Change Agent - Issue 41

Know any bullies? I've asked that question a lot lately, and nobody ever says no.

People always have bully stories to tell. Stories about bullies in elementary school. Stories about how recess was the worst period in school -- not because classes were so great, but because bullies ran wild on the playground. I've heard stories about high-school bullies and even a story about a college professor who thought that the best way to teach was by browbeating students. And here's a big surprise: Just about everyone knows a bully at work.

There are two things about this fact that really surprise me.

The first is that while just about everyone agrees that bullies are annoying, difficult, counterproductive, and sometimes even dangerous, nobody actually seems to want to do anything about the steady supply of new bullies who seem to emerge on a daily basis.

The second thing that surprises me is that the people I've talked to never admit to being bullies themselves.

All of this has me wondering about the phenomenon of bullies, bosses, and how the rest of us work. Why are we willing to tolerate bullies? That question can leave you scratching your head if you don't try to make sense out of it. So let's start with a definition.

What exactly is a bully? A bully is a person who uses external force to entice others to do things his way, regardless of what a rational person might say is the best course of action.

In elementary school, the external force is almost always physical. As in, "Give me your lunch money, or I'll punch you in the nose." By playing to evolutionary history (historically, physical force from a person or an animal was the most likely way to die), these kids are able to get what they want.

It's quite intoxicating for a 7-year-old child to discover that he can get what he wants just by punching people (or, even better, just by threatening to punch people). The bullies we feared growing up were physical bullies. They used their perceived greater strength (or our perception that they were willing to use it) to get whatever it was that they wanted, regardless of whether or not that was a good thing to do.

Of course, adolescent bullying isn't always about punching people. I recently watched two 14-year-old girls bully their way through a camping trip, not only causing their six peers to cower in their path, but also successfully intimidating the adult chaperones.

Exactly how were they able to pull this off? How did two 80-pound girls manage to wreck a week in the woods for this group? They did it with the force of their personalities. With vague threats that they would withhold their charisma from peers who needed it. With brilliant, Henry Kissinger-esque diplomacy, skillfully playing one group off of another. At every step along the way, these selfish bullies did whatever they wanted, forcing the group to focus on what the girls needed, as opposed to what was right for the group.

Unfortunately, bullies don't stop bullying when they grow up -- they just learn to hide it better. A kid who learns to get his way by bullying isn't going to abandon this winning strategy just because he has a job. Since he's always gotten what he wanted that way, why would he stop now?

But bullying is dangerous. At its core is the fact that a bully gets what she wants at the expense of the group's well-being.

And because business is about groups and about interactions, bullies can dramatically harm almost any organization. You know who they are. You have them in your company, and you've seen what they can do. Bullies can keep your company from investing in a profitable new area because they're insecure -- and unsure how it will affect their career. They can ruin the career of a promising new upstart because they view that person as a threat. Bullies can make it hard for other companies to do business with you.

Think for a second about the day that CEO, chairman, and president of Nike, Phil Knight, bullied Sears. It seems that Sears mistakenly ran a Nike-sneakers ad on a cereal box, violating an agreement that Sears had with Nike. Phil's response: pull all Nike shoes from every Sears store instantly. Yes, Phil was defending the brand. Yes, it was a critical moment that established Nike as a high-end purveyor of athletic dreams.

But then some Sears executives flew out to Oregon to meet with Knight. They were ready to acknowledge their company's mistake, and to figure out how to preserve Sears's valuable relationship with the sneaker manufacturer. Knight sent the executives home without even meeting with them.

Nike is actually proud of this story; it's a totem of how the company cares for its brand and how it is willing to defend its specialness. I see it differently. I think that Phil Knight had a chance to cut a great new deal with Sears that would lead to increased mind share and profits, and that would satisfy many of the goals of Nike shareholders. But instead, Knight seized the opportunity as a way to bully a formerly valuable partner.