Blog for Workforce Management 3 12 08: This blog was in response to Workforce Magazine’s Editor’s Blog Site:
Verbal Abuse as a Workforce Strategy
I’ve worked few a few screamers in my career—and for some over-the-top, intimidating bullies, too. The worst one was this short, stocky guy who used to love to stand and glare, clenched fists at his side as if he was ready to punch you. He didn’t scream much, but when he did, it was a full-on string of your typical obscenities delivered in a full-throated roar.
As a bad manager, he was the complete and total package.
All of this came back to mind as I was reading a story in the Rocky Mountain News about a former assistant for Dish Network who was dismissed from the company after six years of work and is suing “because of alleged gender discrimination and retaliation. Her claims of a hostile work environment and breach of contract were dismissed this week.” The jury trial is continuing on the remaining causes of action before a U.S. District Court in Denver.
According to the newspaper account, a “Dish Network executive screamed at his assistant Sharon Baker numerous times and in one instance called her a ‘f—— stupid b—-,’ jurors were told in the closing arguments of a federal discrimination case.
The satellite TV company failed to act on Baker’s complaints and ignored its own policies prohibiting crude behavior among managers, Thomas Arckey, one of Baker’s attorneys, told jurors. Instead, top executives routinely engaged in screaming, swearing and sexual jokes, he said. Arckey described the company’s ‘trademark’ policy as ‘hear no evil, see no evil, investigate no evil, correct no evil.’ ”
As stunning as all of that is, what’s even more amazing is the response from Dish Network. It essentially comes down to this: Yes, we were verbally abusive to her, but we didn’t discriminate because we’re verbally abusive to everyone.
“In the company’s closing arguments, Dish Network attorney Meghan Martinez attacked Baker’s credibility, maintained there was no evidence of gender discrimination and told the jury that the case simply ‘doesn’t belong here, and you know that,’ ” according to the Rocky Mountain News story. “Martinez acknowledged that Dish Network executives, including Baker’s boss, Executive Vice President Michael Kelly, yelled and swore at times. But she said the screaming equally was ‘male to male, executive on executive,’ and that Kelly denied ever using the word ‘b—-.’ Martinez also said witness testimony showed Baker ‘uses profanity and is comfortable with it.’ ”
There you have it: verbal abuse as an accepted part of a company’s workforce management strategy. In other words, Dish Network embraces a corporate culture where it is OK to swear and verbally abuse people in the workplace, and it’s not discriminatory to do it since everyone there does it all the time.
I’ve written a lot about boorish behavior from the top boss and a workplace where sexual harassment was tolerated and ignored, but I’ve never seen one where out-and-out verbal abuse was condoned and defended at the highest levels.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I predict that Dish Network won’t have much legal success in defending verbal abuse as an acceptable workforce practice. It will be interesting to see how the nearly all-female Denver jury will see it.
The question I have is: How long has “verbal abuse” been the accepted culture at Dish Network?
During the hiring process, are prospective employees made aware of the “accepted culture?” If they are, does this mean they have made a contractual agreement of accepting employment knowing they will be subjected to “workplace verbal abuse?”
Turning the page on these questions, my first thoughts are of course with the formal leadership of the organization.
How is this culture affecting productivity, systems improvement, financial performance, the ability to hire and retain good people, the ongoing engagement and commitment of employees to the vision and goals of Dish Network?
Leaders or those we place into formal leadership positions, are responsible for facilitating understanding in the organization. Karl Weick (1979) speaks of this as Sensemaking.
Formal leaders’ influencing role in Sensemaking is:
- To set the social relations that are encouraged and discouraged
- To set the identities that are valued or derogated within the organization (Weick,2008).
Radical events can be one large scale action through an external event or an internal event OR a series of small events occurring in rapid succession creating radical change (Plowman et al. 2008)
If Dish Network were going to change its culture, despite the formal Leadership, it will be done through employee action, one at time in a continuous process that would allow for a Radical Impact for change to occur.
So, Let’s believe on the integrity of a few folks to encourage”Respectful Interaction” within Dish Network.
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