All feelings are welcome here...
This week I have been hanging out with another fabulous leadership team who have spent the past 9 months doing a record speed integration of two previously separate businesses. In that time they have been like formula one racing car drivers without even time for the pit stop to repair and refuel. They have personally and professionally been going through change, stepping up to bigger roles on newly formed leadership team, still expected to deliver the same results, with greater pressure, less budget etc. Alongside all of that they have been wrestling with both their excitement and pride of being on this new team along side their personal fears and anxieties of am I good enough to be on this team? (When will people find out I’m not good enough? … check this out on Imposter syndrome if you ever feel like this.
Its not an unusual story, organisations right now are working at such pace that change is not allowed to impact business results even in a transition period. In the process of all of that the one thing that kept getting pushed to the bottom of the priority list was time for the leadership team to connect, share and get to know each other as ten human beings who themselves had been going through immensely tough stuff. When they arrived yesterday there was lots of judgement, fear, anger, frustration, alongside lots of gratefulness, hope, optimism for the time they were going to have together.
I knew there were conversations they wanted to have with each other and of course they wanted to have them very quickly, but it takes time to build the trust and safety needed to have these conversations especially in new teams. No one was ready on day one to open up to their experience and what they wanted from each other. First they needed a bit of time to understand themselves and their own reactions to what had been going on. What emerged over the two days was a release, sometimes volcanic, sometimes gentle, of stored up emotions and unmet needs that had built up over the last year or more.
Often people will question me in my work, why do you keep asking me about my feelings? ... ''My feelings have no place at work, I'm here to get the job done, I have a work me and a home me'' But we are humans not robots, and we are all that we are whether we want to acknowledge our feelings, them we have them. We have thoughts, feelings, physical responses to change whether we are home or work ... feelings and emotions are always with us. They are like our car dashboard, flashing red and alerting us to pay attention to ourselves.
I'm leaving this team after two days on the start of their journey to allow themselves to connect with their whole selves at work and that is the path to connecting with each other. Often I use the analogy of a beach ball... imagine your feelings are like a beach ball that you push down under the water. How much energy does it take to keep that ball under the water where no one can see it? A LOT! And the ball tries its best to pop up at every opportunity you are not focussed on it... What happens when we take our hand off the beach ball? It’s been suppressed with such force that when it comes up it is explosive in its exit from the water.
Those of us who are parents or hang out with children often (or remember being a child!) will know that children mostly have tantrums in the safety of the ones they feel loved and cared for by. They spend all day at school being very well behaved and then shortly after they get home there will be an unrelated incident which may allow a release of emotions coming out as anger, sadness, frustration and just one more instruction they don't want to respond to... because they know it is a safe space to be who they are and they will be loved no matter what their reaction is.
We are not much different as adults, all the stress and inability to talk about how we feel in the work place .. often gets stored up and taken out at home on the ones we love, because we can here feel safe to be all that we are without judgement.
My belief is time is always the most precious commodity we can give each other at home or work. If we can create time for teams at work to have a safe space together to process all they are going through during times of change this creates a safety valve that supports both business results but more importantly human connection. Connecting to each other fully and authentically gives us a place to share our emotions, our feelings our thoughts, worries concerns which means we don't bottle up our stress or take it home to our families or worse be left alone with no one to process it with. (It also takes a lot of courage by the way.. to share)
So how can we welcome our feelings and emotions into the workplace?
It sounds obvious but the first step is to realise that your feelings are always with you, you can’t switch them on or off even if you think you can. What you might be doing if you can’t recognise how you feel is numbing or avoiding dealing with the beach ball and spending lots of energy pushing away these emotions … ask your family or colleagues they may notice better than you how you are feeling…
Be informed by your feelings not hijacked by them, if you notice anger, fear, frustration, anxiety, uncertainty rising in you – get really curious about what’s going on for you… ask yourself what has triggered these feelings and what am I telling myself about myself or the situation (become aware of the voice in your head)
Find a safe person to share how you are feeling with could be a colleague in a similar situation or someone at home or a coach, but have an outlet to share .. a problem shared is a problem halved.
Notice the impact your thoughts and feelings have on those around you. What is the impact on your leadership when you are not at your best? Are you the sort of person you’d want to be led by? What is the impact at home?
Take time for yourself, often the more we think we don’t have time to take care of ourselves is exactly the time we need to double our efforts of self-care, sleep, eating well, exercising, finding space for mental stillness / non-work related activities
Are feelings talked about openly in your organisation or do people push them down like a beachball? Do you ask your colleagues or team members how they are feeling when you notice they are a bit off and really listen without judgement? Would love to hear what your experiences are....
