Workplace Bullying Interventions

At left, possible workplace bullying?

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=393839

A paper on workplace bullying is found here, two sections from the abstract are reproduced below:

BACKGROUND: Bullying has been identified as one of the leading workplace stressors, with adverse consequences for the individual employee, groups of employees, and whole organisations. Employees who have been bullied have lower levels of job satisfaction, higher levels of anxiety and depression, and are more likely to leave their place of work. Organisations face increased risk of skill depletion and absenteeism, leading to loss of profit, potential legal fees, and tribunal cases. It is unclear to what extent these risks can be addressed through interventions to prevent bullying.

AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: There is very low quality evidence that organisational and individual interventions may prevent bullying behaviours in the workplace. We need large well-designed controlled trials of bullying prevention interventions operating on the levels of society/policy, organisation/employer, job/task and individual/job interface. Future studies should employ validated and reliable outcome measures of bullying and a minimum of 6 months follow-up.

So, there is only “low quality evidence” that the interventions actually do any good to prevent workplace bullying. One possibility is that the organizational interventions are pushed by administrators who want to “cover themselves from potential liability (“see – we did something!”) or to burnish their resumes with their “impressive intervention sessions.” Or, we may have “experts” without actual data to back up their assertions, as well as (possibly well-meaning) individuals who do not know how to best approach the problem. As the authors state: “Future studies should employ validated and reliable outcome measures of bullying and a minimum of 6 months follow-up.”

Thank yourself first and find your mission

Yesterday, I was listening to an interview with Tim Ferriss. He mentioned his idea that by inviting voluntary suffering to our lives, we are preparing ourselves for the times when we face involuntary suffering. 

I accept the concept, but I cannot practice it since my current life is already full of involuntary unpleasantness (not exactly suffering, I admit). However, when I have to deal with unpleasantness every second of my wakeful hours and even my dreams are molded by the daily horrors, I have no time to invite suffering on top of everything. When you put out fires all day, you do not start one. 

Tim’s advice is good for people of leisure who have time and money and seek some antidote to their cushy life. Instead of drugs, bring some edge to your life by experiencing deprivation, cold, and maybe hunger! I approve.

The other notable moment in the interview was the thought that most of us are reactive, rather than proactive in everyday life. As a result, creativity and building up our individuality are crushed. How many of us have time to embark on self-assigned and self-initiated projects every day or even at all? This reactive way of existence has been another problem of mine for the past months. I have not had time to do something that I have designed, thought about, craved, envisioned. I have been losing sight of my identity. 

I need to go back to some foundational work in my mind and decide on what my mission is. Yes, everyone of us should decide on what their mission is. The mission can be re-visited, re-evaluated and re-adjusted with time, but we need to remember what we are doing with our precious little time on this earth. 

On this Thanksgiving, I am thankful that I exist!  I am also grateful for having time to muse about the meaning of my existence. Is this too egotistical? Not at all. If you appreciate yourself and find your true identity, you would be able to help others in a meaningful way. If you are miserable, feel bad about yourself, the only thing you can bring in people's life is misery and disaster. So, celebrate yourself, your freedom and the precious days when you have the time to realize what you stand for.  Today, I will cook for many hours, but this will be a proactive expression of myself. As far as my work unpleasantness goes, I should remember this quote from this link: “Those that matter don’t mind, and those that mind don’t matter.” 


Recently, I had also found some solace in this great talk by Martin Rossman. 

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Go to work in search of happiness

 

The picture on the left is that of healthy cells – they communicate with each other (notice how they extend to touch their neighbors), they are large and look strong.  The cells on the right picture are cancer cells of the same tissue – they are smaller, and they tend to not communicate with their neighbors. They also look angry  and isolated in their endeavor to grow faster and faster.

Source: NCI/NIH, https://visuals.nci.nih.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2306, and http://visuals.nci.nih.gov/details.cfm?imageid=2304

I have not written for some time since there is nothing good to report. At work, things are going wrong and people are either evil or dejected, or both! I have not seen even a single truly happy faculty member in years. The problem with this dark plague is that everyone else around the unhappy teachers suffers, including the students.

Next time we are unhappy, we should think about how we impact the atmosphere for everyone around us. Do we want to leave a trail of unhappiness, devastation, negativity and sadness?

I would rather bring some sunshine and inspiration in people’s lives. It is not selfish to intentionally search for happiness. Why not proclaim that the mission of our institutions is the search for happiness? Instead, our missions are usually piles of lofty and empty words that do not amount to anything.

Are you dissatisfied with your place of work? Start a movement – forge a path to an intentional happiness. Start with your connections at the job. There must be a few good people whom you trust – secure good communications with them, establish the foundational network and then expand it.

Here is the first “baby step” to changing your workplace: propose to the few good people a daily meeting of 10-15 minutes. The purpose is to touch base and give support to each other. You will be amazed how much better it is to communicate face-to-face.

My final words are these of a cancer biologist: broken and missing cell communications are a defining characteristic of cancer cells. Just look at the pictures above. Get connected today – do not fall into a malignant state of mind.

Can Work Make You Mentally Ill?

By Edvard Munch - WebMuseum at ibiblioPage: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/Image URL: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.scream.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37610298

Can your job make you crazy? According to this paper, the answer is yes. The "take home message" from the abstract:

Within these broad categories, there was moderate level evidence from multiple prospective studies that high job demands, low job control, high effort-reward imbalance, low relational justice, low procedural justice, role stress, bullying and low social support in the workplace are associated with a greater risk of developing common mental health problems.
 

Those of us who can recognize aspects of our job from the paper's list of mental illness-inducing work problems need to be cognizant of the potential for problems. How to deal with it will differ from person to person, depending on their circumstances, but one good first step is recognizing that a problem may exist. Indeed, as this paper demonstrates, it is a real and serious issue.

Navigating the shark-infested waters at work

By original author is Fbattail , the image is cropped by Chris huh - Original image: Carcharhinus-amblyrynchos.jpg by Fbattail at fr.wikipedia, March 14, 2004cropped image: Greyreefsharksmall.jpg by Chris huh at en.wikipedia, August 29. 2006Transfered to Commons by Harryemi, September 21, 2008, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4834577

I am still learning how to navigate the dangerous waters at work. This is an essential skill, as I would like to keep my current position for as long as I can. 

Anyway, avoiding the sharks at my job is not easy, so I read with great interest the post How Nice People Can Master Conflict.

I guess, I need to practice my assertiveness, avoid the absolute statements, and try to use hypothetical situations to (politely) hint on the stupidity of some decisions and directives. 

Practice makes perfect...