Recognise This! – The influence of bad behaviour at work outweighs good. Remove the bad, just as you reinforce the good.
Do we need more evidence that it’s simply not worth it to justify the bullying bad behaviour of high performing employees just because “they deliver?” (In addition to the research I’ve illustrated in posts here, here and here.)
Research reported in Bnet shows the effect of bullying, disrespectful behaviour on the productivity and engagement of the person on the receiving end:
“A disrespectful behaviour automatically triggers a squirt of cortisol into our brains,” says Paul Meshanko, founder and Managing Partner of Legacy Business Cultures. “Cortisol shuts down the prefrontal cortex and triggers the flight or fight mechanism. So our focus turns inward and we lose the ability to fully engage with other people, to help other people, to be creative and energised and motivated — because our body automatically concentrates on surviving, not thriving. But even when the initial effects finally go away, the process isn’t over. When we think about a particular incident later we receive another squirt of cortisol and feel similar effects. Disrespect is like the anti-gift; instead of the gift that keeps on giving, it’s the ‘gift’ that keeps on taking.”
And Stanford Professor Bob Sutton (known for his books The No Asshole Rule and Good Boss, Bad Boss) highlighted findings from the “Bad Is Stronger than Good” research in his Work Matters blog:
“Essentially, the authors meticulously go through topic after topic — personal relationships, learning, memory, self-image, and numerous others — and show that bad packs a much stronger impact than good. They review a couple hundred diverse studies to make this point, and as they say at the end, the consistency of their findings about the disproportionate impact of bad things (compared to the power of good things) – like negative emotions, hostility, abuse, dysfunctional acts, destructive relationships, serious injuries and accidents, incompetence, and on and on — is depressingly consistent across study after study.
“One implication for managers and numerous other influencers in organisations is that, whilst bringing and breeding great people, and encouraging civility, competence, effort, and other kinds of goodness is an important part of the job, such efforts will be undermined if you aren’t constantly vigilant about eliminating the negative, which includes dealing with people who are bad apples.”
That last statement of Dr. Sutton’s is critically important to note. Similar to University of Vermont research I discussed earlier this week, if you don’t eliminate the negative behaviour of bullies and jerks at work, it doesn’t matter how much you do to reinforce the good.
Does your workplace tolerate bad behaviour? Have you worked in an organisation that proactively worked to eliminate such negative behaviours (through coaching, retraining or removal)? Did you see marked improvement in employee attitudes, productivity and engagement?
