“I refuse to be singled out for mistreatment,” he told me.
I was sitting in the backroom of a maximum-security facility that housed violent offenders, doing my best to understand where my client was coming from.
“Help me understand. Who exactly is singling you out?” I asked.
“Everyone. They’re enjoying my humiliation.” His voice trembled and he wrung his hands.
As a violent offender specialist, I prided myself in my ability to understand these clients, but I was stumped. I’d witnessed the interaction that led my client to react, and he wasn’t singled out. He was addressed as part of a group, and the corrections officer had spoken with respect and friendliness.
My sense was that my client was adding significance to the interaction. There wasn’t anybody enjoying his difficulty; in fact, I was the only person who knew he was upset.
I wasn’t sure how to proceed. My instincts told me I needed to show that I understood him, but I didn’t want to agree with his deepening grievances. I carefully stepped back into the conversation, “If I felt intentionally humiliated, that would anger me.”
“It’s whatever.” His arms were crossed. He avoided looking at me. “Send me back to the general unit. I don’t want to talk anymore.”
I agreed, pulled out my two-way radio, and requested an escort. As my client left the room, I offered to talk later if he wished. He ignored me.
I sat in the room, rubbing my eyes, feeling unsettled.
A minute passed, and then a panicked voice that struggled to sound professionally controlled came over the radio. “Code Red. Please respond!” Through the transmission, the sounds of chaos broke through the call.
The violence had begun.
The Aggrieved Algorithm
While the workplace and correctional facilities are different in too many ways to count, the nature of violence shares important similarities across different environments. These common threads make tackling the challenge of workplace violence more realistic, because the insights from highly violent environments can be reliably applied to places where the risks are lower. Leaders in business don’t need to become forensic experts to improve the safety of their employees—but by learning the core psychological dynamics of violence, they can make sounder judgments and policies.
While it’s widely believed that those who commit acts of aggression lack the ability to discern between right and wrong, in most cases, this isn’t exactly true. This misunderstanding can make workplace violence more difficult to predict because aggression usually fails to match this “psychopath” stereotype.
The truth is that most of the time, dangerous people think like everybody else. Most of us believe that non-violence is preferred—but we also believe some exceptions to non-violence exist. We think introducing aggression is wrong—but we also think defensive aggression is allowed. We can’t punch first, but we’re allowed to punch second.
This is where business leaders can learn to pay attention to the hidden psychology of violence. Employees who become aggressive usually haven’t changed their beliefs about violence itself; instead, they believe they’re the second one demonstrating it. They’re punching back. With a reflex for feeling “targeted” or “singled out,” they consider their violence to be defensive in nature. It’s their ability to mentally move into this “punching back” position that increases their risk. The grievance sets up the violence.
This aggrieved algorithm isn’t only observable to therapists who specialize in predicting violence. One particularly large study including nearly 500 men concluded that while certain personality traits are associated with workplace violence, it’s the perception of being persecuted that strengthens the odds of these traits turning into aggression.
What Happens When Grievances Deepen
A second consideration for preventing workplace violence is the intensity of the grievances expressed. For someone to justify their aggression, they must consider the offense against them to be severe. Without that perception, the moral justification for violence doesn’t add up.
This is where grievance deepening plays a part. Grievance deepening is when someone magnifies their initial complaint, making it seem much more significant.
For example, an employee doesn’t simply disagree with their performance evaluation, but instead, they insist, “You’re taking food out of my kid’s mouth!” A second employee isn’t only frustrated because they weren’t promoted; they assert, “You’re ruining my marriage by not rewarding my work.”
The greater their sense of being wronged, the closer they move towards the exceptions of non-violence. It’s grievance deepening that provides the moral justification for the violence to come.
How Leaders Can Reduce the Risk of Violence
Understanding the aggrieved algorithm and grievance deepening can help leaders reduce the risk of violence in their workplace. While those working in the business world won’t develop highly specialized training in violence, if its core elements are understood, they won’t need to. It’s when organizations learn the signs of danger around them that they can safely place their focus back where it belongs, on the work to be done.