Different Principles and Tactics Needed in Different Situations

Clara had finally created a family life with her husband and three children in which they could open up their feelings, fears, hopes and dreams and know they’d be listened to with understanding, caring and tenderness.  They wouldn’t stab each other in the back, throw up old mistakes and fears, put each other down or try to control the turf.  Instead, they’d be polite and civil in sorting through disagreements and in trying to find solutions they could all live with.  Acts of charity and compromise would be reciprocated. But with some of her extended family and some of her co-workers those tactics and her principles of openness, honesty, kindliness, consideration, compromise and tenderness got her routinely bullied, putdown and taken advantage of.

She didn’t want to violate her most cherished beliefs.  She didn’t want to treat people as if they were evil; she wanted to see the good in them.  She didn’t want to turn into a self-centered, narcissistic, uncaring, vicious, manipulative control-freak in order to protect herself.

So what could she do?

Let go of prejudices and abstract principles. Clara saw that as much as she wanted to see the best in every member of her extended family, she often was treated by their worst.  Their spirits might be pure but their personalities ruled their behavior.  After decades of contact, the alcoholics and rage-aholics still lashed out at her if she was in their line of sight, the jealous, manipulative, negative relatives still whacked her with their poisoned tongues; the weak and insecure relatives still put her down in order to puff themselves up.

No amount of sweetness, no amount of holding back and biting her tongue, no amount of defending herself and her family, no amount of asking politely, no amount of offering to compromise had changed their behavior.

After one particularly brutal family occasion, she saw things as they really were: she had held back because she hadn’t wanted to give up on them, she hadn’t wanted to see them as evil, she hadn’t wanted to hurt them in retaliation.  Her values and principles were leading her to put her head in the dragon’s mouth – her need to treat all people the same way no matter how they’d treated her; her hope that if she was nice enough, they’d be nice in return.

So what could she do?

Test the world – nature and people. Clara finally broke through to a new way of being in the world.  Instead of having universal principles determine how she’d act, she’d test the world and let nature and people tell her the way they were.

Of course, she’d already done that with nature.  She’d already figured out how to live in a world where things fell downward, where if she turned her steering wheel she’d go in a certain direction, where if she didn’t put gas in her car or charge her cell phone they wouldn’t work.

Now she’d test other people, not herself.  She’d assume that when people were nasty or blamed on her, that didn’t tell her anything about her.  Because they weren’t happy didn’t mean she was a failure or bad person.  She didn’t need to wallow in blame, shame or guilt.  She didn’t have to do everything to please them, it wasn’t necessarily her fault.  What they said and did told her about them – their habits, standards and ways they related to people; what they wanted and how they tried to manipulate, coerce or verbally abuse other people in order to get their way.

Create an environment that’s rich, gracious, inspiring and thrilling. Clara finally realized that her most important value or goal was to create and maintain the wonderful environment she had with her immediate family.  She’d do her best to create as much of that as she could in other areas of life – with her extended family and in the workplace.

But did she have to let everyone in or could she be judgmental?

Let people show us how they’re likely to act and what it will take to protect ourselves. Every person had shown Clara what treatment to expect from them.  They’d also shown her what to do to get them to stop hurting her.

Some people showed her they’d reciprocate kindness with kindness.  Others told her that to get them to stop hurting her, she might have to smack their noses (figuratively, verbally or literally) just like when she was training her dog.  Sometimes she might have to maintain a distance of 2,000 miles and no phone or internet contact.  She’d simply have to pay careful attention to how they acted, not what they said, and adjust her tactics accordingly.

Clara would not have to judge their identity or try to decide whether they were good or evil.  She would not get involved with their reasons, excuses or justifications.  She’d simply be discerning and accurate about their behavior.  She’d also assume that they’d continue behaving the way they had until she got long-term evidence of change.  Then she could decide whether to trust that change – tiny bit, by tiny bit.

Use different tactics to succeed in different situations. Clara had a lot of control within her extended family as long as she was willing to invite people into her environment if they behaved in a way that supported it and to exclude people who might pollute or destroy it.  Acting that decisively would probably result in huge rifts in the extended family, but Clara had to decide what was more important for her.  Then she could adjust her approach depending on the situation and people involved.

At work, Clara had less control.  But, if she had the strength, courage and determination, she still could adjust her tactics.  She could see the few people at work who had taken advantage of her and she knew, in her heart of hearts, that because she’d tolerated their hostility and attacks, they’d simply become bolder.  The more she had allowed them to push her boundaries, the more they’d push.

She knew she’d have to assert herself and learn to push back.  She needed to free herself to push back and learn to use her tongue and political savvy to get them to focus on someone else.

But did protecting herself make her a bad person? She decided that it didn’t.  Those bullies, like many pets, had showed her what it would take to get them house-trained.  And now she was willing to do the training!

When she adjusted her tactics to fit the different people, she was able to stop their bullying.

Stop Your Teenage Bully

Parents who bully children, and parents who bully and abuse each other are all too common, but an often unrecognized bullying situation is teenagers who bully their parents, especially their single parents. Of course, teenage girls can be manipulative bullies, but for a typical example, let’s focus on a 19 year-old boy who is mentally and physically capable of being independent but who’d rather sponge off his mother and lead an easy life at home.  He’s not working enough to support himself, he’s not succeeding in full-time school and he’s not struggling sixteen hours a day to become an Olympic champion.  He’s merely hanging out trying to have a good time every moment.

These adults can become physically as well as verbally abusive.  Their simmering rage when they’re thwarted can be frightening.  Usually they’re selfish, narcissistic control-freaks, lazy, demanding and surly, and feel entitled to whatever makes their life work most easily.

They’re good at arguing.  They want to convince you that “love” and “support” mean that you give them money.  You have to love and give to them, but they don’t have to give anything in return.  Their hidden assumption is that if you can’t make them agree with any changes, they don’t have to change.  They’re masters of whining, complaining and blaming others, especially you, for their problems.

They’re great emotional blackmailers: “A good, loving mother would take care of me while I’m getting it together.  A caring mom would help me.”  They’re also master manipulators of your fear that, if you don’t cater to them, they’ll fail in life and it’ll be your fault, not theirs: “I need your love to keep me away from bad company.  If you kick me out, I’ll be emotionally damaged.”  They’ll subtly hint that they’ll commit suicide if you don’t coddle them.  They always have a friend who has a “good mother” taking care of him.

Your caring and fear make their arguments seductive.  No matter how much you had to struggle on your own to be successful, it’s easy to think that if you only give them one more chance, they’ll finally wake up and get it.  So you give him one more chance – over and over and over.

Popular culture also makes their arguments seductive.  Most people have been raised to think that loving your child (“mother’s love”) means giving them what they want.

In my experience, one path in dealing with healthy, intelligent teenage boys almost guarantees failure.  That’s the path of giving them what they want.  The more you let them leech off your energy, wallet and good will, the softer they’ll become, the harder it will be for them to become strong and independent, the greater the chances that they’ll fall in with other lazy losers.  The more you give them, the more lazy, entitled and spoiled they’ll become.

In my experience, the path that has the greatest probability of success is to kick those little birds out of the nest before they grow too big for their fledgling wings.  They’ve already grown too big for the nest.  In order to fly, they need to strengthen their wings by use under pressure and stress.

Of course there’s a risk.  They might fail and turn to drugs, booze or burglary to support themselves.  They might give in to depression.  But, in my experience, staying home wouldn’t prevent that.  Leeching off you will only make them weaker.

Confidence and self-esteem are developed by succeeding at real and difficult challenges in which there’s a chance of failing.  Staying at home avoids important, meaningful challenges.

Some of the things to say to them when you tell them they’re moving out, depending on the circumstances, are:

• “I know that inside you, you have this great one of you struggling to take charge of your life.  Now’s your chance for that ‘you’ to take over.  Struggle and succeed.  I’d rather you struggle and prove me wrong while hating me, than that you love me and stay here as a whining, complaining loser.”  Use the word “loser” a lot.  Challenge them to prove you wrong.
• “This is not a discussion or a debate; you don’t get to vote.  This is definitely not fair according to you.  I know you think I don’t understand your side of it or how hard it is in today’s economy, but that’s the way it is.  I’m protecting myself from my own flesh and blood, who’d suck me dry if I let him.  You can try to argue but it won’t change anything.  It’ll just waste your time.  If you threaten me or damage the house, I’ll call the police and there’ll be no going back.”  Don’t engage in debate.  Walk away.
• “I love you and this is scary for me, but that fear won’t stop me.  If you become a loser, just like (fill in the blank), I’ll be sad and cry that you wasted your life, but I won’t feel guilty.  I won’t regret what I’m doing.”  Then walk away.
• “I’m going to have a joyous, good time in my life.  After you move out, if you make it fun for me, I’ll take you out to a restaurant sometimes or have you over for a good meal.  But if you nag at me and make it a rotten time, I won’t want to waste my time with you.  Your job is to make it fun for me to be with you.  Yes, that’s blackmail.  You pay for my attention, kindness and money.  Be the nicest to people who are closest.  Be nicer and sweeter to me than you would be to a stranger.  Suck up to me as if you want something from me.  You do.  Even if you can prove to me logically that it’s not fair, that’s the way it is.”
• “You, my beloved son, are now facing the choice we all face in life at this age.  Will you settle for being a loser with a good excuse – your mother didn’t love or suckle you enough – or will you be a winner despite your mother?  Every one of your ancestors faced this.  Your ancestors lived through plague, famine, flood, war and slavery.  They lived through worse than you.  I know you have the stuff of a hero in you.  Your choice is whether you bring that out and succeed, or to be a whining, petulant, blaming loser.”
• You have the body and mind of an adult.  You want to make adult choices in living the life you want.  Now you’re being tested.  Being an adult means taking care of yourself financially and physically.  You probably didn’t prepare yourself.  That’s your problem.  I could never teach you anything because you never listened to me when I gave you good advice.  We both know that.  You think you know everything.  You think you know what’s best for you.  Now prove it.  The less you learned useful skills, the more you’ll have to struggle now.  So what?  That’s just struggle.  I hope you’ll grow strong by struggling.”
• Mom, make a specific plan.  For example, “You must be out by (date).  If not, I’ll throw your stuff out the window and call the police if I have to.  No negotiation.  No promises.  We allow little children to get by on promises and potential.  When they’re 13 or so, we start demanding performance.  Now that you’re 19, I demand performance.  Your performance earns what you get.”  Mom, don’t give in to satisfy one more promise.  Think through what you’ll give, if anything, and under what conditions.  My bottom line is, “Make me enjoy it and I’ll consider it.  Beat me up, physically or verbally, and you get nothing.”  The more calm you are, the better.  If he can get you upset, he’ll think he can win again…as usual.

Your teenager will be sneaky and manipulative in pushing your buttons and boundaries.  He’s mastered manipulating you for years.

Single parents are often easier to bully than couples.  For example, see the case study of Paula bullied by her daughter, Stacy, in “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”

Stepchildren can jerk your chain more.  A couple that disagrees strongly (one stern and one permissive) can be the worst case scenario.

This is a start.  Because all solutions depend on the specifics of the situation, you will need coaching.  Some circumstances that might alter your plans are if your teenager is not physically or mentally competent or needs extensive mental health counseling or is 13-16 or is a girl or there are drugs or alcohol involved or there are younger children at home?

Stay strong and firm.  Don’t let him move back in even for a just week or month.  It’ll reinforce the laziest in them and it’ll become permanent.

Stop Workplace Moaning, Groaning, Whining and Negativity

In this recession, lots of specific problems crop up that we moan and groan about.  But habitual whiners and complainers want us to wallow in their negativity even in the best of times.  In her article in the Financial Times, “Office moaners are something to groan about,” Emma Jacobs points out that habitual complainers can demoralize and depress any office. The skill to critically foresee potential problems and try to solve them is totally different from an endless stream of hostility, negativity and victim-talk.  Of course, good managers pay attention to comments from productive staff.

While occasional griping is a natural part of our lives, a Grump’s steady stream of bad attitudes coupled with attempts to prove that we should all feel as bad as he does, rapidly convert our sympathy into anger.

Negativity also promotes workplace divisiveness.  Moaners ostracize anyone who won’t join in and their continued focus on what’s unfair or wrong leads co-workers to focus also on what’s wrong at work instead of finding solutions or staying productive.

Although most people moan and groan for a while in response to specific situations, typically, you’ll encounter three types of habitual moaners:

1. People who routinely feel discouraged, depressed and victimized, and just want to whine endlessly about how hard life is.
2. Co-workers who batter you with their views about how bad the world or the company is.  You have to agree or you just don’t understand (“you fool”) or you’re one of the “oppressors.”
3. Bullies who use moaning to take control and power.

The last category is sometimes surprising.  How can someone so victimized, negative and wimpy be a successful bully?

Moaning, complaining stealth bullies gain power and control when:

• Well meaning people sympathize, agree and join their crusades.
• Co-workers spend hours giving them sympathy instead of working.
• Managers and co-workers start walking on egg shells around complaining bullies in order to make them feel good or from fear that their supporters will gang up on you because you hurt their feelings.

Behind this stealth bullying is the moaning bullies’ desire to control what correct behavior should be (“Those rotten people should do …) and their rules for how we should respond to what they see as major injustices.

So what can you do?

1. Don’t hang out with negative people.  Leave the break room or sweetly remove them from your cubicle or office while saying, “I have too much to do right now” and turn to do it, or “I have so many deadlines, would you do this for me” and give them a simple task.
2. Don’t debate with them.  They don’t want to change their minds.  Notice that if you win one debate, they rapidly come up with something else to moan about.  Their goal is to moan, not solve problems.
3. Individually stand on your own ground.  You might say, “You’re right but that’s not important enough to waste much time on,” or “you’re right but that’s part of life so I don’t get upset about it,” or “you’re right but that’s too big for me to do anything about at this moment so I’d rather focus on the things that lift my spirit and energy.”
4. At a workshop someone suggested what’s become my favorite.  With a straight face say, “My therapist says I can’t have any discouraging talk for seven days straight, so do you have any happy or uplifting things to tell me?”  This has worked every time.
5. On your team, make team agreements or “Behavioral Ground Rules” against moaning, groaning, negativity or gossip.  Call it like it is.  Some teams even have “No Moaning” signs at their meetings.

Of course, we sympathize and support someone who is in a painful situation and needs a pick-me-up.  But don’t throw your sympathy into a bottomless bucket.  You’re not being paid to be anyone’s therapist and your organization is probably not a therapeutic environment for employees.

Of course the same could be said about whiners, moaners and complainers at home.  They’ll drag your energy down if you let them.  As Henry Adams said, “Even the gayest of tempers succumbs at last to constant friction.”  In your personal life, give whining complainers a chance to change or vote them off your island.

Transforming a Community in the Wake of School Abuse, Bullying and Suicides

Here’s a new slant on the cluster of suicides of four teenage girls from Schenectady High School, New York, that was stimulated by abuse and bullying in school and a war-zone environment outside school. Instead of working together to transform the school and the neighborhood environment, Rev. Veron House, pastor of the Life Changes World Ministries in Schenectady, and school superintendent, Eric Ely, are arguing over who was to blame and who should be responsible for fixing the problem.

Rev. House has been quoted as saying, “This is not a community problem, this is not a church problem, this is a school problem, and this is becoming a school epidemic because everyone that has done this is from Schenectady High."

On the defensive, Superintendent Ely responded, "We're not the parents of these children.  We have them a third of the time, parents have them two thirds of the time. We're going to do everything we can to keep it from happening. But ultimately, when a child goes home and takes their life, there's not a whole lot a school employee can do about that."

Who’s right?  Of course both of them are right.  But facing each other with finger-pointing makes both of them wrong.

The useful question is not who’s to blame and who should be punished, the people in the neighborhood or the principal and teachers in school.  The better question is how to bring people together after numerous and tremendously painful deaths, in order to create a community that simply won’t tolerate hate and violence in the school or on the streets.  Here in Denver, after the massacre at Columbine High School, it has taken 10 years for that healing spirit to become evident.

This question is not new.  The difficulty of establishing a safe and functional communal life after multiple, horrible deaths has been part of human struggles since the beginning of time.  For example, we see the same struggle in the families of Romeo and Juliet.

Even further back, the same subject and a wise solution are described in graphic detail in the three tragedies called the Oresteia, written by Aeschylus in 458 BC.  In the Agamemnon, the Libation Bearers and the Eumenides, the murders are for different reasons than in Schenectady and Columbine High School, but the end effect is the same.  Violent death rips apart the fabric of a community and people struggle with what to do.

Why do I bring up literature that’s 2,500 years old?  Because the violence of today has also been faced by people in all cultures, times and places, and we have recorded the approaches that only lead to more pain and also the wisdom that points the way to solutions.

Aeschylus shows that the age-old solution – pointing fingers, apportioning blame, imposing punishment, retribution and vengeance – only drives people into separate, warring camps and perpetuates the cycle of violence.  He also shows that only after the people involved have come together, having been transformed by the intense pain and suffering that everyone feels underneath their defensive and hostile poses, can they dedicate themselves to change the environment together.  One line from the tragedy is, “We must suffer, suffer into [wisdom].”

As community leaders, Rev. House and Superintendent Ely are failing in their responsibility.  Instead of analyzing and parsing out the blame, they must lead the community to come together to create a new spirit that will neither tolerate harassment, bullying and abuse at school nor the street violence that requires police and metal detectors at school doors.

Until Rev. House and Superintendent Ely rally a core of outraged students and parents to rid the area of violence, there are no tactics, plans and skills that will help them.  I’d expect Rev. House to know how rituals for painful grieving can transform the hearts of his parishioners into wisdom and determined action.  Only after they have united resolutely to clean up the school and the neighborhood, will expert tactical advice and guidance be productive.

Workplace Bullying and Harassment: Recognize Common Techniques Bullies Use

There are too many reports of workplace harassment and bullying to list.  It seems that at least 30 percent of managers and employees are bullied and harassed.  Many critics and experts focus only on bullying bosses, but I’ve seen just as many employees and coworkers use these bullying methods as I have managers and supervisors.  Gangs of managers and staff also harass and bully each other.  Men and women bully each other in all combinations. How can you recognize the most common methods used for bullying and harassment?

The top 7 tactics I’ve seen are:

1. Yelling and physical threats (overt or subtle).
2. Personal attacks, verbal abuse, emotional intimidation, insults, put-downs and humiliating, demeaning, rude, cruel, insulting, mocking and embarrassing comments.  False accusations (especially outrageous) and character assassination.  Demeaning behavior at meetings – interrupting, ignoring, laughing, non-verbal comments behind your back (rude noises, body language, facial gestures, answering phones, working on computers).
3. Harassment based on race, religion, gender and physical attributes.  Sexual contact, lewd suggestions, name-calling, teasing and personal jokes (sometimes overtly nasty, or threatening or sometimes followed by laughter as in, “I was just kidding” in order to make it hard for you to fight back).
4. Backstabbing, spreading rumors and gossip, manipulating, lying, distorting, hypocrisy and exposing your problems and mistakes.  Anonymous attacks and cyber bullying – flaming e-mails and porn.  Invading your personal space and privacy – rummaging through your desk, listening to phone calls, asking extremely personal questions, eating your food.
5. Taking the credit; spreading the blame.  Withholding information and then cutting you down for not knowing or for failing.  Turf wars about budgets, hiring, copiers and coffee machines.
6. Hypersensitive, over-reactions, throwing tantrums (drama queens, sensitive princes), continual negativity – so you walk on egg shells, back off in order to avoid a scene, or beg forgiveness as if you really did something wrong.
7. Dishonest evaluations – praising and promoting favorites, giving slackers good evaluations and destroying the careers of people bullies don’t like.

Most bullies use combinations of these techniques.

Bullying at work creates a hostile and unproductive culture.

• There’s increased hostility, tension, selfishness, sick leave, stress-related disabilities, turn over and legal actions.
• People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes.
• Effort is diffused instead of aligned.  Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks decrease.
• Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.  The best people leave as soon as they can.

I’ll go into possible solutions in future posts.  But for a start, listen to the CDs “Eliminate the High Cost of Low Attitudes.”

Facebook Cyber Bullying Lawsuit Versus New York Teenager

As reported by Reid Epstein in Newsday, New York teenager, Denise Finkel has sued Facebook for $3 million because, she claims, it carried a fictitious Facebook chat group to bully, ostracize, ridicule, abuse and disgrace her.  The lawsuit states that former high school classmates, Michael Dauber, Jeffrey Schwartz, Leah Herz, and Melinda Danowitz created the chat room in which they falsely claimed that she had “inappropriate conduct with animals,” and had AIDS, as well as other sexually transmitted diseases. I want to focus on two related areas that I think are more important in the long run.

Of course there will be a lot of furor over whether any or all of the accused four did it and whether Facebook is liable for content that’s not obviously pornographic.  Did Finkel complain to Facebook and did Facebook turn a deaf ear to Finkel’s complaints?  And are the four people guilty as accused?

The first area that I think is more important in the long run is the ongoing effort to make new laws in response to new crimes, especially using new technology.  The natural way that we make new laws begins when some people commit acts not specifically covered under the old laws that have terrible consequences.  We respond by specifically labeling those new actions as crimes, and attach what we feel are appropriate criminal penalties.  Then we see, by trial-and-error, where to draw better lines.  The legal system is inevitably slow, inefficient and never perfect.

Given the increasing number of lives ruined by cyber bullying, emotional harassment and abuse, especially in schools, and the number of suicides stimulated by cyber bullying, I think that our society will make laws specifically stating that false and malicious statements and postings, in addition to pornography, are illegal.  I don’t think we’ll hold carriers like Facebook, MySpace, etc. liable for their postings.  But I think we’ll hold them liable for ignoring complaints about specific chat groups and postings that they continue to carry.

Many states and school districts, including Kansas, Oregon and California are considering such laws to protect children and teenagers from cyber bullying.

One stumbling block in making such laws is where to draw the lines and the hidden assumption that cyberbullying laws can and should be made “just right” for all situations – never too lax, never too harsh.  But the letter of the laws can never cover all situations with “just right” justice.  We always depend on human wisdom in the law’s application to specific situations.  That’s just the way it is – for better or for worse.

And I think that in this area, safety should triumph over cyber freedom.

The second area that I think is more important in the long run is parenting for the specific situations involving our kids and teenagers.  Our job is to monitor our children:

1. Do they look like they’re having a hard time (maybe being attacked by cyberbullies)?  How can we help them stop bullying on their own or do we need to intervene?
2. Are they witnessing cyber bullying and are they struggling to know whether or how to intervene?
3. Are they cyber bullies?  How do we stop them and help them develop the character to make amends and do better next time?
4. Should they even be on MySpace or Facebook or any social networking sites?  What else would be a better use of their time and energy?

And of course there are no easy answers.  No one is really dumb enough to think there are easy solutions.

There are no safe environments.  Schools and the real world have never been safe.  Schools and social networks are testing grounds for the real world.  And the real world is not and should not be safe.  Facing risks and danger helps us develop good sense, good character and the qualities necessary to survive.  Imagine growing up on a farm, in a wilderness village or in the middle ages.  Not safe.  I grew up in New York City.  Not safe.  Millennia ago we had to learn what a saber-toothed tiger’s foot prints looked like and how long ago they were left.  The world still requires survival skills, even if different ones.

Our job as parents is to teach our children the skills and grit to survive in whichever jungle or battleground they live, and to protect them when they’re over-matched.

For practical, real-world tactics designed to stop school bullies and bullying, please see “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids.”  Individualized coaching can design action plans to fit your specific situation.  Also, the strong and clear voice of an outside speaker can empower principals, teachers and other students to stop bullying and abuse.

Stop bullying cliques at work

In the last post, we analyzed the tactics bullying cliques typically use and 10 common reasons why people form or join hostile, predatory cliques at work. Both men and women form and join cliques, even through their tactics are often different.  These predators verbally, sexually and physically harass and abuse both men and women.  They sabotage performance.  Don’t be surprised to learn that women prey on other women in the office – you’ve seen the evidence through elementary school, junior high school and high school.

What can you do if:

• You have a pattern of being bullied all your life?
• You’re a target?
• You have a chance to join such a pack of jackals and are afraid to refuse because you might get attacked?
• You’re a bystander and your heart goes out to a victim?

Bullying, cutting-out and creating and attacking scapegoats comes from a deep place within us and is found in almost all cultures, places and times.

Sometimes you can see that the person on the receiving end has done many things to offend almost everyone else.  But let’s put that situation aside for this post and focus on all the rest of the times when the person being cut out or attacked has been okay and the problem is the group that attacks their scapegoat.

If you’ve been bullied all your life, you have a problem that you’ll have to solve before you can deal effectively with a bullying clique.  Even if you haven’t done anything wrong to the pack of predators, you’re wearing a neon sign: "Kick me."  Lions, wild dogs and sharks can see who the weak and vulnerable ones are.  Bullies can too.  You’ll have to change your attitudes and beliefs so you’ll have a different sign: "Don’t mess with me!"  Let’s also leave this situation for another post.

Many people hope to stop cliques of bullies by analyzing why they do it and then using their understanding to design solutions.  Don’t waste your time.  You know why some people find others to pick on.  That catalogue of reasons is enough.

Management training rarely works.  Textbook and educational approaches – we’ll talk and I’ll show them why it’s wrong and they’ll see the error of their ways and become caring – rarely work.  They won’t stop bad behavior that’s driven by underlying emotions.

Predatory behavior by packs isn’t driven by intellectual reasons, it’s driven by emotions.  Of course the perpetrators can find reasons to justify their behavior, but they don’t do the behavior because of the reasons.  They do the behavior because of their own emotional needs and then they try to cover up the ugliness with a pretty picture of justifications.

Ignoring the problem or begging, bribery and appeasement simply reinforce low attitudes and behavior at all levels.  A major part of the problem are conflict-avoidant leaders, managers and co-workers who think that if we all talk nicely to each other or try to make bullies happy, they’ll stop bullying cliques.

Some real-world, stepwise approaches are:

• Make efforts to be friendly in practical ways, in order to give them a chance to change – without doing anything immoral, illegal or odious.  Bring pizza and donuts.  Cover for them when they need help.  Socialize with coworkers.
• If they continue targeting you (which they usually will), get help to develop tactics to isolate the ringleaders or get them fired.  The key goals are: separation and isolation.  Terminated is better than transferred, because transferred means that you’ve helped them create another bully-scapegoat situation.  How nice is that?
• Get firmer and firmer.  Don’t threaten or share your tactics with them.  Get an attorney to advise you about local laws.  Get allies – HR and managers rarely want to be involved, but give them one chance.  Document, document, document.
• If you have a chance to join such a pack of jackals and are afraid to refuse because you might get attacked, you have an integrity choice to make.  Do you want to live in fear or do you want to win a workplace war?
• If you’re a bystander and your heart goes out to a victim, you have another integrity choice to make.  Often, if you help a victim, the victim won’t help in return.  Be prepared to act alone, if necessary.

Of course, individual coaching will help you design tactics that fit your specific situation.

The strong and clear voice of an outside consultant and coach can change these behaviors or empower managers and staff to remove these bullies.  I’ve often helped companies and even non-profits and government agencies create and maintain behavioral standards (team agreements, ground rules for professional behavior) that promote productivity.

As I show in my books and CDs of case studies, “How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks” and “Eliminate the High Cost of Low Attitudes,” bullies are not all the same, but their patterns of behavior, their tactics, are the same – whether they’re men or woman.  That’s why we can find ways to stop them.

10 Best ways to raise spoiled brats

There are many methods that even well-meaning parents use to raise spoiled brats instead of wonderful, creative, well-behaved, civil, strong children.  The fundamental factor in raising arrogant, selfish, nasty brats is their parents’ consistency in attitudes, approach and actions. The underlying attitude that creates demanding, bullying tyrants is that if children are never thwarted or forced to do what they don’t want to, they’ll be more creative and happy, and their self-esteem will be higher.  This attitude is very prevalent among the helping professions; especially therapists and teachers.

What I say will anger people who think in black-while, all-none.  Those are people who think that the only choices are total freedom and praise, or total repression and beatings.  How silly to think that way.

What do you see other people doing to train their children badly?

My top 10 attitudes, approaches, techniques to create willful, domineering brats and teenagers are:

1. Never correct them or say, “No.”  Help them think they’re sensitive, weak and fragile.  Be afraid that if their feelings are hurt, they’ll never get over it.
2. Always give them everything they desire.  Don’t teach them that they might not get what they desperately want at the moment and that they can still be happy.  Give them control of every decision.  Never force them to do what you want.  Instead, always try to get them to understand that you’re right so they’ll willingly do what you want them to.
3. Never show displeasure or tell them that they failed to meet your high expectations.  Always tell them that their efforts are always good enough; no matter how good or pathetic the results.
4. Always tell them that they should succeed instantly or that what they can’t do, isn’t important.  Also, tell them that hard work and struggle aren’t important.  Blame everything that they don’t like on other people (bad friends, bad teachers, bad schools, bad society), not on their insufficient or mediocre effort.  Always tell them that the world is supposed to be fair and make them happy.
5. Always let them misbehave without correction or consequences, instead of calmly applying consequences whether they like it or not.  Hold your tongue or repeatedly tell them not to do something, but don’t actually do anything effective until you can’t stand it anymore and you throw a fit.
6. Always give in to their fits and temper tantrums in order to get them to stop.   Train them that you’ll give them whatever they want if they throw fits in public.
7. Always excuse their bad behavior because they’re “cute” or “creative.”
8. Always allow them to avoid chores or helping out because it’s no fun for them.
9. Be afraid that if they’re angry, they won’t love you.  Always try to be their confidant and best friend.
10. Never smack their bottoms or grab them to make your point or to let them know that sometimes they will do what you want, no matter what.

To raise spoiled brats, consistently give in to them and excuse their bad behavior.  Of course that doesn’t prepare them to succeed in the real-world they’ll face as adults.

If you start these approaches with infants, you can create manipulative, demanding teenage bullies who think that they’re entitled to everything they want and you’re supposed to provide it.  They’re the kind of children who may be living at home when they’re 40.  And you’ll wonder why, deep down, you don’t like them any more than they like you.

But don’t go to the other extreme and beat them into submission.

Think of the qualities you want them to develop and make sure they have many opportunities to practice these qualities.  For example:

• Will, self-mastery, courage and discipline.
• High energy, emphasis on action and seeking solutions instead of blame.
• Grit, determination, dedication, drive, commitment and focus.
• Persistence, perseverance, patience, endurance and tenacity.
• Resilience, flexibility and humor.
• Comfort in ambiguity and productive inconsistency.
• Heroism in the face of discouragement so you’ll treat obstacles like speed bumps.
• Learning from great models, heroes, mentors and coaches.
• Taking calculated risks and making the most of opportunities and luck.

Without your guidance and discipline, they won’t magically develop those qualities when they’re 25.

You’ll find examples in my books and CDs of case studies, “How to Stop Bullies in their Tracks” and “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids.”  Of course, coaching can help you design tactics that fit your specific situation.

The signs of cyberbullying

The post on the PC Pandora Blog, “The signs of cyberbullying,” refers to an article by Elizabeth Wasserman, “Warning signs: Is Your Child Having Cyber Issues?”  The original article gives a good list of some of the signs that your child might be having trouble dealing with cyber bullies.  The follow-up post refers to the PC Pandora software that will alert parents if their child is either being the victim of cyberbullying or is even a cyberbully him or herself. The signs they listed were: * Changed work habits, grades slipping, failing tests. * Losing sleep or sleeping too much. * Increased insecurity or irritability.

I would add withdrawal and lack of communication.  These warning signs are really some of the warning signs that teenagers are having problems with any issue they can’t resolve by themselves, not only cyberbullying.  They’re tip-offs that parents need to talk more with their children and find out what’s going on.

However, the solutions suggested by the experts in the article fall short in the real-world.  They all stem from the ideas that kids are experts and parents should not upset or pressure their children too much.  Instead, parents should only make what I think of as weak suggestions.

However, suggestions are nice but are usually not enough.  Most children may be more expert than their parents about technology but: 1. They don’t know what’s best for them.  I hope that as parents with much broader experience, we know a lot that our children don’t and they have already had the opportunity to see that. 2. They’re not more expert than we are about dealing with bullies.  I hope we have many ideas they haven’t thought about, even if that might mean they would have to go outside their comfort zones or we might have to intervene.

We may have to work hard to get our kids to tell us or to problem solve with us.  How many of us told our parents when we had trouble?  But that’s the universal task.  Their liking it or not is not the most important criterion.

I know parents who have even prohibited their children from wasting time on social networks like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook.  They want their children to have face to face social activities with real people they can judge face to face.  How’s that for a concept.

I also think that to put a dent in the amount of cyberbullying, we’ll need Federal laws to make it illegal and then the willingness of social networks to turn over records of cyberbullies.  Writing and enforcing these laws will be as difficult as enforcing the libel laws we already have.  We’ll have to distinguish between an angry exchange and a pattern of on-going attacks.

I learned effective techniques to deal with bullies through growing up in New York City, by watching our six children (three girls and three boys) deal with each other and with bullies at school, and through my experience as a coach, psychotherapist and consultant.

Top ten ways to create a hostile workplace

Bullies at work can ruin a culture, destroy productivity and make your life miserable.  Many people focus only on bullying bosses, but I’ve seen just as many coworkers and employees use these bullying methods as I have managers and supervisors.  Before you read the top ten I’ve seen, please think for a moment.  What bullying methods used by whom, have you seen most? Have you seen these techniques ruining your workplace?

1. Yelling, physical threats (overt or subtle) and personal attacks.
2. Verbal abuse, emotional intimidation, personal insults and attacks (in private and in public).  Put-downs and humiliating, demeaning, rude, cruel, insulting, mocking and embarrassing comments.  False accusations (especially outrageous), character assassination.
3. Harassing based on race, religion, gender and physical attributes.  Sexual contact, lewd suggestions, name-calling, teasing and personal jokes (sometimes overtly nasty, or threatening or sometimes given with laughter as in, “I was just kidding” in order to make it hard for you to fight back.
4. Backstabbing, spreading rumors and gossip, manipulating, lying, distorting, evading, hypocrisy and exposing your problems and mistakes.
5. Taking the credit; spreading the blame.  Withholding information and then cutting you down for not knowing or for failing.
6. Anonymous attacks and cyber-bullying – flaming e-mails and porn.  Invading your personal space and privacy – rummaging through your desk, listening to phone calls, asking extremely personal questions, eating your food.
7. Hypersensitive, over-reactions, throwing tantrums (drama queens) – so you walk on egg shells, back off in order to avoid a scene, or beg forgiveness as if you really did something wrong.
8. Dishonest evaluations – praising and promoting favorites, giving slackers good evaluations and destroying careers of people the bully doesn’t like.
9. Demeaning at meetings – interrupting, ignoring, laughing, non-verbal comments behind your back (rude noises, body language, facial gestures, answering phone, working on computer).
10. Forming cliques and ganging up.  Turf wars about budgets, hiring, copiers and coffee machines.

Most bullies use combinations of these methods.

We’ve all seen the effects of bullies and the hostile workplace they create.  There’s increased hostility, tension, selfishness, turf wars, sick leave, stress related disabilities, turn over and legal actions.  People become isolated, do busy work with no important results and waste huge chunks of time talking about the latest episodes.  Effort is diffused instead of aligned.  Promotions are based on sucking up to the most difficult and nasty people, not on merit.

Teamwork, productivity, responsibility, efficiency, creativity and taking reasonable risks are decreased.  The best people leave as soon as they can.

The wrong people or the wrong culture can always find ways to destroy the best operational systems. Your pipeline will leak money and your profits will plummet.

I’ll go into solutions in future posts, but I want to mention one frequently used tactic that does not work to stop dedicated bullies.  It’s based on the false assumption that if we – educate, explain, understand, reason, show the consequences, accept, forgive or make enough attempts to satisfy bullies – then they will become reasonable, civil, professional, friendly and good to work with.  That approach only stops people who are not really bullies, but have forgotten themselves one time and behaved badly.

Determined bullies don’t take your acquiescence as kindness.  They take your giving in as weakness and an invitation to grab for more.  Bullies bully repeatedly and without real remorse.  You won’t get a sincere apology from them.  A sincere apology doesn’t mean anything about how they look.  It means that they change and stop bullying.

I’d like to hear your horror or success stories.