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Teams from the University of Florida, Indiana University, and other universities across the U.S. and Israel recently conducted five eye-opening studies about rudeness, uncovering that even mild instances of this behavior can significantly impair employees' performance. This could have potentially life-threatening consequences in critical fields like health care.
"Many workplaces treat rudeness as a minor interpersonal issue," said Amir Erez, Ph.D., W.A. McGriff, III Professor at the University of Florida Warrington College of Business. "Our research shows that it's a major threat to productivity and even safety. Organizations should treat it as such."
Erez and his fellow researchers, who published their findings in the Journal of Applied Psychology, evaluated teams in various settings (including a medical simulation) and found that exposure to rude behavior dramatically reduced team functioning. Surprisingly, the impact of rudeness was disproportionate to its intensity. In one study, relatively mild rude comments from an external source accounted for 44% of the variance in medical teams' performance quality.
The studies also discovered that rudeness functions as a social threat, triggering defensive responses in team members. This causes individuals to become less prosocial and more selfish, hindering the cooperation and coordination essential for effective teamwork. Specifically, teams exposed to rudeness showed reduced information sharing and workload sharing, which are two critical components of team performance. In medical settings, this translated to poorer execution of lifesaving procedures.
[...] With this in mind, the researchers recommend that organizations seek to implement solutions that help teams prepare for dealing with perceived threatening situations like rudeness. Training aimed at building team member resilience and mindfulness, for example, may better prepare employees for dealing with these situations.
"As our understanding of workplace dynamics evolves, our research underscores a critical point: in the quest for high-performing teams, sometimes the smallest courtesies can make the biggest difference," Erez said.
Journal Reference: Gale, J., Erez, A., Bamberger, P., Foulk, T., Cooper, B., Riskin, A., Schilpzand, P., & Vashdi, D. (2024). Rudeness and team performance: Adverse effects via member social value orientation and coordinative team processes. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0001213
(Score: 5, Insightful) by YeaWhatevs on Wednesday September 04 2024, @07:33AM (3 children)
To the study's credit, it talks about training for resilience as well. Unfortunately, this work will probably instead be used as justification for throwing out anyone with dissenting views.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 04 2024, @10:33AM (1 child)
In many jurisdictions, firing somebody doesn't require justification. And pissing off your boss is pretty much always considered justification, regardless of whether your boss is right about anything or not. About the only exception is if your boss is demanding you violate legal requirements, and even then the best you can probably muster is pulling in some cash from a wrongful termination suit.
Also, if I am a boss with a team with, say, 7 people that get along great and 1 guy who is always butting heads with them, who all appear approximately equally productive, guess who I'm going to get rid of come layoff or re-org time?
Although some abrasive people really don't like this, getting along with both your boss and cow-orkers is part of your job. If you've gone about disagreeing with each other the right way, odds are actually pretty good you respect each other more rather than less after the arguments are had and you hammer out an agreement.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday September 04 2024, @02:00PM
In most of the developed world, however, it requires justification and claims of harassment and targeted bullying are taken seriously.
(Score: 2) by Username on Wednesday September 04 2024, @03:11PM
Nurses and hairstylist are the most drama estrogen filled lines of work. I fully understand what they're getting at, but most places aren't filled with 95%+ women. It's usually a more reasonable ratio.
And, yes just because Becky called Karen ass big, doesn't mean we should ban Republicans from work.