WORKPLACE SPINS ARE LIKE EMOTIONAL TORNADOS


WORKPLACE SPINS ARE LIKE EMOTIONAL TORNADOS

Just like a tornado of the weather variety, the outcome of an emotional tornado is often surprisingly destructive. The winds of these complicated forces can pick up you, beloved colleagues, friends , enemies, loved ones, communities, states, nations and in fact the entire world community and toss them about like a plastic cup. Reasonable, kind, hard-working individuals or entire systems can be relocated from a happy employment site right into an unemployment line with no references. A once vital person can be decimated and left languishing in a health care or mental health facility. Brilliant individuals can land in psychiatric or legal incarceration, alcohol and drug rehab, bankruptcy, divorce court , and even the grave. Emotional winds can swirl your co-worker into time-consuming child custody battles or a favorite boss into a fight for his or her personal or professional reputation. Emotional tornadoes can spin one person or entire systems. Just as the wind of nature isn't very picky about location, emotional tornadoes are not subject to specific places or industries.

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Case Example

Prior to her faculty position at the college Paula had worked for a government educational team as a teacher and was well liked by students and faculty, administrators and parents. Paula was rather odd. She was well-traveled, dramatic, dressed non-traditionally, and loved telling a good story. The new president of the college did not like her. She did not fit his agenda or perception of success. He summarily created covert chaos in her department and overtly sabotaged her at staff meetings. Paula started feeling disconnected and began to isolate. When an accident in her office left her with a minor head injury she was denied sick leave by the president. He told her and others that he thought she was making up the symptoms and had possibly staged the accident to discredit him as the new president. This confused her because she had always had excellent credibility. Her complaints began to sound like paranoid fantasies even to herself. She had no witnesses on her behalf and no one stood up to defend her position. Her doctor put her on medications. Her complaints became less clear and her position weakened. Her frustration left her unable to coherently discuss what she experienced as some sort of covert agenda by the president to get her out of the college. She began crying at work. She resigned her tenure position at the college and within a week was committed to a local psychiatric, in-house treatment center. No one spoke up for her and the doctors were evaluating her for paranoia .

A new employee, Karla, had seen a similar emotional campaign in another college so took a professional risk and went to Paula's doctors to tell them that Paula wasn't crazy, the president really was out to get her. Karla risked her own job, as she did not have tenure. Because Karla was a counselor at the college, the doctors listened and responded well. They helped Paula quickly and successfully resolve the emotional impact of this episode. Karla quit quietly and moved on to another university. Both employees survived but suffered extreme financial difficulties.

Learning Byte

Sometimes, when everyone is out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking! This institution of higher education was spinning out of control and several employees were terminated without references by a powerful centrifugal force from an extremely tyrannical administrator. The college lost accreditation during this president's reign.

DO THIS : Pay attention to emotional tornadoes to protect yourself and your company

DON'T : Assume it will avoid you or your organization

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An emotionally spinning boss or employee who works alone or in isolation and is not in a position to do much damage to anyone else can usually be managed successfully. However, if an emotionally spinning employee starts to take over territory, moves into another area, or joins another spinner, the velocity and risk of potential damage escalates exponentially. With each addition of an emotional spin the stability of an entire system is at risk and becomes weaker as it becomes compromised. An emotional tornado can threaten infrastructure just as a real tornado can do untoward damage.

One employee spinning is difficult enough to manage, but one in a key position is very challenging. When several employees gather forces, their collective energy is daunting. If the emotional tornado continues adding force, with or without intentionality, the consequences can reach "inconceivable" levels. An emotional spin that completely sabotages business productivity develops a life of it's own while the office grinds itself into an emotional spin frenzy. Anger and sadness, indignation and rage, fear and jealousy, sweeping through a system may leave a trail of emotional carnage, chaos and destruction with profound immediate long- term requirements for reconciliation and repair. An emotional tornado leaves a swath of emotional rubble . The effects of an emotional tornado can be managed or left to chance. Do you think your company is safe? Does it have the shelter of a policy to protect your people? Do you think it won't hit your company? Think again!

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Case Example

A young employee was seduced by another employee and began an email love affair. Tamara got more and more involved and became careless with the "secret." Her email lover, Randy, manipulated her into a vulnerable position by threatening to tell her spouse. He emotionally and poetically claimed that he was her best friend and devoted lover who feared losing her. This seduction worked and she took more risks to keep the sexy communication going, thinking it was "love."

Eventually her husband, Brandon, suspected something was going on and discovered the relationship. She continued the email relationship that now spanned two departments of interconnected agencies. Randy began to email pornography. She tried to stop this, but failed. He persisted and encouraged her to join him for their special "love." Communications dwindled as she got disgusted and he threatened to move on to another woman because his "heart was broken."

Tamara was directed to an EAP provider when her supervisor saw her productivity drop and her moods become erratic. She told Randy to stop mailing her pornography. He refused . Now, even more involved with pornography, he threatened to use her old email to set in motion another emotional agenda to control her. Riddled with guilt and fear, Tamara bravely rebuked him again. Starting to lose control, Randy set up a revenge plan to make their email affair public. Tamara, ignorant of his entrenched sexual control agenda, emailed Randy to tell him she was reconciled with her spouse, in counseling , and wanted him to go away. Randy, knowing her seduction vulnerabilities, tried to pull her back in to the affair again. She was able, with much difficulty and professional support to rebuke these advances and he became very angry . Randy emailed Tamara some of her original responses to earlier love notes to remind her of their "love" and " accidentally " forwarded them to other staff in the office. He followed it with a very well written apology email to everyone claiming he had been the silent victim of her misplaced sexual aggressions for desperate months and that he has been so "embarrassed and humiliated beyond belief and would never want anyone to know about this." He performed well and then went to his manager complaining that Tamara was pursuing him. He cried. He used the word "stalking," and implied that there may be a sexual harassment lawsuit at stake, but he "didn't want to make waves." He explained sympathetically that he had heard that she was in counseling and must be mentally ill after all and he didn't want to hurt her. He eloquently punctuated his grievance with, "I hope she isn't dangerous."

Employees blamed Tamara because they saw him as non-emotional, calm, charming and sad while she appeared emotionally distracted, visibly upset, emotional, and unstable. The team became systemically agitated. Someone anonymous did some research and was "accidentally" able to find some very raunchy porno with her name attached to the document. Randy, with good IT skills, cleverly removed all evidence that would lead to him and claimed ongoing victimhood. Almost everyone rallied around him. There was one woman who didn't participate in discussions about any of this and quit unexpectedly. Management was too busy to pay any attention to this sudden exit because Randy escalated his spinning by using his ethnicity as a defense and attack against Tamara.

Tamara worked in a high security industry and the inappropriate use of email destroyed her security status. She was fired . Her dismissal threatened the security of Brandon's position in a closely related security industry, and under the extreme pressure applied from external sources, the young couple could not restore their marriage .

Learning Byte

There was no fast resolution to this event. Although Tamara's initial participation in the flirtation should not be minimized, it was Randy, an Emotional Terrorist, who was able to pull off the heist of this woman's career and life without apparent consequences. His success led him to getting better at Emotional Terror. Within a few weeks the corporation offered him significant perks including a raise. Management was held hostage with a threat of discrimination litigation.

Tamara and Brandon suffered extreme secondary financial damages associated with their losses of employment, social status, costs associated with a difficult and messy divorce and child custody battle. A teacher who didn't have time to "counsel kids of divorce" in a busy classroom advised that one of their young children be put on prescription drugs for stress at age six. Tamara and Brandon were torn apart by a sequence of cascading consequences which impoverished both these young parents and their children. This family was destroyed.

Within four months, two other female employees quit suddenly without reasonable explanations . Management began to see a pattern of female employees quitting without adequate explanation, and observed they were women who were within the same age group as Tamara, and worked in proximity to Randy. Eventually an older male manager, Ron, questioned Randy's ongoing "victimhood" behavior, and began slowly moving him away from key projects with sensitive security issues. Randy was not able to manipulate Ron and eventually transferred. Ron began a series of training for all employees on the topics of harassment, email usage, ethnicity and diversity issues, and how to recognize emotional manipulation. Randy used an Emotional Continuity Management plan that offered excellent information to his staff. It was too late for Tamara and Brandon. The potential estimated ongoing costs of spinning from Emotional Terrorism to this family and community, and ultimately to society, will continue for decades.

DO THIS : Avoid emotional entrapments before they spin into large events that hold you hostage.

DON'T : Try to manage large emotional spins alone. Some are too big to avoid and secrecy and isolation are dangerous.

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Emotional Terrors in the Workplace. Protecting Your Business' Bottom Line. Emotional Continuity Management in the Workplace
Emotional Terrors in the Workplace: Protecting Your Business Bottom Line - Emotional Continuity Management in the Workplace
ISBN: B0019KYUXS
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 228

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