How easy it is for bullying to become the norm. The story about the way Paul Maynard, the new MP who suffers from cerebral palsy, was openly mocked when he spoke in the House of Commons is typical. Clearly, he has joined a club where baiting, abuse and point-scoring are simply accepted as a normal part of the proceedings. Only the other day, George Osborne and Ed Balls were trading insults over the dispatch box: George congratulated Ed on being a second choice; Ed told George he should spend less time on Swiss ski slopes; George taunted Ed about orchestrating a knighthood for Fred Goodwin, the man who allegedly “brought financial disaster to this country”; and so on.
No doubt each taunt was loudly cheered and everyone came away having enjoyed a good, clean contest. My newspaper had the headline, “George wins bare-knuckle bout on points”. Clearly, institutional bullying has become an accepted way of life in the House of Commons – as it has, in my experience, in many large organisations.
A few years ago I worked as a consultant in a large organisation where a senior manager, who had worked his way up from the shop floor (let’s call him Bob), targeted graduates. He took every opportunity to belittle them and if opportunities didn’t arise in the normal course of events, he created them.
One of his favourite ploys was to inflict his own version of University Challenge on groups of graduates. The graduates were, of course, on a hiding to nothing. Bob would compile a series of obscure questions to which only he knew the answers. On the rare occasion when someone answered correctly, Bob would accuse him/her of being a geek and a know-all. Most times, of course, people didn’t know the answer and Bob would taunt them about being stupid and ignorant: “What did they teach you at university?” Another device he used to “prove” (you’ll have guessed by now that he didn’t go to university) he was smarter than everyone else was to delegate tasks but withhold vital information. This virtually guaranteed that the graduate would fail and provide Bob with an opportunity to ridicule the inadequacies of their work.
As you might guess, graduate turnover was high but this didn’t seem to trouble Bob. “Good riddance!” he’d say, followed by one of his favourite mantras: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
The most unsettling thing about these goings-on was that they went unchallenged by Bob’s colleagues and seniors. They simply turned a blind eye - Bob’s bullying had become the norm.
How much bullying goes on in your place of work that is simply accepted as normal behaviour?