Psychology at Work

Psychology at Work: Five ways to tackle workplace bullying

Binna Kandola — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:28:00 GMT

How can organisations prevent bullying in the workplace? And how should they deal with it if it happens?

'The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man'. If ever there was a mantra for the organisational bully, then George Bernard Shaw provided it. This of course is brought to mind with the allegations of Gordon Brown bullying his staff at Number 10. Bullies at work will rationalise their behaviour in any number of ways:

“My standards are high”
“I won’t accept poor quality work”
“I am a better manager than others you have had”

All of these statements can of course be used by people who treat others with respect and decency. But the bully needs them to justify to him or herself that their behaviour is a result of a positive motive.

ACAS define bullying as something that has happened to someone that is unwelcome, unwarranted and causes detrimental effect. Psychologists have added that the behaviour must occur over a certain time period, say several months, so that it excludes one-off incidents. There can also be a tendency to think that bullying is fairly obvious to detect - for example, physical intimidation, public humiliation, personal insults. But there can be more subtle and yet just as damaging behaviour that isn’t as obvious, e.g. setting someone up to fail in their work, spreading rumours about a person’s competence, withholding information, giving an unrealistic workload.

There are some straightforward steps that an organisation can take to tackle bullying:

1. Have a zero tolerance policy
A policy will make it clear that bullying is unacceptable in the workplace. The policy needs to describe what bullying is, and more importantly, what steps a person can take if they feel it is happening to them.

2. Provide training
Everyone in the organisation needs to know what the policy says - what bullying is, and where you can turn to for help if it is happening to you. More contentiously perhaps, you can also provide training in how to deal with bullying and other forms of inappropriate behaviour. Some may think that such training places the onus on the victim to do something. In fact, it will empower individuals to take action for themselves.

3. Be a role model
Managers, especially senior managers, can all act as role models. There is no point having a policy that the most senior people then just ignore.

4. Take complaints seriously
Make sure that when someone does complain, it's treated seriously. Listen, investigate but don’t try to sweep it under the carpet. Cases that reach the employment tribunals are invariably as a result of the complaint being mishandled, particularly in the early stages. The other important rule though is to keep any investigations confidential - something that, astonishingly, the CEO of the National Bulling Helpline, Christine Pratt, totally disregarded when revealing that her organisation had received calls from the Prime Minster’s office.

5. Watch out for tell-tale signs
This could include a drop in performance, increased sickness absence or a loss of confidence. If you see indicators like this, try to understand what might be behind it. If you see someone behaving in a way that you think is poor, then let them know.

Professor Binna Kandola OBE is Senior Partner at Pearn Kandola LLP

Psychology at Work: Terry, Toyota and Trust

Binna Kandola — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:24:00 GMT

What do the recent John Terry and Toyota stories have in common? Both are about a breach of trust.

The association between John Terry and Toyota is not an obvious one. But given the difficulties the Chelsea footballer and the giant carmaker have had to face recently, I feel there is an issue that links them: trust.

John Terry’s sacking as England captain has stirred a debate about whether his conduct outside of work has any relevance to his performance in the role. Meanwhile, Toyota’s reluctance to act when defects were found in their cars left its reputation badly dented.

At the heart of both these stories are issues of trust. Trust is an important factor in any relationship. Feelings of trust in another person (or organisation) make life more predictable; we feel confident that we know how they will behave in the future. We all have expectations of our friends, colleagues, leaders and organisations. And we become most aware of them when they have not been met or where they have been breached.

Footballers having affairs may not be that uncommon. But this affair was different - it was with the partner of Wayne Bridge, his best friend. Bridge is both an ex- and current team mate – his club may have changed but he remains an England player. While most of each player’s team mates have expressed support for their man, fellow England players have remained silent - a sure sign that their loyalties are divided.

Toyota had built a reputation based on reliability, excellence, customer service and value. The slowness of leaders in Toyota to admit failings in its products has rapidly undermined the motor manufacturer’s carefully crafted reputation. There will be a number of reasons why this happened, but a refusal to accept responsibility will be one of them. The perceived unwillingness on the part of Toyota’s leadership to acknowledge, apologise for, and then rectify the errors made a bad situation worse.

Leaders’ behaviour is often used as an indicator as to the general trustworthiness of an organisation. Having a captain whose values appear to be questionable and whose responsibilities to his teammates, when not on the pitch, were put to one side, meant that the bonds of trust in the team were loosened. Equally, having leaders who try to avoid owning up to mistakes will severely damage a brand’s reputation and consumer confidence.

Capello did the right thing by his team by replacing Terry as captain. He restores our faith in the organisation, but in so doing also puts greater pressure on himself: any indiscretion on his part will have greater consequences because he has implicitly asked us to believe not only that he will maintain team cohesiveness, but that he is also trustworthy himself. Assuming that responsibility and then living up to it is a sure sign of good, if not great, leadership. It is an example that Toyota would do well to follow.

Psychology at Work: Time for some optimism

Stuart Duff — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:04:00 GMT

We're out of recession, so let's stop being so pessimistic. It'll do us good, and we might even live longer.

It’s official. We are out of recession. OK, so it may be marginal. It may well be possible that the growth of the past quarter will recede again in coming months. But for now, it’s official. We are out of the recession. Six words that should get us all feeling upbeat and optimistic about the future.

So why, despite this news, is there such a strong and enduring sense of pessimism? In the last week, since the news of economic growth was announced, I’ve heard nothing but downbeat forecasts for the future. Speaking to senior and fairly influential leaders in business reveals a consistent view that our troubles are set to continue for another few years. Apparently this will be a ‘double-dip’ recession, and we’re about to slide down the double-dip bit. And all positive indicators of recovery have been falsely propped up by cash injection anyway, so the recovery will soon evaporate with the VAT changes and higher interest rates. Everyone seems to have a view on the future, but it’s all rather negative.

So here’s a challenge. A simple challenge. Be optimistic. Be positive. Not mindlessly or vaguely hopeful, but focused and determinedly optimistic.

Psychologists have long distinguished between two distinct ways of looking at life. There’s optimism, and there’s pessimism. Pessimists tend to believe that negative events will last a long time; they see negative events as threatening and damaging, and believe that a bad experience could undermine everything in life. Facing the same situations, optimists see setbacks as temporary. They see a loss as an opportunity to learn. They are more resilient and determined. And they see a challenge as just that - a challenge. Something that can be overcome with effort and resolve. As Sir Alex Ferguson said after Andy Murray’s recent defeat at the Australian Open: 'I am always stronger after I have lost a game'.

And consider the side-effects of outlook. Pessimists, for instance, tend to give up more quickly and more easily than their optimistic counterparts. They feel depressed more frequently and will talk of stronger feelings of ‘helplessness’, in which nothing they try seems to work in their favour.

This isn’t meant to be patronising advice to a no-doubt informed and fairly hard-nosed readership. But I’m starting to feel that we need a wake-up call. It’s very easy, through fear of the unknown, to become caught in a wave of pessimism. Let’s face it: in a perverse way, it’s sometimes comforting to look on the bleak side. At least it doesn’t raise expectations.

But, in reality, pessimism perpetuates pessimism - whether that’s with your mates, your colleagues or, more importantly, the people who look to you for guidance and leadership. So perhaps now is the time to step back and make a conscious choice - to be more optimistic.

Incidentally, optimists also tend to live longer. So if you want to be around to see the next great recession, try to look on the bright side.

Stuart Duff is Head of Development at Pearn Kandola Business Psychologists

Psychology at Work: Climate, Copenhagen and Custard Pots

Binna Kandola — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:06:00 GMT

The climate change row shows the importance of clear, straightforward, memorable messages.

Swilling out my (low-fat) custard pot the other evening, I found myself pondering the futility of it all. Having got to middle age, without thinking that much about global warming or the environment, I am now having to consider what I am doing far more deliberately. Meanwhile, representatives from over 180 nations were recently gathered together in Copenhagen trying to agree what they are going to do to combat climate change. Their visions of the future were nightmarish, even apocalyptic.

The gulf between the looming disaster and the action that each individual can take is enormous, and this gross mismatch is one of the main reasons why people are slow to do anything. In other areas of public policy - wearing seat belts, stopping smoking in public places, driving at lower speeds - there is a direct link between action taken and its impact. We can see, in other words, what’s in it for us. With climate change the connections are so much more difficult to make. Recycling custard pots is hardly going to save the Maldives, is it?

In the other policy areas mentioned, one of the most significant reasons they have worked is not legal enforcement but peer pressure. If one fails to wear a seatbelt or lights up a *** in a pub, it’s the fact that others will point out your transgressions that will make you change. But with the environment, I don’t sense any great peer pressure. I wash my custard pots because I choose to; if I didn’t wash them out, no-one would be telling me to do it.

Finally, the messages about what we should and shouldn’t do are complex and confusing. Simplifying good nutrition into ‘5 a day’ was a real masterstroke of communication. It probably won’t be possible to do this with climate change, but more needs to be done by activists, governments and organisations to make the actions we need to take as straightforward and memorable as possible.

But there are broader lessons here for organisations trying to bring about changes in behaviour. First, you must be able to have an answer to the question: 'What's in it for me?' People must see some benefit for themselves. Second, the change needs to be accepted by a critical mass who will also be disapproving of others not making the change. Third, the change must be as simple and easily understood as possible. When these three elements line up, the probability for successful behaviour change will be significantly higher.

Psychology at Work: Make your New Year resolutions stick

Stuart Duff — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:17:00 GMT

Resolutions can work. But you need to focus on the process of change, not just the outcome.

Earlier this week Richard Wiseman, respected psychologist and best-selling author, suggested that making New Year resolutions is a ‘pointless’ exercise. The headlines of newspapers screamed ‘don’t bother’ as Wiseman and his team had discovered that around three quarters of the 700 people they surveyed failed to stick to their resolutions. The researchers found, not surprisingly, that making last minute resolutions tends to back-fire and that following the advice of self-help gurus leads to sure-fire failure. Worse still, those who fail in their resolutions feel even more despondent than when they started.

But telling us not to set resolutions is a little like telling lemmings to stay away from the cliff-edge. We can’t suppress the naïve but very human impulse to improve ourselves and make life better. So is there any hope for those of us who do set resolutions for 2010?

The good news is that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that we can be successful in making and sticking to resolutions. Unfortunately, the bad news is that it takes effort, planning, monitoring and (perhaps most importantly) long-term commitment.

One of my favourite pieces of research from the year offers a real insight into how we will improve our chances of making resolutions stick. The study by Phillippa Lally and colleagues at UCL (published in the European Journal of Social Psychology) looked at how long it takes to form new habits.

The results are enlightening. They found that it takes an average of 66 days of routine practice before a new behaviour becomes established. Even the most apparently simple of changes, such as drinking a glass of water every day, take some time before they will become an automatic part of our routine. Not surprisingly, establishing new health habits (such as doing sit-ups every morning) takes considerably longer. The research also highlighted that missing the odd day of practice didn’t matter too much, but that it is easy to relapse if we make changes to our routine even after the new behaviour has become a part of the fixed routine.

And the implications? We often focus on the end goal, but without considering the degree of effort required to achieve that goal. It is important to face up to the difficulty of making change, rather than the outcome. The research also encourages us to think about maintaining change, rather than simply taking action. This takes effort, planning, monitoring and organisation. Finally, this clearly doesn’t just apply to resolutions. When you sit down to conduct any review, bear these points in mind.

Last year, researchers suggested that January 24th was the ‘most depressing’ day of the year. This was the day that most of us caved in on our resolutions and returned to bad habits. Keep the figure of 66 days in mind. It will bring a more realistic perspective on the changes you want to make at work. And you never know, it could also encourage you to stick at what you’re doing until at least the 7th March...

Stuart Duff is Head of Development at Pearn Kandola Business Psychologists

Psychology at Work: How to spot an office liar

Binna Kandola — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:53:00 GMT

A survey designed to show how good managers are at spotting liars has actually revealed how suspicious we are.

According to the research, two-thirds of managerial respondents can tell when their staff are lying, and 90% don’t believe reasons given for being late for work. But it is one of life’s lovely little ironies that these managers are unfortunately kidding themselves.

Lack of eye contact, avoiding people and body language were the most common signals managers said they use for spotting lies. But these are crude and unreliable indicators; by these standards, every shy person would be branded a liar.

Some people stated that they can tell intuitively whether they are being told the truth or not. Research shows that those who say this are no better at deception-detecting than those who say they don’t possess these skills, and neither has a record better than chance.

The best way of spotting lies involves careful questioning, looking for irregularities and then following up. In other words, it takes time.

We can also give ourselves away by our micro-expressions, which are barely perceptible to the untrained eye – a slight twitch, a swallow, an eye flutter. But you need to be highly expert to detect these, and the majority of us don’t have the ability or knowledge.

Let’s not forget of course that we all lie at some time or another. 'You look fantastic'; 'the food was delicious'; 'great presentation' - all examples of flattery that might not be true, but helps us all to get along that little bit better.

But look at the two figures again: 90% don’t believe their staff’s reasons for being late; 65% believe they can spot lies. There is a 25% gap between the two, where the manager can’t tell if someone is lying - but doesn’t believe them anyway.

What this survey reveals unintentionally therefore is not the ability to spot liars, but managerial suspicion of their people. So if any one tells you either that they can spot liars, or that they trust their staff, they may be telling you porky-pies.

Professor Binna Kandola OBE

Psychology at Work: How to Cope with Bullying Bosses

Stuart Duff — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:18:00 GMT

Almost half of UK employees say their boss bullies them. But why is this happening?

It's Anti-Bullying Week, and some enlightening research has just emerged into what’s going on in the mind of bullying bosses. For some time now, it has been clear that when leaders are put under pressure of one form or another, a number of ‘dark side’ characteristics may emerge. These are extreme forms of behaviour – often the flip side of what has made that very person so successful – and will appear to others through actions such as excessive risk taking, perfectionism and manipulation.

This latest research adds another dimension to our understanding of the triggers of such extreme behaviours. Psychologists have identified that self-perceived incompetence – and not actual incompetence - can provoke a manager or leader to bully their staff. In essence, people who are in a position of power, but who believe they are incompetent, are likely to feel threatened. In turn, they will become more defensive and aggressive when put under pressure.

Given everything we know about leaders and their behaviour, this makes a lot of sense. Hey, we’ve all had days where we doubt ourselves, and none of us would claim to be at our best during that time. But what does this tell us about the current state of leadership? I don’t know about you, but I think it helps to explain a couple of major issues at work at the moment.

The first of these is the rapid rise in bullying cases reported in the press. Some recent figures suggest that 49 per cent of British employees blame their immediate manager for bullying them, while some 56 per cent believing it is a serious problem in their office, shop or factory. I have to say that I’m not a great believer in surveys. After all, who wouldn’t take the opportunity to take a quick pop at their manager in a confidential survey? However, the findings seem to be more and more consistent, which is - or should be - of concern to any employer.

The second issue is that so many managers and leaders who felt successful during the economic boom times are now struggling to deal with the harsh realities of the downturn. In reality, many leaders are learning that it’s easy to make money when there’s a lot of it around, but now we’re in a whole different ball game. I know through my own coaching and development work that this has brought on a whole wave of pressure for leaders that they simply have not had to confront over the past ten years.

So what this says to me is that organisations need to act. And quickly. They need to seriously consider the direct support given to their managers, the coping strategies with which they equip their managers and the resources that they provide to those managers. There is a basic philosophy in some organisations that the toughest will survive – they will get through the current turbulent times. That’s true. But the toughest aren’t necessarily the brightest, the most talented or what is needed for the future of the organisation. Are they?

Stuart Duff is Head of Development at Pearn Kandola Business Psychologists

Psychology at Work: Promoting well-being is not just a sticking plaster

Binna Kandola — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:30:00 GMT

There’s a subtle but important difference between trying to reduce stress, and trying to promote well-being.

A lawyer friend was walking through a client’s offices recently and came across a group of staff being given head and shoulder massages, with another group patiently waiting in line for their turn. The client said proudly that this was to help reduce stress. My friend, being of a cynical nature (did I say he was a lawyer?) wondered whether it wouldn’t be better for the staff if they were able to spend a little less time at work.

The story came to mind when reading the National Institute for Clinical Excellence guidelines on Promoting Well-Being in the Workplace. The title is revealing, I think. For once here is a focus on well-being rather than stress, a subtle but significant distinction – it is the difference between light and dark, positive and negative. When we place stress in the foreground we try to find ways of reducing or eliminating its causes. Well-being, however, means we begin to search for ways of making work a more meaningful and enjoyable experience.

The report’s authors conclude that mental ill health costs the country a staggering £28bn per annum. As you might expect, some of the costs are associated with sickness absence and staff turnover. Together though they amounted to only 40% of the total. The big ticket item was presenteeism – which was estimated to be one and a half times the cost of absenteeism, and which is most prevalent amongst senior management.

You might disagree with some the financial assumptions being made (no report these days ever has cost savings of less than a billion it seems) but the sums involved are large by any standards.

The guidelines tell us what organisations need to do to improve mental well-being including: ensuring a sense of equity, justice and fairness in the way people are treated; flexible working; good line management where people are developed, receive feedback and feel supported.

This is all sensible, practical advice. But it means that we have to examine the organisation’s culture, its processes and management style in a fundamental way –rather than applying superficial if highly colourful sticking plasters to the problems. If we don’t do this, the queues for the Indian head massage won’t be getting any smaller.

Professor Binna Kandola OBE

Psychology at Work: Blair’s style typifies what went wrong with leadership

Binna Kandola — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:30:00 GMT

Since the start of the financial crisis there has been much talk, by politicians especially, of the need for a Change of Culture within organisations, particularly banks. As time has progressed, the focus for this CoC has become bonuses, sparked by the pay-outs being made to staff by Goldman Sachs.

One of the key reasons why so many financial institutions failed, I would suggest, was due to leadership. Too many of the organisations that needed to be bailed out were led by men whose narcissistic tendencies meant that they believed they were right, and consequently did not feel the need to listen to others. They were aided and abetted by corporate cultures that were concerned primarily about making profit and less about how it was achieved. The leaders' egos were further fuelled by political complicity, too. Let's not forget that Fred Goodwin was a regular visitor to No.11, a close advisor to the Chancellor, and was rewarded in 2004 with a Knighthood for (try not to giggle now) 'Services to Banking'.

There is a touch of irony in Goldman Sachs being the stimulus for the current round of bonus bashing. They appear to be one of the few organisations that genuinely tries to uphold its values, and may be an example to others.

At the same time as the calls for a CoC, we find members of the Cabinet promoting the ambitions of Tony Blair to be the EU President. Having studied Blair in some depth, I think it could be argued that his leadership style - excitement seeking, lacking in empathy, an over-reliance on charm and persuasion - is precisely the sort that led so many banks to near-ruin and which will ultimately come to typify his era.

The ways in which organisations choose their leaders, as well as the qualities being sought, are all things that need to be examined if a genuine CoC is to be achieved. It would help if politicians could set an example.