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Fear

Workplace Fear to Workplace Care

October 25, 2024
Action, Actionable Insights, Antimatter principle, Article, Business, Collective psyche, Culture change, Deming, Dialogue, Fear, NoLeadership, Organisational Therapy, Quintessence
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Workplace Fear to Workplace Care

The Shadow

Walk into any workplace, and you’ll sense it: The bastard colleague who sends emails at midnight. The dickhead team lead who never takes a full lunch break. The eager new hire already showing signs of burnout. In offices, homes, and coffee shops across Britain, the same concerns surface: “Can we Britons keep working like this? Will speaking up cost me my job?”

These aren’t isolated worries—they’re symptoms of what organisational psychotherapy recognises as learned responses to workplace pressures, passed down through generations of office culture.

The Beneath

Looking deeper reveals familiar patterns:

  • The manager who demands constant availability isn’t just controlling—they’re recreating patterns from the shared assumptions and beliefs they acquired early in their career
  • The organisation celebrating long hours isn’t just overworking—it’s perpetuating outdated and irrelevant measures of commitment
  • The employee afraid to take lunch or leave on time isn’t just anxious—they’re responding to unspoken cultural pressures – products of eveyone’s shared assumptions and beliefs

The data backs this up: rising burnout rates, increasing workplace dissatisfaction, low employee engagement, growing mental health challenges. But numbers alone won’t change ingrained habits and collective assumptions and beliefs. We might choose to understand why these patterns persist.

Old Habits

Our relationship with work often mirrors other relationships—it needs boundaries, respect, and trust to thrive. Consider how we’ve normalised behaviours that undermine all three:

  • Boundaries dissolved through constant email availability
  • Self-worth tied to presence and visibility (presenteeism)
  • Personal needs pushed aside for work demands
  • Achievement measured by exhaustion levels

Workplace Dynamics

Progressive workplaces use insights from psychology and behavioural science to understand how companies develop their personalities and habits. This reveals:

  • Leadership styles – and the eshewing of leadership entirely – shape team behaviour
  • Change creates fear and anxiety
  • Team dynamics reflect wider patterns
  • Where cynicism comes from and what it means

Inviting Change

Change happens through small, consistent actions. Just as therapy works best with practical steps, workplace transformation needs clear actions, founded on the idea of surfacing and reflecting on the organisation’s shared assumptions and beliefs:

  1. Building Better Cultures
    • Creating psychological safety in meetings
    • Developing systems that support wellbeing
    • Making rest as normal as work
  2. Redefining Success
    • Respecting boundaries
    • Attending to folks’ needs, beyond mere profit (“Nobody gives a hoot about profits” anyways Cf. Demings First Theorem
    • Valuing collaboration over (intra- and inter-team, intra- and inter-departmental) competition
  3. Daily Practices
    • Regular surfacing and reflecting on shared assumptions and beliefs up, down and across the organisation
    • Open discussions about needs
    • Clear communication about expectations
    • Recognition of different working styles

Moving Forward

Changing workplace culture isn’t simple or quick. It happens gradually, through consistent small actions and shifts in thinking. The goal isn’t to transform everything overnight—it’s to build healthier, more sustainable ways of working together. Ways that embed and encourage continual updating of shared assumptions and beliefs.

We’re not just changing policies. We’re developing better relationships—with work, with colleagues, and with our own psyche. These changes ripple outward from thw workplace, affecting our families, communities, and society.

The first step is having the courage to begin. The next is being curious about the organisation’s collective psyche – what kinds of change is needed?

The Evolving Face of Abuse: Two Centuries of Shifting Perspectives

October 8, 2024
Article, Conflict, Fear, Management, Nonviolence, Organisational behaviour, Violence
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The Evolving Face of Abuse: Two Centuries of Shifting Perspectives

[Tl;Dr: Management is much like rape]

The Unseen Scars: A Journey Through Time

Imagine a world where a manager’s abuse of his or her employees is considered a private matter, where children toil in factories without protection, and where stress and emotional trauma are dismissed as weaknesses. This was the reality just two centuries ago. Our understanding of abuse has undergone a radical transformation since then, reflecting profound changes in our social, legal, and cultural landscape.

The Victorian Era: When Silence Spoke Volumes

The Brutality Behind Closed Doors

In the 19th century, the concept of abuse was narrow and often invisible. Domestic violence was seen as a man’s right to ‘discipline’ his wife, only acknowledged in cases of extreme brutality. Children, viewed as parental property, suffered in silence, their mistreatment often also disguised as discipline.

The Unseen Victims of Industrial Progress

As the Industrial Revolution roared on, another form of abuse flourished in plain sight. Children as young as five worked gruelling hours in dangerous conditions, their exploitation justified in the name of economic progress.

The Dawn of a New Century: Cracks in the Façade

The Whisper of Psychology

The early 1900s saw the rise of psychology, bringing with it a nascent understanding of emotional and psychological harm. Yet, these invisible wounds were still largely dismissed, a mere footnote in the definition of abuse.

A Child’s Right to Childhood

The introduction of child labour laws marked a pivotal moment. Society began to recognise that exploitation of the vulnerable was indeed a form of abuse, setting the stage for broader protections.

Mid-20th Century: The Personal Becomes Political

Breaking the Silence on Domestic Abuse

The women’s rights movement of the 1960s and 70s shattered the notion that domestic abuse was a private matter. It invited society to confront the dark reality lurking behind neat picket fences and forced smiles.

Redefining Intimacy and Consent

The recognition of marital rape as a crime in the late 20th century marked a seismic shift. It acknowledged that abuse could exist even in the most intimate and sanctioned of relationships, challenging long-held notions of marital rights.

The Late 20th Century: Unveiling Hidden Horrors

The Innocence Lost

As the silence around child sexual abuse began to break, society was forced to confront a horrifying reality. This recognition led to sweeping changes in law, social services, and our very understanding of both childhood vulnerability and predatory paedophiles.

From Water Cooler to Courtroom

The workplace, once a realm where power dynamics went unchallenged, became a battleground for dignity. Sexual harassment laws emerged, redefining professional boundaries and holding power to account.

The 21st Century: The Complexities of Modern Abuse

The Scars You Can’t See

Recent years have seen a growing recognition of emotional abuse and coercive control. These invisible chains, once dismissed, are now acknowledged as deeply damaging forms of abuse.

The Digital Battlefield

In the age of smartphones and social media, abuse has found new frontiers. Cyberbullying and online harassment have emerged as serious issues, blurring the lines between virtual and real-world harm.

The System as the Abuser

From religious institutions to care homes, we’ve been forced to confront the chilling reality of systemic abuse. This recognition has sparked a re-evaluation of power structures and the potential for harm within our most trusted institutions.

The Toxic Ladder: When Management Becomes Abuse

In a striking shift, many management practices are now being scrutinised as forms of abuse. The use of fear, obligation, guilt, and shame (FOGS) as tools of control and abuse in the workplace has come under the spotlight, challenging traditional notions of leadership, management, and power dynamics.

The Path Forward: Empathy, Awareness, and Action

As we stand at the crossroads of this evolving understanding, we must ask ourselves: What forms of abuse remain hidden in plain sight? How can we cultivate a society that not only recognises harm but actively works to prevent it?

The journey from the Victorian era to today reveals a profound truth: our definition of abuse is not static. It evolves as our empathy grows, as our awareness expands, and as we dare to challenge the status quo.

As we move forward, let us carry this lesson with us. Let us remain vigilant, compassionate, and willing to confront uncomfortable truths. For in doing so, we pave the way for a future where dignity and respect are not privileges, but rights accorded to all.

Further Reading

Marshall, R.W., (2012). What is Violence? Think Different blog post. Falling Blossoms.

What Are You Afraid Of?

August 17, 2023
Article, Business, Fear
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What Are You Afraid Of?

Fear is a potent emotion that, while rooted in our instinct for survival, can sometimes mislead us, particularly in business. In the complex world of Dune created by Frank Herbert, the Bene Gesserit, a secretive sisterhood, employ the “Litany Against Fear” as a mantra to focus their minds in times of extreme danger. Its wisdom is universally applicable, even in the corporate world:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

Here’s how we might choose to take the principles from this Litany to guide us:

  1. Recognition of Fear: Recognising and naming our fears is the first step. Whether it’s the anxiety of a deal falling through or the nervousness before a major presentation, identifying the source of your fear is crucial.
  2. Understanding Fear’s Transience: Like the Litany suggests, fear is transient. By confronting it head-on, we can allow it to pass through us, leaving us unscathed. In business, this means facing challenges directly, knowing that once they’re overcome, only the lessons and experiences remain.
  3. Decision-making in the Face of Uncertainty: In uncertain situations, where outcomes hang in the balance, and both hope and fear seem compelling, leaning towards a positive bias, as the Litany advises, can be powerful. This doesn’t mean adopting blind optimism, but rather believing in positive outcomes, fostering resilience, and motivating oneself to move forward.
  4. Preserving Mental Well-being: Just as the Bene Gesserit Litany emphasises mental discipline, we can choose to prioritise our mental well-being. Continual anxiety, especially if baseless or exaggerated, can deteriorate one’s mental health. Recognising this and adopting techniques, like the Litany, can bring clarity and focus.
  5. Harnessing the Power of Positivity: Once fear is confronted and understood, what remains is the self – resilient and empowered. In the corporate context, this translates to someone who’s learned, grown, and is ready to take on the next challenge with renewed vigor.

In conclusion, the Bene Gesserit’s Litany Against Fear provides timeless wisdom on confronting and managing fear. By integrating its principles, business executives can traverse challenges more adeptly, ensuring both personal development and organisational prosperity.