Emotional Terrors in the Workplace: Protecting Your Business Bottom Line - Emotional Continuity Management in the Workplace

Some individuals do not do well under even the most pleasant of circumstances. Managers need to know how to spot the early signs of difficulty and trouble before they erupt into more severe incidents. News headlines of the most significant forms of violence and upheavals happening at the workplace are not uncommon. Workplace violence rarely strikes without warning. Recognizing those signs is critical to safety. Because violence at work is becoming more prevalent the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) created a list of "red flag" behaviors and common warning signs, usually seen in potential offenders. These first early signs on the FBI warning list include:

• Mood Changes

• Recent Personal Hardships

• Depression

• Anxiety

• Negative behavior (e.g., untrustworthiness, lying, bad attitude)

• Verbal threats

• Past history of violence.

  (www.fhshealth.org/foh/violence.asp,

According to the FBI, workplace violence can be defined as " any action that may threaten the safety of an employee, impact the employee's physical or psychological well-being, or cause damage to company property ." The FBI definition is a good place to begin a discussion, and the red-flags list is a good place to start paying attention to extreme emotional spins that may turn violent. However, this list is far from exhaustive or specific enough to be much help to most managers ( www.fhshealth.org/foh/violence.asp and www.fbi.gov/ publications .htm ).

Violence can come out of the blue with absolutely zero warning ZERO. It can also be preceded by small noticeable changes that when connected to an event (a firing, layoff , death, divorce, reprimand, grievance, or other business change) could sometime be predictive of a potentially violent episode.

Dr. Vali's Heads-Up List

• Visible change in facial expressions (grimacing, scowling, frowns, blank-stare, rapid eye movements, biting lip or inside of cheeks)

• Change in voice tone or inflection (lower, higher, quieter, louder)

• Mumbling and denying (when asked what they said, they say something like, "never mind it isn't important," "nobody ever listens to me anyway," "whatever," or some other non-response )

• Fist clenching (white knuckles, or squeezing)

• Jaw clenching (tapping or grinding teeth)

• Nervousness (leg bouncing, foot tapping, finger rapping)

• Sighing (loud dramatic sighs or deep, slow breathing that is audible)

• Uncharacteristic behaviors (loud whistling or humming, pacing, slamming, chair rocking)

• Disassociation (a sense that the person is really "somewhere else" if you a talking to them, especially in a potentially threatening situation, during a reprimand, or grievance situation)

• Personalized attacks (verbal attacks that are personalized, such as "YOU have never listened," or JOHN isn't a team player, or THE MANAGEMENT HERE is against me.")

• Sudden extreme silence (an abrupt silence that feels impenetrable followed by any of the other previously mentioned behaviors)

• Eye contact extremes (either very eyeball-to-eyeball in a threatening manner, or total loss of eye contact)

• Exit (a sudden exit from a meeting, or worksite, or threatening situation)

• Opposite Behavior (pre-violent people can also act out in an oddly charming, ingratiating manner of sugary-sweet compliance and agreement that feels disingenuous)