All sorts of injustices at work have been happening to us ever since humanity started working collectively and then pushed itself into confined office spaces. That is, long before Americans gave this phenomenon of business life a name — mobbing. What is mobbing?
In the animal world, the word mobbing means a herd of herbivores attacking a predator. In the human community, this phenomenon illustrates the picture of the jungle, denoting harassment, undeserved criticism, and social isolation, both by colleagues and by those who are called upon to lead wisely. Sometimes we are talking about thoughtful “psychological cannibalism”, which is difficult and destructive to health to resist. So it's important for each of us to be able to recognize the beginnings of this problem and act right away.
Psychologists who deal with the problem of professional relations distinguish two main types of mobbing. Horizontal — in which a person is discriminated against by a colleague or group of colleagues who are approximately on the same level of the career ladder. And vertical, when bosses play with psychological cannibalism against their subordinates for various reasons. This phenomenon is also called “bossing”. Vertical mobbing distinguishes an intermediate version of labor harassment, the so-called “sandwich mobbing”. In this case, the victim (usually a middle manager) is hit twice. You wouldn't envy such a poor man. On the one hand, he is under pressure from his superior boss, on the other hand, by colleagues or subordinates who feel that the boss's chair is on fire and he will soon be “offside”.
Why, alas, is this phenomenon flourishing, and what is leading those who have voluntarily made it their professional duties to rock a shared boat? There may be many motives. For the boss, especially in the case of “sandwich mobbing”, this is often protecting his territory from possible attacks by a stronger and more assertive competitor “from below”. In some cases, the realization of personal ambitions. Sometimes such blatant playing back on teenage complexes derails the interests of the cause. However, in market conditions, fortunately, no manager is able to afford such “big weaknesses” for a long time, because there are no results — there is no executive chair. Therefore, according to the personnel workers themselves, mobbing at work by superiors is usually not tyranny at all, but a well-thought-out policy of staff reduction. Thus, it is possible to clean up the state with almost no financial losses. Do not pay a compensation package to the dismissed employees, but to turn things around so that they are happy to get their feet off the company. In the case of horizontal mobbing, you rarely deal with people who survive you for genuine selfish reasons: they need career growth — to get your place under the office ceiling.
Mobbing is usually an ersatz implementation for people who are unable to boast of a colorful personal life and color it in such a perverse way, simultaneously confusing work and leisure. In particularly dull cases, bullying a single person (most often a novice) becomes a form of life for the entire team: removing one victim and immediately finding a new one. In the United States, where the problem of mobbing and bossing at work was first voiced, a special institute, The Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute, was then created to study this problem. Mobbing was most frequent against female employees, and by bosses of the same sex (50%). High-ranking ladies were more favorable to men (about 30% were affected). The least common situation is harassment by male bosses. They terrorize 12% of members of their gender and only 8% of women. The observations of Russian psychologists show that this picture is also true for us. Thus, a team dominated by ladies is potentially more dangerous from the point of view of psychological distress.
The mobber typology includes four of the most common masks.
The Two-Headed Serpent — the majority of all aggressors are at work (37%). The snakes are good at manipulating the opinions of colleagues, skillfully spreading rumors and gossip behind the victim's back, unsuspecting for the time being. Which very soon start to burn like fire in logs, undermining her reputation.
“A Constant Critic” — the second most common type of aggressor (30%). This one constantly (directly or gradually) expresses his dissatisfaction with the behavior and manner of communication of the object of his persecution, openly biases the results of his work, torturing him with endless nit-picking. If you find yourself under the Critic's hood, this massive attack could eventually lead you to doubt your own professional competence. And that's it — from now on, you're trapped, the lock clicked, and the psychological rapist who won the fight holds the key. After all, feeling demoralized is his greatest pleasure.
The Gatekeeper — 20% of “office cannibals” act under this mask. Their goal is to establish control over all types of resources on which the successful completion of work depends (time, budget, support from colleagues) and to prevent the victim from accessing them. She (the victim), just like in Russian folklore, is asked to “go there, I don't know where”. At the same time, the Gatekeeper masterfully falsifies facts in such a way that everyone, including even the victim herself, is under the impression that the task failed solely due to her fault. In fact, the Gatekeeper is the same Constant Critic, but he does not disdain even uglier techniques.
Mad Rooster. About 14% of mobbers are so-called open aggressors. They provoke the victim, trying to draw her into a stream of noisy passions worthy of an oriental bazaar, with ridicule and public curse. The Rooster's goal is to involve the victim in a scandal that makes him feel like a fish in water at all costs. The only thing that somehow positively separates the Mobber Rooster from others is that he acts “with an open visor”. There is no need to “calculate” it, because it offers open combat. Which, however, is like a textbook Russian rebellion, pointless and merciless.
Before you decide to leave the gladiatorial arena to true, experienced office fighters and start looking for a new job, try to understand the situation. After all, trying to resolve a conflict rather than turning your back on it is also an invaluable part of your professional experience. As you know, everyone, even terrible monsters, has vulnerabilities — think vampires and garlic. Business ghouls, however, are a little more complicated, and you can't get rid of them with a bunch of spices. So you should adopt other techniques. 1. Keep a diary of negative aspects. Write down everything you care about your colleagues or boss there.
For example: “Today they forgot to give me the boss's order. After being called to the carpet, Anya K. and Vera T. rejoiced. But Masha offered to go down and have a coffee.” By analyzing the records, you will be able to get a lot of useful information.
First, understand how adequate your complaints against your colleagues are. Is their pressure a system or individual, unrelated cases of unfriendly behavior.
Second, determine who's clearly on your side. You will also identify those who are antipathetic to what is happening in the team, but don't speak out loud. Perhaps, deep down, they even sympathize with you and regret that you fell into such a turn undeservedly. Try to create your own support group, and if necessary, you can rely on it. Aggressors don't like it when the victim suddenly has too many sympathizers behind him. However, this scenario, on the contrary, even inflames some office mobbers.
2. Right now, it's important to be more attentive than ever to your direct duties and avoid punctures in the form of half an hour late and leisurely lunches, which also include visits to a masseuse and a solarium. Focus on the job as much as possible. Repeat to yourself that you are a professional and no amount of mobbing at work can unsettle you. And don't give up your cards to vampires to discredit you. Let them “work” themselves.
3. Don't ever scream. A public scandal is a real birthday party for a colleague who is against you. Plus, he has a chance to become a victim in need of everyone's comfort and support against you, a malicious upstart. Don't give him such a party.
4. This is the most difficult path. It consists in stepping on the throat of your own song and turning your persecutor... into an ally. You can turn to him for professional advice, making it clear how much you value his help. In this case, the mobber initially enjoys being kind of condescending to the victim. And in the process of your joint actions and negotiations, try to have a more frank conversation with him. As absurd as it sounds, this is the approach that works quite often. You completely disarm your opponent, gently and without resistance removing the sword from his hands, and offer a peace tube in return. Many cannibals unconsciously begin to respect their former victim, who doesn't look like a snail that can only crawl into her house in a situation of danger. But this method is only good if you are confident in your inner psychological flexibility and do not take this tactic as a personal insult. After all, it's just a role-playing game.
5. The last opportunity to take if you are unable to resolve the conflict yourself is to contact your superior boss as an arbitrator. However, the appeal that “the gentleman is smart, he will judge”, alas, rarely pays off. In addition, there is a risk that the whole team will start to perceive you as a “snitch” without going too much into the details of the story. Also, be prepared for the fact that the boss is not burning with desire to abandon all current affairs and, rolling up his sleeves, begin to understand the intricacies of the conflict. However, if you are a valuable employee and the company has relied on you, and if it's important for you not to quit this job at all costs, it's worth a try. Either way, you're not losing anything.
Keep in mind that all these strategies can only help you if you have a rookie mobber who has no support in the team. If you run into an experienced cannibal or even a whole clan of human beaters, the smartest thing you can do is leave this company as soon as possible. Despite all the gingerbread cookies in the form of a high salary, a sonorous position and a whole bunch of additional bonuses. After all, if management condones this state of affairs, then, most likely, twisted, ineffective management models work here from the very beginning. This means that there is a high probability that you are in a boat of losers, where they will always hinder your professional growth, because the interests of the cause are the last thing the team cares about. So should we regret such a loss? After all, your health, peace of mind and time that you could use are much brighter and more interesting, after all, are priceless. You're sure to put your talents to more interesting use.
http://www.info-arch.ru/mobbing-bossing-na-rabote-chto-takoe-kak-borotsya/
.png)
