WEBVTT

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Today, I'm going to tell you my story.

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And it's the first time
I've spoken publicly about it.

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(Applause) (Cheers)

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Thank you.

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And I'm feeling 
quite apprehensive about it.

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And, as Mary said,

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it's actually been far more challenging
getting to this point than I had realized.

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I felt fine about it,
until I got to New Zealand.

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And, as the days got closer,
I've got even less fine about it.

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Last month,

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Jeremy Clarkson, who's a Top Gear host,

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punched his producer in the face,

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and he was fired.

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He'd been warned multiple times
about his behaviour.

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In 2014, he was given a final warning.

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One million people petitioned BBC
to have him reinstated,

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but, if you notice,

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the producer is missing
from the coversation.

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We don't know what kind of impact
this has had on him,

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but we do know that Clarkson's fans
have blamed him for this situation.

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He's been relentlessly pursued
on social media.

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The question I ask all of you is:

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who's the victim and who's
the villain in this scenario?

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And just because Clarkson's
popular and famous

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doesn't make what he did right.

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I've always been fascinated
by right and wrong.

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At ten, I wrote a short story

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about what it would be like
to be in solitary confinement.

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I wondered what it would be like to live
in a small cell that I couldn't leave.

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In my 30s, I taught life skills to minimum
security prisoners on day release.

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At university, I studied crime
and criminal justice.

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And some years later, I went to work
in a maximum security prison.

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It was the most interesting
and exciting job I'd ever had,

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but it was also the hardest.

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A coronial report into suicides
of five male prisoners,

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in a four-month period,

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found gross inadequacies in the system.

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The recommendation to change from
warehousing prisoners to rehabilitation

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was why I was employed.

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My role was to develop
pre and post-release programs

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to support long-term prisoners
ready to get back into the community.

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I was full of idealism, ideas and energy.

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And, though I thought I knew
what it would be like

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to work in a maximum security prison,

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I really had no idea.

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It was the most toxic
and boiling system I'd ever worked in.

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I didn't realize it at the time, though,

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but it would redefine my work
from here on in,

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and it opened my eyes
to a world of bullying

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and gave me the idea that we should
be addressing bullying differently.

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While I worked at the prison,
I was bullied every day.

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Some days it was subtle,
and I wondered if I'd imagined it.

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At other times, it was very direct.

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I was accused of trafficking
contraband items,

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I was investigated routinely
for alleged security violations,

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I was verbally threatened,
and I was physically cornered.

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I felt safer in the company of prisoners
than I did with my own colleagues,

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and I built relationships with them
based on respect and compassion.

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They trusted me and,
for the most part, I trusted them.

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By contrast,

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my colleagues operated
as separate individuals.

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Everyone was out for themselves.

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There was zero trust,
and we were pitted against each other.

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When I couldn't summon the energy
to go into the prison,

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I took refuge in my office
outside the prison grounds.

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My resilience lowered -

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pardon me -

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and I was emotionally exhausted.

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I operated in a state
of hypervigilance and fear,

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even when I wasn't at work.

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I expected the worst all the time.

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It affected me, my family
and my relationships,

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and it took over my life completely.

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I worked in the prison for four years,

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and, when I left,
the bullying still didn't stop.

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I continued to tutor prison students
on a voluntary basis,

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and I was falsely accused

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of supplying a prisoner
with the plans to the new prison,

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which, I might add, were freely available
in the public domain.

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As a result,

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I was banned from every prison
in Australia for life.

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When I left the prison service,

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I suffered severe anxiety
and regular panic attacks.

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I was self-destructive, obsessed
with what had happened to me,

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unable to do even the most basic things,

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like shop or pay the bills
or cook for my family.

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I thought about suicide.

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I suffered a complete breakdown,
and was unable to work for some years.

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Though this situation sounds extreme,

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it's actually more common 
than you'd think.

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One conversation I had with the director
of the prisons was revealing.

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I expressed concern about noticing
that management were bullying staff.

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He told me that,
as far as he was concerned,

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there was no one being bullied
because no one had reported it.

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Seventy-two percent of employers deny,
discount and defend bullying behaviour.

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The director of prisons
was a case in point.

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Staff told me that being bullied
was common for them,

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but they're adamant that they weren't
going to make a complaint.

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They told me it was a quick way
to end their career.

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One wonders how long
the BBC producer might last in his role,

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and, by the way, his name is Oisin Tymon,
he's 38 and he comes from Ireland.

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Following my prison experience,

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it would have been easy to believe
that people are born bullies

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and deliberately want 
to cause others harm.

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Instead, I realized what happened to me
was cultural, not personal.

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I knew that wasn't
the only one being affected.

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Staff and management
were all products of their environment,

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and, in this environment, it was
normal practice to treat others badly.

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We're all affected by the same system.

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And prisons aren't alone
in creating and maintaining

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a brutal or authoritarian closed system.

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In my professional work,
I've seen a clear link

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between authoritarian management styles,
closed systems and bullying.

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And organizations can
implicitly encourage bullying

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by the practices they normalize.

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If an organization does not
spell out expected behaviours,

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then bullying behaviours
can became accepted practice,

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and all the time I saw this in the prison.

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I saw new employees' behaviour change

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from being respectful
to disrespectful and bullying.

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My focus has shifted to understanding
and preventing bullying.

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I feel compelled to change a system
that allows this harm to happen.

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And the relationship between culture
and the construction of power is crucial

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to understanding how bullying manifests
and becomes entrenched behaviour.

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In workplaces where unequal power
relationships are the norm,

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it's not unusual to find
workplace bullying,

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nor is it unusual to find
passive acceptance of that bullying.

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For me, the way back to health

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was to learn everything
I could about bullying.

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I was determined to make a change

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about how workplace had thought about
and addressed this issue,

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but the information I found
was simplistic and rudimentary.

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For example, the standard response
to the problem of bullying

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is to redefine the problem
so that it becomes easier to deal with.

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Let me repeat that:

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redefining the problem of bullying
makes it easier to deal with;

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for instance,

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labelling a problem between
two people as personality conflict,

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or labelling a person as a bad apple.

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In these scenarios,
we cast one person as the victim

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and the other, the villain,

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and it leads to finding someone is right
and someone is wrong,

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and it never gets to the heart of why
the bullying occurs in the first place,

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and nor does it take into account
the interconnections between people

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and the culture they work in.

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Take Clarkson's example.

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His inappropriate behaviour
had been allowed to continue for years.

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Just warning Clarkson to improve
his behaviour was never going to work.

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I think BBC management needed to spell out

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appropriate behavioural
expectations for Clarkson,

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and, if he didn't behave appropriately,

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then they needed
to call him on it immediately.

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It's an employee's responsibility
to behave appropriately,

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but it's a management's responsibility

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to bring inappropriate behaviour
to an employee's attention

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and, if necessary, provide training.

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This whole situation
could have been avoided.

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Bullying is complex and cannot
be understood in isolation.

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It forms part of
a complex set of interplays

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between culture, people, behaviour
and work practices,

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and the way the pair is constructed
underpins all these relationships.

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I believe we need to develop
a holistic view of the interconnections

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and how they shape and influence
all the people in the conflict.

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Bullying negatively impacts health,

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and has high personal, social
and organizational costs.

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Health impacts can range
from minor to severe,

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and can last long
after the bullying has ceased.

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Unlike physical injuries,

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many impacts of bullying go unnoticed,

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and the longer they go unnoticed
the more severe they become.

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So, if bullying isn't about blame,
what can we do to change this system?

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We currently look for evidence of bullying

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and ask on the balance of probabilities
which scenario is more probable.

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This creates an adversarial position

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and leads to finding someone who's right
and someone who's wrong,

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and it puts the victim-villain
narratives into stage.

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It's blaming and ultimately divisive.

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The process can easily reproduce
the very behaviours it seeks to address.

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Not only does it reproduce them,
but it also reinforces them.

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Many clients have told me that they felt
more damaged by the complaint process

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than the actual bullying incidents,

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and, unlike physical injuries,

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complainants are required
to prove and demonstrate

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their psychological damage
has been caused by the bullying.

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I think we can manage this differently.

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I devised a process that,
rather than finding a villain-victim,

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looks to the culture,
the structural mechanisms,

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the behaviour expectations
and workplace practices,

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and seeks answers from those things.

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It doesn't assign blame,

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and it shifts the focus from the bully
to the bullying behaviour.

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This means that we understand

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the bullying behaviour is a symptom
of a toxic culture as the problem,

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rather than the person as the problem.

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This allows personal blame
to be removed from the equation,

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and replaced with personal accountability
and organizational responsibility.

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Most people develop insight into how
they've blamed someone fairly quickly,

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and they're horrified when they learn
how and in what way they've caused harm.

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In my experience, most people act
from a lack of interpersonal skill,

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a lack of self-awareness
and the inability to self-reflect.

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They don't act from a place
that means to cause deliberate harm.

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My approach moves from an individual
focus to a system's focus,

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meaning responsibility for what is shared
is shared amongst all involved,

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but it also comes from a place
that says bullying behaviour is learned

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and, therefore, can be unlearned.

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The focus is on the whole 
of cultural response

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that restores and heals
macro and micro relationships,

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and it needs three
main ingredients to be successful.

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My experience in using this approach
has been encouraging.

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An example of this is an organization
I've been working with.

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Using root-cause analysis,

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I identified three problem areas
in the organization.

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The solutions included:

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new systems developed
to manage and prevent conflict;

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individual conflict coaching
and leadership coaching was applied;

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and teams engaged 
in restorative relationship building

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and communication practices.

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After six months,

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I hardly know the place,
and neither did the workers.

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Congratulations must go to my client
and their employees

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for committing to a process
that's a complete paradigm shift

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from the way that they would
normally handle conflict.

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In future, they have the skills,
understanding and strategies

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to effectively address conflict issues.

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Staff and management have changed the way

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that they understand,
see and approach conflict,

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and, even better, conflict is dealt with
proactively and early.

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By removing the blame
and punitive processes

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and replacing them
with a preventative focus,

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the whole organization
is able to build a culture

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that expects and reinforces
respectful behaviour.

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For me, an unintended consequence
of this way of working

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has been that it also changes the way
people see and deal with conflict

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in other areas of their lives.

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My clients tell me that they now
have a transferable set of skills

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that they can use and pass on to others,
especially their children.

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We have an opportunity
to shift from the victim-villain narrative

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and move to a unified system

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that respects all parties 
and perspectives.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)