Jendi Coursey

The reason negativity exists in the workplace is because humans work there. Tens of thousands of years of evolution haven’t caught up with the comparatively short time we’ve been dealing with annoyances in the workplace as opposed to threats that could kill us. Luckily, our brains are malleable. We can create new neural pathways so our default responses don’t ruin potentially important relationships.

Our Caveman Genetics

Think back, if you will, to the Neanderthal days. Imagine you and your tribe are hanging out by the campfire when a member of a neighboring tribe comes over and starts nosing around. Those with a negativity bias quietly reach for their clubs while a welcoming young tribal member invites the stranger to join in. When the stranger bonks the welcomer on the head and runs off with his mate, the welcomer’s genes do not make it into future generations.

We are the descendants of the people who reached for their clubs.

Yay for Neuroplasticity

We are programmed to handle threats via our fight-or-flight response, whether those threats come from a club-wielding competitor or an out-of-line employee. The good news is that we can shift our negativity bias so it doesn’t get in our way, allowing us to move to the trust-but-verify crowd or even the assume-good-intentions crowd. We can reroute neural pathways in our brains by intentionally responding in a calmer, more controlled manner.

But first, we have to recognize we’re getting triggered and wrench control away from the amygdala (also known as the lizard brain).

Recognizing the Fight-or-Flight Response

Here are some sure-fire ways to know you’re in the middle of a fight-or-flight response.

1. Your heart is beating like a trip hammer.
2. You feel like you could lift a small car.

What’s actually happening is that your brain is flooded with the stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol. Your heart rate increases and your breathing becomes fast and shallow. Your muscles tense, your pupils dilate, and you get tunnel vision. Your digestive tract shuts down as blood rushes to your extremities, and access to the logical part of your brain practically disappears. This is great if you need to fight or flee, not so great if you need to manage a delicate negotiation with someone who is driving you crazy.

Grounding to Regain Control

How do you calm down? You begin grounding. Take slow deep breaths. I recommend “square breathing,” also called tactical breathing. Imagine yourself breathing into the corners of a box. First, take a deep breath and imagine all the air going into the upper left corner of a box. Hold your breath for four seconds. Then exhale slowly for four seconds as you imagine moving to the upper-right corner. Hold for four seconds. Then use another four-second inhale to move to the lower-right corner. Hold for four seconds, and exhale slowly to get to the lower-left corner. By the time you make it around the box, your heart will start to slow down.

Next, feel your feet on the ground–all ten toes–and go through an inventory of each major muscle group, tensing and relaxing each one as you go. Finally, focus on the information you can gather through your senses: what do you smell, taste, feel, and see? By the time you’ve done this, your prefrontal cortex (the thinking part of your brain) has begun to win the wrestling match with the amygdala

Getting Curious

Once your prefrontal cortex is calling the shots again, you can start asking questions to address the annoying behavior of a colleague or client. Ask yourself, “Does this really have anything to do with me or is this a symptom of a deeper issue—personal or professional? Is this person trying to be helpful, albeit ineffectively, or is this a ploy for attention? Where is the common ground here?”

Once you refocus on helpful questions, it’s amazing how the annoying behavior can change, at least your perception of it. If you realize a person is acting out of fear or insecurity, for example, you can put them at ease to help them communicate more effectively. If you remember that this person is dealing with a personal issue, you may give them a little grace, understanding they are not behaving as they normally would.

It’s also important to remember that people’s irritating behaviors can sometimes be a double-edged sword. We have to take the good with the bad. Here is a great video to illustrate the point.

Pro Tip: Start Meetings with a Check-in

If you are in a leadership position and regularly hold meetings, you may want to consider starting every meeting with a two-minute check-in using the following prompt: Is there anything you’d like to share about what’s going on for you this week, personally or professionally? It is amazing what people will share and how valuable this information can be to team dynamics.

If you think your staff could benefit from a little professional development in this area, get in touch. I’m happy to present a short, entertaining talk on the subject.

Many of us prefer to complete projects on our own rather than accepting help from others or delegating part of the work, even if it means sleepless nights or sacrificing personal time. We may be tired and sometimes resentful of the time it takes to get the job done right, but we are damn sure not going to let someone else screw it up. Allowing others to work on our projects can feel like allowing a crack in the dam, and we all know cracks can be a dam’s undoing.

If you’re nodding your head in agreement, I sympathize. I have perfectionistic tendencies and while they can contribute to high-quality outcomes, sometimes the price is too high.

I was recently talking to the leader of a successful company and he said, “Good leadership means explaining what you want, making sure the employee has the resources and training to get the job done, and then getting out of the way.”

“Good leadership means explaining what you want, making sure the employee has the resources and training to get the job done, and then getting out of the way.”

The last part is the hardest and the most important.

If you want to build a team, you’re going to have to let go a little. There’s no getting around it. This doesn’t mean throwing out your high standards and putting your reputation on the chopping block. It does mean stepping back a little.

People will make mistakes. It’s inevitable. But here are some steps to build strong teams and encourage them to do their best work.

Hire the right people.

Start with good people. A thorough vetting process is key. Hiring out of desperation rarely ends well. Better to have everyone be overworked for a short time than to rush into hiring a bad apple. In addition to job skills, check for alignment with values and work ethic. If your company culture has everyone arriving promptly at 8:00 am, let new hires know timeliness isn’t optional.

Communicate expectations.

Once you’ve got the right people on board, it’s all about clear expectations. If you have a high-functioning team, it’s worth sharing more than just budget constraints, deadlines, and work specifications. Explain the big picture. What problem are you solving? Is this the best way to do so? One of the benefits of having team members is the synergy of multiple points of view.

One of the benefits of having team members is the synergy of multiple points of view.

Check in but don’t hover.

Once a project is in motion, make course corrections periodically and then back off again. Empower people to make their own decisions as much as possible. When giving feedback, look at the overall progress before diving into the details. And above all, resist the temptation to take back delegated work before it is finished if you find a small mistake.

After it’s all done, review the results and the process.

Start with the positive. Then ask open-ended questions like these:

• Which decisions, if any, would you make differently next time?
• Let’s review the original goals/specs. Did we meet them? Why/Why not?
• Did we have the information we needed from the client? Is there anything more we should collect next time?

Reviewing a project’s successes and failures in a collaborative atmosphere can help everyone improve. Just be sure to set the ground rules first so people understand the goal is to learn, not to blame others for any mistakes.

If you naturally lean toward being a micromanager, just remember that believing in people helps them believe in themselves–and confidence helps people perform to their highest potential.

As politicians reach for the outer edges of their respective parties, the ones who compromise are being labeled as sell-outs rather than pragmatists, leaving those of us in the political center without much hope for reasonable leadership. And it isn’t just in politics, the art of compromise seems to be disappearing in boardrooms, town halls, and among everyday Americans. Not cool.

We’ve always had leaders who hold firm to an ideal, and I recognize that those folks can serve an important purpose: setting a standard, providing a visionary goal. But when two opposing sides entrench, we go nowhere. It baffles me that so many people consider “uncompromising” a compliment when synonyms include words like rigid, obstinant, intransigent, stubborn, and pig-headed. Are these the traits we admire? I sure don’t.

The intense political polarization in our country is tearing us apart, which is heartbreaking because I really believe so many more people are in the center than on the fringes. But when the political discourse is dominated by fringe elements, we all begin looking at our neighbors with a bit more suspicion. I guess by pandering to the people on the outermost edges of political ideas, politicians and others hope to engage those who are more passionate; that is, more apt to act (donate, volunteer, attend a rally) than those of us in the center.

As Americans, we have so much more that unites us than divides us. I live in a small town where I have friends of all political stripes, from libertarians to liberals to conservatives. Mostly, we all want to provide for our families and to be allowed to live our lives according to our own values.

As Americans, we have so much more that unites us than divides us.

As a public relations professional, I help clients develop and share their messages with the goal of convincing others to join their cause, to align with their way of thinking enough to support whatever they’re promoting, whether it’s ideas, products or services. To develop effective messaging, I spend a fair amount of time trying to understand what motivates various audiences, and what I find is that there is a tremendous amount of common ground to play with.

Unfortunately, just because I can find common ground doesn’t mean it’s easy to compromise. It’s often hard to know when to compromise, how much to compromise, and with whom to compromise. Giving away ground on a position requires trust, and that’s hard to come by in this polarized environment. I guess I would say this: if you’re in an argument where both sides stick to the issues rather than degrading into a mud-slinging contest, maybe someone could be brave enough to suggest a way forward that gives each side a little of what they want. And when we find ourselves being hijacked by emotion, we need to recognize it in ourselves.

As the 2020 political campaigns ramp up, I hope those of us in the center will be willing to speak up to support a more pragmatic approach, one that includes a little compromise. I think we need to publicly applaud leaders who work with counterparts across the aisle to make America a prosperous nation where people of all descriptions can work hard to achieve success.