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Why > Staff to Staff Relationships
“Reducing Workplace Violence means Increasing Workplace Safety
through Positive Behavior Supports”
Staff to Staff Relationships
The purpose of The Mandt System® is to build healthy relationships in the workplace. We have been doing this since 1975, giving us more than 30 years of experience which we have used to improve the work we do and the services we offer. All human services are provided in the context of relationships, and the first set of relationships we address are staff to staff relationships. Whether the work is called therapeutic or habilitative or educational or treatment, all services are received by individuals served in the context of staff to staff relationships.
Contrary to perceptions, we are not primarily a vendor of restraint training. Our focus is on building healthy relationships in the workplace, in order to help our customers improve the quality of work and quality of life of all concerned. We do teach restraint, although for every hour spent teaching restraint in The Mandt System® program, we spend 3 hours teaching how to prevent restraint, and an additional 2 hours teaching how to de-escalate a potentially aggressive situation in order to minimize workplace violence.
This understanding of the power of staff to staff relationships was identified in a study done by Frederick Herzberg in 1954. He found that the number one reason people left jobs was poor relationships with peers, and the number two reason was poor relationships with supervisors. Dr. Peter Breggin, the founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology wrote a paper in 1999 for the Joint Commission, in which he said:
“By focusing on creating healthy relationships, organizations have been able to build trust between and among all the stakeholders in an organization. It is easier to de-escalate with someone you know and trust than with someone you either do not know and do not trust, or someone you know and do not trust.”
Many organizations that have implemented The Mandt System® have been able to decrease workplace violence by focusing on the power of staff to staff relationships to help the people they serve to feel safer. We emphasize that in order for people to de-escalate, they must feel safe. As Dr. Breggin emphasizes, safety is the key to de-escalation. Safety, The Mandt System® teaches, is more than just physical – it is psychological and emotional as well. When people feel safe, they act safe!
