Organizational Culture

In my last two posts, I talked about how bullying can occur and how we usually deal with it: as though it is an aberration in the workplace culture and, once we’ve found and eliminated the bully, the problem has been solved. But we know bullying occurs because of conditions which allow it to occur. In Bullying in the 21st Century Global Organization: An Ethical Perspective, the authors describe the sources of bullying in global organizations as a combination of …

Some bullying is obvious, some is subtle. Often, organizations want to know if there is legal risk when they are deciding to do something about a problem like bullying. Bullying at work can usually be grouped into certain types, such as threats to professional status or personal standing, isolation, over work and destabilization (meaning failing to give credit, meaningless tasks, removal of responsibility, repeated reminders of blunders, or being set up to fail). It can reach

What should an employee do if he or she knows a co-worker is being threatened, teased, demeaned, called names, glared at and ostracized? I think we can all answer this question — the employee should report the matter or stand up to the bully. Whether or not they will do so depends on your organizational culture. Does your organization see the value of respect in the workplace? Does your organization live by its values? Bullies can only thrive if leadership …

We’ve all heard that Millennials aren’t loyal, they don’t like to work hard and they love innovation and change. We’ve heard they prefer technology to people and they can’t stand being told they aren’t perfect. Like with almost anything else, you can even probably find some surveys which state all of these things. But what is actually true? Since Jennifer Deal wrote Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Ground, the idea that the different ge

Giving and receiving effective feedback may mean giving up “Northwest Nice” to be present and authentic I’m one of those people who can be a little smug about how awesome it is to live in the Northwest. We have gorgeous mountains, rivers, lakes, coastline, forests and great food. We place a premium on good relationships, which gives us strong communities. But just like everything has an upside, everything has a downside, too. Our preference for positive relationships can some