the book Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace. Her weekly Food for Thought is read by people around the world. Gail trains employees for corporations, associations and universities, designs sessions upon request to address specific needs and timely i! ssues, and is a featured speaker at conferences as well as a sought after media expert on workplace and school violence. Gail has been a guest on such programs as MSNBC’s Deborah Norville Tonight, ABC World News NOW television programs and the Workplace Violence Today program on talk radio.

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SCHOOL MOBBING/BULLYING TELECONFERENCE – October 20th
2 – 3 PM Central Time, 3 – 4 PM Eastern
Cost: $3.33 per registration
Register online

http://www.innovations-training.com

Gail Pursell Elliott, The Dignity and Respect Lady
Mobbing, Bullying and Harassment Expert
Professional Development Consultant
Innovations “Training With a Can-Do Attitude”
PO Box 552, Roland, IA 50236
www.innovations-training.com

“To be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.” – e.e. cummings

Mobbing and Bullycide

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott

Once again national outrage has been expressed over students being bullied to the point of suicide by their peers.

I’m tired of kids killing themselves because they were bullied to the point that they felt there was no hope, no help, no way out and no end to it.
I’m tired of hearing about kids or adults who not only bully but tell others to kill themselves that no one will miss them and the world will be better without them.
I’m tired of seeing programs of outrage after the fact showcasing tears and regrets and helplessness.
I’m tired of people pointing at schools, teachers and systems that don’t see, don’t stop, don’t prevent, and don’t respond.
I’m tired of people who don’t take a personal stand but prefer to tell others how to live.

Students and others are victimized by Mobbing. The first time the term Mobbing was used in relation to human behavior was in 1972, when a report investigating the rise of suicides among school age children was published in Sweden. The research uncovered an extreme form of group bullying that resulted in such feelings of isolation, depression and hopelessness that these children were committing suicide in greater numbers. The title of the report was Mobbing: Group Violence Among School Children.

Mobbing begins subtly with rumors, gossip, shunning, and then moves to more overt types of bullying behavior such as public humiliation and intimidation and even physical abuse. This is preventable. Anti-bullying laws and policies are helpful and provide legal recourse but the real issue is what students and adults are willing to tolerate, join or justify. There is no justification for treating a human being as an object, whether it is an object of hate, jealousy, fear, resentment or ridicule. We are all precious individuals, human beings worthy and entitled to be treated with Dignity and Respect without exception.

To learn more about Mobbing, Bullying and Harassment in schools and the Dignity and Respect approach to this issue, sign up for my October 20th, School Mobbing teleconference.

SCHOOL MOBBING/BULLYING TELECONFERENCE – October 20th
2 – 3 PM Central Time, 3 – 4 PM Eastern
Cost: $3.33 per registration
Register online

http://www.innovations-training.com

Gail Pursell Elliott, The Dignity and Respect Lady
Mobbing, Bullying and Harassment Expert
Professional Development Consultant
Innovations “Training With a Can-Do Attitude”

“To be nobody but yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.” – e.e. cummings

Civility as a Safety Issue

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott

Unemployment and job security have created some disturbing behaviors in today’s workplaces. Supervisors Intimidating employees and verbally bullying them has become more prevalent as well as coworkers behaving subversively to protect their jobs from others viewed as a threat to their continued employment. Behavioral risk management is the realm in which we address workplace violence. Not addressing incivility and disrespectful behavior in the workplace especially in times such as these is risky business. Creating a safe environment in this area can be challenging and like every other safety issue, requires an organizational commitment, structural and procedural assessments, and implementation of safeguards such as communication education, monitoring and intervention. Unfortunately, most programs addressing issues of violence are more reactive than proactive. Once the need has been demonstrated either by overt acts of aggressive behavior, threats or worse, a company will scramble to figure out what happened in that instance rather than looking at the organization as a whole.

What most organizations don’t understand is how long disgruntled employees stay disgruntled. As an expert on bullying, mobbing, and harassment in workplaces and schools, I’ve worked with individuals who have angry and hostile feelings towards the workplace and the individuals who abused them or pushed them out and are unable to let those feelings go even if they are able to move on with their lives. Humiliation has been described as having the effect of killing someone over and over. The humiliation or desecration of a human spirit is one of the main reasons that former or current employees will retaliate with an overt act of violence, the most extreme of which is a workplace shooting. It is interesting to note that in a large percentage of these cases, the perpetrator also commits suicide. This indicates that the person was suicidal and engaged in homicide as a last act of taking control in an environment that destroyed their sense of self and left them feeling out of control and without recourse. When mobbing was researched in Sweden in the 1980′s, it was determined that between ten and twenty percent of the suicides in the country at that time could be directly attributed to mobbing/bullying in the workplace. None of these cases involved violence toward others.

Civility is often coupled in the same phrase as ethical expectations within an organization as they often are closely related as indicators of one another. High turnover, low morale, an increase in sick leave and stress related workman’s compensation claims, unpleasant employee relations, factionalism, lowered productivity, a lack of teamwork and trust, are just some of the indicators that a risk management assessment and intervention is necessary. It is not only safer but less expensive to rehabilitate, reassign, provide counseling for employees, and to examine and change interactive processes within your organization than it is to contend with inordinate sick leave, stress related workman’s compensation, unemployment, litigation, and more. A good beginning is to have a behavioral risk management audit performed by an outside entity who is not only familiar with the indicators of bullying and mobbing but also who can remain objective to determine what is needed.

Meanwhile, a proactive approach is to create an emotionally safe and respectful work environment for everyone. This begins with clear and respectful communication and not only setting expectations but also modeling the behavior that is expected as well as providing training as necessary. Policies, mission statements and codes of conduct are reduced to merely fine words on paper when they are not lived as well as stated.

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Gail Pursell Elliott, “The Dignity and Respect Lady”, has over 20 years experience in middle and upper management, founded Innovations Training in 1998, and is author of several books including School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse and co-author of the book Mobbing: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace. Her weekly Food for Thought is read by people around the world. Gail trains employees for corporations, associations and universities, designs sessions upon request to address specific needs and timely i! ssues, and is a featured speaker at conferences as well as a sought after media expert on workplace and school violence. Gail has been a guest on such programs as MSNBC’s Deborah Norville Tonight, ABC World News NOW television programs and the Workplace Violence Today program on talk radio.

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This article was published earlier this year in the Workplace Violence Prevention E-Report. Gail is a regular contributor to the Report which is a quarterly publication of the National Institute for the Prevention of Workplace Violence. Gail’s articles focus on bullying and mobbing in the workplace.

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Mobbing Can Mask Discrimination

Regardless of the progress made through legislation over the years,
discrimination and bigotry still exist and utilize more subtle tactics to exclude perceived undesirables from groups and organizations of all kinds. Although mobbing is usually described as a status-blind form of harassment it also can be used by some to mask discrimination directed at individuals associated with those groups protected by law.

The 1993 award winning film, Philadelphia, is a good example of how this can happen. The main character Andrew Beckett, brilliantly played by Tom Hanks, is a young attorney with great credentials at one of the city’s leading legal firms. He was the “whiz kid” of the firm. They’d recruited him from a top school and he had not disappointed them. He was sharp, savvy, and put in long hours, proud to be a part of the prestigious organization. He loved his work and it showed in the successes he had achieved. He is promoted to senior associate and given an important, difficult and time sensitive case. While being congratulated by other members of the management team, one of them notices and asks about a mark on his forehead. Andy offers a quick explanation, not realizing that the questioner (who becomes the mobber) has recognized the mark as a skin lesion characteristic of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Following the pattern of mobbing as an organizational dynamic, elements that already exist within the organization have influenced Andy to not inform his employer of his sexual orientation and the fact that he has AIDS. These same elements contribute to the environment in which the mobber is able to engage in activities engineered to discredit Andy and encourage his termination. Within weeks of being promoted, he is fired for incompetence. As Andy endeavors to have the discrimination exposed and his employers held accountable, we hear words and phrases such as “sabotage” “set up” and “wrongful termination” which are very familiar to those of us who have expertise with this subject.

Members of the management group who feel uncomfortable with what is transpiring are intimidated by the mobber. The word “mobbing” is never used but the five phase process and their associated behaviors become apparent during the litigation process as the story unfolds. Toward the end of the court proceedings, we hear even the lead counsel for the firm whisper, “I hate this case” and when others at the table quietly express discomfort at Andy’s distress while on the stand, the mobber coldly remarks, “He asked for it

Laws, regulations, policies, and procedures may limit behavior but they do little to
change attitudes. That is why dignity and respect principles being included in stated expectations of conduct, while being important, are not enough to stop mobbing or other forms of harassment and discriminatory activity. These concepts must be learned through deepened insight and then demonstrated by acting with expanded awareness. Otherwise they risk becoming merely fine words on paper.

©2011 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved

To learn more about
Mobbing and Discrimination register for the teleconference/webinar

Mobbing and Discrimination: Side-Stepping the Law?

July 19th

1 – 2 pm CDT

online at www.innovations-training.com

Hello world!

Welcome to  Mobbing 101!  This blog is for anyone who is interested in learning more about mobbing, bullying and harassment and is a companion to my Food for Thought blog which promotes dignity and respect, insight and awareness.  To learn more about my work with mobbing, bullying and harassment in workplaces, schools and help for individuals please read the about page this site.

I look forward to your input, thoughts and reflections – please feel free to let others know about this learning location.

Have a great day!

Gail