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| My Path My Stress My Feelings My Story My Relationships. |
Today we will discuss this scenario from a perspective of relationships -so working on our external response to the attack.
Here is a recap of the scenario:
Ella and Bella work at a publishing type joint and have a toxic boss. The wanted to figure out a Betta Day in their work place.
The details they have furnished are:
In this instance we are looking at a work relationship rather than an intimate relationship. The most important thing about this situation is the relationship is attacking with a strong power differential. We don't have to get sidetracked on why the relationship is attacking (raging insecurity for starters), but, rather, keep our focus on the impact it is having on us and how we choose to react.
Ella and Bella might not have wanted a brawl when they fronted up for work, but the likelihood of them getting one is pretty high.
So rather than get roped into a fight they didn't feel like having, it's time to get your pop corn, sit down and try and figure out what movie your watching.
A quick word about movies. We often have a particular genre that we're attracted to. There'll be a plot with a key dilemma that the protagonists struggle with and overcomes...or not, as the case may be.
Well, here I go again, but welcome to the plots we grew up with.
As we grow up we experience an array of dramatic and cliff hanger relationships, jam packed with their own particular dilemmas. Why dramatic? Because we are young and vulnerable and have a great need to feel loved, accepted and safe. The being young and relying on care is your power differential, right then and there. No care relationship is perfect all the time and when things are difficult our child-self goes into "How do I get out of this one?"-mode. Aka survival mode.
Here's a couple of examples:
Example #1: Absent Care
If we experienced a kind of absent care our experience of being cared for would be rejected and abandoned. So how would a child manage this one? Maybe to be very placating or become a bit of a parental child themselves.
Example #2: Abusive Care
An experience of abusive care would leave the child feeling abused themselves, they may try and survive it by being a bully or victim.
Example #3: Conditional Care
This is where we may have felt the care was very judgmental and belittling and felt judged and humiliated so try and survive this by striving and becoming hypervigilant.
All this stuff is lifted from Cognitive Analytic Therapy by Anthony Ryle. He calls them reciprocal-roles where you do this so I do that. I kind of like it because it helps me start to recognise patterns instead of getting caught up in "he said, she said...", and sitting there trying to adjudicate in a bewildered kind of way.
I also like it because once you can figure out which movie plot your watching, you can pick up the remote control, say "That one? I've seen it before, I'm sick of it, it doesn't end well".
So what would a better movie look like? One where we get to choose our actions, instead of being nudged into roles we don't like or have passed their "used-by" date.
In the case of Ella and Bella, one found herself retaliating angrily, which made the creative side of her work much harder. The other found that she was shutting down to protect herself, again, making it difficult to creatively engage in work that she would normally be very stimulated by. Ella and Bella want to turn up to work, do good stuff and feel proud of it, rather then end up being angry or shut down. This boss sounds like he could get anyone's back up, but if his mode of attack had a familiar ring to some of the less pleasant aspects of our childhood, then it could trigger some pretty distressing responses and recollected experiences. These would feel outside of our control, making it even more horrible. I think that's what he's trying to do -divide and conquer by shifting people out of their competency and comfort zone.
The gist of this is our beliefs about ourselves can reflect the care we received in the first place. The survival mode we adopted as a child to get through was as much about the limited choices we had at the time, as about us. So along comes a dude who attacks,and criticises us (irrationally- because it's his shit, not ours ), and it reminds us of some of the more difficult areas of our own child hood. So instead of saying "Knock if off and settle down mate", we might reprise our vulnerable role in a fairly familiar scenario and flick into survival ancient mode. Sometimes it's such a great relief to finally be an adult, but it's equally galling when as an adult we feel like a kid.
The details they have furnished are:
- Their boss was a lousy chaotic manager who never gave clear instructions.
- He made them waste time by getting them to work on something then saying it was all wrong and having to start again.
- He ignored their input.
- He tried to provoke them by creating scenes or embarrassing them with lewd comments.
- He criticised them in front of other people -clients or colleagues.
- He gave them too much to do and interrupted them all the time.
- He was manipulative and seemed to enjoy breaking their confidence.
- He tried to find their weaknesses.
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| What's the proximity of the 2 people |
When under attack the urgency is to hide, protect or retaliate. There is clear provocation in this scenario, so the employees are on the back foot, surviving in a reactive and disadvantaged mode.
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| What do I need to notice? |
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| What role am I playing? |
Ella and Bella might not have wanted a brawl when they fronted up for work, but the likelihood of them getting one is pretty high.
So rather than get roped into a fight they didn't feel like having, it's time to get your pop corn, sit down and try and figure out what movie your watching.
A quick word about movies. We often have a particular genre that we're attracted to. There'll be a plot with a key dilemma that the protagonists struggle with and overcomes...or not, as the case may be.
Well, here I go again, but welcome to the plots we grew up with.
As we grow up we experience an array of dramatic and cliff hanger relationships, jam packed with their own particular dilemmas. Why dramatic? Because we are young and vulnerable and have a great need to feel loved, accepted and safe. The being young and relying on care is your power differential, right then and there. No care relationship is perfect all the time and when things are difficult our child-self goes into "How do I get out of this one?"-mode. Aka survival mode.
Here's a couple of examples:
Example #1: Absent Care
If we experienced a kind of absent care our experience of being cared for would be rejected and abandoned. So how would a child manage this one? Maybe to be very placating or become a bit of a parental child themselves.
Example #2: Abusive Care
An experience of abusive care would leave the child feeling abused themselves, they may try and survive it by being a bully or victim.
Example #3: Conditional Care
This is where we may have felt the care was very judgmental and belittling and felt judged and humiliated so try and survive this by striving and becoming hypervigilant.
All this stuff is lifted from Cognitive Analytic Therapy by Anthony Ryle. He calls them reciprocal-roles where you do this so I do that. I kind of like it because it helps me start to recognise patterns instead of getting caught up in "he said, she said...", and sitting there trying to adjudicate in a bewildered kind of way.
I also like it because once you can figure out which movie plot your watching, you can pick up the remote control, say "That one? I've seen it before, I'm sick of it, it doesn't end well".
So what would a better movie look like? One where we get to choose our actions, instead of being nudged into roles we don't like or have passed their "used-by" date.
In the case of Ella and Bella, one found herself retaliating angrily, which made the creative side of her work much harder. The other found that she was shutting down to protect herself, again, making it difficult to creatively engage in work that she would normally be very stimulated by. Ella and Bella want to turn up to work, do good stuff and feel proud of it, rather then end up being angry or shut down. This boss sounds like he could get anyone's back up, but if his mode of attack had a familiar ring to some of the less pleasant aspects of our childhood, then it could trigger some pretty distressing responses and recollected experiences. These would feel outside of our control, making it even more horrible. I think that's what he's trying to do -divide and conquer by shifting people out of their competency and comfort zone.
The gist of this is our beliefs about ourselves can reflect the care we received in the first place. The survival mode we adopted as a child to get through was as much about the limited choices we had at the time, as about us. So along comes a dude who attacks,and criticises us (irrationally- because it's his shit, not ours ), and it reminds us of some of the more difficult areas of our own child hood. So instead of saying "Knock if off and settle down mate", we might reprise our vulnerable role in a fairly familiar scenario and flick into survival ancient mode. Sometimes it's such a great relief to finally be an adult, but it's equally galling when as an adult we feel like a kid.
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| What do I need to sort? |
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| End the war and Ommmm. |
Often these kind of relationships sneak up on us. One minute we're in a good enough mood and mooching along, the next thing we're arguing, or saying nothing and having this raging argument in our head. We're all hot and bothered and it's totally monopolising. Alternatively we may be frightened and intimidated. It will be influenced by how we have experienced this kind of situation in the past, particularly when young.
Not much is solved in a fight and the rational, observing part of our brain has been put offline.
The peace sign means stop the war...in our head, or the room. The Om sign is to put an end to the arguments for the prosecution and defence running back and forth as we try to make a judgement with an understandably rising sense of indignity and injustice. Unfortunately the latter fuels the fight further, hence the Ommmmmmmm. I'm drawing back, Ommmmmmm. I'm calming down. Ommmmmmmm. I'm breathing slowly and deeply and reminding myself of my humanity and sense. A provocative argument such as the one above is, in fact, non sensical any way, and that is one of the tools by which we get tricked into arguing in the first place.
Once we've got our sense and equilibrium back we can move to the next phase...
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| What do I need to do? |
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| Hand it back |
The challenge is to not be reactive to the content and stick with the process of the relationship transactions.
When this doesn't work, because the other is on the attack, it's time to limit-set.
When this doesn't work, because the other is on the attack, it's time to limit-set.
Limit setting can be quiet, dignified and sensible. It might not have an immediate effect but a line has been drawn in the sand.
If we take some of the Toxic Boss transgressions. At the risk of being annoying lets take some of the points one by one (remember this is a theoretical exercise, it's too easy for me to be wise a whole continent away and I don't suggest you act on them as I'm viewing the whole thing out of context -trust your own judgment!). However...
Their boss was a lousy chaotic manager who never gave clear instructions.
He tried to provoke them by creating scenes or embarrassing them with lewd comments.
Nothing, sit out the pause with a quiet dignified smile. If he counters defensively just gently say something like. "Look I don't want to get into the nitty gritty, as I courtesy I'm just letting you know -thanks." Turn around and back to work.
Now as I write this, the words metaphorically get stuck in my mouth because there is not acknowledgement of the power differential and the fact that this is your livelihood.
In a decent enough setting there would be room for this.
In a frankly abusive one there is not -and this can put you in peril. Again, time to look for other options, and SAFETY FIRST.
I guess I'm trying to think about how would we technically give feedback on where the behaviour from the toxic boss is not working for you, so you can put in place a sense of boundaries for him.
The main thing is we're sticking to our chosen role of being adult and competent rather that accepting his role-play of being the incompetent underling who should be ashamed.
Handing it back also helps us determine how salvageable the situation is. If a limit is put inplace and it works then that tells you that there is something to work with. If he perpetually crosses a stated limit then there's your answer and go-go-go.
And if you can digest all of that you certainly deserve a Betta Day -Cheers!
Rather than get exasperated after the fact, "TB I need you to be a bit clearer about what you want, it always helps when you [name a time when it wasn't so bad and he did a better job at giving clear instructions]. I felt that really helpful when we did the Pensky File." -Again I'm sure you've tried this I"m just listing my algorithm.
He tried to provoke them by creating scenes or embarrassing them with lewd comments.
Again with this one I would try to be direct and specific trying to keep a technical tone. I don't know, something like "TB, I need to raise something important with you. Making personal comments, sometimes of a sexual nature in front of clients, such as the other day is not OK with me."Then what do you say?
Nothing, sit out the pause with a quiet dignified smile. If he counters defensively just gently say something like. "Look I don't want to get into the nitty gritty, as I courtesy I'm just letting you know -thanks." Turn around and back to work.
Now as I write this, the words metaphorically get stuck in my mouth because there is not acknowledgement of the power differential and the fact that this is your livelihood.
In a decent enough setting there would be room for this.
In a frankly abusive one there is not -and this can put you in peril. Again, time to look for other options, and SAFETY FIRST.
I guess I'm trying to think about how would we technically give feedback on where the behaviour from the toxic boss is not working for you, so you can put in place a sense of boundaries for him.
The main thing is we're sticking to our chosen role of being adult and competent rather that accepting his role-play of being the incompetent underling who should be ashamed.
Handing it back also helps us determine how salvageable the situation is. If a limit is put inplace and it works then that tells you that there is something to work with. If he perpetually crosses a stated limit then there's your answer and go-go-go.
And if you can digest all of that you certainly deserve a Betta Day -Cheers!
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