The Price of incivility

“The Price of Incivility”
Christine Porath & Christine Pearson,
Harvard Business Review Jan-Feb 2013

1. Do you agree or disagree with the article and why? Did you find it useful and why?
I couldn’t agree more with the article, it goes without saying that productivity of employees is highly dependent with their work experience and in particular how they are treated. In the actual productivity is affecting more the productivity in service than manufacturing companies. But still bad behaviors poison company’s DNA and can affect sales.
Although I am aligned with the general idea, the article has summarized most the information together, also through the examples outlined and the research performed, it is a signal for me that I should allocate more time on making the company environment even more civilized.

2. Comment on the relevance of the article with the EMI Mindset, and/or Guiding Principle(s)
The article discuss how the civility is working towards the better interaction. There is relevance with the
Awareness of self: verbal and non-verbal cues can feel like incivility, if you are a manager, you need to pay special attention in the way you interact with other, taping will help understand how you really interact, not just the way you believe you interact.
Awareness of others and empathy: you need to start understand how others feel when you manage them, you must make them feel comfortable so they can focus on the actual work an d leave aside bad feelings.
Bridging gaps: there is a lot of bridging gaps needed if incivility occurs, although it is not the main topic of the article the effort needed to bridge gaps is referred and is significant.

3. Provide a relevant example from your personal experience
When I start my professional career, I was part of a 4-members team. There was a manager (superior) and another 2 colleagues (peers). The manager could be considered as a toxic leader, as she was shouting a lot especially when errors occur. I found this behavior unacceptable, but as I was fairly new I was discouraged to talk, I also wasn’t sure if this was my fault or not. One day, that the same behavior was applied to a peer, I was very disappointed with what I was observing and I wanted this to stop. I took the initiative and asked for a meeting with my manager and when she accepted, I let her know how I feel about the behavior, the way she was treating people etc. As I used the example of the peer it was obvious that it wasn’t me feeling uncomfortable, but me observing an incivility.
It turned out that there weren’t that bad intentions (lucky me) and that because of the work pressure she couldn’t manage herself, or she didn’t realized how it look like to others. She fixed the behavior and the team productivity increased. I felt more engaged, and the colleagues felt the same.

4. Comment on anything regarding the article that you found particularly useful or confusing, etc. (optional)
The research done and the numbers shared regarding the cost of incivility; I have never thought the depth of these actions. Although I was always feeling that it is the behavior not the knowledge that can make the difference, it is now validated with numbers. It is amazing and pathetic that the companies do not care that much for incivility and HR issues.