Interpersonal tensions between colleagues can be costly for business. Even the specter of a threat can reduce concentration, undermine cooperation, and divert vast amounts of mental energy away from work and toward self-defense.
Ecologists have observed how prey manage fear, threats, and co-exist with predators within an ecosystem. This has revealed surprising mechanisms that, in turn, shed light on how we react to group members in stressful situations.
A surprising observation emerged from the natural world: predators control prey populations not only by eating them, but also by instilling fear. This chronic fear forces prey to invest a huge amount of energy vigilance and avoidance, leaving them with less energy for activities such as foraging or reproduction.
In other words, it is not the prey itself that limits the growth of prey, but the constant anticipation of what might happen to them.
The three strategies of prey
A very similar phenomenon occurs in groups of people struggling with chronic promiscuity conditions. If one member of their team exhibits patterns of aggressive behavior, other colleagues are left to work in a climate of relational uncertainty.
Their brain interprets aggressive behavior as a potential social danger. The group’s energy is then diverted away from work and toward self-preservation. In other words, it is not the conflict itself that wears down team members, but the energy they spend anticipating and avoiding it.
Prey uses three strategies to survive under this pressure. The same strategies are used in human groups:
1. Preys synchronize their behavior with danger. If a predator is known to be active at certain times of the day or in certain places, the prey will adjust its movements and activities accordingly. Employees make similar adjustments in the workplace avoiding certain encounters or reducing their interactions with certain people.
2. Prey retreats to areas of lower threat levels to lower their vigilance. In organizations, this strategy can take the form withdrawing from social interactions or taking on more solitary tasks. Today, in some cases, it is reasonable to conclude that remote work has become an avoidance strategy. This does not mean disengagement. it is a way of managing the psychological cost of risk.
3. Collective protection. Prey gathers in packs so that they can share the burden of surveillance and danger. In human groups, this phenomenon can take the form of forming informal alliances or subgroups that use collective support to reduce shared stress.
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Dealing with clumsiness
These reactions are understandable, but they come at a cost to the body. Energy is diverted to social risk management rather than duty.
In other words, the problem is not lawlessness itself. Energy is lost when a collective dynamic disrupts group functioning. This is why managing rudeness needs to be considered at the team level and done proactively rather than reactively.
Managers can control certain behaviors, but they cannot force employees to be polite. The most effective strategy is generally to organize a team-building session in the form of a structured discussion about both the quality of relationships and how a team works.
One of the primary goals is to create stability in group interactions. This is a discussion space where reactivity is put on hold, where issues are discussed rather than criticized, and where emotional tension is allowed to subside before escalating. Psychological safety does not eliminate conflicts, but creates the necessary conditions for their constructive treatment.
In fact, incivility at work leads employees to anticipate and avoid certain interactions that increase cognitive load and stress. Structuring meetings and clarifying discussion rules can reduce this uncertainty and, consequently, the vigilance it engenders.
Structuring meetings, clarifying discussion rules, and articulating decision-making criteria immediately reduce the burden of vigilance.
(Pixabay)
Challenging group rules
To do this, the team must first identify the sources of promiscuity. Problem behaviors may be associated with organizational factorsincluding high job demands, lack of support among colleagues, job insecurity or organizational changes. Good will is rarely enough on its own: sometimes structural irritants need to be addressed or the way work is organized adjusted.
It is not enough to simply say that the work atmosphere is difficult: the team must identify the habits that make incivility more likely. How does the group, often unwittingly, contribute to an atmosphere that perpetuates promiscuity? When no one reacts to indecency, are they implicitly condoning this type of behavior?
From an ecological perspective on social behavior, the central issue concerns the setting group rules. In many groups, rude behavior persists because people are reluctant to intervene themselves, ever since Penalties can be costly and expose them to risks.
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This means that the person intervening is likely to incur high social and emotional costs, particularly if their initiative provokes defensive reactions or even retaliation. However, when no one assumes this role, opportunistic behavior tends to increase, which undermines cooperation and collective norms.
Thus, one can imagine that, in an organizational context, a person in a position of power might try to assume a regulatory role himself. But without group support, the cost of this intervention is difficult to sustain. And this may gradually lead the authority to abdicate this responsibility.
The best solution is not to increase surveillance, but to share regulatory costs. Visibly supporting the person intervening immediately changes the dynamic. A simple show of support — “he’s right,” “thanks for saying that,” or “we agree” — can transforming an individual intervention into a collective regulation.
It is often helpful to formalize the team’s commitments in a code of conduct or a team charter and then schedule follow-up meetings to check whether the decisions have been maintained over time.
In short, a group cannot rely solely on the goodwill of its members to curb promiscuity. She must seek to share the burden of upholding her standards. As in natural ecosystems, the stability of a system depends less on the elimination of risk than on collective efforts to regulate its prevalence and effects.
