How I didn’t become a victim to bullying | Caroline Dean | TEDxQueenstown

Caroline's story is quite a shock. Her experience is deep and traumatic from time working inside the closed community of the Australian prison system. She talks of the systematic failures to understand the issues, the people that pit one person against another, and the denial, denial, denial. How can such behaviour on this level be ignored? In fact, this type of 'victim' versus 'perpetrator' model is the fundamental problem. Caroline finds clarity and systemises a way to build a culture and systems around this with alarming results.

Caroline is a knowledgeable, skilled consultant and facilitator with a background in criminal justice sociology. She specialises in assisting organisations to develop multifaceted competencies and systems around preventing workplace conflict. She offers organisations an insightful approach into conflict and is committed to building respectful collaboration workplace cultures. She has always been interested by power, how it is constructed, used and misused.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

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

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

(Applause) (Cheers)

Thank you.

And I'm feeling
quite apprehensive about it.

And, as Mary said,

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

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

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

Last month,

Jeremy Clarkson, who's a Top Gear host,

punched his producer in the face,

and he was fired.

He'd been warned multiple times
about his behaviour.

In 2014, he was given a final warning.

One million people petitioned BBC
to have him reinstated,

but, if you notice,

the producer is missing
from the coversation.

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

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

He's been relentlessly pursued
on social media.

The question I ask all of you is:

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

And just because Clarkson's
popular and famous

doesn't make what he did right.

I've always been fascinated
by right and wrong.

At ten, I wrote a short story

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

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

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

At university, I studied crime
and criminal justice.

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

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

but it was also the hardest.

A coronial report into suicides
of five male prisoners,

in a four-month period,

found gross inadequacies in the system.

The recommendation to change from
warehousing prisoners to rehabilitation

was why I was employed.

My role was to develop
pre and post-release programs

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

I was full of idealism, ideas and energy.

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

to work in a maximum security prison,

I really had no idea.

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

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

but it would redefine my work
from here on in,

and it opened my eyes
to a world of bullying

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

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

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

At other times, it was very direct.

I was accused of trafficking
contraband items,

I was investigated routinely
for alleged security violations,

I was verbally threatened,
and I was physically cornered.

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

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

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

By contrast,

my colleagues operated
as separate individuals.

Everyone was out for themselves.

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

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

I took refuge in my office
outside the prison grounds.

My resilience lowered -

pardon me -

and I was emotionally exhausted.

I operated in a state
of hypervigilance and fear,

even when I wasn't at work.

I expected the worst all the time.

It affected me, my family
and my relationships,

and it took over my life completely.

I worked in the prison for four years,

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

I continued to tutor prison students
on a voluntary basis,

and I was falsely accused

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

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

As a result,

I was banned from every prison
in Australia for life.

When I left the prison service,

I suffered severe anxiety
and regular panic attacks.

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

unable to do even the most basic things,

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

I thought about suicide.

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

Though this situation sounds extreme,

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

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

I expressed concern about noticing
that management were bullying staff.

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

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

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

The director of prisons
was a case in point.

Staff told me that being bullied
was common for them,

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

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

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

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

Following my prison experience,

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

and deliberately want
to cause others harm.

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

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

Staff and management
were all products of their environment,

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

We're all affected by the same system.

And prisons aren't alone
in creating and maintaining

a brutal or authoritarian closed system.

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

between authoritarian management styles,
closed systems and bullying.

And organizations can
implicitly encourage bullying

by the practices they normalize.

If an organization does not
spell out expected behaviours,

then bullying behaviours
can became accepted practice,

and all the time I saw this in the prison.

I saw new employees' behaviour change

from being respectful
to disrespectful and bullying.

My focus has shifted to understanding
and preventing bullying.

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

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

to understanding how bullying manifests
and becomes entrenched behaviour.

In workplaces where unequal power
relationships are the norm,

it's not unusual to find
workplace bullying,

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

For me, the way back to health

was to learn everything
I could about bullying.

I was determined to make a change

about how workplace had thought about
and addressed this issue,

but the information I found
was simplistic and rudimentary.

For example, the standard response
to the problem of bullying

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

Let me repeat that:

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

for instance,

labelling a problem between
two people as personality conflict,

or labelling a person as a bad apple.

In these scenarios,
we cast one person as the victim

and the other, the villain,

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

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

and nor does it take into account
the interconnections between people

and the culture they work in.

Take Clarkson's example.

His inappropriate behaviour
had been allowed to continue for years.

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

I think BBC management needed to spell out

appropriate behavioural
expectations for Clarkson,

and, if he didn't behave appropriately,

then they needed
to call him on it immediately.

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

but it's a management's responsibility

to bring inappropriate behaviour
to an employee's attention

and, if necessary, provide training.

This whole situation
could have been avoided.

Bullying is complex and cannot
be understood in isolation.

It forms part of
a complex set of interplays

between culture, people, behaviour
and work practices,

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

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

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

Bullying negatively impacts health,

and has high personal, social
and organizational costs.

Health impacts can range
from minor to severe,

and can last long
after the bullying has ceased.

Unlike physical injuries,

many impacts of bullying go unnoticed,

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

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

We currently look for evidence of bullying

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

This creates an adversarial position

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

and it puts the victim-villain
narratives into stage.

It's blaming and ultimately divisive.

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

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

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

than the actual bullying incidents,

and, unlike physical injuries,

complainants are required
to prove and demonstrate

their psychological damage
has been caused by the bullying.

I think we can manage this differently.

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

looks to the culture,
the structural mechanisms,

the behaviour expectations
and workplace practices,

and seeks answers from those things.

It doesn't assign blame,

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

This means that we understand

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

rather than the person as the problem.

This allows personal blame
to be removed from the equation,

and replaced with personal accountability
and organizational responsibility.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and, therefore, can be unlearned.

The focus is on the whole
of cultural response

that restores and heals
macro and micro relationships,

and it needs three
main ingredients to be successful.

My experience in using this approach
has been encouraging.

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

Using root-cause analysis,

I identified three problem areas
in the organization.

The solutions included:

new systems developed
to manage and prevent conflict;

individual conflict coaching
and leadership coaching was applied;

and teams engaged
in restorative relationship building

and communication practices.

After six months,

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

Congratulations must go to my client
and their employees

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

from the way that they would
normally handle conflict.

In future, they have the skills,
understanding and strategies

to effectively address conflict issues.

Staff and management have changed the way

that they understand,
see and approach conflict,

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

By removing the blame
and punitive processes

and replacing them
with a preventative focus,

the whole organization
is able to build a culture

that expects and reinforces
respectful behaviour.

For me, an unintended consequence
of this way of working

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

in other areas of their lives.

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

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

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

and move to a unified system

that respects all parties
and perspectives.

Thank you.

(Applause)