Press release from Dr. Jacqueline A. Gilbert (drjagilbert@gmail.com, https://mtsu.edu/faculty/jgilbert/)
Is your workplace culture toxic?
How to Transform Workplace Bullies into Allies, by Jacqueline A. Gilbert, PhD., has been released
[Murfreesboro, TN, July 7]. Is your company hemorrhaging unhappiness? Organizations with a glossy exterior of "we-ness" may be exclusive, divisive, insensitive and rife with politics. Jacqueline A. Gilbert, professor of management, combines more than two decades of research in diversity management with teaching/service in bullying resistance. The resulting roadmap helps firms to identify and address systemic abuse, to create community, to behave proactively and to sustain inclusion.
How to Transform Workplace Bullies into Allies helps people learn what constitutes misconduct, mobs, cliques and incivility, and it empowers them to act as change agents at work. From experiential exercises, they will learn how to prevent and defuse conflict, exercise emotional intelligence, defend their colleagues and communicate in a multicultural workforce. Activists have laid the groundwork, and now employees are issuing a call to action and a mandate for sweeping organizational change. How to Transform Workplace Bullies into Allies supplies readers with a framework to assess their workplaces and/or schools, to learn about the fallout from acts that dishonor their peers, and to develop an action plan derived from resources that promote civil discourse. It includes:
- Inventories and activities to gauge knowledge and skill development in the areas of abusive conduct, bully typologies, target background, mobbing, effective dialogue at work, cyberbullying, diversity/microaggression, interpersonal conflict and change management;
- Summaries of research that support a mandate for good behavior and illuminate company deficiencies;
- Rich bits of what civility experts, management researchers and ethics practitioners say about abusive conduct to help readers learn why it's important for businesses to examine their culture and the consequences for continuing status quo;
- Case studies, scenarios and exercises designed to reinforce key concepts and to stimulate critical thinking about workplace misbehavior;
- Examples of firms that proactively modified culture to minimize (and eliminate) toxic practices; and
- Concrete steps for changing organizational policies and "the way we do things" to honor and respect people's spirits. Recognizing unconscious norms is a first step to promoting a positive environment.
By navigating web quests, learning modules and teachable moments, readers will develop a keen awareness of what it takes to be a respectful contributor in any setting. They will also gain expertise in what many organizations, including the Society for Human Resource Management, have suggested is a critical skill set. How to Transform Workplace Bullies into Allies supplies readers with the tools to:
- recognize conditions that contribute to abusive conduct;
- deter school yard/workplace bullies by suggesting alternative behavior;
- develop a program for recovery; and
- behave as proactive change agents.
"In an accordion-like demonstration of intellectual range, each chapter flexes from teaching to extended study before collapsing back to the focus on what can be done practically." Dr. Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute
Dr. Jacqueline A. Gilbert is a professor of management at Middle Tennessee State University, a Fellow in the U.S. Academy on Workplace Bullying, Mobbing and Abuse, a member of the task force that worked to pass the Tennessee Healthy Workplace Act, and a member of the work group that crafted the Model Abusive Conduct Prevention Policy in the state of Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (BBA) and the University of Houston (MBA and PhD), she is passionate about transforming organizations and creating connection at work.
"People who are willing to act as lightning rods could, over time, revolutionize their firms."
Jacqueline A. Gilbert, How to Transform Workplace Bullies into Allies
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Jacqueline Gilbert
Professor
Middle Tennessee State University
Murfreesboro TN
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