Organizational Paranoia

Increase Your Paranoia

 Extremely Unpleasant
Organizational Behavior
Upset you
 Organizational Bullies
Origins and Dynamics of Abusive Behavior

Roderick M. Kramer
Stanford Business School
London 2005
Who gets to the top?
How and why individuals
achieve power
How does being on top change people?

How power affects individuals

 Bullying Behavior

and there is the garden variety bully…

…and then there’s the “A List”
 Best of the Brutes
The Bully “Hall of Fame”

n Michael Eisner n Larry Summers

n J. Edgar Hoover n George Patton
n Robert McNamara n Dawn Steel
n Steve Jobs n Harvey Weinstein
n Larry Ellison n Lyndon Johnson
n Robert F. Kennedy n Martha Stewart
n Clarence Thomas n Richard Nixon
n Margaret Thatcher n Carly Fiorina
Conceptual Groundwork
 Bully
archaic

“a sweetheart…a fine chap!”

 Bully
contemporary meaning

“to browbeat into submission”

 Bullying Behavior*
*from the victim’s or observer’s perspective

n Experienced as intimidating and coercive

behavior.

n Construed as a form of abusive disrespect.

n Perceived as an unfair and exploitive use of power

or positional advantage.
Al Dunlap “sat at the table like an imperial
demagogue. He cheered his own past
accomplishments reminding the men that
he had done eight turnarounds on three
continents and Sunbeam would be his
ninth…’ It was like a dog barking at you
for hours…he just yelled, ranted, and
raved. He was condescending, belligerent,
and disrespectful.”

-- Description of Al Dunlap’s first meeting as

Sunbeam CEO with his executive team.
 Bullying Behavior

n Bullying behavior constitutes a boundary violation

(an assault on the integrity and dignity of the self)

n Often frightening, sometimes perceived as even

physically threatening or menacing
“To the petite [Stacy] Snider [Harvey
Weinstein] was “a fearsome sight—
his eyes dark and glowering, his
fleshy face unshaved, his belly jutting
forward half a foot or so ahead of his
body. He jabbed a finger at Snider’s
face and screamed, ‘You’re going to
go down for this!’ ”
“I yelled, perhaps too loudly.”

-- Weinstein commenting
on the incident afterwards
Why study bullying behavior?
 Costs of Bullying Behavior
n Bullying leaders and executives can
impose severe costs on organizations
u create toxic work environments
u Stifle critical debate and suppress dissent
u Inhibit creativity
u Promote prevention-focused orientations (“CYA”)
u Destroy social capital within the organization
 Costs of Bullying Behavior (cont.)

n Sometimes drive organizations over a cliff

n Sometimes drive themselves over the cliff

n Clinical considerations
u bullies are sometimes very talented even
brilliant individuals who are profoundly driven,
unhappy, alienated, and self-destructive
 Another way of thinking about the costs of bullies
The Social and Political Costs of Bullying

n Khrushchev effectively bullying JFK in Vienna, 1962 – laying the

foundation for a dramatic and tragically costly military build -up and
escalation of the nuclear arms race in the 1960s.

n Joseph McCarthy effectively bullying government officials and

witnesses during the Senate hearings on communists in government in
the 1950s – resulting in hundreds of derailed careers and wrecked
lives.

n LBJ effectively bullying…just about everybody he came into contact

with –by effectively cowing Congress, the Pentagon, and the State
Department for several years, LBJ sowed the seeds for the escalation
of the Vietnam war
 Places where bullying behavior
is particularly costly within organizations

n Negotiations

n Boardroom deliberations

n Strategic decision making contexts

n When dealing with organizational conflicts

What We Know About Bullying Behavior
n Survey Data
u Private organizations
u public institutions

n Case studies
u Clinical and journalistic accounts
u Legal cases

n Computer simulations
u Artificial agents simulating different orientations

n Laboratory Experiments and Field Studies

u related behaviors (hyper-competitiveness, aggression on
schoolyards)
 Demographics of Bullying*
*National and international surveys
n Women report more bullying behavior in organizations
than do men, and report higher levels of stress
compared to men.

n Women report more bullying by women than by men,

and men report more bullying by men (not counting
sexual harassment complaints).

n Both men and women report personal experiences with

victimization at high levels (often in 80% range).
 Demographics of Bullying*
*Stanford MBAs

n 86% report have worked directly for or

having been adversely affected by a person
they characterized as an organizational
bully (defined as an individual who “abused
his or her positional power”).
Equal Opportunity Behavior
How Bullies Tilt the Playing Field

Let a thousand abusive flowers bloom…

Physical Intimidators
Emotional Intimidators
Informational Intimidators
Thatcher was a “demon for information,
for research, for numbers. She devoured
them, she remembered them. She
commissioned them. Sometimes she may
have cited them selectively...”
-- Howard Gardner, Changing Minds.
Perfectionistic Intimidators
Passive-Aggressive Intimidators
“One moment he [Eisner] could be telling
someone to their [sic] face that he wanted
nothing more than to be in business with
them…that their project was going to be
the biggest deal of a lifetime…that this was
the beginning of a great partnership…the
next second [after the individual had left
the office] he could be telling an assistant,
‘Never let that guy through my door
again.’ ”
-- former assistant to Michael Eisner
Bullying by Proxy
“Colin Powell will tell you that I
nudge. ‘Oh, stop nudging!,’
Colin tells me.”
-- Condoleezza Rice commenting
on her influence style (Fortune 2004)
 Unpacking The Construct
n Involves an attribution made about
someone’s behavior (label or category we
apply to people’s behavior)

n Attribution reflects an inference regarding

the person’s personality, disposition, or
character on the basis of the observed
behavior.
 Prevalent “Folk Theories”

“Bullies are fundamentally sadistic

people…they enjoy seeing others
suffer or squirm.”
-- Stanford MBA 2004
 Prevalent Folk Theories

“It’s all about power with

them…Bullies like to dominate
people.”
-- Stanford MBA 2004
 Prevalent Folk Theories

“They’re insecure people…[and] they

act out their insecurities by making
other people uncomfortable and
miserable.”
-- Stanford MBA 2004
 Folk theories favor
dispositionalist accounts
Why We Should Challenge Conventional Accounts

n Bystander intervention research.

n Good Samaritan research.

 Ecological Perspective
Human behavior reflects intendedly
adaptive action (behavior may prove self-
defeating or counterproductive, but it is not
intentionally so)
 Etiology of Bullying Behavior
From an Ecological Perspective

n Observed behavior patterns reflect an interaction between

behavioral response tendencies and the specific
environments that elicit and sustain those behavioral
tendencies (includes historical environmental influences).

n Bullying behavior can be construed as both as an assertion

of power and a reaction to power.
Complexity of Bullying Behavior

u Bullies use behavior to assert dominance,

claim status, force deference or secure
compliance from others.

u Often calculated to produce a desired

effect or result (e.g., reputational
deterrence)
“The key is to have a reputation for being difficult. Don’t
have a reputation for being a nice guy—that won’t do you any
good…Muskie was the best of them all, the absolute best,
because nobody wanted to tangle with the guy. You know,
why tangle with the guy? Why ruin your day?..Why spend
your day being miserable [because] he will make you
miserable…He’ll be gross. He’ll smoke a god-awful cigar.
He’ll just be difficult, cantankerous. That’s one of the
tricks…A bad temper is a very powerful political tool because
most people don’t like confrontation.”

-- Chris Matthews, (quoted in Hedrick Smith, The

Power Game: How Washington Works, p. 61)
Bullying Behavior as Reaction to Power

u Power can foster behavioral disinhibition.

u Disinhibition makes prudent self-restraint

more difficult to exercise.
“Ms. Stewart…didn’t initially hit it off with [all of
the inmates]. Ms. Spry said she had a spat with Ms.
Stewart early on. Both were assigned to create floral
arrangements for a memorial service…‘Right away
she got really bossy, saying, ‘Go get this and go get
that.’ Ms. Spry says she did as told and Ms. Stewart
fashioned a beautiful topiary, trimmed with pampas
grass. But afterward she decided to avoid Ms.
Stewart.”
-- excerpted from “In Federal Prison, Stewart Caters to a New
Crowd,” WSJ, CCXLV 43 front page, 3/3/05.
Stereotypes and the Labeling
of Behavior

Power and Physical Size

 “Sharing a bathtub with an elephant is
an uncomfortable experience even when
the elephant is trying to be friendly.”

-- Graham Allison, Leadership 2004

Getting Inside the Head

The View From the Other Side of the Table

The Psychology of the Organizational Bully

n significant asymmetries in the perspectives

and attributions of the person identified as a
bully (the perpetrator) and the targets
(victims) of that behavior.
Ex Ante Interactional Expectations

Bullies approach situations “pre-offended”

Ex Post Construals of Social Interaction

Hostile Attribution Bias

 Self-fulfilling nature of these
expectations and attributions

Pre-emptive, protective behaviors elicit aggression

and resistance from targets that, in turn, are
perceived by the bully as justifying their initial
assumptions and behavior—justifying further
retaliation.
Autistic Epistemologies and the
Overly Aggressive Driver
The Hidden Costs of Being
“Out of Synch”
“Often wrong, never in doubt”

The Hypercompetitor’s Worldview

Harvey “thrives on being an underdog who
comes out the top dog—the winner—time
after time. Anger is an ally, a tool. When he’s
winning, he stays angry to keep his edge.
When he’s losing, he stays angry to get back
on top.”
-- Associate of Harvey Weinstein
The Rationality of Bullying Behavior
“Fear works. They don’t teach you that
in Sunday school, but it does.”

-- Richard Nixon, On leading

 “I call it the Madman Theory, Bob, I want the North
Vietnamese to believe that I’ve reached the point where I
might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the
word to them that ‘For God’s sake, you know Nixon is
obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when
he’s angry—and he has his hand on the nuclear button’
[get them to believe that and] Ho Chi Minh himself will be
in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

-- Richard Nixon to H. R. Haldeman (quoted in H. R.

Haldemn, The Ends of Power, NY: Times Books, 1978).
“In evaluating a leader, the key question
about his behavioral traits is not whether
they are attractive or unattractive, but
whether they are useful.”

-- Richard Nixon
“You know, sometimes fear does
the work of reason.”

-- Larry Summers, Harvard’s President, on the

utility of intimidation, quoted in The Guardian
Fear-then-Relief

Good-cop/Bad-cop
n How do bullies get to the top? Why do they
get promoted?

n Why doesn’t their past catch up with them?

n Why doesn’t their bad behavior eventually

undo them?
Bullies are often very effective at upward
influence

n Great Ingratiators
t Henry Kissinger
t Lyndon Johnson

t Dawn Steel
 How Bullies Get Ahead

n Similarity attraction hypothesis

Nixon’s Qualifications for Job Candidates

n “I want someone who will be just as tough as I

was…like I was in the Hiss case..”

n “I want someone who will give us every tax

return I ask for…”

n “I don’t want someone who will worry about

the legal technicalities.”
 How They Get Ahead

n Homosocial Reproduction
 Bullies serve a useful functional
role for some leaders

n Lightning rod used by leader to intimidate others

(RFK for JFK; Sununu for Bush Sr; Nancy for
Ronnie).

n Bullying sidekick allows leader to retain Teflon.

n Leader even gets credit for eventually firing the

bully when the bully’s effectiveness or utility are
exhausted.
Why do people remain in bullying
relationships?
 “[Moses] could get you so fired up you
were thinking of more ideas than you thought
possible. He had the power to do that to you.”

-- former architect for Robert Moses

 “You learned to anticipate…You were
anticipating the direction Harvey was going or
where he wanted to go, because most of the
time he was right…[and he absorbed
Weinstein’s passion for unique, distinguished
films] because that’s what keeps me going
today.”
-- Tony Safford, former executive with Miramax
“The guy is an absolute pr—k and, ethically, he’s
slime. You wouldn’t want him in your house…and
you would never, ever, want to leave your
daughter alone for five minutes with this guy. But,
at the end of the day, it’s all worth it because
he’ll open all the right doors for you. You’ll
learn a hell of a lot. And you know it’s going to
be a ride you won’t ever forget. You’ll feed off
the experience for a very long time.”
-- Assistant to a major Hollywood producer
 MBA Data
n Although 86% report having been directly
involved in or adversely affected by a bullying
relationship in the workplace,

u more than a third (37%) reported nonetheless the experience

was on balance “worthwhile” because the individual was also
“brilliant,” “passionate,” “dedicated,” “extraordinarily-
focused,” “knew the field better than anyone.”

u More than a third (35%) said they “would do it all over again”
if given the chance (because the learning experience or
network contacts garnered made the relationship worthwhile).
 “I have read that [Johnson] was insistent if not
downright dictatorial in his control…Outwardly he
was the hard-charging fullback, unreflective,
insensitive, immune to doubt, unmindful of anything
but an all-out assault on life…

--John W. Gardner, Austin, Texas, 1990

 “[but he was also] a man of exceptionally high
intelligence. His ponderous physical presence and country
style diverted public attention from other qualities that were
crucial to his effectiveness – the capacity for swift and sure
judgment in action, a penetrating shrewdness in political
appraisal, a precise and discriminating assessment of
adversaries, and a subtle grasp of the details of lawmaking
and governing…”

-- John W. Gardner (cont.)

“What’s a president’s power for
if it isn’t to be used?”

-- Lyndon Baines Johnson, to an aide urging a

more conservative approach because he thought
Johnson was using up too much political capital
on civil rights.
In defense of the passionate bully
 “You can’t make an omelet
without breaking some eggs.”
-- Robert Moses
“Can you imagine what you would have
achieved had you tried for consensus. You
would have achieved nothing great…nothing
of value.”

-- Margaret Thatcher, responding to

her critics
LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD

Strategies for Responding

to Bullying Behavior
 Dealing with Bullying Behavior
Creativity and resourcefulness are helpful
n Individual approaches and solutions
u Overt Tactics (confrontation, ingratiation)
u Covert Tactics (undermining)

n Collective approaches and solutions

u Collective action (petitions, strikes)

n Organizational approaches and solutions

u Structural and cultural remedies (deterrents)
u Leader-centered initiatives (zero tolerance)
n Be clinical

u Try to understand what’s really driving their

behavior towards you. This is sometimes hard
to do because the last thing you want to do is
empathize with them.

u Consider the possibility that your assumptions

might be wildly off the mark.
n Be clear about your goals in the situation

t improve the relationship?

t get respect?

t get even?
u Avoid your instinctive or reflexive responses

t Don’t (necessarily) strike back.

t Don’t (necessarily) give in.

t Don’t (necessarily) break off or withdraw.

u When in doubt, under-react. If uncertain
about the purpose, motivation or cause of
their outburst or the best strategy to take,
preserve your options.
 Options

u Specify the behavior that is unacceptable

 Options

u Educate them about how you prefer to be

treated.

u Reduce incentives to remain nasty

(demonstrate there is a better way to
work with you).
u Find a better timing for response if
necessary
t Wait until the climate is better
t Recruit allies before responding (there
is strength in numbers).
Be Creative!
Promote them out of the way
 Hang a Lantern on the Problem

u Try pointing out the problem to them –

but with a touch of humor.

u Doing so levels the field by showing that

you are unflappable but willing to engage
them constructively.
 “When I was about thirteen, one
local bully gave me nothing but
grief all year long. He would knock
me down on the grass, or hold my
head in the drinking fountain, or
push my face in the dirt and give
me bloody noses when we had to
play football…This was somebody I
feared. He was my nemesis…
 “…Then I figured, if you can’t beat
him, try to get him to join you. So I said
to him, ‘I’m trying to make a movie
about fighting the Nazis, and I want you
to play the war hero.’ At first he laughed
in my face, but later he said yes. He was
this big, fourteen-year old who looked
like John Wayne. I made him the squad
leader in the film, with helmet, fatigues,
and backpack. After that he became my
best friend.”
 Steven Spielberg

Describing one of many childhood

experiences with a bully
THE END
Hopefully not the end…
 For Further Reading
Harriet Braiker. Who’s Pulling Your Strings?
Harvey Hornstein. Brutal Bosses.
Barbara Kellerman. Bad Leadership.
Jean-Lipman Blumen. The Allure of Toxic
Leaders.
Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, & Sheila Heen.
Difficult Conversations.
William Ury. Getting Past No: Negotiating Your
Way from Confrontation to Cooperation.