What do you class as 'Bad Behaviour?'

This is my response to a question on the LinkedIN group

'Is Bad behaviour killing big business?"

Bad behaviour - what do you class this as?

Hi all - I joined this forum a while back and haven't really contributed. Not sure if it's apathy or regret as looking through the forum posts the definition of topics doesn't seem much different from other comms sites. I thought this one had the potential to have more 'edge' to it. So would be interested in knowing as a starter - what do you class as bad behaviour in the work place?

Yvonne – A bit long, as my answers 'necessarily' tend to be, but I hope this provides you with a little food for thought, while addressing the point you raise.

When it comes to the 'Adaption principle' the human mind is acutely aware of 'Change' to conditions, but assimilates quite quickly to whatever it is exposed to and 'normalises' it, where it cannot be reversed.

Also, we all have 'Negativity Bias', which is fundamental limbic system stuff, making sure we are 5 steps away from a 'Hiss' before we realise it's not actually a snake - i.e. flight or fight pre-programming - our 'defence mechanisms' focus on 'worst case', and those negative emotions, real or imaginary (i.e. projected ahead in time), dictate our behaviours / actions.

What we are comfortable with, on LinkedIN and in any other social environment is to think the negative and 'put on a brave face' - we don't outwardly express the negative as ‘Exposing our weakness’ is seen as an opportunity for others to attack - keeping our negativity to ourselves is part of our social defence mechanism. We have to 'Fit in' / 'comply' - which brings us to consider how we are all at base driven by 'Fear'.

Our fundamental imprinting, by significant others (over and above our limbic system) during bio-survival / Emotional-territorial phases often = FEAR of Failure and FEAR of rejection.

Consider this; It is the immediate feedback mechanisms embedded in Lean tools that help to minimise and reduce this fear, this is what really helped TPS (Toyota production system) realise the successes it is revered for, but you won't hear many people talking about reducing systemic fear triggers when talking about 'Lean' tools – because it’s socially unacceptable for ‘hard nosed business leaders’ to talk about psychology and business together – it’s all too soft and fluffy! We have to talk about getting the product out the door – bottom line, Month end!!!

This is an attack based defence that keeps ‘the business world at large’ from making the ‘uncomfortable’ connection between thoughts, emotions, reactions and results (i.e. people performance as the catalyst for profit).

People only know what they perceive, as influenced by their past experience, i.e. “ignorance is bliss!” And we all comply to ‘fit in’! Past experience in today’s market doesn’t include emotion in it’s considerations, it only includes the numbers, the fiscal calcs that fall out of largely inaccurate systems, but it’s what we’re used to, so we cling to it and interpret it as ‘good’.

Equally you won't find too many people openly admitting that “Bad behaviours kill big business”, because it is 'perceived' (perception as reality is another subject) that 'Psychology' is soft and fluffy, or for ‘shrinks’. The irony is that any bad behaviours people will cite will not be understood in the prevailing culture for their import at a deeper level in relation to making a profit.

The idea (the  thought – not action) of considering ‘Psychology’ alienates people (provokes defences) as it’s outside of the comfort zone that surrounds us at the hands of the prevailing cultural mindset in business today.

But I have to say thanks for the challenge in your question, more people are starting to realize that ‘good’ business decisions have to encompass more than just direction through the logic of financial management (philosophical consideration of what is good is another discussion).

The awareness is raising that ‘people’ actually do matter, as the origin of revenue generating action, and thus, the ‘good’ treatment of people at the hands of other people or systems is of paramount importance and has to become our primary objective, if the current ‘performance criteria’ is to improve – it’s a holistic perspective that seems to be growing.

In regard to ‘normalising’, Jonathan Haidt in his book 'The Happiness Hypothesis' uses the case of a Lottery winner and a Paraplegic to show, that no matter how extreme, it doesn't take long for people to set a new Baseline and achieve goals relative to it when new conditions are imposed, further citing the Physicist Stephen Hawking who said, when asked how he keeps his spirits so high, "My expectations were reduced to zero at the age of twenty one. Everything since then has been a bonus".

I often use the example of people repeatedly returning to an abusive violent relationship to show that no matter how bad our conditions get, if they are consistent, they become comfortable and we gravitate to that which doesn't challenge the sense of security we get from perceived comfort ('consistent conditions'). As the old saying goes, “Congruence leads to confidence” – and strangely, it doesn’t matter if what we’re confident in, is psychologically good or bad for ourselves or others holistically! As long as it’s consistent (within a short focal length), it’s comfortable.

It is our negative emotions that WILL provoke us to challenge the rationale of consistency or congruence, such as doubt, worry, concern, stress etc, and these are often provoked, quite strongly, from perceived 'Lack'.

Where our conditions and relationships (with people or systems) LACK justice, Honesty, Respect, Trust (HRT) etc. we will challenge them and look to a ‘retreat’ rather than an ‘advance’ – i.e. we try to leave the conditions that provoke those emotional reactions (find a different job).

A person will return to the violent partner, but will leave them if they sleep with someone else, if they ‘cheat’ – it ALL comes down to what we ‘believe’ is ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’, and we will leave a company if we feel they have ‘cheated’ us, but we will put up with consistently poor conditions (bad behaviours) for years. So you might find people have a hard time even recognizing what ‘Bad’ behaviours are, as you are asking them to blame something they would have found a thousand ways to justify, so they are normalized, (they will have dropped their ‘baseline’ of expectations) and people won’t be critical of something that provokes fear when challenging their own world construct of perceived ‘normality’ and therefore comfort.

As Will young said in his song ‘Leave right now’, “But if I lose the highs, at least I’ll spare the lows”. We all reduce expectations to accommodate our conditions, to form some, any, kind of semblance to ‘comfort’.

The prevailing culture in which we currently exist has been 'consistent' for a long time and the ‘Good’ bar is set quite low, so looking for a little edge will be hard to find. If we can’t even ‘care’ for others enough to move over to the slow lane on a motorway, stay conscious of the position of our shopping trolley in a supermarket  or indicate at roundabouts, there’s little chance we will see people in the current culture care enough to say, for example; ‘Being driven by the logic of standard cost accounting is psychologically detrimental to performance and provokes an unconscious opposition to change’, this is a message I fully support, but it’s socially unacceptable to challenge fundamental beliefs, so my view is very threatening, as the whole world ‘Believes’ that Accounting practice is ‘Good’.

This is why, groups like Lean Six Sigma on LinkedIN have nearly 43K members, all saying the same old thing, and groups like this and my own have a couple of hundred. Most people just want to stay in their comfort zones.

Personally I’d have to say BAD behaviour in business is acting without at least a reasonable grasp of the detail behind such human emotional conditions as related to those points above.