"It is almost impossible to progress through a career untouched by incivility," the author writes. Over the past 20 years she has polled thousands of workers: 98% have experienced uncivil behavior, and 99% have witnessed it. In 2011 half said they were treated rudely at least once a week--up from a quarter in 1998. Rude behavior ranged from outright nastiness and undermining to ignoring people's opinions to checking e-mail during meetings. Observing or experiencing rude behavior impairs short-term memory and thus cognitive ability, and has been shown to damage the immune system, put a strain on families, and produce other deleterious effects. Porath has identified some tactics to minimize the effects of rudeness on performance and health. The most effective remedy, she says, is to work holistically on your well-being, rather than trying to change the perpetrator or the relationship. She suggests a two-pronged approach: Take steps to thrive "cognitively," which includes growth, momentum, and continual learning; and take steps to thrive "affectively," which means experiencing passion, excitement, and vitality at work.
We've all heard of (or experienced) the "boss from hell." But that's just one form that incivility in the workplace can take. Rudeness on the job is surprisingly common, and it's on the rise. Whether it involves overt bullying or subtle acts of thoughtlessness, incivility takes a toll. It erodes productivity, chips away at morale, leads employees to quit, and damages customer relationships. Dealing with its aftermath can soak up weeks of managerial attention and time. Over the past 14 years the authors have conducted interviews with and collected data from more than 14,000 people throughout the United States and Canada in order to track the prevalence, types, causes, costs, and cures of incivility at work. They suggest several steps leaders can take to counter rudeness. Managers should start with themselves--monitoring their own behavior, asking for feedback on it, and making sure that their actions are a model for others. When it comes to managing the organization, leaders should hire with civility in mind, teach it on the job, create group norms, reward good behavior, and penalize bad behavior. Lest consistent civility seem an extravagance, the authors caution that just one habitually offensive employee critically positioned in an organization can cost millions in lost employees, lost customers, and lost productivity.
Thriving employees are less susceptible to stress and burnout - and much healthier, overall. When employees are thriving, they are not satisfied with the status quo, and behave proactively to co-create their job environment in ways that enable more thriving. The authors describe three individual and three organizational enablers of thriving, including providing decision making discretion and minimizing incivility.
What makes for sustainable individual and organizational performance? Employees who are thriving--not just satisfied and productive but also engaged in creating the future. The authors found that people who fit this description demonstrated 16% better overall performance, 125% less burnout, 32% more commitment to the organization, and 46% more job satisfaction than their peers. Thriving has two components: vitality, or the sense of being alive and excited, and learning, or the growth that comes from gaining knowledge and skills. Some people naturally build vitality and learning into their jobs, but most employees are influenced by their environment. Four mechanisms, none of which requires heroic effort or major resources, create the conditions for thriving: providing decision-making discretion, sharing information about the organization and its strategy, minimizing incivility, and offering performance feedback. Organizations such as Alaska Airlines, Zingerman's, Quicken Loans, and Caiman Consulting have found that helping people grow and remain energized at work is valiant on its own merits--but it can also boost performance in a sustainable way.
Lynne Tabor, an IT manager at manufacturing giant MMI, has a great team. Everyone works hard and gets along, except Max Dyer, a talented programmer who is terrible in the interpersonal skills department. Three years ago Tabor reworked his job after employees complained that he was unengaged and even belligerent. Since then, he's been a solid worker, putting in extra hours and meriting good performance evaluations. But recently, Dyer's coworkers have noticed a change for the worse in him. Everyone at MMI is on edge after a round of layoffs. Reports of a workplace shooting in Seattle are all over the news. One coworker finds Max pinning up a certificate from a shooting range in his cubicle, and another worries that they will all end up as statistics of office violence. They want to know how Tabor plans to ensure their safety. Dyer thinks his coworkers are out to get him. They believe he fits the profile of a man on the edge. But what can Tabor do about an employee who has never made so much as a veiled threat to anyone? In R0307A and R0307Z, commentators James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University; Steve Kaufer, a cofounder of the Workplace Violence Research Institute; Christine Pearson, a management professor at Thunderbird; Christine Porath, a professor of management and organizational behavior at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business; and Ronald Schouten, the director of the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital, offer advice on this fictional case study.
Lynne Tabor, an IT manager at manufacturing giant MMI, has a great team. Everyone works hard and gets along, except Max Dyer, a talented programmer who is terrible in the interpersonal skills department. Three years ago Tabor reworked his job after employees complained that he was unengaged and even belligerent. Since then, he's been a solid worker, putting in extra hours and meriting good performance evaluations. But recently, Dyer's coworkers have noticed a change for the worse in him. Everyone at MMI is on edge after a round of layoffs. Reports of a workplace shooting in Seattle are all over the news. One coworker finds Max pinning up a certificate from a shooting range in his cubicle, and another worries that they will all end up as statistics of office violence. They want to know how Tabor plans to ensure their safety. Dyer thinks his coworkers are out to get him. They believe he fits the profile of a man on the edge. But what can Tabor do about an employee who has never made so much as a veiled threat to anyone? In R0307A and R0307Z, commentators James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University; Steve Kaufer, a cofounder of the Workplace Violence Research Institute; Christine Pearson, a management professor at Thunderbird; Christine Porath, a professor of management and organizational behavior at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business; and Ronald Schouten, the director of the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital, offer advice on this fictional case study.