Work is most often stressful not because of the amount of work part, but because of the interpersonal relationships. The idea of being “professional” is often code for “suppress your emotions,” but of course they come out whether we like it or not, because humans are not robots.
In this week’s coaching reflection, I talk about navigating difficult relationships, the positive and negatives of fight, flight, freeze and fawn physiological responses, as well as a couple of tips on how to reset relationships that have gone awry.
## Transcript
Intro
[00:00:00] Andy Polaine: The workplace is often stressful, not just because of the amount of work, but most often because of the interpersonal relationships. How can you navigate these difficult conversations and people?
My name is Andy Polaine and every week I spend my days coaching design leaders. And in these videos, I reflect upon the common themes and questions that come up in the week. And in this week, I want to explore how we can approach difficult relationships, conversations, tension and boundaries.
Also want to have a look at how those four physiological responses of fight, flight, freeze and fawn play out in the workplace. And lastly how you might think about resetting relationships.
Caveats
[00:00:37] Andy Polaine: And upfront, I really want to set a few caveats, given that I’m talking about things like boundaries and bullying. I’m a cis white male, middle aged, middle class. And I know that that comes with an awful lot of privilege. So it’s pretty easy for me to speak up. And as a side note, in terms of allyship, if you look like me, It costs you very little, if anything, to speak up for other people who might not have the benefits of that privilege. And so the less, it costs you, the more you should speak up.
When we’re talking about real bullying and abuse, that’s a whole another video. I did a podcast with Sarah Wachter-Boettcher talking about gaslighting and she’s got very good podcast called Per My Last Email. When it comes to that, that’s something you shouldn’t put up with or grit your teeth and bear it. That’s something where you need to speak to someone you can trust. There are a lot of resources out there to help you, including a therapist or counselor and something you really need to document.
Remember, HR is there to protect the company, not usually you. And even if they do take something on, you have a real difficulty with someone who is really toxic. They’re going to need plenty of evidence from you and others to do anything about it. So that’s why documentation is so important.
Types of acting out behaviours
[00:01:45] Andy Polaine: What I’m really talking about in this video is about someone kind of showing, acting out behavior. Ignoring boundaries or transgressing boundaries. That can get close to bullying. That can be someone being aggressive. That can be someone speaking in ways that are inappropriate or even demeaning. But it can also just be someone you’re finding it difficult to work with. It’s not really connecting or you keep misunderstanding each other, or there’s a little clique that’s forming or power structures are forming where there’s an us and them thing going on and you’re having difficulty working together or you’ve got communication issues.
Your physical response
[00:02:16] Andy Polaine: I say quite often that the biggest lie work is this idea that is not personal it’s just business. We can think that we can leave our emotional baggage at the door, but we don’t really.
The thing to remember around the fear and anxiety around work in those relationships is your body and your stone age brain can’t really differentiate between that and genuine physical danger.
So you have all the same stress response. You have all that cortisol kicking in all the other hormones kicking in, even though actually you’re not physically in danger. And if you are physically in danger, then really that get out of that danger. That is something you need to do something about.
Fight, Flight, Freeze & Fawn
[00:02:48] Andy Polaine: People will know fight or flight and some people, know freeze. The other one is fawn. Those are the kind of four common physiological responses to feeling in danger. And those are there for a reason. They’re there to protect you and they have a healthy and unhealthy version.
Fight
[00:03:02] Andy Polaine: So the fight response, that could be around setting boundaries and saying, Hey, no that’s enough. You don’t talk to me like that, or simply robust argument and critique that can be also be very, very healthy. But it can flip into aggressive argument and that can be someone else’s repsonse. It could be your response to someone.
Flight
[00:03:19] Andy Polaine: The positive version of flight is I’m going to disengage with this person. I can see this is maybe going to go into an argument that’s not going to be helpful. I’m going to disengage. That’s going to give me some time to think about it. And give that person some time to think about it, or I’m just going to avoid that person, which starts to move into an avoidant negative behavior, where you’re actually sort of having to work around someone. I’m going to talk about that a little bit later, cause it can be a strategy.
Freeze
[00:03:44] Andy Polaine: The positive version of freeze is similar in that you can slow down and appraise. The negative versions where you feel totally frozen, you feel unable to do anything and you feel helpless. And that happens quite often and you’ll feel it you’ll feel that kind of pit of the stomach moment you won’t know what to do and it can be really traumatizing.
It can show up when being asked the question in a meeting with some important people there, but it can also show up when someone is showing that aggressive response or transgressing a boundary.
Fawn
[00:04:12] Andy Polaine: And the fawn response… we probably most often see it with a dog. You know, when dogs are playing each other and one of them rolls over on its back. The positive version can be you’re pacifying someone, and that can be taking the temperature down of a conversation.
The negative version of that is where you become so people pleasing that you end up forgetting yourself. And last week I made a video about servant leadership and how that can lead into burnout martyrdom. And you don’t want that either.
Questions to consider
[00:04:36] Andy Polaine: So the first thing is tune into your body. What’s going on there? How are you responding? Because it’ll make a difference to how you respond. More importantly your body is telling you what is going on inside you.
Some questions to consider are is this a person who holds any structural power over you? So is this someone who is responsible for your promotion? Someone who can block a promotion. Is there someone who could be an enabler in a positive way that you actually need?
So, if you’re having a problem with someone who’s kind of not very important to you. Well, one of the ways around that person is just to avoid them. And when I say avoid them, I don’t mean avoidant behavior where you’re not being yourself, where you’re having to tie yourself in knots just to get your work done. What I’m saying is, is this is a person you’re basically not going to give the time of day too, because it doesn’t really matter.
Is it taking an emotional toll on you that you can just avoid and you don’t really need to deal with that person anymore? Or is this something where this is someone who’s present in your work all the time, and it really is taking an emotional toll on you, and then you need to deal with it in some way.
Fear and anxiety
[00:05:38] Andy Polaine: One of the things I’ve talked about before is this idea that fear and anxiety is really prevalent in the world of work. I talked about it when engaging with stakeholders. I’ve talked about it quite often when people are seemingly being difficult, it’s actually coming from a place of fear and anxiety and the very counter-intuitive thing here is, once you frame it that way and look at that person that way, it actually makes you more empathetic about them.
The other counter-intuitive part of that is it’s probably a moment where you least feel like being empathetic to someone because we equate empathy with sympathy. You think, well, that person’s being really difficult I don’t want this to be sympathetic to them. But in fact, sometimes, if you can bring it onto that human level again, you can actually really reset the relationship.
Resetting the conversation
[00:06:22] Andy Polaine: So here’s some thoughts about resetting.
First of all, text is a terrible medium for this. WhatsApp or Slack in particular because Slack can often end up being a public spat and it can get a bit performative and people will start protecting themselves by leaving a trail of the conversation.
A conversation is much better for that kind of reset. So it could be a video call where you’re having a face-to-face conversation with someone. It’s even better if you can actually meet that person in person. And even better if you can go for a walk with that person. There’s something about going for a walk, which is somewhat meditative, it’s kind of social. It’s also side by side, so you can often have a difficult conversation with someone, because you’re walking along beside them and you’re not having that kind of face to face moment.
It’s important to set aside some time to talk about this and do the meta communication. By which I mean, don’t add it to another meeting. Don’t have a whole meeting and say, oh, by the way, have you got five minutes? I just want to talk to you about X.
It’s really important to set aside a specific time to talk about the specific thing and not let it get dragged off into another conversation. And by meta communication, what I’m saying is to talk about how you are feeling and the interactions you’ve had in a more objective way, rather than act out in the moment.
So instead of responding really angrily about something, because it’s pushed your buttons, what I’m saying is in that situation where we had this going, I felt really angry in that time. And that’s a more neutral way of talking about your emotions rather than just letting them out. The benefit that has also is it sort of plugs into this idea of being professional at work. Professional is often shorthand for suppressing your emotions. But actually they’re really important at work and I think really particularly important in the kind of work that design folks do.
What do you really want to say?
[00:08:03] Andy Polaine: A question I often ask coachees is what is it you really want to say? And I get them to say it to me. And they’ll say something like, well, when you do this, it makes my life really difficult because of X or I feel like I’ve been left out of that conversation and it makes me worried about what’s going on or I feel my point of view is not important and I feel unseen.
And the response to that question is really well, why not just say that?
Vulnerability
[00:08:25] Andy Polaine: Now I go back to that caveat at the beginning, obviously, to speak to someone like that involves a certain amount of vulnerability. Vulnerability does beget vulnerability most of the time, but if there’s a power differential there, then obviously you really want to think about whether you feel comfortable or safe enough to do that. Where I’m talking about doing that is where you’re really interacting with peers. So you might have, classically in product, the product leadership yourself and engineering, and there’s some stress going on there, but it can happen all sorts of different levels.
You obviously need to have more sense of safety and confidence, if you’re going to have that kind of conversation with someone who is a higher level or holds some kind of power over you, but it’s not impossible. It does depend on the person though.
You can always quit
One last thing to remember, and this is coming a little bit from a position of privilege, is that you can always leave. That’s the one piece of power you maintain is that you can always quit. Now I know that for some people, that financial situations means that makes it really difficult. And maybe you really can’t and depending on what country you’re in, it might be connected to healthcare coverage and all sorts of really important things. But it is always an option and it is always important to remember that you have that option.
[00:09:37] Andy Polaine: It’s also horrible though, to feel like you might have to quit because someone else has bullied you out. And going back to that point in the beginning. Yeah, document it. You can make it an HR issue. But sometimes it’s not actually worth the mental health impact that that’s going to have on you. And sometimes it’s better to leave rather than grit your teeth and try and get that person out, particularly if it seems like the company or HR is not actually doing anything about that person. I would suggest that the damage to your mental health and your confidence long-term, is worse than whatever dip you might go through by having to switch jobs.
I hope that’s useful for you. If you’d like to check out my coaching practice, it’s at polaine.com/coaching and I’ll put the link below.
This is a pretty loaded topic, and I know people have lots of different opinions and experiences about this and I would really love to hear from you, so please post a comment below.
Thanks very much and I’ll see you again soon.
