Motivational

Rule 78: STAND YOUR GROUND

December 1, 2016

Ex-Nigerian First Lady, Dr. (Mrs.) Maryam Abacha

No
one is allowed to bully you, threaten you, shout at you, hit you, intimidate
you, frighten you, tease you, victimize you, or torment you in any way. You are an employee. If you aren’t doing your job properly, you
should be taken to one side and have your mistakes pointed out calmly and
rationally. Anything else is abuse.

You
are allowed to refuse abuse. You are allowed, calmly and rationally, to tell
them to stop at once or you are entitled to use the full weight of the law to
get them to stop. You have to know when
to stand your ground.

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Obviously
if they are mildly teasing – the same as everyone else gets – then you can’t
walk out and calm unfair dismissal. If
your boss snaps at you occasionally – the same as they do to all employees –
you can’t demand the European Court of
Human Rights has them strung up, even if they are out of order. If a
colleagues says they’ll give you a slap if you pinch their hole puncher again
you can’t really expect the House of Lords to take up your
case. We are talking real abuse here,
not the sort of rough and tumble you’d expect in the hurly burly of a busy
working life.

“I don’t appreciate
being treated like this. I don’t
appreciate being treated like this. I don’t appreciate being treated like
this’. Don’t lose your temper, or they
may feel they have ‘won’. Walk away”.

Standing
your ground is about having standards, drawing a line in the sand and saying, ‘I will put up with this, but not this’,
or ‘I will allow them to do this to me, but not this’.

Standing
your ground is about being assertive.
Being assertive is about confidently stating your bottom line:

·
‘I won’t be spoken to
like that’

·
‘I am feeling threatened
and bullied and shall leave the room’

·
‘I don’t appreciate
being locked in dark cupboards and I shall have to report this incident to my
union representative/boss/the police/the health and Safety committee/my mother’.

If
bullied, stick to the stuck record – ‘I
don’t appreciate being treated like this.
I don’t appreciate being treated like this. I don’t appreciate being
treated like this’. Don’t lose your
temper, or they may feel they have ‘won’. Walk away.

(Excerpts from THE
RULES OF WORK by Richard Templer Read “How to be objective about situations” from The Rules tomorrow on Asabeafrika)

Rule-to-Work Series