What can you do if the new bosses want to fire you?

I received a number of confidential responses to my blog post on “Top ten ways to create a hostile workplace.”  One theme in many responses was about the question: “What should I do if leadership has changed and the new bosses want me gone so they can bring in their own people?” That’s a situation I’ve also seen many times in my consulting.

What would you do?

Consider Jake.  The new bosses want him gone so they can bring in people they know or people who will be beholden to them.  Jake tries to prove to them that he’s a great manager, but they systematically undercut his authority.  He used to get good evaluations, but his new bosses are very critical.  They blame him for everything that goes wrong with his team.  He’s the scapegoat.

Jake is furious.  It’s unfair; they’re bullies and he’s being abused.  He’s a good worker and he’s trying hard.  He wants to meet them half way, but they don’t want to.  Nothing he does convinces them he’s a good performer.  He’s hurt, frustrated and angry.  Jake wants to fight back, but when he acts on his anger, they write him up.  It’s a hostile workplace.

I think Jake is beginning at the wrong place – how can I fight back and show them I’m good?  How can I preserve my reputation with them?  Jake can’t fight back by showing them that he’s a good manager, team leader and individual performer.  He can’t preserve his reputation with them.  They don’t care.  He’s not an individual to them.

Of course it’s hard to be treated that way.  One of the hardest things for us as Americans in our little slice of time is not to be treated as individuals.  Jake is being treated as a class of people: He’s in the class of people called, “Hired by the old bosses and not one of our new people.”  When you're treated that way, there's little you, as an individual, can do to change their minds.  Unless you can get them to see you as an individual.

The new bosses criticize him as if he’s a problem employee.  Jake takes their hostility personally.  He returns their hostility and wants to prove himself.  But he’s not a poor employee and it’s not personal, even though it has personal consequences for him.

When he takes it personally, he can’t think tactically and he makes it worse for himself.  When he gets frustrated, hurt and angry, he acts out and gives them excuses they can document for getting rid of him rapidly.  He gets poor evaluations and terminated before he finds another job.

This situation is similar to that of Charles, case study #10 in my book, “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks.”

I think that the place Jake has to begin is, “Who should I be/how should I look at it?”  Here’s what I mean.

Amy is in the same position as Jake: the new bosses want to get rid of her and many other leaders in the company.  Unlike Jake, she accepts that it’s not about her as an individual, even though it has individual consequences for her.  With coaching, she doesn’t take it personally.  She doesn’t like it any more than Jake does, but she can step back and plan her tactics thoughtfully.  How can she defend herself?

First she asks if there’s anything she can do to become one of the new team.  The answer is, “No.”  She doesn’t like what’s happening, so she finds out if they’re violating any protected categories.  Are they going after people on the basis of gender, age, race, religion, disabilities, etc?  No, it’s the new broom sweeping clean.

She doesn’t want bad evaluations on her record, so she makes them an offer: “If you give me good evaluations, recommendations and severance while I look for another job, I’ll go quietly and gracefully in a shorter time than it will take you to force me out.”  They agree.  They just want her gone as soon as they can and with as little fuss as they can.  With a good recommendation, Amy rapidly gets a better job as part of someone’s new team.  The severance enables her to get double pay for a few months.

Notice Amy’s sequence:

1. Don’t take it personally and defend yourself by thinking tactically.
2. See if you have a legal grievance.
3. If the deck is stacked against you, plan to leave with good recommendations.
4. Bargain for time to get a better job with people who appreciate you.

Jake needs to change how he looks at it so that he can change his impossible goals - getting the bosses to see him as a worthy individual they should keep or leaving with them thinking he’s as good an employee as he really is.  They don’t care about his feelings or the truth about how he’s performed.  But they’d rather keep things civil and pleasant enough for them, and maybe squeeze a little work out of him or just squeeze him because they don't like the old team.

Amy is glad to be gone and happy at her new job.  Jake is still bitter.  That shows up when he interviews for new jobs.

I know it sounds unfair, but there it is.

What’s been your experience?

Stop the bully in the next cubicle

What do you do if the person in the next cubicle constantly gives you the silent treatment, glares, ignores your requests for information, makes belittling comments in meetings, puts you down in public, spreads false gossip about you, takes credit for what you did, accuses you falsely of making mistakes, tries to rally other people to be nasty to you and cuts you down to your manager? Even worse, what do you do if that’s your boss, and he also yells at you, makes personal and derogatory comments in front of the rest of the team, gives you unreasonable projects or deadlines so you’ll fail, evaluates you dishonestly and harshly, and is relentlessly critical?

Women, just as much as men, create hostile workplaces by verbal abuse and emotional intimidation.  They may even be more sneaky and manipulative.

What’s happened to you?  And what can you do?

In her column in the New York Times, “When the Bully Sits in the Next Cubicle,” and her blog post, “Have You Been Bullied at Work,” Tara Parker-Pope gives statistics for how prevalent these behaviors are.  Statistics are cold, but the individual pain of being treated this way is very hot.

I use the term “stealth bullies” for the subtle, sneaky, manipulative, critical, controlling workplace bullies who don’t use physical violence.  Most people at work let this behavior fly below their radar.  If we recognized and labeled these people as bullies, we’d be energized to resist.

Instead, many people take part of the blame and suffer in isolation.  They feel helpless and hopeless.

On an individual level, I think the first key to resisting is to recognize and label the actions as bullying so you’re galvanized to resist.  Then find allies and shine a light on it.  Think tactically and understand you’re in a war.  Because laws won’t help much, you’ll have to find other levers to exert pressure.

I don’t spend much time analyzing why bullies do it.  We know the major categories: personal dislikes, using brutality or someone’s back as a stepping stone, and ego stroking (“If I put you down, I’m one up).  You could probably reel off a few more.  In general, the approach of understanding doesn’t help.

I see hostile workplaces, verbal abuse and emotional intimidation not only in medical, legal and academic environments, but especially in government offices, non-profits and public service.  In those areas, people are often afraid of “confrontation” or of making “judgments” (someone is a bully).  In those areas, the typical culture thinks that the best way to stop bullying is to educate and rehabilitate bullies instead of simply stopping them first.  That’s like telling a battered wife (or husband) to endure the brutality while her husband gets therapy.

The purpose of most workplaces is not to be a therapeutic community for their workers.  Set high standards and enforce them at all levels.  But if the people at the top won’t dedicate themselves to stopping harassment and bullying, you won’t be able to stop it.  That’s like schools in which principals and teachers won’t stop bullying.

As a coach, consultant and speaker, I encourage people to fight to win.  The book, “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks” and the CD set, “Eliminate the High Cost of Low Attitudes,” can help but it’s crucial to design tactics for your specific needs and the situation.

But if you can’t win, don’t stay in a place where the powers are out to crush you mentally and emotionally, or where your spirit will be destroyed.