Yes, you’ve read it right. There really is such a day as National Unfriend Day. Celebrated on November 17, it was started in 2014 by American TV host Jimmy Kimmell, whose view is that we collect “friends” on social media only to become infected with their shares, their videos and their opinions, when, in reality, we hardly know them. He is not far wrong.

And yes, the day is really a bit of fun. But in my view, it also has a serious side which is worth exploring. When it comes to using social media in the workplace, every employer will have their own opinion and it is not my job to expound on that here. Some may feel that any social media usage is not for the workplace and ban it outright; others may take the view that some social media time provides an easily accessible and useful balance which is a reward for working hard. Or employers may feel that having any kind of policy just encourages underground usage that will, in the long run, create an unhealthy counter-culture causing more problems than it solves.

That is for business leaders to decide. But I think it is fair to say that social media does have its challenges in terms of the mental health of users. And when someone receives a blow to their already fragile self-esteem at work, productivity is likely to go downhill. It is amazing how passive unhappiness can spread without a word spoken, infecting everyone with negativity. The problem is rooted with the unhealthy ways that many people use social media, which fall, broadly, into the following:

Having a moan to get attention … any attention

We’ve all seen people putting up posts such as these. When I moan, I do it to get attention or gather round supporters of my cause. As a result, I feel listened to and supported. Sometimes I just want attention, no matter how I get it, and I may have to be provocative.

Pretending our life is amazing

Again, all too common. Pictures of my beautiful little children having performed amazingly in the ballet/concert/gymnastics display/football match, anyone? Sharing the perfect pictures of a supposedly perfect life means people are often putting a gloss over some pretty tough times and poor decisions. But hey, that’s fine, as long as I look good.

Criticising and judging from a distance, thus perpetuating conflict
When I criticise and judge others I can only do that from a position of superiority and when I do this I am often either starting or perpetuating conflict. Conflict, I would add, that if I was in the same room as you I would not start.

Sometimes, even bullying

When I join the crowd to criticise, demean and undermine anyone I am participating at some level in bullying.

It is fair to say many of us are often braver on social media. But all of these uses are factors in self-esteem. They are ways of being listened to, respected and admired. The problem is that these boosting mechanisms tend only to last for a short time, before more is then needed to feed that growing, needy monster which is our view of ourselves. Before long, people’s lives get dominated by social media and they are spending large amounts of time comparing themselves to others and attacking them. This, in my view, is unhealthy behaviour. The important thing to remember is that it is self-esteem we’re talking about here, and the clue is in the word ‘self’. It should come from within, not from comparisons to others.

Personally, I have rules I try to adhere to on social media. I am by no means perfect and I am not setting myself up as such, but I find these rules help me to behave in a healthier way. They are:

• Never say on social media what you are not prepared to say to someone’s face
• Never share personal information that you would not be prepared to put up on a screen in a crowded public place for all to see.
• When criticising others, ask yourself how you would feel if you were on the receiving end and whether you are doing this to help them or boost your own failing sense of self-esteem.

I think social media should come with an emotional and mental health warning: if your self-esteem is not healthy, do not use this as a way to get your fix. It is addictive and, in the end, it won’t work.

Read more:
Should you be making the most of National Unfriend Day?

Stress produces the familiar fight or flight response that is characterised by an increase in blood pressure and heart rate and the release of chemicals like cortisol. In short bursts, stress is no bad thing, in fact it can even be helpful, giving us the drive and motivation we need to meet our daily challenges.

However, stress becomes a problem when we experience it on a sustained basis. Prolonged periods of stress can weaken the immune system and cause high blood pressure, fatigue, depression, anxiety and even heart disease. Early warning signs that you may be suffering from the effects of stress include:

• A weakened immune system with greater susceptibility to minor ailments
• Headaches
• Sleep problems
• Irritability
• Changes in appetite
• Mood swings

Stress is a big problem for individuals and the businesses they work for. Estimates put the cost to the UK economy of working days lost to stress at around £6.5 billion. The latest Labour Force Survey shows that in 2014/15 stress accounted for 35 per cent of all work-related ill health cases and 43 per cent of all working days lost due to ill health. The total number of working days lost due to this condition in 2014/15 was 9.9 million days. This equated to an average of 23 days lost per case.

For every 100,000 workers, 1380 will develop work-related stress, anxiety or depression. Stress is more prevalent in public service industries, such as education; health and social care; and public administration and defence. The main work factors cited by respondents as causing work related stress, depression or anxiety were workload pressures, including tight deadlines, too much responsibility and a lack of managerial support.

Businesses not only have a moral responsibility to help protect their workers against workplace stress, but it also makes sound economic sense. Alongside the days lost to stress, there has also been a rise in the condition known as “presenteeism”, whereby employees show up for work but they are unmotivated, exhausted or too stressed to work, leading to poor performance and decreased productivity.

So, what can businesses do to safeguard their employees against workplace stress? Calm People helps people to develop greater emotional resilience at home and at work. We have developed these eight simple steps which we recommend employers and employees implement to reduce the harmful effects of workplace stress.

Take regular breaks

With the pressure of work it can be tempting to continue working and not to take time out during the day. However, studies have shown this to be counterproductive. Taking a break gives your brain a rest and helps it to refocus on the task in hand. Allowing our brain to switch from “focused mode” to “diffuse mode” (the relaxed state we associate with daydreaming) can often produce valuable insights. How often have you wrestled with a tricky problem only to find the answer comes to you while you are in the shower or driving home from work? Taking a break also allows you to step back from the issue and see it from a broader perspective. It ensures you don’t get lost in the details but are working towards your broader goals. Taking a break makes you more productive and more efficient.

Avoid information overload

People can become overwhelmed by the amount of information they are required to process at work. Avoiding sending unnecessary emails is a good workplace policy. So, too, is limiting the number of times people are required to check their emails during the day – once in the morning and once in the afternoon should be sufficient.

Build supportive relationships

Although it may be tempting to communicate solely via email, face-to-face interaction is important and it helps to build supportive relationships, which are useful for countering harmful workplace stress. Managers can contribute to this by organising social activities which allow people to get to know one another outside of their work roles. This can be as simple as sitting down to lunch with one another once a week. You should include every member of the team in these activities and think about individual people’s interests, beliefs and backgrounds.

Take a partnership approach

Stress in the workplace is everyone’s problem so take a partnership approach to tackling the issue. Talk about it and avoid it becoming a taboo subject. Managers need to be willing to listen without trying to offer solutions to “fix” the problem. It can be helpful to point out to employees that, while you are there to help prevent unnecessary stress and find effective strategies for managing it, it is their responsibility to deal with it. It may be helpful to ask what support systems people have outside work and, if necessary, provide specialist counselling.

Develop a stress strategy

HR has an important role to play in managing workplace stress. It can be helpful to develop a stress strategy and to hold team leaders and managers to account for preventing and dealing with workplace stress. Everyone in the workplace needs to understand the importance of recognising the warning signs of stress and dealing with them in a timely way. Ensure that all team members know the support system that is available to them to help them cope with stress.

Take a holistic approach

Providing employees with opportunities to relax and unwind can be effective in mitigating workplace stress. You might want to consider reduce price gym membership, meditation sessions or lunchtime yoga classes.

Be a role model

Managers have a responsibility to manage their own stress effectively, both to ensure they perform at an optimum level and to act as a positive role model for employees.

Discover the individual causes of stress

Different people have different stress thresholds. What is stressful to one person another can take in their stride without too much of a problem. A stress assessment can help employees to recognise the triggers that cause them stress. Once they are aware of this, you can help them to put plans in place to avoid them becoming stressed.

Read more:
How to avoid harmful workplace stress

Yet, in spite of the vast body of information that exists on the subject and the seemingly insatiable appetite for achieving a state of happiness, it appears that very few of us actually manage it.

One of the reasons that happiness remains so elusive is that it is a very individual thing and for each of us the components of happiness will be different. When we undertake personal development work, we start to understand more about our own criteria for happiness.

However, there are undoubtedly some helpful habits that we can cultivate that enhance our chances of happiness, as well as some unhelpful behaviours that we should avoid. In my experience, the six habits most often found in happy people are:

Understanding that happiness comes from inside not outside

As a society we tend to believe that happiness comes from outside ourselves. The formula we are taught is: work hard, earn money, acquire goods, be successful = happiness. This keeps us stuck on a perpetual treadmill of pursuing more and more stuff, or striving for greater and greater success as a way of validating our sense of self-worth. Each time we get the stuff, the desired happiness tends to be fleeting or fails to materialise altogether. We then set out in pursuit of more stuff, more badges of success and so it goes on. Once we recognise that consumerism is a flawed premise and that the happiness we are seeking lies inside ourselves and not “out there” we become happier people. This doesn’t mean we have to live in poverty, it just means that we are not dependent on the stuff to make us happy. If we get the stuff, great. If we don’t, we are still happy. By taking our focus off the constant pursuit of stuff, we have an opportunity to stop and work out what actually would make us happy. The focus needs to shift from what is outside us to what is inside us in order to achieve lasting happiness.

Being happy in the here and now, rather than postponing it

The belief that happiness comes from outside can lead us to postpone our happiness. We sacrifice the happiness of the present in the belief that happiness will show up at some point in the future … when we have paid off our mortgage, retired from our job, achieved the level of income we aspire to etc. etc. When we recognise that happiness comes from inside us and not from external circumstances, we can begin being happy today, right now. We can start to examine what would really make us happy and do something about it.

Valuing themselves highly

Self-esteem or self-worth is about how highly we value ourselves. It is not about placing ourselves at the centre of the universe or believing that we can do anything we set our mind to, which can lead to unrealistic expectations. Valuing ourselves means recognising our own strengths and building on the areas that challenge us. This is the foundation on which our future happiness is built.

Taking responsibility for meeting their own emotional needs

In our minds, each of us has a list of emotional needs and we often look outside ourselves to get these needs met. The problem with expecting others to meet our need for love, respect, acceptance or anything else is that we are gambling with our self-esteem. In essence, we are giving other people the power to make us happy or sad when the power actually lies within ourselves. Our attempts to get our emotional needs met can lead to a whole range of unhelpful behaviours and unhealthy relationships. Have you ever stopped to question why you are spending so much money or acquiring more and more stuff, for example? What need is this meeting within you? When we take responsibility for our own emotional needs we take back the responsibility for our happiness. Loving ourselves means developing the quiet self-confidence that comes from knowing our own worth. When we love ourselves, we make it easier for others to love us. And, as an added bonus, whether or not another loves or not becomes irrelevant as we are already bathed in our own self-love.

Overcoming negative beliefs about themselves

Most of us carry around negative beliefs about ourselves which may go back to some of our earliest childhood experiences and which we may or may not be aware of. Often, these beliefs reveal themselves in times of stress or in our emotional reaction to others. Negative beliefs about ourselves are toxic to our wellbeing and happiness and much of our energy can be taken up in trying to prove them wrong rather than endeavouring to change them. It can be nigh on impossible to love ourselves if, fundamentally, we believe we are a worthless person. But, like a piece of faulty software, our brains can be reprogrammed to overcome negative beliefs. Succeeding on doing this creates fantastic opportunities and provides a solid foundation on which to build greater self-esteem and self-worth.

Avoiding comparisons with others

Comparing ourselves with others can lead to dissatisfaction, discontent and a sense of not being good enough. It can produce unhealthy competitiveness and distract us from our own path. Our comparison culture fuels consumerism and unhealthy workplace stress. When we focus on our own happiness, rather than looking around at others we are far more likely to achieve the peace and wellbeing that we are looking for.

Right now, in our Western culture, we have a model of happiness that says “as long as everyone can see how happy I am, I must be happy.” So, we go on pursuing more and more stuff, working harder and harder to achieve the badges of success that never quite deliver on their promises of happiness. By working on our own emotional happiness, maybe we will realise that we don’t need so much stuff. Maybe we will be content not to work so hard. Maybe we will discover inside the happiness that has eluded us for so long while we’ve been searching in all the wrong places.

Read more:
The six habits of happy people

We are clearly enjoying the reflected glory of those who have dedicated the last four years of their lives, often far more, to reaching the top of their sport. Now the special gold nosed plane has landed the athletes from all disciplines are doing the breakfast and daytime TV sofa slots and everyone is feeling good.

But what happens when the glory fades away? What next?

For many it is simply the start of their next 4 year cycle as they review their performance and start working on improving their performance for the next Olympic games. Tom Daley is a classic case. He has stated that he is taking some time out to be with family and friends to get over his disappointment but he is clear he will be back. For others there is a painful reality which is that everything they have been working towards for so long is no longer relevant. You can’t be a top performing athlete for ever. You can’t live for that long on past glories. Some will join the speaker circuit to prolong the feeling of attachment to their previous success. Others may succumb to the attractions of Strictly Come Dancing and all the other myriad celebrity shows that dangle the carrot of extended public adulation in return for taking a risk with reputation.

A top performing athlete will generally end their career for one of three reasons. They either realize that they can no longer perform to the standard, the enjoyment of the punishing training schedules is no longer there or they are injured. Given the nature of the athletes and what they are aiming for, having plans in place for retirement is not really part of their mindset. After all, people may challenge you on whether you are really focussed on your end goal if you are planning when you will finish. An exception to this rule is Mo Farah who has announced his retirement after the world championships in 2017. Despite this though he still says he will race in marathons, so he is not completely letting go. The reality, however, for most  is no distractions and focus, focus, focus.

This means, of course, that unlike high achievers in industry, who share a lot of the personal qualities that top performing athletes have, retirement can be a shock to the system even if it was expected.

Factors that hamper Healthy Retirement from Sport

My sport/skill defines me

This is a common aspect that challenges people of all professions but one which can be exaggerated in Olympic athletes. In simple terms this is where their status as an Olympic athlete becomes the very thing that defines them. They lose perspective on the other aspects of their lives and it can become a monster that consumes every other aspect of their person. In the real world this can be prevalent in career minded competitive corporate overachievers. Add a dose of public scrutiny, public interest and intensive immersion in the sport and it is easy to see how athletes can become defined by their sport. Of course, having something that is such a large part of defining you in the world taken away quite quickly can have a devastating effect mentally.

It’s a huge part of my self esteem

This is the part of us that connects to our ego. The problem we have with our ego is that it finds it much easier to direct itself towards external validation than internal validation. If you exist in a world where the improved times, the results and  the public commentary is all part of how you feel respected, loved, appreciated and accepted, then it is a tight rope walk you are on. A tightrope walk with your esteem held in the balance by outside forces. Personally the thought of that scares me.

If the success you achieve is what boosts and maintains your self esteem then when the success is no longer there the associated feelings can be closely equated to depression.

I’ve been using it to disprove negative beliefs

One of the greatest motivators I have ever experienced was the fear of failure and I am well aware that a large part of me since I left school has been trying to disprove the negative beliefs I developed about myself. This can be same with high achieving athletes and, let’s face it, high achievers in any field. Just because the rest of the world can see that you are the best there is, it does not mean that the little negative self talk stops. It is often the negative self talk that drives people to achieve amazing feat in order to disprove their negative voices that whisper to them that they are  failure, a bad person, ugly, fat or stupid. This is also linked to the self esteem and the external validation. The point is that whilst we are successful then the whining, moaning, whinging, negative self talk quiets down but it doesn’t go away. When we are feeling less successful the noise amplifies. These voices know when to talk to best effect. There will be many people who retired from any career and sat staring into the void that was their self esteem.

Continual Future Focus

As Charlotte Dujardin won her 3rd gold medal and made history her fiancé was in the background wearing a T shirt with the words “Can we get married now?” emblazoned on it.

The challenge here with an athlete’s life is that they are continually training for  future event. They are only ever in the moment when they perform for those few, exciting, dramatic and potentially life changing seconds. As humans we have a propensity to dwell on the past or over analyse the future. Dwelling on the past is a way we keep ourselves unhappy and continually looking to the future is a way we keep ourselves armed and ready for battle. A lot of research is going on into mindfulness and behaviours and habits that enable us to make the most of the present moment. The journey towards the present is a gradual one and not achieved overnight. Again to be focussed on the future for so many years and for that future to so suddenly be in the past can be a challenge.

It feels appropriate to quote Lao Tzu “If you are depressed you are living in the past.  If you are anxious you are living in the future.  If you are at peace you are living in the present.”
I was not ready to stop

This is the toughest hit and can often mask a combination of the other issues. Whether it is injury, age, slowing down or all three, if retirement feels forced upon you it can be a harsh message to to deal with. The feelings associated with retirement can be closely related to bereavement but when the decision was taken out of your hands this is magnified many times over. Some time can be spent dealing with this one issue alone before realising potentially, that there were other issues lurking underneath the surface such as the lack of self esteem.

The feelings come flooding back

In order to drive ourselves forwards many of us have been conditioned to or learnt to suppress our feelings. We are most practised at suppressing those feelings that recognise and show the world our vulnerability such as fear, hurt and sadness. At best we will express them through the energy of anger to give ourselves energy to drive ourselves forwards. Suddenly having something taken away that has given meaning to our lives for so long can unlock a hidden chest of suppressed feelings which are difficult to deal with. Being able to acknowledge and allow our full range of feelings is a skill that can be learned.

As I write this I am reflecting that it is not exactly a cheery article and one could be feeling quite depressed at this moment. There is, however, hope. There is always hope. Any of these issues can be handled with the right level of support.

Here at Calm People we would advocate rather than getting the right support now why not do what most successful people do whether they are athletes or leaders of industry. Plan for when the success may not be there. Acknowledge that whether we reach number one of not, that is a moment in time. There will always be a challenger and there will always be a winner and a loser.

By taking care of our emotional health we can make sure that losing does not make us a loser. Failing to reach our goals does not define us as a failure and we can still have self respect and self appreciation no matter what feedback we get from the rest of the world.

The strengths that contribute to our success can often be over played and can contribute to challenges in other parts of our lives. As with the way we may look after  our cars, regular care and support from skilled experts can mean we can achieve huge success or not and still be alright.

Read more:
After the glory has gone – post olympics resilience

There is so much being written and discussed about the result of the EU Referendum and it’s possible impact that there is a risk we may all start to ignore it. That said, whether we switch off to the background noise or we listen closely hoping to pick up every nuance and it’s potential impact, the fact is we all still have decisions to make.

In my discussions with organisations post referendum it is becoming clear that in certain businesses the impact, or the as yet not clear impact, of the referendum is being used as a reason to delay decisions from being made. In my previous article (Surviving or thriving in uncertain times) I talked about the two main mind sets that may be prevailing.

Here I would like to look a little more at what may be going into decision making to help some of us understand why we may be where we are. Where we are is a lot of people appear to feel they are in an environment where they are afraid to make decisions. Where decisions that they would have weighed up naturally pre-referendum vote are now loaded with an extra emphasis of black versus white or right versus wrong. Where decisions that would have been taken swiftly before the result was announced are not not being taken at all.

Emotion in our decision making cannot be ignored

There is a well known saying in sales which goes something like this “people buy on emotion and they justify with fact.” That is why you will often get very emotional adverts which are backed up with data. Think car adverts. In other words the marketers have picked up that we are essentially emotional decision makers but that we like to have other more rational information to back our gut feeling up.

Whilst there is a certain amount of truth in that assertion the reality is that we are, like a lot of these concepts, all on a continuum that has Rational & Logical at one end and Completely Emotional at the other. The question, though, is how does this play out in the decisions we make?

When I am working through decisions with my clients I introduce a simple four box model which is based upon two simple axis Rational & Fear which are the most common factors we find coming into decisions in varying degrees.

Being a four box model it can have a tendency to put people in boxes which is not the intention. The objective here is to help people work out where they are and what may be playing out in any decision they are making.

Also, being the nature of a four box model they tend to tell you what you already intuitively know. So this is an exercise in making something intuitive explicit with a view to moving our thinking on a little.

The Rational Based axis is simply how much data and facts are gathered in the decision making process.

The Fear Based axis is how much fear is taken in to account in the decision making process.

As you can see this leads us to 4 simplistic boxes as follows –

• Low on Fear and Low on data – This leads to the Just Do It (JDI) decisions. The gung ho “there’s nothing to fear because we know nothing” type decisions. It is worth noting that in an environment where decisions are not being made pressure can build up and lead to a series of these risky decisions being made.
• Low on Rational Factual data and high on fear – This can lead to procrastination. It is often at this point that I am challenged that when people are procrastinating “are they not simply spending a long time looking at the facts?” In my experience both professional and personal when we are procrastinating we are not considering anything we are simply stuck in our fear.
• High on Rational Logical data and low on fear – This can lead us to be so convinced of our case that we push on regardless of any other counter intuitive data that may be available. As I have already asserted very few quality decisions have zero fear awareness.
• High on Rational Data and High on Fear – This takes us to the harmonious or balanced decision box. For some this is counter intuitive because they cannot see how high levels of fear can be conducive to a harmonious decision. Sometimes it is better to think of this as a high awareness of fear backed up or balanced out with high levels of data.

This highlights a subject we often cover on our workshops. The acknowledgement of and the space allowed for feelings in our lives. Too many of us are educated and influenced to suppress and hide feelings to a point where it is not healthy. This model allows to acknowledge that we have feelings, that fear is a central one in decision making and that it should not be ignored or allowed to take over.

The key to box four is that  –

• Decisions do get made
• Balanced decisions get made
• It acknowledges that very few decisions are Black & White or Right & Wrong choices. It acknowledges shades of grey and contingency.

I have made very few decision that did not have some unintended impact that I had not accounted for. That’s life, live it!

In Summary unless your business is entirely dependent upon EU funding or EU sales then today and for the next year or two very little is going to change and what changes will come will happen gradually. Getting stuck in our fear of the unknown is to place ourselves in the procrastination box.

The real and present danger is that by procrastinating we will accelerate and manifest the very issues we fear in the first place.

I have used the term “self fulfilling prophecy “in previous articles and this is relevant here. We are the architects of our own destiny, we simply need to acknowledge that and take action.

I’ll finish with a couple of quotes –

“When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice”

William James

“Life is the sum of all your choices.”

Albert Camus

Read more:
What’s your decision making like in the vacuum? Are you Gung Ho, Procrastinating, Convinced or Harmonious?

When we have been debating and attaching ourselves to a polarised point of view, whatever pole you were at, when the debate ends we are often left with a sense of loss. On the day I voted I experienced some kind of withdrawal symptoms because the major news and media channels stayed away from the subject on that one day. That was just for one day.

For those of us where the result did not go the way we wanted we can be left with a sense of loss not just for the fact that we did not win but that we can no longer change the result or argue the other side round. For some of us the only way we know to combat that feeling of loss is to continue arguing our point in spite of the fact that it will do no good whatsoever. This need to continue the argument is interesting and connects to our core feelings on a number of levels.

Firstly the level of anger that is being expressed by e-mail and on social media is high. This suggests that there are number of feelings at work here They are likely to be fear as those who argued vociferously for a remain vote will naturally be scared of the outcome of a leave vote. To be fearful is to feel vulnerable and acknowledging that in this day and age is less and less fashionable. Instead we use our anger to hide our fear and perpetuate conflict as if it is a rational and adult thing to do.

To be scared is one thing but to be hurt is another and there are a lot of people who have been hurt by this process both in terms of the result but also the level of the debate which has got personal, insulting and degrading at times. Once again, to be hurt is to be vulnerable and thus we chose more often express ourselves through anger.

With loss comes a sense of sadness and once again a feeling that is not one that is generally openly discussed and acknowledged in this society. Thus the need to cover it is strong and to generalise we return to anger. There is another direct connection to our anger here in that anyone who knows Elizabeth Kubler Ross model of processing will associate trauma and loss with a soon felt intense anger. Little surprise that this is happening in our society at the ,moment.

All of these assertions above are made with an empathetic heart. Seeking to understand why these behaviours are happening however it does not excuse them and some of the attacks and vitriol being expressed are not acceptable.

Blame, Justification and Empathy

When the chips are down the victim blames the victor and the victor justifies their position.

This is what is happening all over social media, where we do not hold back because we cannot see the eyes or the humanity of the person we are attacking at that moment. The leave voters are being attacked as if they are responsible for some heinous hate crime simply by putting an X in a box. In return they are justifying their position and in doing so will be seen by the other side to be gloating and lording it over them.

What neither side is doing is empathising with the position, circumstances, feelings or humanity of the other. Please remember this,

Just like it is impossible to empathise with another when I am angry and in conflict it is also impossible to be angry and in conflict while I am genuinely in empathy with the other person.

Try it. Try to genuinely see the world from the point of view of the person you are attacking. It is really difficult. Equally, if you can manage that trick by virtue of being able to see their point of view at that brief moment you will not be angry with them.

Perhaps if we were better at empathising we would not have needed a black or white, right or wrong divisive and conflict engineering vote in the first place.

Whatever our position remainer or leaver we are all in the same place now.

The Vacuum

We are all in the post vote vacuum where the result is declared but the impact is really unclear, we do not know what really happens next and what it will feel like. We all want answers and we all want certainty but we won’t get them for a long time.

The conservative party battle for a new leader will raise more questions than it answers. The uprising from the MPs in Labour against their leader has to play out and is likely to cause more confusion and uncertainty.

Once article 50 is triggered and the formal 2 year negotiation starts we will have plenty of headlines to chew over but what they really mean will take 2 years, may be more to really understand and experience.

Meanwhile if the normal standard of politics continues then everything that goes well for the economy will be in spite of the vote or because of it depending what side of the debate you are. Every jolt to the economy will be because of the result and nothing to do with the economy and, of course, nothing to do with the growing uncertainty we generate by being in continuous conflict over the result.

Where does Emotional Resilience fit into this?

My own personal definition of personal emotional resilience is expressed in two ways.

In spite of everything life throws at me I am still capable of joy. Or

A deep seated belief and knowledge that whatever happens I will be all right.

Both  of those definitions are lived through having a healthy relationships with fear (we call it stress) taking care of my self esteem and being aware of my nagging inner critical voice that seeks to undermine me.

By being careful about my emotional resilience I am more likely to empathise and less likely to move into conflict and when votes go against me I am less likely to take them personally.

By taking care of my emotional health I am able to be more rational and start to make calm decisions. Decision that acknowledge the truth of where we are and look forward to the future without the clouded goggles of fear, anger and at times hatred.

By having clarity we can have calm decision making. By moving forward calmly we can join together and be come a great nation that deserves our exulted place on the world stage where we continue to punch above our weight.

Read more:
Resilience in the Vacuum

We have voted to leave the European Union

Many people can’t seem to accept that and are still living in the conflict and arguing over issues that were about influencing a decision that is in the past.

The party in power, the Conservatives are fighting over who will lead them

The official opposition, Labour,  is fighting over who should lead them and there are so few parliamentary MPs who support the current leader that the Scottish National Party have suggested that it should be they who take the place of official opposition.

Europe is saddened by our decision and we still cant appear to believe it.

Out of all of this the one constant that will be with us all, irrespective of how we voted and how we feel, for the next few months and may be years is uncertainty and businesses do not like uncertainty.

The underlying feeling that accompanies uncertainty is fear and we really don t like fear.

Which side of the debate are you on? Battle stations or Business as usual?

Battle stations – Are you

• Pulling up the drawbridge
• Stopping spending
• Storing cash for the “war chest”
• Cutting back on staff
• Putting all expansion projects on hold

Business as usual – Are you

• Confident because you have been through a recent recession and learnt that it wont kill us
• Seeing the opportunities that change always brings
• Take the view that most business spending is actually investment in a strong future
• Take the view that those that remain healthy and strong in this period will be best placed to capitalise on the upside when it comes

In my opinion never has the choice of which self fulfilling prophecy we choose to follow been so stark.

To state that in even simpler terms, if we take the battle stations option then we are inevitably drawing ourselves down the long drawn out battle route. If we take the business as usual option and look for opportunity we will direct our energy towards success no matter what leaving the EU means in financial terms.

As you may expect we are having plenty of conversations with our clients which range from SME with 30 team members up to investment houses in the City. There is currently an even split which ordinarily may mean 50 per cent of our clients were holding back on investing in their teams and thus a 50 per cent reduction in activity. IN reality the ones who are choosing business as usual are increasing the investment in their teams and for us it roughly balances out.

Hear at Calm People we are essentially a training provider. We are training with a difference and an extreme speciality but it is training/workshops nonetheless and in uncertain times for those that pull up the drawbridge and take the siege mentality training is often the first budget cut in favour of the war chest.

This leads me to that apocryphal story that is told by all those selling training.

A CFO and his CEO are discussing training budgets and the CFO says “what if we spend all this money training them and they leave?” to which the CEO replies “what if we don’t and they stay?”

This naturally leads to another quote attributed to Richard Branson “Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

Our speciality is emotional resilience. Now more than ever we need to be emotionally resilient. If we wish to make sensible decisions in uncertain times that are not founded in fear we need to be emotionally resilient.

Naturally we would make the case that this is the number one priority whether you are in siege mentality of business as usual state of mind.

What happens if we focus on our teams resilience?

• Employees really get the message that you value them. Resilience is a life skill which, for many, will be a benefit more outside of work than in. Remember the things that slow, distract and cause absence from work are often factors outside of the workplace but it’s the employer and the team that suffers.
• As this sinks in morale rises. You care, of course you care but by taking an authentic interest in your employees emotional and mental health they really understand that you are investing in them as a human being rather than a cog in an efficient machine.
• As morale increases then their engagement with the business and it’s objectives increases and the magic really starts.
• As a result of the factors above productivity increases and efficiency improves. Less absence equals more productivity, less stress equals less conflict, back stabbing and moaning and thus, more focus.
• These healthy, engaged high morale teams are ready to pounce on every opportunity there is and make the most of it and this is what we all need in this uncertain environment.

All of those messages apply to both states of mind. Remember a siege mentality can be a damaging, self limiting and above all emotionally unhealthy state of mind. Emotional Resilience is essential.

To put it another way if you want all hands to the pumps but you have under resourced them by not investing in them just how good are they going to be at pumping?

Life is about choices, to be human is to have the capacity to decided our own fate.

I know what I will decide and which self fulfilling prophecy I will sign up for.

Read more:
Surviving or thriving in uncertain times

Those are the bare facts. There will be other facts but they are all we need to know at this time.

Last week I published a post (A Referendum – A lesson in how to end up in conflict) in which I talked about the toxic atmosphere of the debate and how we can deal with facts but we get very, very attached to our opinions. We have done and will go to war based on opinions.

I started this with facts because as humans we are actually quite good at dealing with facts. Hopefully going forward we will lessen our ability to confuse opinions with fact.

So where are we now?

It’s fair to say that broadly 52 per cent of voters (and therefore the country) are feeling that combination of happy and triumphant. There may also be a little of the uncertainty and “now I committed have I done the right thing?” feeling circling in other minds.

The other 48 per cent are likely to be experiencing shock quite a lot of fear because, yes you guessed it, their fears may be realised. This of course may be expressed more readily as anger because that’s what we do best.

How we deal with victory or defeat is what defines us as humans

What does this mean for us as a whole?

Rather than reacting in the moment try stepping back and observing others doing exactly that. Listen to your colleagues, watch your friends and family. Take a look at your Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn feed and notice the reactions. I emphasise these are reactions, many of them, not considered responses.

Reactions I have anecdotes of so far are as follows – 

Outbursts of sarcastic “what has the world come to” posts on facebook with plenty of like minded friends joining in the pity party. Let’s be clear when we do this we are setting the stalls out for continuing conflict which is rarely productive.

Partners storming round their homes shouting about the consequences to them, their jobs/businesses and their families. “We’re all doomed” type behaviour rarely helps anyone and it is worthwhile stopping and thinking about whether we are role modelling positive resilient behaviour traits to our children. Children learn more through role modelling than anything else.

An individual, so incensed by the “leave” vote, when driving in to work came across a road of houses with “Leave” banners and posters in the gardens. They felt so aggrieved they stopped their car, walked on to other people’s property and tore the banners down and stamped on them. Not surprisingly that turned into confrontation and conflict. It would wouldn’t it!!

How we react and respond will colour the relationships we have with those that voted differently going forward. How we react or respond now could move towards healing or more division.

What does this mean for the 48 percenters?

Moving on is not always easy for some. Some will need to sit in their shock,misery and fear for a while and if you do then I advise you to do just that. Let it settle. Denying it, repressing it or over expressing it will not help. It will only hurt others or ourselves.

Once we have let it settle here’s a few things to consider

• We were all given the choice and we have exercised it. This is part of living in a democracy and the vote does not always go the way we wish it too. That is a fact.
• Recognise that facts are more important than judgements or opinions. It’s the opinions that so often lead us into toxic conflict.
• Look for the positives – change inevitably brings opportunity. We may not see it yet but it does. Experience shows that time and time again.
• Like it or not and whether we voted in or out most of the country is stepping into the unknown. We have voted for something we cannot reliably predict. This means we are now out of our comfort zone and you know what happens when we are outside our comfort zone?…..personal growth. This is a huge learning and growth opportunity.
• We have a choice about how we view this. My choice will be one of optimism and growth. I will choose to be someone looking back in 5 years and finding the positives from the decision. You have a choice, to be positive and engaging or to be bitter.

What about the 52 percenters?

Quite a few of the “out” voters are expressing shock today. It’s as if we voted for it whilst not really believing it would happen. Those in this position may be ones who were feeling rebellious and just wanted to make a point. The underlying feeling with shock is most often fear, and that means we already have something in common. We are out of our comfort zone together.

Those who are feeling happy and triumphant enjoy the feelings. Please, however remember, the way you express them and where you choose to express those feelings will colour the healing process between those who voted in and yourselves.

I am clear that whoever voted for what, none of us were voting for a divided Britain.

So what happens going forward?

The trading landscape is not going to change immediately and when it does it may so subtle that it makes near enough no difference. We do not know what an “out” negotiated deal and relationship with Europe looks like or feels like. It will take some time to form.

The markets, however, have reacted and they are reflecting the fear that comes with uncertainty.

Uncertainty brings stress and stress bring illness, absence and lost productivity just at a time when we can least afford it.

If we wish to negotiate a strong exit deal we need to do this from a position of authentic, confident economic strength. Not fearful, unhappy, uncertain tentativeness.

How we as an economy and a nation make the most of this will be defined by our relationship and our tolerance for fear and uncertainty. We need calm decision making.

In summary, dealing with uncertainty requires calm decision making. Pulling together as a team and as a country to make the best of this requires an ability to let go of conflict and see the bigger picture and the longer term goal.

We made a momentous decision last night and it will affect our lives going forward. How it affects us is our choice and I, for one,  am interested in making the best of it……are you?

Read more:
The Referendum Result – What’s your drug…..fear….anger…..smugness?

No matter how job titles have moved on I was not prepared for finding someone genuinely offering their services as an Evil Genius.

As job titles developed from simple descriptions the next stage in their evolution was that of manager. I always aspired to be a manager but it was not long before the title was devalued by job title inflation and suddenly people who did not manage anything or anyone had manager in their title. Then we moved in to an era where the job title was meant to not only reflect what we actually did but was meant to make the role sound attractive so that others would want to join in and aspire to that job title. Roughly around this time the special title of Consultant was born which, in many industries, simply replaced the title salesperson and thus there are literally millions of people with the word Consultant in their job title leaving me wondering if there are so many people consulting who indeed is consulting them?

Now we seem to be in an era of the selfie we also appear to be in the era of the selfie job title i.e. job titles made to get attention quickly in a world where our average attention span is diminishing day by day and this is where my attention rests (albeit very briefly) today.

Whilst searching LinkedIn for a contact I had met I came across an individual whose job title was Evil Mastermind. This led me to do a search based on this job title and I discovered that on LinkedIn there in fact 30 people with the Evil Mastermind in their job title. Refining that to “current job title” and the search revealed 27 suggesting that 10% have since retired. Do you ever retire from being an evil mastermind or are you retired by Secret Agents of which there are currently 898. Of course there will only ever be one 007 except that at the time of writing this there were 4. They can’t all be the real 007 so I am drawn to the one with the enigmatic employer Spies R Us. This leads me to conclude thus far that the ratio of secret agents to evil masterminds is an optimum 33 secret agents needed to keep in check 1 evil mastermind.

I thought I would take it to another level and see how many Evil Genius’s there are in the world of job titles. It turns out there are 138 although only 102 are active. Now we all know Evil Geniuses need a different type of deterrent to keep them under control and for that we need… wait for it…Super Heroes of which there are currently 587. A much lower ratio needed but one would expect that wouldn’t one? After all super heroes are super.

Just to prove that good wins out in the end though there are 15473 different types of genius out there and only 138 of them are evil. Clearly the rewards are deemed greater for geniuses of a non-evil nature.

This started me on a whole voyage of exploration and discovery. Did you know there are 39049 Gurus out there? Now what do Gurus need to validate themselves as a guru? Its followers, of which there are only 1400 which, suggests all those gurus out there are not doing a great job.

There are 748 people with rebel in their job title and only 98 conformists suggesting that there is indeed a cause out there.

There are 3 Queen of England job titles out there one of which resides in Washington DC. Is she trying to tell us something?

I always thought that those with the title of Head Honcho were people who wanted to tell you they were the boss but wanted to show they had a sense of humour. There are 4234 of those. Bosses that simply call a boss a boss are more prolific there are 156799. Of course bosses and head honchos need workers and luckily there are about 1.18 million people with “worker” in their job title which may make those boss types feel better but somehow does not feel quite right given that LinkedIn has more than 350 million users. In an attempt to top up those numbers I also found 187 underlings of which 8 were chief underlings (there’s always a hierarchy even at the bottom) and 9302 slaves of various descriptions. I am still left wondering if there are too many bosses in the world.

As my curiosity grew I realised that everywhere in life there will always be a b****rd somewhere. In fact there are 9 self acclaimed lucky ones, 53 lazy ones and 1 nasty b****rd .

Finally I wanted to share with you a few of the more unusual job titles out there. I found…..

• 1 Master Pedant & Nitpicker
• 1 Bomb-Throwing Anarchist and General Misanthrope who incidentally used to be a Smarmy SOB…that’s some transition.
• 1 Rude Frenchman who has clearly decided to live the stereotype.

What does all this tell us about the world and our job titles? Not a lot but it does tell you a great deal about what I find amusing.

It does show that there is a lot of humour out there and a lot of people seeking to distinguish themselves by their title and not necessarily succeeding.

It is worth remembering that that humans are the most judgemental of species. One of the ways we make ourselves feel better about ourselves is to seek to make out we are higher up in some way than others. This can be through our job titles or simply through the thoughts we have about those seeking to distinguish themselves by their job title.

Of course, a lot of these job titles shout about what they think they are, aspire to be or care about. May be the real super heroes are the ones that don’t shout about it and simply get on with battling evil geniuses in their own quiet way.

What are your favourite job titles and what do you think they say about the world we live in? Tweet me @TheCalmPeople or comment below.

Bearing in mind what we are doing when we are being judgemental please stop yourself from being deliberately hurtful or malicious in your replies.

Read more:
My search for an evil genius

That’s great news, and whilst the energy and the scale of the project is exciting, it does present challenges – the most notable being, how do we get enough qualified and skilled people ready to deliver a large scale project?

In any business, where it is growing and where people are central to the delivery, the growing pains will be felt. Business owners all over the world continue to ponder whether they would rather stay the size they are and just work for themselves or if they are going to grow, how do they do it in a controlled manner?

For us the challenge is exaggerated as we move from being asked to deliver four or five days of top quality workshops at a time to committing to delivery of Emotional Resilience workshops for organisations that are concerned about thousands of people. That in itself sounds fantastic but what happens at the end of the project to all the people needed to deliver it?

For us, the answer became clear. We need to use an associates model rather than employ. From our perspective employing people was to bureaucratic, not fast enough moving and from a personal point of view carried a fear of having to start processes and systems that had been one of the reasons I had enjoyed leaving a large organisation behind in the first place.

There were other factors that influenced our decision as well. One of those is that there are a decent number of quality facilitators out there who we could call on to work with us when we need them. Many of those, like us, enjoy the flexibility of working for themselves and being able to choose the projects they get involved in. In other words even if we wanted to employ them, they probably would not wish to be employed.

Knowing that we have a flexible and skilled workforce available to us on demand but without all the overheads sounds like a dream come true. There are, however, a number of precautions you need to take if you are going to go down this route.

By the time we had worked through them some of it, it feels surprisingly like we may be employing people under a different name. In other words just because they are self employed it does not mean that you as the main contractor to the project have no responsibilities. As we worked through what we needed to do, we realised there were key areas that needed attention.

Start with the end in mind
Where have you heard that before? It’s true. In this case it applies to giving plenty of time to building a network of associates who could work with you and who you would want to work with. There is no point being so focused on tying down a deal on a large project and not being confident in the team which will work with you. Trying to gather them at the last minute because you never believed this big project was really going to happen will lead to hastily made decisions and potential liabilities, instead of assets, being brought on to the team. This means we have had conversations and detailed discussions with facilitators up to a year ahead of talks on a project.

Communicate, communicate, communicate
If these skilled persons are going to work with you they need to know how you are getting on every step of the way. Waiting a year for you to tie up a big project is not going to pay their bills. They need to be working. Be honest with your virtual team about timescales, negotiations and potential. They will respect you for it.

Think of a number and double it
This does not relate to the fees you are charging. If the project you are discussing will need five people to deliver it then get 10 interested people and start communicating with them. The fact of the matter is that when you do sign a contract and start rallying troops some will be working on their own projects, another may be ill and may be another will have given up waiting and got a job.

Check their capacity
Associates may have children, may or may not have partners and may or may not be able to travel. I always have a note of how many days a week they can commit to and what their maximum travelling distance is.

Be clear about your standards
The work we do is specialised. The material we deliver, in some cases, is unique and in other cases the way we do it is unusual. This means that a lot of our colleague’s have not experienced it in this way before and they are the ones that need to deliver it. Time needs to be set aside for training and you need to be absolutely clear about what needs to be done, when and how.

Put contracts in place
At first this seemed an anathema to me. I wanted to stay away from bureaucracy. After a really useful chat with a lawyer I saw sense and realised that a contract is really another way of being very clear and explicit about expectations. They protect your associate and they protect you. They protect your IP and stop you accidentally employing someone.

Seek feedback
The feedback loop is important to me when I deliver workshops because I know it’s a vital link to the customer. It’s even more important when I am not the person running the workshop. In fact it becomes one of my only means of knowing how it’s going. Get both formal and informal feedback. Your customer will love the attention you are giving it and it will strengthen the relationship.

So if you imagine that even before you secure a project that is large enough to scare you into planning how you would deliver it, you have started planning, then you have cracked it. If you imagine having contracts, training people, being clear about standards, having to assess capacity and continually be communicating with them then you may be wondering why you don’t just employ them in the first place. May be that’s the right decision for you.

For us we know we have made the correct decision, we just need to take as much care over these new colleagues as we do about the workshops we deliver in the first place.

Ultimately, if you want a moveable and flexible workforce you need to be movable and flexible in your thinking.

Read more:
Using Associates: The low effort option?

It can be stressful running a business and as small businesses we can experience a whole range of emotions many times a day depending upon the nature of our business environment and what type of SME issue we are dealing with at the time. But all of us will recognise that all too often we are under stress, however, few of us will realise how we behave when we’re under stress and what the impact of this can be on us and our businesses.

How well we deal with stress will impact upon our behaviours, and our relationships with the people we work with. My own personal experience of stress is one of being able to work relentlessly under stress. I used to think I was really good at working in a stressful environment but in actual fact I was very good at working under stress, just not very good at dealing with it – and this is not uncommon.

Do you know how your personality changes when you deal with stress? Take a look at the seven stress characters below and see if you recognise yourself?

The Time Thief
This character, when feeling overly challenged, resorts to the time (no pun intended) honoured tactic of seeking everyone else’s opinion on the issues they are facing. They think they are seeking advice but what they are really doing is taking up valuable time and attention from others. Taking advice on a difficult problem is often appropriate, after all our success is a factor of the people we work with in a team, however, what is not appropriate is using the seeking of advice as a means by which issues can be put off, avoided or forgotten about altogether.

The Self Improver
This person has more self help books on the shelf by their workspace than anyone else. They can quote you chapter and verse of Covey and comment knowledgeably on the One Minute Manager. What they seem unable to do is actually put in to practice one percent of what they have read and what they avidly retreat to when under more pressure than they can handle. One particularly memorable senior executive we worked with could chart the ups and downs of his career and the different challenges he had faced by pointing to the books he purchased as a response to each situation. The term losing oneself in a book is highly appropriate to this character.

The Caffeine Mainliner
You see them walking in grasping a large latte with a treble shot of espresso in it. This is their shield with magical qualities that will ward off all evil and keep troubles at bay. The reality being that they need more and more just to get to base level and all they are doing is lining large corporations pockets in an attempt to boost energy levels which have been eroded by overdosing on the very ingredient they now crave. Look out for the wide eyed manic stare and the mid morning personality change just before they rush off to get their shot of “normal juice”.

The Comfort Eater
Recognisable by the detritus of what they have consumed littering their desk and work area. These are the ones who have found that the warm feeling of a full belly filled with traditional comfort food gives them the temporary security to deal with the pressure they are under. Most often they have developed close relationships with a national burger chain and know the menu backwards. In these ever exposed and health conscious times some have become secret consumers of fat and sugar or have swapped to fruit without dealing with the quantity.

Drama Queen
Life is boring without a little drama and this personality likes nothing more than to share their life and their challenges with all of us. They relish major change events and big swings in the fortunes of their department because this is what they live for. Deadlines are not a target but just some added drama to look forward to and witnessing confrontation is an event that they can dine out on for weeks. They don’t want help they just want to share the energy and the feelings.

The Procrastinator
No decisions can be thought about long enough, no detail overlooked. The words “let me think about that” really mean “oh no more to deal with, if I put you off may be you will forget about it.” Once seen as taking their responsibility seriously now they may be seen as unable to delegate and obsessing over details that may make the difference between stop or go. Files, memos and requests will surround them and their e-mail box will overflow and reject your messages. You may see it as paralysis by analysis in reality it is fear of making the decision that is causing the freeze.

The overflowing cup
This person believes in the principle that if you want something doing come to a busy person. At least they buy into that when you say it to them as part of your preamble to persuade them to take on more responsibility. Closely related to the procrastinator they once found that pressure worked to make them more productive and have been applying the technique over and again ever since. The reality is that they are getting less and less done but taking more and more on. The only way you get a result out of them is make yourself a polite pain in the backside and get your agenda to the top of theirs.

Now the serous side
Caricaturing workplace personalities can be a bit of fun. The serious side is about raising awareness of the behaviours and the issues that go alongside them. In broad terms these behaviours, and many more, relate to three broad headlines which break down as Distraction, Denial or Despair. None of them are productive and actually have an impact upon productivity, morale and the businesses ability to deal with change.

The health effects of too much fat, sugar and caffeine are well documented. Not so well documented but increasing in evidence is the links between stress and heart attack or stroke, serious illnesses and impacts on the immune system. If you add in the behavioural issues that arise including conflict and sabotage and silo mentality then the possibilities for damaging efficiency are endless.

If you can recognise these behaviours as part of your stress response and recognise whether you are trying to distract yourself, deny the issues you are dealing with or simply wallow in the pit of despair, then you too can take action to move way from these damaging and dragging characteristics that could be the difference between your profitable and your breakeven point.

Image: office stress via Shutterstock

Read more:
Caffeine mainliner, self-improver or procrastinator? What’s your stress personality?

But it’s not about swearing, although that can often be a part of the unhealthy way we choose to express – the “F” word (and in this context) is “Feelings.”

We cannot interact with anyone or anything without triggering our feelings. You would imagine that with us having such a close relationship with them that we would be masters at expressing them but we are not.

We love to hate our feelings. We like to be thought of as a reasonable, caring and feeling human being but we all want to generate this perception, ironically, based on presenting we have none of the more controversial feelings – far be it for us to experience anger, resentment, jealousy or any of the other negatively perceived feelings. We generally reserve our feelings for special, emotionally-charged moments like weddings, funerals and disagreements and they’re often helped along by a drink or two as well.

If you take a moment and write down all the words you use to describe how you may be feeling during a given day you’d be surprised. When I carry out this exercise in workshops several things become apparent. Firstly, how little we talk about our feelings. Secondly the limited vocabulary we use. Thirdly the way we avoid actually describing how we feel, instead opting for exaggeration occasionally and minimising how we feel most often.

Avoidance

Put another way this is how we avoid actually expressing how we feel. The core words we have for describing how we are consist in general of “good, ok, great” and “fine.” These are the words of formality, politeness and cover up. They allow for the politeness of greeting someone. They support the formality of enquiring after their wellbeing without actually wanting to know how they are. They support the workplace cover up and pretence of discussing feelings and they do have a place and a reason for being.

Choosing your words

When we step off that safe zone of pretending to talk about feelings but not actually expressing ourselves we still have a fairly limited vocabulary. When I talk to groups about the words they use the most common words I am given are “excited, positive, not good, brilliant.” When brainstorming these with groups it often becomes evident that there is an emphasis of words that accentuate the positive and when seeking to describe less than positive feelings we go for the minimising option with words such as “frustrated, annoyed” or “anxious.”

In other words (no pun intended) we do not express exactly how we feel and when we get near to it we do not think our feelings are as valid as others and thus we minimise how we feel. This is, of course, until we have stored our negative feelings up long enough for the pressure to be unbearable and then we explode with some exaggerated descriptions of feelings such “furious” and “p****d off”

This demonstrates another workplace truism that negative feelings are not appreciated and only the positive is tolerated.

The repressed Englishman

At this point, let me be clear that I not advocating a sudden change in the workplace where we all have group hugs, feelings circles and moments of intense sharing. The reason these formalities we have in the workplace have developed is precisely because we do not like talking about feelings. They make us feel uncomfortable and we don’t come to work to feel uncomfortable. In addition, used in the right way, they maintain civility, an element of formality and improve efficiency. This is why we have developed an elaborate and intricate language for describing how we feel without giving away exactly how we feel. Clever.

The problem is the times when we really need to express how we feel. Those times when for whatever reason our boundaries are crashed by others. Then the problem we have is that by not expressing how we really feel we end up feeling uncomfortable thus achieving exactly the opposite of what we sought to achieve. When we feel uncomfortable we can’t concentrate. When we can’t concentrate then we are not as effective as we might be.

Furthermore, if we don’t express then we may repress. Repressing our feelings, burying them down and not acknowledging their power or their validity, is a dangerous game. The English, stereotypically are not great at expressing feelings and repression is one of our life skills. The problem with repressing feelings is that they do to go away. They stay and they fester and then they develop a power of their own and force their way out to be expressed at inappropriate moments or with inappropriate force.

The alternative

Let’s look at the words we could use to describe our feelings. These are the feelings that it is generally agreed are our core feelings. These are the ones we are hard wired with. Children are very good at expressing them until us adults have exerted our influence on them. They are happy, sad, hurt, shame, fear, and anger. The quick witted will have spotted that there are five negative feelings and only one positive one. That’s because when I am happy I don’t need another word to describe it. Equally, I need to be able to describe the difference between, for example, my hurt and my fear. Unfortunately at our best most of us oscillate between anger and happiness using anger to cover up the fact that we may be scared, hurt, sad or ashamed.

Vulnerability: Weak or brave?

You may have noticed that most of these core feelings are expressing vulnerability. In this competitive environment we all exist in, expressing vulnerability is not considered to be a safe or sensible thing to do. In fact there is some kind of myth that not expressing your vulnerable feelings makes you a stronger and braver person. I disagree fundamentally with this viewpoint. Those of us that are able to express vulnerability are actually the brave ones. Only the truly brave can make themselves vulnerable.

Express yourself

Most conflict, externalised and internalised, is a misunderstanding. Most people who hurt you or scare you in the workplace did not get up that morning and make a conscious decision to crash your boundaries. Most people, if they knew the impact they had on us would want to change their behaviour. It’s our responsibility to know our boundaries and enforce them. All too often we expect people to naturally know what our boundaries are.

Expressing feelings in a healthy manner is an essential part of maintaining our boundaries.

Being able to express how we really feel, when it really matters, is essential for healthy relationships at work and essential for our own emotional health and wellbeing. Take control of how you feel and find a way to appropriately share them, you will feel better for it.

Read more:
Using the F Word at Work

Can you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions?

• Do you fantasise that winning the lottery will solve all your problems and make you happy?
• Do you ever get accused of never being happy with what you have got?
• When asked the question above do you inwardly smile and acknowledge this as one of your secrets behind your success?
• Do you achieve major goals and milestones and realise that they did not make you as happy as you thought they would and so set yourself another target that will make you happy?
• Have you sacrificed relationships for your career/business because business makes you happier?
• Is being listened to, respected, appreciated and understood important to you?
• When you are not being listened to, appreciated or understood do you channel your energy into your business?
• Are the external signs of success such as the car you drive, the house you live in and the places you holiday important to you?

If the answer to any of those questions is ‘yes’ than the chances are you are, like many of us, using your business partly, if not wholly, to satisfy and support your sense of self. To put it another way you may feel that the outward expressions of success reflects the value of the inner person.
I would contest that it is actually exactly the opposite.

This starts a treadmill of emotional needs that goes something like this…we start to associate what others think of us with our inner happiness. There is no surprise that this happens since most of the marketing strategies used today play on exactly this weakness in the human psyche. Why else do we spend millions on beauty, skin care and clothes unless we worry what others think of us? Add in that many employers use appraisal systems to manage their employee’s performance, which is often linked to praise, validation, respect etc. Others go further and link appraisals to pay rises and the pavlovian reactions are being well and truly ingrained.

The conditioning in society to compare oneself to another is started at school, or earlier, and continues through life.

The natural extension of this is the consumer society we now live in where many of us associate our inner happiness with the accumulation of what is technically known as “stuff.” The more stuff we can acquire, the theory goes, the happier we will be and what’s more everyone else will see how happy we are.

The reality is that as we achieve these milestones such as the bigger house and the bigger job they only keep us happy for a little while. After that it sinks in that it has not made us happy as we thought it would and we find ourselves thinking that the next one will pull off the magical trick of making us happy and so it goes on… The endless search for fulfilment and happiness in the form of stuff.

Before you start recognising yourself in this and experience an emotional reaction towards the author let me be clear. I am not advocating that you cease to reward yourself for your efforts. I am not advocating that we stop spending money on stuff and only buy essentials because the economy would never recover. I am not advocating that we cease to try and motivate our employees. I am not advocating we stop having goals, targets and milestones.
So what am I suggesting?

I am suggesting that we should take responsibility for our own happiness and not reply upon others or stuff to make us happy. Taking personal responsibility for our happiness and our behaviour can be emotionally rewarding. Ultimately it can feel like giving ourselves the key to personal freedom.

A very wise man called Chuang Tzn wrote that “Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.”

I happen to think he is right.

Those of you that are thinking that if you were happy you would cease to strive, drive and achieve, please think again. You have fallen into the most common trap that keeps you from ever feeling happy. The notion that somehow you have to go through pain in order to achieve ultimate happiness. Actually this is the route to a lifetime of more and more pain and unhappiness. Ask yourself this… just how successful would you and your business be if you were actually happy?

Before any one starts to think I am becoming a “tree hugging hippy” let me re emphasise my view.

By all means set yourself goals, targets and milestones. By all means buy yourself stuff and accumulate wealth. Just do not rely on these to make you happy. If you are fundamentally a happy person then whether you achieve your goals and aspirations or not you will still be happy.

Go the other way and you will only measure your happiness by the stuff you have and how it compares to the other guy in the race and how much stuff he has. That’s a race you can never win.

I’ll end this with another quote to underline my central point. This time it’s from Mildred Barthel “Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.”

Read more:
Can your business really make you happy?

Firstly let’s examine why we would want Emotional Leadership. The reality is that Emotional Leadership is not new. Ever since tribal leaders, kings and revolutionaries have been sending troops in to battle there has been a need for them to emotionally connect with those who may sacrifice their life in their name. That does not mean they always did connect and perhaps some of the work we deliver today would have benefited the likes of Charles I.

In the present age Emotional Leadership is an essential component of getting the best of out your organisation. It is not, however, some surface level, skill based, manipulative management trick. This is where the leader develops a deeper understanding of themselves in order that they may lead with conviction, integrity and take their teams and organisations with them into the battle that we all call business.

Leaders are in a challenging position that involves them caring about customers, caring about results and caring about their employees. Leadership is about role modelling, being emotionally aware, and emotionally resilient. In this ever changing world resilience is vitally important and emotional resilience is what carries us through when the pressure is on. Emotional resilience and emotional leadership is all about self awareness, awareness of others and the ability to connect with those you lead on an emotional as well as intellectual level. Being clear about your personal direction, that of your business and communicating that to you teams in a way that connects is vitally important.

We started writing an A to Z of emotional leadership to help our clients understand what we mean. I thought I would share with you a few of the first letters.

Authentic – It is no longer acceptable to be “do as a say not what I do” type of leader. Most leaders accept this now. Being authentic is a little bit more than this though. There are many employees, managers and leaders out there that are taking a personality to work that they think fits the job, the role or the salary that they desire. In other words they do not bring their whole and true self to work with them. To carry on this act under increasing pressure and in a changing environment is an extra stress that no one should have to bear. Being authentic is about realising that you can be you, true to your core, and still be successful. When you are not being authentic people sense it and they do not listen to the leader that is not authentic.

Appreciative (of self as well as others) – It’s easy to appreciate others. It is not always easy to appreciate oneself. We meet many leaders who, perhaps doe to the environment they have learnt to manage in or due to their own fears are afraid to appreciate their teams and colleagues. Perhaps it’s the inbuilt fear that praise comes with an expectation of more praise. It often can, but it is a great motivator and can cost nothing. Others worry when they appreciate others they put themselves in emotional debt and as their leader they need as much coercive power as possible. Saying thank you for a job well done is a great thing to do and highlighting team members strengths and appreciating them for those is a great way of getting people to play to their strengths and build the strength of the team. The chances are we are preaching to the converted. When we say it is vitally important to appreciate yourself we will often find we get funny looks. Many successful but ultimately burnt out leaders are what we term “high achiever, low self esteemers.” They use their career/business as a way of shoring up and boosting their self esteem. They have a deep need for others to appreciate them when they do not really appreciate themselves. This can lead them to work harder and harder and drive themselves deeper and deeper into the ground. Appreciating yourself is a simple way of ensuring that you are successful because of the skills you bring and not simply because you work harder than anyone else.
Belief

So much is written about belief that it is hard to say any more. What we can add is that there is a deeply powerful source of energy that has almost unlimited potential that we tap into when we have true self belief. Its power carries us through the challenges, the stalling and the backward steps that are inevitable on the pathway to success. When we connect our self belief to our passion and link this with our emotional intelligence we can achieve anything we really want to achieve.

Why be an Emotional Leader?
There is no point me writing about this important subject unless I set out why you may want to allow emotional intelligence and emotional leadership to be part of your leadership style.

Emotional leaders connect with their company on a level that is more than just figures, targets, goals and strategy. Emotional leaders commit their whole self to leadership and do it because it is the right way to lead.

As a result they way they behave will be congruent with their beliefs and the way they communicate will resonate with their teams. They will have an abundance of empathy which will enable them to be demanding and challenging in a fat paced world without alienating the crucial soldiers that go in to battle for them.

Read more:
Should you be an emotional leader?

One issue that draws from evolution more than anything else and is also liable to be disregarded in the moment is our fear response, otherwise known as fight, flight or freeze. This simple decision-making mechanism that evolved to protect us from the threats of prehistoric life is working perfectly well today. In fact, for many of us, it’s working a little too well. Many of us, and I have experienced this, are continuously living in a state of hyper awareness and arousal. The problem with continuous shots of adrenalin in the system is that we get used to them and fail to recognise when we are becoming armed and ready to act.

The issue is that despite the fact that woolly mammoths, sabre toothed tigers and pterodactyls died out many millions of years ago, the mechanism that identifies and reacts to threats is alive and active in us. On occasions of genuine threat to our life that it will save our lives there is no doubt. Thankfully, those occasions are few and far between. Unfortunately despite the average level of risk having being considerably reduced over the centuries, our ability to perceive and react to threat is, if anything, heightened.

Instead of a carnivorous dinosaur we react to the boss sticking his head through our office door and uttering the immortal words “can I have a quick word” before walking away. Replace a stampede of woolly mammoths with the management team calling a whole company meeting and delivering the joyful news that “we are going through a change process.” The point I am making is that the threat may be different but the response is the same.

As the Amygdala becomes aroused and kicks into action, depending upon the level of perceived threat we will react in one of three ways. Classically labelled as fight, flight or freeze we often think of it as the worrier, the runner or of the fighter. What do you do?

The Worrier
Once upon a time in their life the worrier worried about something and it turned out alright. Since then they have been worrying about everything. Procrastination is their middle name and, if you work with them, don’t you just know it. Give a worrier a big decision to make and you could occupy them for weeks. Built in with that is their ability to withdraw to worry on their own so that you don’t even know what they are worrying about. Not useful if you are part of a team.

The Fighter
The fighter learnt that if you attack first and ask questions later it clears up a lot of issues and creates space. That’s what they think. In reality they are often attacking someone presenting an issue completely unrelated to their fear but who just happens to be in the way at the time. Of course this does clear space and sorts issues out in their mind in as much as they may be viewed as unapproachable and not someone to take a problem to for help.

The Runner
The runner rarely enacts their title in physical form, but if they do it may well be to the pub. What they do love to do, however, is to run away mentally. They like to distract themselves from the real issue by thinking of other things. They will spend hours sweating the small stuff in the hope that by concentrating on microscopic details the bigger issues will disappear or solve themselves. Sometimes they do but most of the time they don’t.

We all act out these roles at different times and it depends on many factors such as how big the perceived threat is, what’s worked well in the past and how healthy our own self esteem is at the time. Those of us that are finding ourselves continuously feeling challenged may develop other coping mechanisms to numb the fear or distract ourselves from the real issue.

You will all know people who use comfort eating to numb their fear or who use what they laughably call “retail therapy” to distract themselves from their unhappiness. Alcohol is a widely recognised addiction but ones that appear less sinister but are equally powerful are those of food, shopping and work addiction to name a popular few.
What’s the answer? Well a really good start is to actually acknowledge that you are scared and what you are scared of. That’s the beginning of a challenging and ultimately rewarding conversation with yourself that can lead to you completely changing your relationship with workplace stress. Meanwhile, awareness is vital so keep an eye on your own behaviours and see if you can catch yourself worrying, running or fighting.

Read more:
What’s your workplace fear response? Worrier, fighter or runner?

Did you know?

• Early January is divorce lawyers take the most enquiries from warring couples.
• The third Monday in January has been dubbed ‘Blue Monday’ and is said to be the most depressing day of the year.

So when you get back to work, the chances are that at least some of your team will be suffering from the January blues or a post Christmas crisis that will impact on their well being, as well as their productivity in the workplace. What you need to do, as a leader, is to distinguish the people that are just a bit miffed they can longer have a lie in or are disappointed that they’ve already eaten cake for breakfast despite a New Year’s resolution to be healthy, from those who are having a genuinely difficult time.

How can you tell the difference?
Some people may be upfront about their troubles, of course, some of your employees will be intensely private people who do not wish to share. Learning to spot the signs that things are not all well may help you help an employee and decrease the scale of the impact on the individual and the business.

If your employee is suffering from a significant issue, you’ll find one or more of the following signs:
• Changes in normal behaviours such as extroverts becoming introverted or vice versa.
• Poor time keeping
• Increase in absence
• Increase in alcohol or other substances
• Poor concentration
• Conflict happening where there was none before.
• Lower productivity
• Reduction in communication
• Loss of motivation

If your team member is just spending more time chatting, taking more breaks and surfing the internet, then the chances are, it’s just a bit of apathy experienced by most of us after an enjoyable break.

What can you do?
From a practical point of view, you can’t let your business suffer because your team members have issues. Equally, if an individual is suffering from significant stress, it’s vital to offer them the support that they need. From a humane point of view, it’s important to nurture individuals and from a business point of view, you’ll find that tackling the issue as soon as possible will not only resolve it quicker and will lessen the impact on the wider team and its outputs, but it will also ensure much greater loyalty from the individual, in the longer term, to you and the business.

There are some simple and effective interventions you can put in place that will work either for an individual or for a whole company.
• Hold staff awareness training to raise awareness of stress
• Get experts in to brief your staff on nutrition that promotes healthy a healthy balance lifestyle
• Bring in a Acupressure Massage Specialist to provide in house instant 15 minute stress relieving massages
• Arrange drop in days – don’t just say “my door is always open” publicise it, make a big thing of it.
• Arrange one to one chats with all your direct reports to catch up with how they are. Pay attention to their life outside work as well as inside.
• Invite Calm People in (other providers are available) to deliver empowering workshops that help everyone recognise and deal with stress in a healthy way.
• Take professional help from an HR adviser on how you can best support and employee suffering with stress
• Listen with empathy – can you genuinely see the worlds from their point of view with the problems they are facing?

All the above are good for awareness and support. They are also public demonstrations of you caring for your employees and being prepared to take action to support them. This has an important side effect of boosting morale and in my opinion that is better for stress reduction and improved productivity than most other interventions.

Remember, don’t just care, show that you care.

Do be wary of appearing to care and not following through. That can have worse consequences for employee relations. The organisations Calm People work with genuinely care, genuinely take action and as a result have great relationships with their teams.

So, don’t stress over stress. Take action, show you care and see the results.

Read more:
Post Christmas crises: How to help employees beat the January blues

I used to coach a Managing Director who ruled by fear. He didn’t think so but it was the case. When he didn’t like something that was happening in his business he told people “in no uncertain terms” as he called it.  That was his euphemism for verbally abusing people. He would shout, and sometimes scream, abusive and hurtful comments at members of his team and then he would wonder why no one brought issues to him and why he had to go and find problems in his business that needed sorting out.

His problem was not just that he was abusive or that he thought it was acceptable, but that he thought once he had given a team member  “decisive critical feedback” (another of his euphemisms) that  everything was alright and things could proceed as normal. In other words now that he had got the angry energy out of him and given it to someone else everything was fine with the world. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of that type of behaviour will tell you that is not the case.

I recently worked with another business owner who hated conflict. She would do her utmost to avoid it. She would rather crawl over broken glass naked than tell someone directly that she had an issue. She wouldn’t tell them directly but she would tell others. After all she needed an outlet for her issues. In addition she thought that she did not show her animosity towards those she was in conflict with but, of course, she leaked the truth. They experienced her as flouncing in and out of their offices, delivering acid drops of sarcasm and treating them like social pariahs amongst other members of the team. It wasn’t personal – at some point or other she treated everyone that way.

What environment do you work in?

I’ve written before about the cultures that develop in changing conflicting environments especially if teams do not feel able to be honest with each other or live in fear. The first example was that of an aggressive environment in the making. It would either develop into a culture of fear and retribution or one where the loudest and most aggressive wins every time. The second story is the start of a classic passive aggressive culture where problems are never sorted out, back biting and bitchiness are rife and more energy is expended acting out conflict than actually doing any business.  I gave more detail in my article in October (Sulking, shouting or sharing – what’s your company’s culture?) where I advocated a Sharing culture based upon healthy assertive sharing of feelings.

Can you change your company’s culture and ‘Clear the Air’?

Culture change is never easy and to commit to it you need to be aware of the issues that the other cultures create especially the inefficiencies they build in to your business. The costs to the business of not moving towards a healthy assertive culture can be felt in lost productivity (too much time back biting) , lower creativity (too much fear) and increased employee turnover (too much stress). This is why we call this process ‘Improving Efficiency Through Honest Communication’.

In brief, the business owner takes a decision to educate the workforce around stress, the triggers for conflict and what each individual can take responsibility for when they play a part in conflict. The final part of the process is learning a safe, healthy. Non-shaming process for communication feelings, often anger, to each other. We call this process Clearing the Air.

One organisation committed to this so well that the first agenda item on any of their team meetings was Clearing the Air. They had recognised that if they did not clear the air before they got down to the important act of talking about their business that the petty differences and conflicts that had built up over the last few weeks would get brought into their meeting somewhere, somehow and the conflict would be acted out when it was inappropriate and in secret.

This was a brave boss who sat there the first day and respectfully listened to her direct reports tell her how they felt about her behaviour in the previous week. It was also amazing role modelling. They found that by Clearing the Air first they removed negative feelings, cleared up misunderstandings and had far more positive and productive meetings as a result. They also learnt that by respectfully listening to how someone feels does not mean you have to agree. Often it’s the being heard that really matters.

So what’s your culture going to look like in the New Year? How will it affect your business? Crucially, which culture would make you want to get up every morning and give your best?

Read more:
Do you need to ‘Clear the Air’ in your company – and how do you do it?

I thought that as it’s the festive season, we’d all enjoy a little fun so pour yourself a glass of mulled wine and see which Christmas Party Characters you might be – and watch out for the rest at your festive shin dig!

The Christmas party season is upon us and as teams take this opportunity to let off steam the usual behaviours and characteristics of individuals can become exaggerated. The success or failure or the extent of the aftermath will be dictated by fore thought you have put in and the balance of characters you have in your team. Let’s examine the characters and the potential issues they bring.

The Excessor
This is the classic over played extrovert. Their personal slogan is “life is for living and I’m not going to miss it.”Their ideal night out consists of alcohol, dancing and more alcohol and more dancing. They assume that everyone has an extrovert inside them just waiting to be released and it is their role in life to help everyone set their inner extrovert free. Being the life and soul of the party they think everyone will enjoy their version of a night out. This personality can be a real problem if they happen to be the business owner. The downside to an Excessor is they will tire you out. On the other hand, every team needs on to give the party momentum.

The Repressor
The shy introverted member of the team who, quite frankly, would rather stick pins in their eyes than play games, talk about nothing in general and dance. Do not misunderstand them, it’s not that they don’t like their colleagues they just find social situations painful and exhausting. They may not turn up, feigning a cold or they could simply sit in the corner not talking to anyone all night. Under extreme social pressure and, in a vain attempt to be part of “the team,” they could consume far too much alcohol far too quickly and make a fool of themselves with the team Raver. In doing so they help reinforce the Excessors theory and give them a personal success of releasing someone’s inner extrovert. Their preferred night out is a night in! Too many of these in a team and your Christmas party will be held on line. On the upside their strong reflection skills are necessary to provide a much needed balance to the Excessor both in and out of work.

The Intellectual
This is the rational logical thought driven none emotional team member. They like dealing with problems because problems have solutions. Nice tidy solutions. They can often be mistaken for being negative because they are looking for and raising problems all the time. Actually they are simply making their life interesting and adding value in their way. They like machines, computers and office furniture (especially flat pack) because they don’t have feelings and never answer back. They think that the key to socialising is to talk about their chosen and favourite subject ad infinitum without drawing breath. They have obvious advantages in delegating organisation of the party to them as long as you are clear with what you want otherwise a real ale fuelled pub quiz is on the cards. They also bring the added advantage that there is never a problem finding a seat near them even in the busiest of establishments. They are great organisers but could be overly focussed on timing, accuracy and value for money.

The Cynic
The cynic sees everything as an opportunity to further their agenda. They will only drink to appear to be joining in but will likely be diluting or replacing alcohol with soft drinks. Their idea of a good night out is talking the boss into a pay rise, a new job title or allocating more funds to their department. For the team night out their objective is to elicit as much “classified” information out of the drunk boss to use throughout the year as ammunition to improve their position. Being sober automatically makes them the team photographer. Be scared, be very scared. Their ideal night out consists of networking and exchanging business cards. The downside is you never know they are really thinking and have to be careful what you say around them. The upside is that their negotiation skills are a huge asset when annual pay review time is here. You also need one sober person to keep an eye on everyone else.

The Raver
This is the newly divorced or single serial relationship fiend in the office. They are defined only by whether or not they are in a relationship. Their life and their existence is all about finding their next partner because unless you are in a relationship you are not a real person. They make great company for the Excessor since they too think that alcohol and dancing are the way to a new partner’s heart. They will be the first on the dance floor/ table strutting their mating rituals in public. Sadly they will probably also be the last ones on the dance floor at the end of the night having to be dragged off by the bouncer in tears of rejection despite having snogged three members of the company already. Their ideal night out is a singles speed drinking/dating excursion. Unfortunately the Raver may not hang around long with your party if their prospects are not good. ON the upside they are fantastic generators of workplace gossip and hugely entertaining company.

The point of these stereotypical descriptions is to highlight the fact that there will be a wide range of personalities in any business and they will have a wide range of preferences. They will however, have some common ground that could lead to a really good night out for all. Taking different views into account is about accommodating and allowing for difference. It does not equal diluting the fun. My view on the Christmas night out is that it is my opportunity to say thank you to those that have worked with me and helped me grow or sustain my business. That being the case I owe it to them to make it as enjoyable as possible for the majority, and that means having a little bit of festive fun along the way.

Whatever personalities you have got in your team, remember, Christmas is the season of goodwill and the workplace celebration is an opportunity to fully demonstrate generosity of spirit, goodwill to all colleagues and foster an atmosphere of inclusivity. Happy Christmas.

Read more:
Whats Your Christmas Party Personality?

I’ve identified six of the most common roles that people have in the workplace to deal with their anger. Which one are you? Which one is your boss? Read on to find out…

The Intimidator
This is the team member who cannot control their feelings and who at some point found out that they got their way by behaving in this way. Why else would they behave like that? They may shout and scream, they may threaten you physically whilst making themselves bigger to, you’ve got it, intimidate you. The ones that are really clever though, will lower their voices, move into your personal space while making direct eye contact. They don’t have to be loud and explosive to intimidate you. They are known for their ability to simmer for days.

The Whiner
“It’s not fair” they cry. “It’s not my fault, this is all your fault” they will say. This is the workplace victim. Of course, people do get victimise at work and I am not ridiculing their painful and very real experience. What I am describing here is an expression of anger. A way of slyly letting anger out. “Why am I the only person who maintains the filing system in their place? Everyone assumes that I am going to clear up after them. It’s not fair”

The Interrogator
They may not physically tie you down and shine a bright light in your eyes but the effect is very, very similar. Instead of saying “I am feeling angry with you,” this person goes into questioning mode. They know the answers to most of the questions already but that’s not the reason they are asking them. “How many client meetings have you had this month? How many phone calls have you made? What percentage of target did you make this month? Are you pleased with that performance?”

The Control Freak
This is a special way of doing anger because when in this mode we do not admit to being angry. To stereotype it this is the supervisor who strolls in to the workplace and start picking faults, challenging work rates and starting little fights. But, when they are challenged, they will say words to the effect of “if you did your job better I wouldn’t need to talk to you like this. I’m not angry I’m just challenging you. In fact, you’re the one that needs to work on your anger issues. Look at you now.” They never have arguments. The just have logical discussions which they never lose.

The Joker
Every workplace has one and they can be a lot of fun. An interesting question to ask is! Are they just having fun or do they have an issue with the n they are teasing?” The joker knows how to press your buttons and how to get you wound up. They will push and push until you are just about to burst and then they will retreat with the words “hey, calm down!! Can’t you take a joke?” In reality, when we are in this form of anger we are too scared to express our own anger so we are going to wind someone else up so that they express it for us. How clever is that?

The Destroyer
Often known as Conan the Destroyer. Destroyer of lap tops, kicker of doors and the smasher of mobile phones. The destroyer is going to show you how angry they are by breaking things. Of course they don’t have to break things to use this form of anger. Sometimes a drawer shut with just a little bit more energy than normal is the first sign. May be a few tuts and huffs and puffs under their breath is the warning of things to come before suddenly the key board hits the floor and they start swearing.

So here’s the question, which one are you? If you don’t think you fit any of those then you are likely to be in denial. Most of us will have used all of these techniques at some point, but the chances are that you’ll have a preferred style.

The key issue here is that by allowing ourselves and others to behave in these ways we build workplaces that are inefficient, uncomfortable and unhealthy.
• Inefficient because too much mental and emotional energy is expended trying to dance around each other rather than being healthy and assertive and clearing the air.
• Uncomfortable because when any of the above is being acted out it is not nice and that is distracting and that causes yet more inefficiencies.
• Unhealthy because it is not honest and dishonest relationships are not healthy and lead to more stress, more absence and less productivity.

A healthy workplace is where disagreements are encouraged, aired openly and resolved with positive intent. Being healthy and assertive about anger ensures that anyone of any status in the organisation can sit down with anyone else and clear the air in a healthy, non-shaming and healing way. It is the nature of humans to disagree. It does not have to be their nature to perpetuate conflict.

Read more:
Are you a Joker, Destroyer or Interrogator?

It’s a fact that people with low self esteem often need to validate themselves through achievement, and this can be of benefit to an organisation’s bottom line as well as a bonus for their bosses. Unfortunately though, when this is allowed to continue, they will often end up in my offices in crisis. In my private practice I see low self-esteemers-high achievers all the time. The link between stress, self esteem and conflict is so close that when it is not challenged some form of emergency is almost inevitable.

Low Self-Esteemers High Achievers are easy to spot. They’ll be the team members that are putting in more hours and more effort than anyone else. For example, they might be a sales consultants that needs to be top continuously and won’t accept anything else, or a team member that needs constant feedback and who takes up your time but you make allowances for because they are so valuable.

Have you noticed how they thrive on the validation? Have you noticed how they compare themselves to others? Have you noticed how no matter how much they achieve they never seem to be happy?

Are they high maintenance? Constantly seeking confirmation of how valuable/outstanding/brilliant they are? If so, you’ve got yourself a workplace Prima Donna.

You have always suspected it but the ‘greater than everyone else’ attitude and behaviours are not healthy. More often than not they are an elaborate cover designed to motivate and hide the scared, vulnerable and helpless person behind the mask.

In this economic climate where we all need to produce more for less top performers in any area of our business are valuable. As I talk with business owners many acknowledge that they are prepared to swap high maintenance for high performance. Those high maintenance-high performers are what I call the low self–esteemers-high achievers.

What’s self esteem really all about?

Self esteem is how highly a person values themselves. It is whether they consider themselves to be worthy. More specifically, it is about whether people consider themselves to be worthy of love, respect, appreciation, validation, acceptance and similar sentiments. It’s our own judgement of our own worth. As most of us will know, we are often our own harshest critics, as humans we are, in fact, experts at undermining ourselves and our sense of self worth.

Someone who does not feel that they are worthy or does not experience themselves as worthy of respect or appreciation does not sound like the ideal material for a high achiever, but they can be. My experience says that there can often be others at the other end of the scale, the Prima Donnas – putting themselves forward, taking risks, driving results, always needing to achieve more and seeming never to stop. The opposites to the low confidence underachievers in your team, the individuals that constantly avoiding responsibility, limelight, challenge and risk.

How does low self esteem drive business results?
Humans are a complicated species and our internal thought processes can be really complex. At the heart of it there is a complicated human equation going on which in simple form is as follows…

I experience myself as not being worthy of respect. I find this really painful to own up to, so instead I’ll seek external validation of my self-worth in the hope that it will contradict my internal script.

The external validation may be from my boss, my team, my colleagues, and friends or through retail therapy (retail therapy is a misnomer. It’s not therapeutic it’s addictive). At this point it gets really complicated and contradictory because if you tell me I am worthy of respect I will probably not believe you. On the other hand, if you don’t show signs of respect, then a whole different set of reactions that range from trying harder to get your respect to throwing my toys out of the pram and getting angry in an attempt to assert and demand respect. So you can’t win.

Most of us start off, however, with simply trying harder to get that external validation that we crave and a lot of us exist in that state for a very long time. It’s exactly that need for validation that so often drives top level performance.

Low self-esteemers-high achievers: Popular traits
Workplace behaviours that are generated by low self esteem can be behaviours such as:
• Perfectionism
• Aggression – over asserting
• Overworking – borderline addiction
• Over sensitive to criticism
• Critical of others
• Attention seeking

The workplace, in general, does not particularly help those of us with unhealthy self esteem – but should this be the organisation’s job? Workplaces that use job titles as motivators, that openly compare employee performance and link annual appraisals to pay are just a few examples of environments that exacerbate unhealthy self esteem. Take this in to the wider world and there is a population of us out there who think that the goods we buy, the house we own and the job title that we have is a measure of who we are.
How long do you want that top performer with you for? By the very nature of them being top performers they do not grow on trees and replacing them is not easy or cheap. Burn out is a very real consequence for low self esteemers in the workplace. They do not know how to take care of themselves.

Can you have the performance without the drama?
The straight forward answer is yes. People perform at a high level in businesses all over the world without acting like prima donnas or burning out. They do so because the business is clear about their performance expectations and their behavioural expectations.

The overall solution is less straightforward.
Ask yourself these questions:
• Are there clear expectations about behaviours as well as results in the workplace?
• When you appraise performance is it expected you will discuss behaviour as well?
• Do you encourage self appraisal of behaviours as well as performance?
• Do you ask your team what they respect, appreciate and value about themselves as a person and gain a rating or score out of ten? This can be measured from appraisal to appraisal.
• Do you take a genuine interest in your employees’ life, work-life balance and invest in helping them solve their own issues?

Is my employees’ self esteem my responsibility?
You play a part in it so you could take some responsibility. After all you reap the benefits as well the whirlwind.

If you want an emotionally resilient workforce that will deliver value for you and your customers in the long term then your employee’s emotional health and wellbeing needs to be of vital interest to you. For the business to have a long term future, emotional resilience is a 21st Century necessity.

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Do you profit from your employees low self esteem?