Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity
-
0:15 - 0:17[Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths
at work] -
0:17 - 0:20Right. Hello, everybody. I'm here
to tell you a bit of a story about -
0:20 - 0:26why I got interested in the link between
corporate psychopaths and bullying. -
0:26 - 0:29A long time ago, in a land far away,
-
0:29 - 0:32I was running a business
in the Far East, -
0:32 - 0:35and, as a part of that,
I was moved offices. -
0:35 - 0:39And when I was moved offices,
I was told I was getting a new boss. -
0:39 - 0:41And various people
came up to me and said, -
0:41 - 0:45"You have to be careful about this
new guy, this new boss you're getting. -
0:45 - 0:49He's very manipulative,
he's very routhless, very cunning, -
0:49 - 0:51and he's almost downright evil.
-
0:51 - 0:55So, I thought, hm, this guy sounds
like a bit of a monster, a bit of a devil. -
0:55 - 0:59And when people say things like
that to you, that's what you expect. -
0:59 - 1:01You expect to meet a monster.
-
1:01 - 1:04What you actually meet
is an utterly charming man, -
1:04 - 1:08in a well cut suit,
who looks very attractive. -
1:08 - 1:12He's very sociable, very extroverted
and he doesn't look like a monster at all. -
1:12 - 1:16He looks like your next best friend.
And so, you get confused. -
1:16 - 1:18Then you think that these people
must have been wrong. -
1:18 - 1:20
"He's not a monster, he's a nice guy. -
1:20 - 1:23I'm going to really enjoy working
with this person." -
1:23 - 1:26Looking back years later,
people would say to me, -
1:26 - 1:31"Well, how did you end up in
the circumstances that you ended up with?" -
1:31 - 1:36And I could never answer that,
until I read about corporate psychopaths. -
1:36 - 1:38And then it all clicked together.
-
1:38 - 1:42So, that's my personal reason
for getting involved in psychopathy -
1:42 - 1:45and corporate psychopaths.
-
1:45 - 1:50And, as I started to read about bullying
as a different part of my academic job, -
1:50 - 1:54I realized there's probably
a large area of crossover -
1:54 - 1:58between bullies and psychopaths
in the workplace. -
1:58 - 2:02So, I started to look at bullying itself.
-
2:02 - 2:08It's usually described as being
the regular and repeated belittling, -
2:08 - 2:14or humiliating, or, in some way,
intimidating a person, -
2:14 - 2:18and it's usually a single person,
in the workplace, -
2:18 - 2:20on a regular basis, as I said.
-
2:20 - 2:26So, it involves things like regular
conflict, arguments, yelling, -
2:28 - 2:33rudeness in the workplace,
directed at a single person. -
2:34 - 2:37It seems to be all over
the place, basically. -
2:37 - 2:39If you look at the papers
to do with bullying, -
2:39 - 2:45it seems to be in every organization,
and significant numbers of people -
2:45 - 2:49have experienced it. Usually
it's in the 30 and 40 percentages. -
2:49 - 2:53And even organizations like
-
2:53 - 2:56the Departments of Consumer
and Employment Protection, -
2:56 - 2:59in Western Australia,
where I was at the time, -
2:59 - 3:02whose job is to prevent bullying,
-
3:02 - 3:07were accused by their own staff
of having a culture of bullying. -
3:07 - 3:11And the staff insisted that they
bring in private investigators -
3:11 - 3:15to investigate the bullying
that was going on in the organization, -
3:15 - 3:19that was there to prevent bullying.
So, it's all over the place. -
3:19 - 3:23So, that made me think,
"But, why? Why is it all over the place?" -
3:24 - 3:28And the other thing that struck me
in reading about it -
3:28 - 3:31is that companies and corporations
and organizations -
3:31 - 3:34don't seem to know what to do about it.
-
3:34 - 3:39They tend to want to sweep it under
the carpet, to pretend it doesn't exist. -
3:39 - 3:41And quite often, they'll do things like,
-
3:41 - 3:45they'll pay off the people
who are being bullied, -
3:45 - 3:50unveiling certain clause into that payoff,
into that contractual arrangement, -
3:50 - 3:53whereby they're not allowed
to talk about it. -
3:53 - 3:55So it all gets swept under the carpet.
-
3:55 - 3:57The bully, in the meantime,
gets promoted, -
3:57 - 4:03and they're the only one that's
left in the organization. -
4:03 - 4:06But there are many ethical
and financial reasons -
4:06 - 4:09why bullying should not be swept
under the carpet, -
4:09 - 4:12and some of these are to do
with individual reasons. -
4:12 - 4:14So, the negative effects,
-
4:14 - 4:19the psychological effects on the individual
concern are quite devastating. -
4:19 - 4:21So, they feel humiliated, belittled,
-
4:22 - 4:26their careers quite often
get ruined or disjointed. -
4:26 - 4:28They'll try and withdraw
from the workplace, -
4:28 - 4:32they'll seek other jobs,
-
4:32 - 4:37and they end up in lesser positions,
or unemployed, -
4:37 - 4:39or in jobs they don't really want to do.
-
4:39 - 4:45And their confidence and motivation
is destroyed at a personal level. -
4:45 - 4:51But it also has an effect at a corporate
level or an organizational level as well, -
4:51 - 4:57because there's a typical
fight-or-flight response to being -
4:57 - 5:00in a conflict situation
or to being bullied. -
5:00 - 5:03So, in terms of fight, people flight,
-
5:03 - 5:06I should say people withdraw
their time and effort. -
5:06 - 5:14So, they'll stop doing overtime, they'll
stop their extracurricular activities, -
5:14 - 5:19in terms of commitment to the organization
and helping the organization grow. -
5:19 - 5:21And they'll fight back
-
5:21 - 5:24in terms of things like
counterproductive work behavior. -
5:24 - 5:27So, typically, if the bully
is your manager, -
5:27 - 5:30or your supervisor,
or your boss in some way, -
5:30 - 5:34you take him or her
as a representative of the company. -
5:34 - 5:38And, therefore, your revenge is not
on them particularly, as an individual. -
5:38 - 5:41It tends to be against the company.
-
5:41 - 5:46So, you'll stop working properly,
you'll sabotage normal work processes, -
5:46 - 5:52you'll withdraw your effort and your
commitment, as I said, to what you're doing. -
5:52 - 5:56And the result of all that is just
further conflicts within the organization. -
5:56 - 6:01The ethical and moral climate
of the organization starts to diminish, -
6:01 - 6:05and that has knock-on effects in terms
of how you treat your suppliers, -
6:05 - 6:10how you treat your tax returns
and everything else to do with the company. -
6:14 - 6:18So, reading some of the literature
on bullies and bullying, -
6:18 - 6:23there seems to be a sort of unspoken,
underlying sense of bewilderment, -
6:23 - 6:25"Who are these people?
-
6:25 - 6:29Who are these people
that enjoy watching people get hurt?" -
6:29 - 6:32'Cause it doesn't seem
a normal thing to do, -
6:32 - 6:37a normal thing to want to do or to enjoy
doing, and they clearly enjoy it. -
6:37 - 6:39Reading about bullies,
-
6:39 - 6:43the words that are used to describe them
are on the screen there. -
6:43 - 6:46So, they enjoy hurting other people,
they're cruel, they're selfish, -
6:46 - 6:48they're parasitic, Machiavellian,
-
6:48 - 6:51and you start to get in the literature
a lot of words -
6:51 - 6:56to do with a dissocial personality.
-
6:56 - 7:02So, antisocial personality disorder,
sociopathy, psychopathy -
7:02 - 7:06and lots of these words
are similar to words -
7:06 - 7:10used to identify corporate psychopaths.
-
7:10 - 7:14Well, corporate psychopaths
are those psychopaths -
7:14 - 7:16who are about 1% of the population,
-
7:16 - 7:20and just by the way, who go into
organizational and corporate positions, -
7:20 - 7:23rather than into a criminal career.
-
7:23 - 7:26And psychologists have slowly
come to realize -
7:26 - 7:31that those from better socioeconomic
backgrounds, perhaps with a good education, -
7:31 - 7:37good family background, work out
fairly early, that it's far easier -
7:37 - 7:41to get the power, the prestige,
and the money that they want -
7:41 - 7:45from a corporate career
than it is from a criminal career. -
7:45 - 7:47And so, they go into
the corporate world. -
7:47 - 7:51So, the same words are used
to describe them, these psychopaths, -
7:51 - 7:57as I used to describe bullies,
with the exception that psychopaths, -
7:57 - 8:01the outstanding thing about psychopaths
is they have absolutely no conscience. -
8:01 - 8:06So, there's nothing that inhibits them,
in terms of how they behave. -
8:06 - 8:10They can be totally ruthless
and sleep perfectly well that night, -
8:10 - 8:14because nothing they do bothers them,
because they don't have a conscience, -
8:14 - 8:20and there's no feeling,
no emotion in their lives. -
8:20 - 8:25So, having realized that there's
probably a large link -
8:25 - 8:28between psychopathy and psychopaths
and bullying, -
8:28 - 8:32I thought it would be interesting
to do some research -
8:32 - 8:35to see how large that link actually is.
-
8:35 - 8:38So, I took a psychopathy measure
-
8:38 - 8:42from reading 200 and odd psychology
papers on psychopaths, -
8:42 - 8:45and embedded it
in a management survey -
8:45 - 8:50of management behavior,
firstly doing this in Australia. -
8:51 - 8:56And what I found was one
of the most outstanding things. -
8:56 - 9:00I found that psychopaths
-
9:00 - 9:05seem to account for around 26%
of all bullying -
9:05 - 9:08in that particular sample of managers,
of Australian managers. -
9:08 - 9:14It was 346 managers,
research carried out in 2008, I think. -
9:17 - 9:21And there were quite a few other
interesting statistics there, as well. -
9:21 - 9:24I mean, under normal managers,
-
9:24 - 9:28employees encountered bullying
less than once a month. -
9:28 - 9:31If there were corporate psychopaths
in the organization, -
9:31 - 9:36then bullying went up to
more than once a week. -
9:36 - 9:391.3 times a week,
I think it was. -
9:39 - 9:42- And I measured lots
of other things as well, besides bullying, -
9:42 - 9:47but that was the interesting thing
for the purposes of today - -
9:47 - 9:53Because those results were so dramatic,
I repeated it again in the U.K. -
9:57 - 9:59And - Let's get the right slide.
That one - -
9:59 - 10:04And I found even more bullying
in the U.K. than I found in Australia. -
10:04 - 10:08And I found that psychopaths
and corporate psychopaths -
10:08 - 10:13were accounted for more of that bullying
than they did in Australia. -
10:13 - 10:18So, up to 36% of all bullying is down
to the presence of corporate psychopaths -
10:18 - 10:21in an organization, in this sample.
-
10:21 - 10:25And the knock-on effects,
more yelling, more arguments, -
10:25 - 10:30more disruption, more conflict,
then, when psychopaths are there, -
10:30 - 10:33compared to when they're not there.
-
10:33 - 10:38So, under normal managers,
everything is, in terms of conflict, -
10:38 - 10:41everything is lowered,
and much more sedate, -
10:41 - 10:44and much more smooth,
-
10:44 - 10:47and much less chaotic,
and less confusion. -
10:47 - 10:51So...
Where are we? -
10:52 - 10:56In conclusion, I think that what I've —
-
10:56 - 11:00Having established the link between
corporate psychopaths and bullying, -
11:00 - 11:06it starts to explain some of the big
questions that are to do with bullyings. -
11:06 - 11:09For example, why is it so pervasive
in all companies, -
11:09 - 11:12around the world and in all countries?
-
11:12 - 11:15Well, the answer to that might be that,
-
11:15 - 11:18because psychopaths are 1%
of the population. -
11:18 - 11:23If we assume they are normally
distributed across the whole population, -
11:23 - 11:25than there will be,
in every major company, -
11:25 - 11:27there will be psychopaths.
-
11:27 - 11:29And if there are psychopaths,
than there will be bullying. -
11:29 - 11:34So, that explains why bullying
is so common. -
11:34 - 11:39The other thing it explains is
why bullying occurs in the first place. -
11:39 - 11:43Psychopaths bully for two main reasons.
One of them is predatory. -
11:43 - 11:46So they do it because they like it.
They do it because they enjoy it. -
11:46 - 11:49They do it because they like
to see people squirm. -
11:49 - 11:52They like just to hurt people,
they like to damage their careers, -
11:52 - 11:56and that's the thing that's hard
for the rest of us to understand. -
11:56 - 11:59It's enjoyable. That's one
of the reasons they do it. -
11:59 - 12:03The other reason they do it is
what I've called instrumental bullying. -
12:03 - 12:09So, they're doing it quite often to create
confusion and chaos all around them, -
12:09 - 12:14so that they can forward their own
political and social and career agendas, -
12:14 - 12:18while everybody else
is emotionally distracted. -
12:18 - 12:23So, it creates a smokescreen for them
to get on with what they're really doing, -
12:23 - 12:27which is gaining power, and influence,
and prestige, -
12:27 - 12:29and money within the corporation.
-
12:29 - 12:33So, anybody, for example, a boss
looking down on this whole situation -
12:33 - 12:36of bullying and emotional reactions
-
12:36 - 12:41will see that the only person that seems
to have kept that cool is this psychopath, -
12:41 - 12:44because he started it all
in the first place. -
12:44 - 12:46And therefore, the only person
that seems like they want... -
12:46 - 12:50deserves promotion is the psychopath.
-
12:50 - 12:53It that's why it helps
to answer the question -
12:53 - 12:57of why psychopaths seem
to get promoted at the hierarchy -
12:57 - 13:00more than ordinary people do.
-
13:00 - 13:02Because they create
confusion around them -
13:02 - 13:07and that enables them to forward their
own agenda to promote themselves. -
13:10 - 13:14So, if you link it
at an organizational level, -
13:14 - 13:19companies like Enron, which was
the biggest fraud in history at the time, -
13:19 - 13:23before the global financial crisis
and things like that, -
13:23 - 13:26was reported to have a culture
of bullying within it. -
13:26 - 13:29And they bullied their agencies,
they bullied their advisers, -
13:29 - 13:35they bullied their suppliers to keep them
in check and to stop them asking questions, -
13:35 - 13:39so that they could perpetuate this massive
fraud that was going on for years. -
13:39 - 13:44So, it's a means to an end,
as well as an end in itself. -
13:47 - 13:50And I think bullying in corporate banks,
for example, -
13:51 - 13:55and linking it to the global
financial crisis, was very evident as well. -
13:55 - 13:59There is a culture of, "Don't ask questions,
or you'll get into trouble." -
13:59 - 14:03So, no ethical questions
are allowed in these institutions, -
14:04 - 14:08and it enables them to get on
with what they're doing, with their fraud, -
14:08 - 14:13and it prevents people from exposing it.
-
14:14 - 14:17If anyone is interested in finding out
more about any of these things, -
14:17 - 14:21those are the things to look up
in your search engine. -
14:21 - 14:23Thank you for listening.
Goodbye. -
14:23 - 14:25(Applause)
- Title:
- Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity
- Description:
-
Clive is a Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at Middlesex University in England. For the past seven years, he has studied the evidence and effects of toxic leadership, and in particular the influence of the presence of corporate psychopaths on various workplace outcomes, including on levels of conflict and bullying at work.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 14:33
Leonardo Silva edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Ivana Korom approved English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Tatjana Jevdjic accepted English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity | ||
Tatjana Jevdjic edited English subtitles for Bullying and Corporate Psychopaths at Work - Clive Boddy at TEDxHanzeUniversity |