Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / World of Bullies #2: Unmasking Bullies in the Workplace and Mediation with Michael Lomax
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:04): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you understand and handle the most challenging human interactions, those involving someone with a high conflict personality. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host, bill Eddie. Hi everybody. Along with Michael Lomax, our guest. Hi. Speaker 2 (00:26): Hello everyone. Speaker 1 (00:27): We are the co-founders, bill and I of the High Conflict Institute in San Diego, California where we focus on training, consulting and educational programs, and even a little coaching and some methods, all to do with high conflict. In today's episode, we are in episode number two of our brand new World of Bullish series. We are so happy to be joined by our guest, Michael Lomax, who is one of our esteemed speakers at the High Conflict Institute, and we're going to talk about bullying in the workplace and also dealing with bullying and mediation. First, a couple of notes. Please send your high conflict related questions to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or our website@highconflictinstitute.com slash podcast where you'll also find all the show notes and links. Speaker 1 (01:22): So excited to have you on our episode today, Michael, along with Bill Eddie, we started this world of bully series because mostly of Bill got this new idea maybe a couple of years ago, maybe further back than that, to write a book on bully and what really is bullying, who is a bully, and how to most importantly handle a situation that might involve a true bully. So we're going to talk about all of that and explore around it. But Michael, I'd love for you to take just a minute and introduce yourself to our listeners and viewers and I got who you are, what you do. Speaker 2 (02:03): Thanks Megan. Well, amazingly, I just came up on one of my social media profiles that the 13th anniversary of me being an associate trainer with High Confidence Institute. And so that's pretty amazing. I met Bill a couple of years before that when he came up to Canada to do some training and it was just a great experience getting to know you, bill, and we've been collaborating ever since. Had a chance to co-write a book in 2021 on mediating high conflict disputes with Bill, and that was an amazing experience to collaborate on that and really happy to see that book get out into the world and really with a package of ideas that we've developed over those years to help mediators a lawyer by profession, practiced law for over 20 years in the area of workplace and family disputes, but had a non-traditional practice really focused on mediation and collaborative, staying out of court. Speaker 2 (02:58): I've had chance to help large organizations set up workplace conflict management programs over the last 20 years. So that's a big interest of mine in bringing mediation conflict resolution processes to large organizations to help 'em prevent unnecessary complaints and investigations. And I do a lot of speaking and training around high conflict behavior in Canada. I've done some stuff in the US and in Australia and really talking to all kinds of different organizations, unions, human resources, lawyers, mediators, you name it. And so quite busy with that too. Yeah, so it's been a real joy being part of the High Conflict Institute organization collaborating with both you, bill and Megan. Speaker 1 (03:41): Well, we have loved having you on board, just someone to like-minded collaborate with and have a high degree of trust in your skills and to communicate all of this to those who you're training and who you're working with. So thank you for being a part of HCI and for joining us today. So speaking of today, bill, in your new book, our New World of Adult Bullies, how to spot them and How to Stop them, you talk a lot about the hidden powers of bullies and today we're talking about first about the workplace and then a mediation. But let's focus first on the workplace. So what did you find in your research and in your writing about bullies in the workplace? Speaker 3 (04:23): Well, one of the biggest things that struck me is how it increased with the pandemic and that we thought, oh, people aren't going to be working side by side. There'll be less bullying now. And instead there was more. And what happened is people bully online, they bully employees, they bully coworkers. That all that horrible language you see with people making comments to unknown people online transferred over into the workplace. And so people are making these nasty comments and all of that online to their coworkers that they wouldn't say if they were standing in front of them or sitting across the desk from them. So we've seen this kind of lack of restraint actually increases bullying. But also that this interesting study I read again about online is it's not everybody's become more hostile, that there's maybe 5% of people that do most of the loud bullying online and say the nasty comments and have the hostility on a regular basis. Speaker 3 (05:38): So we're talking about a pattern of bullying, and that's really a small percent of people overall, it seems like five to 10% of people that are likely to engage in this kind of behavior. And it grabs your attention because it's not the ordinary person that just blurts out a negative comment because then they say, oh, I'm sorry, I said that bullies don't have the self restraints. They lack self restraints. And that's one of the biggest things to know. And that's one of the things, the work case examples I looked at when they set limits on people, clearly pattern of bullying behavior, the bullies didn't try to comply. They sued their organizations for setting limits on them, or they said, I'm the victim here and tried to get government intervention because I'm a victim. So it's a variety of things, but I think the biggest thing I noticed is that it did seem to be increasing. Speaker 1 (06:42): Interesting. So Michael, have you experienced that or had seen the same thing in Canada? Speaker 2 (06:49): Yes, I would say absolutely. Unfortunately, Canada's not immune from it, and I can say, and I, my wife Tammy and I, we were in New Zealand last year and I remember I was struck by the person taking us out to the airport, the taxi. He was telling us my number one phrase for everyone is, thank you, have a good day. Because everyone is so angry and he is saying for him, it was since the pandemic, it had gotten a lot worse. And so certainly up here when we're talking to organizations, people saying it's worse than it's ever been dealing with people at the front counter, people very upset, very angry as well. I can certainly see what you're saying, bill, that at the core of it, there may still be a small percentage of folks that are really the instigators, the frequent flyers, always coming back with this versus somebody who's temporarily upset at the counter or a coworker who's maybe quicker to react on something but then does calm down. Speaker 2 (07:45): They're not doing it all the time. But I do notice people are quicker to react back to these things quicker to complain. It's harder to bring people together to work it through than maybe it was before. I guess the other thing I would say around bullying behavior is it's described by a lot of people. I'm being bullied and very often in the mediation world, we're running into both sides saying that. And so when organizations in a workplace, if I was talking with a manager again, I'd say have a healthy skepticism when people are throwing out the term, just really take your time to understand what's going on and look at the allegations, look at the complaints, because very often when somebody else is doing something that's bothering us, upsetting as we are assuming they're doing it intentionally, they're spending 24 7 figuring out how to mess with us. Speaker 2 (08:36): Very often they're not. It's kind of more mutual conflict and there's a way through it. But then there is this percentage of folks that show up in workplaces and they can consume easily 80% of a manager's time in trying to figure this out. I am by managers and coworkers how they in their efforts to try to make sense of it all, they look at themselves, maybe I've made a mistake, maybe it's my fault. They doubt themselves or blame themselves. And as well, bullies can be very good at recruiting others to go after their targets. And they very often pick targets that not to say they deserve it, but somehow they don't pick a strong target who can stand up for themselves. They pick someone that is almost easier for the group to go, yeah, well maybe they kind of deserve it, that kind of thing. And they're not as willing to stand up for the target and say, I'm willing to put my personal capital in to protect them or support them. So it can be quite amazing sometimes going into workplaces and seeing how the whole group is somehow caught up in the dynamic, even though it may be one person is really driving it. Speaker 3 (09:49): One of the things I found is they call that term mobbing, that everyone picks on one person, but it isn't. There's a leader, there's always a leader involved and that's the high conflict person or the bully. And we don't want to say, Hey, you're a high conflict person or you're a bully. We don't want labeling. We just want you to be self-aware. If you are dealing with someone with a pattern of bullying behavior, you're going to need to be careful. You have adapt some of what you do. Don't get trapped in arguing with them. Don't try to give them insight into themselves. Don't try to open up their emotions and say, why do you feel that way? We don't want to open up emotions. They can't manage that. And that's one of the big things that I wanted to mention. They lack the self restraints that most people have. They may lack empathy, they may lack remorse, they may lack emotional control. And that's what you're seeing. Those are the people driving this, but you're absolutely right about getting what we call negative advocates to help them. I've got a whole chapter in the book on negative advocates with examples of horrific cases where people conned other people into helping them pick on somebody. And sometimes the negative advocates go, oh wow, I just realized I'm on the wrong side here, or I just don't want to be part of this. So you're absolutely right. Speaker 1 (11:25): I just had an example of this just yesterday and it's kind of fascinating. I don't know the history, I don't know the patterns, if the patterns are there, but that very thing, I mean, some relationship ruptures happened because of someone turning others against one particular person targeting this one person. And now two years down the road they've figured out I was on the wrong team, I was on the wrong side here. I was diluted into thinking this person was doing something bad and now has made amends and the relationship restored. Is that a bully? We don't know. I don't know the pattern, but it certainly seems like some bullying activity. Speaker 3 (12:06): Yeah, bullying behavior is, if you're talking about it, that's the way to really talk about it. But I do believe that there is a group of people who have this pattern that we have to deal with differently. It's kind of like the difference between an alcoholic and someone who drank too much last weekend. The alcoholic has an ongoing pattern, and the way most alcoholics recover is to abstain from alcohol. And so that's different. The person who drank too much last weekend doesn't necessarily have to abstain from alcohol. They might try to drink less and succeed at that, but if they're an alcoholic, they can't drink less, they'll lose control and drink more and more. Well, same with bullying is it isn't one mistake because most people have remorse and have empathy and say, oops, oops, sorry I said that. I don't really mean I don't think that about you. Speaker 3 (13:04): Maybe it's a day later or maybe it's a minute later. That's the difference I think we have to see, but still not use labels. But the other thing I wanted to say something about something you said, Michael, and that is that bullies tend towards people who aren't assertive at resisting their bullying. One thing I find is that bullies pick on everybody, but they experience that I can't keep picking on that person. And so they tend to stick with the people who aren't assertive, who go, well, I'm sorry I upset you so much when it's the bully who's acting badly. And that's why one of the things we say is try not to get too big into apologies unless you really have something to apologize for. But just because somebody else is upset doesn't mean you did something wrong. But being assertive will help you. That's one thing we've learned. Just say, I don't agree with you, or we'll have to agree to disagree. If someone says, Hey, you don't know what you're doing, bill. And I'll say, well, I don't agree with you. We'll just have to agree to disagree, things like that. Speaker 1 (14:21): So Michael, on that negative advocate piece, have you seen this in the workplace where someone turns others against, especially a bully, turns others against a particular person or even a team? Speaker 2 (14:33): Yeah, they can take issues that might be controversial in the workplace and use that to stir things up, either say against management or against the organization. And sometimes I think they really do believe in what they're saying. There's an injustice here, but very often their reaction might be way out of proportion to the thing. People who really engage in this behavior a lot, who are really good at it, they're really good at telling stories in kind of emotionally compelling ways. So they might be kind of shorter on the facts. So the logic a little more on somebody's got to do something about this and this is terrible, this is awful speaking in extreme terms. And so we can get caught up in the emotions of it. And almost the image I have of myself is I'm almost running down the hall. We got to do something about this and wait a second, what is actually wrong here? Speaker 2 (15:25): And am I the one who wants to be out in front of this so they can really rally people in an emotional level and it can split workplaces. And I've seen workplaces where it's split into three groups, those that support this person and almost feel like this person's being mistreated or this is a huge issue, we need to all get together. And other people say, no, this is wrong. We shouldn't be doing this. And then people just caught in the middle, I just want to be able to do my job and come to work and not get caught up in all this drama. And yet it really can play on the weaknesses of the workplace. Its resilience, its ability to deal with conflict, particularly if managers are not firm and addressing these things that are intervening and it can take hold or almost take the workplace over and no one individual knows how to stop it or get it back on track. Speaker 1 (16:18): So Bill, about Michael's piece on emotional, I know you have a chapter on emotional repetition. So how does that play in here? Speaker 3 (16:27): Well, what's interesting is bullies communicate in a simple manner, a very repetitive manner and a very emotional manner. What's interesting is that hooks, people get hooked by that. Either they're the target and they get hooked and they go, oh my goodness, I've done something terribly wrong. Or they start their self-esteem goes down and workplace bullying. We hear about people missing work because they have stomach aches, headaches, they just don't want to go into the office, all of that. So it's emotional and emotions grab us. Emotions are contagious. And so what I found is two directions, bullies emotionally immobilize their targets, but they also emotionally hook negative advocates against their other targets. And so people are like Michael said, ready to storm out, something's got to be done about this. And then you go realize, wait a minute, I don't know anything about it. I'm just upset because that person's upset and I have a chapter on projection and playing the victim really skilled bullies really use playing the victim a lot and they activate other people to defend them and to fight for them. And like Michael said, it's often takes a little while to realize, wait a minute, I got emotionally hooked, but I'm not informed. I don't know what's happening. And it makes me think, Megan of the name of your publishing company, unhooked books, because that's what the books are about, is help people to get unhooked from these emotional hooks that high conflict people and bullies put out there. Speaker 2 (18:19): No, I can say, bill, when I've ever been in a work situation where I've been asked to meet someone that is being identified as a bully, I want you to meet this person. And I'm waiting to meet this kind of cocky individual who's I'm running this place and I don't meet that person, particularly in the role that I'm in where I've got some kind of authority, whatever that is, I meet a victim and they will describe themselves as a victim. And sometimes what they're telling me, I believe it. I'm like, I actually believe those things happen to you. And sometimes I'm not as sure, but I am always struck by that I don't meet these kind of powerful, strong individuals when I meet very often meet someone who's describing themselves as a victim or someone else did this to me or the organization has taught me to behave this way. There are for managers, I'll meet them and employees will say, this person is a bully the way they treat people. I remember one person, a manager I met, and the day I met him, he put a nine binders on the table with me and shoved them across, this is how the organization has treated me, and I want you to read through these nine binders of stuff that has been done to me. And yet everyone else in the workplace said, this person is a tyrant. He treats us awfully. Speaker 1 (19:36): I call that a blue sky bully, right? Oh, blue sky, everything's great. The flowers are blooming and the sun shine's out and sun's shining on me. I'm awesome. Or at least that's what they're conveying and behind the scenes, that's just such a different situation. Speaker 3 (19:53): I think it really helps, and this is something I put in the book, is to have at least three theories of what's going on or three possibilities. One is the person you're talking to really is a victim and other people treating them badly. And that's a possibility. But another possibility is this is the perpetrator, this is the abusive person, this is the bully. And they've built a case for how they're a victim, but they're really the person. 90% of people around them will say, that's the person that's the source of our difficulties. Speaker 1 (20:29): But they say that with, they're so afraid to say it right, bill? Yes. I mean we're walking on eggshells around bullies. Speaker 3 (20:35): And that's the thing. And so often people won't say it or it won't go to people who have the authority to set limits on that person, but I think organizations are making progress. They used to say, if you're being bullied, then the person to talk to is your supervisor. Let your supervisor know you're being bullied. The trouble is probably most of the bullies are supervisors. And so if you go to your supervisor, that's not going to go well. But that you can go to anyone in the organization, you can go to hr, you can go to somebody above your supervisor, you can go to anybody. And I always say, talk to somebody. Don't go it alone. Don't keep it stuffed inside. That's the worst thing because it eats away at your insides. But if you have these three theories, it could be this person, could be the victim, could be the bully, or it could be a contribution of a few people that you always have to have an open mind and realize you may never actually know for sure, but you still need to do something and take some kind of action, whether it's mediation to resolve it as a dispute or a supervisor does need to set limits on an employee or another supervisor that's acting inappropriately. Speaker 1 (21:58): Excellent. Well, let's take a short break and when we come back, we'll continue talking about bullying, but we'll pivot into mediation. What do we do in that situation? We'll be right back. Alright, we're back and we're going to switch now into talking about bullies in mediation. You're both mediators, you both have a long history of mediation. In fact, you've written a book together called Mediating High Conflict Disputes and Bill with creating the new ways for mediation model of having a mediation that involves someone with a high conflict personality, perhaps a bully. You've had a lot of experience with this, so I want to ask Michael first if you've had a mediation with a pretty profound bully. Speaker 2 (22:49): Yeah, oh yeah. If I think about a few scenarios that I've been in, the one is it doesn't start off that way. So they can start off pretty charming. There may be signals, but you miss the signals because the person's coming and charming. Michael, I heard you're the best. I've heard you're the best mediator in Vancouver Island or British Columbia. And part of me is like, yeah, keep talking. That's great to hear. And the other part of me knows that is a red flag. If I'm perfect and I'm on a pedestal, how far do I have to fall the moment I make a mistake or I'm perceived to make a mistake and I am a human, it's going to happen where there's going to be some move I make the other person's not going to, so I know enough to bring myself down off the pedestal. Speaker 2 (23:34): But again, so it can be confusing sometimes at the beginning, but then when things don't go their way, all of a sudden it turns and it can be saying things like, maybe I should file a complaint against you. And then going, oh, nevermind. I was just kidding. That kind of thing. But the kind of fight or flight is coming up inside me, oh my gosh, this person's talking about filing a complaint. Then they pull back on it and I'm like, what do I do with that again? Do I ignore it? Just keep going. Or do I say, hold on a second here. And then definitely where things have gotten very challenging, where a person can be again threatening to file a complaint using other people that are close to them to bombard me with either emails or phone calls or coming to my office say, what are you doing? Speaker 2 (24:20): You're supposed to be a mediators supposed to be supporting this person. So a negative advocate piece, that kind of thing. And when it is affecting is it can really make you doubt your own abilities as a mediator to be able to help people because your own fears are coming up. And sometimes I think they are perhaps using the forum as a way to propose something that is unreasonable that a court would never order and trying to recruit you to help with that. And so I know Bill, you've taught me a lot of things about as a mediator, how to stake out my, where am I at with all of this? But that will number one thing I've learned is to never talk myself out getting talk this person out of firing me. So when they threaten to fire me, I'm like, that's okay. You can fire me if you want. Speaker 2 (25:07): That's fine. And then that kind of goes away like, I'm not worried about that. Right? Or even I'm going to file a complaint about you. Well, that is certainly your choice. That may make it difficult for us to continue working together. If you're going to do that right, then that may cause me to need to withdraw. So the more relaxed I am about those things, then they don't have the same kind of hold over me. And very often that is what I need to be telling myself inside as much as I'm telling the other person. Speaker 3 (25:34): I think that's excellent because bullies run on emotions. If they can get you emotional and get you stressed and worried, it actually feeds them. And that's one of the paradoxes is if you show, Hey, I'm afraid of you, that encourages them. If you say, fine, fire me. It doesn't matter to me. Nonchalant matter of fact doesn't give them that energy. And a lot of people don't realize that. And that's where targets of bullies get trapped is they show that they're afraid and they show that this isn't fair. This is what you're doing isn't right for me, and I'm worried and I'm anxious or I'm angry, but I'm out of control, angry. And so they feel good about that. Now they can sit back and look innocent. It's like I, Speaker 2 (26:29): Either way I'm getting upset Speaker 2 (26:31): And this is what I'm looking for. And I remember I've had someone say to me a couple of times, and I'm really think about, do you want to go into mediation with person? What's your objective? If you have a realistic objective that takes into account what you're dealing with, then maybe. But I've had sometimes people say, I go, why do you want to go to mediation? I want to tell this person, they hurt my feelings. And I go, I suggest this person's probably going to go good. I meant to. So again, what's your reason for going into the process? Do you have the support that you need to be able to get a kind of realistic outcome? And then always be thinking about what's my backup plan? Am I prepared to walk away from this process if the offer on the table is not reasonable, what can I get in court? Speaker 2 (27:15): Those kinds of things. Sometimes there's value in getting certainty through the mediation process regardless, even if you think this is, I hate dealing with this person or their tactics, maybe still the mediation process can get you where you need to be. And as a mediator, our own, just as you said bill, confidence in either asserting certain boundaries or rules, what you're prepared to do, what you're not prepared to do, and if the person's making threats over you about complaints or firing, you just kind of, again, sort of fill your boots, do whatever you got to do. Speaker 3 (27:49): Exactly. It's matter of fact and for targets and for mediators, matter of fact, doesn't feed the bully. Speaker 1 (27:58): And it can be really one of the toughest things you do, especially when it's kind of a surprise when we're more prepared for it and thinking ahead and can kind of plan ahead. It really helps. But sometimes, like Michael, you were saying that charm comes in at the beginning and even if it's not over the top charm, like Michael, you're amazing. You're the best in the world, but it's just, there can be nuance to the charm and it can take a little bit of time sometimes. And then we've have that overreaction. If you're listening to this and you've been in this situation, whether it's mediation or in the workplace or in a family or whatever format, if you've overreacted, that's pretty normal. Just know that we get very frustrated because we have an expectation that people are not going to be bullies, I think in general, and we want to give everyone a fair shake, and we aren't looking for it necessarily. And so we just keep trying to use our best efforts and do what we know to do, and then it's not working, and then you get thrown under the bus or something and you just lose it or you feel that anger inside. Those are very normal responses or reactions. Speaker 2 (29:04): Friend of mine has a phrase, which is, it's a normal reaction to an abnormal situation. Bingo. Speaker 3 (29:10): Excellent. One thing I wanted to say, and I learned this from you, Michael, is really that mediation is not limit setting by a manager. And sometimes managers refer to mediation because they want to avoid limit setting and having consequences. And I think about a workplace mediation I did that was between two managers and the one manager just had a habit of yelling, yelling at anybody in the organization, yelling at their division, employees yelling at other managers. They were relatively new and they just yelled a lot, and maybe that's part of who they were. The case was referred to me by the supervisor of the two managers saying, see if you can work this out, bill. And it was kind of a compliment. He said, if you can't work this out, nobody can. And so it turned out to be an impossible case and I couldn't work it out. What happened is the yelling person just had no insight into how they were impacting people, and I guess they'd worked in an organization before where people yelled at each other a lot. Well, that doesn't work in a lot of organizations. And so I couldn't help them come to an agreement and that person ended up being terminated by the organization. Speaker 2 (30:38): Abrasive leaders, leaders that are bullies or have that bullying behavior, A couple of things there. If they're asked to participate in a mediation with say, someone who reports to them, very often they see that as a threat to their authority. And so instead of it helping, it actually can make things worse as well. Term. A couple of colleagues of mine and I use is management by mediation. If you're the manager and you've got this situation, you need to manage it and not say, well, maybe if I send it to mediation, they can kind of work with them, fix them up and send them back or take this mess off my hands. And so if you have someone who has, whether they're a leader or they're an employee that gets into conflict, goes after people, has a target of blame all the time. Someone they're trying to eliminate or say get rid of, and they say, well, is these two today, but this person, they move around. Speaker 2 (31:35): They go after different people in the organization. When I'm talking to that senior leader, I'm saying, then your focus needs to be on how are you going to manage this individual, not put them into a mediation with a coworker, a colleague, or a subordinate. It hope somehow that will fix things perhaps because you are afraid to deal with it. And then it's help you with your own approach to the situation. How are you going to manage this individual? In some cases, there may be skills-based coaching, highly structured skills-based coaching for that individual that could at least attempt to achieve the aim you want, which is this person to behave better in the workplace, get along with their coworkers better, but don't put someone else in the room with them and hope that's going to sort it out. Right. Speaker 3 (32:23): And with coaching, I believe coaching before mediation, and we talked about this and put it in the book, can really help prepare people to actually improve things. But you've got to assess, did the coaching make a difference? And to me, the question is, what did you get out of the coaching? Is there anything you're going to do different? And the person that says, no, I didn't get anything out of that. I already knew all of that. There's nothing I'm going to do different. I don't want to put that person into a mediation because they're just going to bully the other person. So both people have to have learned something. And sometimes at the beginning of a mediation is asking them if they both went through some coaching, and of course we have a method, new ways for work coaching, three sessions generally to prepare people for mediation. Speaker 3 (33:18): But the idea is to have both people say, here's something I got. I'm learning to manage my emotions better, or I realize I need to use more flexible thinking. I got stuck. That argument we had, I just got stuck. I realized I got to use more flexible thinking. If both people can say something they're working on at the start of the mediation, that's going to be a good mediation. If somebody can't say that and you ask them beforehand and No, there's nothing I've learned out of this, I'm not going to put that person in mediation. Speaker 2 (33:55): Absolutely. I've seen those structured coaching programs like New Ways for Work, be used very well to help people prepare for that mediation process. And as well, it's a great way to kind of assess, are we ready to go in? And I would say to any leader in an organization when you have, whether it be an employee or a leader that reports to you who's showing some of these really challenging and difficult behaviors, but maybe they're highly productive, you'd like to try to hang on to this person, if you could, then some kind of structured coaching, like New Ways for Work is a great path because with anything, we want to give the person the skills to be successful. If they're not able to do other certain parts of their job, you'd say, okay, well, let's train you. And then if you can't do it after the training, well now we kind of know, right? Speaker 2 (34:45): You're just not suited for this job. Well, unfortunately, in some cases, that can be those basic life skills like managing my emotions, behaving moderately, not going after someone in the workplace and blaming them for everything. That might be something to do with me or my fault. And so one, giving them the choice to participate in the coaching. If they refuse, okay, that's information. Yes, right? I won't do it. Okay, I've given you the option. You don't want to do it, then I have to go down another path here. Or they do it and then let's assess and see how it goes and if there's improvement, enough improvement. And if not, the person's gone to all the sessions and we're still not seeing the improvement. Then that's information. Now we know we've done our best and we're going down the other path. And I think I've heard you say, bill and I agree with it, maybe it's half the people that go through it, there's enough improvement to say, okay, this was successful. And in other cases not, but it's still very often because very often managers are just throwing up their hands and going, I don't know what to do. I don't know. How do I handle this, right? Yeah. Speaker 1 (35:53): People tell you who they are. If they've been through the coaching and they still can't do some simple reflection or managing their emotions or recognizing their role in the problem, people tell you who they are. They're very predictable. And I know Bill, you wrote a book, I mean a chapter in this book on the predictability of the bully. So they tell you who they are and who they're going to be, Speaker 3 (36:17): And they're unrestrained. They don't restrain themselves, and that's one big thing in the workplace. People keep hoping they'll get it, keep hoping they'll change. They'll come to their senses and they don't. And some of the cases I looked at, they'd been there like three years being a bully from the first month, and then they decide, okay, we have to terminate them, and then they sue the organization for wrongful termination, spend three years in court and they lose. But it goes all this, we should recognize it earlier. Some people just can't stop themselves, Speaker 2 (36:56): And I've just been struck, bill, I can think of a number of examples through my career where I would be saying to people, once somebody's done something two or three times, they're going to do it again and they're going to keep doing it. And yet very intelligent people sitting around the table in a meeting saying, well, they just need more development, or maybe this will help. And then it kind of wipes the slate clean, and then they're shocked when it happens again like three months later. I'm like, what part of this surprises you? Speaker 1 (37:26): Right? Stop being surprised. Stop being surprised. Speaker 2 (37:30): And they don't have a plan that anticipates when it happens again, what's our next step? They're like back to the drawing board again, and I get it. As much as I'm kind of like, how can you be surprised? I get it. There are sometimes the consequences are too gentle. They're trying to nudge the person and it's like, just step back and look at this behavior. That behavior was outrageous. And so the consequence should be equivalent to what was the outrageous behavior. Otherwise, you're teaching the person the wrong lesson, which is, I can kind of get away with this. Speaker 3 (38:04): Exactly, and it gets worse. I don't know how many people know this, but many, many years ago, I was a kindergarten teacher and I learned first really about bullies in kindergarten. You give them a little bit of mileage, they're going to take a mile, and there's always bullies in kindergarten, so you got to shut them down and redirect them and pat them on the head, say, no, no, we don't hit our friend with a brick. We build bridges and blocks and houses with the brick. These are cardboard. Bricks, by the way, Legos. Speaker 1 (38:43): I love that. I love that bill. It's build a bridge instead of boning somebody on the head or building a wall. Right. Excellent. Well, with that, I think we've covered even just a tip of what's in the book and what I know both of you have experienced in your work in mediation and in the workplace. Speaker 1 (39:12): We'll continue on next week talking about bullies in this series, and we're going to talk about bullies and families, at least in the workplace. There can be some restraints imposed by others in families. It might be a little bit more difficult. So if you're interested in that, please give us a listen next week. We'll look forward to seeing you Then. In the meantime, send your questions or comments to podcast@highconflictinstitute.com or submit them to high conflict institute.com/podcast and we'd love it if you tell your friends about us. Give us wherever you're listening to this, and we'd love to see reviews, so we'd love to hear from you. Until next time, just do your best to practice the skills, learn about bullies, bullies, how about bullies, and try to keep that conflict small, right? We're all doing our best, and I think there's a lot of value to be gained from the information in this book and the solutions in this book, so I know it's been a big eyeopener in a lot of ways for me, so I'm very happy about that. Anyway, we'll see you all next week. Do your best to be kind to yourself and others and keep the conflict small. Speaker 1 (40:26): It's all Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True Story fm or high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.