Who is the saboteur? The unconscious in everyday life

In 2016, at the Wembly Arena, Nick Blackwell and Eubank Jr met for a boxing match. Both boxers were breathing heavily.  For every punch that Eubank made, Blackwell tried to hit back.

 Eubank was clearly winning…

No matter how hard Eubank hit Blackwell, Blackwell always came back for more. He was the embodiment of resilience, no matter how much pressure he was under, he stood there and took it and did his best to fight back.  That is, until the referee stopped the match in the 10th round.

A closed left eye and blood coming from his nose - the boxer, Nick Blackwell was finally taken to hospital on a stretcher while receiving oxygen.

It’s the same in life and in business.  A person or team can only tolerate stress for so long until that final punch gets them...

Resilience will eventually turn into fragility.

More importantly, what do you think about yourself...and is this accurate?

It must be awful to be one of those bosses who think themselves inspiring and popular, only to be sniggered at in private.

The most extreme example of the phenomenon is David Brent, from 'The Office,' whose lack of insight is both funny and tragic at the same time.  Another reason for the popularity of ‘The Office' is the awkward sense of familiarity because all of us have encountered people like David Brent.  We might also recognise some of his characteristics in ourselves.

If self-awareness is hard, awareness of how others see us is even harder.

People are reluctant to say what they really think about you because they see you as a flawed human being with good bits and bad bits.  Depending on the person, you might get told about your good bits, while others revel in listing all of your faults.  Rarely will you get a balanced picture describing both.

The importance of status has its roots in our hunter gatherer past.  When we as a species were evolving, your position in the social group to which you belonged, could be a matter of life and death and so evolution equipped us with brain circuits that constantly monitor our relative status. 

Even in trivial situations, like having a brief conversation with another person, deep in your brain there will be an awareness of your status relative to the other person.

The brain's centers that register physical pain are very close to, and share some circuits of the centres that register emotional or social pain.  This is why we experience feelings as physical bodily sensations.  We talk about hurt feelings, or a 'kick in the guts,'  when another person is nasty to us. 

A loss of status hurts - really hurts.  

According to a recent study published in the European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences, procrastination was identified as one of the most important things that made people feel stressed.   It was linked to poor performance, anxiety and even poor physical health.

Stress isn’t caused by work, other people or the world in general.  It’s caused by our perceptions of these things.  Stress (or more accurately, anxiety) is internally generated and based on the way we think about our life, not on the reality of our life.   And a good example of this is procrastination... 

Have you ever come out of a meeting and felt like it was a waste of time?

Nothing has changed - nothing was achieved.

Perhaps you felt that you weren't listened to.   Or was it your fault - you didn't communicate clearly enough?

Well it could be the fault of neither of these - the poor outcome may have been caused by the group dynamics.  That is, how many people were in the meeting, or where you sat in the room...

This podcast is a short guide to the kind of unconscious dynamics that happen in every workplace meeting.

How many meetings have you participated in that have failed to make a decision?

How many meetings have you been in, that have made a decision, but seem to struggle, for weeks or even months, to implement the decision?

This is a common frustration in organisations - boards or leadership teams, never actually getting anything done; despite endless meetings. 

This group procrastination is very similar to what individuals do to avoid difficult situations.   You convince yourself of the need to gather more information, check your email once more or make a cup of coffee, before starting to work - as if only then can the 'real' work begin.

Working from home...some of us will find it easier than others - why is this? 

We are all different and have different personalities. Some people get energy from interacting with other people; others, prefer being alone and just getting on with the task at hand. This is why a lot of the advice in the media and online offering advice on home working needs clarity and practical solutions. Advice that one person will find helpful will be meaningless to another. To figure out what will help, start giving some thought to your personality.

The Cabinet Office Emergency Planning College asked me to write some articles about leadership and remote working.  This was first published on the EPC Insight website.  

We are all burdened with imposter syndrome and we are all fallible human beings.  If you feel like an imposter, you are not weird, weak or odd – you are normal. 

Just realising this takes the pressure off...

Imagine having an idea and creating a business from nothing, that is now worth about $38 billion?

Running a business with family or friends can be great... 

You will (hopefully) be working with people you actually like and get on with. You will probably also share similar values, aspirations and interests. It can also be tricky. How do you manage disagreements? What if business stresses spill over into life outside the business.  Who is in charge and who gets to make the final decision?

Is there a particularly difficult individual in your organisation?

Do you have someone who seems constantly stressed, fed up or anxious? 

A difficult or stressed employee is often the tip of a very big systemic problem. By simply treating such problems as individual problems, you might be missing the point and missing important early warning signs that could prevent bigger problems in the future.