HRANB Newsletter

Let me tell you a true story. A woman suspects her husband cares nothing about her. Nothing. So to test this hypothesis she walks by him as he’s sitting in their living room reading a paper. She’s carrying a rope and tells him that she’s heading to the basement to hang herself. He says nothing, and so she proceeds to the basement, throws a rope up over the rafters and makes choking noises. Then she sits down with a watch and times her husband’s response. Over 6 minutes. Eventually, the couple ends up in the office of renowned psychotherapist, Susan Johnson (Johnson, 2003).

Now, I’ll get back to this story in a bit, but let me tell you another story -- also true. Recently a woman sat on a six member committee. On paper at least, each member had equal power and the committee as a whole was presumed to be a team working toward common goals. But one morning this woman was informed by the Chair that four of the five others had conferred and decided they didn’t like one of her initiatives. When she expressed her dismay one member replied, “We’ve discussed this and you’ve heard our arguments. That’s our position. In order for us to shift from this position, you’ll have to convince us.”

The woman was furious! And I mean FURIOUS! How dare they! Who did they think they were?

Okay, okay, I confess – the woman in the second story was me (but not the first, which we’ll get back to shortly). I was surprised by the intensity of my emotion. But after I calmed down, I started to think about my reaction in that sort of detached, analytical way that allowed me to gain some much-needed distance. It occurred to me that although the executive members’ behavior on that particular day isn’t of the sort you typically find in a standard definition of workplace harassment, there was nevertheless something very insidious about it: it was a textbook example of relational aggression – more specifically, that of collusion.

Now, that’s a word we don’t very often see in discussion articles of workplace harassment. We occasionally see its relative – mobbing -- but very rarely is attention paid to its less malevolent sister. Collusion is when two or more individuals secretively discuss how to appear and present themselves to another party. In a workplace, collusion amongst team members is particularly toxic.

Since my experience, I’ve talked with a number of individuals who have related similar experiences. Their stories are equally ripe with feelings of hurt, anger and distress. So why is this – a seemingly mild event in comparison to more blatant examples of workplace harassment such as yelling, swearing and threatening --- so disturbing? Part of the answer lies in how it is exactly that – not blatant. Because collusion is often not explicitly defined as harassment in workplace policies, it goes unreported, unaddressed and repeated time and again.

The second part of the puzzle as to why collusion is so disturbing lies in an understanding of basic human motives. As my colleague Julie Devlin’s doctoral research indicates, people vary with respect to how strongly they value agency (competence and power) and communion (joining with others). They have different beliefs as to how people should behave and how groups and society should be organized. In judging themselves and others, some primarily orient to agency. Others focus on communion. Still others value both fairly lowly.

When we plot these motivational dimensions we have four quadrants of people who exhibit varying degrees of agency and communion. Julie and other researchers -- such as the renowned anthropologist Mary Douglas -- have named these “Worldviews.” They include (along ‘high to low’ dimensions) the Master (who is moderate to high in agency and moderate to low communion), the Steward (who is moderate to high in agency and moderate to high in communion), Companion (who is moderate to low in agency and moderate to high in communion) and Stoic (who is moderate to low in agency and moderate to low in communion).

Now, there is no right or wrong when it comes to worldviews – in fact, in order to make good decisions, research demonstrates time and again that it’s best to have worldview diversity in teams. The Worldviews Questionnaire that Julie developed and validated as part of her doctoral work has wide-ranging applications from team formations to screening for hiring to developing inclusive policies to identifying and addressing the core cause of workplace conflict. But no matter which way you look at it, from a worldview perspective, it is clear that collusion in teams is a poison for nearly everyone.

In my case, I’m on the line between the Steward and the Companion. I am quite high in communion and moderately high in agency. When my team members surprised me with the revelation that they had conferred about my issues behind my back and reached their own conclusions independent of my input, they offended my belief in and the value I place on working collaboratively with others in an egalitarian fashion. They pushed me to the fringes of the team where any person high in communion is loathe to be. And when they informed me that ‘they’ had made a decision with which I must either live or dispute, they challenged my agency and achievement needs. In short – on both core dimensions -- I was more than primed for a fight.

Why should HR professionals be so concerned about collusion? Well, let’s return to the woman who feigned hanging to test her husband’s response time. As we all know, respect in personal relationships is the foundation for health and satisfaction. In fact, researcher John Gottman has found that he and his colleagues can predict with 90% accuracy whether a couple’s marriage will last for six years. They do it primarily by coding a couple’s interaction for expressions of contempt -- the most explicit way of communicating lack of respect.

However, this research has applications beyond intimate relationships – it also applies to the workplace. In fact, psychological research demonstrates that the single strongest predictor of employee engagement, morale and satisfaction across diverse jobs is a focus on the importance of people as individuals (Amos & Weathington, 2008). Collusion is a surefire way to violate both of human beings’ core motives: communion and agency.

When their basic human motives and values are violated, employees – like the woman who threatened to hang herself -- sometimes resort to extreme behavior of the types that do make it into those definitions of workplace harassment (as well as translate into higher absenteeism, high turnover and sick leaves). In these tough economic times, more than ever, HR professionals need to take a proactive approach to building morale and engaging employees – and part of that involves forming an understanding of how workplace collusion violates fundamental human motives.

What happens when the situation goes unaddressed? Well, you can likely guess the ending to the story. There was absolutely no foundation from which Dr. Johnson could begin to save this marriage. Trust was completely destroyed and the couple divorced. His response time was six minutes – six minutes too many.

About the Author: Carla Gunn, B.A., M.A. (Psychology) is Co-Director of Training and Research at Cogent Inc. – a company that specializes in multi-disciplinary, comprehensive and evidence-based assessments, training and programs in the field of organizational health and wellness.

Comments or inquiries can be directed to info@cogentinc.ca or www.cogentinc.ca

Recommendations:

Have a workplace harassment policy that includes a description of collusion and a reporting system;

Educate everyone – especially those who work as teams --- that collusion is a serious matter and how it is addressed by your organization;

Treat all complaints seriously, and address complaints promptly and confidentially;

Train managers and supervisors in how to deal with complaints of collusion and the situations in which it is most likely. Provide them with the support and skills for addressing to situation promptly, regardless of whether a formal complaint has been filed.

References:

Amos, E. & Weathington, B. (2008). An Analysis of the Relation Between Employee–Organization Value Congruence and Employee Attitudes, The Journal of Psychology, 2008, 142(6), 615–631

Gottman, J. (2000). Theoretical and Mathematical Modeling of Marriage.
In Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization: Dynamic Systems Approaches to Emotional Development, edited by Marc Lewis and Isabela Granic, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Johnson, S. (2003). The Woman Who Hanged Herself to Test Her Husband’s Response Time. In Mummies at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases. J. Cottler & J. Carlson (eds.). Jossey Bass: San Francisco.

Reina, D. & Reina, M. (2006). Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace. Berrett-Koehler: San Francisco.

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