Reading course: Mobbing

An overview of international research into mobbing and toxic workplaces

The term "mob" is generally used pejoratively. A mob is usually a group of people who are behaving without regard for values such as fair play, justice, ethics, or law and order. Hence we have the 'lynch-mob' that takes so called 'justice' into its own hands. The mob is usually unruly and angry and violent. The mob has no respect for moral conventions. The mob defines itself as a power unto itself, answerable to no-one. The mob looks towards its 'safety in numbers' and 'numerical superiority' for moral support. 'Might is right' and 'majority rule' define this groups sense of moral superiority over the established wider values and laws. The mob cannot be controlled as such. It is 'out of control'.

Only a strong and determined authority can challenge the mob and force it to recognise and respect the conventions and values of the wider community. The mob represents the break-down of law and order. Law and order are the basis of positive and productive conflict management. Conflict is endemic to collective enterprise. When conflict is managed on the basis of mob rule, community breaks down, and interactions become unpredictable. In such circumstances interactions will be defined by unpredictability and pathological suspicion.

The greatest advances in human social development can be attributed to the emergence of values and institutions that provide a basis for reliable and consistent interactions. Submission to law and order represents the sacrifice of the the right to gratify urges, to ensure that others will do the same. We submit to external controls to ensure that others will do the same. We grant 'The State' a monopoly on violence. We submit to rules we don't necessarily agree with, as we recognise that the general system in which human behaviour can be regulated and ideally 'optimalised' is dependant on everyone doing so.

The 'state' as such refers to this 'state of affairs'. We recognise that our own well-being is dependant on a collective submission to law and order, and respect for the rights of others to well-being. We recognise that we need various kinds of 'police' and courts to enforce the laws. Punishments are distributed to provide a cost in the cost-benefit anaylses of individuals who would otherwise behave in ways not socially desirable or necessary. In many cases a cost must be imposed to outweigh the perceived 'benefits' of the satisfaction of selfish desires.

A brief overview

Research into the phenomenom of mobbing in the workplace began in the 1980s. The phenonenom had earlier been identified in relation to school children. Mobbing usually involves a group of people systematically 'ganging-up' on an individual in long term recurrent hostile and malicious acts of collective bullying and victimsation.

An intial 'objective' conflict

The mobbing scenario usually begins with an objective conflict. The power relations within this conflict can be a function of formal magerial power, or of informal 'majority-mob rule'. Often an individual supervisor, management in general, or a group of co-workers, seek to have their 'opponent' adopt informal work practises, behaviours, or attitudes, which are in fact contrary to the organsiation's stated formal codes of practise, OHAS regulations, and criminal law.

The victim's work performance is 'sabotaged'

The opponent becomes a victim when, failing to submit to this power, they are excluded and isolated by the group, and 'targetted' for victimisation. Their work relations, and work performance, can be sabotaged through a range of acts. 45 such acts have been identified. These acts are intended to drive their victim to either submit to the 'majority-mob rule', resign, or be fired.

The victim is unable, due to ongoing victimisation and pyscho-terror, to function effectively.

Intimidation

Trivial mistakes which would in other circumstances be overlooked, are reported, and the victim is formally warned, as a means of intimidating them into submission. They are threatened with dismissal if 'the problems persist'. The problems referred to are not the trivial work inadequacies, they are the lack of conformity or submission to the 'mob-rule'.

This will not be reported or documented in any form for investigators or researchers to 'uncover'. What will be reported will be any and all possible negative comments that could be made about the victim, even where all these very same comments would apply to every member of staff in the same work area. Where the victim lodges formal grievances and any investigation follows, all that will be documented will be the propaganda that was initially used as threats and intimidation to get the victim to stop 'rocking the boat'.

Investigators will only find evidence of mobbing where they set out to find it. It will be easy for any less than genuous and / or rigorous investigators to determine that the victim was in fact fired due to performance problems. There will be no overt documentation of the mobbing that produced these performance problems. In a telelogical irony typical to the whole mobbing experience, the original criticisms raised against the victim aimed at intimidating them into compliance with the mob rule will later be used as evidence of long standing performance and / or character defects on the part of the victim.

Where that victim had been previously victimised, this will once more be used against them. A victim's previous rape will be used to claim that there must be something about the victim that leads people to rape them. Investigators will seek to find what it is about the victim, what responsibility they have, what it is that they do, that leads to them being raped. The investigators will 'investigate' the victim, rather than the perpetrators. This is easier. It is easier to blame the victim, than to go about interrogating the perpetrators.

Sick leave and stress leave used as a pretext for 'medical' appointments

The range of psychological and pyscho-somatic symptoms the victim suffers as a result of the mobbing process often result in short and long-term sick-leave being taken. This symptomatic illness is used against the victim, as a pretext to seeking 'medical' solutions to management incompetence and lack of ethics. If the 'problems' can be blamed on some medical condition, then there will be no need to look any further. See no evil! And any evil heard can be attributed to the 'medical condition' of the speaker. As such management will not have to 'speak' any evil. The problem can be defined as arising from some medical condition that the victim has, rather than be located within the management's sphere of responsibility.

The victim is defined as a 'problem' and as 'having problems'

The reported 'inadequacies' of the victim, and their health problems, are used to define the victim as either incompetent or 'medically unfit for service'. The very fact that they are being targeted for exclusion and victimisation by others is used against them as evidence that they are 'unable to fit in as part of the work team'. This is another dimension of the absurdly ironic teleology of mobbing.

The victim becomes a 'scapegoat'

Management prefer to remain ignorant of problems. The problems are a function of their own incompetence, failure, and general poor management of workplace relations and design of the work process. In order to deny accountability for problems, they adopt the administrative expedient of defining the victim as 'unfit for service', 'medically insane', or as 'not being able to fit into the workplace'. It is easier to blame the victim, than to address conflicts and accept responsibility for what is essentially a management problem. As such, the organisational problems are 'medicalised' or 'personalised' as the problems of the victim. The 'problem' is simply 'eliminated', by expelling the victim by one means or other. The messenger is killed! 'Management' at all levels have a history of blaming the messenger for bad news!

Similarities between mobbing and rape victims

The victim is further victimised by the processes and procedures in place for putatively dealing with mobbing, and seeking natural justice for victims. Their experience is similar in ways to that of rape victims. Both victims are essentially blamed for becoming victims, and are expected to prove their own 'innocence' of provocation or personal responsibility for their victimisation. Both sets of victims often suffer Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

'Medicalising' poor management

The symptoms of the mobbing process are often defined as symptoms of some medical condition that the employee brought to the workplace, a so called 'pre-morbid personality' rather than as conditions arising out of the mobbing process itself. Given that most victims had not undergone any psychiatric assessments before the mobbing process began, it is impossible to compare their current condition with their pre-mobbing condition. Of course management would prefer to be able to blame the victim's personality, some putative 'mental health problem', in order to deny accountability for themselves, and any need to investigate the mobbing.

Non-ethical and incompetent management usually passively or actively collude with the mobbers. They seek, and get, medical diagnoses of depression or anxiety, or of any of the various medical consequences of the traumatic mobbing process, to define the 'difficult' victim as 'unfit for service', and 'medically retire' them.

In any case, the victim can simply be fired on the grounds of poor performance or 'inability to function as part of a team'. Implicit in such performance criticism is the statement that employees are expected to 'go along to get along'. Victims of Nazi persecution, according to this definition, are responsible for their own persecution. 'Mitlaufen' demonstrates team work!

Behaviours which may lead to being 'targetted'

The victim is often the purveyor of a higher morality, greater integrity, higher work ethic, a greater competence, a greater ambition, more well developed sense of justice, a greater committment to positive principles, a higher level of conscientousness; than the 'mob' that persecutes them, and the management that either actively assist them, or passively fail to intervene.

Employees are often targetted because they fail to join in with unofficial behaviours which they consider destructive or unproductive. Many have become a 'threat' to co-workers and supervisors as a function of their greater motivation, conscientousness, ambition, competence, creativity, intelligence, or diligence. Through their positive characteristics they implicity threaten to 'show-up' co-workers or supervisors. Their positive qualities are resented or envied, or seen as 'threatening'.

The true systemic or structural sources of mobbing

No research to date has been able to define a typical victim or perpetrator profile. This is because it is the way in which conflicts are managed in organisations that determines the prevalence of mobbing, rather than any characteristics of the participants in the process. It is the context, the situation, the environment, which determines whether conflicts will develop into mobbing processes. As all human interactions involve conflicts of interests between participants, conflict is endemic to interactions. The question is whether these conflicts will be managed postively and productively or allowed to develop their own momentum and dynamics, and result in mobbing.

Rather than be forced to confront endemic, systematic organisational and management shortcomings, management often prefer to simply destroy the 'proof' of their incompetence or poor management. Many managers and organsisational cultures are hostile to identifying real problems. They maintain a 'head in the sand' mentality, that of ostriches, and the famous three monkeys who "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil".

There is an ever growing consensus amongst mobbing researchers and commentators that this is in fact the true source of mobbing. Research indicates that mobbing is a symptom of dysfunctional, hostile, and toxic workplace cultures, and occurs more often in poorly run organisations, where roles and responsibilities are poorly defined, where work is complex, goals ambiguous, best practise debatable, and market discipline far away (Sources of mobbing). Many researchers have noted that the public health, education, and social welfare sectors are overrepresented in epidemiological studies on the prevalence of mobbing.

Challenges for further research and conclusive findings

Demonstrating many of these arguments is intrinsically difficult. Most medical diagnoses or descriptions of symptoms are made only after mobbing has advanced to the point of it producing its own symptoms. It would only be possible to provide positive data by running long term studies of employees, beginning well before they encountered any mobbing, in order to control for any potential effects of the victim's and perpetrator's 'personality'.

Descriptions of victims are either biased by being self-reports of victims, the self-reports of mobbers, or the reports of supervisors or management. These are all problematic sources of information. Each group will have its own motivations, biases, and selectivities. Individuals will wish to define themselves positively, mobbers will wish to define them negatively, and management will seek to blame the victim, or the perpetrator, or to medicalise the problems, in order to avoid being held accountable itself, in order to deflect and distract attention away from systemic problems, in order to 'mystify'. This is why management and mobbers usually work, even if tacitly, 'hand in glove', when it comes to avoiding identifying and addressing the true sources of mobbing.

It will be necessary to gather personnel records of on-going performance evaluations, to get some idea of how the victims were perceived of by their supervisors and co-workers before the mobbing process had taken root. Unfortunately the same management who wish to destroy evidence of systematic problems in their management are unlikely to provide the very same sort of evidence, evidence that would direct interrogations towards their own management, and away from the victims or even mobbers.

Consensus is emerging that the best way to prevent mobbing from emerging is to deal positively and constructively and productively with conflict as it emerges, before it becomes personalised, and can develop the mobbing dynamics of vindictiveness and malice.

Conflict is inevitable. It is the role of management to lead people of different competencies, backgrounds, beliefs, nationalities, motivations, political and religious allegiances, social backgrounds, and so on, towards the common organisational goals. This is what they are paid for. This is why they usually earn more than those they manage. It is their responsiblity to manage conflict. That is their job!

Sources of conflict should be sought out, recognised, identified, and managed. Employees must be encouraged to identify potential and actual sources of conflict, and notify management. A culture of openness to problems, of dealing with them as opportunities, must be developed and promoted by management.

Research indicates that most employees are aware that another co-worker is being mobbed. Few people are willing to risk becoming targets themselves by standing up for co-workers who are being mobbed, or by reporting incidents to management, or acting as witnesses for victims. Co-workers are usually unwilling to act as independant witnesses at meetings, for fear of becoming involved. It is not clever to stand too close to targets!

Many ultimate victims of mobbing were previously popular. Few people have the real principles required to demonstrate loyalty and to defend their earlier comrades when they come under fire. Few people care enough for justice in general, as an indivisable principle, to concern themeselves with the injustices experienced by others.

It is common for people to look the other way and avoid becoming involved in other people's problems. We don't want to become involved.

And further, 'Shadenfreude' or gloating / malicious glee is not uncommon. Humans do often take satisfaction from other's misfortune.

Once an initial conflict takes on the personal character, the vicousness and vindictiveness of mobbing, sides are drawn, and most people just stay out on the sidelines. People will try to avoid contact with the victim, to avoid becoming involved, or merely to avoid having to hear their complaints.

Mobbing could never occur where management do not allow it, nor where an organisational culture existed that did not tolerate mobbing. The conflicts and meanness of human nature can only be expressed in mobbing behaviours where management turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to mobbing, and promote a policy of 'never admit to problems': 'speak no evil'.

Most people have no real knowledge about what is going on. They merely note that a particular person seems to be being difficult or troublesome in some way. Most people do not understand the mobbing process and have no empathy for the victims. They just want to get on with their jobs. Like management, most employees find the situation merely a nuisance, and want the victim to simply go along to get along, stop rocking the boat, or to leave, so they can get back to how things were beforehand.

Many people secretly envy or resent the victims for having the nerve to stand up for themselves, for being 'morally superior' or for being more ambitious, talented, or positive in some other way, and gain real satisfaction at watching the 'tall poppies' fall.

The costs of mobbing for victims, their employers, and society

The costs of mobbing are many, severe, and far-reaching. Victims suffer severe, chronic, and long lasting health damage, both pyschological and psychosomatic. They often become unemployable either directly due to the damage done to their health, or to their reputations. Their families suffer with their loved ones emotionally, and materially, due to a loss of material and social status. Social and economic poverty for the entire family is often the result.

Depression and anxiety, and other symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, can make life so unbearable that many victims commit suicide. Their victimisers are as responsible for these deaths as if they had pushed them off a cliff. Some victims will feel compelled to gain 'natural justice' by the only means available to them, physical violence.

The costs for the organisation and for society are also tremendous. The performance of the victim and work group suffers, reducing workplace productivity and effectiveness. Victims take sick leave and stress leave, and legal action against their employers for failing to address the Occupational Health and Safety issues that allowed their victimisation to take place. This involves the high costs of litigation, including the time and resources taken to respond to the legal challenges for witnesses, supervisors, and legal representatives.

Many victims end up on medical pensions, or in early retirement. Many suffer such health damage that they are never again fit for payed employment. The general level of employee moral, motivation, and performance can suffer as a result of the incidences. Many people knew what was going on, even as they did nothing. They develop less and less respect for their co-workers and management, and for the organisation itself.

The organisation loses employees who were potentially some of the most productive. The employer has to bear the costs of recruitment, of seeking, interviewing, selecting, and then training, new personnel. High personnel turnover is usually a result of the poor management that allows mobbing to occur. The employer is forced to pay staff to cover for sick leave taken by victims, and must pay sick leave entitlements.

The organisation will inevitably gain the reputation of an employer best to be avoided. The Education, Health-care, and Public Service sectors are not the first choice for the most competent, capable, innovative, creative, intelligent, ambitious, or educated workers. These are the sectors in which mobbing clearly occurs as a result of poor workplace management and organisational culture. Many researchers have noted that the public health, education, and social welfare sectors are overrepresented in epidemiological studies on the prevalence of mobbing.

The organisation will not be able to recruit the best and most capable employees, as these will seek employment elsewhere. Those that are already employed in the organisation will look for a better run organisation to work for. Staff exit surveys reveal that stress and mobbing are a major reason why some of the best employees quit.

The taxpayer is forced to pay for the medical care and social security, unemployment benefits, and invalidity pensions of victims of mobbing, and for the legal proceedings before the courts and industrial relations commissions. The society will have lost the opportunity for real value production that the victim's exit from the labor market represents.

The society itself will be defined more and more by hostility and violence.

Mobbing is a form of violence, producing real physical damage and suffering, which contributes to the overall culture of violence present in our society. As I have commented in 'Socrates' cat' on many occasions, our society fails to recognise non-physical forms of violence and damage in its legal system and popular consciousness. This makes it harder to prosecute acts of non-physical violence. The lack of access to natural justice in our legal systems can provoke or even compel many people to draw political attention to their plights through acts of terrorism. It is sad that the public prefer to ignore injustice until it itself feels it has become a target.

This is in fact the very basis of terrorism. Acts of terror are meant to make everyone feel vulnerable, and therefore compel them to seek justice for everyone. Failure to seek justice in principle for all victims of all forms of violence might otherwise lead to oneself becoming a victim. As terrorism is unpredictable, the chances of becoming a victim are equal for all members of a target society. This means that even top management and the elites are vulnerable. In general they can hide behind their power and priveledge, and a legal system designed to protect these for them.

Terrorism is more egalitarian. The same management who felt smug and complacent in their power can become the next victim of 'random' acts of terror. Their power won't save them. Of course this is only true in theory, as the most powerful and priveledged are in fact harder to target, and victims are usually selected for their relative ease. It is rare that the powerful and priveledged are targetted directly.

In any case, as the powerful can rely on a legal system biased in their favour, this compels those who would gain natural justice into seeking it outside of the legal system, in simple acts of physical violence.

Our Essay proper

What is mobbing?

Long-term hostile behaviour in children at school, the very destructive behaviour in small groups of children, usually directed against a single victim, had been referred to as "mobbing" by Heinemann, a Swedish physician. (Heinemann,1972).

Professor Heinz Leymann identified this same type of long-term hostile behaviour in the workplace. Mobbing as a workplace phenomena was first systematically described in Leyman and Gustavsson's 1984 report to "The National Board of Occupational Safety and Health in Stockholm, Sweden. (Leymann and Gustavsson,1984)

'Ganging-up' on someone, mobbing, bullying, harassment, and psychological terror, (Leymann and Gustavsson,1984) all refer to what in Australia is commonly referred to as bullying and 'workplace victimisation'. In the U.S.A and Germany, as in the Scandinavian countries, the term "mobbing" is used. The term mobbing is more expressive of the phenomenom than victimisation, for reasons that will become clearer as we consider the nature of mobbing.

Heinz Leymann has identified 45 mobbing behaviours. Mobbing is said to be entrenched when at least one of these activities occur at least once a week for six months.These mobbing behaviours include preventing the victim from effectively participating in workplace interactions-including denying them access to information; attacks on the victim's social relationships, social status, professional and private life, health and well-being; constant criticism both work-related and personal; verbal agression; insults; threats; ignoring or avoiding contact with the victim; denying the victim any chance to express themselves or communicate generally; isolation either through avoidance and exclusion from interactions or physically removing them into an isolated office; work colleagues told not to communicate with the victim; victim treated as if wasn't there; victim spoken of insultingly or derisively behind their backs; rumours about victim spread; Gossip about victim; insinuations made that the victim is mentally ill; victim made fun of; victim forced to undertake pyschiatric assessments; victims political or religous etc views made fun of; racism; sexism; actions taken to ruin the victim's self esteem; decisions made by victim constantly questioned; victim not given any work to do, or given dangerous etc work, or work they are not qualified to do, or which is well below their ability-position etc; supervisors constantly change the task-description, giving constantly new tasks, and never letting them finish the ones previously assigned, and then criticising them for not having met their task description; assignment of work well above the abilities or position of the victim to ensure that they fail; threats of physical harm; actual physical harm; damage done to victim eg let car tyres down; sexual harassment. (FOCUS online,45 Mobbing-Handlungen, from Leymann's Mobbing Encyclopaedia)

Mobbing refers to hostile behaviours directed at systematically isolating, excluding, and disempowering an individual, the 'underdog', until they become helpless and defenseless. This maltreatment results in mental, psychosomatic, and social misery, and produces an extreme impact on the health of the victim. This results in sick-leave, medical retirement, early retirement, 'stress-leave', and often Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder PTSD. (Leymann and Tallgren,1989)

Leymann's definition of mobbing excludes temporary conflicts, focussing on the point where the 'psychosocial situation' produces psychiatrically or psychosomatically pathological conditions.(Leymann and Tallgren,1989)

It is sadly ironic that victimisers abuse the very conditions that are symptomatic of their victimisation to further victimise their victims, by 'medicalising' the conflict and emergent problems as symptoms of an endemic medical condition of the victim. In other words, they, in an act of ultimate teleology, blame the problem on a putative a-posteriori medical condition of the victim, the very same condition that they themselves produced in the victim through their mobbing behaviours.

Even sadder, more dissappointing, and for many people perhaps more surprisingly, government contracted psychiatrists play along with the mobbers, and the 'three-monkey-management', and are quick to identify the symptoms of victimisation, of mobbing, as personality defects of the victim. They are in fact the result of the mobbing process, but are defined by those with the power to do so as the 'cause' of the problems in-toto! The practise of "healthquesting" is the deliberate exploitation of this state of affairs.

The N.S.W Dept. Of Education, among other poorly managed government organisations, has a history of adopting the administrative expedient of having whistleblowers, and other 'difficult' employees, those who might direct attention towards poor and destructive management practises, defined as mentally ill, and unfit for service, so that they can medically retire or annul them.

The management of these organisations do not interest themselves with the victim's human rights, in human rights in general, or the loss in human resource terms of these employees, who, as we shall see, are usually the most motivated, ambitious, conscientious, hard working, and competent employees in the organisation, with the greatest potential to contribute to the organisation. Of course such character traits represent a threat to the bulk of the poorly motivated, lazy, self-seeking, incompetent management of the organisation.

In fact earlier research into the phenomena of mobbing made the same mistake, what Markus Rehbach (Socrates' cat, 2003) refers to in terms of the 'level of composition' adopted, and the implicit assumption of cause effect idealogies, by taking the symptoms that the mobbing victims present with as being the 'cause' for the mobbing in the first place. More rigorous interrogations of the phenomenom of mobbing have lead to a consensus among genuine mobbing researchers and commentators that the the victim is not to blame, and that in fact no general victim 'profile' can be made.

In this sense, we define mobbing from the approach that the victim is the victim, and the mobbers are the perpetrators. Further, the poor management of the organisation, the "psychosocial work environment" (Leymann,file 00002e) is a necessary pre-requisite for mobbing to take place. As such, profiling mobbers and organisational cultures will be more productive than profiling victims, in both predicting the emergence of the mobbing phenomena, preventing it, and dealing with its consequences.

If we wish to optimalise our human resource potential, promote the values of fairness and justice in our community or social life, and avoid the tragedy of mobbing for the individual victims, then we should focus on the mobbers and the organisational culture as the source of the problem, the psychosocial situation, and consider the medical symptoms of victims only in terms of suffering that we wish to avoid, to alleviate, and with reference to the rehabilitation of the victim.

Professor Leymann has treated about 1300 victims of mobbing, as a practising Psychiatrist. His treatment program became politically unpopular and his clinic was shut down. His treatment program recognised his patients as victims of poor conflict management and unethical organisational cultures. This approach represented a direct threat to the government, as it defined them implicity as responsible for the problem. It is much easier to 'scape-goat' victims than to address systemic problems and failures within the government and other organisations, even the society in general.

To quote the good Doctor-"...the Swedish health care system became quite irritated by our social-anamnestical technique. This technique of situational analyses provided rich information concerning each case, and shed light on illegal and quite often criminal activities to which victims had been subjected, mainly by the employer, the labor union and the health care system. It is of great importance that we describe this boycott of the clinic by the Swedish health care system, as these tendencies have also arisen in other countries."

I am convinced that the success Dr Leymann had in rehbabilitating victims of mobbing was due to the fact that he validated the reality of their experience, identified the real sources of the problems, poor management and toxic organisational cultures. This was also what placed him in a position to help people deal with their experiences positively and productively.

The terrifying alternative to such an approach is to invalidate the victims actual reality, and to therefore implicitly define them as mentally ill. This is the criminal intent of many criminal managers, governments, and mobbers; to have the victim denied reality, denied the basic security of being able to trust their own perceptions of reality, denied any possible trust of their fellow humans; to have their victims denied the truth about what happened, the truth about themselves. All this merely to pursue some mean and base motivations, or to avoid facing up to systemic problems and responsibilities!

This is why many informed and intelligent people have a great fear of the abuses that pyschiatry can be put to. This fear has been so often well founded that anyone must be extremely wary about dealing with that profession. The effectiveness of therapy is based on trust. It is sad that many people who would benefit from therapy never gain that benefit due to the risks associated with placing trust in a profession that has so often betrayed this trust. It is terrifyingly ironic that this valid mistrust can be defined as mental illness in itself! Those therapists who have done the dirty work of Nazi's, Bolsheviks, Stalinists, Maoists, and Goverment Departments including the N.S.W Dept. of Education, have done immeasurable damage to our human potential.

At this point we might consider what the term 'scape-goat' actually means. In german the term is "Suenden-bock", which refers to the animal that is sacrificed by the priests to assuage the putative god's putative anger at their believer's failure to observe religious dogmas. The priests sought out the most 'innocent' to sacrifice. This is why virgin females were the most common victims. Of course the priests would never sacrifice themselves! The priests were the leaders. The leaders would not take responsibility for their own failures! That is why they have power, to pass the 'bock'.

The modern equivalent of this practise is mobbing, and 'scape-goating'. If you define something within an organisation as a problem, one which management or your supervisor are responsible for, then you represent a threat to those people. They can either take responsibility for the problem and address it, or simply deny the problem, and claim that you are the problem, or simply mentally ill. It is easier to deny the problem, and kill the messenger.

Unless the greater society or higher management become involved in this conflict, and weigh in with their power on the side of the victim, the victimisers will be able to abuse their power over their hapless victim. The innocent will be sacrificed. The problems they directly identified, or which became apparent due to the conflicts that emerged from them, will go unaddressed. The opportunity to improve the organisation will be lost.

The costs in terms of human suffering, and the denial of the chance to develop human potential, will be immeasurable. Our society will be immeasurably poorer and weaker as a result.

The 'attribution pscychological theory' describes why society wishes to blame the victim (Leyman,file00002E). However, to quote Leymann (file 00005e): "No personality traits shared by victims have thus far been detected in research. The causes of mobbing are to be found in the social structures and power structures that are dominant in the workplace organisation." And further: "...research thus far has always detected serious organisational problems. Organisational disorder and poor management automatically cause conflicts. some of these conflicts exaggerate oposing views (most often because of a power struggle), and end up by designating a scapegoat, or "loser"..."

What are the motivations for the mobbers?

Inter-personal conflicts. Real conflicts over material benefits re: competition for limited employment and advancement oportunities.

Is there a typical profile for persons more likely to become victims of mobbing?

Leymann (file 32170e) notes that it is of course impossible to evaluate the victim's original personality after the mobbing process has taken place, and the symptoms of this process have taken root. As we have considered earlier, given that the first instance at which mobbing victims present themselves to a psychiatrist is after the events which have changed their personality, it would be easy for the psychiatrist to define this personality as the reason for the person's work related problems (Leymann and Gustafsson,1996), rather than apply real intellectual rigour and see that the personality is in reality the outcome of the mobbing process.

For this reason some professionals still maintain the ignorant belief that the victim's "pre-morbid personality" is the 'trigger' for mobbing situations. However no empirical research has ever been able to connect the mobbing situation with a victim's personality. It is not possible to profile the victim! There is no 'mobbing victim profile' to be made. Research into child mobbing in schools (e.g Olweus,1993) has also failed to show any such connection. (Leymann,file32170e). Personality theories are not very valid for analysing the reasons for mobbing. (Leymann,file12310e)

Is there a typical organisational profile in which mobbing is more likely to occur?

Poorly managed ones. The problem is there are no problems.

Analyses of around 800 cases show an almost stereotypical pattern (Becker 1995; Kihle1990; Leymann 1992b; Niedl 1995). In all these cases, extremely poorly organised production and/or working methods and an almost helpless or uninterested management were found.(Leymann,file12310e)

http://www.medicine-worldwide.de/krankheiten/psychische_krankheiten/mobbing.html places the responsibility for mobbing within the workplace organisation, the leadership style, and the corporate culture.

The authors of this web page propose a range of organisational failures that encourage mobbing. These include stress produced by unrealistic time pressures, rigid hierarchies or great responsibility with too little authority to respond flexibly, and generally poor work organisation. They claim that the latest research indicates that in around 70% of mobbing cases, supervisors are responsible for mobbing, simply to bring particular employees to resign. In around 80% of cases we can assume that management shared responsibility for mobbing, either due to a lack of leadership ability, or an unwillingness to confront mobbing/conflict. In part the mobbing process was accepted by witnesses and misunderstood as a competitive selection process. In some cases mobbing and the resignation of victims was viewed as an easier alternative to 'downsizing' or laying workers off. Often the mobbing process simply went unnoticed by management until it was too late.

The authors also consider that some victims are easier prey than others, as they could more easily be isolated than others, due to their nationality, disability, social status, or lack of social skills.

The general corporate culture can allow conflicts to develop their own dynamic, independant of any deliberate conspiracy on the part of the perpetrators. Where the organisation does not condone any sort of mobbing behaviours, they will be quickly identified and stopped before they can do any real damage. Only in organisations that take the welfare of their employees lightly can conflicts develop into mobbing and take root.

Mobbing appears to be partly a result of ever increasing performance pressures and competition in the workplace for ever fewer jobs and opportunities for promotion. (http://www.medicine-worldwide.de/krankheiten/psychische_krankheiten/mobbing.html)

The mobbing process is seen to originate in some work related conflict. This initial catalyst however drops more and more into the background, as the situation becomes more personal and vindicitive in character, and personal objectives are pursued.

The victim becomes more and more isolated as they are avoided or slandered.

The victim responds to this treatment with withdrawal, mistrust, or agression, which serves to increase their distance and isolation from their colleagues. The victims work performance suffers as a result of poor concentration and a lack of team support, and they may take sick leave due to psychosomatic health problems related to their victimisation at the hands of the mob.

The victims get warnings from their supervisor concerning performance problems. The victim ends up resigning out of resignation in light of the unbearable suffering they are forced to endure, or they are fired on some pretence. The health problems resulting from the mobbing experience result in many victims taking early retirement, or a medical retirement.

A mobbing process is most likely to develop where the manager becomes actively involved in a conflict, and/or where the manager simply denies that a conflict exists. Together with poor work organisation, these are the main reasons for mobbing processes to develop in the workplace. (Adams,1992; Kihle,1990).

The following 'mobbing dramaturgy' is sourced from (http://www.dgb.de/themen/mobbing/mobbing_02.htm).

In its early stages, mobbing is most often a sign that a conflict concerning the organisation of work tasks has taken on a private touch. When a conflict is "privatised", or if the motive behind its further development begins to develop into a deeper dislike between two individuals, then the failure of management to step in and resolve the objective conflict is the point at which management have failed in their obligations. (Leymann,1993b).

The problem with the original conflict might be that it is insoluble, but more often the problem is merely that management do nothing to solve it! As the conflict becomes more personal the original conflict falls more and more into the background as the situation escalates into one of mobbing. Out of the objective conflict, a personal confrontation develops.

The mobbers then think out ways to hurt their victim. At this point the victim may be popular and well liked. However in the second phase the victim becomes an outsider, due to the treatment dealt out to them (see the 45 mobbing behaviours). No-one wants anything to do with them. No-one wants to become the next victim. No-one wants to risk their own heads, so they avoid the victim. The victim is now isolated, and vulnerable to further mobbing attacks.

The victim changes too, becoming unfriendly, mistrustful, cautious, dark, and possibly defensive/agressive, or withdrawn and downtrodden. All of these responses are perfectly normal and to be expected under the circumstances. As the mobbing continues, the victim becomes less and less able to initiate contact with work colleagues. The victim would require a show of trust from colleagues. In fact their work colleagues withdraw even further, increasing the distance and mistrust, as they feel uncomfortable around the victim. The victim is now 'different'. The chances of the victim managing to get out of this situation by themselves is now very small.

The humiliation the victim has endured at the hands of the mobbers, and the lack of any support or help from colleagues, is now followed by the third stage. The victim has become a problem. The victim often has problems concentrating, makes mistakes, and due to the psychosomatic health problems resulting from the mobbing process, takes a lot of sick-days. The manager warns the employee about these problems. The victim ends up being officially warned about some small thing that in normal circumstances no-one would have bothered saying anything about. In fact management are merely looking for any excuse to get rid of the victim. All of the injustices committed upon the victim seem almost unbelievable.

The behaviours that make up mobbing cannot be addressed through the legal system, as they do not fit into the normal categories that courts and judges deal with, or are impossible to prove. They do not meet the formal definitions that the legal system works with.

By now everyone in the organisation 'knows' that the victim is a 'problem'. Something is wrong with the victim! The victims reputation follows them wherever they go, even to another department or division in the company. The victim is defined as 'difficult'. They are a 'problem'.

Advanced cases of mobbing almost always end with the victim becoming unemployed. They either quit themselves, out of pure frustration and desperation, unable to put up with the mobbing any longer, or they are fired, under some pretext, by the employer.

Some of the mobbing victims suffer such strong psychosomatic illnesses that they end up on sickness benefits or invalidity pensions.

For most of the victims, a new start to their careers is virtually impossible, as they are so physiologically and psychologically damaged, that they cannot meet the demands of the working world any longer. In any case, their reputation has been ruined so badly that they cannot find employment in their profession. They don't have references. No-one wants to employ a 'difficult' person! (http://www.dgb.de/themen/mobbing/mobbing_02.htm).

The following refers to "Mobbing and Personalfuehrung-Vorstellung des Personalrats Dahlem (Mobbing and leadership-presentation of the personnel committe of Dahlem) http://www.fu-berlin.de/prd/mobbing.html.

People seek to beat the competition, to dominate, to gain advantages, to gloat over the misfortune of others, to feel self-righteous as a function of belonging to the majority. The sense of righteousness and power arising from belonging to the majority often encourage meanness and pettiness, the belittling of 'outsiders' who are 'asking for it' just by being different, by being the 'black sheep', the 'lone wolf'. How dare anyone be an individual, be different from 'us'. So begin behaviours that isolate and harm the selected 'victim'.

Management will pay attention to mobbing only when it is seen to limit work performance. Of course the sociologist, humanist, or OHAS specialist is seeking a 'humanisation' of the 'corporate culture'. Management have taken the responsibility for managing the human resources of the organisation, for leading them to meeting the objectives of the organisation. They have responsibility "for everyone", and so often accept the notion of 'majority rule', and willingly sacrifice anyone that majority has excluded, to 'keep the peace'.

It is much easier to go along with mob rule than to fight for the justice of the individual victim, and thereby risk further conflict with the majority. Of course this sort of manager has no real ethics or principals. They merely take the path of least resistance, and accept the sacrifice of the innocent for the sake of 'harmony'. They will either find some way to justify the victimisation, or merely ignore it. They can appeal to the notion of 'democratic rule', and thereby accept mob rule as legitimate. What can they do? (I have heard this often enough, as if the supervisor or manager is powerless to do the right thing, and to direct others to do the right thing!)

In fact leadership is based on social competence. Social competence excludes the acceptance of mobbing. A rejection of mobbing must be a prerequisite for any leadership position. The personnel committee believe that the response to mobbing should be to focus on the source of conflicts, and not to punish the guilty. Each case must be considered on its own merits. A co-operative leadership style must be fostered within the organisation, all management coached and trained in co-operative leadership, and a greater sense of responsibility for the well-being of all employees must be instilled in all management.

Workplace agreements must be agreed on, in which mobbing/conflict management would be officially promoted, with mobbing advisory and counselling services available for all employees. To encourage the identification and resolution of problems and conflicts, the agreement will abstain from ascribing fault to any party involved in conflict resolution. Being wrong will not have a cost, and therefore there will be less to lose by admitting to being wrong, or to having made a mistake . This will encourage people to own up to failures, and allow them to be validated and addressed. (Rehbach,2003)

How widespread is mobbing?

Epidemiological Findings.

Heinz Leymann's (Leymann,1992a,1992b,1992c) research indicated that any particular individual had a 25% chance of being mobbed for at least 6 continuous months during their working life. 3.5% of the sample had reported being mobbed. Mobbing appeared to be more common in the fields of education, health-care, childcare, and religion. 14.1% of interviewees active in the education sector, which made up only 6.5% of the total, reported having been subjected to mobbing. This tendency is recurrent in a study of patients at a Swedish "mobbing clinic". (Leymann and Gustafsson,1996). Leyman believes this can be explained by poor management, organisation, and work task and content management in these workplaces. Leymann notes that these workplaces employ more women than men.

According to the German Organisation of Labour Unions (Gewerkschaftsbundes), and a new study by the State Institute for Social Research in North-Rhein Westphalia (Landesinstituts fuer Sozialforschung von NRW) (2002), around 1.5 Million German workers experience mobbing at their workplace. The authors anticipate that the worsening economic crisis and increasing unemployment will produce an increase in systematic mobbing. Around 60% of the employees who resign, give mobbing type experiences as the reason. A survey indicated that 27% of the gainfully employed admitted that their performance had been hampered by mobbing. 16% of all mobbing victims were in a management position. The Network of mobbing self-help groups in Germany reckons that the risk of becoming a mobbing victim is particularly high in the fields of Education, social welfare, health, public administration, and in large private corporations. (http://www.medicine-worldwide.de/krankheiten/psychische_krankheiten/mobbing.html)

What are the costs of mobbing?

Leymann (file 15100e) states that as the concept of mobbing is relatively new, actual research results concerning the costs of mobbing to organisations are not yet available.

Days off, resignations, early retirement, medical retirement, reductions in Quality, and damage to public relations/goodwill/corporate identity, all generate huge costs for organisations. The performance and productivity of victims is also greatly reduced even while they are at work. (http://www.medicine-worldwide.de/krankheiten/psychische_krankheiten/mobbing.html)

Research has been done by Toohey (1991) into the costs of stress-related illnesses for the Australian society. Toohey notes that employees who had been subjected to very poor psychosocial work environments were diagnosed as suffering from "stress", thus 'medicalising' the problems as the medical problem of the individual, rather than as results of the poor working environments which actually produced the symptoms diagnosed as "stress". Toohey rightly criticises this focus as distracting attention away from poor management practices, poor work organisation and poor working environments. The real problems, those with the organisation, are not addressed by personalising problems. No solutions, therefore, are actually sought, and are of course never found. In other words real opportunities for improving the workplace and the world in general are not realised. (Rehbach, 2003).

The Vocational Rehabilitation Act (AFS,1994) passed in Sweden aimed to transfer the costs for rehabilitating employees to the source of their health damage, their employers. The huge costs of poor management would otherwise have been borne by the state. This reflects a recognition by the law makers that employers are responsible for mobbing. By forcing employers to bear the costs of their poor management, the legislators were providing an incentive for organisations to improve their workplaces. Leymann (file15100e) quotes the Swedish National Board of Social Insurance as stating to him in 1993, that "every third to fifth early retiree over the age of 55 had suffered from extensive mobbing".

Leymann's (1987) research indicated that 10 to 20% of mobbing victims go onto contract serious illnesses or commit suicide. Leymann argues that every 6th to 15th suicide in Sweden may be the result of mobbing.

Mental injury and damage to the victims professional reputation can prevent a victim from ever re-entering the workforce. (Leyman and Gustavsson, 1984)

The psychological pain, anxiety, degradation,and helplessness, that lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder injuries, can be compared with those suffered by raped women. (DAhl,1989). In the same way that victims of rape are further victimised by the process of seeking natural justice, the victims of mobbing suffer what Leymann (1989) refers to as "traumatizing consequential events"..."traumata provoked by the way administrative instances deal with or abstain from dealing with the situtation"..."violations of the subject's rights and insults to their identities from different societal sources"..."dissappointments, insults, and renewed traumas that follow the initial "causal trauma"..."the mobbed employee...suffers from a traumatic environment: psychiatric, social insurance office, personnel department, managers, co-workers, labor unions, doctors in general practice, company health care etc.,can, if events progress unfavourably, produce worse and worse traumata"..."individuals find themselves in a prolonged stress-and in a prolonged trauma-creating situation...new traumata and new sources of anxiety arise in a constant stream during which time the individual experiences rights violations that further undermine his or her self-confidence and psychological health. The unwieldy social situation for these individuals consists not only of severe psychological trauma but of an extremely prolonged stress condition that seriously threatens the individual's socio-economic existence. Torn out of their social network, the majority of mobbing victims face the threat of early retirement, with permanent psychological damage." (Leymann, file 32100e)