What’s Up Down Under

Recently I received an e-mail from Fiona Smith, Work Space Editor of the “The Australian Financial Review” who wanted to interview me about the Workplace Attitudes Test. We scheduled a call for 4:00 pm in Washington, DC two days later. When I got the call I said, “Good morning, you’re up early,” and she seemed pleased that I knew that there was a 17 hour time difference. I try to sound moderately intelligent with reporters and invariably nice because I remember the quote, “Never argue with a person who buys ink by the barrel.”

Fiona Smith was very nice (I hope you read this Fiona) and was writing about some companies in the Australian workplace where jerks and bullies are less tolerated than they used to be. Her article is entitled “Now be nice – there’s no place for bullies” and it is in The Australian Financial Review, June 17, 2008. She starts her article by saying, “At Arup Australasia, there is a ‘no dickheads’ policy. If you can’t treat others with respect, you won’t be tolerated.”

She is quoting the managing director of this engineering consulting firm, Robert Care. Robert, I couldn’t have said it better myself. The article goes on to cite examples of intolerance for intolerance, or as the fine folks down under might say “We are not going to dick around with dickheads.”

Then Fiona went on to describe how to identify these people and she got to me - well, what I mean is she got to my Workplace Attitudes Test. The following four paragraphs are from her article.

“There are many consultancies offering psychological testing to make sure that new recruits will fit into the culture of their new employer, but one company in the U.S. is selling a test specifically targeted at weeding out jerks.

The president of Allegiance Research Group, Dale Paulson, says his Workplace Attitudes Test has not yet been picked up by the big corporations – ‘HR people are not as receptive’ – but is proving popular with small businesses, franchises, associations, and even a policy academy.

‘About ninety percent of problems come from ten percent of employees – people who have chips on their shoulders’ he says. The 45 question test, developed nine years ago, is very effective at the lower levels of the organization and for supervisors, he says, but, realistically, is unlikely to be used at the top of the organization. ‘If you are making ten million dollars you get to be a jerk’ he says.

But wouldn’t people with a history of difficulty working with others be tempted to lie about their attitudes in a test? ‘No, they are actually proud of their attitudes. They come in and say things like, ‘it’s a dog eat dog world,’ ‘you can’t trust anyone,’ and, ‘if you step on my toes and you don’t apologize you are going to get broken toes.’ he says.”

And so folks, I’m here to tell you that in addition to shrimp on the barbie and Foster’s beer, there are jerks in Australia, except they are generally referred to as “dickheads.” See http://www.workplaceattitudes.com/.

Workplaces Are Social Environments

Charles Schultz, the famous cartoonist and I might add philosopher, was once asked, “How optimistic are you about the future of America?” After all, Charlie Brown, his erstwhile protagonist suffered an inordinate amount of frustration. Year after year Lucy would promise to hold the football only to yank it away at the last moment. Suffering catastrophe after catastrophe a disillusioned Charlie would utter, “Good Grief.”

Nevertheless, concerning optimism and America, Mr. Schultz was very optimistic. When asked why, he said because every day millions of hard-working Americans went to work, did their job, took care of their children and met their obligations. The simple fact is the vast majority of people do us proud.

As the developer of the Workplace Attitudes Test, I was recently asked, “What percent of employees have problem attitudes?” This is difficult to answer with precision. I would say that usually among a group of job applicants, approximately one out of twenty has shown at least one very high warning signal on the test. This usually comes as a surprise to the interviewer because it is difficult to identify these problem attitudes in a regular job interview.

The anecdotal evidence suggests that there are a lot of turkeys out there. If you drove to work today, you probably witnessed someone honk at you, cut you off, or run a yellow light. You have probably experienced a cashier who was on their cell phone or had some other similar experience.

Most people follow the rules, are invariably polite and easy to get along with. Unfortunately, it is the turkeys that have a disproportionate impact. I sometimes think that it is the job of a manager to reign in the five percent so that the other ninety-five percent don’t get totally disgusted.

There is no question that one problem employee can pollute the workplace. It is even worse if that one person is a supervisor. We have probably all witnessed workplaces that were happy, then with a change in managers they became a neurosis-driven dysfunctional environment.

I am thinking of a sewing and fabric store that had a low-key, tolerant supervisor who was primarily concerned with keeping customers happy. As often happens, this manager was promoted and replaced by an individual with a different agenda. Neatness became the new top priority. In a fabric store, scraps of fabric were not tolerated and employees picked up scraps of cloth while customers were ignored. When the scraps were gone, then everything needed to be folded properly. Complaints increased, employees were blamed, and longtime employees quit. Hello neatness, goodbye profits.

The lesson is that workplaces are social environments. Ninety-five percent of the employees can be good, but that ain’t enough. All it takes is one turkey . . .