Melanie Sklarz
Five Tips for Respectful Interaction in the Workplace
*This article first appeared on the Politics of the Workplace website.
There are tons of rules in society, some written and some implicit— a red light means stop and most people obey. In the workplace there are established rules of respect as well. For example, if you physically assault someone, steal, or don’t show up for work, it’s likely you will be fired. For the most part, most employees have grasped those rules, but it tends to be the unspoken, often unwritten rules of behavior that cause the most problems in the workplace.
Here are our five tips for creating a respectful interaction in the workplace. These Rules of Engagement are primarily used in our workshops but these rules are so universal they could be adopted and used in a multitude of workplace scenarios to ensure respectful interactions among employees.
1. Take the point of view of others. Science has shown us that mirror neurons work to create empathy among individuals. By taking the point of view of the people we work with we can better understand their motivations.
2. Value the many sources of knowledge that exist. Sometimes we tend to think that our view is the correct one, because it’s all we know. But there are many sources of knowledge that exist within the workplace and all we have to do is take the time to explore them. Learn about that new co-worker or have lunch with someone in another department.
3. Look for places to agree, connect or support. When we interact with others in the workplace, it’s easier to conquer our differences by finding ways to connect first. Does that co-worker with the different political beliefs also value family as much as you? This allows you to create a connection with the person based on commonality.
From Toxic to Terrific: Transforming the Culture of Your Workplace
No one sets out to create a toxic environment. Yet when a workplace culture evolves on its own with little attention given to relationships and employees aren’t held accountable for rudeness or disrespect, the mood at any organization can turn poisonous. The results: loss of productivity, low morale, increased absenteeism and high turnover. Don’t miss the signs. Is your workplace in danger?
Take this quiz and see.
Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
1. “Sure, we tell some off colour-jokes, but everyone laughs, so I know there’s no problem. We need to have some fun at work” (agree/disagree).
2. “The best way to improve people’s performance is to point out mistakes” (agree/disagree).
3. “I know we don’t have much conflict because I never hear about it” (agree/disagree).
4. “I keep conversations with staff members short and to the point. I tell them what they need to know and make sure they do what they’re supposed to” (agree/disagree).
How to Put Humor to Work Without Getting Fired!
Here are 8 simple guiding lights to consider when putting humor to work in any type of organization:
1. Take Yourself Lightly. Too many of us fall victim to the dreadful disease “acute professionalism.” The symptoms include a furrowed forehead, high levels of stress and blocked creativity. The cure is simple – learn to take yourself lightly, while still taking your job seriously.
2. Be Yourself. When practicing humor it’s important to be authentic. Our sense of humor is as unique as our fingerprints, so practice humor that reflects your own personality. And be tolerant of the different types or styles of humor around you.
3. Think Small and Simple. The biggest factors that contribute to employee morale don’t cost a lot of money or take a lot of energy; it’s the small things done on a consistent basis that matter. So look for easy opportunities to introduce a little humor – put up a humor bulletin board, create a humor room (Kodak Eastman and Hewlett Packard have them) include humorous quotes in correspondence and practice spontaneous humor (which as stand-up comedians will tell you, is the most effective form of humor).
4. Practice Relevant Humor. The more you celebrate humor specific to your office, team or organization, the more meaningful the humor is. Relevant, work-related humor can easily become part of your organization’s history and help teams bond around shared experiences. Start collecting a humor file of quotes, cartoons, funny customer questions and anecdotes that relate to your organization.
Walking the Respect Talk
In the past, we’ve advocated for leaders walking the talk of creating a respectful workplace. In fact, our first post on this blog, written by Paul Meshanko, our Managing Partner discussed just that.
The attitudes and behaviors of senior leaders are where the rubber meets the road. If you really value respect, you have to precisely describe (and communicate) what it looks like and then hold yourselves 100% accountable for role modeling it.
That’s why it has been so interesting watching our state’s newly elected governor, John Kasich talking but nor walking the respect line to create an inclusive cabinet. Shortly after his inauguration, the media and other groups called him out for appointing not one single diverse member to his cabinet of so far 23 individuals.
Kasich’s spokesperson responded with the following statement.
The governor continues to look for qualified people to serve Ohio in his administration, without regard to race. More diversity and more inclusiveness are goals to which the administration is committed and to which we strive, just as our society strives toward them as well, and that commitment is ongoing.
How to Make Employee Performance Appraisals More Respectful
Ideally, the goal of your employee performance appraisals is to give employees feedback, direction and development so they can be their best. But in many cases, performance appraisals demoralize and discourage employees rather than engage and inspire them. Often, this is because the process fails to respect the individuals involved. Instead, the focus is put on filling out forms, and rating and ranking employees as “resources” rather than as individuals. Here are some practical ways every manager can make their employee performance appraisals more respectful:
Seek your employee’s point of view
Before you make any decisions or judgments about performance, seek your employee’s perspective. Ask them how they perceive their performance, their strengths, their weaknesses, the challenges facing their role, etc. You can do this formally using a self-appraisal, but you can use things like periodic one-on-one meetings, staff meetings, progress reports, performance journals, etc. to get your employee’s perspective and allow them to provide details and context you might be missing.
Make it a two-way dialogue
Your performance appraisal meeting should be a conversation about your employee’s performance, development, expectations, needs, etc. Don’t just tell them what your ratings are and assign them goals. Ask them what you could do to better support their performance. Share your ideas, insights and observations. Solicit their input on goals. Ask what kind of learning activities best suit their learning style. Discuss your ratings and explain why and how you arrived at them. Ask for their perspective and discuss all this in a respectful way that accommodates differences in communication style.
The Power of Recognition
Yesterday I spent a good deal of my day struggling with an article for my monthly client e-newsletter. I had what I thought was a good idea. However, as sometimes happens, the more I wrote, the less I wrote, and the less I progressed. By about 4 pm I was feeling quite frustrated and discouraged.
Now I don’t know about you, but at times like those it is easy for that demon of doubt and negativity to capture my attention. Why am I struggling with this? I have so much else to do. I send these out into cyberspace every month, and while I always get a few comments, at the end of the day does anyone really care? Would they even know the difference if these monthly reminders of the importance of respect at work stopped coming into their inboxes?
I kid you not, but within 5 minutes my phone rang. It was a former colleague from my airlines days, a very accomplished professional I have always respected and admired, who I had contacted earlier looking for some information for a client. He gave me the information I had requested and then asked how things were going. “Fine” I lied. Then to my great surprise he said “I read your articles every month. Whenever they come in, my wife always makes sure to let me know. You obviously put a lot of thought into them.”
What Is Bullying in the Workplace? A Schoolyard Phenomenon Haunts the Workplace
by Valerie Cade
A youngster who surrenders his lunch money to another child’s threats and an employee who is publicly and continually demeaned by his boss may both be experiencing the same phenomenon: bullying. While the term “bullying” is often associated with children, it is very common to see the same type of behavior in a work setting.
Not all negative workplace behavior is bullying, however. People can be unhappy with their job or have some control issue and become hurtful to fellow employees. They might spew their frustration on whoever provides the excuse, regretting it later on. If confronted with their shortcomings, they may acknowledge that they overreacted and may even apologize if confronted. In these scenarios, they are attempting to cope, rather than specifically targeting another person.
What, then, is bullying in the workplace?
It is repeated, deliberate, disrespectful behavior, which harms the target, by one or more people toward another for their own gratification.
Let’s look more closely at that definition.
First, the behavior that the bully uses is deliberate. The bully intends to hurt her target and is very focused, repeatedly attacking the same person…
What Is Bullying in the Workplace? A Schoolyard Phenomenon Haunts the Workplace
A youngster who surrenders his lunch money to another child’s threats and an employee who is publicly and continually demeaned by his boss may both be experiencing the same phenomenon: bullying. While the term “bullying” is often associated with children, it is very common to see the same type of behavior in a work setting.
Not all negative workplace behavior is bullying, however. People can be unhappy with their job or have some control issue and become hurtful to fellow employees. They might spew their frustration on whoever provides the excuse, regretting it later on. If confronted with their shortcomings, they may acknowledge that they overreacted and may even apologize if confronted. In these scenarios, they are attempting to cope, rather than specifically targeting another person.
What, then, is bullying in the workplace?
It is repeated, deliberate, disrespectful behavior, which harms the target, by one or more people toward another for their own gratification.
Let’s look more closely at that definition.
First, the behavior that the bully uses is deliberate. The bully intends to hurt her target and is very focused, repeatedly attacking the same person…
A Woman with the Courage to Speak Up
I wrote this en route, flying home after delivering Speak Up: Speak Out – Personal Power and Respect in the Workplace, one of most popular presentations I developed after publishing Road to Respect last year.
Speak Up: Speak out is intended to empower employees to speak up about disrespect at work. I make the case in Road to Respect that disrespect is a non-issue when workplace leaders make a strategic decision to build a values based culture where respect is a core value, where respect simply becomes “the way it is around here”. However, I also know that it is going to take a long, long time for respectful behavior to become a norm in most workplaces. In the meantime, I want to do what I can to empower employees, to ensure they realize that they have power, that they can make a choice to speak up rather than put up and shut up about disrespect at work. I challenge them at the end of the session to speak up, to take action to create a more respectful workplace for themselves and those they work with.
Respect – It’s that Simple
When you ask people what defines diversity in a business setting, the things that often come to mind are race, religion, gender and age. While an obvious mix of these characteristics in your personnel pool is the most observable measure to claim diversity in your workforce, these descriptors just barely scratch the surface of what truly makes an organization diverse. More importantly, they do not address the critical topics of how diversity is managed and how it impacts business. The trend toward increased diversity in the American workforce isn’t good or bad, it’s just the way it is and the way it will be in the future. What will allow organizations to engage their diverse workforces and thrive amidst this demographic shift is simple. RESPECT.
Any discussion of respect, at least within the context of diversity, must start with a simple understanding of the term. Respect is an ongoing behavior pattern that promotes increased awareness and acceptance of differences in individuals’ beliefs, styles and backgrounds, as well as their physical, ancestral, geographic or socio-economic makeup. While you may think that a roomful of 50-year-old white males is not particularly diverse, once you look below the surface into political beliefs, favorite sports, educational backgrounds, sexual orientation, and (the big one in Northeast Ohio) East side vs. West side, you’ll find literally hundreds of characteristics that make many of them completely unique. Respect is the process and vehicle that allows unique people to engage and work with other unique people in a manner that benefits all.
Proactive Respect
It’s been said for several years that respect is an active process. But within that process we are finding both passive and active respect.
I was recently working with a group in a workshop I conduct called, “Crash the Barrier; Build the Team”. I was not only working toward helping this team pull together, I was also exploring passive and active respect.
During one of the exercises one of the team members was put out of the group as a part of the exercise. Later that person was brought back in the group. During our debriefing it was observed the person was not completely comfortable returning to the group. As we discussed this deeper it became apparent the group had “made a place” for this person but had not “invited them in”. It was nothing short of stunning.
Let’s examine how a new employee comes into a company. They go through an interview procedure, get an offer, accept the offer, agree on a start date and then show up at work on the well known, “first day on the job.” Then an email and/or a voice mail is sent out telling everyone to say “hi” and to welcome the new hire to the company. The new employee is taken around, introduced and shown their desk.
Respect, Dignity and Disability Management in the Workplace
You may be familiar with the 2005 Honda decision, where an employee that was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome was fired for insubordination due to his refusal to submit to a medical assessment from the company specialist. What distinguishes this decision from many others was the amount of the damages award – $500,00 in punitive damages, the highest ever awarded by a Canadian court in an employment case.
The case reminded me of a time when I used to write attendance policy manuals. I would put in sample scripts for the managers to use as guidelines for conducting employee interviews relating to problematic attendance. To my dismay, I found out that some managers were conducting interviews with the script in hand, reading it verbatim and following it, with little if any regard for what the employee they were dealing with was saying. I had intended the script as a guide, not a formula!
The Honda decision demonstrates for me what often goes so very wrong in managing these types of challenging cases in the workplace. And there is no doubt that managing employees with chronic absenteeism is challenging. It is time consuming and complex, particularly when dealing with absenteeism related to a disability, including disabilities related to addiction, and some of the “invisible” disabilities, like chronic fatigue syndrome, which was what Mr. Keays, the employee in the Honda decision, suffered from. New syndromes seem to be cropping up every day, and the list of disabilities we have to accommodate is growing with no end in sight.
Bully Bosses Busted
Power and its relationship to workplace culture is something I explore in detail in my upcoming book, Road to Respect: Path to Profit. Employers have traditionally had most of the power in the workplace, but that traditional power balance may be shifting more quickly than many of us realize.
I recently discovered eBossWatch, a web site that lets people anonymously rate their current or former boss. A straightforward, respectful evaluation form provides relevant information about management leadership styles. Now job-seekers can go online and look at reports detailing the ratings of potential bosses.
The purpose of the site, according to its founder Asher Adelman, is to empower people who are looking for work. His goal is to offer those job seekers information so that they can avoid an experience that Adelman has had more than once in his working career, starting a new job and finding himself working for a “bully” boss.
Gen Xer Adelman has held management positions in the technology and telecom sectors at small companies, start-ups, and in large publicly traded companies. Twice he interviewed for what he thought would be interesting positions with prestigious firms. Both times he met his prospective bosses and thought they would be great to work for. Both times he was dead wrong. Soon after starting work he found himself in toxic workplaces, working for disrespectful, bully bosses.
The Best of Respectful Workplace: Leadership
This week we’ll look at the ever popular subject of leadership and the role it plays in the development of a respectful workplace, as we continue to highlight our best blog posts from the last two years.
In these posts, Paul advocates for leaders to create a culture of respect where employees feel emotionally safe, while Chetan Borkhetaria explores how we can all embrace difference and why leaders should value diverse opinions. Finally, Erica Pinsky discusses the voluntary MBA oath that promotes ethical standards for business leaders.
Respect Starts At The Top
by Paul Meshanko
A company’s culture is one of its most important assets. Culture plays a role in helping to attract the best talent and it is absolutely vital to engaging, developing and retaining that talent. And while no single culture is best for all organizations (or even functions within an organization), there is one cultural variable that is universally beneficial.
If LeBron Went Corporate: A Cautionary Tale
Most sports pundits and talking heads are busy analyzing LeBron’s recent Decision (live on ESPN!) and debating whether he will succeed with his two high-profile partners. As a Cleveland resident (but not native), I felt awful for the fans of this city; and being an HR practitioner, I came away from the experience with a somewhat different take on the situation.
We all know about companies composed of talented people who have developed an expertise in their particular field. Most of them are diligent, professional and humble, but a few always seem to be loud, obnoxious, arrogant… and high-performing. Organizations tend to tolerate these types by rationalizing that their conduct can be overlooked on the strength of their results. But this only lasts so long. Eventually, reputation catches up with them (maybe they were rude to a key client, maybe they disobeyed the wrong order from an executive, or maybe they simply missed their numbers one year) and they get fired. While they may find gainful employment elsewhere (after all, they have undeniable talent), it tends to be fleeting. I’ve witnessed this firsthand a number of times in my career and I think the parallels to the Cavaliers’ situation are striking.
