Is the “Passing the Pain Game” costing your company time and money? Some examples of the game: To read the rest of this article from the Washington Business Journal, see: Passing pain, casting blame cost time and money http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2004/09/13/smallb7.html

For details, see the original article.

A customer reams out a salesman. Part of a job wasn’t done the way the customer wanted. The salesman doesn’t know what went wrong but he doesn’t want the blame. He placates the customer by exploding and blaming a department he says was responsible. He tells the customer he’ll have those people fired. Then he yells at innocent victims in that department.
A new manager is panicking. He has to present his project to senior leaders on Friday. It’s Monday morning and he still hasn’t received information from a manager in another department. He e-mails her and vents his fear and frustration; he harasses, bullies and abuses her. He tells her he’s tired of begging, he needs the *&@# information right away, he counted on her and she’s let him down. What the *&@# is wrong with her? All in capital letters. To cover his back, he copies his vice-president.
A director stomps into a supervisor’s office, scowling along the way and slams the door. Anxiety and tension spread at the speed of gossip. People congregate to speculate: Did she meet with the big bosses yesterday? Did she get reamed? Did we mess up? Who’s going to get blamed next? Fear spirals, staff finds excuses to be in other areas, productivity tanks.

Other variants are:

Some players set up other people to fight. They plant seeds of doubt and jealousy, and enjoy the bloodletting that follows.
Some leaders specialize in negativity, finding fault, bullying and spreading blame when something goes wrong. Since no one wants to be the victim of mistakes, everyone carries a “blame thrower.”

Is that game familiar? People feel hurt, scared and angry, and inflict their pain on someone else. The game is also called, “Who has the rattlesnake?”

How much does the game cost? Try this method of calculation: Estimate the time you’ve spent dealing with uproars, multiply by the number of people who bring their pain to you, multiply again by the number of innocent spectators you and they draw into the ever widening circle of players, factor in salary and productivity wasted. Add in a fudge factor for your level of frustration.

Pretty large number, isn’t it?

It’s important to have a code of conduct stating that passing the pain and throwing blame is not acceptable. But that’s not enough. Most people already know that. They just don’t follow the code when they’re suffering, scared, angry or supporting friends in a vendetta.

For example, in one training on this subject, some managers questioned why I was wasting their time presenting information they already knew. So I showed them the e-mails their department heads had given me, in which these same managers had used their blame throwers on each other. They had perpetuated an intense game that scorched everyone in their departments and all senior leaders.

The trick is to stop the Pass the Pain Game in everyday behavior. A few suggestions – see the original article for details:

Change has to come from the top.
Companies point to the culture they want when they publish codes of professional conduct.
Policies and codes are not enough.
Change begins with individuals committed to adult behavior, and consequences for childish temper tantrums.

Passing the pain and throwing blame are destructive. Another reason to stop: your boss doesn’t appreciate the pain you’re dumping on him.

Often, individuals need coaching and organizations need consulting to help them design and implement a plan that fits the situation. To get the help you need, call Ben at 1-877-828-5543.

In her column in the East Bay Business Times, “Legal Report: Avoid litigation that will keep you awake at night,” Barbara Grady used my expertise in the section on handling bullies in the workplace. To read this section of the article, click here Legal report: Avoid litigation that will keep you awake at night

East Bay Business Times, Friday, October 10, 2008 - by Barbara Grady

There are more than a few things that can keep employers awake at night these days. But with a bit of advice from East Bay legal experts, you can take steps to avoid some of these problems, whether it is bullies in the workplace, mistakenly hiring a felon or dealing with employees who spread trade secrets. The five areas covered in this Legal Report focusing on avoiding litigation can be legal quagmires for employers, because laws governing them are ever-changing or have not been well established.

Handling bullies in the workplace Too bad not every child learns that bullying is unacceptable. Instead, some grow up to be bullies. In fact, adults bullying co-workers and subordinates in the workplace “is a tremendous problem,” occurring in at least half of all employment places, says Ben Leichtling of the consulting firm Leichtling and Associates, LLC in Denver and author of “Bullies Below the Radar: How to Wise Up, Stand Up and Stay Up” and other books on the workplace.

In times of economic stress – like now – belligerent behavior can surface in seemingly even-keeled individuals. So companies need to watch for tensions among employees and incidents of bullying as the nation rides through the current economic rough patch.

If they don’t, warns attorney Darci Burrell of the Oakland law firm Boxer Gerson LLP, they could be liable for workers’ compensation claims or harassment claims from victims who endured the bullying. Moreover, employers stand to lose in productivity, workplace morale and eventually profits, Leichtling said.

“It might not be illegal for employers to ignore bullying, but it is not smart,” Burrell said.

Indeed, U.S. Department of Labor studies have quantified productivity loss from bullying, while the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety found in a survey that one-quarter of public and private workplaces have experienced bullying in the workplace.

There are no federal or state statutes forbidding bullying in the workplace, however, so how do you deal with it?

In the absence of codified law forbidding bullying, Leichtling and Burrell both recommend that employers establish in-house rules that state what behavior is acceptable and what is not acceptable – and then training people in those policies.

“Generally having policies in place, a good comprehensive policy in place that tells employees what kind of conduct is prohibited and tells people what to do if that policy is violated is what works. The problem is lots of companies have policies, but they don’t train their people in those policies,” Burrell said.

Leichtling in his consulting work with companies always recommends that they specify in writing what behaviors are expected and what are not accepted, and then set up a process for documenting behaviors that are in violation.

“They have to be specific, like no throwing things, so they can be observed and documented. And they have to be behaviors, not attitudes, because you can’t document attitudes. You can document James yelling and screaming on such and such a date,” Leichtling said.

“Documentation must be practiced across the board, as part of performance evaluations, so one person does not feel singled out or the target of discrimination,” Leichtling said.

Bullying can include speaking in degrading terms to a co-worker or subordinate, threatening, and even less-overt behavior like repeated gossiping about one person, Leichtling said. Once documentation occurs and builds – as it usually does because bullies repeat their behavior – the offending bully usually chooses to leave, Leichtling said, because he or she can’t stand the negative limelight. Problem solved.

Click here to read the rest of the article.