I don't recall a workplace violence event that has received as much attention and which has generated as much anxiety as the recent shooting of the television reporter and cameraman in Virginia - not even Sandy Hook. There are probably several reasons for that, but for whatever the reason, our phone has been ringing off the hook, with requests for interviews from various media outlets (maybe partially because it involved members of the media).

 

I always try to carefully avoid making assumptions, and most importantly, implying blame, based on the limited data that we receive from a recent news story.  That being said, this has given me a chance to beat the drum that I usually beat, and to address a subject that I do not believe is discussed enough. This is the primary theme of the book that I am currently writing: that our entire thinking about workplace violence needs to be recalibrated. We are so busy trying to discover a single cause or solution, such that we often miss the forest for the trees.

 

We are using this issue of the newsletter to reprint an opinion piece that I wrote for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in hopes that it furthers the conversation that I believe that we need to have in this country. For access to the article, click here. Otherwise, we have also reprinted the article below. 

Re-Think Workplace Violence

 

We have witnessed yet again another tragic workplace violence event with the recent deaths of the television reporters this past week. There will be many pundits over the next couple of weeks who will attempt to answer the who, what, and why questions - and try to assign blame or attribute this to a specific cause, that will allow us all to get back to work.

 

The bottom line is that human behavior is complex and difficult to predict with much precision. And I am stating this as someone who has handled thousands of these kind of issues, as a threat assessment professional and workplace violence specialist.  Read More