The Great Behaviour Debate

DfES Bullying and Harassment workshop

Setting: Today Programme type interview

Nick

(In the style of John Humphrys)Many organisations today feel the need to spend time and money formalising Behaviours. They get them expensively produced often and distributed to the staff, and they put the posters up on the office walls. But do they do any good? What difference do they make? Why do they do it? I’ve got two people here Jill Connick and Eisha Kumar who have views on the matter. Jill, why do we need to have these Behaviours given to us?

Jill

I think they are very useful things. They indicate to us what is expected of us in terms of our behaviour and the way we do our work.

Nick

There you are Eisha. They help us do our work.

Eisha

I don’t agree. I think they are an unnecessary imposition. I fail to see how they help people do their work. Adults don’t need to be told how to behave

.

Nick

You are treating us like children Jill.

Jill

Not at all. Adults need frameworks too. Behaviours merely take what is good out there and disseminate it to the entire community. It’s a way of sharing the positive things that people do.

Nick

Eisha. You’ve got it all wrong….

Eisha

That all sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Actually it rarely works out like that in practice. Most of the time these behaviours are arranged as a meaningless jumble of words that people need to interpret. People are confused by them. That’s if they think of them at all beyond some vague, superficial concept like "let’s all be nice to each other and then everything will be all right." They rarely have meaning in the real world of work. The world of pressure and stress and deadlines. That’s why they don’t work. Anyway, either people know how to behave or they don’t. You can’t change people with words.

Nick

Jill, you’re a wishy-washy peddler of meaningless tripe.

Jill

Not at all. Whenever any group of people get together, for any purpose, you are bound to get tensions and differences. People become focused on different things. Issues arise. Behaviours are there to allow people to find a route map through their issues without isolating or causing hurt to individuals concerned. They are there to help people work together better.

Nick

Eisha, you are a dyed-in-the-wool cynic. These things are there to help you, if only you knew it.

Eisha

Look, where does it all end? You’ve got job descriptions. You’ve got competencies. There are appraisal systems and other mechanisms for looking at how people work. There are Departmental Behaviours, Divisional Behaviours – even Team Behaviours sometimes. Who decides that I need to have yet another set of rules imposed upon me? Have I asked for them? No? Decisions are made somewhere high above me that what I need is to be told how to behave. Why? Will you please stop telling me what to do.

Nick

Jill, you’re fixated. You’re addicted to rules. Why don’t you leave people alone?

Jill

No Nick. Behaviours are guides. You can’t legislate for behaviour...

Eisha

No you can’t.

Jill

They exist to breathe life into an organisation, not to stifle it.

Eisha

So why do I feel restricted.

Jill

Well, maybe you need to release your mind, Eisha. Perhaps it’s your attitude that’s restricting you, not the Behaviours.

Eisha

P’raps you need to listen to yourself for a minute and then tell me what Behaviour you’re supposed to be exhibiting here.

Jill

I happen to be exercising a great deal of patience at the moment…

Nick

Well, there we have it. A resounding vote for the undecided. What do you think? Goodbye.

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This script was used in a series of workshops for the DfES as a a fairly light-hearted way of starting a discussion on Values

Values - are they really necessary?