Balanced authenticity (part 2)

... authenticity can be abusive... How easily does the question: "Can I offer you some feedback?" not result in the receiver of the feedback pulling back, into themselves and being less than who they are? 

Hi Frank!

 

Good morning, Francois.  How are you doing today?

 

I’m fine thanks, and you?

 

I’m great.  What have you done with the last conversation we had?

 

Oh, it’s processed, filed and will soon become part of my non-conscious competences.

 

Nice way of putting it… Before you let your non-conscious run with it in the effortless and benign way it deals with these things, I think let’s summarise and contextualize what you have learnt so far.

 

You mean let’s get the bigger picture?

 

Yes. Let’s build a model from what you have learnt so far.  I’ll start with a story and we will work from there, OK?

 

Excellent.  You know I love stories.

 

Good.  So this story is about Charles and Vicky.  Vicky has had much experience in and knowledge about emotional intelligence: she is an executive and life coach, she has attended many personal change workshops and eagerly applies what she learns.  Charles and Vicky met a couple of months ago and the relationship is blossoming.  They are very much in love and love spending time in each other’s company.  They both are open and honest and tell each other about their past experiences, mistakes, lessons.  Let’s just say Charles past is not a perfect picture, but he has made the changes he wanted to make and trusts Vicky to be adult about it.

 

What do you mean being adult about it?

 

Well, the “5 As” come to mind… Accepting, Allowing, Affection, Attention and Appreciation (How to be an Adult in Relationships).  So he expected her to accept him and his past, allow him to be what he had chosen to be now, and so on.

 

OK, I get it, thanks.  Looks reasonable…

 

Vicky, having a certain set of values, mental models and meta-programs, inferred some conclusions about Charles.  “A leopard does not change his spots – this will happen again.  And then I’ll not be able to live with it.  Ugh!  He’s done all that and we’ve been intimate!”  So she decides being authentic and telling him how she feels, using I language.  In the beginning Charles validates what she says and her feelings, but Vicky is not satisfied – she is now more than ever convinced that Charles is bad for her and she sees many red flags for the relationship.

 

Why did she stick around? I mean, if the bad effects of what we do start outweighing the good effects, we know we should stop doing it!

 

Sure, if you’re not addicted, or there is some other secondary gain…  And perhaps a part of her genuinely liked and admired a part of Charles.

 

Not sustainable, that’s all I say.

 

Yep.  So Vicky confronted Charles again, and this time he pointed out to her that her inferences are irrational and unnecessary.  Vicky, being authentic, says that she feels very unsafe.  Charles, knowing that everyone is responsible for their own thoughts and feelings, asks her what she is going to do about her feeling unsafe.  Vicky realize that she has been confrontational and backs off.  But the next morning, something Charles does or says triggers another outburst.  Charles, realizing that he is not trusted or accepted, ends the relationship there and then.  He says that he cannot fight against the monster version of him Vicky produced in her head.  She says she can’t understand it, can’t understand why he so suddenly throws away everything they had.  And that is the end of it.

 

Phew, Frank!  A soapie of note…

 

Come on Francois, your mouth was hanging open at one point.  I’m pretty sure you really got into it. J  You looked like a spectator next to the wrestling arena.

 

*both laugh*

 

OK, I admit it, I could empathise with Charles – put myself in the situation.  I may have reacted like him in some respects, but not all.

 

Alright, let’s build the model.  Where do you think we should start?

 

On the inside.

 

Inside?

 

Yes, with their mental models, meta-programs, values and beliefs.  Both had a set of non-conscious criteria for what to expect of a relationship, of a partner of the opposite sex, of how that person would act, what their background should be like, of their past… and there is another, peripheral set – about all the things related to the partner – for example the prejudices and stereotypes about something in Charles’ past.

 

OK – good place to start.  We can call it, in short, the way of seeing others, ourselves and the world.  What then?

 

Well, the way we see things shape our expectations of those things and it gives us a specific attitude towards those things.  When we act in their context our behaviour reflects our attitudes.  Vicky had an attitude towards something in Charles’ past and she acted in line with her expectations.  Everything Charles said or did that was in tune with her criteria (values, expectations, beliefs) would easily pass through her perceptual filter, anything foreign, but not patently against her criteria, may not even be noticed as they pass through, but anything that goes in against her criteria or is completely alien will not be allowed to pass and would cause an emotional response.

 

Stop there for a moment.  Let’s go with when experiences just pass through the perceptual filter, what happens then?

 

Alright.  The stuff that goes through the filter (comparison to criteria was positive) tells us that our criteria are right and our view of the world, our self and other people are justified.

 

And the stuff that is foreign and does not get caught in the filter?

 

The comparison to criteria was neutral, so it causes no secondary information – emotions.

 

And the stuff that compares negative to our criteria?

 

This is the interesting bit… instead of weakening our criteria it actually can strengthen it.  We would rather defend our criteria as they are than change them.  So the difficulties Vicky was experiencing was evidence to her of some value or belief that you did not mention in your story and that she probably was not conscious of, perhaps some limiting belief.

 

Please explain?

 

I think she perhaps believed she was not capable of being in a relationship. Knowing her past experience with relationships would help to see if this could be so.  Or she may have non-consciously believed that she is not deserving of a relationship.  Or she may have non-consciously believed something like:  “All men are so and so.”  Also it seems she had the I’m OK, you’re not OK mental model in this context. So these things set her to filter for danger signs.  Believing is seeing.  What Jamie Smart says in his 10 Tips for Unconditional Happiness is what the believer believes the prover proves… She finds the danger signs and the evidence that Charles is not to be trusted and that the relationship is bad (for her).  She authentically confronts him about her problem. That’s insane!

 

A bit of a vicious circle, isn’t it?

 

So it would look something like this?

  

Yes.

 

Yep.  We’ve not looked at Charles’ process in this model, but I’m sure we’d find very similar unresourceful criteria in his.  Important to note that the cause of our distress is not the other person, but our mental model.  I think he may also have heard her authentic statements different from what they have been said.  It is easy to make the jump from “I’m feeling unsafe” to I’m feeling threatened, to and inferring that he is experienced as the threat.  How does this clash with his expectations of being accepted and allowed to just be himself – to be authentic?

 

Ah Francois, this brings me to a specific point.  If anyone’s being authentic will result in anyone else being less authentic, it has become harmful.  Someone that is truly emotionally intelligent will think about the consequences of the feedback they want to give about their own state even before they give it. 

 

So being yourself fully and truthfully… congruence/authenticity at all costs… can be dangerous?

 

Yes, if it is not tempered with an ecology check. 

 

But I don’t what to be walking on eggs the whole time around other people’s sensitivities!  And I’m pretty sure they won’t appreciate my wanting them to toughen up.

 

Sure.  The good news is that most people are not that sensitive and that they have a self-regulating feedback loop.  The other good news is that this is a skill that can be learnt even though the process happens in the non-conscious.  You want to add it to the model?  Come on, let’s start where someone becomes aware that there are things not passing through their perceptual filter.

 

OK.  This is where we experience negative emotions.  The more intense the emotion, the less rational we will be and the more ‘programmed’ our response – we act nearly instinctively.  Here it is important to remember that emotions are like a live electrical current.  If we take hold of the open wire it is going to grab us and shake us until our teeth clatter and our hair are frizzed and smoking.  If we lightly touch the wire and feel: “Ah – here be strong feelings,” we don’t get caught.  We can either leave it be totally or look at it later to work out where they come from.

 

That working out where the emotions come from is what I call the feedback loop.  What would you say is the best way of doing that?

 

I’d be doing two things here: something like appreciative inquiry… as logically and rationally as I can come up with answers to a set of questions; and then testing the answers once again with my gut feel and intuition.  Only if I am feeling good about the answers I will make the changes.

 

Can you give me some examples, Francois?

 

Sure.  I ask myself questions like:

• "Am I seeing right? Does what I am experiencing really mean what I think it means? Can it mean something else?”
• “How am I a part of the problem? What did I say or do that could cause the reactions I got? What does that tell me about my values and beliefs?”
• “What am I telling myself? What is the story in my internal dialogue?”
• "Which of my beliefs are in the way or are limiting me?”

Then, when you feel good about the answers you make the changes?

 

No, there is one more question I ask myself.  “Is this context important enough that I should change the way I look at life, the world, other people and myself?”

 

Wow!  That means you are conscious how your outlook may be hampering you and because the context is not important, you choose not to change it.  OK, on an intellectual level I can appreciate it, but give me an example of a context that you would feel is unimportant and perhaps one that is important to you.

 

Well, for me the work context is important, and so are my relationship and my family.  An unimportant context would be, for me, doing grocery shopping or driving on the freeway.  I don’t need to make profound changes to my belief system to be able to operate resourcefully in those contexts.

 

OK, so now the ‘model’ will look like this:

 

Sure, that is a good enough map of the territory.

 

When did you learn all this?

 

The past couple of conversations we had… and from past experience. You know, I fell into many holes in the road because I assumed that other people consciously operate from the same model with the same feedback loop.  I’ve learnt that some people’s feedback loop is non-existent and they typically would not check whether they are being responsibly authentic.  Others have an overactive second loop and they are never really themselves. 

 

Yes, that is a very good insight.  Well, I think we’ve spent enough time on this for now…  How much of this are you applying?

 

Practice what you preach, ne?  Mostly I’m doing fine.  Sometimes I still get derailed, so now I want to learn how to stay on track.

 

Great, that is something we can chat about at another time.

 

Sure.

 

Let the learnings sink into your benign unconscious… and every time you find yourself becoming aware of the parts of the model you wonder about at that moment, with wonderment, I am sure that you can congruently balance being authentic and taking a view of how much wisdom the people around you need.

 

Thanks, Frank.  I don’t know what that means but it sure feels good.

 

Then it’s fine.  We’ll chat again soon.

Balanced authenticity (part 1)

Congruence and authenticity… being true and true to yourself.  Where do you draw the line?  How much learning and change can you lead people to and where do your learning and change begin?

Hi Frank!

Hey, Francois.  How have you been the past couple of days?

I’ve had much to think about and much to process.  And just when I thought I mastered being the change, I experienced someone being exceptionally mean-spirited.  Other than that, I find myself in a very good mood most of the time!

Great to hear the last part.  You seem to be getting what you were asking for because your attitude is positive, there is some energy behind it and it is moving in a direction that is good for you and the people around you. 

I would like to believe that yes.  No, let me scrap that and rephrase: I believe that, yes.  I would love this to be the case at all times, and I do wish that I could handle this person better.

Perhaps this is just a mean and nasty person and you should accept that.

No Frank, I don’t know of many people that see themselves as being mean – not even this guy. 

So is he mean or are you experiencing him as mean?

Does that matter?  The meaning of our behaviour is the response we get (and may I add, how other people feel about it even when they don’t respond), so my reaction is valid, isn’t it?

Sure.  So if you continue experiencing this person as nasty, why don’t you just leave?  You have the choice to surround yourself with the kind of people you experience positively, don’t you?

Oh I would like to, but I have this hunch that there is something I need to learn here.  In the short term, that will be my approach.  I can’t change this guy, and I have changed my attitude.  The cutting behaviour seems to be so deeply ingrained and he does not even notice (or care, I think) what effect his behaviour has on other people.  Oh, I don’t let it get me under – I’m no victim.  But I am in no position to confront this person. You know, he not only tells us what to do, but also how to do it and when we don’t do it exactly like that, he goes mad.  When we ask questions to find out exactly how he wants things done to avoid his outbursts, he has another outburst because he does not want to do our thinking work for us. Or he forgets what he told us to do and what not then flies into a rage if we did not meet his ever changing expectations.

What makes this guy the ‘top dog’?

Positional authority.  If his rules are not obeyed he cites it at bad performance and a bad attitude.  We all know ways to do things in better and faster ways, but that is too much of a threat to his sense of ‘rightness’.  So, because he is the judge of how well we are performing and decides on our increases and so on, we have to abide by his rules.  Make no mistake, he is highly experienced and an expert in his field, so there is much to learn from him. So he also has authority based on his knowledge.

Are you applying the SCARF model?

Yes, and it works, most of the time. 

Do you feel like you are being authentically you at this point in time?

No, definitely not.  I have to walk on eggs all the time.  Apart from that, everything I do and say is shot down as being of inferior grade: my paradigm is narrow, my work is on the detail level and not conceptual, I’m not thinking or thinking ahead.  If it had not been for our chats I would have been feeling very miserable right now – pretty worthless, as a matter of fact.  So to answer your question, no, I am not being fully me and achieving according to my value and experience. And I’m not the real me.

What does being inauthentic mean to you?

To be something I’m not, acting in ways that are not natural to me.  This could either be trying to be smart, or trying to hide my true self behind an accommodating façade.  In this case I’m hiding behind a mask that is obedient, non-threatening, and insipid.  I feel emasculated when I wear this mask – and yes, I know I chose to do so to keep the peace.

What is your true self like then?

I’m energetic!  I’m fiery, challenging, provocative, inspiring, fierce!  I’m creative.  I’m unstructured, unruly.  I’m wooly and scary!  *laughs*

Is that what you believe what you are, what you want to be like or what other people think of you?

Hey Frank, lighten up.  It is all of the above and none of the above.

Alright, alright.  Can you remember the definition for congruence?

Yes, it is when what I say and do and think and feel are aligned – when I am in rapport with myself.

So it sounds to me that when you wear a mask like that, your being and your behaviour is out of synch.

Absolutely.

Do you think that so-and-so is wearing a mask of any kind?

No.  A-ha!  So here I am being incongruent while I’m dancing to his tune and he is perfectly congruent.

What is your definition of empathy, Francois?

It is to be able to put myself in someone else’s shoes, to look at what they experience from their eyes, their frames, with their feelings and beliefs.  I don’t have to agree with what they do and how they do it, or with what they feel, or take on their state.  I don’t even have to understand it.

Yes, good summary.  It is also a kind of as-if frame, or perceptual position, if you want.  Would you say that so-and-so lacks empathy?

Perhaps.  I can’t say whether he just drives people very hard and acts as a hard task-master or if he genuinely does not have empathy and is blissfully unaware and uncaring of the impact his behaviour has on others.  That would be pathological, won’t it?

Sure.  Would you say that Hitler was congruent?

Wow, what a question!  Well, I think he believed so firmly that he was right that he just may have been very congruent… Yes, I think he was!  But something prevented him from seeing the other side.  I mean he must have known the probable consequences of his actions, policies and doctrines on the peoples he conquered – surely he considered those.  Something must have stopped him from connecting to the suffering as experienced by them and the impact it would have on the times to follow – he probably had no connection to that, had not been able or willing to empathise.  I guess that he really believed in his nation being superior and the suffering of any inferior people as inconsequential.

Perhaps.  Yes, he was absolutely congruent, but that does not make him right.  What would you say about the people that accommodated his views and actions – who were flexible around it?

The ones that went along with him knowing that it could not be right, or ignoring it?

Yes, those.

Well, most of them suffered the consequences themselves.  Many lost their lives during those years… and after.

Yes, and how congruent do you think they were?

Ah, Frank!  I think the ones that knew in their heart of hearts, who were able to empathise, or at least to put themselves in the other side’s position, were very incongruent. 

Some of Hitler’s officers tried to convince him otherwise, and when he did not budge they arranged for him to be assassinated.  He survived the attempt.

Frank, they wanted to be rescuers.  Besides, that kind of extreme measure is unnecessary and in Hitler’s case only strengthened his resolve. 

Sure.  One way of getting someone to strengthen their beliefs about something is to attack that belief – they will defend it fiercely and so the belief is strengthened… Also, some people see resistance to their progress and ideas as evidence that they are on the right track…  So what do you want to happen in this case Francois, bearing in mind congruence?

I don’t want to ‘go along with it’ just to keep the peace, Frank.  I want to be fully congruent.  I would like so-and-so to change or at least to change the way he behaves at times, but I’ve decided to accept him and his actions, to allow for it.  As I said earlier, there is something for me to learn here.

Why don’t you want him to change?

If anyone wants him to change, forget it.  If you want him to change his beliefs, that is hard work and you need to be persistent.  If you want him to change his behaviour… remember, behaviour change permanently when beliefs and values change…  What do you think must happen before he starts changing his behaviour towards all of you?  He must want to change it.  No-one will change anything if they don’t want to.  And how will he know that he wants to change something?

Yep.  His behaviour must not give him what he wants.  He must experience some difference between the effect his behaviour has and what he expected it to have.  He must experience incongruence!  It must be more than cognitive dissonance and it must be set up in such a way that resolving the cognitive dissonance would result in the Benjamin Franklin effect and not in rationalizing.

Frank, I don’t want to point out what he must change.  It may just strengthen his resolve to do more of that.

Yes.  And people going along with him and being nice with him…would cause him to believe he has a fan club.  What other options are there?

Now it’s just a question of finding my equilibrium – the balance between being myself and adjusting my behaviour to so and so – and being authentic at the same time.

Well, to leave the country… although that would cause me to be labeled as ‘self-confessed enemy of the state’.  Or to do something so outrageously unexpected that it completely breaks the old patterns.

Nice!  Remember that whatever you do should not threaten his SCARF.  Now why is it so important to you to change this one person’s behaviour towards you?  Certainly there are many others that either like you or leave you be.  You don’t need everyone to like you – that is irrational.

Yes Frank, I agree.  You know, a long time ago a very wise mentor of mine told me that 3 out of 10 people would be easy to get along with, 4 would be neutral and 3 would be difficult. I don’t think I need this person to like me, really.  What I see is that he treats everyone the same way, so what I would like is for him to lighten up a little, to acknowledge people’s maturity, excellence and talents and not treat them like children, like dirt or second-class beings. 

OK, let’s walk through your challenge… you are in a situation where someone is in a position of power and treating people really badly, but not noticing the effect he and his behaviour is having on them.  He is probably getting things done, avoiding risks and disasters and producing results that are acknowledged or appreciated by others – so he has no reason to change and may see the price of change as too high.

That sums up the other side more or less.

And you… feel incongruent if you go along with this bad behaviour, you’ve learnt not to oppose it, and you don’t want to leave the team, but you feel that you have to get insight across somehow to get him to change his behaviour.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea…

Yes, unless you change the way you think.

Think… what do you mean?

I’m sure you would love to know how to balance being authentic, being just your self and being congruent with adjusting your behaviour or your outlook – being flexible.

Oh, yes!  Especially when dealing with someone who is authentic, but not mindful of the impact it has on others.

Here is a model that summarises what we had been talking about...

Ah, thanks!

Alright, next time we talk I’ll have my thoughts ready for you on that.  In the mean time, put everything we talked about away from your consciousness and let it start to grow wisdom.

Huh?

Never mind… and not too much mind. J  Just trust that the answers you need about this will be there when you need them. 

OK, that I can do.  Until later, Frank.

Good night, Francois.

A storm around a teacup

If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got… but sometimes you tick someone off because you did what you always do and what others always do.  So if you want something different and don’t want someone to get ticked off, learn to do things differently.

Good morning, Francois!

Hi Frank.  What have you been up to?

Well, I’ve been delving through layers of information, diving for pearls.

Yeah, that’s sounds like you.  So what pearls did you come up with?

Now that would be cheating – you have to dive for your own pearls.

OK Frank, you have the knack to guide me to the richest oyster beds. 

What do you have in mind?

Oh, what comes up immediately is: Why is Emotional Intelligence so important?  There are many people that are brilliantly intelligent and maters in their field of expertise – and perhaps it’s just my perception, but many of them don’t have and don’t need EQ.  Knowledge and intelligence, being unemotionally rational, logical, brilliantly analytical – doesn’t that have the highest value?

Ah, the heart/head dichotomy…

Dico-what!?

The debate about two poles… duality… either-this-or-that thinking…  Yes, for a long time logic, rationality and intelligence in that sense was seen as the ‘higher order’ functions of our minds and emotions as lower order functions.  We had been taught to avoid emotions, even cut them out completely.  Go read any encyclopedic entry and Wikipedia’s criteria for them… it is devoid of how anyone feels about the topic at hand.

You see what I mean?

What I see is that in academic circles they prefer the writing to be factual – as factual as possible.  What I know is that even the brightest, most critical and clinical of academics have used emotions to discover the facts that matter, to learn what they are.

Really?

Yes, really.  Remember, emotions are a tool to tell us if what we are experiencing is pleasurable or painful, good or bad – so that we can learn to avoid the painful stuff and move towards the pleasurable stuff.  We use our emotions to steer our minds and our actions. 

Well, I’m sure I’m reflecting what most people think about emotions when I say that they seem to be the end result of what we experience.  We see someone doing something and immediately it makes us feel a certain way – we like it or we don’t.

Sure, and that is only a fraction of the whole story.  We see/hear someone doing something.  Then, if you slow down the process quite a bit, we non-consciously compare what we see and hear to other similar experiences, it passes through our values and beliefs filters (or not), and we tell ourselves something about what we see and hear.  And only then do the emotions kick in.

So what you are saying is that if we see and use our emotions as a tool to tell us whether something is good or not that we can actually be more rational, more clear?

Yes, nice pick-up!  And it goes hand in hand with what emotional intelligence is: self-awareness – knowing what emotions you are experiencing and where they come from and awareness of others’ emotions; being able to manage emotions in yourself and others by using empathy; using emotions productively to, for example, increase motivation, concentration and attention; being able to handle relationships skillfully.

OK all of that sounds very good, but how is it useful to remain clear and logical?

Remember SCARF?

Yes, it is about not threatening someone’s sense of Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and Fairness because they will go into a threat response – fight or flight.

And at that point the reactions become irrational, pre-programmed, even instinctive – logic, rationality and emotions as a useful resource have left the building.  In short, emotional intelligence is the thing that helps you to maintain someone else’s and your own SCARF.

So what you are saying is that, if I am able to notice my emotions and not let them run away with me I will always be able to think clearly… and if I help others to maintain their SCARF, they would be able to think clearly… and that thinking clearly is not unemotional, but where emotions are useful to navigate our behaviour… and that the better we are at using our emotions in this way, the more emotionally intelligent we are… and-

You got it!  So tell me about a situation where you think emotions got out of hand and we’ll see how applying emotional intelligence can prevent a similar situation from going nova in the future.

A good friend told me something...  In their office cutlery and crockery are available for lunch.  The tea lady does not collect dirty dishes from the pause area and she does not work every day, so sometimes the dishes are left on the lunch room or heap up in one of the kitchens.  One of her colleagues had sent an e-mail to all to remember to put their dirty dishes in the dish washer.  For some days it went well, but then the dishes started collecting again.  So another colleague sent an e-mail asking for the same.  This time another (third) colleague responded on the e-mail, very emotionally, threatening, using bold red typeface and also had a bit of an angry outburst in the office about the situation.  So my friend, who overheard the altercation, was quite surprised about the outburst from someone who is normally quite easygoing.  What do you think?

Are everyone now too scared to have lunch or have tea?

*both laugh*

No Frank, but there are no dishes on the tables or on the zinc any longer.

Sure.  At what cost though?  Someone completely ‘lost it’… her dignity, even though just for a moment, was completely lost and one can wonder about this person’s emotional intelligence. 

Maybe she was just having a bad day.

Mmmm… people with good EQ have the resources to not have bad days.  I know that is a wild statement, but think about this: if I am in control of what I feel I would not continue feeling miserable for a whole day.

It’s our attitude that determines our altitude.

Yes.  Now, the colleague that sent the second e-mail…  It seems to be a reasonable, rational, logical thing to do, doesn’t it?

Well, yes.

And this person could not have anticipated that the third colleague, normally so easygoing, would react badly… could she?

No, but she should have foreseen that anyone could react badly.

Perhaps.  So what would have been better?

I think she could have just come to all of us and requested all, if our dishes had been standing in the kitchen, to take them to the dishwasher immediately and to remember to make it a habit.  That way she wouldn’t have thrown the innocent under the bus with the guilty.

That’s a good way of putting it – throwing people under the bus of oncoming trouble.  What could she have done instead? 

Perhaps if she went to everyone they would have ignored her and there would still be a problem with dirty dishes in the kitchen… On the other hand, if she had been persuasive – getting people to understand the extra effort they cause, or how the team’s image is affected if visitors were to see the dishes left around - the message would hit home and stick.  It is so much better to do something for someone you like, or who asked nicely, than for someone whose emotional state you might be threatening and who may explode unexpectedly.

Something so small… So, what do you think everyone in that story learnt? Take a guess, we don’t prescribe to mindreading, but guesses can also be educational…

That leaving dishes on the tables and on the kitchen zinc is unacceptable and that they must be taken to the dishwasher.

Good.  And what did they learn about the person who lost her cool on e-mail?

Ah, that she is unpredictable, or that she can throw tantrums too, or that she is not as cool as they think she is.

And what do you think she learnt?

That is OK to lose it from time to time, you could get things done that way… that she has authority… that other people will jump if she stomps her foot.

And what did the one that sent the second e-mail learn?

That e-mails are a little dangerous when you don’t know the recipient’s mood… that it is OK to send out an e-mail to remind everyone – you get things done that way… that it is a good strategy to deflect attention from herself… that it was the right thing to do.

What did you learn about learning?

Well, let me see… I learnt that everything we experience contains learnings and that we are not always aware of what we are learning when we are learning.  I learnt that if we have good EQ and modulate our own emotions as the resources they are to navigate experiences and exchanges we tend to learn faster and we learn better ways of doing things than being stuck in intense emotions.  If our emotions are out of control, we are out of control of our behavior and may lose out on valuable learnings or learn things that come back to haunt us later.

Good summary, but a little on the abstract side... Imagine yourself as a video camera, or a speck in the air that could observe everything that happened as it happened.  You can see all the people and their actions, you know, like a helicopter view above a cross section of the office space, if you can imagine what that looks like – you can see and hear everything from this still position…   You are no longer Francois, but impartial and wise.  What can you learn from the situation from this position? 

*long pause*

Aaaah!  Perhaps there are some people in the team that had been there for a long time and some newcomers.  The newcomers are perhaps the ones not knowing and not understanding the practical arrangements and how the old team mates carry a specific load.  Hey!  This is also something like what happens in normal house-holds.  You know, the arguments about the cap of the toothpaste being left off, the toilet seat being left up, clothes and towels on the floor… a small thing that can result in friction, sparks and eventually fire fights!  So, I see that there are habits and comfort zones in this situation and that the new team mates had been forced into accepting the ‘way that has always worked’.  Perhaps there is another, better way of dealing with this.  What I also see is the drama triangle and how the rescuer created perpetrators and victims.  I also see that no one did anything resourceful to resolve the matter creatively. Everyone can do something differently – handle the situation in a better way.  Since this situation is not ‘mission-critical’ it may not be taken serious. 

Nice!  So, if you take another step back, float out of the helicopter view so that you can observe the spot you were observing from and the whole scene and our conversation up to now, what do you learn?

We were looking at the situation from different angles, logically and rationally reflecting on it… but I cannot produce any learnings if my emotions are switched off or on hyperdrive, or if I am being emotionally unintelligent.  I see that some people’s interaction with the rest of the team may be a little strained because of this and it may lead to confirmations of beliefs: “I knew it was a mistake to join this team…”  Or it may just be the incident that triggers disillusionment: “Whoa!  It’s not as nice here as I thought it was…”

Absolutely.  It was a moment of truth!  There are many such moments every day and we mostly navigate them well.  Then comes along something small (the stakes seems to be low) that ignites high emotions, and bam!  There’s a little rough patch in our unconscious map of our environment.  When enough of these rough patches are gathered on our unconscious map of this specific context, we may say that the environment is toxic.  And then when everyone participating in the environment thinks about its toxicity they don’t see how they contributed to it.

Phew, Frank.  It is not possible for everyone in a team to always handle every situation perfectly – not creating unconscious rough patches, to be perfectly emotionally intelligent all the time…

No, it’s not.  And to compound things – some people would log a rough patch for something another person does not experience as negative… and for others it may be very bad.  In other words some people would experience the environment as toxic while others don’t.  Some people are more sensitive than others. Some are more forgiving than others.  Some are offended easily and others not.  Some are more self-aware, and some are more aware of their impact on others, other people’s states and reactions.  So no, it is nearly impossible to always act correctly.  Anyone that tries will lose themselves.  What do you think would work better?

Well, I think that boundaries (house rules if you want) need to be set up front and in such a way that people want to adhere to them.  Secondly, when something like this happens (we accept that it could) perhaps simply stating the fact and the expectation is enough to remind people of the boundaries and why they want to adhere to them – no need to activate the drama triangle.  Thirdly, if there is a storm in a teacup and the behavioural boundaries of “don’t throw people under the bus” and “avoid the drama triangle” have not been set, I don’t think it is fair to expect that they could prevent it – they are not aware of its impacts and implications. 

Alright.  How do you think your friend should go about setting the boundaries?

I don’t think she should go tell everyone that so and so happened and this is what it means and what the results were – that would only rub everyone the wrong way.  I think she must just lead by example, being the change she wants to see happen.  That is not enough, of course, for an instant change… and still, after a while of having set a good example and dealing well with moments of truth she will become an icon, someone whose behaviours are emulated because they get things done and people feel good being part of the process.

Ever the optimist!  Let’s see if it works.

It’s worth a try.  We’ll chat again soon.