We Can 'Moneyball' Bullying

By now, there's a good chance that you've read Michael Lewis's book titled, Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game. [Lewis 2004] And an even better chance that you've seen the film, Moneyball, with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Quick summary: In 2002, Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's baseball team, and his assistant, Peter Brand, assemble a surprisingly successful team on a shoestring budget. True story. They do it by attending to, among other things, statistics that were designed to focus not on what makes a star player, but on what matters when it comes to winning games. And the stats that matter for winning games turn out to be a bit different from what other baseball general managers were using.

The lesson: in management decision-making, statistics aren't everything, but using the right stats can be a critical success factor. In other words, focusing on what makes for success can be a key to success. In one sense, it's a brilliant insight. In another sense, well duh.

So I shouldn't have been surprised when I ran into the lessons of moneyball in a podcast/public-radio-show called "This American Life," in an episode titled, "A City Walks Into an Investigation." [Calhoun 2022] Here the application of moneyball thinking was early detection of abusive police officers. As reported in the podcast, a group at the University of Chicago is "moneyballing" the detection of abusive police officers. They discovered two important lessons in their data [Fassbender 2021]

1. Collect the right data. For example, in policing, it isn't enough to have data about use of force. A more useful metric is the use of disproportionate force.
2. Officers who are outliers in one metric are usually outliers in several metrics.

Listening Focusing on what makes for success can
be a key to success. In one sense, it's
a brilliant insight. In another, well duh.to this podcast, I couldn't help asking myself, "Can we apply moneyball thinking to workplace bullying?" And of course, it turns out we can. The field is called HR Analytics. In analogy to what was learned with respect to baseball, we can expect that we need to take a fresh approach to data collection for workplace bullying. In baseball, this practice is called sabermetrics. Applied to workplace bullying, it consists of a set of results-oriented data practices. Examples of these practices are below.

Data management and analysis aren't free

Data collection, management, and analysis require resources. We must design the metrics, determine how to collect and analyze the data, and maintain its integrity after collection. All that activity requires investment.

Any patterns present in the data might not emerge for many quarters. So we must commit resources to these efforts for a period of time before we receive much of value from the investment.

The data must relate to a specific business purpose

Unless the effort advances the organizational mission, the necessary investment will be difficult to sustain over a period of time long enough to achieve useful results.

Find ways to demonstrate how the results of the effort directly advance the organizational mission. Specifically, for most organizations, reducing the incidence of bullying inside the organization isn't explicitly part of the organizational mission. That's why it's necessary to state explicitly how such reduction relates to the mission. For example, if the fictional corporation BooksByKids, Inc., advocates for public-library-centered creative writing experiences for children, media reports about bullying inside BBKI could prove catastrophic. At BBKI, an effective approach to workplace bullying actually does advance the organizational mission.

The data must be role-specific

Almost every significant organizational effort is subject to pressures to reduce costs. In response to these pressures, there arises a strong temptation to collect one-size-fits-all data across diverse organizational roles. This happens because such an approach seems to be more cost-efficient. Cost-efficient it may be, but the data collected that way is unlikely to yield real value.

It's necessary to collect data that can signal abusive behavior in the roles studied. And that data differs from role to role, because the resources available to abusers vary from role to role. A project sponsor and the VP of Human Resources can both abuse subordinates, but they can do so in very different ways. Two examples: The project sponsor can overrule the project manager, and gamble that a certain kind of risk won't materialize, while the VP of Human Resources can suppress (or misdirect) an investigation of the organizational incidence of bullying.

Examples of role-specific abuse data

Below are examples of role-specific data that could prove valuable for identifying individuals who use bullying or intimidation as methods for carrying out their roles. The role used in these examples is Project Sponsor. None of these items fall within the common understanding of bullying. But they might be useful indicators of an inclination toward bullying or other abusive behavior.

Rejected risks

When the Project Manager or the project team flags a risk to the project, the Project Sponsor rejects the notion. A basis often cited is that the risk is unlikely to materialize, or that mitigating it is too costly: "If it happens, we'll deal with it then." The Project Manager's assessment of the likelihood of the risk materializing is ignored, but when the risk does materialize, the Project Manager is usually held accountable for faulty planning.

Scope expansion that leads to delays and overtime

Some Project Sponsors expand the project's scope to include "pet" objectives that cannot be realized within the budget and schedule provided. Project Sponsors who expand scope against the advice of the Project Manager or the project team are taking steps that are especially provocative. They expect the project team to "get it done" anyway.

Decisions that lead to avoidable technical debt formation

Avoiding all technical debt formation is impossible. But some can be avoided. Taking steps that lead to unnecessary formation of technical debt could indicate an excessive focus on personal success at the expense of the organization. A pattern of such events could indicate a level of disregard for others that might be correlated with bullying behavior.

Last words

Incidents that meet the descriptions above don't fit the conventional definitions of bullying. But they are consistent with a level of disrespect for the expertise of others. It's reasonable to suppose that they could have predictive value in assessing the likelihood of future incidents that do meet the definition of bullying. Tracking such incidents could be illuminating.  Top    Next Issue

Is a workplace bully targeting you? Do you know what to do to end the bullying? Workplace bullying is so widespread that a 2014 survey indicated that 27% of American workers have experienced bullying firsthand, that 21% have witnessed it, and that 72% are aware that bullying happens. Yet, there are few laws to protect workers from bullies, and bullying is not a crime in most jurisdictions. 101 Tips for Targets of Workplace Bullies is filled with the insights targets of bullying need to find a way to survive, and then to finally end the bullying. Also available at Apple's iTunes store! Just . Order Now!

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Workplace Bullying:

Covert Bullying

The workplace bully is a tragically familiar figure to many. Bullying is costly to organizations, and painful to everyone within them — especially targets. But the situation is worse than many realize, because much bullying is covert. Here are some of the methods of covert bullies.

How Workplace Bullies Use OODA: I

Workplace bullies who succeed in carrying on their activities over a long period of time rely on more than mere intimidation to escape prosecution. They proactively shape their environments to make them safe for bullying. The OODA model gives us insights into how they accomplish this.

How Workplace Bullies Use OODA: II

Workplace bullies who succeed in carrying on their activities over a long period of time are intuitive users of Boyd's OODA model. Here's Part II of an exploration of how bullies use the model.

Unrecognized Bullying: II

Much workplace bullying goes unrecognized because of cognitive biases that can cause targets, bystanders, perpetrators, and supervisors of perpetrators not to notice bullying. Confirmation bias is one such cognitive bias.

Six More Insights About Workplace Bullying

Some of the lore about dealing with bullies at work isn't just wrong — it's harmful. It's harmful in the sense that applying it intensifies the bullying. Here are six insights that might help when devising strategies for dealing with bullies at work. Example: Letting yourself be bullied is not a thing.

See also Workplace Bullying and Workplace Bullying for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 30: On Planning in Plan-Hostile Environments: II

When we finally execute plans, we encounter obstacles. So we find workarounds or adjust the plans. But there are times when nothing we try gets us back on track. When this happens for nearly every plan, we might be working in a plan-hostile environment. Available here and by RSS on April 30.

And on May 7: Subject Matter Bullying

Most workplace bullying tactics have analogs in the schoolyard — isolation, physical attacks, name-calling, and rumor-mongering are common examples. Subject matter bullying might be an exception, because it requires expertise in a sophisticated knowledge domain. And that's where trouble begins. Available here and by RSS on May 7.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenfHlRlTgqCIXkUHBTner@ChacrEuHRQPYVKkOucGfoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info