It’s taken me a while to feel comfortable calling myself an expert on workplace bullying. I mean, just because you experience something doesn’t necessarily make you an expert, right? What I am, though, is passionate about the subject of workplace bullying within the larger context of organizational health and workplace culture. I’m passionate about it because I experienced a workplace whose culture devolved into hostility, toxicity, and workplace bullying. I'm one of the 80 million US workers who have been affected by workplace bullying. That’s the size of two Californias or one Germany. And, it means one in two workers are contending with something that is known as “the Undiscussable.” So, let’s discuss it.
I wrote...
Walk Away to Win: A Playbook to Combat Workplace Bullying
Ranging from general conflict to psychological violence, workplace bullying has become an epidemic at many offices. The Workplace Bullying Institute reports that workplace bullying affects approximately 80 million workers. And with the Great Resignation upon us, we’re seeing that a toxic culture or manager is one of the top reasons employees leave a company.
In Walk Away to Win, Megan Carle draws on her own experience as a target of workplace bullying―paired with the latest research in the field―to reveal how unhealthy workplace cultures enable this insidious behavior. She describes the impact of bullying on an organization’s bottom line; explains what you can do to combat bullying against yourself or your coworkers; analyzes the common characteristics of bullies; and helps readers understand how to face each style of bullying behavior.
I love this book because it puts a face, a name, and some levity behind the humorless and confusing subject of workplace bullying.
In Miranda Priestly, we are introduced to the queen of all bullies. Her consistent pattern of health-harming mistreatment of staff makes it obvious that people should not only get out of her way, but, better still, leave their job. Immediately. Yet, in her prime target, Andi, we see ourselves and the lengths we’ll go to just to stay in “the game.”
This book puts workplace bullying in your face, where you can’t look away—and that’s the first step necessary to doing something about it.
High fashion, low cunning - and the boss from hell
When Andrea first sets foot in the plush Manhattan offices of Runway she knows nothing. She's never heard of the world's most fashionable magazine, or its feared and fawned-over editor, Miranda Priestly - her new boss.
A year later, she knows altogether too much:
That it's a sacking offence to wear anything lower than a three-inch heel to work.
That you can charge cars, manicures, anything at all to the Runway account, but you must never, ever, leave your desk, or let Miranda's coffee get cold.
I love this book! Sexism and scarcity are two of the three most potent ingredients in an unhealthy workplace, and they are also two of the major themes highlighted in Bonnie Garmus’ book.
In Elizabeth Zott, we discover a woman who doesn’t waste time trying to figure out the rules of her workplace’s patriarchal system. Instead, she uses the system to her benefit. Zott will neither submit to its unwritten norms, nor will she lower her standards to perpetuate the illusion of scarcity that is being served to her daily. Instead, she denies this fiction, and with that she prevents the third unhealthy workplace ingredient—shame—from taking hold.
Her win is in pulling herself, and other women, up alongside her.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • Meet Elizabeth Zott: a “formidable, unapologetic and inspiring” (PARADE) scientist in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show in this novel that is “irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel. It reminds you that change takes time and always requires heat” (The New York Times Book Review).
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Newsweek, GoodReads
"A unique heroine ... you'll find yourself wishing she wasn’t fictional." —Seattle Times…
I recommend this non-fiction book because it does an incredible job of highlighting the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace. Unlike sexual harassment, workplace bullying is not illegal.
When workplace bullying takes on a sexual or physical tone, we may be quicker to see the wrongness of it than when we are assaulted with words, put-downs, and disrespect, yet the fear that victims experience is similar.
Both fear retaliation. Both fear loss of earning power. Both fear damage to their reputation, their credibility, their community. And both think they somehow allowed the mistreatment. Both think they are alone. And both most often see no way out beyond eating their words and stuffing away their experience.
This book is valuable in helping targets of workplace bullying put language to the emotional, psychological, and physical destruction they are experiencing.
*SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CAREY MULLIGAN AND ZOE KAZAN*
'Explosive' Margaret Atwood
'Seismic' Observer
'Brilliant' Nigella Lawson
'Gripping' Jon Ronson
A FINANCIAL TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH, METRO AND ELLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
On 5 October 2017, the New York Times published an article by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey that helped change the world.
Hollywood was talking as never before. Kantor and Twohey outmanoeuvred Harvey Weinstein, his team of defenders and private investigators, convincing some of the most famous women in the world - and some unknown ones - to go on the record.…
Leave it to the master of horror, Stephen King, to dream up the ultimate comeuppance story.
High school student Carrie is bullied relentlessly by her peers, both at school and outside its walls. Her mother’s treatment of her at home doesn’t help. But one day Carrie realizes she has supernatural powers that dwarf the “powers” her classmates think they wield over her.
I don’t condone what happens on prom night, of course, but anyone who’s ever been bullied will agree that the fantasy of turning the tables on your tormentor(s) can be…very satisfying.
Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates, is a Classic. CARRIE is the novel which set him on the road to the Number One bestselling author King is today.
Carrie White is no ordinary girl.
Carrie White has the gift of telekinesis.
To be invited to Prom Night by Tommy Ross is a dream come true for Carrie - the first step towards social acceptance by her high school colleagues.
But events will take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night as she is forced to exercise her…
Matilda—both in prose and musical form—is one of my favorite stories about bullies getting what’s coming to them, and the victim emerging with a better life.
Matilda’s parents and older brother are terrible people; her schoolmates and headmistress are not any better. But Matilda has a champion—an ally—in her corner: her teacher Miss Honey. With the confidence and support that just one friend brings, Matilda stands up to all the others.
She speaks up for herself and won’t let the bullies get away with their bad behavior. In doing so, she charts a happier course for her life—an end result to which anyone who’s being bullied can aspire.
11
authors picked
Matilda
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
8,
9,
10, and
11.
What is this book about?
Puffin Audiobooks presents Roald Dahl's Matilda, read by Kate Winslet. This audiobook features original music and sound design by Pinewood film studios.
Matilda Wormwood is an extraordinary genius with really stupid parents.
Miss Trunchbull is her terrifying headmistress who thinks all her pupils are rotten little stinkers.
But Matilda will show these horrible grown-ups that even though she's only small, she's got some very powerful tricks up her sleeve . . .
Kate Winslet's award-winning and varied career has included standout roles in Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Finding Neverland, Revolutionary Road and The Reader, for which she…
Virologist Dr. Rachel Bisette sees visions of a Kachina and remembers the plane crash that killed her parents and the Dine medicine woman who saved her life. Rachel is investigating a new and lethal hantavirus spreading through the Four Corners, and believes the Kachina is calling her to join the work against the spreading pandemic.
She finds Eva Yellow Horn, a medicine woman with the key to fighting the pandemic. When Eva demonstrates ancient healing powers beyond science, Rachel recognizes her as the medicine woman who saved her life years before. Eva reveals that Rachel’s father was investigating the 1979 nuclear disaster in Church Rock, when his plane crashed, killing her parents. Now, Rachel undertakes a new investigation, but she is not alone.
“Visions of kachinas guide doctor to spiritual healing in pandemic.”
2014 Finalist in the Willa Literary Award
This is a book that once closed and last line read, my mind wandered to explore certain character motivations and potential follow-up responses. I don’t think an author has to answer every possibility, art comes into play best when the reader’s own imagination can wander within the story.
Dr. Rachel Bisette is drawn to the Four Corners to lead the search for a vaccine against a lethal pandemic. One elusive indigenous woman, Eva Yellow Horn, carries the gift of immunity. In her search…
