The following commentary fully accepts the existence of workplace bullying and its various forms and destructive effects on people's lives, and considers the role that training plays in providing a vehicle for bullying within the corporate support structure.
To begin, I need to recall when I first heard of Andrea Adams. One evening in 1992 at the end of a day delivering assertiveness training to a group in Southampton, I was driving home listening to the radio when I heard Andrea apply the label of bullying to examples of intimidating behaviour happening between adults working at the BBC. The following day I discussed the programme's content with the delegates on the course and, to my amazement, over half of the group admitted having had experiences of being what could be described as bullying, and all of them said bullying was condoned, sometimes even rewarded, in their companies. One admitted that his own behaviour towards a colleague was very possibly bullying.
As the training programme continued I noticed something happening to several individuals. On the previous day they had stated their personal objectives as being able to say no', being more assertive with the boss', standing-up for myself', putting ideas across with conviction', dealing with difficult people' and coping with criticism and/or conflict'. None of these had been particularly surprising given the course menu, but following the discussion of bullies and bullying there was suddenly a frankness about the people causing problems for themรwhat they now clearly identified, and felt able to call bullyingรand the realization that they might be able to challenge and put a stop to it without being frightened. More significantly, the real purpose of their training was suddenly being questioned. Two or three actually said they were suspicious that their bullying bosses had put them forward for the training as a ploy to get them to behave in a different manner, namely more CCC 1052ยฑ9284/97/030245ยฑ03$17.50