Kim and Jason tackle a challenging listener question about dealing with severe workplace harassment. They explore the importance of managerial action, share insights on effective documentation, and provide practical advice for identifying supportive work environments during job searches.
Listen to the episode:
Episode at a Glance: Workplace Harassment
Radical Candor Podcast Checklist
- You can’t fix problems you refuse to notice. If you’re the boss and someone comes to you with a scenario like this, where one employee is bullying another, it is important to define and document what’s happening and to create consequences for the person bullying and even harassing others at work.
- If you believe your company’s owner or CEO doesn’t understand the effects bullying has on individuals and teams, start a conversation and show them the research, which we’ll link to in our show notes, that it harms moral, performance and profit.
- When interviewing for a job, after you get the offer, ask your new potential employer to outline what the consequences for bullies at work are. And ask for specific examples of when these consequences were invoked. You can also ask to see a code of conduct. As you ask that question, you’re looking for three different kinds of consequences for bullying. Conversational consequences. Do the leaders know how to shut it down in the moment? Compensation consequences. People who bully others should not get good ratings or high bonuses. And last but not least, career consequences.
The TLDR Radical Candor Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00] Kim Scott: Hello everybody, welcome to the Radical Candor podcast. I’m Kim Scott
[00:00:07] Jason Rosoff: and I’m Jason Rosoff and Amy is off today. So it’s just Kim and I.
[00:00:12] Kim Scott: She’s working elsewhere, she’s not off.
[00:00:14] Jason Rosoff: Off the podcast.
[00:00:15] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:00:17] Jason Rosoff: Uh, thank you for correcting me. Today we have a listener question, Kim.
[00:00:22] Kim Scott: Alright.
[00:00:23] Jason Rosoff: Uh, and if you are a listener, which you’re hearing this, you definitely are. And you have a question you’d like to hear discussed on the podcast, please send us an email to podcast@radicalcandor.com. We love getting your questions and answering them when we can.
[00:00:39] Kim Scott: Love the questions. I just want to like double click on that. My ambition in life is to have this podcast become like car talk radio, except we’re talking about management stuff.
[00:00:51] Jason Rosoff: Management talk.
[00:00:53] Kim Scott: But that means you need to send us good questions to talk about.
[00:00:56] Jason Rosoff: We can’t do it without you. We need you. Intrepid listener. This listener’s question was titled, Help With a Nitpicker at Work. But as we will see in just a moment, I’ll read the question, uh, it is clearly way beyond nitpicking.
[00:01:13] The person writes to us, Hello Radical Candor team, I am reaching out to discuss a challenging situation I am facing at my job where I have worked for nearly ten years. Despite receiving numerous awards for my dedication and ethical work, I am experiencing ongoing harassment from a former team member who is still at the company. After replacing him on my team due to his unprofessional behavior and attempts to sabotage my work, he has continued to be rude and obstructive, even accessing and meddling with my files without authorization.
[00:01:45] Kim Scott: Oof.
[00:01:45] Jason Rosoff: My company’s owner has dismissed my concerns and allowed this toxic behavior to continue. Oof number two. My I finally let him, I’m assuming the company owner, know I sought legal advice and I’m documenting all incidents of harassment. He, the person doing the harassing, has stopped going into my files, but now he is answering the phones and asking people if I did something wrong when they call. I assume trying to sort of find dirt on this person.
[00:02:11] Kim Scott: God.
[00:02:12] Jason Rosoff: Um, I have a recording of him doing this. He’s also doing this to two other women on my team. So, oof number three, we throw in gender. I am exploring new job opportunities to find a safer, more supportive work environment. Any guidance or support you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
[00:02:30] Kim Scott: Wow, this is a horrible situation. And I think, sort of, uh, explains so well why it is important for managers to create consequences for this kind of behavior. Like, I’m not sure why this, uh, the owner of this company allowed this person to remain at the company when this person was moving them off the team, uh, for bad behavior, uh, on the team.
[00:03:02] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. Kim, even before we get into that, I just want to take an extra moment and say it is not only a terrible situation, but this person has tried all the right things.
[00:03:13] Kim Scott: They, yes, they’ve done everything.
[00:03:16] Jason Rosoff: In their power to do, right. They reported the behavior, they’ve documented the behavior, they’ve talked to an attorney. So that’s already going above and beyond from my perspective. Like the only thing they haven’t mentioned is talking to someone at the EEOC. If this is gendered, if they feel like this is gendered, like that’s the only thing they haven’t mentioned. But like literally they’ve done everything we’ve ever recommended on any podcast.
[00:03:40] Kim Scott: They talked directly to their boss before they took those, before they escalated.
[00:03:45] Jason Rosoff: Correct. Yup, so.
[00:03:45] Kim Scott: And it sounds like they talked directly to this person before moving them off the team as well.
[00:03:51] Jason Rosoff: Yes. So I think the question on my mind, and I think where you were going with this, before we dive into some, uh, some other ideas for this person. Because I’d like to talk a little bit about, are there any tips you have for as you’re sort of interviewing or looking for a new place to help you identify places that are less likely to have these sorts of problems?
[00:04:15] But I thought it would be helpful just to explain a little bit like your perspective on what the boss should have done in this case. You said the boss probably should have fired this person earlier. Um, but let’s assume that there wasn’t a history here and someone, uh, what’s your recommendation for someone, uh, who’s a manager and has an employee who comes to them and says, hey, there’s this person who’s, who has this, this toxic behavior. They’re behaving, they’re interfering in my work, where would you recommend they start?
[00:04:46] Kim Scott: I mean, I think the first important thing to do is to sort of define what’s happening and look at the, you know, make sure that we are, that we’re using the right words, words really matter in this, uh, in this case. So this person, it sounds like, is a former employee of the person who wrote it.
[00:05:08] Jason Rosoff: Or at least teammate. Yep.
[00:05:09] Kim Scott: Well, after replacing him on my team due to unprofessional behavior and attempt to sabotage my work. So it sounds like the, I want to say the nitpicker, but that’s not the right word because it’s, uh, I mean, it’s one way to describe it, but it sounds like it’s, as you said, way beyond nitpicking.
[00:05:31] Jason Rosoff: Right. So going back to the very beginning, there should have been consequences for the first complaint.
[00:05:36] Kim Scott: Yeah. And so, uh, you know, let’s figure out, uh, we don’t, I think we don’t know enough details to know exactly what the nature of the unprofessional behavior and attempts to sabotage her work were. But we’re getting some sense of what it might be.
[00:05:53] For example, going into file, going into her files without authorization, like that’s an invasion of privacy. Um, asking customers if she did something wrong, it just seems like a really bad idea from the point of view of building good relationship with customers. Um, I mean, there’s one thing soliciting feedback is one thing, but this doesn’t feel like soliciting feedback from customers.
[00:06:23] It feels like, uh, you know, going on a, uh, some kind of expedition. Uh, so, I think that, let’s assume that the behavior when, I feel like we need to give these people’s names, these people names. When Bob was working for Susan, uh, it sounds like Bob was sort of bullying Susan, trying to sabotage Susan, uh, and unprofessional behavior, I’m going to also, I’m going to call it bullying, right?
[00:07:02] Jason Rosoff: Okay.
[00:07:02] Kim Scott: Probably being rude, uh, to other members of the team. Uh, so I think that when you have, um, an employee who bullies you, that’s a tricky situation. Uh, because, you know, you don’t want to abuse your power as the boss. Like I think I’ve told this story several times where I had an employee who bullied me, attempted to bully me.
[00:07:30] Well, success, succeeded in bullying me. You know, you are the most aggressive woman I ever met he would say, I would give feedback. And it’s an awkward situation to be in. And I just want to acknowledge that because I didn’t want to shut him down. Like I wanted to be the kind of, as a leader, I wanted to be open to his feedback to me. But at the same time, that kind of gendered bullying, if he was doing that to me, what was he doing to other people? So it was my obligation as a leader to create consequences for that bullying.
[00:08:06] And it sounds like when she created consequences for his bullying, her boss undercut her by allowing him to just get another job somewhere else at the company. So that’s like problem number one, is that her boss eliminated the consequences for him as a bully. Allowed that bullying to continue.
[00:08:28] Jason Rosoff: Yup.
[00:08:29] Kim Scott: And I wonder like why is the company’s owner dismissing her concerns?
[00:08:36] Jason Rosoff: It’s a good question, especially since it appears in the way, at least in the information that we have, that this, that Susan has documentation that shows that this behavior has not only happened, but has continued to happen.
[00:08:48] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:08:49] Jason Rosoff: Uh, I think the hard part here is that some people don’t care whether or not they are creating a safe environment. Like some people don’t care, or maybe even if you want to give as much credit as possible to the leader of the company, you could say that they were sort of sticking their head in the sand, right? They were just trying to ignore the problem and hope that it goes away, right?
[00:09:13] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:09:13] Jason Rosoff: I think that’s the best thing that you could say. If everything in the email this person sent is true, which we have no reason to believe otherwise, that’s like the best case scenario.
[00:09:21] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:09:22] Jason Rosoff: I think worse than that is that they’re aware and don’t care that this is happening.
[00:09:29] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:09:29] Jason Rosoff: Uh, and worse than that, maybe they don’t like this person and they’re sort of like secretly glad that this is happening to them and hoping that they’ll quit.
[00:09:35] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:09:36] Jason Rosoff: Because all of those, I’ve seen all of those behaviors from leaders in situations where there’s bullying or some, or harassing behavior going on at work.
[00:09:45] Kim Scott: Yeah. So it could be that the boss is sort of just like, just doesn’t want to deal with it. And that’s the most common thing that happens. And it happens starting in middle school, starting in elementary school. Where one child is bullying another child and the school, the teacher doesn’t take any action against the child who’s bullying the other child. They’re just like, oh, kids will be kids. And, you know, that is a big problem. That is a big problem.
[00:10:19] In fact, I would argue that at a very core level the reason that we have leaders is to create environments that create consequences for bullying. And the reason why that’s so important is that the bullying works for the bully, but it is bad for everyone else.
[00:10:42] Bob Sutton, and we’ll drop this research into the show notes. Bob Sutton has done research in his book, I think it was either in The No Asshole Rule or in Good Boss, Bad Boss. But when a leader removes, uh, a bully, uh, I mean, or in Bob Sutton’s parlance, an asshole from the team, the collective efforts of the team, uh, yield better results.
[00:11:07] So it, um, and it’s a little bit confusing because sometimes the bull, if you’re just looking at an individual’s results, the bully might be getting results because it works for them. But they’re doing more harm than good. They’re causing more problems, uh, than they’re solving, but it’s not always clear to a manager. And so it’s a manager’s job to begin to understand this and to create consequences for bullying.
[00:11:36] So one thing this person could do is send the Bob Sutton research to the manager of the company. And to sort of start talking about, not so much the harm the bullying is doing to her and her three colleagues. But the harm it’s doing to the company
[00:11:57] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.
[00:11:57] Kim Scott: Because that’s what the owner of the company is going to be,
[00:12:02] Jason Rosoff: In theory, be motivated by.
[00:12:04] Kim Scott: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, um, I mean, the owner should be motivated by people on their team getting hurt. You know, that should be motivating enough. But the combination of something that is bad for the individuals, but it’s also bad for the collective, uh, output of the team. That if the owner of the company doesn’t care about that, then they shouldn’t be the owner of the company, care about both those things. Um, so that’s, so I think that when this person was the boss, when Sue was the boss of, what do we call him? I already forgot. What do we name?
[00:12:43] Jason Rosoff: Bob.
[00:12:45] Kim Scott: Bob.
[00:12:45] Jason Rosoff: It’s always Bob.
[00:12:46] Kim Scott: Poor old Bob. So, not poor old Bob in this case. So, when Bob was working for Susan, Susan was experiencing bullying from one of her direct reports. But then when Bob became a peer, when Bob left Susan’s team and joined some other person’s team, and continued to interfere in work, I don’t know why Bob’s new team is interfering in Susan team’s, Susan’s team’s work.
[00:13:15] But now it’s harassment. I think that, and at one point she called it harassment. And I think that’s the right, yeah, ongoing harassment from a former team member who is still in the company. I think that’s what this is, uh, it’s not sexual harassment, but it’s harassment that is gendered.
[00:13:36] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.
[00:13:36] Kim Scott: And that’s what happens when you layer power on top of bullying. And by not creating consequences for this person who bullied others, the company’s owner has created a situation where the bullying is going to escalate. It’s going to get worse. They’ve given power to the bully and removed, it’s like Lord of the Flies, kind of.
[00:14:05] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, and power protected the bully in this case, essentially.
[00:14:08] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Jason Rosoff: Like they, they, there were no real consequences for their behavior when there was evidence that it continued, nothing has been done about it.
[00:14:16] Kim Scott: Yeah. Well, not nothing. I mean, clearly there’s some glimmer of hope in this situation because he stopped going into her file. So that’s like, clearly the guy got some feedback that you can’t do that.
[00:14:31] Jason Rosoff: Yeah.
[00:14:31] Kim Scott: Uh, but then he just came up with a new, so I would say continue documenting. I think the other thing that’s important in this case is to can, even though the owner of the company has not taken any action. It’s important to keep documenting, keep reporting it.
[00:14:52] And I learned this from, uh, Susan Rigetti, um, then Susan Fowler, when she wrote the blog posts about the way she was treated at Uber. I had lunch with her and I said, why did you continue? Um, HR clearly wasn’t going to solve the problem. Why did you continue reporting? And she said, you’ve got to keep reporting this stuff ’cause that’s what demonstrates that the company’s owner is not gonna do the right thing. Uh, that’s what builds a record. And it may be the case that continuing to report it will persuade the company’s owner to finally do the right. So don’t give up too soon. But if you’ve already talked to a lawyer, it’s even more important to keep documenting because that may be your only recourse.
[00:15:48] Jason Rosoff: For Susan, any guidance you have about, uh, ways to avoid,
[00:15:58] Kim Scott: Having this, finding yourself in the same situation?
[00:16:01] Jason Rosoff: Yeah. Are there any things you can do while you’re looking for companies or interviewing? Any recommendations you have there?
[00:16:08] Kim Scott: I think that one of the most important things to ask in an interview process, and usually this is a good question to ask after you have the offer in hand, not before. But after you’ve got the offer, when they’re still, now they’re trying to sell you on taking the job that they’ve offered to you. Ask a question. What consequences do you have in place to prevent bullying at your company? Ask that question.
[00:16:34] And then ask a follow up question. Like what’s an example of a time when you had one employee bullying another and what happened? And if they say, oh, that’s never happened at this company. Like, unless it’s a tiny company, like less than five people, because now I’m thinking, huh, has this ever happened at Radical Candor? Uh, but if they say, if it’s a decent sized company and they say, we’ve never had any bullying happen here, that means they just, they refuse to notice it.
[00:17:10] Because bullying happens all the, I mean, anytime you have more than twenty people gathered together, somebody is going to bully someone else. Uh, and the question is, is it allowed to continue or is it treated serious?
[00:17:23] Jason Rosoff: Uh, I think that that’s a really helpful frame. I also think one of the things that you recommend in Radical Respect is that there should be a code of conduct also, right? Something that governs, not only, and that code of conduct should also reference the consequences for this type of behavior, right?
[00:17:42] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Jason Rosoff: It should at least tell you where to go to find out more information about that.
[00:17:46] Kim Scott: Yeah, and the code of conduct should not be eighty-five pages long, by the way, either.
[00:17:50] Jason Rosoff: It should be, yeah, it should be understandable, um, and it should have this information. I think the, even though Radical Candor is very small, we do have a code of conduct, and we do ask everybody who joins the company to sign that code of conduct. Um, so you don’t have to be a big company to have a code of conduct.
[00:18:07] Kim Scott: Yeah.
[00:18:07] Jason Rosoff: You can be a small company and have a code of conduct. So that’s another thing that’s useful to ask for. And usually it’s provided as part of your onboarding process. So just ask to see it a little early, right? Like what does your code of conduct say?
[00:18:21] Kim Scott: And we did have an experience of bullying. I’m thinking of, uh, I don’t want to give all the details. But we were working with another company. And Brandi, I think you got bullied, uh, by one of the people at that other company. And I don’t think we actually responded well enough soon enough in that case. Brandi, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but feel free to comment or not comment.
[00:18:48] Brandi Neal: I didn’t feel bullied as much as I felt like it was more bias.
[00:18:53] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:53] Brandi Neal: But I feel like not being supported right away made it feel worse than it should have.
[00:19:03] Kim Scott: Yes. Yeah, sometimes bias can start to feel like bullying, uh, if it’s not addressed quickly enough.
[00:19:11] Brandi Neal: I don’t think it was intentional in the way you described bullying as being mean.
[00:19:15] Kim Scott: Yeah, yeah, but sometimes people are mean without exactly meaning to be. Like, I would say my father, who I love, who I would not classify as a bully, would often really upset people without intending to. And explaining to him, it was really important, and it upset him that he did this. So, like, explaining to him why this was happening, I think, was really important.
[00:19:42] Jason Rosoff: Yeah, I think maybe there’s a distinction here between bullying behavior and behaving like a bully.
[00:19:48] Kim Scott: Yes.
[00:19:49] Jason Rosoff: Like, I know that seems very subtle, but I do think that there’s something, there’s a difference there. Because if this person was upset by the notion, if Bob, in this case, in our case, was upset by the notion that his behavior was coming across in a biased or bullying way, you would assume that they would do something more significant to change, they’d be more open to changing that behavior as opposed to finding new ways to bully.
[00:20:16] Kim Scott: Yes, yes.
[00:20:17] Brandi Neal: Bob feels very calculated and like he is upset that he is not Susan’s equal or does, he feels she has something that he feels he deserves, is the way it feels, seems to me.
[00:20:31] Jason Rosoff: Hm.
[00:20:31] Kim Scott: Yeah. I mean, it seems like retribution. Susan gave him some feedback that his behavior was not okay. And then said he can’t be on her team anymore. And rather than taking that seriously and making sure that he couldn’t continue in that behavior, the company’s owner put Bob in a situation where he could continue to, uh, to harass her. You know, where it’s not, where it could go from bad to worse. Uh, you know, and that often happens when a company’s owner is trying to avoid conflict that the person then, uh, creates worse conflict. And that seems like what, you know, that’s why ruinous empathy slash manipulative insincerity tend to have such terrible results. Uh, and usually the person is sort of just not wanting to deal with some, you know, false harmony.
[00:21:33] Jason Rosoff: Well, I think we should wrap it up there. Why don’t we cover our Radical Candor checklist? Kim, do you want to go first?
[00:21:41] Kim Scott: Sure.
[00:21:41] Tip number one, you can’t fix problems you refuse to notice. If you’re the boss and someone comes to you with a scenario like this, where one employee is bullying another, it is important to define and document what’s happening and to create consequences for the person bullying and even harassing others at work.
[00:22:01] Jason Rosoff: Tip number two, if you believe your company’s owner or CEO doesn’t understand the effects bullying has on individuals and teams, start a conversation and show them the research, which we’ll link to in our show notes, that it harms moral, performance and profit.
[00:22:15] Kim Scott: Tip number three, when interviewing for a job, after you get the offer, ask your new potential employer to outline what the consequences for bullies at work are. And ask for specific examples of when these consequences were invoked. You can also ask to see a code of conduct.
[00:22:39] As you ask that question, you’re looking for three different kinds of consequences for bullying. Conversational consequences. Do the leaders know how to shut it down in the moment? Compensation consequences. People who bully others should not get good ratings or high bonuses. And last but not least, career consequences.
[00:23:00] There comes a moment on every team’s history when the jerks begin to win. That is the moment when the culture begins to lose. So, even though it may feel painful to fire this person who has bullied others, uh, remember, it’s better to have a hole than an asshole.
[00:23:22] Jason Rosoff: And with that, for more tips and to see show notes for this episode, head over to radicalcandor.com/podcast. Praise in public and private, criticize in private. If you like what you hear, please rate, review and subscribe wherever you happen to be listening to our podcast. And if you have criticism for us, we want that too. Please email it to us at podcast@radicalcandor.com. We look forward to getting your criticism and your questions so that we can fufill Kim’s dream of turning this into car talk for management. Bye for now.
[00:23:51] Kim Scott: Take care. Be well.
Radical Candor Podcast Resources
- The No Asshole Rule: Robert Sutton | Amazon
- Workplace Bullying: Ignoring Bullies Doesn’t Work – Try This Instead | Radical Respect LinkedIn
- Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber | Susan Fowler
- Firstround Review: Tips for Leaders – Code of Conduct | Radical Candor
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