It ain’t pretty but it’s true: when people velcro themselves onto en experience where they feel they were treated in an uncivil manner, they often seek revenge. They engage in getting-even actions that are intended to balance an imaginary ledger.

Remember my last blog entry, “why bother saying hello?”. It examined how people get reactive when someone skips a greeting.

In reality, this dynamic goes quite a bit deeper.

When a person is upset by someone’s incivility, his or her getting-even activities will tend to be in proportion to how serious they think the other person’s ‘offence’ was. So when a colleague doesn’t say hello, they begin by exacting a punishment that is similar in intensity to the original offence. (“You didn’t say hello? Well, I won’t say hello either!”).

But over time, if the first person continues to be a greeting-offender, the affected person will up the ante – – they’ll add  supplementary getting-even tactics to their original actions. In addition to not saying hello to that no-good person, they might throw a bit of gossip into the mix, or perhaps even the occasional little work-related sabotage. In other words, a chronic offence will require an elevated getting-even response that will satisfy the affected person’s sense that they are adequately balancing those invisible justice scales.

There’s no shortage of creative strategies, but good old tried-and-true revenge strategies can always be relied upon to give one that sweet sense that precious justice is being adequately served: spreading the word about the person’s inconsiderate ways, ‘forgetting’ something just when someone needs it, sabotage (the kind that’s juicy enough to make an impact but subtle enough not to get you into trouble), ignoring requests, or ‘working to rule’.

Meanwhile – have you too noticed this? – the person who is engaging in executing justice via these even-the-ledger activities is utterly blind to the fact that his or her own behaviour is itself a form of min-aggression that constitutes workplace incivility. They say that ‘justice is blind’ – indeed it is.

if you are part of a spiralling cycle such as this, you find yourself having tremendous difficulty freeing yourself of the entanglement of feelings and actions involved in its dynamics. And if you are in management, it is practically impossible to sort out who started what, when, why and where. You might get better results by avoiding getting into the history of events and just stepping up to the plate and holding people accountable for professional and civil behavior going forward.

We’d love to hear from you –  get in touch anytime.

Participants in our workplace incivility workshops sometimes say: “why should I say hello to a colleague who doesn’t bother saying hello to me?”. In other words, the old eye-for-an-eye principal, or what researchers described as The Spiral Effect: one act of workplace incivility leads to a retaliatory one, which leads to another mini-aggression act of incivility.

When we’re really honest with ourselves, it’s not rocket science to realize that our not saying ‘hello’ in response to their not saying it, is in itself a form of min-aggression.

Same is true if your response to their no-hello is to provide them with a greeting that’s imbued with a sarcastic, chastising tone. This is when you words convey a greeting but your tone says: “Let me teach you those manners that your parents obviously forgot to impart on you”. In this case, everyone might be better off if you keep silent instead of engaging in this passive-aggressive ‘greeting’.

So here are the top five reasons why you should be polite and courteous even when that other evil-rude-terrible person does none of it at all:

1. Necessity is the mother of invention, and that’s how the concept of ‘manners’ came into the world. Quoting from my friend John’s mother: “Manners are meant for use with people you don’t like (or don’t know)”.
2. There’s good reason for the saying: “An-eye-for-an-eye leaves everyone blind”.
3. You’ll like yourself better when you come from your higher, generous self rather than from a nit-picky retaliatory place.
4. You’ll be contributing to a work environment that feels better for everyone. That will feel good to you and to everyone around you. Instead of being part of a workplace that makes you want to linger in bed in the morning, you’ll leap forward with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
5.  It’s a good idea to follow what sages, across religions and cultures, have suggested through the ages: do unto others as you would have them do unto thyself.

 On  a different note – an invitation:

On February 26th (tomorrow), join me for the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s town-hall webinar on the new National Standard of Canada on Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace.  I will be sharing the virtual podium with Emma Pavlov, Senior Vice President at University Health Network (UHN), who will be sharing inspiring information from their journey as Canada’s largest health care provider in the arena of respectful workplace (I will chime in with my two cents too).

It’s FREE, and if you can’t make it, you can listen at another date. Click here for details.

And as always,  don’t be a stranger –  get in touch.

We promise to always greet you with a nice ‘hello’ when you connect.