A RED PILL FOR MY FELLOW WORKPLACE ABUSE ADVOCATES

Not a day goes by without several good, well-meaning advocates shaming employers for not effectively addressing workplace abuse on behalf of their employees.

But why? Don't they realize that shaming is the least effective method to modify behavior? And that it's dehumanizing, to boot?

It doesn't seem to matter. Their cause is just, and so every effort, whether logical or not, is completely justified in their minds.

Where have the years of shaming employers online and elsewhere gotten us? According to the latest figures, not any closer to the goal line, that's for sure.

So why do they expect a different result after doing the same thing over and over? That one's easy.

Ego prohibits them from doing anything different from what they've always done.

(Before you assume that to be an insult, please take a breath, keep calm, and read on.)

GET OVER YOURSELF SO YOU MAY LOOK PAST THE SURFACE

Most of us advocates became advocates after having personally experienced and survived workplace abuse. What single factor is common among all victims of all kinds of abuse?

The belief that WE WOULD NEVER DO TO OTHERS AS THEY DID TO US.

And in second place?

The belief that, IF WE COULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE PROBLEM, WE WOULD.

So naturally, most advocates believe that, if they were in the C-Suite, they would direct all energies and resources to confronting this awful cancer head-on. By sheer determination, we tell ourselves, we will end workplace abuse as we know it. No employee here will ever experience abuse on my watch.

But here's the problem: hypothetical situations only ever tell us what we HOPE we would do, not specifically how we would do it, nor how things would work out in the end.

Put yourself in the shoes of the CEO of any major corporation today. Unlike most leaders, you have lived experience as a target and survivor of workplace abuse. On your first day in the chair, you announce to the C-Suite, the Board of Directors, the Board of Trustees, and the Advisory Board your intentions to confront workplace abuse throughout the organization.

If you think everyone's going to be copacetic with that, I've got an island to sell you in Iowa.

No, instead of receiving universal support, the heads of Finance, Legal, and HR, along with those board members with direct contact with these three chief officers will do everything in their power to remind you of your primary responsibility: to ensure the livelihood of the organization.

What do heads of Finance, Legal, and HR understand better than anyone? The very real dilemma of employer liability.

Think about it. If HR suddenly began validating the abusive experience sustained by targets of workplace abuse, the employer would suddenly be on the hook financially. Every target within recent history (and by recent history, I mean those employees whose abuse occurred within the statute of limitations regarding Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress) would sue, with most targets settling out of court.

With 14% of American employees experiencing emotional and psychological abuse at work each year, what employer could possibly afford the astronomical financial cost of doing the right thing for targets?

Tragically, not a one.

So if the Shame Machine that is the Workplace Bullying Movement was turned up to 11 gazillion, would it make a hill of beans' worth of difference?

Afraid not.

But don't we need to do something? Of course we do.

But before you can, you'll need to swallow this red pill.

RADICALLY ACCEPTING THE STATE OF AFFAIRS TODAY

Anyone with basic knowledge of Psychology and lived experience with workplace abuse understands: the employer reacts to threats exactly as our ego does. If an outside entity is perceived to be at all threatening, it does everything necessary to protect the organism, be it neutralizing, disabling, or extinguishing the threat entirely.

Every day, our fellow stakeholders - by which, I mean all employers everywhere - are treated worse than dirt by workplace abuse advocates, right here on LinkedIn. Some advocates are so vitriolic that they suggest that any leaders who do not share our particular and peculiar insights into the human cost of workplace abuse must be intentionally wishing to harm their fellow human beings.

If there's one thing I've learned over the past year deconstructing the movement, it's this:

Both collectively and individually, most advocates feel every bit as threatened by the notion of putting down their sticks and stones as employers do by the idea of putting down their shields.

Now put yourself in their shoes for a minute. As we discussed, until a solution arises that mitigates employer liability, no employer is going to be afford to effectively address and confront workplace abuse without closing its doors for good.

(Okay. Here comes the medicine. Good job. Yes, it tastes awful. I'm sorry. There's nothing that can be done for that, I'm afraid.)

Can you do better than your best?

I'm not talking about a new PR for speed-walking here. I'm talking about those very real limitations that a person cannot for the life of them break through.

I repeat. Can you do better than your best?

No. No, you can't. Neither can I. And that's the point.

Because no one has yet introduced to the world a way to effectively mitigate workplace abuse, in order to continue providing work and paychecks to employees, responsible employers must continue to turn a blind eye to workplace abuse.

SO WHAT'S AN ADVOCATE TO DO?

I can't tell you what to do. I would only hope that advocates who read this (once the dizzying effects of the red pill wear off) commit themselves to a) never again shaming our fellow stakeholders, and b) redirecting their energies toward something more useful, like education or research.

For my part, I am completely focused on doing what most other advocates believe is impossible: developing once-and-for all solutions to the problem.

Why am I so optimistic? Because I've done it. I've resolved the dilemma of employer liability. And I should be hearing back shortly from the key stakeholder whom I recently invited to take a look.

Once we have something positive to report, I promise:

You'll be the first to know.

Chris Edward Jensen is a survivor of catastrophic workplace abuse who has committed his life to advocacy on behalf of his fellow survivors. He is also the principal of Workplace Omega, the only firm in the world devoted to developing a once-and-for-all solution to workplace abuse. Ω