Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Does rudeness at work hurt job performance?
Since my schooldays I've been fascinated by the question of how an organisation can draw the best out of people. How can we foster high standards, commitment, loyalty, honesty, creativity, imagination, a culture of learning, high standards and mutual respect?
Later I came across the 'Green' slogan: How you do it, is what you get. Which pretty much sums-up what happened – for good or otherwise - in various places I'd worked.
In other words, if your workplace culture embodies and models positive values, you stand a good chance of getting the behaviour and standards above.
By contrast, organisations characterised by fear, blame, bullying, finger-wagging and box-ticking are probably heading full speed in the wrong direction.
This intuitive view is supported by a research study published last year by the University of Florida.
It suggests rude bosses defeat their purpose by browbeating employees into poor job performance. Verbal abuse means staff lose much of their problem-solving and creative talents. “When someone is screaming at you, you’re too busy thinking about the incident and how to deal with it to think about much else,”
The study was endorsed by a Stanford professor, Robert Sutton, author of the book: "The No Asshole Rule”. (A title I wish I'd thought-up.) He says: "this well-crafted research shows that when organizations allow rude employees to run roughshod over others, it not only creates uncivilized workplaces, it is just plain bad business.”
I'm wondering about the experience of Hol members.
Later I came across the 'Green' slogan: How you do it, is what you get. Which pretty much sums-up what happened – for good or otherwise - in various places I'd worked.
In other words, if your workplace culture embodies and models positive values, you stand a good chance of getting the behaviour and standards above.
By contrast, organisations characterised by fear, blame, bullying, finger-wagging and box-ticking are probably heading full speed in the wrong direction.
This intuitive view is supported by a research study published last year by the University of Florida.
It suggests rude bosses defeat their purpose by browbeating employees into poor job performance. Verbal abuse means staff lose much of their problem-solving and creative talents. “When someone is screaming at you, you’re too busy thinking about the incident and how to deal with it to think about much else,”
The study was endorsed by a Stanford professor, Robert Sutton, author of the book: "The No Asshole Rule”. (A title I wish I'd thought-up.) He says: "this well-crafted research shows that when organizations allow rude employees to run roughshod over others, it not only creates uncivilized workplaces, it is just plain bad business.”
I'm wondering about the experience of Hol members.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Alan, I'm surprised that those USC students didn't react to their rude treatment by finding even more creative uses for that brick than those in the control group. Or were they inhibited by "The No Asshole Rule"?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Bob Sutton, author of 'The No Asshole Rule" also has a blog called Work Matters which is worth a look. He has some helpful things to say about 'jerks at work'. And the way they not only bring out the worst in others (creating more jerks) but also tend to hire people like themselves; or people too weak to oppose them.
Perhaps this "jerkocracy" is a more American variation of the classic British complaint: organisations which suffer from injelitance.
I suspect that we'd all like to believe we'd stand up to bullies and harassment at work; and support colleagues who do so. But in practice it's never easy to confront the powerful (or apparently powerful) who abuse their power. People have families and mortgages and career prospects. They have to weigh up the likely costs and consequences of being brave.
Of course, some fail the simple thumb-wiggling test. There's no spine there in the first place.
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