Is conflict contagious?

We all experience conflict at work. Sometimes conflict can be positive, as we debate different, opposing views on a topic to reach a better outcome. However, at other times, conflict can be negative to individuals and the organisation. At Senatus, much of our work is exploring the issues behind the conflict. In grievances, that conflict is usually between two parties. However, when we’re investigating conduct cases, or undertaking a Cultural Review, we often explore the reasons and impact of team-wide conflict.

I was therefore interested when I came across an article by Jehn at al. (2013). They were interested in exploring how a relatively minor conflict between two members of a team can escalate to become a conflict-situation across all members of the team.

When Jehn and colleagues talk about conflict, they are referring to direct conflict behaviours (e.g confronting someone), and indirect behaviours, such as actively avoid the conflict. They argue that if an individual’s response to a conflict situation differs from their normal behaviour, then they are engaged in the conflict. And individuals are not only impacted behaviourally, but emotionally too.

Their research findings suggest that the reason why conflict can appear contagious is because a team is dependent on each other. It is impossible to avoid conflict, particularly sustained conflict, between colleagues. There maybe reasons why employees do not want to become embroiled in the conflict, which maybe down to their own conflict management style or power & hierarchy.

But as the contagion spreads, individuals will ‘take sides’. Not because they want to (or maybe they do!), but because in order to respond to the conflict, individuals will either rely on pre-existing relationships, or are influenced by other priorities (e.g. financial or resources).

Jehn and her colleagues’ conclusion is that not only do managers need to respond to any conflict that arises in the team in a timely way, they also need to ensure that they choose the right strategy in order to address the conflict. Otherwise, the conflict will escalate and what was once a minor issue now becomes something that feels unmanageable. So yes, conflict is contagious.

Reference

Jehn, K., Rispens, S., Jonsen, K. and Greer, L., 2013. Conflict contagion: a temporal perspective on the development of conflict within teams. International Journal of Conflict Management, 24(4), pp.352-373.

How incivility creates toxic environments

For a second week, I want to talk about the impact of others’ behaviours on bystanders. This time in the context of incivility. Incivility is best described as “low-intensity deviant behaviour with ambiguous intent to harm the target” (Andersson and Pearson, 1999, p. 457). As the recipient of incivility you might be subject to sarcastic or undermining comments, eye rolling, gossip, provocation statements, unpleasant emails. We’ve all seen these behaviours at some point in our career.

As a bystander, it is not always that easy to confront someone being uncivil. Those in positions of power (e.g. management) are more likely to address the incivility; colleagues, who have less power, are more likely to support the ‘victim’ and avoid the perpetrator (Hershcovis et al., 2017). Conversely, those in positions of power are less likely to be challenged if they act uncivilly (Pearson and Porath, 2005), and their behaviour has more of an impact (Cortina and Magley, 2009). So where does that leave the bystander?

The research shows that if someone is subject to incivility, in turn they are more likely to demonstrate incivility (Torkelson et al., 2016).  This applies to the recipient and those witnessing the incivility – so not only is it likely that the recipient might engage in some uncivil behaviours in response, bystanders might do so too. In short, this is how toxic environments are created. The incivility becomes ‘the norm’ – either because teams become desensitised to it, or because it becomes a survival strategy. This in turn leads, unsurprisingly, to perceptions of unfairness (Holm et al.,2021).

Dealing with such matters as soon as they arise is not a new idea (Ury et al., 1998).  The research in incivility, once again, highlights just how important it is.

References

Andersson, L.M. and Pearson, C.M. (1999), “Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace”, The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 452-471.

Cortina, L.M., Kabat-Farr, D., Magley, V.J. and Nelson, K. (2017), “Researching rudeness: the past, present, and future of the science of incivility”, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Vol. 22 No.3, pp. 299-313.

Hershcovis, M.S., Neville, L., Reich, T.C., Christie, A.M., Cortina, L.M. and Shan, J.V. (2017a), “Witnessing wrongdoing: the effects of observer power on incivility intervention in the workplace”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 142, pp. 45-57.

Holm, K., Torkelson, E. and Bäckström, M. (2021), “Longitudinal outcomes of witnessed workplace incivility: a three-wave panel study exploring mediators and moderators”, Occupational Health Science, Vol. 5 Nos1/2, pp. 189-216.

Pearson, C.M. and Porath, C.L. (2005), “On the nature, consequences and remedies of workplace incivility: no time for ‘nice’? Think again”, Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 7-18.

Torkelson, E., Holm, K., Bäckström, M. and Schad, E. (2016), “Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others”, Work andStress, Vol. 30 No.2, pp. 115-131.

Ury, W.L., Brett, J.M., Goldberg, S.B. (1988) “Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict”. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

The importance of fairness in psychological safety

In recent years, the NHS has turned its attentions to the psychological safety of its staff. Psychological safety refers to a feeling when employees are “able to show and employ oneself without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status or career” (Kahn, 1990, p. 708).

When we undertake Cultural Reviews at Senatus, psychological safety is one of the core questions we always ask participants. It is interesting to watch the non-verbal response to this question. Those that feel psychologically safe brighten as they detail their response. You can feel the emotional turmoil from those who respond saying that they do not feel psychologically safe. And there is also an interesting third set of respondents: those who feel psychologically safe, but report that when they raise concerns there are no tangible actions from their managers.  

The way a manager behaves can positively impact on psychological safety (Edmondson, 2018). Feeling psychologically safe has been found to directly relate to employees’ abilities to manage their work (Rangachari and Woods, 2020), and feeling confident in the decisions that they make (Li et al., 2020). However, if a manager behaves in a way that is considered to be unfair or unjust, an employee is less likely to feel psychologically safe (Payne and Katrinli, 2020).

Afshan et al. (2022) have undertaken some interesting research looking not only at how workplace fairness impacts on psychological safety, but how low levels of psychological safety can lead to increase levels of conflict. Their findings support the work of Dang and Pham (2002) who found that in environments where employees feel psychologically safe workplace conflict is minimised. What was even more interesting from their research is that they found that even if an employee has only been a bystander to the injustice demonstrated by their manager, their levels of psychological safety will decrease. Therefore, the impact of the injustice is not isolated to a single person; groups or teams of staff are affected when there is injustice.

From a practitioner point of view, these results are not unsurprising.  Through our Cultural Reviews, we often find whole teams describing how they feel psychologically unsafe. We rarely find ‘outliers’, a lone voice who says they do not feel psychologically safe when the rest of the team do.  What this highlights is how important it is for managers, leaders, to demonstrate fairness. This isn’t just about making the right decision, but the communication of these decisions, so others also know that it is fair.

References

Afshan, G., Serrano-Archimi, C., Riaz, A., Kashif, M. and Khuhro, M.A., (2022). It’s not justice if it’s not for all: cross-level interaction of interactional justice differentiation and supervisory justice on psychological safety and conflict. International Journal of Conflict Management, 33(5), pp.782-811.

Choi, D., Kraimer, M.L. and Seibert, S.E. (2020), “Conflict, justice, and inequality: why perceptions of leader-member exchange differentiation hurt performance in teams”, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Vol. 41 No.6, pp. 567-586.

Dang, T.T. and Pham, A.D. (2020), “What makes banks’ front-line staff more customer-oriented? The role of interactional justice”, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 777-798, doi: 10.1108/IJBM-09-2019-0321.

Edmondson, A.C. (2018), The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth, John Wiley andSons.

Kahn, W.A. (1990), “Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33(4) ,pp.692-724.

Li, C.J., Chang, K.K. and Ou, S.M. (2020), “The relationship between hotel staff’s organizational justice perception, relationship quality and job performance”, Cogent Social Sciences, Vol. 6 No. 1, p. 1739953.

Payne, A.K.H. and Katrinli, A. (2020), “The mediation effect of psychological safety on the relationship between interactional injustice and innovative work behavior”, The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being, pp. 1-20.

Rangachari, P. and L Woods, J. (2020), “Preserving organizational resilience, patient safety, and staff retention during COVID-19 requires a holistic consideration of the psychological safety of healthcare workers”, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 17 No. 12, p. 4267.

Do disciplinary and grievance procedures help bridge the ‘Resolution Gap’?

In 2013, Richard Saundry coined the phrase ‘resolution gap’ when arguing the need for informal conflict resolution as an intervention to mitigate the rise in Employment Tribunals. Following Ury et al.’s (1998) argument that conflict is best resolved locally, informal resolution interventions such mediation or facilitated discussions should always be an organisation’s primary approach to conflict.

However, what happens when informal resolution fails? To me, there are two stages of Saundry’s ‘Resolution Gap’ – the informal resolution stage and the formal resolution through the disciplinary and grievance procedure. When informal resolution fails, individuals and organisations have recourse to utilise the disciplinary or grievance procedures.

Currently academics take a mixed view on how formal resolution impacts on the levels of workplace conflict: Williams (2020) argues that disciplinary and grievances help “contain and accommodate” (p321) workplace conflict, to the extent that managers rely on them as a default option when they are unable to resolve the issue informally (Saundry 2020). Nurse and Devonish (2007) argue that such procedures ‘institutionalises’ the conflict. Containment and institutionalising the conflict does not necessarily lead to the conflict being resolved. 

I agree with Saundry and Dix’s (2014) research that invoking such procedures is an escalation of conflict. Not that this should be perceived negatively. Sometimes an issue can only be resolved if it is escalated. However, mismanagement of the procedure has been known to lead to further escalation in the conflict (Bennett et al., 2020, Cappelli and Chuvin, 1991).   

Currently I do not feel that there has been sufficient attention to what needs to happen to ensure that conflict is appropriately managed during formal procedures. What we do know is that conflict escalates when employees feel dissatisfied in how their issue has been managed (Abbot, 2007). We also know that on occasion, parties become entrenched in their positions and as such find it difficult to reach an mutually agreeable resolution (Gibbons, 2007).

Certainly, the formality of disciplinary and grievances has an impact – not just on the employee. Ainsworth (2017:80) describes the process as “a kind of contest”, where individuals are “striving to prevail” which suggests an underlying sense of competition. The enactment of procedures has also been found to impact on relationships between HR professionals and operational managers (Fisher et al.’, 2017), arising from mis-managed expectations (Gennard and Judge, 2005).

Amanda Oates of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust describes the situation quite nicely:“it is ironic that the very people processes that are designed to keep staff safe and legally protected are often the vehicle with which we do the most harm to our own people” (2022: 146). 

From a research perspective it suggests that further work is required to be able to say that formal procedures can offer effective conflict resolution. From a practitioner perspective, this is a real need. My team and I hear first hand accounts from individuals who are embroiled in conflict, talking about the impact that it has had on them professional and personally. There is a need to understand how organisations can manage this better - or does there a need for a fundamental policy shift? I don’t have the answer, but I do know that there is no silver bullet.

References

Abbot, B. (2007) ‘Workplace and employment characteristics of the Citizens Advice Bureau client’. Employee Relations. Vol 29 (3) pp. 262-79.

Ainsworth, J. (2017) ‘Procedural Justice and the Discursive Construction of Narratives at Trial’,  Languages Cultures Mediation. Vol 4.

Cappelli, P., Chauvin, K. (1991) ‘A test of an efficiency model of grievance activity’, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 45, pp. 3–14.

Fisher, V., Kinsey, S., Saundry, R. (2017) ‘The myth of devolution? The role of HR practitioners in the management of workplace conflict’. Paper presented at the CIPD Applied Research Conference, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Gennard, J., Judge, G. (2005) “Employee Relations”, London, England: CIPD, 4th edition.

Gibbons, M. (2007) “A review of employment dispute resolution in Great Britain”. London: DTI.

Nurse, L. Devonish, D. (2007), ‘Grievance management and its links to workplace justice’. Employee Relations, Vol. 29(1), pp.89-109.

Saundry, R. (2013) Plugging the Resolution Gap? ESRC Seminar: Reframing Resolution. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde.

Saundry, R. (2020) The Impact of Covid-19 on Employment Relations in the NHS. Available at: www.socialpartnershipforum.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NHS-Covid-ER-Report.pdf

Saundry, R., Dix, G. (2014) ‘Conflict resolution in the UK’.  In Roche, W., Teague, P., Colvin, A. (Eds.), “The Oxford Handbook on Conflict Management”. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Ury, W.L., Brett, J.M., Goldberg, S.B. (1988) “Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict”. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Williams, S. (2020) “Introducing employment relations: a critical approach”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 5^th edition.

‘Mundane Reasoning’ & the art of resolving misunderstandings

As investigators our role is to listen to every person we interview, taking their recollections of events at face value. However, it is not uncommon to find that two or more people have completely different recollections or perspectives around what occurred when discussing a particular event. How do we reconcile this?

Maybe it’s not our role to reconcile different perspectives, but our role is to determine, on the balance of probability, what actually occurred. When facts are available (e.g. emails, reports, training logs etc), we will revert to them. However, how does that resolve the underlying issue from an employee’s perspective?

I recently was recommended a book called “Mundane Reason” by Melvin Pollard. His argument is that there needs to be synergy in perspectives / recollections (I don’t necessarily agree with that).  But if there isn’t synergy then:

• The person has hallucinated or is lying (or other equivalent reason) or
• Steps need to be taken to ensure that the employee is informed of the wider context, or provided with missing information, so that their perspectives then become aligned.

Now, it’s not part of our role to determine whether an employee we are investigating is hallucinating or lying! But I am more interested in the second point.

I feel that it is our role as investigators to ensure that our reports provide a level of detail which ensures that an employee has an opportunity to learn about what happened from another person’s perspective; to provide that missing information. With that new information will the employee’s perspective shift? Will they understand better what has happened that has caused the underlying conflict?

To be honest, it really depends on what the other person says. But where there are genuine misunderstandings, or where information has not been fully shared, providing another’s perspective could be helpful in restoring relationships.

Reference

Pollner, M., (2010). Mundane reason: Reality in everyday and sociological discourse. Cambridge University Press.

How transparency helps reduce conflict

The start of a new year is not only an opportunity to look forwards to what we want to achieve over the coming year, but also an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and how we have grown over the previous year.

In a discussion during supervision with one of my team this last week, they reflected on a particular interaction which for them had been a ‘game changer’ in terms of how they approach their work.

A few months ago, my colleague contacted me as they had recieved a ‘challenging’ email from a person that we were investigating. It was aggressive in tone and asked numerous questions about the investigation procedure – some of which we could answer but others were outside our knowledge or understanding.

We worked together to draft a response. My colleague had initially preferred a shorter response, to close the matter down. I talked about the importance of answering every question the ‘angry employee’ had asked, to make sure that we had attempted to address their concerns. If we did not have an answer, our role was to highlight who they could approach in order to get an answer. It took time to craft, but at the end I felt that we had demonstrated our fairness and transparency through our response.

The next email from the ‘angry employee’ was……..well not angry. They described how they appreciated our attempt to reassure them by providing the information that they had been seeking. From then on, all the correspondence between my colleague and this employee was professional and polite.

None of this should be a surprise. One of the ‘prongs’ of Organisational Justice is interactional justice - which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a supervisor and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies and Moag, 1986). This can either be on an interpersonal basis, which considers the respectful treatment of an employee (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993); or on an informational basis, where the fairness of the explanations given are considered (Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993).

By taking time to ensure that emails from others are answered in full, we’re not ‘shutting people down’ and denying them a voice. We’re demonstrating transparency and respect. Since then, my colleague has adopted this approach and has found that their relationships with others has tangibly improved – just by taking a bit more time to reflect and ensuring there is attention to detail in a response.  

References:

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986) ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds.), “Research on Negotiation in Organization”, Vol 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. In Cropanzano, R. (Ed.), “Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management”, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Niehoff, B.P., Moorman, R.H. (1993), ‘Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behaviors’, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 36 (3) pp. 527-556.

Why do we have disciplinary or grievance procedures?

I had an interesting conversation with a client this last week. We got to talking about a grievance that we, at Senatus, had investigated a couple of years ago. As time has passed, we were both able to objectively reflect on what had happened, both from an employee and an organisational perspective. During the discussion, my client talked about how they had “used the procedure to protect ourselves”, and perhaps that was not the right course of action to take.

I found this perspective to be interesting. Not because the client was wrong; I think that he was right. I found it interesting because using formal procedures to protect the organisation has not arisen during the research I’ve done to date around the purpose and use of disciplinary and grievance procedures in the workplace.

I’ll start with the origins story:

Conflict in the workplace is a known phenomenon (Edwards, 1986). In the 1960s, the focus was on the conflict between employers and trade unions, which resulted in the Government launching the Donovan Commission. The Commission sought to improve union-management relationships, to the benefit of both employees and the employer. Their recommendations were published in 1968, one of which was to strengthen union-management relationships: this was to be achieved through the implementation of (or in some cases, the strengthening of) formal policies and procedures, including disciplinary and grievance procedures.

However, the minimum standards for what these policies and procedures should contain was not defined until the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act (1992), when the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures were published.

Whilst the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures outlines a basic procedural framework as to how to manage formal disciplinary and grievance matters, the reality is that in some settings, such as in the NHS, the formal process is far from simple. In fact, it can give the illusion of fairness (Kaiser et al., 2013; Dierckx et al., 2023) – but that’s a discussion for another blog.

We are 50 years on from the Donovan Commission’s findings and the nature of the workplace has changed. Until the last couple of years, there had been a signficant down-turn in union-related strike action compared to the 1960s (resolutionfoundation.org). In contrast, the number of disciplinary and greivances has risen. When I first started working in the NHS some 20 *cough* odd years ago, nobody lodged a grievance. I remember being acutely aware of my skills and knowledge gap in this area due to lack of exposure compared the significant experience I was gaining from being involved in disciplinary matters. In comparison, a recent Freedom of Information request made by Senatus to every NHS Trust identified that there has been over 20,000 grievances lodged in the NHS since April 2017. Grievances are now commonplace.

Nowadays, organisations will frequently rely on formal disciplinary and grievance procedures to ‘contain’ the conflict between parties (Williams, 2020). Although it is best pratice to resolve issues locally and in a timely manner (Ury et al., 1998), we have all witnessed cases where the matter was considered ‘too difficult’ to resolve informally and the formal procedures have been evoked. This was evident in Saundry’s 2020 review of the state of employee relations in the NHS, which identified that local managers were choosing to formalise issues. Their approach was considered to be adversarial and “heavy-handed”, which is opposite to ACAS’ preference for an inquisitorial approach. Sadly, it is not uncommon for the use of formal disciplinary and grievance procedures to lead to increased levels of workplace conflict (Cappelli and Chauvin, 1991), due to employees feeling dissatisfied in how their issue has been managed (Abbot, 2007). Formalising the conflict can make a difficult situation become more difficult.

So it goes back to the ‘why’ – bearing in mind that the (limited) research available shows that formal disciplinary and greivance procedures, in many cases, do not help contain or effectively resolve concerns. I haven’t seen any research about disciplinary and grievance procedures being utilised to protect individuals or an organisation, but maybe ‘protection’ is another underlying reason that academics have yet to identify.    

  

References:

Abbot, B. (2007) Workplace and employment characteristics of the Citizens Advice Bureau client. Employee Relations. Vol 29 (3) pp. 262-79.

Cappelli, P., Chauvin, K. (1991), ‘A test of an efficiency model of grievance activity’. Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 45, pp. 3–14.

Dierckx, K., van Hiel, A., Swart, H., Valcke, B. (2023) “The irony of fairness: How procedural fairness climate perceptions can hinder disadvantaged group members’ support for social change’, Group processes & intergroup relations pp.1-22

Edwards, P.K. (1986) Conflict at Work. Oxford: Blackwell.

Kaiser, C.R., Major, B., Jurcevic, I., Dover, T. L., Brady, L. M., Shapiro, J. R. (2013) ‘Presumed fair: Ironic effects of organizational diversity structures.’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.. 104(3), pp. 504–519.

Saundry, R. (2020) The Impact of Covid-19 on Employment Relations in the NHS. Available at: www.socialpartnershipforum.org/sites/default/files/2021-09/NHS-Covid-ER-Report.pdf (Accessed:  31^st July 2022)

Ury, W.L., Brett, J.M., Goldberg, S.B. (1988). Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Costs of Conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Williams, S. (2020). Introducing employment relations: a critical approach. 5^th edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

New NHS England guidance: the expectations of line managers in relation to people management

New guidance has come out this week from NHS England on the expectations of line managers. You can find it here.

It’s quite a lengthy list of expectations, broken down into sub-themes (my team will tell you, I love a good sub-theme). On first review, it can feel quite overwhelming.

But on a second review, your average manager (like me) will be thinking that there’s nothing new on the list and they attempt every day to meet those previously unwritten expectations.

The introduction states that the framework will “explain the role of the manager in relation to people management”. But I don’t think it does. It is list of expectations, and “what managers need to know and understand”. It isn’t an explantion. A list is not sufficient in ensuring that managers truly understand what is expected of them.

Words have different meanings for different people. One of my favourite exercises is asking a group of staff what their understanding of “professionalism” is, which always results in a myriad of different responses. There will be some similarities from participants, enough to get a consensus. But it always surprises me how many different ways someone judges another person’s professionalism.

So, when the NHS England framework states “handle personal data and information in a professional and confidential manner”, what does this actually mean? It’s wrong to assume that we all know what it means. Test it out, ask your colleauges, and see what answers you get. And if you find disparities in interpretation, you know that a team discussion needs to be held to develop a shared understanding.

To emphasise this point further: when we undertake Cultural Reviews with teams, we always ask “how do you know that you’re doing a good job?” What we’re trying to find out is whether individuals recieve feedback on their work – both positive feedback and feedback that enable them to perform better. We want to know the source of that feedback. We want to know whether clear and tangible expectations are set, against which an individual can measure their own success.

After undertaking hundreds of Cultural Review meetings, our key finding across every team we have worked with, across every Trust we have worked with, across different healthcare settings, is that it is rare to find a manager who provides good feedback to their staff. Most participants talk about the value of patient feedback, or rely on self-validation. But nothing is more motivational than a manager recognising their employee for their work, and telling them.

In the NHS England’s line manager framework, it states that managers should “have regular one-to-ones to check in, provide feedback, and discuss their wellbeing”; and this is achieved through a manager’s contribution to “creating a culture of trust and encouragement”. The managers we’ve met through our Cultural Reviews believe that they are doing this, but the feedback from their team often suggests the opposite. Some managers are insightful in knowing that they are not doing it well enough.

At this point of the framework, there is a handy link to NHS England’s Culture and Leadership programme. Towards the end of the webpage is a directory of all the supporting documentation and developent programmes available which underpin the Framework. Whilst it’s positive to see this level of resource, it is, again, almost overwhelming. How does a manager navigate this plethora of information and determine what’s suitable for them?

Whilst this post might appear that I’m being critical of the Framework, I have not underestimated the amount of work that has been undertaken to produce it. Upon a closer read, you can see the level of thought that has gone into developing it (it’s tightly written yet comprehensive). I just don’t think that it’s enough to change the current management culture in the NHS. I’ve only touched on two small parts of the framework where I feel that there is a gap between reality and what is expected. This gap can only be bridged through significant investment in management training and targetted interventions at a local level.

How to behave in an interrogation

Whilst on a weekend break in Tallin, enjoying the Christmas market, I decided to visit the KGB prison museum situated a few doors down from my hotel. It might appear to be an odd choice of tourist attraction, but I’d read that this small museum gave an insight into life in Estonia under Russian rule. I don’t know much about Estonian history and felt this might be a good way to educate myself on this particular era.

For many years, the KGB prison in Tallin was where they tortured those who they suspected of anti-Soviet behaviour. In one of the small prison cells (there are 5, plus a ‘cupboard’ which was used to hold prisoners) there was a document that caught my interest.  Labelled ‘How to behave in interrogation’, it was a document created by a dissident Estonian, written from the perspective of a KGB officer. The instruction manual attempts to describe what a KGB officer will say to a dissent during an ‘interrogation’, thereby giving the illusion of fairness and transparency. However, as the document progresses, the tone of the language changes. Regardless of how a dissent responds, the outcome is biased; they will be found ‘guilty’.

I found myself comparing how this document is the absolute opposite of how workplace investigations should be approached. Organisational Justice theories are central to workplace investigations, especially interactional justice which relates to the fairness of the interactions between a manager and an employee when determining an outcome (Bies & Moag, 1986). Informational justice, a sub-section of interactional justice, relates to how an individual perceives the fairness of the explanations given (Colquitt 2001; Greenberg, 1993). In other words, the content of the information given to an employee is key when judging whether something is fair. Whilst a supervisor might provide an employee with a detailed description of what is going to happen, it does not mean that this is fair. 

In a workplace investigation, the start of an interview is a key stage for an investigator in ensuring organisational justice. Before the first question is asked, an interviewer will spend time providing information to the interviewee, such as the format of the interview, the taking of notes and generally outlining the process. This information not only provides reassurance to the interviewee that it will be a fair process, but it helps build a rapport between the interviewee and the interviewer.  When an interviewee feels comfortable, their ability to recall past events also increases (Vallano et al., 2015; Nahouli et al., 2021).  And of course, the introduction also acts as a form of consent, required under Data Protection law. Without consent, notes cannot be taken and the interview cannot progress.

I recognise that the principles of organisational justice would not have benefited Estonian dissents under Russian rule. However, they do apply to the current-day workplace – as investigators, commissioning managers, and line managers in general.  But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few paragraphs of advice about KGB interrogations…..

References

Bies, R. J., and Moag, J. F. (1986), ‘Interactional justice: communication criteria of fairness’. In Lewiciki, R.J., Sheppard, B.H. and Bazerman, M.H. (Eds), Research on Negotiation in Organization, Vol. 1.  JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, pp. 43-55.

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). ‘On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure’. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 86 pp.386-400.

Greenberg, J. (1993) ‘The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice’. Cropanzano, R., (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum pp.79-103.

Nahouli, Z., Dando, C. J., Mackenzie, J. M., Aresti, A. (2021). ‘Rapport- building and witness memory: Actions may ‘speak’ louder than words’. PLOS ONE, 16(8), Article e0256084.

Vallano, J. P., Schreiber Compo, N. (2015). ‘Rapport-building with cooperative witnesses and criminal suspects: A theoretical and empirical review’. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 21(1), pp.85–99.

To escalate or not to escalate?

In a discussion with a client this week about a case we recently completed, I found myself explaining Bartos & Wehr’s (2002) Conflict Theory as a way to explain why the behavoiur I had seen from the manager in a conflict situation was avoidable.

Bartos and Wehr’s (2002) Conflict Theory seeks to explain how the actions of one person and the reciprocal behaviour of another can influence workplace conflict or resolution. It commences with one actor taking an action, which could be percieved by the second actor as an act of hostility. If one actor wishes to escalate the conflict, the other party is unable to detach themselves from that conflict and is required to respond. They can respond by either matching that hostility (and the conflict escalates) or by acting in a conciliatory way that seeks to resolve the conflict. It is only when both sides deploy de-escalation tactics, which reduces the hostility to zero, that the conflict can be resolved. When escalation occurs, it is due to either the actor’s own interests; as an act of retaliation; or driven by the level of hostility felt by the actor.  

In the scenario with my client, we reviewed an email exchange over (what I considered to be) a trivial matter. However, due to the way it was managed, the matter escalated and it snowballed into being an issue about disrespect, failure to follow instructions, feeling unheard, the list could go on……..

The point of my discussion with the client was that the manager did not show appropriate management or leadership skills when dealing with conflict situations. But, this should not come as a surprise. Paul Latreille, Richard Saundry and others gave an excellent webinar this past week to talk through their early findings of their recent research on the competence and confidence of managers during conflict situations. One of the key take-aways from the discussion is the fact that managers are not receiving sufficient training around how to manage conflict. This is a real concern: the CIPD published research in 2021 that highlighted that conflict costs the UK £28.5 billion a year.

It could be argued that addressing this development need is an institutional responsibility, or that there needs to be a change in national policy to address the impact on productivity. In the meantime, my view is that every person has individual agency to determine how they respond to others. It’s aboout using emotional intelligence to realise that an email or a conversation might be ‘triggering’, and choosing not to match that energy, but taking a more measured approach.

Not all ‘bad’ managers are ‘bad’ all the time

A little nugget I picked up at the weekend: in an interesting article about how managers who demonstrate pro-social activities (i.e. activities which benefit others, which in essence covers every manager working in the public sector) are more likely to be held to higher standards of behaviour by their colleagues than those who don’t (e.g. city bankers), the researchers* also concluded that ‘bad managers’ aren’t ‘bad’ 100% of the time. This may seem like common sense to those of us who specialised in investigations into poor management practices, but it’s good to know that there is academic reserach to confirm this.

*Johnson, Priesemuth, Bigelow (2020).

Non-verbal communication skills whilst interviewing on-line

I do a lot of interviewing with my work. Because of this, I want to ensure that both my team and I are demonstrating best practice whenever we interview, and there are so many different facets to delivering a great investigatory interiew.

This week, I’ve been searching the internet for videos on non-verbal communication skills whilst interviewing on MS Teams or via Zoom. I’ve found lots for those going for job interviews. I’ve found lots on non-verbal communication skills when meeting in real life. But nothing that’s for interviewers and nothing for when the interview is on-line.

For me, it is different when you’re interviewing on-line. The majority of our interviewees are now really comfortable speaking on-line (either because they’ve done so through work, or because they’ve spoken with family & friends on-line during the pandemic), but as interviewers we still owe it to them to make it feel like we’re in the room with them as they talk about what they’ve observed and how this has impacted them.

The traditional advice and guidance on non-verbal communication doesn’t always work on-line. For example, we’re told to “lean in” when someone is telling you something interesting. Not so easy when you’re both behind a computer screen. I could lean in, but I think that would look wierd and the interviewee would have a close up of my face that perhaps they weren’t expecting. (I don’t want to be like Gary Barlow in the lock-down duets, althougth *disclaimer* I love Gary and Take That).

In essence, when we’re interviewing on-line, we are limited to what our face is saying. We can’t rely on any other body language. We have to rely on our face saying everything: encouraging the interviewee; showing that we’re engaged and listening; showing that we have empathy and compassion for what they are telling us.

If we don’t use our face during interviews to communicate, the interviewee may feel that they are boring us or that we’re not listening. That is the last thing we want. We want our interviewees to feel that they have our full attention and that we care about what they are saying.

When we distill what non-verbal communication looks like on-line, to show to the interviewee that we’re engaged and listening, I think it involves:

1. Ensuring that we’re smiling (not constantly, or like a cheshire cat, but showing that we’re enjoying the conversation)
2. Nodding our head on a regular basis – to show that we’re in agreement, or to encourage the interviewee to carry on speaking.
3. Saying “U-hm”, or “a-ha” ever so often – not enough to interrupt their flow, but enough to show that we’re following what they are saying.
4. Using facial expressions – like raising our eyebrows in surprise, or furrowing them when we’re confused.

If you have any other tips for interviewers on how to ensure that they are demonstrating non-verbal active listening skills during interviews, please do share!

Uncertainty in Decision-Making

In exploring unconscious decision-making, I’ve recently come across the work of Gary Klein, who has researched extensively the use of intuition in decision-making. Gary’s work derived from examining the decisions of firefighters in emergency conditions. They have to make decisions in the moment as to how to tackle a burning fire. They don’t have time on their side to consider their options, and Gary has discovered that their decisions are intuitive, based on their previous experiences. It’s called the Recognition Primed Decision-Making (RPD) model.

Your intuition is an unconscious judgement. And for me, that makes me wonder to what extent there is unconscious bias in your intuition – hence my interest in this subject. I’m not going to talk about that just now, but leave that for another blog post.

Instead, I thought I would talk about Klein’s five sources of uncertainty, which impact on the RPD model. For me, this is particularly interesting when exploring the decisions made during an employment investigation, and when a Chair of a disciplinary or grievance hearing has to determine the correct outcome.

The five sources are:

• missing information
• unreliable information
• conflicting information
• noisy information
• confusing information

Without doubt, as an experienced investigator, I frequently come across these five different types of information and I have to find ways to present the facts and the issues so that the decision-maker is able to make sense of the evidence and not feel uncertain.

Helpfully, Gary has also suggested a few tactics for managing uncertainty:

• Delay (why make a decision straight away?)
• Increase attention (look at the issues more deeply)
• Filling the gaps with assumptions
• Building an interpretation (more than filling the gaps, it’s about “sense-making”)
• Pressing on (just make the decision regardless)
• Shaking the tree – a “pre-emptive strike”
• Designing Decision Scenarios (imagining the outcome of a particular decision)
• Simplifying the Plan (cut out the noise, conflicting, unreliable information etc)
• Using Incremental Decisions (one step at a time).
• Embracing the Uncertainity

And you can use more than one tactic if necessary!

What ever you choose to do, it’s never an easy task being the Chair of a disciplinary or grievance hearing.

Procedural Fairness and Instrumental Theory

I’ve been reading about procedural fairness again recently (see my previous post), and I’m on the next “layer of the onion” – Instrumental Theory.

The premise of Instrumental Theory is that those engaged in conflict (which is why they are engaged in a process, such as a grievance), are motivated by self-interest, and will want to voice their views on the matter in order to influence the outcome. And as we have seen previously, an individual who feels that they have been given an opportunity to voice their concerns is more likely to feel that there has been procedural fairness.

It is not always the case that those who raise concerns will receive the outcome that they are seeking. In Instrumental Theory, it is suggested that it is the self-interest of the individual which propels them to believe that they are right, whereas the other individual, with whom they are in conflict with, is wrong. In otherwords, the individual’s ego-centric bias leads them to believe that once they have shared their concerns, the decision-maker will agree that they are “right”.

Whilst we want individuals to feel heard, and that they feel that the procedure is fair, the research also shows that individuals are more likely to consider that there has been procedural justice if they are also able to directly influence the outcome. This is why it’s important in grievance hearings for the Chair (decision-maker) to understand what remedy or resolution the grievant is seeking. This is not so easy in a disciplinary hearing, as an employee will not wish to receive any warning, let alone dismissal!

So, it is evident that allowing an individual a voice during any proceeding is important from their perspective when considering procedural fairness. However, as I’ve also discussed before (see post), decision-makers are less likely to show bias when they consider the facts without any influence from the individual themselves. This places decision-makers in a difficult position – which is the correct course of action?

At this point I could delve into a discourse about risk-taking and risk-management….but I’ll save that for another post.

Judging the accuracy of witness evidence

I’m taking a detour in my reading at present into the world of memory. There is a considerable amount of literature out there in relation to police investigations, but not so much for workplace investigations.

One book that I’ve found particularly user-friendly is Daniel Reisberg’s The science of perception and memory: a pragmatic guide for the justice system. (The link is not to Amazon, but to Better World Books, which is a “greener” option when buying books).

The book has made me pause and think about the need for investigators to have a checklist to assess the potential for memory error in witness testimony. If such a checklist would exist, it would contain the following:

1. Whether neutral questions were asked by the interviewer. What may surprise you, is that asking questions such as “what were you paying attention to during this event?” will actually increase memory error.
2. The extent of the witness’ spontaneity in providing their memories. The less questions we ask as investigators, the less we will potentially contanimate their memories.
3. The extent that the event was clearly observed (e.g. viewing angle, amount of light, the complexity of the situation, the amount of attention that was being paid).
4. Contamination (otherwise known as source confusion): our memories may have been influuenced after talking to others about the event – particularly if it’s someone we trust (“intrusion error”); or we may have filled the “gaps” in our memory, unconciously.
5. The urgency in which the witness is asked to recall a memory: the more pressure we put on a witness, the more they will “fill the gaps” with erroneous memories. This has a technical term: imagination inflation.
6. Motivation: the drivers behind the witness’ desire for their recollections to be heard (which are not always noble)
7. Plausability: whether the recollection is believable or not (think: being abducted by aliens).
8. Retentional retrieval: it is harder to recall memories over time, and our memories fade quickly at first; we may also fail to recall a memory, as we’ve not been given the correct “retrieval cues”.
9. After the event memory: when someone recalls an event that they didn’t think was significant that time, but they do now. The chances are that they didn’t lay down a complete memory, and therefore unconsciously they will have “filled the gaps” as they sought to retrieve the partial memory.
10. Claiming a flash-bulb memory: when a witness claims that the memory is as clear as the day that it occured….it’s not.
11. The level of stress that a witness has or did experience: stress has a negative impact on memory.
    

Lack of consistency in recalling the details of an event, does not mean that a witness is not credible. Research shows that the other elements recalled by witnesses could be accurate. Equally, just because someone seems super-confident in their recollections, it doesn’t mean that their memories are more accurate than someone feeling less confident.

It should also be noted that many of the above (but not number 5) are “honest memory errors”. As such, witnesses should not be berated for their mistakes in accurately recalling an event, as human beings are unable to spot what is a “real memory” and what part of the memory has been contaminated, unconsciously. And witnesses won’t recall every part of an event – they will only recall what was relevant to them at the time.

I should quickly mention that Reisberg makes a disclaimer: that despite the concerns around memory error, memories are often more accurate than they are inaccurate. So, maybe I’m over-thinking the need for a checklist?

Removing the personal element of investigations

Last week I wrote about how much I enjoy Malcolm Gladwell’s books. I’m currently half-way through “Talking to Strangers”, and frankly it’s making me think that I will never trust my judgement or anyone else’s again. I’m hoping that by the end Gladwell puts some positive spin on the topic or provides an uplifting, aspirational conclusion.

The book focuses on how meeting someone in person can influence your thoughts and perceptions about them, in a favourable way. For example, in 1938, Chamberlain met Hitler following which he believed that Hitler was not intent on starting a second world war (no spoilers: Chamberlain was wrong). Gladwell details many fascinating (and at times complex) stories of how people have been decieved, because we like to see the good in others.

Gladwell refers back to a story he told in a previous book (I’m not sure which one…maybe Blink), about “blind” orchestra auditions reducing unconscious gender bias . He then talks about a piece of research in the US around “blind” arraignment* decisions which caught my attention. Normally, a judge will review the documentation in front of him – the details of the offense and the mitgation/evidence surrounding it, following which the judge will meet the alleged criminal. Most likely a few questions will be asked of the alleged criminal, from which the judge will make a decision as to whether the individual should be formally charged and what the bail conditions will be.

A computer programme with a complex algorithm was developed to analyse the documentation and determine what the decision should be around formal charges and bail conditions (essentially the judge’s job). An analysis of computer-driven decisions and those made in “real life” by a judge were compared. It is important to note that the “success” of the decision was determined based on subsequent outcomes – did the alleged criminal adhere to their bail conditions etc.

The analysis demonstrated that the computer-driven decisions were considered to be more “accurate” than those made by judges – who had actually met the alleged criminal. This led researchers to believe that judges are unconsciously influenced when they meet and speak to alleged criminals, and this negatively impacts their ability to make sound decisions.

I think that this research is fascinating: as an investigator I frequently inform clients that I will not make a final conclusion on the evidence that has come to light until I have taken time to write it down and presented in a logical manner. I have learnt from experience that my “gut” isn’t always right, and it’s only when I’ve spent time with the evidence collected that I feel able to draw balanced and unbiased conclusions.

It then led me to think about whether investigations should be managed in a different way, to reduce this bias further. My proposal is as follows: each case would need two investigators. One investigator would be responsible for liaising with and interviewing witnesses. The other investigator would be responsible for undertaking the desk top analysis of all the evidence presented. There would need to be collaboration between the two: to ensure that the right questions were asked (and in the right way, obviously), and when follow-up is needed with witness when gaps in the evidence have been identified. From an external perspective, I don’t believe that this methodology would be any more expensive than the current methods we use in my organisation.

However, a drawback might be that the investigator is unable to provide advice on the more subtle aspects of a case. For example, how easy is it to spot the lack of emotional regulation when this has not been directly witnessed (by investigator 2)? Informing a manager that one of their team would benefit from support around emotional regulation is, in my opinion, helpful advice. The advice doesn’t just address the issue in hand, but also helps to prevent any future incidents – where is where we, as external investigators can add value.

I’m hoping that I come across more research about this in my reading which will shed more insight into this phenomenon. I’ll keep you posted.

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*an arraignment is when the court formally charges the alleged criminal and sets bail conditions.

Hit vs Smash. The impact of leading questions on memory recollection

Through my reading about memory investigations, I’ve recently come across the same piece of research twice: undertaken by Loftus and Palmer in 1974, the research shows how the phrasing of a question can impact on a witnesses recollection.

In brief: witnesses were asked to watch a short film clip of two cars who collide. Afterwards, the witnesses were asked to recall their memories, in detail, of what they had watched. For one set, the witnesses were asked “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” The other set were asked “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?”

By changing just one word, the answers of the two groups differed: Group A (the “hit” team) suggested a slower speed than those in Group B (the “smash” team). The researchers concluded that the use of a subjective word, such as “smash” had a demonstrable (and potentially erroneous) impact on witnesses’ recollections.

None of the witnesses were conscious that the way the question had been asked influenced their answer. We are all triggered unconsciously by language. As investigators it is important that we are not just neutral in our mindset, but how we ensure neutrality through our language when we interview witnesses.

Equally, as investigators we can also be triggered by language. Investigators should pick up on emotive or subjective words and question the witness further: what to they mean? how can they qualify that statement further? Sometimes, emotive language is useful witness testimony – and you wouldn’t expect a witness to be neutral through-out their interview.

From time to time, I suspect that we, as investigators, will make assumptions when we hear emotive language – that we know what a witness means because we have also observed the same. We should still stop and ask. Otherwise, we could be accused of overlaying the witness testimony with our own unconsious bias.

Meditation & decision making

I’m readng David Robson’s book “The Intelligence Trap”. It’s like the books that Malcolm Gladwell writes (and for the record, I enjoy Gladwell’s books) but with a bit more academic theory thrown in.

I’ve picked up loads of interesting points about decision making, leading me to think about how this influences the management of workplace investigations and the outcomes of disciplinaries or grievances. But the one that has struck me most is around emotional regulation.

Robson’s point is that you are more likely to make better decisions if you are skilled at recognising your own emotions and taking appropriate strategies to manage them. This is beyond emotional intelligence – it’s about sophisticated emotional regulation.

There are a number of ways that Robson suggests that you build up your ability to self-regulate your emotions – but the key one is meditation. He advises that you spend 5 – 10 minutes a day in meditation (or mindfulness) and within a matter of weeks you will find that you are able to step back when you feel triggered, or you’re more able to take a deep breath and think about your response instead of launching into an argument with a challenging colleague.

This leads me to think that if we built in a 5 minute mindfulness moment before making a decision as to whether someone should be subject to formal proceedings or not, would we make bettter decisions? The same goes for the Chair of a disciplinary or grievance hearing. If the proceedings started with 5 minutes of mindfulness, how impactful would this be? Would all parties listen to each other better? Would more insightful questions be asked? Would more appropriate decisions be made? The research seems to suggest that they would.

I’m a big fan of mindfulness. I practice it every day before I go to sleep. In an ideal world, I’d like to implement this in an organisation and see what happens. But whilst I’m trying to persuade one of my clients to do this, I’m going to try and ensure that I spend 5 – 10 minutes in mindfulness before I attend any challenging meetings and see what impact it has for me personally.

George Floyd: how far have we come?

This week the news has been dominated by the outcome of the George Floyd court case in America and I’ve been reading the debates around this topic (what does it mean? what does it matter? what happens now?). Without doubt, it is a significant moment in US history that the abusive behaviour of a white policeman towards a non-white individual has been examined and found wanting in a legal environment.

However, this phenomenon (of abusive white police officers) won’t disappear overnight due to the outcome of one court case. The issue is more complex than that, and there is still so much more work to do both over in the States and here at home in the UK.

What is more depressing is that it’s taken so long just to get to this point in history. We’ve been talking about micro-aggressions, a less obvious and more sublte form of discrimination since the 1970s. (or maybe earlier – I just haven’t found that reference yet!).

I came across an article from Mary P Rowe, written in 1990: Barriers to Equality: The Power of Subtle Discrimination to Maintain Unequal Opportunity. In Rowe’s article, she has no academic studies to rely on to prove her point: all she has are her observations as a consultant working with organisations. The examples she describes are familiar, although I’d like to think that some of them no longer happen (e.g. showing porn during the evening segment of a conference).

However, Mary’s observations have been validated through research (such as Sue’s – which I have written about before):

• that the unconscious bias of manager can lead to their behaviour being less than appropriate or professional. Or as Rowe says: “predisposes a manager to even worse behavior”.
• That “the senior person has little idea what the “invisible people” actually contribute”.
• The “negative Pygmalion” effect: in that if managers don’t expect a particular employee to perform, it is likely that they will live up to that expectation – and not perform to a standard that they are truly capable of.
• That the employee who is subject to unconscious bias will spend time and energy trying to understand and dealing with the personal impact: it “takes a lot of energy to deal with an environment perceived as hostile, or it takes lots of energy to maintain one’s level of denial of difficulties”.
• That it is a challenge to erradicate “micro-aggressions”, as the “slights are culturally so “normal” that they simply are not noticed” (by the aggressor).

Rowe talks about the “intermittent, unpredictable, “negative reinforcement,” of micro-aggressions“, that leaves the reciever feeling powerless as they cannot change their gender or race. The powerlessness, coupled with the sense of uncertanty can lead to “misplaced” anger – which could re-inforce the stereotypes held by the manager.

There is one observation within Rowe’s paper where it is clear that we have moved on as a society. In 1990, Rowe talks about how individuals often look for, but are unable to determine, the intent of the aggressor. We now know that the intent is not something that is always conscious. The phrase “unconscious bias” is what I would consider to be common parlance in today’s workplace.

We’ve also moved on in terms of our understanding of what consitutes power. Rowe comments that “it is generally the less powerful who have most difficulties in coping with inequities, since less powerful people by definition have less influence“. We now understand through the work of Sue, that the less powerful are the marginalised group, and it is hard for the marginalised to challenge the power of the majority.

And more importantly, in 1990, Rowe discussed how those who feel aggreieved found it hard to seek support from others, even from their own background, because in their responses, they would perpetuate the micro-aggression. That has definitely changed. Today we see how powerful informal support networks are. Would we have seen the same result from the George Floyd trial without the Black Lives Matter movement?

Interestingly, Rowe talks about the disproportionate means by which those who feel aggrieved can take action – by means of raising grievances or making a legal complaint. Nowadays, we try to encourage informal resolution, looking at restorative justice, mediation, facilitated discussions etc. But those mechanisms – in the form of grievances and Employment Tribunals – still exist.

Rowe’s solution, back in 1990, is education through raising awareness about micro-aggressions and how to identify and respond to allegations of discrimination, encouraging employee networks, and developing mentorship schemes for all staff (not just those who are perceived to be talented). It is reassuring at least that many medium to large organisations have taken these suggestions and put them into practice. However, what is less reassuring is that three-fifths of employees work for a small business, who do not have the same level of access to training, networks and mentoring arrangements.

Most importantly Rowe suggests that we should talk to each – to recognise and value our differences, especially with someone who isn’t like ourself. We can all do this regardless of who we work for. We’ve started this journey, but there’s more work to be done…..

Perspicacity

I’ve recently been reading the work of Derald Wing Sue – an exciting and prestigious Amercian academic. Sue has a way of writing that brings research to life, putting it into context using layman’s terms. Today she has introduced a new word to me: Perspicacity.

The definition, coined by Sternberg in 1990 is:

the power of accurate perception; allows the person to see beyond the obvious, to read between the lines, to not be easily fooled, and to intuitively understand the motives, intent, and meaning of others.

Many employees possess perspicacity. It occurs when there is a power imbalance, or in lay-man terms – being in an employee-manager relationship. You know when you are demonstrating perspicacity when you can anticipate your boss’ decisions, or you can read their mind. You can do this because you’ve spent time, consciously or unconsciously studying your boss. When you have perspicacity, you will consider your relationship with your manager to be working well, as you feel the synergy between your perceptions and reality.

In Sue’s research, she highlights that people of colour have a heightened sense of perspicacity, particularly when growing up and living in a white (or read Western) culture. With perspicacity, an individual is more heightened to unconscious biases. This can also lead to a greater sense of mistrust.

I think that the fact that there is a word for this phenomenon is interesting, as there doesn’t appear to be one for the opposite phenomenon about those in power, also described by Sue, who “don’t need to understand disempowered groups to survive or do well“. As such, Sue asserts that often the reality of the disempowered (or those lower down the ranks in employment terms) is the most accurate.

In workplace investigations, how often do we listen to the employee, but prefer “the version of events” provided by the manager, because we consider them to be more knowledgeable (a perception earned by status – or is that power?). We are taught to be objective in investigations, but when we are asked to determine “on the balance of probabilities”, and after weighting the credibility of witness evidence, to what extent are we also considering our unconscious bias? Or the power imbalance, and how that affects perceptions?

In the NHS, are are significantly more people of colour in the lower bands of pay than in the higher bands, and I don’t believe that there has been any significant work on recognising their perspicacity and its benefits.. My suggestion is that NHS Trusts should ensure, through their policies and procedures (and the associated training) that their managers undestand how the power balance can impact on decisions, the existence of perspicacity and how to approrpiately weight evidence. This could result in less discriminatory behaviour.

Unpeeling the Diversity Onion

I like a good graphic, and the Diversity Onion particularly appeals to me (although I haven’t been able to find out who to attribute it to – please let me know!).

I’ve seen different versions, with the outer layer “Cultural” being omitted. But the premise is that people are more comfortable with the outer layers, particularly when it comes to understanding others.

When undertaking workplace investigations, the organisational layer will be the internal investigator’s comfort zone. These elements (role, union affiliation, deparment etc) are all facts and cannot be disputed.

However, an investigator may start to feel uncomfortable if they start delving into the external and internal factors and might just question the relevance of asking questions around status or experience. But without unpeeling those layers of the onion, how can we, as an investigator, feel assured that we have sought to understand the issue from the employee’s perspective? Just because the questions make us feel uncomfortable, it shouldn’t stop us from asking them.

It should be recognised that part of the “uncomfortableness” is an individual’s lack of confidence of asking questions that aren’t perceived to be inappropriate in some way. In large organisations, investigators are chosen for their skill set, or that fact that they are considered to have good interpersonal skills and have experience of managing diverse teams. But in smaller organisations, where conduct issues also arise, can the owner/manager feel so confident that the person they’re asking to investigate has the right skill set?

(You could ask does it matter? The answer is always, Yes).

From my perspective, the issue is complex because the diversity of workplace investigations is massive. As an expert workplace investigator, I am commmissioned to undertake complex, challenging and sensitive investigation. I see one extreme. But I am aware, because this is how I learnt my trade, that there are many more investigations being undertaken each day which are simple in nature: a theft, an employee who has gone AWOL.

The research shows that unconscious bias occurs when there is a lack of understanding and that could happen in any investigation, irrespective of it’s simplicity or compexity. Investigation principles are covered by ACAS, and therefore, should understanding the inner layers of the onion be a compulsory part of an investigation? I doubt that would ACAS ever go that far. I could be wrong.

Measuring unconscious bias – lessons from the Police

When considering unconscious bias in workplace investigations, I’m specifically looking at the measures used in the NHS. Every year, NHS Trusts have to provide data through their Workforce Race Equality Scorecard (WRES) on the number of staff who have been disciplined between the 1st April – 31st March, broken down into two categories: White and BAME staff. This data shows that porportionally BAME staff are more likely to be disciplined than White staff, and there is an active drive by NHS England to remove this bias. It is assumed (and I think that it’s untested) that these figures & the unequal treatment of BAME staff is due to unconsoius bias.

Targets have been set by NHS England as to the “optimal” balance between White and BAME staff who are subject to disciplinary procedures. But my query is how was that target determined?

A similar debate has been had in policing, where racial profiling is a public concern, particularly in the States. However, with policing, there are more elements within the processs of managing illegal acts/criminality than there are with working investigations. Two researchers (Greg Ridgeway and John MacDonald) have studied the methods used to measure racial bias with the police and have found that there is not one optimal method that provides a definitive conclusion.

One approach, which is attributed to the media, is external benchmarking. For example, 32% of the BAME population have been charged with an offence, but the BAME population on represents 12% of the total population. These figures show a wide disparity in the percentages. Ridgeway and Macdonald have found that not only is this disparity common, “such statistics promote the conclusion that there is evidence of racial bias in police decision making”. In my view this is what the NHS has done when it has looked at its WRES data.

This is not denying that there could be racial bias, but any academic researcher will inform you that there are more factors that need to be taken into consideration. For example, to what extent are a particular group potentially exposed to scrutiny?

So when looking at external benchmarking, such simplistic conclusions need to be viewed with caution.

In the NHS, employees are encouraged to raise what is referred to as a DATIX when an adverse incident has ocurred. For example, if there has been a drug medication error, or a patient has lost a significant amount of blood during surgery, or if a patient/relative has been aggressive or violent towards a member of staff. Each incident is subject to an informal fact-find, following which areas for improvement, or “lessons learnt” are identified, accompanied by an action plan for implementation. Anyone can raise a DATIX (after recieving training), and it is positively encouraged as part of the NHS’s drive to promote a culture of candour. However, I’m not aware of any Trust undertaking an analysis of the workforce population, to see if there are certain groups who are more likely to raise DATIX’s than others (and equally, if the DATIX is about another member of staff, what proportion of those are BAME staff?). The act of raising a DATIX isn’t currently subject to such scrutiny and could also, potentially be subject to unconscious bias.

Other approaches for examining racial profiling in the police include direct observation (e.g. the infamous Lamberth research of the New Jersey Turnpike), or looking at a micro-level – where each police officer’s track record is compared to a colleague in a similar role to identify any variants: these are not applicable in workplace investigations. Using internal benchmarks is non-sense as the data being benchmarked itself could be racially biased – and therefore perputate the myth of “the statistics are valid”.

One option that Ridgeway and MacDonald put fowards is for police officers to be “race-blind” – to make decisions without knowing the race of the “suspect”. However, they feel that this would not be possible IRL. However, in workplace investigations, and similar to the approach taken in recruitment, initial decisions around whether a case should be formally investigated or not could be presented without any information that could determine the employee’s race. Which brings us back, full circle, to the point I made a few weeks ago in my post on “name-ism”.

Microaggressions as a manifestation of unconscious bias

We regularly hear the phrase “microaggressions” in our every day conversations, but do we always understand what it means?

According to Derald Wing Sue, “microaggressions target negativity to marginalised groups”(2007) and there are three types of microaggressions:

1. Microinsults: compliments which are loaded with unconscious bias
2. Microinvalidation: a dismissive comment which has discriminatory undertones
3. Microaggression: overt (and often conscious) verbal comment that intends to harm/upset

What is more alarming is that Sue’s research shows that the most harmful forms of microaggresson are made by those who are most unaware that they demonstrating such behaviours. According to Sue’s findings, the more a person believes that they are a “good, moral and decent” person, the more likely that they will struggle to understand their own prejudices and how they manifest themselves through micro-aggressions. It is believed that the reason for this is that gaining such awareness would challenge a person’s belief system in terms of how they see themselves. As Sue succinctly comments, it “threatens their self-image”.

The other challenge that Sue has observed through her research is the invisibility of microaggressions to the majority group. It is those that are marginalised that are more likely to identify microaggressions, but they are also the most disempowered and therefore unable to effectively challenge the behaviours. Equally, those responsible for the microaggressions are in a position of power, but Sue believes that they frequent deny the existence of inappropriate behaviours, such as microaggressions, because ultimately, this would be a challenge to their position, power and associated benefits.

In terms of the workplace, and in particular, workplace investigations, it is therefore of vital importance that marginalised groups are actively involved in the decision making process. Being able to hear their voice, to hear their perception of reality and using it to make appropriate decisions regarding an employee’s future is an important factor in reducing unconscious bias.

I was talking to an NHS Trust yesterday and I specifically asked them about what steps they were taking to reduce any unconscious bias in their workplace investigations. The response was detailed, with a clear procedure designed to make sure that only the cases where it is felt “appropriate” are formally investigated. But I didn’t learn about how marginalised groups were engaged in devising what is essentially a desk-top exercise, or how they are contributing to the (almost!) weekly decisions about who should be subject to formal disciplinary proceedings and who shouldn’t.

To be fair, they might be….I just didn’t hear it in our conversation yesterday and I didn’t want to delve too deeply as challenging unconscious bais wasn’t the topic of the meeting. However, the day before I had reviewed their progress to reduce unconscious bias in the disciplinary procesess (see WRES score) and they haven’t made as much progress as other Trusts. This may be the reason why. Maybe this is a conversation for another day.

If you want to read more about Sue’s research, check out her book: Microaggressions in every day life.

What happens before the start?

Sometimes my brian doesn’t work as fast as it should. That is not an apology for what I’m about to say, or an excuse. Just an explanation.

It’s late at night, I’m in bed and I thinking about Lecioni’s Trust Pyramid and its impact /influence on employee relations. We know that the trust between an employee and their employer is often broken during a formal HR investigation (where the employee is either the subject of disciplinary allegations, bullying and harassment allegations or has raised a grievance).

More specifically, I was thinking about the trust in the relationship between the employee and their manager prior to any disciplinary allegations being made. Are allegations more likely to be made if there’s already a breakdown in trust?

And then I remembered my post the other day about Social Contagion – which was about what happens when people are “othered”. When someone is “othered” there will always be less trust between them and the person who has “othered” them (e.g. the manager), compared to the individuals who are part of the “in-group”.

As a manager, are you aware that you trust those that you have “othered” less? Are you aware that the language that you use about them changes because they are “othered”? And what is the impact on an intervention to stop unconscoius bias in a disciplinary process, which relies on you, the manager, to detail why a particular employee (the one that you have “othered”) should be subject to a disciplinary process? Do those who are reviewing the cases that are subject to disiplinary proceedings considering the “before”? Are they considering the potential unconscious bias of the manager presenting the case?

Therefore, to stop unconscious bias in the disciplinary process, we need to look at what happens before……

…….I told you at the start that I should have reached this conclusion sooner.

Perception of Fairness

I’ve learnt after undertaking hundreds of investigations, that if I do the following two things, the employee is more likely to accept the to outcome. (I say “more likely” as it’s not always the case!)

The first is allowing the employee to feel that they have been able to voice their concerns, fully.

The second is showing I have heard their concerns and these are reflected in the investigation report, in a balanced way.

So, I was very interested to read this weekend that there had been some research in the States that looked at procedural fairness.

In this research, by Jonathan Casper (& others), the authors looked at the perceptions of criminals on the procedural fairness of their convinction. They learnt that the “felon” was more likely to accept the verdict of their crime if their lawyer had spent more time with them pre-trial. There was no correlation between the severity of the verdict in proportion to the crime. The perception was based on the lawyer’s behaviour towards them, in demonstrating that they wanted to fully listent to the felon’s perspective on the issue and their concerns.

Another conclusion that Casper and colleagues made was that procedural shortcuts were met with “unanticipated hostility”. I’m aware that the Police use the “Pre-Charge Expedited” approach when a criminal has already pleaded guilty – introduced to save time in court & therefore tax-payers money. I have also seen a similar approach in some NHS Trust’s disciplinary policies. I’ve always felt uncomfortable when I’ve seen this in a discipinary procedure (regardless of whether the trade unions have agreed to it’s introduction), because it doesn’t follow the ACAS guidelines, and I have advised Trusts not to exercise this part of the policy for the case that I’m investigating.

Interstingly, in their book, Sway: the irresistible pull of irrational behaviour, Ori & Rom Brafman dicuss how the perception of fairness varies in different countries, giving examples of Russia, France and the United States. I don’t know (yet) how the British culture impacts on the perception of fairness, but I would be intersted to know.

The Brafman’s also discuss how the extent to which an individual is updated on a particular matter also influences the perception of fairness (and by default how much the other person trusts you). I always believe in regularly updating my client on how a case is progressing, but I won’t necessarily do that for the person at the centre of the investigation.

The take-home point here is that the behaviour of the investigator is of vital importance when undertaking workplace investigations, perhaps more than we realised. The onus is on the investigator to not only ensure that they are following the correct procedure and that they undertake a robust, objectve and balanced investigation, but that they are taking time to listen to those involved and to communicate with them regularly with progress updates. And don’t take any short-cuts.

Erradicating “name-ism” in workplace investigations

It is well researched that “name-ism” (that is, making a judgement on someone’s background, in terms of gender, race, social class, country of origin etc) has a negative impact during recruitment. Many (if not most!) organisations now have processes in place where an individual’s application is anonymised so that the recruiters cannot make judgements – conscious or unconscious, about them.

However, this concept has not yet been applied to workplace investigations; in the NHS it is known that BAME staff are more likely to be disciplined than white staff. NHS Trusts have put interventions in place to try and reduce this bias, but I’m not aware of any intervention that has chosen to anonymise the case – from the point when the decision to take disciplinary action, to undertaking the investigation (and therefore the analysis), to holding the disciplinary hearing.

In recruitment processes, the shortlisting element is a desk-top exercise, so it’s easy for organisations to withhold an applicant’s name at this stage of the process to reduce any unconscious bias. However, there is no equivalent in workplace investigations. Some NHS Trusts have implemented the pre-disciplinary checklist, which is an additional stage to the workplace investigation process. However, I haven’t yet see any pre-disciplinary checklist that doesn’t contain the employee’s name.

The investigative process is front-loaded with face to face meetings, followed by a period of desk-time when interview notes are drafted, documents reviewed, leading to the analysis of the findings and the drafting of the report. Realistically, I don’t think that it’s feasible to undertake a workplace investigation without seeing the individual(s) concerned. The face to face contact (even if it is through MS Teams or Zoom) is an important part of the process. You observe the body language, and ask supplementary questions which are inspired by the non-verbal communication being “spoken” within the interview. The face to face contact is also important for establishing rapport, encouraging the interviewee to open up and provide useful evidence – more so than if the transaction occured via email or in response to written Q&As. And even more importantly, during the face to face meeting, the investigator seeks to demonstrate the credibility of the process through the way that they manage the interview: if an employee believes that the investigator has undertaken an objective and empathetic investigation, they are less like to find fault with it, or dispute the findings. I also can’t imagine a disciplinary hearing where you don’t have the individual in the room.

Name-ism is about race, origins, family background, gender, identity. The research shows that “easy-to-pronounce” names (and the bearer of that name) are more favourably viewed than those who have “difficult-to-pronounce” names. (For the record, I have little patience for those who choose to shorten a colleagues name as they find the original “too hard to say”). Shortening someone’s name so that it’s “easier” only seeks to devalue that colleague; it’s disrespectful. But equally harmful is mispronouncing a name. By doing so, you’re letting this colleague know that their culture (and therefore they, themselves) are not as equal as you. So for all these reasons, we need to make sure that when we’re undertaking workplace investigations (or even deciding to commence formal proceedings) that we are aware of the potential to be baised, just based on the name of that individual.

Social Contagion: can you catch it?

I was reflecting on a disciplinary investigation that I undertook a few years ago. I recently heard that the employee had moved to a new organisation and was doing really well. I was pleased to hear this as I had a sense that he was being “othered” in his old job, which is why he ended up being subject to disciplinary allegations.

Let’s call this guy Thom. Thom had worked in a mental health ward for 15 years. But in 15 years he didn’t make any friends with any of the other staff on the ward. Thom came to work, worked hard on every shift, and kept to himself. There were no problems with his performance or his conduct. After 15 years he had a “clean sheet”.

I met Thom when he had been accused of mistreating a patient. As is usual practice in most hospitals, Thom was moved to another ward for the duration of the investigation. Whilst working on the new ward a second complaint came in, this time about his attitude towards another member of staff.

It turned out that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Thom had mistreated the patient. It could have been Thom, but it could also have been one of his three other colleauges on shift that day.

What I learnt during the investigation is that Thom had been “othered”. The Occupational Therapists told me that “they knew about Thom and kept away from him”. So when they learnt that a patient was mistreated, they assumed it was Thom who was responsible. The new ward staff knew that Thom had been moved to their ward because of an incident, and so they were also on the “look out” for any adverse incidents involving Thom – and then one occured and they quickly reported it.

It was clear that this was a case of Social Contagion: this is when ideas, impressions, feelings and beliefs spread across a “population”. In this instance the population were those working in the hospital. Thom had not taken steps to ingratiate himself with his colleauges, choosing to keep his distance, and in this way he was part of the “out-group”. Social contagion is greatest when applied to those in “out-groups”. So when something went wrong, it was assumed that Thom was responsible, twice.

If Thom hadn’t been “othered” and if the social contagion hadn’t spread across professions and different clinical areas, then Thom most likely wouldn’t have faced any disciplinary action. The facts would have been established first, and Thom would not have been subject to weeks of anxiety, wondering if he would be able to keep his job.

Social contagion is directly linked to unconscious bias. We need to be mindful of this when determinig whether or not a case merits a formal disciplinary investigation. Are we really looking at the facts, or are we listening to our gut and the informal intelligence that permeates our organisation?

Behaviour as a function of the person and the environment: Kurt Lewin

I first heard of Kurt Lewin when I was studying for my CIPD qualifications some 20 (*cough*) years ago. We were taught the “Change Management Model” of the three states of change (Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze). I have to admit that when I was young, enthusiastic, naive, I didn’t appreciate this model. I thought it was too simple, too obvious. I have a few more miles on the clock now and its simplicity is its strength. I’m advising a client later today on what actions they can take to resolve the dysfunction that they’re currently facing in their team, and one of my recommendations is a practical version of this Kurt Lewin model. Using the model will help me explain exactly why they need to take certain actions and why it will be successful.

But I didn’t intend to talk about Kurt Lewin’s three states of change in this post. Instead, I wanted to discuss a different Kurt Lewin theory that I’ve recently come across.

B = f (P , E)

Principles of Topological Psychology

“P” refers to the Person. Every person brings their own set of experiences and that makes them unique.

“E” refers to the Environment. In the workplace, the “E” might be considered to the constant in this equation, as everyone is working in the same environment.

“f” refers to the function: that is, the function of the Person in that Environment.

“B” refers to the behaviour displayed.

What this formula is saying is that because everyone is different, the behaviour displayed by individuals within the same environment will differ.

So, one person might grow up being taught that it’s important to follow the rules, and in doing so, they will be rewarded (with promotion, advancement, opportunities?)

Another person migth be taught that the rules are a “guide” and following the rules may not be best way to get results.

With two different sets of “P”s, the behaviours displayed by each individual will be different. And because their “P” is different, they may not understand the other’s perspective.

Quite often when we are undertaking workplace investigations, we are looking at the rules: to what extent did the employee breach them? I also look to internally benchmark the behaviour: do people know the rules, do they generally follow them, and are individuals held to account (or supported with appropriate coaching and development) when rules are breached?

But perhaps we should also be considering the “P”? What is it about that individual, their background, their experiences, that led them to allegedly breaching the rules?

And of course, bringing this all back to unconscious bias, to what extent do we, as managers, make assumptions about the “P” based on stereotypes and/or our own implicit bias? And how do we prevent this?

I don’t have the answer to these questions today……

The impact of stereotypes on the self

Research shows that if an individual is aware that they are the subject of a stereotype, this has a negative impact on them as an individual.

Let’s call our individual Joe. He’s recently joined a team of administrators

Joe is a young, black male and he is working within a team of females, ranging from 30 – 55 years old. 8 of the team are white, and the other person in the team (apart from Joe) is Asian.

Whether the other women demonstrate it or not, Joe will be accutely aware of the potential of being negatively stereotyped – either because of his age, his race, or because he’s both.

The impact on Joe may not be obvious, but the research shows that if Joe thinks that his colleagues might be applying a potentially negative stereotype to him, he will become anxious and stressed; he will start actively proving that he can do the job, trying to suppress any negative thoughts.

But Joe is at a disadvantage. Because he’s aware of being potentially stereotyped, his heart rate rises, and his blood pressure increases along with his cortisol levels (as he’s fighting off a perceived threat). This has a negative impact on Joe’s ability to perform, his ability to remember, and his ability to focus.

This leaves Joe in a vulnerable position. He’s trying so hard but his body’s response to fear fails him.

So when Joe makes a mistake, how do we respond as managers?

Are we aware of what is happening with Joe, or do we just see the “facts”: that Joe has made a mistake.

We can all be stereotyped, and so we might all find ourselves in “Joe’s” position at some point in our working lives. We may not be consciously aware that we perceive the stereotype that we’re fighting as a threat. In turn, we may not realise how it’s impacting us and our performance. And if it happened to us, how would you like others to treat you?

It doesn’t matter what the situation, I’m learning that all roads lead back to the one piece of advice that I regular give: take your time to find out what’s going on. Don’t jump to conclusions. Speak to the person involved. Listen, and try to understand. Show empathy and compassion.

Three Theories about why we have implicit bias

Have you ever thought about why we have unconscious or implicit bias? It’s useful to think about as this could impact on your management approach – particularly in challenging staffing situations.

Evolutionary Pyschologists have developed 3 theories, which are as follows:

Firstly, Error Management Theory: this is where your brain misleads you, due to your environment to think X . However, if you were in a different environment, you would think Y – which is the more accurate and appropirate conclusion to make in the circumstances. As such, your brain draws conclusions which are not accurate, or could be described as “false positives”. And at times these conclusions could be prejudicial or stigmitising. It can lead people to “other”, ostracising or isolating others.

In the workplace, you will often see a group of people ostracising the team member who isn’t quite like them, who doesn’t following the same set of unwritten rules. Is a manager more likely to discipline a team member who they consider to be an “other”, than some they share an affinity with?

Secondly, Artefact Theory: implicit bias occurs when you find youself working with an employee working who doesn’t share the same values, attitudes or approach. This theory also covers situations when a set of workplace expectations are applied, but they are not aligned with the employee’s understanding of these workplace expectations.

More simply put: A young person who has not had a job before may not realise the importance or necessity to arrive at work on time every day. However, it is an unwritten expectation of the workplace that employees rock up for work on time, ready to work the hours that they previously agreed with their manager. Our young person will soon find themselves subject to informal disciplinary proceedings for timekeeping. But is that the right action to take?

Lastly, Heuristic Theory: My way of explaining this theory, which is attributed to Daniel Kahneman, is to consider it as “System 1” thinking (which is also Kahneman). Whilst it’s important to think on our feet, sometimes the lack of care in truly understanding a situation can lead to decisions being made which may not be appropriate.

In my mind, this theory is interlinked with the other two. By jumping to conclusions based on a lack of understanding of another’s perspective, and outside the right context, you have the potential to display unconscious bias. The NHS has tried to tackle this with the introduction of pre-disciplinary checklists. This makes the decision making move from System 1 to System 2, and then, hopefully, more balanced decisions are made about whether an issue should be managed formally or not.

My first thoughts were that if unconscious bias is considered to be a by-product of our evolutionary development, then why does it impact us in the today’s society, in the workplace? Is it because subconsciously we’re all fighting for “survival” on a daily basis at work? But looking at the examples above, my thoughts have led me to ask: as managers, are we being clear about our expectations with our team? Are we seeking to understand those who are different from us, so we can try to see the world from their perspective? And how often are we leaping to conclusions instead of stopping, thinking, finding out more information, etc before we reach our conclusions?

The three theories that has inspired this blog post can be found in Pragya Agarwa’s excellent book: Sway: unravelling unconscious bias. The book is written in the style of Malcolm Gladwell: easy to read whilst making some excellent points.

Definiton of Intersectionality

About three months ago, my colleague and I were looking for a good defintion of intersectionality. Clearly, we knew what it meant. We had read Kimberlé Crenshaw’s seminal essay (which is fascinating, but not helpful in providing a definition). But it took us a while to find a reputable, credible definition of what intersectionality means. This is what we finally settled on:

The United Nations definition of Intersectionality, following the Durban conference on racism in 2001

“An intersectional approach to analysing the disempowerment and marginalisation of women attempts to capture the consequences of the interaction between two or more forms of subordination. It addresses the manner in which racism, patriarchy, class oppression and other discriminatory systems create inequalities that structure the relative positions of women, races, ethnicities, class and the like……Racially subordinated women are often positioned in the space where racism or xenophobia, class and gender meet”.

Causes of Workplace Drama

I’ve recently come across Patti Perez’s book “The Drama-Free Workplace: How You Can Prevent Unconscious Bias, Sexual Harassment, Ethics Lapses, and Inspire a Healthy Culture”. It is perhaps one of the most interesting books I’ve read for a while. Patti has a common sense approach, rather than academic, and she makes some very interesting points. Whilst the book centres on sexual harassment, the issues that are explored could be applied to a range of misconduct situations or teams with a poor workplace culture.

Patti talks early on in her book about the causes of workplace drama, which can be summarised as:

1. Inauthentic leadership
2. Communication gaps
3. Increased division (amongst individuals)
4. Culture of complicity
5. Lack of transparency
6. Persistent confusions
7. Problem solving deficit
8. Blind Spots (think Johari Window)
9. Unwillingness to admit wrong-doing
10. Wrong Solution

I think that this is a great list and I’m still thinking about whether there is anything else I would add to it (currently, I have nothing!)

The key theme underlying most of these points is around skills gap: knowing how to problem solve; knowing what you can and can’t say whilst creating an environment of transparency; how to give feedback and actively listen to your team; how to have courage to tackle inappropirate behaviour in a way that has a positive outcome. I could go on.

My observation, as a workplace investigator, is that management do not often see the issues as part of the wider picture – in that the environment they have created has either contributed or prevented the “workplace drama”. Instead, the focus is on the actual incidents themselves. Although there is always an outcome to confirm “what most likely happened and why” with that particular issue, I’m not convinced that employers spend time considering what has been learnt, what needs to change and applying that to the entire organisation. And if there is a period of reflection and learning, to what extent is that done in an inclusive approach?

I could discuss each point in detail, but I’m thinking that I’d rather save that for future blog posts.