Workplaces have become less civil spaces than they once were. People don\u2019t say please and thank you. Employees send e-mails and texts during meetings, ignoring the speaker and tuning out of the discussion. Others take too much credit for collaborative work. The nasty looks and belittling comments reached a point at law firm Bryan Cave, in Irvine, California, that the partners held a civility workshop. Managing partner Stuart Price says working together toward a common goal set the right tone for the workshop, as the employees set up a code of civil behavior. The firm has the 10 points of the code displayed on a granite block in the lobby. \u201cI think two items in the code really stand out for me,\u201d Price said. \u201cNo. 3 is we treat each other equally and with respect, even if the conditions are very difficult. Then the last item in our code is we address incivility. If you don\u2019t address incivility, then the plaque just becomes a piece of granite, but it doesn\u2019t have life.\u201d He says they no longer let uncivil behavior slide. \u201cThe first step for us along the way is to address it with the person, privately, just talk about what happened,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the pattern continues with that specific person, we will have further conversations and if it\u2019s particularly problematic, we might terminate them.\u201d Creating a civil work environment has impacted the firm in many positive ways. \u201cA year after we had this workshop, we won Best Place to Work in Orange County in the large company category,\u201d Price said. \u201cIn terms of performance, it seems to me that when we\u2019re most focused on how we treat each other, when were we\u2019re most focused on civility, the financial performance is at its best.\u201d The High Cost of Incivility A culture of civility helps employees feel safer, happier and better, said Georgetown University management professor Christine Porath. She incorporated results of her research and personal experiences in a new book, Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace. She told VOA she witnessed the consequences of incivility years before she started studying it. \u201cI thought I scored my dream job after my graduating from college,\u201d she said. \u201cI got to work at one of the largest sports marketing organization in the world. When I took the full-time job, I learned that it was a very toxic culture. The top leaders had a bad behavior, narcissism. And they had a tendency to belittle and demean people in front of others.\u201d Then it became clear to her the negative effect incivility had on people. \u201cIt was contagious, too,\u201d she said. \u201cIt affected their performance and motivation and mood throughout the day, but they took that into their relationships with others; clients, customers and that kind of thing. And I just saw that it was hurting the organization. And it was also hurting employees, not only their work life, but they were taking it home with them.\u201d And, she discovered, incivility had a physical impact. \u201cThen the second thing was my dad. (He) had had two toxic bosses. Even though he tried to protect me from learning about how bad that was, he ended up in the hospital with a heart attack scare,\u201d she said. More Rudeness Porath notes that civility has been declining for years. \u201cWhen I started studying it in about 1998, it was less than 25 percent (people) were affected by this on a weekly basis, and those numbers most recently hovered over 50 percent \u2014 meaning more people are experiencing or witnessing disrespectful, rude behavior in the workplace these days.\u201d She conducted surveys, asking people \u201cWhy are you uncivil?\u201d \u201cOver 60 percent of people say, \u2018Because I\u2019m overwhelmed or stressed.\u2019 People are asked to do more with less resources. The other thing is technology. The fact that people communicate so often now with e-mails and other forms of technology, it makes being civil tougher in a sense that you don\u2019t have the nonverbal (cues), you don\u2019t have the tone of voice. So typically there are more misunderstandings with technological communication,\u201d she said. Let\u2019s be e-Civil To avoid those sorts of misunderstandings, Porath recommends that you do not send an email if you\u2019re feeling very stressed, angry or can\u2019t solve a disagreement. If you\u2019re not sure how your humor, sarcasm or criticism will be received, reread, rethink and resist the temptation to hit Send. And if you are uncertain about your tone, save the message and review it later with a fresh perspective before sending it. If you have to get something off your chest, write your note now but maybe send it later using delayed delivery. Finally, she suggests trying to have a phone call, or Skype, or meet face to face under those circumstances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Workplaces have become less civil spaces than they once were. People don\u2019t say please and thank you. Employees send e-mails and texts during meetings, ignoring the speaker and tuning out of the discussion. Others take too much credit for collaborative work. The nasty looks and belittling comments reached a point at law firm Bryan Cave, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toptrendingnews.co\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}