Thoughts And Observations about Intimidation

“Intimidation is an unusual animal: it's a lot about body language and understanding the human psyche. Knowing that usually a direct stare will crush most human souls, and that's just the basic gist of it... The soul-crushing stare, the fatherly disappointment, mixed with a little bit of hate and rage - you're on your way.”? Samoa Joe – U.S. professional wrestler.

“Authority - when abused through micromanagement, intimidation, or verbal or nonverbal threats - makes people shut down & productivity ceases.” ?John Stoker – U.S. business consultant, specializing in organizational development, President of DialogueWORKS .

“In APA’s 2023 Work in America workforce survey, 19% of respondents labeled their workplace as toxic. More than one in five respondents (22%) said their work environment has harmed their mental health. “Toxic workplace” is an abstract term to describe infighting, intimidation, and other affronts that harm productivity. … . Toxic workplaces can involve ethical and legal offenses, such as sexual harassment, discrimination, and whistleblower retaliation, said David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School. In other cases, the toxicity involves bullying or unreasonable workloads. The result—in any context—is high absenteeism, low productivity, and soaring turnover. A 2022 study in the MIT Sloan Management Review cited toxic work cultures as the top driver of employee attrition—well above job insecurity or lack of recognition for performance. The report said leading contributors to toxic work cultures included: 1) Failure to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), 2) Workers feeling disrespected, 3) Unethical behavior. … The U.S. Surgeon General’s office underscored the impact of toxic work cultures in 2022 with its Framework for Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being. Chronic stress from workplace abuse can lead to depression, heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses, Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, wrote.? … The Surgeon General’s framework provides a solid guide for employers who want to foster a healthy work environment … The framework recommends that organizations: 1) Minimize physical hazards, discrimination, bullying, and harassment, 2) Reduce long working hours, excessive workloads, and resource deficiencies that hamper employees’ ability to meet job demands, 3) Normalize mental health care as a resource for employees, 4) Operationalize EDI policies to address structural racism, ableism, and implicit bias, 5) Engage employees in organizational goals and mission statements to foster enthusiasm and commitment.”? From a July 23, 2023 report prepared for the American Psychological Association by Scott Sleek – U.S. journalist, news director for the Association for Psychological Science .

“Intimidation is the ultimate form of cowardice.” ?Dean Karnazes – U.S. ultramarathon runner.

“I don't think ethical people deal with intimidation as a method to achieve success. Undermining someone's self-esteem isn't a method to achieve success”. Dominique Moceanu – U.S. gymnast.

“Intimidation is an irrational and ineffective tactic of weak-minded individuals.” Liza Mundy – U.S. journalist, non-fiction writer, fellow at New America Foundation.

“Nasty people don’t just make others feel miserable; they create economic problems for their companies. … There are a lot of jerks in the workplace. I should know. Over the last decade, since I began digging into the effects of incivility, thousands of people have asked me for advice about dealing with bullying bosses, board members, clients, and colleagues. I have, for example, been sent (and saved) some 8,000 emails that detail the range of such disrespect and intimidation, and the resulting distress and destruction. And I’ve tracked pertinent peer-reviewed research, which is growing like crazy. … My interactions with the targets of such abuse, plus that growing pile of research, prompted me to return to the subject in a new book, The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2017). The reasons for the persistence and spread of bad behavior are legion: a global economy, with its demands for rapid decisions and around-the-clock interactions, overburdens leaders, employees, suppliers, and customers. In this world, where email, texting, and social media replace face-to-face conversation and the compassion triggered by eye contact, too many jerks feel unfettered by empathy, guilt, and old-fashioned civility. Meantime, some rising executives believe that treating people badly is a path to personal success—a conclusion bolstered by journalists and a few academics, who celebrate demeaning and disrespectful leaders. One CEO I interviewed was worried he wasn’t enough like the late Steve Jobs and that his career and start-up would suffer because he was calm and treated people with dignity. Bullying bosses impose costs on people and organizations that are manifold—and often hidden. Hundreds of experiments show that encounters with rude, insulting, and demeaning people undermine others’ performance, including their decision-making skills, productivity, creativity, and willingness to work harder and help coworkers.” From the 麦肯锡 Quarterly article “Memo to the CEO: Are you the source of workplace dysfunction?” by Bob Sutton – U.S. academic, professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering , researcher in the field of evidence-based management.

“Animosity breeds chaos.” Jacob Addai – West African Philosopher.

“Leadership is based on inspiration, not domination; on cooperation, not intimidation.” William Arthur Ward – U.S. motivational writer.

“People must treat the person in front of them, right now, in the right way, and they must feel safe to point out when their peers and superiors blow it. The power of efforts to work on ‘the little moments can be seen in an organizational change at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs . To reduce the bullying of employees, psychological abuse, and aggression at 11 sites with more than 7,000 people, each site appointed an action team of managers and union members that developed a customized intervention process. But there were key similarities among all of the sites: 1) employees learned about the damage that aggression causes, 2) used role-playing exercises to get into the shoes of bullies and victims, 3) and learned to reflect before and after they interacted with other people. Action team members and site leaders also made a public commitment to model civilized behavior themselves. At one site, for example, managers and employees worked to eliminate seemingly small slights such as glaring, interruptions, and treating people as if they were invisible—small things that had escalated into big problems. The results included less overtime (saving taxpayers’ money) and sick leave, fewer complaints from employees, and shorter waiting times for the veterans who were the patients at the 11 sites. A comparison of surveys undertaken before and after these interventions, which started in mid-2001, found a substantial decrease, across the 11 sites, in 32 of 60 kinds of bullying—things like glaring, swearing, the silent treatment, obscene gestures, yelling and shouting, physical threats and assaults, vicious gossip, and sexist and racist remarks. The most important single principle for building a workplace free of jerks, or to avoid acting like one yourself, is to view being a jerk as a kind of contagious disease. Once disdain, anger, and contempt are ignited, they spread like wildfire. Researcher Elaine Hatfield calls this tendency ‘emotional contagion’ - ?if you display contempt, others (even spectators) will respond in much the same way, creating a vicious circle that can turn everyone in the vicinity into a mean-spirited monster just like you. Experiments by Leigh Thompson and Cameron Anderson, as they told the New York Times, show that when even compassionate people join a group with a leader who is “high energy, aggressive, mean, the classic bully type,” they are ‘temporarily transformed into carbon copies of the alpha dogs.’ Being around people who look angry makes you feel angry too. Hatfield and her colleagues sum up this emotional-contagion research with an Arabic proverb: ‘A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot.’ A swarm of jerks creates a civility vacuum, sucking the warmth and kindness out of everyone who enters and replacing them with coldness and contempt.? From the 麦肯锡 Quarterly article adapted from the book “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” by Bob Sutton – U.S. academic, professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering , researcher in the field of evidence-based management.

“Errors have nothing to do with luck; they are caused by time pressure, discomfort or unfamiliarilty with a position, distractions, feelings of intimidation, nervous tension, overambition, excessive caution, and dozens of other psychological factors.” Pal Benko – Hungarian/U.S. chess player, author, composer of endgame studies and chess problems.

“As leaders, we must remember that effectively executing business plans involves a consistent engagement in activities that would typically create animosity in every other non-business relationship.” Clay Clark – U.S. entrepreneur.

“Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor maker, gives all full-time employees training in the “constructive confrontation” that is a hallmark of the company’s culture. Leaders and corporate trainers emphasize that bad things happen when the bullies win using personal attacks, disrespect, and intimidation. When that happens, only the loudest and strongest voices get heard; there is no diversity of views; communication is poor, tension high, and productivity low; and people first resign themselves to living with the nastiness—and then resign from the company. To paraphrase a primary theme in Karl Weick’s classic book, The Social Psychology of Organizing,11 this approach means learning to “argue as if you are right and to listen as if you are wrong.” That is what Intel tries to teach through lectures, role-playing, and, most essentially, through observing the way managers and leaders fight—and when. The company’s motto is “disagree and then commit,” because second-guessing, complaining, and arguing after a decision is made sap effort and attention and thus make it unclear whether the decision went wrong because it was a bad idea or because it was a good idea implemented with insufficient energy and commitment.” From the 麦肯锡 Quarterly article adapted from the book “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” article adapted from the book “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t” by Bob Sutton – U.S. academic, professor of management science at the Stanford University School of Engineering , researcher in the field of evidence-based management.

“Bill Lazier, a successful executive who spent the last 20 years of his career teaching business and entrepreneurship at Stanford. Bill gave this advice to our students: when you get a job offer or an invitation to join a team, take a close look at the people you will work with, successful or not. If your potential colleagues are self-centered, nasty, narrow minded, or unethical, he warned, you have little chance of turning them into better human beings or of transforming the workplace into a healthy one, even in a tiny company. In fact, the odds are that you will turn into a jerk as well.” ?From the 麦肯锡 Quarterly article by Bob Sutton adapted from his book “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t."

“A culture of intimidation has no justification in any administration.” John Barrasso – U.S. physician, politician, member of the Republican Party, currently senior U.S. senator from Wyoming, previously in the Wyoming State Senate from 2003 to 2007.

“Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do; they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart.” ?Walter Savage Landor – U.K./Italian writer.

“It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.” Deborah Tannen – U.S. author, professor of linguistics at 美国乔治敦大学 .

“Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible.” From “The House of the Dead” by Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Russian novelist.

“But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant organized systems of self-righteousness - each system only too delighted to find that the other is wicked - each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper hatred and animosity.” Herbert Butterfield – U.K. historian, philosopher of history, was Regius Professor of Modern History and Vice-Chancellor of the 英国剑桥大学 .

“The report, Educational Intimidation: How ‘Parental Rights’ Legislation Undermines the Freedom to Learn, tracks the introduction of nearly 400 bills across the nation that target the work of professional teachers, librarians, and school administrators. But unlike the more direct “educational gag orders” that PEN America has previously tracked (bills and policies that directly ban what can be taught in schools and libraries), these "educational intimidation" bills, a number of which have passed and become law, lead to censorship in schools through more indirect mechanisms, such as requiring opt outs for certain lessons or creating new standards to evaluate and challenge books. ‘Fear is the new watchword in public education,’ the report bluntly states. ‘While transparency for public institutions and the promotion of parental involvement in schools are common sense propositions, these bills have an ulterior motive driving them: to empower a vocal and censorship-minded minority with greater opportunity to scrutinize public education and intimidate educators with threats of punishment.’ … The report points to three ‘principal dangers’ from the rise of these ‘educational intimidation’ laws: They ‘spur self-censorship’ by making instruction more burdensome, costly, or risky; they make schools ‘a less welcoming place for students to freely express themselves,’ especially for LGBTQ+ students, who are often targeted by such laws; and, such laws empower a handful of parents (and in some cases one parent) to ‘make decisions about what can be taught or read,’ at a school or in a library, thus ‘disempowering the majority of parents’ in favor of a vocal minority. … The report identifies 392 such “educational intimidation bills” introduced in state legislatures between January 2021 and June 2023. Of these, 38 have passed into law in 19 states. An additional nine policies have been adopted via executive order or enacted as part of state regulatory policy. Missouri (30) has introduced the most educational intimidation bills in the nation, followed by Texas (21), Oklahoma (20), South Carolina (18), Indiana (17) and Mississippi (16). …? For educators and librarians, the result is ‘more combative and stressful places to work,’ and harassment that is driving many to leave their professions, the report notes.? From an August 23, 2023 Publishers Weekly report “New PEN America Report Documents Surge in ‘Educational Intimidation’ Bills” reported by Andrew Albanese – U.S. journalist, Senior Writer and Features Editor at Publishers Weekly .

“Beware of those around you who subtly sow the seeds of doubt.” Wayne Gerard Trotman – U.K.-Trinidadian writer, filmmaker.

“Malice is only another name for mediocrity.” ?Patrick Kavanagh – Irish poet.

“The argument from intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.” Ayn Rand - Russian-born/U.S. writer, philosopher, known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism.

“If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang.” Charley Reese – U.S. conservative newspaper columnist.

“Intimidation needs response, bait needs biting. If you do neither, the attacker has nothing to build on.” C.J. Cherryh – U.S. writer.

“With vision there is no room to be frightened., No reason for intimidation. It’s time to march forward! Let’s be confident and positive!”? Charles R. Swindoll – U.S. evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator.

“Compete vigorously and with passion in the face of uncertainty and intimidation.” Satya Nadella – Indian/U.S. business executive, executive chairman and CEO of 微软 .

“Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.” John Adams – U.S. statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, served as the second U.S. president.

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