From Bullied to BullyProof!

The WBI 3-Step Action Plan

What Bullied Targets Can Do

Three things that are simple to list, but very difficult to accomplish. It's an uphill, David 'n Goliath, struggle.

Step One - Name it! Legitimize Yourself!

Choose a name — bullying, psychological harassment, psychological violence, emotional abuse — to offset the effect of being told that because your problem is not illegal, you cannot possibly have a problem. This makes people feel illegitimate. The cycle of self-blame and anxiety begins.
The source of the problem is external. The bully decides how to target and how, when, and where to harm people. You did not invite, nor want, the systematic campaign of psychological assaults and interference with your work. Think about it. No sane person wakes up each day hoping to be humiliated or berated at work.
There is tremendous healing power in naming. Hard to believe at first, but very true.

Step Two - Take Time Off to Heal & Launch a Counterattack

Accomplish five (5) important tasks while on sick leave or short-term disability (granted by your physician).

Check your mental health with a professional (not the employer's EAP). Get emotionally stable enough to make a clear-headed decision to stay and fight, or to leave for your health's sake. Your humanity makes you vulnerable; it is not a weakness, but a sign of superiority. Work Trauma, by definition, is an overwhelming, extraordinary experience.
Check your physical health. Stress-related diseases rarely carry obvious warning signals (e.g., hypertension - the silent killer). Read the current research on work stress and heart disease.
Research state and federal legal options (in a quarter of bullying cases, discrimination plays a role). Talk to an attorney. Maybe a demand letter can be written. Look for internal policies (harassment, violence, respect) for violations to report (fully expecting retaliation).
Make the bottom-line business case for stopping the bully. See our detailed Estimating Costs of Bullying Worksheet.
Start job search for next position.

Step Three - Expose the Bully

The real risk was sustained when you were first targeted (Targets lose their job - involuntarily or by choice for their health's sake - in 77.7% of cases). It is no riskier to attempt to dislodge the bully. Retaliation is a certainty. Have your escape route planned in advance. Remember, good employers purge bullies, most promote them.

Make the business case that the bully is "too expensive to keep." Present the data gathered (in Step 2) to let the highest level person you can reach (not HR) know about the bully's impact on the organization. Obviously in family-owned, or small businesses, this is impossible (so leave once targeted).
Stick to the bottom line. If you drift into tales about the emotional impact of the bully's harassment, you will be discounted and discredited.
Give the employer one chance. If they side with the bully because of personal friendship ("he's a great conversationalist and a lunch buddy") or rationalize the mistreatment ("you have to understand that that is just how she is"), you will have to leave the job for your health's sake. However, some employers are looking for reasons to purge their very difficult bully. You are the internal consultant with the necessary information. Help good employers purge.
The nature of your departure — either bringing sunshine to the dark side or leaving shrouded in silent shame — determines how long it takes you to rebound and get that next job, to function fully and to restore compromised health. Tell everyone about the petty tyrant for your health's sake. You have nothing to be ashamed about. You were only doing the job you once loved.

Answering critics of our approach .....

Pragmatists argue that our 3-Step Method will only get you fired. They are right in most cases. So, it is important for you to know why we suggest what we do. Our method accomplishes four goals:

Goal 1: Your personal health must be the priority or you will not live long enouth to take another job. You have to discover if stress-related health complications have begun and take steps to reverse them. Stress exacerbates diseases that can kill. Put your health, not your job, first. See a physician, ask for blood tests related to stress-induced harm. See a good therapist to restore your faith in your own worthiness.

Goal 2: The true purpose of the bullying-costs-data-collection-project (Step 2, Part 4) is to distract you from the emotional damage. Too many wounded targets crawl between the bed sheets and can't get out. You need something to do to continue to function, to bounce back. This task of estimating the fiscal impact of bullying is not only factual and informative for the organization (which it promptly chooses to ignore), but the employer's response to the facts will help convince you about the irrationality of the entire bullying process. You didn't cause it and they don't seem to care if it ever stops. They are too afraid to do the right thing.

Goal 3: Compel employer responsibility for putting you in harm's way. No one is responsible for being bullied, for inviting the misery upon themselves. The employer has known about the bully before and chosen to retain him or her (attorneys call it negligent retention). Employers want a catfight between employees so that they can blame it on "personality conflict." The reality is that employers establish all conditions of work. If there are poorly skilled managers or executives, it is because of a dereliction of duty. Employers are lazy and trust on-the-job experiences to teach people to be good and humane managers. This is wrong. The leadership team is responsible for all bullying! It would not happen without executives' explicit or tacit approval. So, hold their feet to the fire. Expose the bully. Demand changes (for the sake of the organization).

Goal 4: Take control of your departure from the place. WBI research found that you have a 66% chance of losing your job once targeted. Exposing the bully is more about your mental health than being an effective way to get the bully fired. Trauma is intensified if you leave the job (voluntarily or after being terminated) if you do not leave holding your head high and pointing accusatory fingers at the wrongdoers. In other words, since you are most likely to leave, once targeted, leave by telling everyone what happened to you and by whose hands. Targets who skulk away in silence, shrouded in personal shame, suffer the most. It can take a year or more to rebound to the point of being able to seek work. Those who leave proudly, bounce back the fastest.

Contrast our approach with traditional advice from HR types, coaches, & "career experts".....

Things NOT to do after discovering you are the target of workplace bullying:

Do not feel guilty for not confronting your bully in response to the aggression. If you could have, you would have. You are not made that way.
Do not limit your decisions to act in ways that sacrifice personal integrity and health just to survive to keep a paycheck. Survival strategies alone create even more serious long-term health and career problems. If the place will not change, plan your escape.
Do not wait for the impact of bullying to fade with time. It must be stopped for the effects on you to stop.
Do hold the employer accountable for putting you in harm's way. It is not your personal responsibility as the victim to fix the mess you did not start. Employers control the work environment. When you are injured as a result of exposure to that environment, make the employer own the responsibility to fix it.
Do not try to reinvent yourself as a political animal. If you would have been able to be cutthroat, you would have acted accordingly. You do not have to mimic the unethical bully to counter her or his misconduct.
Do not trust HR to give you advice that serves your own best interests -- they work for management and are management. Simple facts.
Be wary of EAP counselors until they have proven to you that your confidential case details will not be reported to management and that they understand how work environments affect individuals' health.
Do not ask for relief from the bully's boss. That is the person who loves her or him most. (And if there is no love there, there is fear. The boss fears the bully and cannot stop him or her.)
Do not tell your story from a purely emotional injury angle. It scares away potential supporters.
Do not share your voluminous documentation with anyone at work. No one cares as much as you do. In the wrong hands, it can be used against you.
Do not ask others (HR, union reps, management) to make the bully stop for your sake. They will disappoint you. Rather, you will make the business case and ask them to stop bullying for their own self-interests.
Do not agree to be treated by any mental health professionals who cannot believe your experience and want simply to change you so that you will not trigger similar reactions from future bullies.
Do not pay a retainer to an attorney until you've exhausted cheaper alternatives to get your employer to take your complaint seriously.
Do not confide in anyone at work until they have demonstrated (and not just talked about) loyalty to you.

For more information we recommend reading The Bully At Work by Dr. Gary Namie and Dr. Ruth Namie (Sourcebooks)