Welcome back. My next guest left her
job of over 30 years after she says
she was bullied in the workplace.
Megan Carl was a top executive
at a major sports merchandise
company before she walked away,
and now she's drawing on research as
well as her own experience in a new
book that addresses the problem head on.
So glad you were here.
Welcome to New Day. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
We said major sports company, right?
We all know what that is.
You worked
at. I worked at Nike for almost 30
years. Yeah. Over half my life.
Yeah. So what made you
want to write this book?
You know, I ran into something at
work that I did not necessarily
know how to contend with,
nor did I know how to put language to it.
And it got to the point where I
made the decision to walk away.
And after I left,
I started to study what had happened.
And what I learned was that
workplace bullying is an epidemic.
Yeah, it's known as the indiscussable.
It affects 80 million United States workers.
So half of the workforce, one and two,
is affected by workplace bullying.
And so I felt like for something
that's affecting that many people
that nobody wants to talk about it,
we should probably talk about.
And that's why I'm so glad you're here.
You know, a lot of us,
when we leave a job and you think
back and you go, that wasn't right.
But then you just put it in the rearview
mirror and you keep going, but you.
You said no, I'm going to create
this service for all of you and
we're going to talk about it.
So there are five styles
of workplace bullying.
Let's talk about
them. Yeah, I needed to break
it down and really simplify it.
And so I broke it down into.
It can be public or private, overt or covert.
OK, so it's either happening with a
lot of witnesses or it's one-on-one.
It can be obvious or it's subtle and nuanced.
So that first type is that in your face.
That's your public overt bully.
That is, everybody knows what's happening.
We're banging the table, we're yelling,
there's some aggression that's in your face,
yelling on the phone so other people
can hear. We've all had that bus.
The next one is that public covert
harder to spot. That's the rat face.
Weasel I. That's the weasel, the rat face.
And they just, you know,
their role is really to trip you up.
So they might do something that only the two
of you they might mispronounce your name.
Over and over again.
I know what your name is.
I know how to say your name.
But you and I both know I'm now
going to mispronounce it because
I have power over you.
And then we go into the private side.
There's that private overt which
is singing your praises in public.
Oh my gosh, you are the best at this.
And in private just
diminishing disrespectful.
When I want your opinion,
I'll give it to you.
And then finally,
there's that private covert.
Which is the about face.
We're going in One Direction.
Oh my gosh, you know, oh, you have kids.
You like to drop them off on the way to work.
Oh, isn't that great?
Suddenly,
all those those mandatory
meetings are at that exact time.
So it's that passive aggressive bully.
And then finally,
the big hitter is the gaslighter.
And you know,
there's a reason Merriamwebster
selected Gaslight as the the
word of the year for 2022.
And Gaslight is just that bully
who really wants to make you feel
like you're losing your mind.
So it's work sabotage.
It's planting operatives on your team.
It's retaliation.
It's disinviting you.
It's maybe calling a meeting and
then moving it without telling
you those kinds of things.
You know, I was gonna, I mean,
this is all I mean, you know,
because we've all been there and you're like,
I remember that I'm naming names in my head.
But, you know, this is not just
when you're a big executive at Nike.
This is not just a TV person.
This is someone who's working
down the street at Walmart.
I mean, this could be anyone.
How widespread is this problem?
Well, that's the, that's the whole
ticket right there, isn't it?
I mean, with 80 million workers in
the United States being affected and
there's about 160,000,000 workers.
So there's one in two are
affected by workplace bowling,
one in three report.
And so it's absolutely a pervasive issue.
So why are there systems in place?
I mean, HR is at every single company.
Now what? Why isn't it
stopping this type of behavior?
You know, first of all,
it's so widespread and bullies
are tricky and bullies are
operating from a place of fear.
And so it's difficult to suss out
who is going to be that bully.
I love the Michelle Obama quote.
Bullies are scared people
hiding in inside scary people.
So we really don't know what
is going to set them off,
what they're going to bring to work.
HR is a required part of
the of the operation.
When you're going down this road and
you feel that you know you are being,
there's a pattern of health, harming,
mistreatment and you are documenting
that and there is some consistency to it.
You really need to engage HR
and allow them an opportunity
to be part of the solution.
We
are really, really lucky because it might.
For the first time in my entire
career I actually we have an HR
person who actually this listens and
who is is wonderful aside from that.
What can we do about it if we're being
bullied? Aside from talking to HR,
yeah, I. The way
you know the the,
the lessons in the book hopefully are.
You learn to recognize it.
So you actually,
there's no guesswork anymore.
You're spending when you are being bullied.
You're so confused and on your heels
that you're spending most of your time
trying to figure out what is happening.
You understand it. Within this culture,
in this particular organization,
workplace bullying is thriving.
Why is that? You identify some
of your own response options.
I can ignore it. I can resist it,
I can comply, or I can enlist.
And then finally you determine
how you're going to navigate it.
Are you going to wait it out?
Are you going to make a move?
You've engaged HR you've engaged.
ER, perhaps there's external,
external help that you're going to engage.
So I try to set it out
that way so you recognize,
understand,
identify and navigate so it doesn't ruin you.
This
is something so great.
You know what? I feel like you
This is a great graduation gift.
Thank you. Is that time, young kid?
You know, kids who are going into the work.
Just an idea of, you know,
what to lookout for.
How many times have you had a
boss saying this is how it is,
buck up or walk out the door.
So I'm really glad that you,
you took the time to identify this.
And thank you so much for
sharing this with us today.
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
And Megan has a book event tonight,
May 25th at Town Hall Seattle.
The event starts at 7:30.
Visit Town Hall Seattle's
website for tickets.