Suffering is a term rarely applied in the workplace. It’s one of those emotionally loaded (also referred to as touchy-feely) words that seem out of place at work. Aren’t we supposed to leave our emotions at the door so we can get on with business? Workplace suffering? Employers don’t want to hear about it because they don’t want to be perceived as perpetrators of suffering—they’re there to get the job done, and social services aren’t part of that picture. Second, it’s a given that we all were meant to suffer at work—right? Showing up day after day to plug away at tasks we don’t necessarily enjoy with people we don’t necessarily like is a pain, a pain that most of us can’t afford to avoid. What lottery winner doesn’t jubilantly declare that his or her first act will be to quit work? Unless we are lucky enough to love what we do and the people we do it with, we endure the assorted discomforts of work to pay the bills and keep the wolves from the door. So since when isn’t work supposed to be painful?
Work can be painful for other reasons, including the actual nature of the work. Early man learned early on that woolly mammoth hunts were no picnic if you were the one who ended up trampled or impaled. And it seems pretty obvious that pyramid building was no easy task for your average Aztec or Egyptian laborer. As a kid I remember teachers warning us of the physical and mental suffering we would endure digging ditches or screwing caps on toothpaste tubes if we failed to hit the books. It’s not only the nature of the work that can be unpleasant or uninteresting, causing physical or emotional suffering—work can also hurt because of the circumstances surrounding our jobs: weak wages, bleak benefits, bad schedules, or looming layoffs. In short, work can be a pain.
But the pain of work itself is not the pain I’m addressing in this book. Nor am I talking about the pain caused by bosses who cut programs, pay, or people based on business need. I’m talking about the pain suffered from direct contact with an abrasive boss; the emotional wounds sustained from direct interpersonal aggression experienced in day-to-day interactions with abrasive bosses. And the suffering isn’t limited to abrasive bosses’ subordinates: all of their coworkers—subordinates, peers, and superiors alike—can be rubbed raw by the grinding force of disrespectful treatment:
‘‘He’s always talking down to people, interrogating them—‘Why didn’t you do this? Why didn’t you do that?’—he makes people feel like idiots.’’
‘‘Everyone feels helpless, hopeless, out of control.’’
‘‘She does what’s best for her—she doesn’t stand up for us, ever. If she’s questioned by management, she comes back and attacks without exploring the issue.’’
‘‘It leaves us feeling so unimportant—like we’re not worth anything.’’
‘‘We’re all afraid of him; he walks around, sees something that sets him off and starts yelling. It gets so tense—to the point where no one wants to even talk. It’s getting harder to come to work.’’
‘‘The best days at work are the days she isn’t here—that’s when we can breathe.’’
‘‘Working here reminds me of the time I was in an abusive relationship. I find myself thinking ‘What’s wrong with me? What am I doing wrong? What can I do differently?’ I’ve never had that experience in my work life until this new manager showed up.’’
‘‘I used to enjoy coming to work, but since she’s been here, all I can think about is finding a way to get out.’’
‘‘He’s not a team player. It’s never ‘we’; it’s always ‘I want,’ ‘I said.’ ’’
‘‘When he shows up, we shut up. We don’t tell him any more than we have to because you don’t want to bring up anything that will provoke him.’’
‘‘Her behavior shouldn’t be tolerated. We shouldn’t have to constantly walk on eggshells.’’
‘‘People get a sick stomach when he walks through the department.’’
‘‘It all boils down to respect—when you feel your efforts are appreciated, when you see some interest in what you’re doing, that’s respect. I can’t deal with the contempt, the ugly mood swings, his refusal to treat his team with respect.’’
To Kick or Not to Kick
The suffering caused by abrasive bosses is not only injurious, it’s also inefficient. Typically, at the outset of coaching, my abrasive clients will argue this point, insisting that unless they ‘‘kick ass,’’ the work won’t get done. In his landmark article ‘‘One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?’’ renowned management researcher Frederick Herzberg (1968) termed this the KITA (kick-in-the-you-know-what) approach to management. However, the KITA approach presents certain drawbacks. Herzberg listed the limitations of physically kicking one’s coworkers:
(1) it is inelegant; (2) it contradicts the precious image of benevolence that most organizations cherish; and (3) since it is a physical attack, it directly stimulates the autonomic nervous system, and this often results in negative feedback—the employee may just kick you in return [p. 54].
Physical KITA and psychological KITA appear to be equally ineffective in building internal motivation:
Why is KITA not motivation? If I kick my dog (from the front or the back), he will move. And when I want him to move again, what must I do? I must kick him again. . . . But it is only when one has a generator of one’s own that we can talk about motivation. One then needs no outside stimulation. One wants to do it [p. 55].
Abrasive bosses manage for movement rather than motivation. They are blind to the fact that external intimidation does nothing to build internal motivation; they are blind to the reality that employees respond more positively to carrots than sticks. Abrasive bosses flog their coworkers into movement, whereas insightful (or what I will term adequate) bosses use positive strategies to make their employees want to move. They rely on the carrots of positive reward, unwilling to resort to psychological horsewhippings. And in the rare instances where employees refuse to move at the required pace, adequate bosses understand that beating a nearly dead horse is not only cruel—it’s also inefficient. Instead, they cut the employee from the herd through the civilized processes of formal termination. Abrasive bosses approach motivation very differently, and in the next chapters we’ll be looking at how, when, and why abrasive bosses kick their coworkers.
Speaking of motivation, you may be wondering what motivates me to coach abrasive bosses. I’m going to confess something that I never reveal to prospective corporate clients. Ready? My mission is to reduce suffering in the workplace. I dare not speak of this mission when I talk with companies struggling with an abrasive boss—it absolutely reeks of touchy-feely. I don’t want these hard-nosed business folks to suspect that they’re hiring a bleeding-heart social worker, do I? Social service types are highly suspect in the work world; we’re perceived as do-gooders intent on disrupting hard business objectives with the ‘‘soft’’ stuff of putting individual needs over organizational objectives. Woody Allen once described a nightmare in which he was pursued by a monster with the body of a crab and the head of a social worker. My body is quite human, but I spare my corporate clients the prospect of any such do-gooder nightmares by concealing my mission and instead making the case for coaching in a language they understand: facts and numbers.
The Costs of Abrasion
Let’s
