The Defuse Podcast - The Art and Science or Feeling Safer
Defuse / Diːˈfjuːz/ Verb: To Make A Situation Less Tense Or Dangerous.
Join me in listening to this informative podcast that delves into the critical issues facing private and corporate clients.
Each episode features global experts sharing their insights on preventing and resolving problematic behaviors and security issues that cause harm.
The podcast covers a wide range of topics, including stalking, protective security, intelligence, psychological profiling, crisis management, risk management, communications, reputational management, workplace violence, public relations, and more.
Don't miss out on this valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding and addressing these critical issues. Tune in today!
The Defuse Podcast - The Art and Science or Feeling Safer
High Risk Workplace Behaviours with Dr. Marc McElhaney
With the rise in disruptive and problematic workplace issues, this month we talk with Dr. Marc McElhaney, CEO of Critical Response Associates based out of Atlanta, Georgia.
In this podcast Marc shares decades of experience of investigating and defusing problems within corporations.
He discusses how the term ‘workplace violence’ is unhelpful, how identifying behaviours of concern early and dealing with them help stop make the workplace a safer place and protects companies from incidence of violence, lawsuits, reputational harm, and a decline in performance.
Marc shares his expertise, published in two books, about the emotional, situational and behavioural triggers that we should all be aware of. The two categories of people, the troubled and the troubling and how to reduce risk and eliminate disgruntled employees causing problems.
Bio.
Dr. Marc McElhaney is CEO of Critical Response Associates (CRA) , a national team of experienced psychologists and behavioural specialists who specialize in identifying and resolving high-risk threats and violence in the workplace.
He is a licensed consulting psychologist and registered mediator known for his work in the areas of threat assessment, critical incident management and conflict resolution.
Since 1977, he has consulted with corporations, government agencies and large organizations on the assessment, management, and resolution of high-risk incidents. He has also helped develop workplace violence policies and crisis response programs.
He is the author of “Aggression in the Workplace: Preventing and Managing High‐ Risk Behaviour” 2004 as well as
CRA’s core training program, “Preventing Workplace Violence,” one of the most detailed and effective educational guides on the topic.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcmcelhaney/
Critical Response Associates https://craorg.com/
Marc’s books
The Risks Within: Preventing and Managing Workplace Violence
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Risks-Within-Preventing-Managing-Workplace/dp/B0B92KGRN1
Aggression in the Workplace: Preventing and Managing High-Risk Behavior
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Aggression-Workplace-Preventing-Managing-High-Risk/dp/1418461954
Welcome to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Grindell, ceo and founder of Diffuse a through the European Threat Assessment Association, which is something I'd highly recommend. Those in Europe join Dr Mark McElhenney, and he's the CEO of the Critical Response Associates. Now I'm not going to do a long kind of intro. I don't do that, mark. I let you tell us all about it because I think otherwise it gets a bit stale. But Mark is somebody that's been doing this for a long, long time, probably longer than anybody else. I know anyone else I've spoken to, um, he's he's one of my favorite people because he's one of those wonderful American people that actually leaves America and travels around Europe and all that. And every time I see him we meet up in Europe and he's been on some adventure somewhere around Europe. So he's always a fantastic companion and, mark, it's a real pleasure to have you here. I'm so grateful that you could find the time.
Speaker 3:Great to be here, philip, absolutely a pleasure. So how would you describe what you do?
Speaker 2:How would you introduce your company and what do you do?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, just to back up a bit, I'm trained as a clinical psychologist. That being said, back in probably well, it's been 30, 40 years ago now I started doing some work with large companies, mostly organizations. Before that, I'd worked with police departments and I did a lot of work in crisis management and I started offering my services to companies large companies mostly around the issue of workplace violence, how to prevent workplace violence. And as the years have gone by, I think we've and that's something I think is worth talking about We've refined some of our terms and actually what we're actually doing. You know, in this process and it really took off and I closed my practice and everything else I was doing and and specialized in that and brought in a team of other like-minded psychologists who have the same interests and the same specialties. And essentially what we do, in a nutshell, is that when an organization has someone they're concerned about, that they think may be a risk to someone other employees, to the organization as a whole, to themselves even and it could be most of the time it's an employee, but not always. It could be a customer, it could be a vendor, it could be a contractor, it could be someone in the general public who has a grievance in some way, and they asked me, our team, to assess the situation and advise what are the best steps going, moving forward in order to ensure safety.
Speaker 3:We started out, you know, looking at this as in terms of preventing quote-unquote workplace violence, and you know that's a term that I just rarely use these days. I don't like it because it really doesn't define what we're doing. Sure, that's what we're ultimately trying to do prevent people from being violent. But again, the problem with that term is that, first of all, if you bring us in when there's workplace violence, you brought us in way too late. Any company calls you or me and there's been some violence. There's not a lot we can do, there's nothing we can do. And so, in terms of preventing workplace violence, we've learned a lot about it and companies have started using us for a broad range. And another thing I've learned through the process is what represents a quote-unquote risk to the company, and so we're dealing with a very broad subject.
Speaker 3:Many times it's anyone that you think could, that you could reasonably consider could cause harm in some way to the workplace, to its employees, and that actually that refers to a wide range of behaviors. Also, when we're talking about prevention, we're really not talking about violence per se, because, again, even though we certainly have people with a history of violence, that makes our assessment a little bit easier to basically, you know, if someone has a history of violence, certainly it's easier, it's a lot easier to assess that they are likely to be violent in the future, but many times there is no history of that. There is not. That that's not the behavior of concern. And so we talk a lot about high-risk behaviors, recognizing high-risk behaviors, and the FBI uses another term which I think I like better behaviors of concern, which is a really broad phrase.
Speaker 3:Behaviors of concern because when we go back and it's very simple, I mean when we go back and look at any incident, that in which some kind of harm, even mass shootings and even the more extreme versions, if you work your way backwards, you will find that there were, quote unquote, behaviors of concern, and the reason that we got where we were is because those weren't identified and they weren't responded to at that time in an appropriate and safe manner. And so a lot of times it's educating our companies in terms of what to look for, but it's also trying to catch these issues early in the process. And it's not about mass shootings. It's about people who you know are of enough concern that we're worried about the consequences of their actions.
Speaker 2:So you know, we've kind of alluded to the fact you've been doing this a while, you know, sort of since the 70s. Has the kind of behaviours that you're seeing and dealing with? Have they changed dramatically since the 70s?
Speaker 3:Well, the behaviours have not changed. I mean, people are people and their the behaviors have not changed. I mean, people are people and their behaviors have not changed. I think that we have, in the US anyway, we certainly have some very dramatic examples of and that's why sometimes people think this is a US problem. It's not, but we have a lot of dramatic examples right now of these mass shootings and so it's gotten a lot more attention, which is good. But that's not. You know, that's not our focus here. You know, it's not just because of the mass shootings, but the behaviors of concern are there.
Speaker 3:Now I will say this is that, you know, and again, there's you know, I don't know, there's ongoing research about this. Do we have more bad behaviors right now in our society, where people are acting out more, and is there a greater risk or not? I mean, that's probably arguable on either extreme, but the bottom line is that human behavior is human behavior. So I mean, and when someone in a company says, well, we don't have incidents of workplace violence or we don't have that problem here, you know that's, then you don't have normal people, Because again, we're not talking about, you know, again, just people who become, you know, become mass shooters or whatever. And so let's take an example Suicide is a high risk and suicide is high risk.
Speaker 3:And I'm not saying that everyone who's suicidal is going to shoot someone else or going to hurt someone else. But if you look at all of the well-publicized mass shootings and that kind of thing, almost every one of the individuals are suicidal and so suicide is always high risk. It should be high risk in your workplace. You would not want to have an suicidal employee in your workplace, or at least you wouldn't want to know about them, so that you can help them and also ensure the safety of others in the process.
Speaker 3:Beings who contemplate and who have attempted suicide and I don't have that percentage right off, but I mean you're going to have that in your workplace. There's a certain percentage of human beings in general who've had substance abuse issues. There's a certain percentage of human beings who have had mental health issues to the point of, and there's a certain percentage each year who have psychotic episodes where you know, there's a certain percentage of human beings who have abusive relationships that they're coming from. And, by the way, 40% of workplace violence, at least in the US, is domestic related, where the person that the employee is related to comes into the workplace to cause harm, so that's a concern. To cause harm, so that's a concern. So to say that those things don't exist in your workplace, that's impossible almost.
Speaker 2:And so you have to be aware, because we can't prevent high-risk behaviors, but we can manage the consequences when they occur, and that's really what we're talking about so what we're saying then really is that when we, when we get these extreme examples of, you know, mass shootings or have you, in effect, the systems failed at that point because we haven't identified, um, the behaviors of concern which were almost certainly apparent, even if not to the employees, then maybe to the family or back at home. So, in effect, we're not talking about that, we're talking about getting downstream from that account. Look at those behaviors, identify those behaviors. Now we have that, we have the same challenge in the uk and you know you and I have talked about this previously, about how in the UK and you know you and I have talked about this previously about how we don't use the term workplace violence, because everyone naturally and what made me naturally be in the UK everyone thinks that you're talking about what happens in America, all the shootings, and we don't get all that sort of thing and I get all that.
Speaker 2:But the trouble is and we've alluded to the kind of terminology but we in the UK we don't have like a single term where you can contact businesses or talk about it publicly and everybody knows you're talking about the same thing. So if we don't use the term workplace violence which you know bluntly in america is is is a well-recognized term, um, and even in the uk we'll have organizations that will have a workplace violence policy. They just won't use the term workplace violence for for what you and I are talking about. So how do we, how do we really kind of communicate to organizations that there is this problem in their organizations and that there is a solution for it, if we're not going to use this term workplace violence?
Speaker 3:well, I do think we need to look at the term and just avoid I mean use of the term. And you know, like you said, I've been doing this a while and a lot of my companies that I've worked with for a long time, you know, have started bringing us in for much broader issues, and so I realized, as the years have gone by, that we're really the problem is is that we've categorized these different behaviors into different, we put them in different categories, and so workplace violence goes over here, sexual harassment goes over here, you know, and so I've often wished that we had just a broader term. We'll call it bad behavior, I don't know what to call it, but I wish we had a broader term that when we talk about this, because we're talking about preventing and managing bad behavior or harmful behavior or high risk behavior, I mean again, we can use those terms, but I think that we do. And as soon as you're right, I mean as soon as you mention workplace violence, because some of many of my companies, basically they're headquartered in Europe and so when we get to leadership and the security managers in the US are talking about workplace violence there's sometimes they will.
Speaker 3:That's just an American thing and that's obviously there. We have no corner on the market on bad behavior. It's like you know what we're talking about. Everything we're talking about is is has basically the same percentages all around the world. So I think we have to. You know, the terminology is going to be very important but, like I said, I wish we had, we could put all this in one basket, you know, and call it something else you know, in terms of again, bad behavior is as good as I can come up with.
Speaker 2:So, okay, that's kind of if we just change tack slightly, because I think this all perhaps might be an interest around getting people to recognize the importance of it. It's because what we've been focusing on, and what most of us focus on, of course, is the violence and the behavioral issues. What are the actual costs, though, to an organization? I don't mean figuratively in terms of X dollars or X pounds, but what does it cost organizations when they don't tackle these issues?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean.
Speaker 3:I think the cost is hard to measure because it's huge. I mean, the bottom line is it's like no, no, I'm in a very you know. I don't know about the UK, but the US is a very litigious company. I mean, every time there is something like that happens, you know there's someone you know the news media interviews an employee who says you know, I always knew that would happen, because that guy's always acted weird and I told him they didn't do anything about it. And almost immediately there's some kind of out of court settlement and sometimes we don't know how much it's for, but it's, you know, it's guaranteed to be astronomical. And the effect on the workplace of something like that happening, even if it's not like a mass shooting, even if it's bullying in the workplace, the effect on your employees, the cost that you have.
Speaker 3:There was an interesting book written by I forgot his name and the title of the book and you may want to believe me, you know it was the no asshole rule and I don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but he gave an interesting example of somebody who was in his book. That's the term that he uses. He's talking about these people that are bullying and they're disrespectful of other people and they don't work well with others, disrespectful of other people and they don't work well with other. And he gave an example of one company who had this salesman who was a high performer and who was due to get a big bonus, but he was so difficult to deal with that he had one of his assistants quit and they had to rehire somebody. They had to send him to anger management classes in the past and so when they came time to give him a bonus, they actually subtracted from it the amount of money that they spent on him over the years for his bad behavior, which I thought was interesting. So the point is that it is very costly for the company to have this kind of behavior go in unchecked.
Speaker 3:We deal with a lot of issues and I will say that almost every single phone call we get, it starts out by saying we've got this new issue that just came up. I mean, that's always how it starts. And then we start asking questions and we find out that it didn't just start yesterday. Then we start asking questions and we find out that it didn't just start yesterday. It started. You know it would happen.
Speaker 3:It was going for several weeks, sometimes years, sometimes decades, and because and it may be just a simply nothing more than a guy who I'll call the workplace bully, who basically pushes people around, he gets what he wants. People avoid him because you know they don't want to deal with him and they don't don't discipline him, you know, and they don't give him poor performance ratings because they're afraid and they just avoid him and he gets by with whatever he or she wants and by the time, the company's fed up with him and they're about to terminate him. This guy feels entitled. I mean, he's going to be feel legitimately ambushed, and so they're worried about his reaction. That should have been dealt with on the first week, you know, 20 years ago, and so it's just getting, you know, that awareness level up and and to to address these issue issues earlier in the process. And, by the way, you mentioned mass shootings. The FBI did a great study in 2014 where they analyzed the mass shootings of the last 14 years and found that the same thing applies. These people have demonstrated behaviors of concern that should have been picked up on, that were not or were just ignored.
Speaker 3:Denial is our favorite defense mechanism, human beings. We use it all the time. We use it every day, I mean, and there's nothing wrong with it. I mean, we couldn't get through a day without a little bit of denial here or there. I mean, there's enough things to worry about, but it is so easy to just push these things down the road. And that is the first mistake. And that's what we deal with almost on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:So you've got a great phrase in your book, which I'll put all the books in the notes, because you've got two books that I'm aware of and I've read and they're both absolutely brilliant books, um, but you've got a great phrase which says the best predictor of poor behavior is past behavior. And so you know, that's, that's, that's suggesting these things don't just snap, they don't just happen out of nowhere. So can you kind of talk more about that than about this process that people go through?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, and that's very true. I mean, people do not just snap it is. You know, workplace violence isn't just an act. There's a process that occurred and it's recognizing that process, recognizing the early indicators and dealing with it as early as possible. The earlier you deal with it, it ensures more safety and it's less costly. We deal with things many times almost at the last minute, you know, and they're very difficult to deal with. Sometimes we get pulled in past the last minute where someone gets terminated that was a problem employed Everybody is concerned about and then they've made a threat after termination and I have to tell the company my hands are almost tied here. There's not a lot we can do. There was a lot we could have done a few days ago and even more a few weeks ago, but if you wait until after it happens happens, there's not much we can do.
Speaker 2:So, um, and I forgot your original question so I was talking about past behavior, predicting future behavior and the kind of process that people go through yeah, and.
Speaker 3:And so you have to look at those early indicators, and you know it's hard, for you know, a lot of people have published, especially in the early days of research and study in this area, list of warning signs. You know, because all of our clients want a list of warning signs. What do we do? We need a checkbox, you know, and I don't like those list of warning signs because as soon as I put together a list of 20, I think of, well, there's 21 actually, and then there's another one, and then people overreact. There are certain warning signs that may or may not indicate something of concern. So you know, I try to talk about it in generalities, that there's behaviors of concern and we talk about different categories. You know, we talk about the category of someone who is emotionally unstable or not doing well in their lives. You know they have something going on. You know, now, does that mean that person is going to become, you know, violent? No, but I'm saying that that's something you ought to be paying attention to, you know, and especially if someone has a potential for self harm, you need to be paying attention, for that Is the person showing unusual behavior for them, odd behavior that's just not normal for them. And again, there is a tendency to dismiss things. We human beings like denial, we want to minimize things, and so we want to tell ourselves, well, it's probably nothing, and so is it nothing. I mean, again, you have to ask yourself it may be nothing, but at least go through the process of asking yourself is this something I need to attend to, as opposed to just pushing it down the road? You know, and recognizing, you know, those behaviors of concern that where something about this isn't right, you know, and it may be as general as that, and that's hard, you know. Again, people, once it happens, once an organization starts to do this and they start to do this, well, they get better and better and better at catching these things earlier because their antennae are up. You know, and they, you know when, a lot of times I'll be talking to a supervisor and I'll say what's going on in this place? Well, you know he hadn't been right recently. You know he's been coming in late. He looks disheveled, his work has fallen off a little bit. You know he's been coming in late. He looks disheveled, his work has fallen off a little bit. You know, he looks like he hadn't bathed in a few days and I'll say, well, what's going on with him? I don't know. Well, why don't you know?
Speaker 3:It's like I know that privacy is important, but how hard is it for say hey, is everything okay? You know, just checking in with people. You know, just checking in with people, and so it's a matter of getting your employee and part of this. You know, we work a lot with the leadership, we work a lot with security managers, work a lot with HR, but their hands are tied if they are not receiving reports from the company, from the employees. So any program requires that the employees be educated and also the employees have the confidence to report it to the company. Yeah, and so nothing happens until that's done. I mean, if, if, if, we can have the best threat management program in the world and have a trained threat management team, but if your employees are not reporting things, then everything we're doing is worthless.
Speaker 2:And I think you touched on a really interesting point there about people sometimes lack confidence to speak to people to say listen, I've noticed X, Y and Z has changed your performance or deteriorated. What have you? I think increasingly in fact that's the case increasingly people are wary about prying into other people's lives at work. And you know, I know in the book you talk about a particular lady who is um, whose performance is dropping and her world is is um, collapsing because of an external issue. She's a victim of domestic violence. So here's not somebody. So you know, we get very focused on the person that's causing the problem within the workplace, but actually sometimes we don't necessarily notice the people that are the victims of the problem and their behavior change as well, and so one of the costs clearly is a deterioration in their work.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I mean there's actually been some great studies and research about the just like in a specific area bullying in the workplace, how much it costs in terms of lost work for the people that are victims of that. You know, I mean, they're just and so it is all. This behavior is very costly and the remedy is not that costly, quite frankly. I mean there's. I always say that there's just four steps to a good workplace violence program, in my opinion. One is that most people, most professionals in my area, recommend that there be at the top Some kind of internal threat management team. Is interdisciplinary, you know where you have in your organization. You identify who is responsible for reacting to potential threats and risk and you have on that. And again, it can vary from company to company how you do that, but you make sure that HR is involved. You make sure security is involved. Legal, I mean you have representatives, because it is a team effort, it is always a team effort. And then you have to educate what I call your critical personnel, your head of HR, I mean your HR managers, security managers, people out there who are going to receive those reports, so they know how to deal with it, because a lot of it can get buried there very quickly and they need to know what to look for and how to, and what kind of behaviors we're concerned about and what to do when they get them. And then we got to educate the supervisors and managers on the ground, and then finally, the employees.
Speaker 3:And you know we have, like you know, my company's critical response associates has a video that a lot of companies are using. It's short and to the point. Educating employees doesn't mean we pull them off the floor for a three-hour workshop. You don't need to do that, because all you really need to do is you need to let them know A that you know what kind of behaviors to look for, how to report them and also address any kind of reluctances on. You know, which is what our video does. What are the reluctances? One of them is that you mentioned confidence that the company will do something, confidence that they won't get in trouble for reporting something. All that you know. So so in none of I don't believe that's a costly process putting that together, but the cost of any one incident, even a mild incident, far outweighs the cost of putting together a good program like that mild incident far outweighs the cost of putting together a good program like that.
Speaker 2:And what's interesting is the companies that I've worked with where they've had these internal issues. You know, very often they come back to me and say this is now the number one issue we have at work. You know, when we're having our board meetings this is what we're talking about because it becomes a big big thing.
Speaker 2:And actually, had they tackled it when it wasn't a big thing, it wouldn't have grown into being a big thing. But we kind of we don't want to. We avoid challenges, that we avoid disputes and we avoid confrontation, we avoid all those sorts of things. But it doesn't have to be that way. It can be just a simple conversation of a coffee to say, hey, listen, you know you've. You know you've always been really brilliant, but I've noticed in the last few weeks you've not really been focused. What have you? You know you've always been really brilliant, but I've noticed in the last few weeks you've not really been focused. What have you? Is there something going on? And and kind of just being, you know, curious about people and and caring about them and seeing what's changed, why you know something's changed. I'm just really interested to see. Is there anything I can do and and so you know. But we get very wrapped around concepts such as, you know, threat assessment and threat management and what have you actually it's about?
Speaker 3:human connections and looking at changes.
Speaker 3:It's about having a conversation. You know, it's really just about having a conversation. And again, when we get pulled into it, I mean, again, you know my background is, you know I have a doctorate in clinical psychology. You know I do evaluations, I do threat management et cetera, but quite frankly, I just the first thing I do when I get involved, after I consult with a team and we decide that I'm going to reach out to that employee, I just have a conversation with them. You know, because most people and knock on wood, it always works, because most of these folks have something.
Speaker 3:Luckily we're not dealing with terrorists and psychopaths, that much. I mean we're dealing with people who most of the time are there's an affective component, they're emotional about something Many feel unjustly treated. And so you know, and all I'm doing is opening the door, for you know that the first step is open the door for conversation, and in that conversation we find out an awful lot that's going to help us assess and manage that. And that's where it starts. And and these conversations, and, and most of the time the comment that we get is that finally, someone's talking to me You're the only person who's ever talked to me in this place and it's like we're an outside consultant who's coming in and they're telling us that nobody in the workplace cared enough to ask.
Speaker 2:And so you talk in the book particularly about these two different groups, the troubled and the troubling. Can you kind of elaborate?
Speaker 3:on that troubled and the troubling. Can you kind of elaborate on that? Well, you know that's that's another effort trying to, you know, not have a list of specific warning signs, but trying to give categories, because I think that categories that that somehow resonate with people and I think that to me and I actually stole, I don't know who wrote that, for I did not make that up I read that somewhere and I tried to find the source and I could not. But the troubled and the troubling, I just it stuck with me a long time Because that's what we're really asking. I mean, and I think most of the ordinary person knows what those mean. You know, you know, you don't have to analyze, you know, are they acting more odd than usual? Are they suicidal? Are they not suicidal? I mean the people that are around you that are troubled, that are obviously troubled, are troubling to you. I mean that's, and by that I mean people, that, again, those are two very broad categories. But the troubled, the people that are going through a difficult time, you, those are two very broad categories.
Speaker 3:But the trouble, the people that are going through a difficult time, you know they are, and those folks are higher risk for a lot of things and we need to be paying attention to them and the troubling the people there where everybody's kind of tiptoeing around them because they're afraid of them, and I get this a lot. Everybody's afraid of why? Well, we don't know. Why don't we?
Speaker 3:You know what's going on here that is setting alarms off, and sometimes people can identify it, and so what they do is they dismiss it and say, well, I'm probably just overreacting. Well, no, if everybody's feeling that way, there's something going on, it may not indicate a risk. It may be something. But the point is is that find out, you know what it is. I mean because we have cases all the time where someone scares people and they don't know why, and we go in and it's not a high risk. It may be somebody who has some mental health issues, they may be someone on the spectrum who acts kind of odd or something like that, and it's not a risk. But at least figure out and address the subject as opposed to ignoring it and I know that you you talk about the.
Speaker 2:You know the various components of it and one of them you've talked about is emotional and another one which we kind of touched on is situational. So something's happening in a person's life which is causing them issues. Do you think that one of the issues is that people think, oh, that's outside of work, that's got nothing to do with me, and actually we almost expect people to be robots, to sort of park all their problems when they come into the, into the workplace, and just behave in a kind of robotic fashion and then pick up all the trauma of their whatever's going on when they leave the workplace, when actual facts, that's just you know, that's just not obviously human nature but actually some of those situational issues are going to come to the workplace as well.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. That's a good point. I mean, we are in the work environment more than we're in almost any other environment. We're going to bring that into. The workplace is, for example, on the verge of bankruptcy and they're getting the divorce and they're losing custody of their kids and they just bought a new house and they're worried. And then you're telling me this and you're going to say but we've decided to fire him or her, you know. I mean, then I would say time out. Before you do that, you know, let's look at the possible consequences here. There may be nothing we can do about it, but we need to pay attention to this.
Speaker 3:Domestic violence is interesting because, you know, in the US anyway, I'd say I think it's 30 to 40 percent of workplace violence is domestic related and that always surprises people. But it really shouldn't be a surprise. I mean, if she is afraid of her boyfriend or husband or whatever, and she's living with a cousin somewhere, he doesn't know where she lives, he doesn't know where she shops, he doesn't know where she dines. But he knows one thing for absolutely sure he knows you know where she shops. He doesn't know where she dines, but he knows one thing for absolutely sure he knows you know where she works, what time she gets there, what door she walks in, where she parks her car and maybe even the desk that she sits in in the workplace and what time she leaves. So if he's drunk and he wants to cause harm, where is he going to go? And so that happens, and those are very dangerous situations.
Speaker 3:Those are the ones that end up oftentimes being fatal, not just to the victim but to others in the workplace. So part of our education is telling employees that if you're aware of something that's going on to someone's life outside of work that you think could cause a risk in the workplace, we need to know about that too. You know to heck with privacy. You know this is important because it can find its way in the workplace and the assessment of threats or risk is always fluid, it's always situational, it depends on what's going on in the person's life, and so whenever I'm asked to assess a threat, it's always based on that particular set of circumstances, and if something happened the next day someone lost a loved one in a car wreck or whatever it could change the risk, because those things do impact how people work in the workplace so your friend and mine, melissa melissa we had this great conversation around um, this, this whole concept of the disgruntled employee.
Speaker 2:You know you're going to have to sack this individual for whatever reason it's not working out, and melissa talks about this concept of okay, but actually there's a way of doing it, and there's a way of doing it that means they're not going to come back at you, and so you know, even to the point of okay, well, let's see, can we help them write the cv before they go.
Speaker 2:You know this hasn't worked out between us. We're going to have to let you go. However, we want to make this a smooth transition for you, and trying to trying to reduce the, the sense of grievance and the sense of sense of humiliation and harm that they, that they cause, and I thought that was really clever. I mean, you know, I'd love to see whether that has real impact in in the real world. Melissa obviously knows what she's talking about. She's been doing this a long time, but but this whole concept where you know there comes a point sometimes when you're going to have to let somebody go, um, and there may well be, as you pointed out, sort of situational issues going on that this could be the straw that broke the camel's back well, we talk.
Speaker 3:We're asked about termination a lot and obviously, a lot of the cases that we deal with are employees who are going to be terminated or even if they're not, they haven't decided on termination. That's what often occurs because we've got a situation that is not reparable. So you know, and we have a mantra. Well, I said, the number one mistake companies make is not do anything for a long time. The number two biggest mistake is then trying to do it too quickly, and so we get calls all the time. You know, we've got a really difficult employee, we're concerned about him, we're going to fire him at 2 o'clock this afternoon, can you be here? And my response is no, like why are we doing this at 2 o'clock this afternoon? Can you be here", and my response is no. It was like why are we doing this at two o'clock this afternoon? Because we need to get them out of the workplace and we need to resolve this and move on.
Speaker 3:And I read a statistic recently I have not researched the source of it, but it sounds right that the average violence at termination is six months later. I've worked with companies that have had someone come back five years later, three and a half years later, and so just because you walk someone out the door and put a guard outside your door for a few days means nothing, especially in today's world where that person can find out where anybody lives anytime. And so when I hear that a company is going to separate someone, I ask them to slow it down a little bit, because I want to have time to understand what it is that's going on, see what we can do to de-escalate the situation on the front end, because we want that person walking away feeling like they got respectfully and fairly treated and not us looking over our shoulder every time we get into our car in the parking lot. So a lot of times, what we do is we ask companies to have a timeout. So, for that example, if someone says, well, we're going to fire him today at two o'clock, say let's, don't do that, let's do something different. Let's you go in a very friendly way and say, look, we understand that there was an issue today. You had a fight in the lunchroom. We have to investigate. We're trying to do this fairly. We're going to put you out on a paid leave and I recommend paid and because we want to review this and make sure we treat you fairly.
Speaker 3:What have we done here? We've, basically we've taken a situation instead of ambushing that person and firing them, we've taken a situation where we have come on in a more neutral, you know, or at least in a maybe even supportive way. We've gotten the person out of the workplace, you know, and in a controlled manner. We're still paying them, so they have some obligations as an employee. And then a lot of times, what we do and you know, this was kind of new when we started doing this many years ago, but I think since the pandemic, people are more used to remote communications now, so maybe it's not as unusual but we would call the person and we do a lot of our work by phone and basically as an outside consultant. You know, start a process and, like I said, start a conversation and find out. You know, there's a lot of information. What does this do? It gives us time to really understand this person. What are they set at the risk? It gives us time to maybe even address some of those issues.
Speaker 3:If nothing else, address the need to be heard, you know, which is very important in all human beings, and it gives that person time to kind of get their mind around it so they're not feeling ambushed and maybe even start making other plans. Mind around it, so they're not feeling ambushed and maybe even start making other plans, you know, and it, it and basically, before we do the termination, we're going to know enough about that person and hopefully have de-escalated it and address some of those needs, like melissa was saying about. You know some, because you, you can't just throw money at adam, that's. You know, this is not about just giving severance and then walking them out the door Because money runs out, you know, and you know, six months later, when the severance is gone and their wife has left them and they've lost their house, they still remember, you know which HR manager caused all this. So it's about finding out what their needs are. You know, what is it that's driving the risk, so that we can maybe address that.
Speaker 3:If we can't, at least this gives us time to prepare the strategies for when they are out there to ensure safety. But it gives us time to do that and again, if I'm involved, it also allows me to have a relationship. So if something happens afterwards, I can pick up the phone and call them, but that time out is just invaluable. I mean, that is what works for us really well. And so and it's about and sometimes we get pushback from companies that haven't worked with us Well, we don't want to, we don't want to help this this, you know, this individual, you know they have broken one of our rules.
Speaker 2:We need to get rid of them that haven't worked with us say well we don't want to help this individual.
Speaker 3:They've broken one of our rules. We need to get rid of them. But the cost of that, the cost of dealing with this person, a disgruntled, angry person, for days, years even. I mean you know, we have companies that call us because someone they fired two years ago is still harassing everyone in the workplace, still posting things on social media and all. So I mean it just makes a lot more sense to do this on the front end and so that when they walk away, they're going to walk away feeling fairly treated, and I don't think it actually means giving them a lot of severance. Sometimes, you know, sometimes you have to give a little gift, but most of the time it's not that costly because most people, by the end of the process is what works, I think.
Speaker 2:You've mentioned the term fairness a couple of times which kind of the opposite of that is unfair, and often the phrase that people talk about is the sense of injustice. Is there something about us as humans that is a reason why that causes such an issue for people in terms of why is injustice such a big thing for us?
Speaker 3:That's an interesting question. I've never really thought of it in those terms, but you're right. I mean, I always say that there's a million different reasons that people could be potentially violent. But if I had to nail down the commonalities of our calls, the sense of injustice is primary.
Speaker 2:So what is that? You know that's interesting I think that that's just.
Speaker 3:You know, if I had to philosophize, I'd say that's part of our kind of survival instincts here. You know that when we feel attacked, we need to prevent that attack or attack back. And when people say they feel unjustly treated, they're talking about it as if it was an attack on them. And so sometimes, like, for example, when I'm talking to these folks, I've got to help them reframe that and that's really all it is. Many times, you know, I say, yeah, I know that you feel like, you know people are against you here, but you know that and you know there is, there is this policy, and you know the HR, the director of HR, has to carry out the policy and you know, otherwise their lawyers are going to be on their back because they don't carry out this policy. And it's not you, it's the way, and so it's a more of a, it may be a reframing that, and I talk a lot about the term depersonalization depersonalize it for them. You know, like this is not about you, this is what this is the process, and there's not much we can do about it. You know, and in getting them also to, in terms of survival, to look at things more realistically, well, I'm going to kill that manager.
Speaker 3:I said, well, okay, let's talk about that. Where does that get you? You know, like what happens after you kill the manager? And again, and hopefully eventually getting them to the point of saying, well, I probably shouldn't kill the manager. But I'm pissed off and I said, I understand, and so what can we do about that? Well, again, it's like it's getting them to reason with themselves and so again, I'm going into some nuts and bolts here, but that's kind of down the road in these conversations. That's how they often go and helping that person Get past the emotional trauma that many of them are experiencing injustice and decided what's going to be best for them, because it's not good for them to go kill somebody. I mean, it's not good for them to to do these things are mean, it's not good for them to do these things. They're threatening, you know, and it's going to ruin their lives. So the timeout gives us time to do all that and you talked about it again there.
Speaker 2:I know you have these three areas which are injustice, feeling threatened, which we've talked about, is a kind of a parallel to injustice in a way. You know, I'm being attacked and it's not fair what's happened, and therefore I'm being threatened. But then the other one which I thought was really interesting was the, the perceived lack of options, yeah, which I guess comes into the kind of suicide bit as well, in in some, into some people. But but again, I guess, while you're, while you're pressing the brake on this process, again, you know it gives people time to consider those options rather than the shotgun approach, whereas you're fired, you're out, that's it. And so this perceived lack of options, again, I'm wondering whether there is a kind of mental piece to this around, when we're in this shock of being fired and all that, whether we don't see all the options that maybe are available to us.
Speaker 3:Well, that's exactly right. I mean, I think that is what we do. I mean we feel cornered. You know, a lot of the folks we deal with feel cornered. They are lashing out because they had a better option and they would take it, you know, but they don't feel like they do Now. They do have other options but they're not seeing those, just like someone who is suicidal and you make a good point, by the way, most of these folks that we deal with are self-destructive, because whatever they do is a self-destructive act. It's not going to be good for them to lash out and hurt somebody, it's just not. But they're doing that to a large degree because they don't know what else to do. And so sometimes getting them to think a little more clearly.
Speaker 3:And again, when you are emotionally, when you're angered and you feel besieged, you know you want to attack back because you feel like that's your only option. And that's not your only option. But again it's, and sometimes it's helping them see their other options and maybe the company helping them realize some of those other options. You know for the like, the company helping them with giving them a, you know, listening to the help of an outplacement firm to help them write their resume, like Melissa referred to, and help them, you know, with something to get them moved on where they have other opportunities in their life. Because once that happens, then you, you can, you can breathe easier.
Speaker 2:You know, once that person goes away and feels like they have other options, then your life gets a lot better because it's a bit like the pathways of violence, the early stages of that, you know, when they go from grievance to ideation that they go there because they feel out of options. There's no other way of resolving this other than through violence. And actually there are other options. You just haven't thought of them, or? Or you right now you're in that fog of war and you're not thinking about them, right?
Speaker 3:right. And if, and if someone's truly suicidal, then you know it doesn't matter about those other options, and so that's you know. And so if you're suicidal and you or your last act on earth is to hurt yourself, you probably, you know, you may want to settle some scores, and I would say every mass shooting we've had in the US, you know, I think I'm safe in saying this has been perpetrated by suicidal individuals. They may either kill themselves or they put themselves in a position to be killed.
Speaker 2:You know, in either one or the other what's interesting on that subject is when I've looked at the attacks on our politicians in this country.
Speaker 2:What's what's clear is the amount of effort that the perpetrator has gone into to plan their attack. But what's? But what's also interesting is they never have an exit strategy. Sometimes they might just walk away, but they've got a sophisticated process of getting in and defeating security and doing the attack. But they haven't got an exit strategy, either because they assume they're going to get shot by police or something, or they assume they're going to prison and so because they don't have any other options. Hence the reason they've gone down the violent route. They've never considered how do I get away at the end?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's very true, and as a psychologist, perhaps you know, I see these people as primarily being suicidal, secondarily being homicidal. I think that they went into this with the idea that they were not going to exit. I believe that that's. That's a primary thing is that it's like the person who and I don't know that much about him, but the person who shot Trump, you know, I mean I mean he was on the roof, there was no strategy to escape. I mean he was on the roof, there was no strategy to escape. I mean there was just not. And you're right.
Speaker 2:I mean I think most of those folks it is. The assumption is that this is a suicidal act. So, before we kind of conclude, then you know if people are listening to this and they're thinking, okay, I need to do something, I need to start a program. And very often in the UK, you know we won't have a work, a dedicated workplace violence team or a trauma team or whatever you want to call it. And what do they do? What are the kind of basic steps that they need to be thinking about in order to create some sort of mechanism or some team that's going to manage these processes?
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, I mean I think that your team we don't have to call it workplace violence because, like we've talked about, I mean that's the problematic term you can call it the risk management team. You know whatever you know, and that's. And then I think that you have to have an educational process. You have to basically get, first of all, you got to start with your leadership, because leadership's got to be on board, and then you kind of work down that's that's how it usually works. You pull together a team of maybe the head of HR and the head of security and all to kind of get on the same pace. This is something we want to pay attention to and then you start training, like I said, the next level down, the critical personnel you know, talk, get them on board. And then you roll out the employee training and employee awareness programs. Now, you don't want to roll out the employee awareness programs if you're not ready at the top levels Because, again, when you roll out the employee, you mentioned about how there are companies now that are talking about this all the time.
Speaker 3:That didn't before. Well, everybody's more sensitive to it. So you're getting the companies are getting more reports of bad behavior, and it's not because bad behavior is worse than it used to be, they're just getting more reports. And so as soon as you educate your employee population, the next day you're going to get some, you're gonna you're going to get reports of things that you did not know, that that were going on, that just are going to be astounding, that you did not know because your employees so. So you kind of work your way down and I I think that there has to be, you know it has to start with leadership. You know leadership has to and again, you know I work a lot with security managers and HR managers and you know the issue many times is that we can't get funding. We have a budget, there's nothing here. So we have to kind of start at the top to basically get, you know, the buy-in for everybody and it's not that costly what we're talking about. It really isn't.
Speaker 2:No, because you don't need to have a dedicated team. You just have to have a group of individuals that recognize when there are issues, they come together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they're the ones that are responsible and you need to be trained, but they don't need to be trained in terms. They don't have to be threat assessment experts, but they just have to be. They have to know what the resources are and have the responsibility of being the kind of the ultimate decision makers in this and they can bring in resources like you and I to help them, you know, with as they go through the process. But but again, I think you need that as some and it doesn't have to be formalized. I mean it can. In every company's different structures are different, personality of organizations are different, so how you develop that can be very different, but it has to fit. It has to fit your style, your, your culture.
Speaker 2:Mark, honestly, this has been such an interesting conversation and so applicable, I think, across the board. No matter where you are in the world listening to this, if you've got a job and you're going to work, you will know somebody who you'll work with, who is either you can think of they're probably a bit troubled right now or there's somebody who you can think they're a bit troubling some right now, because we all know these people, um, and so it's so applicable what you've been talking about and such good advice and insight into some of these issues. So thank you so much. It's been a real. I'm going to put your books on the notes because I really recommend them and I've been reading the Risks Within recently and I'm a bit of a highlighter and I'm about to stop highlighting because I end up highlighting.
Speaker 2:It's almost like what isn't highlighted rather than what is highlighted in the book, because there's so many nuggets there and it's a really good read, so definitely something I think people should have in their library. So again, thank you, mark, it's been a real treat and pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Phil. It's been great. This has been wonderful. It's good to see you again. Hopefully I'll see you in Switzerland for the next European ATAP.
Speaker 1:You certainly will Thank you for listening to the Diffuse podcast with host Philip Rendell, CEO and founder of Diffuse. Please rate, review and subscribe on your favorite podcasting platforms.
