We Can Stop the Nastiness

This week I’d like to write about the phenomenon of horizontal violence.

Why? Because people are being nasty to one another. And that includes to people they know. People they interact with every day. People they work with.

I’ve got to tell you that in recent years (I’d say the last 3, for sure), at least once per week, I find myself in utter shock when a client recounts recent events to me. The kinds of things adults are saying and doing to one another sounds to me as though folks are not well enough to be at work – and it’s coming out sideways. Horizontal violence.

Over the last twelve months, across states and industries, I’ve both heard and witnessed people who are colleagues to one another being - unkind, ungenerous, catty, mean-spirited, cruel, and even de-humanizing.

My clients come to me for support, guidance, and creative imagining. I have yet to have a client come right out and say, “Can you get my folks to stop being so God damned mean to each other?!” More often than I knew it would be, this is what my executive coaching sessions often entail.

I feel grateful to get the opportunity to work with so many kinds of organizations, industries, and leaders.

I am often invited behind the proverbial curtain. I conduct 1-on-1 interviews, I read emails, I attend meetings. I hear from groups and individuals their stories and learn about long held resentments and current frustrations.

Clients often report feeling isolated. They feel guilty and ashamed, wondering how on earth a workplace culture can get like this - horizontal violence as a norm rather than an aberration.

Because I work at the intersections of race, class, and gender – I work on culture. Culture is patterns of thinking and behavior. Our work lives and our working relationships are shaped by our patterns.

Here are some patterns that feel important to report:

Colleagues are calling each other names. Colleagues are gossiping behind one another’s backs. And colleagues are cheering for their own teammates to fail.

Not all colleagues. And not all the time. But often enough that I feel worried. I want to name what I’m noticing so that we can interrupt these patterns - snap out of it and recalibrate.

Horizontal violence, sometimes also known as lateral violence, was a kind of framing I first started to learn about when I heard questions like, “why are we always eating our own?” in my early campaign days. The metaphor feels animalistic and graphic, but not inaccurate.

Author and movement thought leader, adrienne maree brown, wrote about this in her November 2020 released booklet, “We Will Not Cancel Us”. It’s pocket-sized, a quick read I recommend to anyone interested in attempting substantive values-aligned conflict. Prior to this book, she laid out her thoughts in a blog post in 2018:

“We all have work to do. Our work is in the light. We have no perfect moral ground to stand on, shaped as we are by this toxic complex time. We may not have time, or emotional capacity, to walk each path together. We are all flailing in the unknown at the moment, terrified, stretched beyond ourselves, ashamed, realizing the future is in our hands. We must all do our work. Be accountable and go heal, simultaneously, continuously. It’s never too late.”

Since starting my professional life in 2002, there have, of course, always been squabbles and hurt feelings. That’s understandable when people care about their work and about their lives. No matter how collaborative we think we feel, we are simply not in agreement with our colleagues every day of every year. And that’s okay. Or would be if we were handling our stress better.

There is something to me about the incisive and dehumanizing ways colleagues seem to be going for the jugular these days that stands out as singular and particularly noticeable.

Horizontal violence - in its purest form - is lashing out.

Imagine my arm reaching out to strike someone who is standing near me. I can reach them because they are close. I bump into them – whether I mean to or not – because we are sharing space.

Here’s my truth, the only times I have ever been in physical altercations in my life - the person I was fighting with was very close to me – I knew them intimately.

And when I think back to the meanest, cruelest, most manipulative things I’ve ever said or done (again – not my proudest moments) – it was all when my feelings were hurt, I felt scared, or I was grasping for power or control. Ex. I wanted to be mean because I felt like my friend or partner was being mean. I was being manipulative because I couldn’t see a different way of getting what I needed or wanted.

I don’t often go toe-to-toe with the opposition (people fighting for the opposite values I hold). That’s because they are very far away – spiritually. Those people are strangers. And I am less disappointed in strangers than I am people with whom I’m in daily relationship. Why? I don’t know them. So, I have hardly any expectations. I get up close and personal with the people most often in my orbit. I care. I need. I want. So when I’m not feeling well or I’m disappointed in what’s happening, I lash out.

Now, from when I was a little kid and fighting with my sister over a toy, to being in a workplace surrounded by other adults doing high stakes work, I like to believe I have grown. I have grown emotionally. I have more clear intentions now than I did back in the day. I have a more solid sense of what “living in my integrity” means for myself and my everyday behavior. I’m flagging that here because horizontal violence can be sneaky. It can start as a low hum – a snarky word here, a sharp email there. It can grow into shit-talking over happy hour, and even a concerted effort to make someone’s life so miserable at work that they leave.

In-grouping, out-grouping, bullying - sound familiar?

It’s middle school shit. But I’m telling you, a variety of versions of horizontal violence is most certainly playing out amongst adults as well.

So what do we do? Start with deepened self-awareness. Take an inventory – how have you been doing? And how have you been acting, lately?

For me, I recognize that when I am well, I can act well. When I have my needs met, when I have slept, eaten, and I am not in pain, I can be patient, curious, and can calibrate my reactions.

But when I am tired, afraid, or any version of fed up, I am more likely to show up as the low side (not high side) of my personality patterns. I am short, I am testy, I am quick to judge and fast to write people off.

Here’s the thing – a lot of people have been run ragged in recent years. You may remember those articles mid COVID about the concepts and states of ‘languishing’ and ‘weariness’ that were deeper and different than just being regular old ‘tired.’ In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd by police, and subsequent years of uprisings, retractions, and retrenchment, many Black, Indigenous, and People of Color report feeling rung out completely.

There is a collective “we have nothing left to give!” vibe in the U.S. that I’m betting sounds familiar.

Although we now have access to a COVID vaccine that keeps us from dying of the virus, and despite U.S. economic numbers and job growth being legitimately strong – the feeling many of us have on more days that not is - despondency. There is daily disappointment in the state of affairs both globally and locally. We are worried about our family’s mental and physical health. We are freaked out about crushing debt, home prices, and running out of time to save enough for retirement.

It can get pretty doomsday.

I get it. I’m right there with you. And yet – I believe we do NOT have to take out our fear and frustrations on each other. We are grown-ups. We have some coping skills. And quite frankly, we can recognize that if there are indeed “teams” (think good guys and bad guys), the people we work alongside are not the enemy.

I don’t generally care for such binary, black and white thinking, but in this case, I think there is value to some back-to-basics reminder: choose not to behave like an asshole at work.

Don’t be nasty in Slack. Don’t send shitty emails. Don’t go after a colleague in a meeting.

If there is something happening that is terribly wrong – by all means, do something strategic and adult to handle it. Do not, instead, run a subtle smear campaign that belittles or dehumanizes your colleagues. Remember, what may feel off handed and small, can pick up momentum and poison the whole well.

An important caveat that I hope also lands as cosmic permission – remember, you do NOT have to stay in abusive work relationships.

If you hate your colleagues – truly, if you find your manager to be a creep or your boss to be unworthy of your respect – please leave.

I mean it.

If you are experiencing working relationships that are untenable, start the path today to exit and find somewhere else to work that feels better.

I know folks panic about quitting. I get that. But I also don’t want any of us to start acting in ways we’re embarrassed of because we feel pushed to our breaking point. You don’t have to wait until the worst is happening. You can leave now.

For those of us that do “white collar” work, we cannot hide behind how scary and hard it is to find another job. My job just radically changed this January. I get it. I’ve had a lot of career transitions by this point. Do not act like you are trapped – when I feel trapped, I am apt to act out. Don’t be in a daily environment where you feel so on edge that you’re embarrassed of how you behave.

Final reminders:

 Do NOT blame other people for your behavior. You are an adult. No one is forcing you to be unkind. I am not suggesting anyone needs to be Pollyanna or fake at work, but I am saying that just because bullying somehow became a norm at your office does not mean you need to pile on.

 If you are in a work relationship that feels unhealthy and unfixable to you, start the process of leaving. A lesson learned from unhealthy relationships of all sorts is that you will go through a grieving process. When there is a relationship in your life that feels like it should work out but it’s just not, it’s infuriating. When you are ready, get through the bargaining and anger and depression so you can get to acceptance. Release, move on, and use your energy in ways that feels more constructive, and in a work setting where you feel like a healthy version of yourself.

 Create and use a litmus test for yourself. Build out a list of “okay” and “not okay” behavior that you want to follow – not because it’s in the rule book but because it’s who you want to be in the world. I recommend writing lists and mantras down in the Notes app on your phone so you can refer to it as needed. Here is a sampling from my notes:

- Would I be proud of myself if a person I cared about heard or saw me behave like this?

- We are on the same team.

- We have chosen to be here to pursue shared goals.

- Okay for me = disagree, be frustrated, need time to think before weighing in

- NOT okay for me = name calling, using BCC in email to tattle on someone, jumping to conclusions or assumptions (I can ask questions if a colleagues’ behavior surprises me)

- I don’t have to stay where I’m not wanted or treated well. I can find meaningful work elsewhere. It will be difficult, but it is not impossible. I am not trapped.

Horizontal violence is a total bummer. Lashing out and treating each other like shit is not how any of us are effectively going to move through feelings of scarcity, fear, and frustration. I can be sassy, I can be assertive, I can be outspoken, and I can be kind – all at the same time. I can treat people humanely and I can refuse to contribute to a workplace culture that drains me.

Thank you for reading this. Your time and attention are valuable. I hope, that although this topic was tough, this reminder proves empowering. We are each in control of how we treat other people. If now is a good time to check in and recalibrate your daily interactions, I’m glad. This helps me to stop and check in on my own patterns of behavior as well.

As always, feel free to send me a note (trina@trinaolson.com) or write a comment on my LinkedIn post to share what this essay made you think about. You are welcome to use it to kick off needed conversations with your colleagues. Together, we can reroute how we respond to one another – even when times are tough. Perhaps especially when times are tough.

Much love,

-Trina

P.S. I invite folks to check out adrienne maree brown’s booklet, “We Will Not Cancel Us.” (link) It’s a

quick read and has invaluable definitions and recommendations for what we can do other than pull each

other down.

P.P.S. Next week’s essay is going to be about this election year and the workplace. Easy peasy! Wish me

luck ;) Thank you again for being with me on this journey of 52 essays in 52 weeks.