When Spain blundered onto the Solomon Islands in the 16th century, the natives had not yet developed metallurgy and, therefore, possessed no axes or saws. They did, however, use wood, which was plentiful on the islands, to build canoes, huts, and religious artifacts. So how did they fell the trees? Once a day, for about an hour, the tribe members gathered around the tree they wanted and yelled at it. They directed anger, scorn, and animosity toward the tree and continued doing so each day for about a month. At the end of that time, the tree invariably withered, died, and fell down.

And we think our behavior has no impact. For those who have been personally felled by outbursts of ill temper or public humiliation at the hands of a manager or coworker, this ancient ritual offers a profound insight into workplace incivility. It suggests that the projection of personal energy has consequences and costs. Anyone who has worked with a chronically rude coworker can attest to that. When I worked for IBM, the administrator in my branch office was barely civil, often confrontational, and perpetually sour. It was no fun being in his presence, and few lingered there beyond the minimal time required to transact business. Yet his rudeness had an impact far beyond the padded borders of his ergonomic cubicle. Coworkers wasted a lot of time complaining about him, avoiding him, excusing his behavior, or stewing over his latest slight. They would sit on paperwork for weeks, compiling formidable piles before passing them to him for last-minute processing; they would purposely leave out bits of vital information as well, knowing it would make his job more difficult. Rudeness was exacting a discrete price, although none of the employees could even begin to quantify its full effects. And because it remained largely invisible, it continued unchallenged until the gentleman in question took early retirement.

Recently, however, an enlightening survey conducted by Christine Pearson, a management professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, expressly assessed the cost of workplace incivility. Seven hundred seventy-five people who had been on the business end of the boorish behavior stick
“answered a 240-item questionnaire about rudeness, insensitivity, and disrespect inflicted by another worker.” I must note that the incidents of incivility referenced in the survey were relatively mild; there was no violence, sexual harassment, or overt physical intimidation—just garden-variety rudeness of the sort that leaves an employee feeling shamed or ridiculed before his peers, such as having his competence questioned, being shouted at, or being curtly dismissed.

If the statistics compiled in the survey reflect national trends—and they should, as the respondents were spread across multiple industries in every region of the nation and were equally divided between men and women—then rudeness is a real bottom-line buster. Although the response to rudeness is usually covert, it is no less costly for going unnoticed. Pearson discovered that, after incidents of incivility, employees responded by doing one or more of the following:

• 28 percent lost work time avoiding the instigator.

• 53 percent lost work time worrying about the incident or future interactions.

• 22 percent decreased their effort at work.

• 37 percent believed their commitment to the organization declined.

• 10 percent spent less time at work.

• 46 percent contemplated changing jobs to avoid the instigator.

• 12 percent actually changed jobs.

Assuming incivility eventually touches just about everyone in an organization, an enterprise employing 1,000 workers could lose 120 people—an outrageously costly and disruptive outcome—and not even understand why.

Furthermore, the effect was not limited to those who were directly slighted. Rudeness breeds triangulation. Ninety-four percent of those offended shared their experience with someone else, usually for the purpose of soliciting an ally. Hence, one can infer, the infection spread. The workplace became cloyed with triads of ill-mannered persecutors, “poor me” victims, and rescuers eager to hear the latest gossip. Although not part of the original incident, the rescuer’s relationship with the persecutor was likely also blemished by the retelling of the story.

When incidents were reported (and few were), only one-fourth of those filing a complaint felt that their organization handled the matter satisfactorily. As a result, Ms. Pearson reported, “more than a third said that their commitment to the organization declined.”

If reduced commitment is the result of a single incident of incivility, then what level of dedication could one reasonably expect from an employee who has endured dozens of slights?

Moreover, rank and status were recurrently the source of, rather than the solution to, workplace incivility. “Instigators were more than three times as likely to be of higher status than the target,” Pearson reported. Men were ruder than women by a ratio of more than two to one, and they preferred the relative safety of picking on subordinates: “Men were seven times as likely to instigate uncivil behavior on someone of lower status than on someone of higher status,” according to Pearson. In about half the cases, the higher-status instigators browbeat employees by loudly brandishing their position.

Four out of five targets just took it, choosing not to reply or file a complaint. Some saw the reporting of such incidents as a career-limiting move. Subordinates saw instigators with power as being “impervious to personal criticism or shielded against corrective feedback or repercussions.” In other words, workers perceived management as being unwilling to hear the truth, reluctant to take action, and content to avoid “sticky problems that reflected interpersonal incompetence.”

But of course, those who felt wronged didn’t really “just take it.” As the statistics demonstrate, they got even by decreasing their productivity or spending less time at work. Employee morale, as their actions proved, is invariably a reflection of the stasis between

policy and practice. The more the two are out of sync, the more likely it is that employees will go underground and find surreptitious means to settle scores. In the extreme, I can recall a job I had while attending college. The company in question provided food for airlines, but the pay was so low and the management so tyrannical that disgruntled employees decided that stealing was a valid employee benefit.

Pearson makes a variety of recommendations on how to minimize and manage incidents of incivility, but they are mostly of the track/document/punish variety. She does also recommend training (e.g., sensi-tivity, listening skills, stress management, and conflict resolution), but noticeably missing from the mix is communication training.

First and foremost, communication is a function of speaking the truth. Many models exist, but none of them will work unless the people using them feel safe enough to be authentic. Nor will the truth serve the cause of civility and mutual understanding if the speaker uses it to bludgeon the listener. So it is more effective to deliver the truth in a way that can be heard, which means omitting judgement and blame. After all, who enjoys being blamed and judged and would not interpret such a communication as hostile or rude? The speaker can gauge the success of his communication by the response it elicits. If the response is not congruent with the intent, it is the responsibility of the speaker to redeliver the message. In such cases, louder does not equal better.

Accountability and ownership are central to civil discourse; adopting the following six principles will advance authentic communication and deter incivility:

• Be responsible for your thoughts, feelings, wants, and intentions. You may find certain behaviors annoying, but your reactions to them are your own. Realizing that no one can make you feel anything will temper your response, even in stressful situations.

• Stay current with people. Resentment grows over time. Be like a self-cleaning oven and clean up your messes.

• Take your communication directly to the person or persons involved. Triangulation is seductive, but complaining to a third party will not solve the problem and may worsen it because what you say is likely to be repeated.

• Use accountable language. Speak the unarguable truth of your experience: “I think, I feel, I sense, I want, I do.”

• Own your part of the interaction. Admitting your part invites accountability in the listener.

• Turn all complaints into requests. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

I can’t overstate how injurious third-party talk (incomplete communication in which two or more people talk about a third person without that person’s knowledge) is to individuals and organizations. The intent of third-party talk is typically to do one of the following: blame a person for one’s experience, vent frustration, gather allies in support of one’s “rightness,” spread rumors or gossip, or share confidential information. Third-party talk perpetuates incivility; it is covert rudeness with the power to impugn character and reputation anonymously. It damages not only the object of the gossip but also the speaker.

Many social commentators have noted that incivility is a growing national concern contaminating all aspects of our culture. It may manifest as an abuse of power, a venting of frustration, a shrill political campaign, or even rage codified in popular music. At its core, however, rudeness is a weak person’s imitation of strength. That so many people apparently feel so unempowered during a time of relatively full employment and economic abundance is a curious unfolding. It suggests what most of us already know intuitively: Empowerment comes not from position or possession but from who and how we are in the world. After all, if a tree can be felled without an axe...