Canadian HR Strategy

14 executive Series digest hrreporter.com express-scripts.ca/believeit We know it's hard to believe. But it's true. We help keep your employees as healthy as possible at a lower cost because we actively manage the pharmacy benefit and help them make better health decisions. We understand the importance of taking medication as prescribed – we even make it easy because we ship refills right to their doors. You don't need to change plans – because we maximize the value of your existing benefit program. Still find it hard to believe? Call or email and we'll prove it to you. 1 888 677 0111 believeit@express-scripts.com BETTER DRUG BENEFITS FOR LESS. WHY YOU WON'T BELIEVE IT. AND WHY YOU SHOULD. ESC-00126-01 HR ExecutiveSeries Ad_HP[040914]v1.indd 1 2014-09-04 4:30 PM "It might be one of those teams where the personalities are such that they just go along with it — sort of like peer pres- sure," she said. "ere are the personalities that just basically go along with the crowd. Some people are (just) at work to collect a paycheque." A bobblehead team can emerge from different situations, said Davey. "In the most innocuous situation, it's a team of people who've just worked togeth- er a long time. All they know is their same world, and so they grow to think alike, act alike," she said. "Some bobblehead teams, unfortunate- ly, come from a less healthy thing which is forced alignment — a very strong leader who just dictates, where there's no room for dissent. And that can go one of two ways — that can go (toward) the bobble- head team, where people just sort of give in and go along, or it can go toward the bleed- ing back team where you smile at the boss while you're in front of her, but the minute that you're in a safe place, you immediately express your concern or your discontent." The bleeding back team e bleeding back team differs from the bobbleheads in that this is a team where the harmony and agreement is just a thin veneer, said Davey. is is a team where ev- eryone agrees in the meeting, but the second it ends, the backstabbing, gossip and back- channeling begins. "at's why it's important to make sure you're clear on whether you have a bobble- head team where people truly are all just go- ing along, or whether you have a bleeding back team where it looks like they're going along, but what's happening is that the ag- gression and the conflict is going under- ground," said Davey. "(e bobblehead team) walks out of a meeting and off they go on their merry way, whistling while they work, as opposed to a bleeding back team where the minute they get out of a meeting, it's 'Can you believe they said that?' or 'at's full of crap.'" Teams that don't address conflict directly and instead take it underground have oen been influenced by a certain type of work culture, said Ruth Sirman, president of Can- Mediate International and workplace con- flict expert in Kanata, Ont. "Sometimes, there's a culture that says as professionals, we should be able to deal with this. And so, rather than sit down and have heart-to-heart conversations around what's going on, and what people's issues and con- cerns are, you get a superficial layer of what I call 'smarmy niceness' where everyone pre- tends at least to the outside that all is well, and in the lunchroom or the coffee lineup or the parking lot, then the gloves come off — but oen in a way that is passive-aggressive," she said. "Sometimes it's the culture, some- times it's the fear factor. It depends on whether in an organization, it's OK to dis- agree. And there are some times when leaders make it very clear to people (that it's not OK) — not through their words because, typically, in their words, they say it's OK to have discussions, to raise issues, and so on. But then when someone does, the eyebrows go up, and they may be quietly taken aside and told in no uncertain terms, 'We don't do that here.' "e unspoken but very clear message is 'Don't do that again.'" And that message makes it difficult for teams to know how to disagree in an open and productive way, she said. "People are afraid they'll make it worse. ey don't know how to raise it in a way that bobblEHEaD CulTurE

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