Tell business leaders there’s a new operational process that will increase safety, quality, teamwork and innovation, cut down on mistakes, surface problems, boost profitability, safeguard their brand, and reduce regulatory risk. Many executives will say they’re in the business of reality – not magical thinking – though perhaps in saltier language.
Tell them it won’t cost as much as a fraction of an upper executive level’s severance package and they’ll likely think about getting one ready for you. If they’re amused or just curious, get ready to explain why civility – defined as a specific and limited set of clear and identifiable workplace behavioral practices – will do just that.
Numerous books, white papers and studies in healthcare, government, manufacturing and professional services and other industrial sectors show that daily incivilities harm the public, organizations, their staffs and overall results.
The behaviors causing harm occur routinely. They are not taught in training courses but are transmitted culturally as people absorb behavior akin to the way they learn how to do the operational aspects of their jobs by modeling others. The good news is these patterns can be changed so that their damaging impact is curbed. Studies such as Atul Gawande’s “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right” have repeatedly demonstrated that even simple checklists can change behavior and outcomes.
Operations are done using a specific set of processes, products are made according to clear manufacturing steps, lawsuits are managed by rules and deadlines, airplanes take off and land according to established protocols. On the job behaviors governing these and other workplace functions should be managed with the same attention.
The challenge for human resource professionals is to get leaders to understand that civil behavior is a strategic and operational imperative requiring little cost but generating huge bottom-line and operational business results. Unfortunately, to many, it sounds like a politically correct nightmare and the latest HR fad rather than a simple business approach that can be defined and managed.
Here are the steps human resource leaders can apply to introduce civility into their workplaces and, in the process, earn their long-awaited, proper seat at the business table.
First, here’s what won’t work. Civility can’t be a human resource initiative or a risk management process driven by legal counsel or compliance officers; it must be initiated and directed by senior leaders responsible for the overall direction of the enterprise. Multiple organizational areas will be involved: human resources, legal, compliance, operations, learning and development, for example. But without executive leadership, civility won’t be taken seriously and won’t take root.
Second, executives need proof. Flooding them with reports, studies, and legal cases drawn from other organizations won’t get commitment. Except when it’s too late, many leaders won’t recognize they have the same broken behavioral practices as those that have publically hobbled other organizations. Finally, unless leaders can see that civility is a clearly defined set of behavioral principles they are likely to view it as too loose a standard to warrant their attention. They need clear standards that can be communicated and readily managed.
So here’s a quick checklist of steps to get leaders’ attention, link civility to operations, change culture and get results. From my experience, these are the key behavioral incivilities that need to be addressed:
- Identify and work to prevent behaviors that cause the greatest harm, including:
- Racial, sexual, religious, age, and ethnic jokes, comments and banter – spoken, emailed or however communicated.
- Screaming, yelling, calling other people names in public or private settings.
- Body language, gestures and tone of voice that communicate the same level of disdain as the first two points. By the way these can be specifically defined: Think about how a sneer, a sarcastic inflection, a dismissive gesture, lack of eye contact can affect how you receive messages.
- Lying or fabricating information in any context.
- Get executives together and ask them to identify their biggest operational concerns; likely they will identify retention, safety, quality, productivity, brand image, talent management, and financial results and like concerns. These are the issues they worry about and the ones that they must understand can be positively affected by civil behavior.
- Show them how uncivil behavior can lead to serious harm in their own organizations. To do this, create a brief case in that leaders and others exhibit problem behaviors occurring in their workplaces. This can be done internally but generally is the part where the greatest care and art are required. Ask leaders to identify notable behaviors in the case, positive or negative, and then to identify the business detriments or benefits they cause. If done properly, they will identify specific behaviors that cause problems and they will link them to harmful business results. They’ll quickly note how uncivil behaviors lead to harm but no business benefit and that’s the point. And they’ll generally recognize how such behaviors violate organizational values.
By using their insights linking business results to conduct, work with them to deliver a short list of behavioral standards tied to business outcomes that become their organization’s principles of civility. The above list is a useful roadmap for what should be covered. Remember, this list needs to be simple, clear and short.
Leaders then need to talk about these standards specifically, link them to business and organizational values and make sure others do the same. This is a long term commitment not a single set of emails or web-based videos. Everyone has to be involved. Managers and employees should be educated and routinely reminded of these standards that, again, have to be linked not only to overall results but results in their own work units.
In less time than your organization can build a new plant or facility, develop and launch new products and buy and integrate enterprises, it can implement principles of operational civility. The good news is that it can be done with less cost and risk, while generating superior results.
