Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Today's guest is Catherine Matisse founded civility partners in 2008 as a result of working in a toxic environment. And since then through keynote speaking, LinkedIn learning courses and consulting, she has helped. Thousands improve happiness in the workplace. Katherine is a three time published author, including one of my favorite titles back off your kick ass guide to bullying at work and has been cited in Forbes magazine, entrepreneur and USA today, and has appeared as a guest on such venues as NPR and CNN.
Danielle Cobo: So welcome my guest today, Catherine. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. tell me a little bit about your career journey. It sounded like you had experience working in a toxic environment, which is obviously never fun, but you have used that traumatic time in your life to create that your purpose.
Danielle Cobo: So tell us a little bit about your career journey. Yeah. So I
Catherine Mattice: was, an executive assistant in an organization and over time worked my way into director of HR. And, that organization had another director who was engaging in bullying types of behaviors. He was a micromanager. He would yell at you if he was frustrated.
Catherine Mattice: I felt like he was insubordinate to the president, even, uh, lots of turnover in his department, you know? So I was dealing with these behaviors as a target. I felt like one of his targets, but then as the director of HR was dealing with all of the turnover and having to rehire and conversations with people who were complaining to me about it and talking to the president about it.
Catherine Mattice: and then, you know, kids met or the universe, uh, brought me to get my master's degree in organizational communication. And my very first semester I had a class on ethnography, which is studying something, you know, in your life that you're in. And the other class was the dark side of communication, which was a class about.
Catherine Mattice: Sibling rivalry and stalking and conflict and, you know, dark stuff. So I had to write a paper, obviously for both classes and I just kind of thought, well, I'll write a paper about this guy. you know, know, it works for ethnography and it works for dark side. Uh, and then came across the phrase workplace bullying while I was researching those two papers and.
Catherine Mattice: Was hooked. And I've been sort of obsessed with that topic ever since. Uh, it was pretty therapeutic to read about my situation from an academic perspective versus, you know, going to therapy or something, which is also great, but just to kind of get this education about my experience, and just went from there.
Catherine Mattice: I got outta grad school and wrote back off pretty quickly and, um, started a business.
Danielle Cobo: I would imagine. I mean, coming from a place where you've got. Toxic work environment, and that can really create a ripple effect in your personal life. Because sometimes what we do is we take what's going on at work, and sometimes that can influence coming home and our happiness just in general.
Danielle Cobo: And then also, as you were saying, the turnover and how that creates a ripple effect at work as well. So tell us a little bit about if you are an individual and you are Experiencing a topic work environment and you're experiencing possibly some feelings of being bullied. What suggestions do you have?
Danielle Cobo: Yeah.
Catherine Mattice: Before I answer that question, I wanna just kind of go back to what you shared about the damage. the, there is 40 years of academic research on this topic and, um, I would say 70% of it is on the damage. It causes people. And I can tell you, you can develop PTSD from being bullied at work, lots of anxiety and depression.
Catherine Mattice: so it is very damaging. And then to your point about taking it home, there's even research supporting that. If you're bullied at work, your marriage is really affected because you're kind of obsessed with it at home. know, I don't understand why this is happening. What do I do? Um, parenting skills are dropping off, cuz you're really focused.
Catherine Mattice: So kind of become obsessed with it because. something you don't really understand, so with that said, some of the things that I would recommend is first off to make sure that you, try to pull back from the emotions and that's a big ask. is, I mean, it's abuse. and it's like telling someone who's in a domestic violent type of relationship.
Catherine Mattice: Don't try not to be emotional. I understand that. However, in the workplace, if you go to HR to complain and you're. emotional about it. It makes it really hard for HR to try to help you solve it. So in a business environment, we're so focused on, KPIs and goals and objectives that you have to do your absolute best to kind of think about it that way when you're talking to HR about it or management about it.
Catherine Mattice: so that's step number. Document document document, all of those facts, the who, what, when, where and why of when things happened, who saw, You know, what happened? All of that, keep a journal again, keep your emotions out of it. Keep a diary at home. Um, but you know, this piece, cuz you may end up presenting it to HR, right?
Catherine Mattice: So keeping that very factual journal, and then a couple other items, um, definitely attempt to resolve it on your own first. So that. You can maybe try to have a conversation with this person as scary as it might be to sit down with them and say, look, I'm feeling like our relationship isn't working or I can't seem to meet your expectations.
Catherine Mattice: Can we talk about that document, that conversation so that when you go to HR, that's my other step. Uh, you can say, I tried to solve this on my own. Here are the ways I tried to solve it on my own, and I wasn't able to, it's still happening. And that's why I'm here in your office versus I can't, you know, I don't know what to do.
Catherine Mattice: Please help me. you, you need to appear as the strong link, the strong relationship builder. And here you're stuck with this versus help me I'm hurt. You know, it's very different kind of a message. So those are some of my main tips. And before I shut up and let you talk, I last, really is to be very self-aware recognize that it is.
Catherine Mattice: Causing you some damage internally. And you know, if you need to see a therapist do that, if you need to consider looking for another job, do that. I mean, it's just, the damage is very clear. Um, I just see it all the time and I see it in the research. Um, you just have to be really self-aware of how it's affecting you so that you can make the right choice for yourself.
Danielle Cobo: I think you really speak into one of the hardest parts, which is removing the emotions. And yet that is extremely critical as you go to HR. I had actually experienced workplace bullying, pretty bad to the point where I didn't realize how it was affecting.
Danielle Cobo: Me as a person until I walked away from that situation. And I look back and I was going, wow, I had lost so much confidence about myself as a result of this workplace bullying mm-hmm . And sometimes what happens is It's either, sometimes not really being in tuned of that self-awareness of what's happening and it just kind of slowly takes over time.
Danielle Cobo: But then also, as you said, when you do go to HR, the more that you can remove the emotion and be more factual, the better it's gonna help you in the long run. to. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate through the emotions as to what's really going on and having those facts is helpful.
just to add to what you said, uh, which you hit the nail on the head. When I talk about being self-aware recognize that whatever you're feeling. Is deeper than you know until you leave. And that was my experience as well. And, so however upset, depressed, anxious you are, it's probably worse than, than you recognize.
Catherine Mattice: And you won't know that until you're out. And so I always try to relay that. I don't know how successful I am, but, um, I felt that too, I got fired, which is a pretty standard, thing to happen to targets. I was seen as the weak link, cuz my performance was going down and I was so frustrated and distracted.
Catherine Mattice: and I drove home, no idea how I was gonna pay my rent, but I I've. Feel like this monkey literally was climbing off my back and I could feel my shoulders perked back up. yeah, I didn't realize how damaged I was until I wasn't there. it's, it's a tough place to be.
Catherine Mattice: Society tells us we're supposed to have a nine to five job and. You can't leave and you feel tied and, there's a lot to overcome mentally with this.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. There is a lot to overcome and, and like you said, it feels like this big weight is on your shoulders and sometimes you don't always know what to do, and sometimes you don't realize it until after you leave the organization or something changes with the environment.
Danielle Cobo: And I know that when I was going through mine, and you speak to PTSD. I swear. I was having nightmares just consistently for the month after some of these things that took place, it's taken some time to kind of repair. Yeah. But at the same time in our circumstances and yours is you when that door shut.
Danielle Cobo: It opened up the door to, I'm sure a life that you couldn't even imagine as to where you're at now, where you take that challenge and that negative experience in life. And you have made it your sole purpose to help other people thrive in situations like that and overcome
Catherine Mattice: it. That's absolutely right.
Catherine Mattice: I'll, I'll share one of my other books. It's, it's not my book. I collected stories of, um, I put out a call if you've been through bullying and you feel like you're successful kind of on the other side, I wanna hear from you and understand, because I, wanna understand those stories versus the ones about PTSD and people who can't get another job because they're so damaged.
Catherine Mattice: and what I found is the one. Theme that I really see across the stories in that book is this decision that they made and it's all different, but it's all about taking. Power. And as soon as you do that, like, that's when the trajectory changes. So all these stories were like down, down, down, bullying, ING bullying, made a decision and it goes back up.
Catherine Mattice: And so for example, one woman, she describes that she, some final straw happened. She walks over to the office manager and like all dramatic drops, the. Keys on the table and says I quit and storms out, you know? And then she gets around the corner and balls her eyes out. But you know, she quit, it stinks that she's the one who left, but she her power back.
Catherine Mattice: Um, another woman, uh, she's lesbian. PhD black in the coast guard. That's a tough place to be. She decided, you know what, this is my life's purpose. I'm the Martin Luther king of this place. And I'm gonna make some changes. So she made the decision to stay and fight. Um, and she's done all sorts of crazy things and I really admire her.
Catherine Mattice: And so it's just that decision and that's, you have to decide, I have power and control. And I'm gonna use that
Catherine Mattice: Insert AD
Danielle Cobo:
Danielle Cobo: a hundred percent is about regaining your power through it. And I found it's regaining your power, understanding your purpose, getting realigned with your core values. And from that day forward, never settling on anything else.
Danielle Cobo: Them being treated the way that you should be. Right. And for those of you listening, if you also wanna hear a powerful story, I would invite you to tune into the episode with Heather Monahan, overcome your villains, cuz she talks very similarly to that situation. She got fired. She was experienced.
Danielle Cobo: Bullying in the workplace. And she talks about how she turned that situation around. Awesome. So I have one more question for you cause I'm hearing more and more of this happened and it's from a manager's perspective. So I'm hearing more managers are experiencing bullying from people on their team.
Danielle Cobo: And what happens is, is the manager doesn't often know how to handle that situation because what will happen is they'll go to HR. They don't feel supported by HR because at the end of the day, most HR is trying everything can to just not get sued. That's their sole purpose. Sometimes it feels like. And so the manager is then left, feeling hopeless.
Danielle Cobo: Mm-hmm not supported mm-hmm . And then as a result, I'm hearing a lot of managers getting fired from things that were not even. What they were doing, I mean, there's just various situations that I've heard, but I'm hearing more and more managers. I feel like middle management is sometimes the most at risk.
Danielle Cobo: cuz they could say one wrong thing and somebody can turn it around. So how would you address from a manager? What they could be doing if they're experiencing bullying possibly from a peer or maybe a member on their team?
Catherine Mattice: Yeah, well, I'll start by saying the organization is at fault here for any sort of bullying in the workplace.
Catherine Mattice: And that's something that often is overlooked. And a lot of why I do what I do is that HR gets really focused on the person bullying and the person claiming to be bullied. and it becomes. This sort of it's about those two people and they do an investigation. It's all about the facts. Did this happen?
Catherine Mattice: and that, yes, you have to do an investigation. I'm not saying not, but, it's about the context what's happening in the context. This person felt okay to act a certain way or, and or this person felt. Okay to complain about, like, so organizations in general have to do a much better job at leaning on their core values, training their managers on how to deliver performance reviews, how to coach people engaging in lower level, toxic behavior like gossip, or, you know, inappropriate sarcasm or jokes, um, and how to manage relationships.
Catherine Mattice: And it's like, we assume that just because someone's good at their job, they get promoted to manager. And then they're supposed to be really good at relationship building and managing, and that's just, not everybody's good at that. So shame on organizations for not giving managers the tools to do their job.
Catherine Mattice: Well, having said all that, I think a lot of the same. Um, advice applies that the manager should be, you know, documentation is what's going to save you if you end up in court. And that's how HR thinks what would happen if we ended up in court. And that's how you have to think. So if you're starting to feel like.
Catherine Mattice: People are claiming that you're bullying them, just be sure you're really documenting things. When you have conversations with employees, send a follow up email to say, know, as we discussed or just to be sure that we're on the same page, and just keeping documentation of all of those types of things.
Catherine Mattice: Cause I also hear from managers a lot. That they're being accused of bullying, um, because they're trying to hold people accountable. And so then I'll say, well, how are you doing that? Are you coaching them? Are you calling them out in front of other people? What does that look like? Um, and let's try to figure out why that's the perception of you.
You know, unfortunately there isn't really a, great, like, here's what you do and it will solve it type of an answer. Um, but I think if you're keeping documents, make sure you're using empathy as you lead. Um, making sure that you're, uh, engaging in, collaborative team building and leaning on your team for advice and decisions.
Catherine Mattice: Um, those are the types of behaviors that you can engage in that hopefully would keep people from claiming you're, uh, doing something you shouldn't be doing.
Danielle Cobo: And you spoke to exactly what I'm hearing more and more from managers where it's somebody who's possibly not meeting the expectations of their job.
Danielle Cobo: Maybe they're being put on a performance review and as a result, they kind of lash back and they start making accusations. And then another element to that is if the other team members. See what's going on. However, don't think that it's being addressed in a timely manner, even though it may be addressed on the back end on a timely manner, it also creates this ripple effect when it affects the culture of the team and going, why aren't you doing anything about this?
Danielle Cobo: on the back end, you're like, I'm trying hard as I can. No, I just can't tell you about it. Yeah, exactly. I can't tell you about anything because I'm, that's putting me even more at risk and I am receiving more and more calls from managers that just feel so hopeless in this situation. And here they are trying their best to coach bad performance and not knowing what to do, but you're spot on.
Danielle Cobo: A lot of the times these companies are not providing the tools for these managers on how to have those types of conversations, how to document those types of conversations. I don't think I ever got training when I was with. Big company that I was with on how to write a performance review for an employee that is not hitting the mark, getting customer complaints, things like that.
Danielle Cobo: I wasn't really provided with those tools. And that was challenging. That's
Catherine Mattice: pretty standard. That's very standard. When I go into organizations as a consultant, it's kind of my first questions. What kind of training are managers getting? Cause probably we could solve a lot of your problems just with that.
Catherine Mattice: and then also, individuals or the whole company needs some training on how to stand up for each other, how to lean on the core values. If I see that, know, you're doing something I feel is inappropriate in a meeting or what have you, what's my role and, how can I influence that in a positive way?
Catherine Mattice: Um, doing training, we call it bystander intervention. know, and we heard a lot of that during me too. If you see something, say something, all this stuff, but that's not in our nature to throw ourselves in front of a bus it goes against our instinct. So that's another area where I really see organizations, kind of falling short, I will say too, just in general.
Catherine Mattice: One other place if we were in charge, Danielle the whole world would be different. one other place, uh, I see is that HR and employers get so focused on anti harassment and don't do that stuff. And it's like, there's all this other behavior. And then it hits a line and, or a bump and it's like, oh, that's harassment.
Catherine Mattice: Don't do that. But what about all that other stuff about relationships? If managers had tools to build a positive work environment inside their team on a regular consistent daily basis, that would change things too. And that's, really another place that organizations fall short. Stop. Having people sign a anti harassment policy, and then just assume that everybody's gonna get along.
Catherine Mattice: And this whole idea that, adults are professionals or, we know how to behave. Obviously we don't cuz we have war and divorce and you know, all sorts of class death adults. So, um, that's the other key too. And I know that doesn't. If you're feeling bullied at the moment as a manager, it doesn't really give you advice for the here and now, but, but the more you can focus on team building, leaning on the core values, talking to your team about like, Hey, what are the ways we appreciate each other?
Catherine Mattice: You know, leaning on positivity is gonna make a big difference in the team as well.
Danielle Cobo: With divorce, almost being 50% at this point, when it comes to the rate, if two married people can't be on the same page on synergy, then how are we expecting hundreds of employees to be on the same page and we're cohesively together.
Danielle Cobo: So yeah, the more that these companies can empower, not only their managers and providing so much more than the workplace harassment, more or less, how do you coach, how do you bring. Team culture and more of that positive, continuous coaching. And, and when you do have somebody that's not getting along how to address those conversations, how to approach those conversations.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. So what are three things you wanna leave our listeners with? If they are experiencing. Bullying in the workplace.
Catherine Mattice: Sure. If a manager as an individual is experiencing bullying, my first thought is, uh, again, document, document, document, all the ways in which you're behaving and the responses you're getting.
Catherine Mattice: Uh, I would say to when you approach your employees to hold them accountable, talk to them about the why, so that when you say something like, Hey, you're not getting your report in on time. I need it on time. You could say, Hey, you're not getting your reported on time. And when it's not on time, here's the repercussions of that.
Catherine Mattice: And what do you think we could do to help make sure you get your reports in on time? So that's a coaching conversation right there. Um, cuz I do suspect if people are claiming. bullying. And it's really about just holding someone accountable. There's some disconnect there about how you're holding them accountable and how they want you to hold them accountable.
Catherine Mattice: and then lastly, there's a ton of ways to make people feel more positive. Um, one way is to do I call it the best self exercise. Uh, actually stole that from an author Kim Cameron who writes about positive psychology. Um, this is a great exercise. Send an email out to all of your team members. List all, everybody in the team in the email and say, Hey, send me back an email with something you're thankful for, for each of the people on this list that we work with, and then you compile it and then you can deliver that at a meeting.
Catherine Mattice: So I could say, okay, Danielle, here's what everyone said about you. And then I print it out and I give it to you or email it to you. You can have it in your. you office or what have you. So those are the types of little exercises that are simple and easy and they start to turn, know, we're, we're in a negative place right now.
Catherine Mattice: Politics stink. We're COVID, we're lost as humans right now. So the more you can be a positive, safe team, the better, you know, I think your employees will just really appreciate that. that
Danielle Cobo: is excellent advice. And thank you so much for joining today's episode. I know that can sometimes be a little bit of a sensitive topic, kind of sometimes bring in some motion.
Danielle Cobo: if you are out there, re-listen to this episode, there are tools that are here to help you. And thank you so much for joining Katherine. Thank you.