Customer Reviews

Surviving Workplace Violence: What to Do Before a Violent Incident; What to Do When the Violence Explodes

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Did you know that according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, workplace homicide is the leading cause of death among female workers in the United States and the second leading cause of death among men? 18,000 people a week are victimized by some sort of violence in the workplace in this country alone! Understanding how to protect yourself and your employees is indispensable knowledge.

I was privileged to receive an advanced copy of this important work to review before its official publication and found it well written, informative, and packed with essential information. Loren Christensen is one of my favorite authors. A retired police officer, Vietnam veteran, and 7th Dan black belt he really knows his stuff. For the record, I have a library of over 230 martial arts books. Many are in mint condition; stuff I've read only once, didn't finish, or never got around to. Christensen's are all dog-eared with sticky notes and scribbles in the margins, solid material I read over and over again. As always his advice is practical, useful, and easy to read.

In 'Surviving Workplace Violence' Christensen does a great job of making readers aware of the threat and presents solid strategies for keeping us safe. It is pretty short, a mere 105 pages, yet extremely valuable nevertheless. Its pithiness positions it as an excellent reference manual that just about anyone can read and understand in a few short hours. Clearly you cannot become an expert in such a short time yet the materials herein could literally save your life.

The vignettes in this book are startling and very informative. For example, it describes a situation where a 70-year-old salesman attacked and killed his former boss with a mason's hammer several months after she fired him for spitting on another employee. This clearly points out that just about anyone can be a potential hazard. Christensen describes warning signs (employee behaviors) that may indicate a higher likelihood of threat.

The author covers essential survival strategies for the employer (e.g., company policies/committees), as well as for the employee. The latter include awareness, stages of alertness (i.e., white, yellow, orange, red, black), hiding places, escape routes, incident response, combat breathing, mental imagery, and fighting back. He offers specific techniques that can be used against common weapons (e.g., knife, handgun, rifle) as well as descriptions of how to use common implements (e.g., stapler, pen, coffee cup) to help you fight back should you be forced to do so.

Lawrence Kane

Author of Surviving Armed Assaults, The Way of Kata, and Martial Arts Instruction

This is a wonderful information-packed book that everyone who works should read. Full of valuable nuggets, Christensen briefly discusses the problem, then talks about what to do to prepare for such a horror, what it feels like when it happens, how to protect yourself when you're caught in it, how and where to hide and take cover, and even how you can fight back using "weapons" found in the workplace.

The author is a retired police officer and a high ranking martial artist. But he doesn't come across like Rambo but offers valuable suggestions that anyone can do to save himself or herself.

You never know when someone might go nutso and come to work with a plan to take everyone out. This book will give you a fighting chance.

This is a quick read and a useful primer to workplace violence. That being said, I thought the author was a bit unrealistic in more than a few areas. First, if your employer doesn't have a workplace violence policy that doesn't leave you with a lot of support. In fact, you could be viewed as an alarmist if you suggest one. Second, anyone who thinks their co-workers are going to be able to help (with specific training or prior experience) in a workplace violence incident are, I suggest, wishful thinkers. Bottom line - you have to look out for yourself in the workplace, just as you do on the street outside. However, I thought the biggest missing element was also the most obvious: if you have a real wacko at work that you are convinced is about to "go postal" - quit the job. I don't care what the excuse is, it's simply not worth risking your life over a job - especially where your employer won't keep you safe. Think about it. If your company is big enough that there are most likely wackos that you don't know about, then this book might help raise your awareness.

True story: one of my clients (I'm a consultant) terminated two long-time middle-level managers. My contact said that several of the co-workers thought one of the ex-employees was going to "lose it". My first comment - did they make a discreet check with that ex-employee's home town police department to see if they had a gun permit? (In this state you need a permit for any kind of firearm.) Of course, that fell on deaf ears. And guess what? The layout of the offices is such that the executive offices are in the back of the building in ambush territory. Fortunately, nothing happened (so far.) To this day I'm bit on edge when I go to see that client, and stay close to the exists during the meetings. As they say in the book, somewhere between Condition Yellow and Condition Orange.