Bullies face a time of reckoning

Hello and welcome to Working It.

I am a school governor and the phone call has come: there is an Ofsted inspection today. For non-UK readers, this is the government’s standards-setting body for schools. The inspectors come round every few years, and teachers and governors have just 24 hours to get ready 😥. It’s the very definition of workplace stress. (Please excuse the slightly truncated newsletter this week. I have to run home to prepare . . . )

Read on for an exploration of why bullying is suddenly being talked about everywhere (and an invitation to contribute to the discussion). And in Office Therapy I counsel someone who is stuck doing immediate tasks — and never completes their longer-term projects.

Is it the end for workplace bullies?

I am trying something out this week: I want to crowdsource the expertise and experiences of Working It readers about the state of workplace bullying, and how it is being tackled (or not).

This is the right moment: the topic keeps coming up when I talk at events for my book, including one question from an audience member about the bullying of leaders by junior staff 🙋🏻‍♂️, a new variation of intergenerational tension that I hadn’t come across previously. (Do email me in confidence if you have seen this, or experienced it yourself.)

Something is definitely in the air, and the chatter about bullying — a practice that has too often been tolerated or hushed up — seems to be popping up all over, including in my inbox and on LinkedIn. It’s about time: unlike many other areas of workplace culture, including DEI, mental health and management, there has never been much (any?) training infrastructure around bullying prevention and intervention. Is that about to change?

Part of the momentum, I think, is down to a recent podcast appearance and LinkedIn post from superstar social psychologist Amy Cuddy (famous for her 2012 Ted talk on body language, viewed more than 71mn times, which popularised the “power pose”).

Amy’s new book on the topic, Bullies, Bystanders, and Bravehearts, is published in 2025, but she gave a must-listen preview in two recent episodes of the excellent Fixable podcast, hosted by Harvard Business School professor Frances Frei and her wife, chief executive and author Anne Morriss.

In it, Amy outlined the “playbook” that workplace bullies use to isolate and undermine their victims. Using the real example of a grocery store team, she showed how a new manager took against a longstanding and beloved staff member — simply because she was jealous of their popularity with staff and customers.

I won’t go into the details but I highly recommend you listen to the podcast or read the transcripts. This is Amy’s definition of bullying, which she’s developed after years of research: “Bullying is a profound intentional targeted serial and escalating attack on a person’s social and professional integrity and viability that’s carried out by multiple people.”

I had not fully appreciated the group element of bullying. It is here — by working on disrupting the bullying playbook and asking bystanders to act — that the new dimension of bullying analysis and prevention lies.

What are your experiences? And have you found an effective way to stop a bully from getting a grip in a workplace 💡? Email me (you can be anonymous): isabel.berwick@ft.com. We will return to this topic very soon.

This week on the Working It podcast

The US Federal Trade Commission has banned “non-compete” clauses in workers’ contracts, a decision with potentially huge consequences for tens of millions of American workers. The FT had recently reported on the shocking cases of bar staff and healthcare workers forced to travel many miles from their homes in order to get past non-compete clauses that barred them from working near a former employer.

Something had to change — but will this ban stick? On this week’s episode of Working It, I talk to Anjli Raval and Amelia Pollard, who have led the FT’s reporting on non-competes.

Office Therapy

The problem: I just can’t seem to prioritise. We have our own projects at work and share our progress but it’s easy to post updates on small things while the enormous icebergs of unfinished longer-term stuff loom under the surface. Does that make sense? No one has said anything. My appraisals are very good. Am I overthinking this 🙇?

Isabel’s advice: Yes, you are overthinking. Nobody thinks you are doing a bad job. But something is wrong, because you are unsatisfied. I think it’s because you aren’t getting into the meaty, medium- to long-term tasks. Meaningful work like this creates a so-called “flow” state that will give you professional satisfaction.

If we give our brains the chance, however, they will always default to the path of least resistance i.e. doing the immediate stuff. How to overcome it? A bit of self-bribing helps. Timeboxing — aka blocking time in your calendar — might also work.

You are not alone with this dilemma: there’s a reason that James Clear’s Atomic Habits is a global sensation. I prefer Cal Newport’s ideas in Slow Productivity. He offers a framework for deciding what work matters — and then doing it. Fewer things, done better is the tl;dr here.

Got a question, problem or dilemma for Office Therapy? Think you have better advice for our readers? Send it to me: isabel.berwick@ft.com. We anonymise everything. Your boss, colleagues or underlings will never know.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. Europeans have more time, Americans more money: which is better? This catnip of an article from Simon Kuper contains lots of great statistical nuggets and some thoughts on why Europeans live longer and reject the chance to work US-style hours.

2. Be a team player: bring all of your selves to work. Miranda Green entertainingly explores the theory that we need to encourage lots of different aspects of our self in order to make the best of work and life — a psychoanalytic approach, in part.

3. The active commuters making travelling to work a workout: As an occasional walk/cycle commuter, this piece by Emma Jacobs fills me with awe. She talks to ultra-fit commuters, including a Canadian who skis cross-country in sub zero temperatures.

4. The week that shook Columbia: Mark Mazower on the protests over Gaza at the New York university where he teaches history. It’s a fine eyewitness account of what happens when workplace politics and procedures meet students demonstrating about polarising, era-defining events. (Things have moved on dramatically on campus since Mark wrote this.)

5. Nicolai Tangen is busting the silo: If by chance you accumulate many millions through work, and spend some of it on a massive art collection, here’s an example of what to do next: the head of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund has built a massive Nordic art museum in his hometown.

One more thing

I don’t normally include (even more) FT content in this bit of the newsletter but as a lifelong swimmer 🏊 I am biased and make an exception for my colleague Zehra Munir’s HTSI feature about Swim Dem Crew. Their mission is to bring swimming lessons and social meet-ups to many more people — including many in the Black and Asian communities. It’s a brilliant story, with gorgeous photos.

And finally . . . 

My book, The Future-Proof Career is out in the world. Thank you to everyone who has been to an event, or who has messaged me to say they are reading it or listening to the audio book. You have already given me lots of ideas for Volume II. (Though I might just wait a hot minute before starting on that 😅.)

The publishers, Pavilion Books, have 15 copies to give away to Working It readers. To enter the draw, just send back this Google form before 5pm on Tuesday May 7. We will contact successful entrants.