Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-08
Source: The Conversation – in French– By Jean Poitras, Full Professor in Conflict Management, HEC Montréal
Interpersonal tensions between colleagues have a significant cost for companies: they erode concentration, undermine collaboration, and divert a massive portion of mental energy towards defense rather than work. Ecologists have observed how animals manage fear, threat, and coexistence with predators in an ecosystem. They have thus uncovered surprising mechanisms that shed light on our own reactions within work teams.
In nature, a surprising observation has emerged: predators control the prey population not only by eating them, but also through the fear they instill. Indeed, this chronic fear forces the prey to invest a huge amount of energy invigilance and avoidance, rather than in feeding or reproduction. In other words, it is not predation itself that limits the growth of prey, but the constant anticipation of what might happen to them.
A very similar phenomenon appears in human groups confronted with chronic incivility. When a member of the group sometimes adopts aggressive behaviors, colleagues live in a climate of relational uncertainty. Their brain interprets this as a potential social risk. The group’s energy then shifts from work to protection. It is therefore not so much the conflict that exhausts a team, butthe energy she spends anticipating and avoiding.
Prey strategies
Prey use three strategies to survive this pressure, which are also found in human groups.
The first consists of synchronizing their behaviors with the danger. If the predator is active at certain times or in certain places, the prey adjust their movements and activities. In the workplace, similar adaptations are observed:employees avoid certain meetings or reduce their interactions with certain people.
With the second strategy, prey retreat to areas where the threat is lower in order to reduce their level of vigilance. In organizations, this refuge can take the form ofwithdrawal from social interactions or retreat into more solitary tasks. Today, one might think that telework is becoming a tool for avoidance in some cases. It is not disengagement: it is a way to regulate the psychological cost of danger.
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The third strategy is collective protection. Prey animals gather in herds in order to share vigilance and risk. In human teams, this phenomenon can translate into the formation of informal alliances orsub-groups that seek to reduce stress together through collective support.
Regulate incivility
These reactions are understandable, but they come at a cost to the organization. Energy shifts towards managing social risk rather than the task. In other words, it is not just incivility that poses a problem, but a collective dynamic that disrupts the functioning of the group. That is why the regulation of incivility must be conceived at the group level and become proactive rather than reactive.
A manager can control certain behaviors, but cannot impose civility on their own. The most effective strategy generally consists of organizing a team-building event, that is, a structured discussion about the group’s functioning and the quality of relationships.
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One of the primary objectives is to create stability in collective exchanges. It is a space for discussion where reactivity is suspended, where the focus is on discussing issues rather than making accusations, and where emotional intensity can subside before it escalates. Psychological safety does not eliminate conflicts, but it creates the necessary conditions to face them constructively.
Indeed, incivility at work leads employees to anticipate and avoid certain interactions, whichincreases cognitive load and stress. Structuring meetings and clarifying the rules of discussion can then reduce this uncertainty and the associated vigilance. Structuring meetings, clarifying the rules of discussion, and making decision criteria explicit immediately reduces the vigilance load.
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Question the group’s standards
To do this, the group must identify the sources of incivility. Problematic behaviors can be linked toorganizational factorssuch as high work demands, a lack of support among colleagues, job insecurity, or organizational changes. Goodwill alone is rarely sufficient: it is sometimes necessary to address structural irritants or adjust the way work is organized.
It is not enough to say that the climate is difficult: the group must identify the habits that make incivility likely. How does the group contribute, often despite itself, to creating a climate that perpetuates incivility? When no one reacts to incivility, doesn’t that give carte blanche to this type of behavior?
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From a perspective inspired by the ecology of social behaviors, the central issue concerns thegroup standards regulation. In several teams, uncivil behaviors persist because individuals hesitate to intervene alone, thethe fact of sanctioning being costly and exposing to risks. The person who intervenes thus assumes significant social and emotional costs, notably due to defensive reactions or possible reprisals. When no one takes on this role, opportunistic behaviors tend to multiply, whichweakens cooperation and collective standards.
It is thus possible to imagine that in an organizational context, a person in a position of authority tries to take on this regulatory role alone. However, in the absence of group support, the cost associated with this intervention becomes difficult to sustain, which can gradually lead them to shed this responsibility.
The solution is therefore not to increase surveillance, but to share the cost of regulation. Visibly supporting the person who intervenes immediately changes the dynamic. A simple support – “he is right”, “thank you for saying that”, “we agree” – cantransform an individual intervention into collective regulation. It is often useful to formalize the group’s commitments in a code of conduct or a collegiality charter, and then to schedule follow-up meetings to check whether the resolutions hold over time.
In short, a group can only depend on the goodwill of its members to moderate incivility. It must aim to share the cost of defending its norms. As in natural ecosystems, the stability of a system depends less on the elimination of danger than on the collective capacity to regulate its prevalence and effects.
Jean Poitras does not work for, advise, own shares in, receive funds from any organization that could benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.
–ref. The predator and the prey: what the study of animals teaches us about toxic work environments –https://theconversation.com/the-predator-and-the-prey-what-the-study-of-animals-teaches-us-about-toxic-workplace-climates-278162