Synopses & Reviews
Bullies don't have to throw a single punch to do lasting damage to another person's health—or your business's fiscal health. Nearly 14 million adults in America are currently being bullied, and millions more are experiencing the degrading effects of witnessing that treatment. Bullying prevents work from getting done and undermines your mission. It only satisfies the perpetrator's personal agenda at the expense of people, productivity, and passion. The simple truth is that businesses need to address bullying to protect the bottom line.
The Bully-Free Workplace delivers a thoughtful and detailed plan to stop weasels, jerks, and snakes from killing your organization. Written by pioneers of workplace bullying research, this book tells you why and how to create an explicit policy against bullying. It appeals to those managers who value people and who are willing to challenge employers to adopt that value. The Bully-Free Workplace outlines a step-by-step program to correct and prevent workplace bullying. You'll get in-depth advice along with information to support your efforts, including:
Why the personality of the bully pales in comparison to organizational factors that encourage and sustain bullying
How to justify taking action against bullying for bottom-line fiscal rewards, productivity, employee health, talent retention, and positioning as an employer of choice
Why you shouldn't leave a bullying issue to HR departments, and why the issue should be handled by an organization's CEO
Why you should trust the reports from the trenches, and how to cope when a trusted colleague is the culprit
How managerial and supervisory expectations without the benefit of specific training can lead to disastrous results
The stakes couldn't be higher: bullying can lead to disastrous (even fatal) health effects for individuals and plunging profits for businesses. As the philosopher Edmund Burke once said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." The time has come for you to do something, and this book shows you how.
Synopsis
The solution to bullying in the workplace
Here's the simple truth: businesses must end bullying to protect the bottom line. Continuing abuse on the job only leads to self-defeating?and, ultimately, self-destructive?organizational dynamics.
Offering a proprietary Blueprint program to prevent and correct abuse, this book cuts through the silence and denial surrounding workplace bullying and replaces it with effective steps to create a respectful and productive work environment. The practical orientation gives you specific tools for all leaders and groups involved to make challenging conventional wisdom easier to transform your organization's culture into one free of bullying. Justifies action against bullying for bottom-line fiscal rewards, productivity, employee health, talent retention, and positioning as an employer of choice Authors are pioneering experts and internationally recognized leaders in workplace bullying; their previous book, The Bully at Work, helped define the field
This clear and accessible guide describes exactly what to do and what pitfalls and resistance to anticipate.
Synopsis
At long last a guidebook for employers that discusses workplace bullying from America's unrivaled leaders and creators of the workplace bullying consulting institute. Managers will learn how and why to stop bullying; prepare executives to lead the campaign and to resist undermining efforts of subordinates; and create a new, positive role for human resources. Outlining the required steps, The Bullying-Free Workplace includes information on how to create a preventive policy that brings consequences, like never before, when violated. The authors discourage half-hearted, short-term fixes that are prevalent today, and present their signature Blueprint methodology to successfully protect employee health and eradicate the psychological violence from organizations.
Synopsis
Praise for The Bully Free Workplace"For anti-bullying to work, it is essential that support start at the top. I was personally involved in drafting our policy with the Namies and ensuring its implementation. It has made a palpable and positive difference to our workplace culture."
—DOUGLAS H. BARR, MSW, President and CEO, Goodwill Southern California
"This book is for CEOs and their leadership teams who are serious about building a great workplace that inspires higher productivity and profits, along with the bully-free brand. The Namies also outline an innovative contributory role for HR professionals in creating and sustaining a bully-free workplace."
—KEVIN KENNEMER, founder and Senior Partner, The People Group
"Gary and Ruth Namie apply their expert insight to help organizations prevent and respond to bullying at work. This book opens a window onto best practices for employers who understand how workplace bullying destroys employee morale and productivity and want to stop it."
—DAVID C. YAMADA, JD, Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School, Boston, author of the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill
"The Namies enable us to start changing our perception of what bullying really is all about: brutal, systematic psychological torture. As a union activist, I have been dealing with bullying in the workplace for years. With these tools, we can start changing the tide; we can better protect our coworkers and stand up for our collective right to a safe, healthy, and violence-free workplace."
—DENIS ST-JEAN, National Health and Safety Officer, Public Service Alliance of Canada
About the Author
Gary Namie, PhD, is the senior consultant at Work Doctor Inc., a firm established in 1985 and now specializing in workplace bullying. He is a "recovering academic" with extensive experience in teaching university graduate and undergraduate courses in psychology and management. He was also a corporate manager for two regional hospital systems and served as the expert witness in the nation's first "bullying" trial in Indiana, a verdict upheld by the state supreme court in 2008.
Ruth F. Namie, PhD, is a founding consultant for Work Doctor Inc. and was training director for Sheraton Hotels before her clinical training led to helping chemically dependent individuals and families. Ruth's personal experience was the impetus for the workplace bullying movement in the United States. She has since become an expert on the devastating effects of bullying on targeted workers. Her humanizing contributions to the Namie Blueprint are what distinguish it from traditional business solutions to violence problems at work.
Table of Contents
Foreword (
Robert I. Sutton, PhD).
Acknowledgments.
Preface.
1 Bullies and Bullying.
2 Workplace Bullying Defined.
3 Impact on Targeted Employees.
4 How Bullying Kills Good Organizations Like Yours.
5 An Illustrative Case.
6 Why Bullies Bully.
7 Social Influence: How Others Define Our World for Us.
8 A Model of Preventable Causes of Bullying.
9 Mobilize Your Organization: Leaders' Preparations.
10 Mobilize Your Organization: Managers' and Supervisors' Preparation.
11 Preliminary Steps to Address Workplace Bullying.
12 A New Role for Human Resources.
13 The Namie Blueprint to Prevent and Correct Workplace Bullying.
14 Sustain the Bully-Free Culture.
Appendix A: Macro-Bullying Trends That Make Workers Dispensable.
Appendix B: The Namie & Namie Bibliography.
Appendix C: Bullying Is Domestic Violence when the Abuser Is on Payroll.
Notes.
About the Authors.
Index.