The reverberating impact of unhappiness at work
The thought of one person feeling unhappy, cramped, or unsafe at work prompts my reflection on the individual, their pain, and their efforts to alleviate it, or even to survive it. And how ever they’re experiencing it, that pain goes far beyond the individual themselves. It’s a systemic question which reverberates broadly.
An individual who’s unhappy at work may experience exhaustion as they may have respond in a variety of ways: at an existential level, they may fear for their jobs and may even transgress their own values in order to protect their roles. They may feel humiliated and may create strategies to preserve their dignity. Those strategies may preserve or, alternatively damage, key relationships. Individuals may openly or implicitly challenge what they perceive as the cause of their pain. They may attempt to engage in open, honest conversations with those they perceive as being the source of their unhappiness in a quest to discuss and resolve or ameliorate the issue – which may have the desired effect or, in turn, may entail further risk. They may attempt conversation or dialogue with others who have some kind of power in the situation – and, again, the outcome might mean positive change or it might risk a worsening of the situation.
Most immediately close to them, there may be something at play about the style with which they’re led and managed: is it characterised by a ‘JFDI’ approach – a myopic, transactional approach which may or may not use or abuse the power of the leader or manager – or by an approach which cares about, and seeks to understand, how they really are at a level beyond what shows on the surface? How do the manager and leader exercise their power, and how does power show up between them? Does such a transactional approach prioritise the leader or manager’s personal ambitions and goals above broader interests, or does the agenda go and enquire beyond that? A leader’s or manager’s approach often speaks volumes about the culture of the team.
Of course, I’m thinking of the psychological safety that may be present or absent in the system (like being pregnant, you can’t feel ‘a bit’ safe: you either do feel safe or you don’t). When psychological safety is present, unhappiness at work not only is safe to present on the surface but can be discussed constructively. And when it’s absent it goes underground, where it might proliferate, multiply like a virus, and/or result in a leakage of talent as fear grows and people decide to jump ship.
On the other hand, when you take a systemic perspective you may see – as Nora Bateson’s thinking on warm data, and as systemic constellations, show us – more about the interrelationships that exist between the elements in the system: the history not only of the team or organisation and the individuals which compose them, but also of the culture, attitudes, beliefs and enshrined behaviours on which the team rests and functions day to day. Enquiring into what’s going on beyond what shows on the surface – as happens with a systemic constellation in practice – can be deeply illuminating. That illumination can be leveraged so as not only to explain what’s currently happening, but also to enable the development of strategies towards more healthy, balanced and safe functioning.
A team, organisation or culture which functions in a healthy, balanced and safe way will be able to do so even in an environment which is VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous), and/or the next iteration of VUCA – RUPT (Rapid, Unpredictable, Paradoxical and Tangled) and arguably the next iteration of RUPT: BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Non-Linear and Incomprehensible) which futurist Jamais Cascio has originated in order to provide recognition – and an underpinning strategy – for responding to the current ‘age of chaos, an era that intensely, almost violently, rejects structure. It isn’t simple instability, it’s a reality that seems to actively resist efforts to understand what the hell is going on. This current moment of political mayhem, climate disasters, and global pandemic?—?and so much more?—?vividly demonstrates the need for a way of making sense of the world, the need for a new method or tool to see the shapes this age of chaos’ [1]
Amy Elizabeth Fox illustrates the benefits that can flow from looking at leadership and organisational life through a BANI lens – and indeed bringing something as apparently fundamental as caring about your people in a thoughtful way that enshrines humanity, compassion and love. Cultures which succeed, she remarks, are those which, in this BANI climate, function in this thoughtful way. They consciously experiment (which means that failure is not worthy of blame), collaborate, are patient with uncertainty, slow down, and encourage rest and renewal.
In such cultures unhappiness and a sense of lack of safety can be replaced by safe transparency, innovation, collaboration, high rates of retention and the freedom to initiate and change.
[1] https://www.impactinternational.com/insights/bani-what-it-and-how-can-it-help-us
