When does tough talking become bullying?
So this week we debated at length if Gordon Brown was a tough talker or a bully, where is the line and how do you know if you have over stepped it?
For me this was a tough question as I am a well known tough talker and many times I have had to consider if I crossed the line. So have I?
Undoubtedly throughout my career yes several times. Does that make me a bully? No.
Why?
At Cheeky Monkey we are driven by our client’s company objectives. What they want to achieve is very personal to us because we know we can have a direct impact on that with the work that we do on their behalf.
We are passionate and uncompromising in delivering a Human Approach to Innovation and Change:
- We say what no-one wants to say and everyone wants to hear
- We think, say and do the unthinkable for the management team
And as a result of this we deliver business benefits that go way beyond the project headlines.
It is the management of change by being focused and passionate about the PRIZE, delivering objectives, improving profitability and winning!
It is never personal and never about personality. It is also never about the protection of authority or status.
I have never been interested in whether the situation looked good for me. If it delivered and the team were seen to be successful as a result of our actions it’s a job well done.
What can you do to make sure you are not crossing the line but are in fact tough enough?
- 1. Your team need to know why they are doing what you have asked them to do and where it fits into the bigger picture
- 2. They want to be treated as adults, so when they challenge what is being done and why, listen and be honest with your response
- 3. Make performance appraisals relevant and more frequent. Personal objectives need to be stretching but achievable and show progression and success
- 4. Reward people in a way that makes a difference to them; be able to answer the question “what’s in it for me?”
Unhappy workers can’t work, that is a fact. But what is making them unhappy your style of the fact they can’t deliver. Some people are just not up to the job and then it is a HR issue.
The ability to manage your emotions is of course critical. Frustration is the precursor to anger add stress to the equation and BOOM!! The forces of hell will be unleashed and Alistair Darling can tell you how that feels.
Yasmin
said on February 27, 2010
As a Cheeky Monkey employee I can vouch for the fact the Nina is indeed a ‘tough talker’ her passion to deliver a human approach to innovation and change is not reserved for our clients, it forms the foundation of our company and is at the core of everything that we do. Change requires honesty and honesty is not always easy to deliver or receive, it is an emotional process that requires trust and perspective.
As a consultant and an external resource proving that your actions are not for personal gain or recognition can be difficult. It takes time to build a level of trust that will remove our natural defence mechanism to take things personally, when the trust is not quite there it is important to provide perspective, as Nina said ‘show the bigger picture’.
I am not saying that tough talking has not made me sweat from time to time, it is natural to stick with what makes us comfortable and without a kick up the ass every now and again it’s likely that most of us would stay there.
Nina has also commented on bullying in the workplace in today’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/27/bullying-at-work