I’m presenting an on-demand webinar for PM.com on Coping Strategies for Dealing with Bullying on September 16. It’s a follow up to the first webinar on Bullying in Project Management provided on July 22. Over 1200 attended the first event. I hope we can fill all 1500 places in this follow up event.
I hope you can attend and look forward to hearing your stories and feedback.
I contributed to an ethics article about lessons learned documentation in our projects written by Thomas Walenta, PMI Fellow.
It opens our eyes to how ethical considerations filter into our daily professional activities.
My thanks to Thomas for asking for my engagement with this article.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality”.
Desmond Tutu, Social Rights Activist and retired Archbishop, South Africa
This quote applies to bullies as well as it applies to elephants. Bullying can be as harmful in the workplace and on projects as it is in schools and other areas of soceity causing the well understood harmful physical and emotional impacts plus a long list of challenges for project managers and the organizations where it is taking place. Sadly, the rates of workplace bullying across the globe, despite efforts to eliminate it, are increasingly dramatically. Projects are subsets of workplaces and since project management is, for the most part, an activity that involves working very closely with others, the impact of a bully in a project is potentially lethal to project success.
There is also an important connection between the “Neutrality isn’t an option” expression and ethics. The PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct included as part of the standard for Responsibility the statement “We report any illegal or unethical conduct. ” In other words, the Code says that neutrality isn’t an option.
I received this question from a recent webinar attendee:
“I have been told by a Human Resources Director that workplace bullying is not called bullying but a different term, but I can’t recall it. Do you know the term?”
Some organizations prefer to use more neutral terms and are shy to give workplace bullying such a direct identifier. I can understand this but I must also note that this doesn’t help prevent and address the issue when you water it down using less impactful terminology.
In many organizations, bullying falls into the broader language of a Workplace Respect Policy that stipulates what is unacceptable workplace behavior. With that in mind, I’ve seen organizations call it “workplace disrespect”, “unacceptable workplace behavior”, “workplace harassment”, and “rudeness”.
What is it called in your organization?
