Leadership Forewarned - Preventing Bad Things From Happening to Good Organizations

Chapter One

“Cross-Pollination”

At least weekly, if not daily, we hear about some event of workplace violence. Whether it is a domestic situation gone bad, a stalker, a disgruntled employee, or an act of terror, we have gotten used to hearing about violent acts taking place within the work environment. According to statistics from the Department of Labor, there were five hundred workplace homicides in 2016 and four hundred fifty-eight workplace homicides in 2017. According to the FBI, in a report titled “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2018,” there were twenty-seven active shooter incidents in sixteen states during the calendar year 2018. Those attacks resulted in eight-five deaths and one hundred twenty-eight people being wounded. The FBI reports that sixteen of those twenty-seven incidents occurred in areas of commerce, i.e. businesses. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Agency (OSHA), nearly two million American workers report having been victims of workplace violence each year. OSHA concedes that those numbers may be low because it believes that many cases of workplace violence go unreported (Lebron, 2019).

Here are some other frightening statistics I recently observed from a blog post written by Andrea Lebron. These statistics should concern any business leader or HR representative:

• Homicides make up nine percent of all deaths in the American workplace.
• The third leading cause of death in certain industries is attributed to workplace violence.
• For women in the workforce, workplace violence is the second leading cause of death while on the job.
• More bad news for women in the workplace, there are approximately thirty thousand reports of rapes and sexual assaults in the workplace annually.
• Organizations report one hundred and twenty-one billion dollars in annual losses directly attributable to workplace assaults.
• Domestic violence issues, that make its way into the workplace, cause seven hundred and twenty-seven dollars in lost productivity.
• Workplace catastrophic incidents, such as large-scale workplace violence, can cost publicly traded companies eight percent losses in shareholder value (Lebron, 2019).

An Associated Press article, written by Lisa Marie Pane and published in the last week of 2019, proclaimed, “U.S. Mass Killings Hit New High in 2019, Most Were Shootings.” She cites a database compiled by several media companies, which showed a total of forty-one mass killings. Thirty-three of the forty-one mass killings were mass shootings. Pane writes that two-hundred and ten people were killed as a result of these events. She argues that a majority of the killings involved people that knew each other. The headline is confusing because in her article she writes that there were two hundred and twenty-four victims in 2017, many as a result of the horrible mass-shooting which took place in Las Vegas. In Pane’s article, there is a quote that is consistent with the main theme of this book. The quote is “These are still rare events. Clearly, the risk is low but the fear is high. What fuels the contagion is fear” (Pane, 2019).

We could not agree more with the preceding quote. The odds that you, as an HR professional or organizational leader, will have to deal with an active shooter situation is quite rare. But you will, more than likely, deal with dozens of disgruntled employees and smaller workplace violence issues over the course of your career. But, with those active shooter numbers in mind, do you think the average CEO, mid-level manager, first-line supervisor, or HR professional has the requisite training and mindset to deal with the repercussions of a shooter or other types of workplace violence? I personally don’t think so, based on my observations in the private sector. That is a sad state of affairs, especially since this is not a new phenomenon for the business and HR worlds.

Since the early 1970s, when OSHA was first created, there has been a “General Duty Clause” of the Occupational Safety and Health legislation. That clause states the following: “Each employer shall furnish to each of his employees employment, and a place of employment, which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” 1

It is clearly understood in civil actions and OSHA rulings that workplace violence is a recognized hazard that is likely to cause death or serious physical harm. So, isn’t it of paramount importance to learn, as much as you can, about workplace violence and how to prevent it?

Who, in the business world, is expected to forecast this type of violent behavior?

Who is expected to protect the employees from these types of acts?

Who is forced to deal with the fallout from this violence?

The answers to those last three questions are:

• The senior leaders and middle managers of the company, and every member of the Human Resources department.

In other words, you, the reader of this book, are left to deal with the prevention of and reaction to these types of incidents. It is you who is expected to predict, deny, and otherwise address workplace violence. More often than not, your average supervisor or HR employee has had little or no training in the basic concepts that could help them survive such an event, or even better, prevent these types of situations. Human Resource employees, and other leaders, could greatly benefit from learning, understanding, and even embracing some elementary basics that are known and utilized by cops and threat assessors all over the United States. Providing these simple and commonsensical foundations and making them relevant to business leadership, and to the field of Human Resources, is the reason for this book.

This is not a book on physical self-defense in the workplace but instead concentrates on incorporating a mindset in the workplace.

Not paranoia, but preparation.

Not fear, but planning.

Not naivety, but an understanding of potential outcomes.

My friend and confidante Phil Carlson, a life-long police officer who is now a security director for a large corporation in North Carolina, tells his employees, that we should always plan for the probable and not the possible.

With the wrong mindset about all the potential issues in the workplace, managers or HR reps could find themselves overwhelmed and paralyzed. Being prepared for the probable though makes the leader much more confident. I just used the word ‘leader,’ and I did that for a purpose. Going forward in the book, if you see the word ‘leader,’ it will stand for anyone that might need to incorporate the lessons in this book, namely first-line supervisors, middle managers, senior executives, and especially HR personnel. So, when you read ‘leader,’ please know that I mean anyone in the workplace with the responsibility of representing an organization and interacting with other employees.

The art and science of management, and human resource management specifically, is a culture unto itself. Like other professions, it has its own professional organization, the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), it has its own language, its own culture, and its own legal requirements. In every way imaginable, the folks employed in the Human Resource (HR) and business administration fields are professionals. The subject matter experts in these career paths strive to follow best practices and to be fair and consistent in all of their endeavors. HR professionals and business leaders have learned much from other fields of study, and have incorporated input from those fields to better the field of their endeavors. I doubt I would get much disagreement if I stated that HR and business leaders have learned much from the legal profession, the medical profession, and from many of the social sciences.

But, in my opinion, and based on my observations of both public sector and private sector, I believe that it is time for HR folks and other workplace leaders to learn from the fields of law enforcement and threat assessment to create a safer environment for themselves and for the other employees they serve. As a career law enforcement officer, trainer, and threat assessor, I spent my entire adult life assessing risks and taking actions to create countermeasures against violent acts. So, it pains me to say that time and time again I have personally witnessed HR representatives engaging in activities that could make them, or others, embarrassed, injured, or even killed. As I have interacted with business leaders and HR professionals throughout the years, I have been shocked to see how ill-prepared, and I could argue naïve, these professionals have been when it comes to human nature, targeted violence, and ensuring a safe environment in the workplace. I know that the last statement might seem brash, and it is not my intent to denigrate or insult these people. The naivety and the failure to interpret potential threatening behavior, that I have witnessed in Human Resource personnel and business leaders, seems to be a result of their education, their culture, and the insular nature of their work. After all, HR professionals and business managers tend to be cliquish and for good reason. They operate in an environment where they have...