How great team leaders help their teams overcome trauma

Trauma changes your brain; it helps you avoid situations that are painful. You might think this is a good thing. If we are talking about touching a hot stove, the trauma of being burned keeps us from getting burned again. But what happens when the stove is no longer hot? We hesitate, we double check, before we touch it. The fear engrained from our first experience with the stove has been built into our brain; it is protecting us. At the same time, it is slowing us down; it is making things more difficult than they have to be.

In organizations we see an analogous phenomenon all the time. Something bad happened, once, and the organization now has a policy to make sure it never happens again. An employee tried something creative, but the powers that be were not impressed and reprimanded him or her for not following the standard procedure. The employee will hesitate to question the status quo again, even if it is a completely different situation. A team member provided feedback to a teammate and wound up in a conflict; he or she will be quiet in the future, even if it involves a different teammate.

Often, we are not aware that we are avoiding a situation. Think about this, how many times have you observed something that was not effective but remained quiet because you did not want to complain or get into a conflict. A great team leader recognizes this dynamic and helps his or her team get past trauma that makes them fearful or timid. I use the term trauma here to indicate a difficult emotional experience; it doesn’t have to be a major event for it to affect members of your team. Small events build up over time.

When team members are behaving out of past trauma, they are hesitant; they are not sharing their true observations and opinions. It may also be difficult for the team to try new things. People will argue, “that won’t work.” They will have a myriad of reasons based on their past experience why something will fail or create a problem. The result is that it is hard to be innovative. Remember, they are not trying to be difficult. Their brain is working to protect them from harm. They are worried that they will suffer if a change is made; if they say what is truly on their mind; if they give that piece of feedback.

In this situation there is a magic word that team leaders can use, “experiment.” Instead of arguing over whether something will work or not, simply ask the team to experiment. Try it for a short period of time, see what happens, and then make a decision whether to continue, modify, or revert back. Although past trauma may still be there, doing an “experiment” allows the brain to calm down a bit; if the experiment confirms the fear is valid, the person knows the experiment will be discontinued.

The concept of experimentation applies to individual team members as well. I recently published an article called Crossing the crocodile pit. In that article I argue that things don’t have to be as hard as we make them and provide 5 tips for making things easier. This article addresses Tip #3 of that article: Test the water. What was true in the past may not be true now. When we are blindly driven to protect ourselves without testing our assumptions, we deprive our teams of important information; everything gets harder. There very well may be a crocodile pit between what you are sensing and sharing it with the team, but more likely, it is a puddle filled with frogs that you have exaggerated. Check it out.

If you find this article helpful, I would greatly appreciate your likes, comments, and shares. If you don’t find it helpful, let me know what your team challenges are and what would be more helpful.

#teams #culture #emotionalintelligence #humanizingwork