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CHAPTER 1
Time for Change
Evidence That Incivility Is Rampant
One need only turn on the evening news to see that, as humankind, we are in crisis. All around the globe, this crisis is evident in increasing violence, racism, disregard for resources, workplace harassment, corruption, and inconceivable incivility in public discourse. In addition, and more alarming to me, we are also experiencing increasing incidences in widespread apathy, a lack of collective conscience, a deliberate turning away from our responsibilities to each other as human beings, and a troubling inability to engage effectively and civilly.
Related to this, and as an extreme example of incivility, my heart hurts knowing that an estimated 35,000 people die every day due to genocides in places like Myanmar and South Sudan. Of course, most of us are insulated from this type of extreme incivility, but incivility occurs on a continuum, and although not as extreme as war, we do feel its impacts closer to home too.
Looking at workplaces, which is the focus of this book, the civility crisis is evident, in that a whopping 80 percent of people are dissatisfied with their jobs1. Notably, the number one reason for this dissatisfaction is employeesā perceived lack of respect and fair treatment. Because the research suggests most of us spend one-third of our lives at work (an average of 90,000 hours over a lifetime2), I would suggest that workplace incivility is a gateway to incivility in the community, to the public square, to our schools, and so on. I would also suggest that this is true of workplaces all around the world.
We carry the impacts of incivility with us wherever we go, and so, the toxicity created by incivility manifests as road rage, stress-related illness, social aggression, social isolation, inappropriate behavior in public places and on social media, bullying, harassment, racismā¦ and the list goes on. We are also seeing the impacts of incivility in our daily interactions, and as you would guess, the research shows incivility is a contributing factor to everything from school shootings to measurable declines in community social capital, and to leadership trust indicators. Quite a gloomy picture overall.
Christine Porath, leading researcher in human performance and author of Workplace Civility3, states,
. . . more than two-thirds of people will cut back work effort, 80 percent of people lose time worrying about what happened, and 12 percent of people will report that theyāve left their job because of an uncivil incidentā¦ not only does incivility decrease performance, but people arenāt nearly as innovative, even if they just witness incivility. In team settings, it causes people to shut down, such that they donāt share information or speak up as much. They donāt discuss errors or inform each other of potential problems.
And then, the other issue is that even witnesses, as well as people who experience it, are far less helpful. They are actually three times less likely to help someone else, and their willingness to share drops by more than 50 percent. So, incivility pulls people off track, even for those people who are trying to push forward.
Research by Weber Shadwick and Powell Tate, in partnership with KRC Research, detailed in the 2019 Civility in America report4, found that:
ā¢ The majority of Americans perceive incivility to be a problem in our society.
ā¢ The frequency of uncivil encounters per week rose sharply in 2018 and remains at this level, with 10.2 average weekly encounters. Notably, the location of uncivil interactions has shifted over the years. Uncivil online interactions have increased from an average of 4.4 weekly interactions in 2013 to a high of 5.5 in 2019.
ā¢ More than one half of the Americans (54 percent) expect civility to get worse5.
ā¢ Listed next were the top 10 consequences of incivilityāaccording to respondents:
Online bullying/cyberbullying
Harassment (verbal, physical, or sexual)
People feeling less safe in public places
Discrimination and unfair treatment of certain groups of people
Less community engagement
Feelings of isolation and loneliness
The preceding research cited is American based, but we see similar statistics around the world. For example:
Incivility results from kindcanada.org showed:
ā¢ Two-third employees report a decline in performance as a result of unkind workplaces.
ā¢ 48 percent of the employees who were exposed to an unkind co-worker were significantly more likely to decrease their work efforts.
ā¢ 38 percent of the employees noted that they intentionally decreased the quality of their work.
A study of British workers found that 40 percent had experienced incivility or disrespect over a two-year period, with such behavior particularly common in the public sector6.
In a study of Australian workers, researchers from Edith Cowan University found that 70 percent had experienced rudeness or mistreatment by their coworkers7.
A Canadian study by Bar-David Consulting and Canadian HR Reporter shows incivility affects key business indicato...
