Christine Porath, PhD, asked the audience in the Arie Crown Theater Tuesday afternoon this question: “Who do you want to be?”
Porath
The answer, she said, will dictate not only your personal and professional success, but also the success and culture of your team and your organization.
“Are we uplifting the people around us? Do they feel heard, appreciated and valued? Or are we holding people down by making them feel disregarded, unheard, insulted and disrespected?” continued Dr. Porath, associate professor of management at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University.
Her own experiences with incivility in the workplace drove Dr. Porath to leave work at the International Management Group, a leading sports management and marketing firm, to pursue an academic career that has received worldwide media coverage as well as consulting engagements with leading international organizations including Google, the United Nations and the Cleveland Clinic.
Negative Effects of Incivility Are Far-Reaching
In her science-backed talk, Dr. Porath recounted research study after research study that demonstrates the consequences of the many different forms of incivility including mocking, teasing, rudeness or texting while in meetings. She cited numerous controlled studies that demonstrate the effects of incivility in workplaces, from reduced effort to poorer performance.
Incivility is like a virus, she said. It spreads quickly and widely, and it affects both our emotions and our attention.
“Even employees who witness rudeness perform far worse,” Dr. Porath said. “They are also less likely to be helpful. Rudeness and disrespect affect the mind in profoundly negative ways.”
Stress and a fear of ‘being too nice’ are the top explanations leaders give for rude behavior.
“Despite outliers who do get ahead while being uncivil, civility pays. Nice guys do get ahead in the long term,” Dr. Porath said. “We know that people desperately want to feel respected and when they are, they are healthier, more focused and engaged, and more likely to stay.”
Through her work with health care organizations and hospital administrators, Dr. Porath has seen examples of rudeness in the hospital setting leading to medical errors.
“We know that health care workers exposed to incivility shut down and become less likely to share information with their team members,” she said.
To improve the culture of health care workplaces, Dr. Porath suggested focusing on recruitment and selection.
“We know that one toxic employee wipes out the gains of two or more superstars,” she said. “You really want to do your homework.”
Creating norms, setting expectations for new hires and providing ongoing training and feedback to all employees will help create a culture of civility, said Dr. Porath, who is the author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace.
“An excellent example of civility training is the empathy training done with physicians at the Cleveland Clinic,” she said. “It not only helped in terms of patient satisfaction scores, but it reduced physician burnout as well.”
For individuals, Dr. Porath suggested taking time to reflect on experiences and caring for one’s wellbeing. She also said taking the time to say thank you and to listen attentively are ways professionals can contribute to a more civil culture.
“We know civility lifts people up and that incivility hurts people,” Dr. Porath said. “By being more respectful, we can improve performance, creativity and helpfulness. By keeping in mind who we want to be on a daily basis, we can lead the world to a better place.”
