Dennis Johnson, Ph.D. Consultant

Bowen:     Dr. Johnson, we read about and hear broadcasts recounting the horrible stories of violence in the workplace and we're surprised by the prominent identity of some of the organizations experiencing such events, including U. S. Department of Agriculture, The Connecticut State Lottery and The U. S. Postal Service. Indeed, the phrase "going postal" has become a part of our business lexicon as a euphemism for "going berserk." In your view, what is contributing to all of this?

Johnson:    Well, as a point of clarification, the postal service, in terms of "going postal," this is not a phenomenon associated exclusively with the postal service, nor was the postal service related meaningfully to its genesis. What has happened, and independent research has clearly shown this, is we have an acknowledged cultural phenomenon and social problem. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, when they looked at the top 18 most dangerous positions, the position of postal worker or the postal service did not appear. So we have a cultural phenomenon that is problematic for us and I just wanted to clarify that initially.

Bowen:     Understandably. Since 1983, however, more than 35 employees at the U. S. Postal Service have been murdered, many of them ex-postal employees seeking revenge for termination or lack of promotion. Is there some insight that you can give us in terms of, perhaps, the categories of these events?

Johnson:     When we analyze homicides in the workplace, we have to appreciate that the number of individuals who are actually murdered is more related to circumstance and opportunity, particularly when there are semi-automatic weapons utilized. In terms of appreciating the complexity of workplace violence, there's often a uniformity myth and, that is, individuals talk generically about workplace violence when, in fact, there are layers and textures of workplace violence.

Specifically, meaningful categories are employee-related violence. This is when the perpetrator is a current or former employee. In the case of a former employee, if that individual has not refocused their life constructively, anger tends to incubate. It worsens across time and they tend to come back in the workplace, or with current individuals that pose risk of harm.

Other meaningful categories are domestic or intimate partner workplace violence where relationships fail. And they are then acted out violently within the context of the work setting because most partners realize where the woman, and typically males are perpetrators, where she works, where she parks, where her work station is, duty hours, etc.

There are also terrorism hate crimes that have emerged in the workplace and also customer/client/third-party workplace violence. Classically, what we've seen is robbery and commercial crimes. So I think those are the categories that make the most sense.

Bowen:     Homicide in the workplace, however, is the fastest growing form of murder and the rate has more than doubled in the past ten years, a societal event to be sure, but why is this being visited on the workplace?

Johnson:     Well, let's take the broad overview first. Humans are very violent beings. There's a partially and instinctively-based aggressive predisposition as well as social factors. And, typically, we anticipate, that through a process of socialization and a balance in one's life with love, work and play, that aggressive impulses can be constructively handled or at least kept within tolerable limits.

When we superimpose that on a changing corporate landscape, if we look at a ten-year snapshot, we see that corporations in America have been re-engineered and most employees feel left out. The social contract that many of us were reared under, wherein if you are competent and loyal and the company is profitable, that you'll have long-term employment possibilities. But now with downsizing, rightsizing, mergers, acquisitions, delayering of corporate America, we find many individuals who for them the most significant aspect of their life is their job and that identity is being threatened. And we're seeing more and more opportunities and circumstances for violence.

Bowen:     So, if people are being left out or the perception is that they're being left out or both, how does that link to the emotion of anger?

Johnson:     Well, too often in our culture the emotion of the day is anger and it's important to dissect anger and understand its genesis and how it changes across time. Specifically, with adults, there are several occasions that give rise to anger. First of all, the person is frustrated. They want some type of desired outcome or corporate goal. It could be a promotion. It could be a favorable ruling in a grievance. And so they're frustrated. But in addition to that, the angry adult views this frustration as related somehow to their self-worth. And particularly they believe they've been demeaned by a supervisor or by the corporation and taken for less than who they are. At this point in time, the angry person externalizes blame. He or she believes that they are not responsible for contributing to this problem and, in fact, all responsibility is placed on the individual at whom they're angry or the corporation. They also believe that the person or the corporation could have acted differently to resolve the matter. And then tunnel vision sets in. They cease to appreciate consequences of their behavior or to look at alternatives in the context.

Bowen:     So, literally, people work themselves up into a rage?

Johnson:     That certainly can occur. And, in terms of significant workplace violence, such as homicide, the individual believes that they've been wronged. They're experiencing intolerable levels of stress for themselves. They adopt a victim perspective and then they take on the cognitive framework of, "I'm going to get you for what you've done to me."

Bowen:     Dr. Johnson, we're aware of incidents certainly at The U. S. Department of Agriculture and The Connecticut State Lottery. One headline that included the postal service back in December from a major news publisher, headline: The Postal Worker Wounds Two, Kills Coworker and Self. I understand that a significant number of individuals who commit workplace murders end up committing suicide themselves, can you give us a statistic and give us some insight around that?

Johnson:     I having conducted approximately 3,000 threat assessments and reanalyzed and reconstructed several hundred workplace homicides, I can tell you that when there are two or one individuals who are murdered in the workplace, the perpetrator will commit suicide approximately 25-percent of the time. In those occasions where there are more than two individuals who have been murdered, the rate of suicide of perpetrators approaches 50-percent.

There is a fine line between homicide and suicide. In fact, the same impulse that underlies homicide also underlies suicide. And we see this common in these individuals that have taken this violent act through tunnel vision, frustrated. They believe that if they can destroy the source of their frustration, somehow this will lead to a balance in their life. And, of course, this logic is ill-fated and doomed from the beginning. So that relationship of feeling, initially, helpless and then hopeless can translate into both a homicidal as well as a suicidal impulse.

Bowen:     What can employers do or what should they be doing to reverse that situation?

Johnson:      Well, most all serious acts of workplace violence follow from recognizable warning signs and threats. And as we have retraced workplace violence and surveyed it, we have found constructive corporate practices and interventions that will not only intervene prior to workplace violence reaching crisis proportions but also be meaningfully related to employee morale and productivity.

It begins with senior executive support. It has to be a commitment from the highest levels of the organization. Initially, workplace violence policy, including a zero tolerance for unacceptable, inappropriate behavior in the workplace; procedures, in terms of having a threat assessment, or threat reporting mechanism; a very effective employee assistance program; medical involvement, which could include fitness for duty evaluations; training for supervisors and early identification of these warning signs.

Most organizations know how to terminate an employee in a legally defensible manner. But we should also include safe termination procedures, threat management so that if there is a credible threat in the organization it can be assessed and risk abatement plans executed, critical incident response so that the organization requires a crisis management plan, stress debriefing of those individuals who have experienced a traumatic event and then a return to corporate functioning that's more normal after a post-incident analysis. So we really have kind of a, have program components that are important for workplace violence prevention as well as intervention.

Bowen:     Is there anything about these environments where violence does occur that is different from other organizations where, in fact, they do not experience workplace violence?

Johnson:     Well, there's always an interaction effect with workplace violence. By that I mean that in an organization there are both bad seeds and bad soil. So if we want to understand workplace violence and particularly productivity and morale, we have to appreciate contributions of the individual, in terms of their unacceptable behavior, and also potential effects of organizational climate and culture.

Local work environment to the overall corporate culture have an impact on behavior and adjustment of employees. The type of work environment that's particularly problematic for us is one that's referred to as a toxic work environment or a corrosive environment. Here we see policies, procedures, management and supervision which is insensitive to employees. The dignity and self-respect of employees are undermined. There's a great deal of secrecy. The employee base is consistently asked to do more and more, in terms of productivity, with less resources and compassionate human programs to support them. And we see a corporate environment that tolerates harassment, threats, intimidation or what could be referred to as a hostile work environment. Those components are particularly important because they interact with individual proclivities, which move a person at risk for violence either toward or away from a violent response.

Bowen:     So, if, indeed, harassment is tolerated, supervisors are insensitive, people are being asked to do more and more with less, the context is becoming more fertile for potential explosion?

Johnson:     Absolutely. The organizational climate contributes to workplace violence but in the case of the most severe forms, such as in a homicide, the individual must be responsible for his or her conduct. And so the criteria variable is an individual at risk for violent acting out but the organizational climate can contribute.

Bowen:     Are there warning signs which might signal danger?

Johnson: Most incidents of workplace violence are preceded by recognizable red flags or warning signs. In fact, most individuals who commit workplace violence will, well before the violent incident, before it reaches crisis proportions, they will have a, provide a clue, a symptom, a calling card in advance. In the most significant manifestations of violence, we see an individual who is a current or former employee, a male. Men are about nine times more violent than women. This person is typically socially isolated and heavily dependent on work for his positive self-regard. There is often a fascination with violence and weapons that can be features of the personality; a history of conflict, interpersonal conflict. Often there is a threat, and there are different types of threats, direct threats, conditional threats, veil threats, but the person expresses a desire to harm coworkers or management. There may be unwanted romantic interests towards a coworker and perhaps stalking or some form of intimidation. A lot of these individuals have needed help in the past but did not receive it. There can be paranoid and/or depressed behavior in evidence, a sense of entitlement, frequently having preoccupation with weapons. They may even bring weapons to work and display for effect. And overall, we're seeing a catastrophic failure of an individual to cope with his or her life circumstances and this leads to expression of violence.

Bowen:     Uncontrolled anger is not just isolated to murder, however, is it not? We're aware that, for example, a former employee of a telephone company returned to a workplace and took several hostages after destroying almost ten million dollars of equipment. How often does uncontrolled anger visit itself on inanimate objects--bombing, destroying equipment, that sort of thing?

Johnson:     Well, conservatively, there's several hundred thousand instances of nonlethal workplace violence, which occur each year in the United States. And you can look at that as being nonlethal, that wherein the targets are individuals, such as threats, assaults, harassment, battery. And also you can look at it in terms of commercial consequences such as sabotage in the workplace. Individuals will act out towards a target as a way of helping them reestablish some sense of control in the circumstance. Again, it's almost like they have blinders on because there are more constructive ways to solve the problems. But it is quite common to have angry individuals lash out directly or indirectly in the corporation.

Bowen:     One reference source that I know of preventing workplace violence, a work by Mary Ann Minor, cites that the United States is the most violent nation in the Western world. In 1993 there were 110,000 reported incidents of violence in U. S. workplaces, 750 deaths, costs totaling 4.2 billion dollars, how much of this is societal?

Johnson:      It was recently estimated, as we approach the next millennium, that in the past 100 years in the world, there have been two hundred million people murdered. So we have violence as a general matter and then what's occurred is some of the foundations we expect, again, that through socialization and a balance in one's life, typically of love, work and play, where loving relationships, spiritual beliefs, family values, some transcended issues, tend to provide positive outlets. But when these constructive avenues are blocked we see even a greater sense of it.

And in our culture with all the downsizing and rightsizing, the individual who seems to be lost in the equation is the individual employee, again, believing that the social contract has been violated. It's the old phrase, "Here I am alone and afraid in a world I never made." And when identity is blocked, outlets, constructive ones, whether through values, family, friends, loving relationships, individuals with that level of frustration, particularly when they're externalizing blame and feel that their self-worth has been diminished, they can lash out at a target as a way of trying to reestablish themselves. And unfortunately, it is a doom from the beginning.

Bowen:     What suggestions do you have for employers who want to reverse these trends? In fact, most U. S. companies, we understand, have no plan to deal with crises of violence in the workplace.

Johnson:     Well, the best anecdote to workplace violence is a cross-functional professional team composed of human resource professionals, security professionals, employee assistance professionals, medical, labor relations, if relevant. And you have a cross-functional team that initially surveys violence in the corporate setting to look at risks and vulnerabilities, past occasions of it and look at the consequences which can occur and set up policy and procedures that encourage positive, productive workplace habits and where individuals can refer without fear of reprisal, if they notice any types of threats or conflicts in the work setting and that there be a uniform professional review of those; a zero-tolerance policy; compassionate programs, such as employee assistance; appropriate referral mechanisms for employees who are identified at risk for, as we're speaking here, violent acting out.

And I think if you have that kind of package and then looking at how employees are hired, by getting the best human resource into the organization that's job related, you know, relevant to knowledge, skills and abilities. Do they train that individual? Do they have a career path? Do they have constructive ways of dealing with separation or termination when that occurs?

So if you look at it holistically and as a system, you'll see that workplace violence prevention is really related to profitability, productivity and even the image that shareholders and stakeholders have of the corporation.

Bowen:     What about processes in the normal operation of the business, not so much employee assistance, EAP-type programs but programs for allowing people to vent, training to help people communicate their concerns, their frustrations? What about those processes?

Johnson:      Well, it's important that there be two-way communication in a corporation where credible concerns can be transferred upward and then a clear response with an appropriate rationale be received. When individuals in a corporation believe that violent acting out is a legitimate form of conflict resolution, or when there are lower levels of conflict, there needs to be a mechanism to resolve them.

And at the, in the middle of this is the very important role of the supervisor. In fact, in our research and consultation, the supervisor is proven to be the critical element in the chain because, on the negative side of the ledger, there's often attribution of ineffective supervisors prompting dissatisfaction and leading to more conflict. And, on the positive side, we know that they are typically the first level that has the authority to identify and refer possible threats and concerns in the workplace to corporate resources that can resolve them.

Bowen:     So, in essence, what you're saying is that, in many of the cases, supervisors have contributed to the condition, certainly, which have prompted individuals to act violently?

Johnson:     Well, there can be contributions by supervisor conduct, supervisors that are impressed with their self-importance are inconsiderate of subordinates who do not process their concerns, who do not acknowledge and reward behavior, that act with favoritism in some sense, so they can be contributors. But, again, the individual must take responsibility for his or her conduct, particularly where there are serious incidents. But it's all part of the interaction of a high level of societal violence interacting with corporate practices, procedures, corporate culture and individuals at risk for violent acting out.

Bowen:     We've been talking about supervisory personnel and, I assume, the importance of training those people, would you care to make a comment on that?

Johnson:     Supervisory training, we see, as one of the important components to any program because, as we've indicated, there are warning signs that precede significant instances of workplace violence. Also the corporate culture is translated by supervisors in most context and a supervisor who has good human relation skills as well as the technical expertise for his or her job are critical. When you have the individuals who are uninvolved, indifferent to the needs of employees, inconsiderate, any type of lack of corporate consistency is often taken by employees as lack of integrity.

So the first front-line supervisor is a cornerstone in terms of meeting the needs of the employees and of management as well. Most corporations in the United States, most all are profitable because of the judgment and decisions made by individual employees on behalf of management.

So we find that supervisors that know what the warning signs and red flags are, they can intervene constructively before a situation on the workroom floor, in the factory or in the corporate suites escalates to crisis proportions, not only decreases the probability of violent incidence but also maximizes employee morale, productivity and profitability.

Bowen:     What suggestions, Dr. Johnson, do you have for employees who want to ensure that their work environments become safer?

Johnson:     Well, often employees, coworkers, are the first to know that a situation is escalating towards a crisis. They'll observe a threat. They'll see conflict among coworkers or between two coworkers. And so having a threat-reporting mechanism where the coworker has no fear of reprisal; he or she knows that there will be a uniform, professional investigation; they have their ability to observe buttress by zero-tolerance policy; and the maintenance of a workplace that's not harassing or hostile in any way. Those are important features that need to support an overall workplace violence prevention and intervention program.

Bowen:     The emphasis certainly, in our conversation, has been on violence but, again, if we back up to the emotion of anger, controlled anger, perhaps, what suggestions would you have for employees in confronting and dealing with the normal emotion of anger?

Johnson:     We grow best from conflict as an individual and so how you handle anger is very important in a corporate context. What we try to help employees understand is that employee feelings, that an attitude can be expressed without saying a word, about how one looks at another person, posture and skill. Posture, how you walk, etc. We recommend that you make eye contact with the individual, ask open-ended question that encourage the person to express his or her feelings, listen attentively, let the person have their say. You allow the individual to give expression to their feelings.

See, the emotions underlying anger are typically hurt and disappointment. The person is being angry as a way of creating distance between himself/herself and someone else so that they will not be seen as vulnerable, insecure, unable to plausibly impact the situation. So when we look at somebody that's angry, you need to consider, here's someone that is likely hurt or disappointed. So we allow them, in a very calm way, not adding more emotion, trying to take some of the emotion out, express himself or herself. Be a good listener and then when intellect returns, the rational process, then start to problem-solve. How do you see it? What would you like to see done? How can we move forward? Those kinds of issues. We have known for over 2,000 years that emotion overrides intellect. Anger a very powerful emotion and one of the most worrisome in terms of violence, so we want to deal constructively when it occurs in the workplace.

Bowen:     Dr. Johnson, any specific comments that you would like to make at this point?

Johnson:     Well, regrettably, the violence that we have all experienced on the streets and in our homes has now moved to corporate America and even to the school system. So, as a culture, how we intervene, recognize and respond to this phenomenon will determine how we will profitably engage the most meaningful aspects of our lives, which are the triad of love, work and play, and there are significant challenges. Currently, it appears that America has lost her soul a little bit.

Bowen:     You touched on the educational system. Certainly business and organizations have been so dependent on the development and training of qualified people from that resource and now we see the same kinds of societal ills being visited on that environment, would you care to comment on that?

Johnson:     Well, it's worrisome because the individuals at a young age, who are engaging in violence and believe that violence is a legitimate form of conflict resolution, are the same individuals that are going to be coming into our work settings in the near term. In fact, most children by age 8 have a basic orientation to believe in a peaceable approach to resolving issues or one where violence is seen as acceptable for conflict resolution. So you can see at a very early age social systems, such as the family and the school system, are critical.

Usually with violent acting out by children, we can trace a lot of it to the home experience. Now, the reason that we say this is because often parental inattention or occasions active abuse, has been, has brought the child to this way of acting to a world that could be hostile to them. Often children are, you know, have parents where there's a weak ego, inadequate personalities, a sense of insecurity, and this is translated to the child, and guns often augment a sense of adequacy, particularly in males. And so, now, we have a child with a continuously available means and opportunities to act out violently.

The incidents that I've seen, there's been limit testing with the child, some kind of suspension, perhaps. The child is engaged in limit testing and, often a child is not actively interested in killing someone, so there's not the overall level of malevolence that we see with adults. There's often a lack of understanding of the significance of death. And if they commit an incident like this, which is not a new phenomenon, I think what's new is the availability of weapons, which has devastating consequences, and a number of these kids are brought up in a rootless way and we see differences because the level of malevolences is not the same typically as with adults. Also the use of intoxicants is not as common, as well as, the defense of like super-macho images.

Now, there is a difference, if we have a child that is psychologically disordered, then we find that there's a triad of cruelty to animals, bedwetting and fire-setting, that's particularly worrisome to us. And added to that would be if the child has accessibility to weapons or has brought a weapon to school.

So the first context I was describing for you would be more of a child that's not quite psychologically disordered but is responding as a way to get attention in some way and this escalates, if there's not progressive discipline.

Bowen:     To what degree do drugs and alcohol come into the situation?

Johnson:      Well, in serious incidents of workplace violence, we would have gone back and reconstructed the homicide or conducted a psychological autopsy. We have not found a high percentage of perpetrators of workplace violence who have committed homicide to have been under the influence of intoxicants.

Now, in the nonlethal context, what intoxicants do is they rarely cause violence; the effect they have is to allow the personality to be expressed. It's almost like they put the conscience to sleep and so the expression of the person when they've had reduced conscience control, their personality is expressed. But to assume that that is a significant contributor in those individuals who are perpetrators of homicide, it certainly can be contributory but its presence is not as critical and debilitating as we see in terms of workplace productivity, lost time, absenteeism, reduced job performance, poor conduct. Now, on the lower levels or nonlethal levels of violence, I think we see a greater contribution of substance abuse in the workplace.

Bowen:     Dr. Johnson, when we look at the total situation, in terms of workplace violence, is this a subject which employers should be taking more seriously?

Johnson:     If we take a ten-year snapshot, particularly in the late '80s to '90s, we have seen increases in both lethal and nonlethal workplace violence and its impact on corporate America. So, I think, even though it's easy to turn away and believe it won't happen here, the evidence suggests that the workplace is no longer a sanctuary and all types of businesses have been impacted and the problem continues to be a significant one.

Bowen:     In your opinion, was it inevitable that violence would move into the workplace?

Johnson:      It was in fact and it is in fact an inevitability. When we look at the level of social cultural violence in the United States, if we look at the top 26 industrialized societies, we see the United States near the top in cultural violence. So, when we superimpose that overlay into changing economic circumstances and what's happened with the American corporation, and we see that violence has gone from the streets to the home to the schools, certainly, it would appear in the workplace.

Bowen:     In the situations where people are acting out in a violent way, is there any sort of conscious game plan to recover something that has been lost?

Johnson:     Well, perpetrators of workplace violence, it's really for them, if it's the employee-related type of violence. It's a quest for significance. The individual has had their coping skills eroded. They have not utilized resources. They have this progressive tunnel vision. They are exquisitely frustrated to the point that the fault lines, if you will, within them are breaking and widening, and they see violence as the only type of solution where they can maybe reestablish control.

Sometimes we see this as a way of symbolically committing suicide and to keep from personal deterioration or decompensation. It is dramatic; it is intense but it is, unfortunately, doomed and ill-fated. So the individual is hoping to restore circumstances where they regain the significance. They believe they can cope and, at the core, it's almost like a battle with one's self-worth in a context that they improperly perceive is being caused by someone external to themself, when, in fact, in most all cases, their contribution is most significant.

Bowen:     So, it's not so much a plan to recover a position for which they may have been passed over as it is more the case of wanting to reassert control, reassert self-worth, is that what you're saying?

Johnson:     Well, with significant, serious workplace violence, such as, homicide, we are seeing the catastrophic failure of an individual who is under intolerable levels of stress for them. They believe they have been treated unfairly. Their basic reluctance to engage in a violent act has been reduced, either through stress, fatigue or the wearing away of their coping skills, and it's more of a revenge dynamic--I'm gonna get you for what you did to me. And, sometimes, when people are deteriorating in their adjustment and they know that they are losing it and common parlance, they'll engage in a dramatic act to reestablish themselves as a way of coping. Again, at this point, it is, will not work and it is ill-fated.

Bowen:     So why aren't more organizations moving to put these kinds of policies in place?

Johnson:     Well, most management in corporate America is reactive and crisis-driven as opposed to visionary and proactive. We have far too many managers in our culture and far too few leaders. So the attitude of--it won't happen here, or the false sense that there may be policies and procedures in place that have worked well enough in the past, give corporations, some of them, a false sense of security.