By John Quinlan
Sioux City (IA) Journal
September 27, 2007
As retired chief administrator for the Western Hills Area Education Agency and onetime personnel director for a large agency, Bruce Hopkins has seen his share of bullies. He used to say he never believed in the concept of evil. Then he began to work with bullies.
"A bully enjoys destroying or discrediting you. They know what they're doing," he said. "They know who they targeted. They know why they targeted them, and they're practiced at it.
"They don't just suddenly rise up one morning and become a bully. If they bullied once, there's a great likelihood they bullied more than once."
The longtime human rights advocate shares some of his insights on bullies prior to the "Workplace Bullying" workshop Oct. 9 at Western Iowa Tech Community College.
Hopkins said he believes every agency has to deal with these issues at virtually every level.
For example, he noted, CEO candidates are often asked one question that is on the mind of of every board of directors: Are you tough enough to do this job?
"Well, if you're tough enough to do this job, you're tough enough also for the board not to be able to manage you, for things to not happen that are in the best interests of the institution," he said. "And in that sense, it takes a group of really insightful folk involved in the employment process to assure that they don't knowingly, wittingly hire a bully."
He recalled a TV interview with a school board candidate where the man promised to turn around low test scores in six months. "Well you and I know that's not going to happen," Hopkins said. "There's only a couple of ways that's going to happen. One is to lie and cheat. The other is to force your management people to distort the data and information that they do have.
"So no, we don't see miraculous changes in large institutions in a hurry."
Hopkins told a 2000 international conference on workplace bullying in Boston, where Drs. Gary and Ruth Namie also spoke, that it takes a vigilant community to not suffer the consequences of bullying. And Sioux City has had its share of bullies over the years.
"I think part of what forces you to act is that workplace bullying is so destructive on the people who are targeted," he said.
During the Boston conference, a panel he was on was asked what they would do in X situation regarding a longtime workplace bully, "and I said, 'I'd fire their ass," he said.
A co-presenter responded that she would have a treatment plan.
"And I said I'd have a treatment plan, too," he said. "I'd fire their ass and I'd go to the coffee shop with them and say, 'You know, I don't really dislike you. I've got nothing against you. But you have made the lives of three people an absolute horror show for five years, and just now the institution's caught up with you -- and I'm madder than hell.'"
He said he simply couldn't protect a bully and return him to the co-workers he has mistreated by telling them he has turned his life around after five years of abuse. "You've messed in your nest. You've ruined the workplace," he said. "I really want him to turn himself around but turn himself around somewhere else."
Also, by dealing with the bully in such a public way, it sends a message to any other bullies in the workplace that such activity is not tolerated, Hopkins said.
The topic is "immensely treatable," he said, if the institution puts the right policies in place; but there is a tremendous need to get a community educated.
Statewide bullying laws are needed, laws that would look at workplace safety and give victims the recourse they now lack, he said. It is a misconception that there is nothing in labor law now that makes bullying illegal in America. OSHA, he noted, demands that you have a safe workplace. Yet while he would favor a broad-based law, Hopkins would rather see the problem settled in the workplace.
Bullies tend to be delusional, with self-promoted perspectives that don't jibe with reality.
Hopkins said he found himself in a meeting with a bully who said his friends considered him very bright.
"I said, 'If you're so damn bright, what are you doing in here?' Seriously, bright people don't end up in an office with that kind of conversation. He was very bright, but I wanted to make a point: 'You're not looking very bright to me.'
"Then his second comment was, 'Everybody likes me.' And I said, 'My point of view is, I don't know anyone who likes you.' And I really meant that. People were afraid of him. I didn't know anyone who really liked him. That didn't come up in my investigation."
