There is road rage, social media vitriol and increasing reports of abuse of shop workers. The public are angry and increasingly willing to express it. But what I want to focus on is office anger, raised voices, personal criticism and aggressive behaviour in meetings.
Does it only becomes aggressive when you start to scream and shout abuse, when using threatening words causes alarm, distress, or fear or violence?
There is a distinction between anger(an emotion) and aggression (a behaviour) what HR have to decide is was the line crossed into the behaviour category.
The corporate working group had been meeting regularly for serval months. , without arriving at any specific recommendations. It was therefore a surprise to everyone present when the chair circulated a report that had been presented to the senior management team (SMT) earlier in the week providing a summary of issues and a number of specific recommendations. The response of the group was summed up by one member who asked who wrote the report and why hadn’t it been shared before going to the SMT.
The report had been written by the chair at the request of the chief executive. There had not been time to consult the working group or circulate the report. This did not go down well with several members of the group. The chair said she had made it clear when presenting the report that it was her report and not that of the working group. This did not satisfy many group member one of whom asked what was the piont of the working group if they were not going to be consulted or involved in making recommendations to senior management. This individual then questioned whether people had been wasting their time attending past meetings. Whilst several people were unhappy about the situation one individual seemed unable to let it go. He said he was angry about what had happened.
The chair noted the feeling of the group but now wanted the meeting to discuss the report. Drawing a further comment from MR Angry that it was a bit late in the day to be asking for comments. The chair went round the room in turn asking people for comments on the report and it recommendations. The general concession was that there was nothing in the report or recommendations that that people disagreed with. The last person to be asked their opinion was MR angry, he agreed there was nothing in the report or recommendations that he objected to but it was the process that he found so unacceptable and still could not understand why the working group members could not have seen it in advance.
The meeting ended at this point but the following day Mr Angry was spoken to by his Director who said he had received a complaint about his behaviour( not from the chair but another member of the group) which was described as “aggressive”. He had not shouted or been abusive but his persistence in criticising the chair went too far. And his obvious anger could have been viewed as threatening. He was advised to apologise to his colleague which he dully did.
So was the line crossed?
Blair Mcpherson former director author and blogger www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
