Osias Jota

Roteiro e desenhos de André Diniz :: Cores de Marcela Mannheimer

Someone in your office walks out every day with a laptop under his coat. He fences them down the street and keeps the money.

After he's discovered, how long should he keep his job? What if he's a really hard worker? Perhaps you give him a warning, but, when he's discovered stealing again a week from now, then what?

Bullying costs far more than laptop theft does.

The bully frightens away some of your best employees, because they can most easily find another place to work. He also silences the eager and the earnest, the people with great ideas who are now too intimidated to bother sharing them. His behavior has robbed your organization of the insight that could open so many doors in the future.

I define bullying as intentionally using power to cause physical or emotional distress with the purpose of dominating the other person. The bully works to marginalize people. In an organizational setting, the bully chooses not to engage in conversation or discussion, or to use legitimate authority or suasion, and depends instead on pressure in the moment to demean and disrespect someone else—by undermining not just their ideas, but their very presence and legitimacy.

The end to bullying starts with a question: does senior management see the cost? Do they understand that tolerating and excusing bullying behavior is precisely what permits it to flourish?

If so, the next steps are painful and difficult, but quite direct. Bullies can't work here.

If you don't have buy in on that, spend more time and passion and energy to get it. Not around a certain person or a certain action, but on the general irrevocable principle. An organization that is built on ideas and connection can't thrive when there's a bully in the room. If you're part of one that doesn't care about this, perhaps it's time to considering moving on.

Once you start to clean up the culture, will there be judgment calls and edge cases and a need for warnings and improvement plans? Of course. But just as laptop theft drops when our tolerance of it disappears, so does bullying. Most bullies aren't sociopaths, immune to correction. They are opportunists, using the tools that have often worked for them in the past.

It's a wrenching process for some organizations, but one that leads to few regrets. It's your chance to help a bully get his life straightened out too.

Submitted by: Iron-man01

A friend sent out an email blast (I hate that word, for good reason) to his ample address book to promote a new project and got a lot of blowback for it. He asked me for my feedback...

1. Just because you have had a previous relationship with someone doesn't mean you have permission to email them. Permission marketing is anticipated, personal and relevant messaging. The simple measure is this: Would they miss you if you didn't mail them? If not, then you're fooling yourself into thinking you have something you don't.
2. Blaming the tool. There are a wealth of powerful email tools out there (like Mailchimp). If your email campaign isn't working, it's almost certainly not their fault. Don't waste time looking for a better pencil--learn to write better.
3. Your mailmerge is broken. Dear is far worse than no mailmerge at all. Here's the simple test: if you're not willing to spend fifteen seconds per name reviewing the list and cleaning it up (why did you email me six times?), then don't expect that we have fifteen seconds to read what you wrote. If you have 4,000 names, that's 1,000 minutes. Don't have 1,000 minutes? Don't send the mail.
4. Text is what humans send. Corporations send HTML and pretty graphics. Either can work if expectations are set properly, but if you're a human, act like one.
5. Why are you emailing me? If you can't tell me in six words what you need me to do, it's unlikely I'll be able to guess.
6. The thing you need me to do better be fun, worth doing and generous. If it's not, I'm not going to do it, no matter how much you need me to do it.
7. When does this end? If you're going to send me a series of notes to promote something, does it go on forever? Telling me what's ahead is more likely to earn you permission going forward. "Oh good, the next one!" If people aren't saying that, you've failed.
8. Pinging everyone, at once. Why on earth would you hit SEND ALL? Send 20, see what happens. Send 20 different ones, compare. Send 50. Now send all.

If your email promotion is a taking, not a giving, I think you should rethink it. If you still want to take the time and attention and trust of your 4,000 closest friends, think hard about what that means for the connections you've built over the years. There are few promotional emergencies that are worth trading your reputation for.