Oh and the other thing I didn't see anyone address is teaching "victims" the right Ju-Jitsu for dealing with (intentional) assholes / bullying - the mindset of don't let anyone make you a victim.
I had the "good fortune" of having an internship years ago with a tyrant. This person loved publicly shaming the interns, among a whole bunch of other toxic behaviour, continual needling etc. etc. Their life was a mess, marriage falling apart and alcoholic but beating up the interns was this person's way of boosting their ego up again. They were also a master of ducking and deflecting any possible blame.
Being on the receiving end of this for a year, I was so upset and frustrated that I vowed never to let it happen to me again.
After trying various strategies I found the most effective solution is very simple: get a group of people laugh at the asshole, ideally as a direct response to bullying from them in a group setting. Typically you only need to pull that off once and they will leave you alone from that point on - most bullys are cowards in the face of real resistance. Actually you don't even need to be funny - you just need to do something that can't missed by the group or the bully and creates awkwardness, e.g. a loud, slow clap in response to their comment then if they quiz you on it, you just say "Just giving you a round of applause"
I could write a lot more on this, and much of it would be easy to misinterpret in today's PC culture so I won't but, in essence: don't fall into a victim mindset - stand up for yourself.
In 2010, Dieter Zapf and Claudia Gross took 149 victims of self-described bullying at work and taught them various conflict resolution techniques and studied the results. The effect? Victims tried various strategies and even altered their strategies several times before realizing nothing worked. Many resorted to frequently skipping work, but even more resorted to fighting back with the same kind of behaviors. Eventually, most victims left the company.
I guess the essence of what I got from it, was if someone is attacking you, you want to observe how they’re doing it and what you think is driving them to do it. The idea I got from the Book of Five Rings is that for any type of attack there is a response that can stop the attack in a single strike. That response varies depending on the attack. But that’s how I came to group laughter being the “strike” that will usually stop the intentional asshole / office bully type.
And yes that may sound like childish, school playground stuff but often the reason someone behaves badly in an office hs it’s roots in their childhood
> ...the most effective solution is very simple...
No, definitely not simple.
These people have intrinsic deep-seated personality defects.
Sure, personality changes do occur in life but they take A LONG TIME, and barring trauma, aren't precipitated by any single event, especially something as as simple as people creating humiliation in a workplace. In other words, you can't "change" an assh*le or force them to curb their personality to the point where it's not noticeable.
You either grow a thick skin, avoid them, force them out, or what most orgs do, nothing-- just wait for their behavior/value ratio to cross a line that precipitates expulsion from the group.
to be fair he said at least in this case(i could see it working in more cases and is very group psychology but a bit passive agressive)they left him alone not that they were not assholes anymore.
I like this. Recently, I semi-seriously recommended BJJ for a bullying situation. In adolescents, I see BJJ working to help kids calm down and for boys and girls to get along in a time fraught with drama. I followed my boys into BJJ and think it has something to teach adults too. When you are the victim it will make you less intimidated. When you are the asshole it gives a constructive outlet for aggression which when misdirected is a good definition of bullying. I think there are a .1% of us who are unredeemable assholoes. The rest of us are all potential assholes and we need to watch out for the conditions which make such behavior happen. And BJJ, we all need some BJJ...
I have been doing BJJ for a few years and while it's not the perfect "ego filter" that some people claim, I have found it extremely effective in teaching coping skills. It's almost been too effective, in the sense that workplace behavior (when directed at me) that is 100% unacceptable often doesn't bother me enough to say anything.
In my experience, once you've spent a few hundred hours having physically larger people literally choke you at full intensity and practicing how to stay calm and methodically turn the tables, very little in the workplace impacts your calm.
I found that doesn't always work. Telling certain types of asshole directly telling them to piss off directly results in something like "I have _no idea_ what you're talking about? You're being too sensitive. And I find your rude/aggressive/whatever manner offensive...", all the while grinning slightly. Some even feed on the fact that they got you annoyed enough to confront them. With that comes exploiting the notion of qualifies as acceptable, professional behaviour such as getting emotional in response to bullying or threatening someone with "piss off or else..."
You might need to resort to this kind of childish stuff in grade school, but in the workplace, HR/management needs to step in and take care of it. The professional way to handle it is to directly address the person's behavior once, and then if it continues complain to HR/management in writing.
That's very nice in theory but in many situations ineffective or problematic for the person involving HR, e.g. if the person you're dealing with is your boss, if they're deliberately exploiting the system, if you're working as an external contractor, if HR is incompetent and many more.
Also it places the burden of effort on the target of the abuse vs. addressing the problem at its source, swiftly and quickly.
But anyway what I'm saying is a nuanced argument and comment threads are bad places for that. You already judged it "childish stuff" and I'm sure others think the same so I'll leave it there.
I had the "good fortune" of having an internship years ago with a tyrant. This person loved publicly shaming the interns, among a whole bunch of other toxic behaviour, continual needling etc. etc. Their life was a mess, marriage falling apart and alcoholic but beating up the interns was this person's way of boosting their ego up again. They were also a master of ducking and deflecting any possible blame.
Being on the receiving end of this for a year, I was so upset and frustrated that I vowed never to let it happen to me again.
After trying various strategies I found the most effective solution is very simple: get a group of people laugh at the asshole, ideally as a direct response to bullying from them in a group setting. Typically you only need to pull that off once and they will leave you alone from that point on - most bullys are cowards in the face of real resistance. Actually you don't even need to be funny - you just need to do something that can't missed by the group or the bully and creates awkwardness, e.g. a loud, slow clap in response to their comment then if they quiz you on it, you just say "Just giving you a round of applause"
I could write a lot more on this, and much of it would be easy to misinterpret in today's PC culture so I won't but, in essence: don't fall into a victim mindset - stand up for yourself.