Pleasure & Trauma in Organisational Development

The paucity of good-quality information about working with organisational trauma means that, as OD practitioners, we have to adapt thinking from our colleagues in the field of trauma therapy.

?In this respect, I was excited by an academic paper I came across recently, written by Steven Hoskinson and Bach Ho. Their paper – referenced below – suggests that helping individual clients connect with naturally-arising pleasure in the moment, is effective in healing trauma. I was intrigued because so many of the received practices of working with trauma in a therapeutic context involve a conscious effort to confront the pain of trauma directly (albeit selectively, gradually and with support). The direct approach is, of course, important. Yet Hoskinson and Ho propose a less direct and radically different approach that might have great value in organisational development. This involves, as they put it, “…a path of ease and comfort, a recovery of pleasure, in which steps that promote well-being are more easily, pleasantly and naturally taken.”

What might this mean for us as Organisational Development practitioners who are developing ways of working with cultural trauma in organisations? I suspect that we do not often and consciously design interventions that give clients pleasure! We might focus on delivering strategic objectives efficiently, or on coaching honestly, or on facilitating smoothly, but client enjoyment is usually a by-product of good workshop design, rather than an intrinsic design parameter per se. Perhaps we could consider delivering organisational interventions structured around the pleasure principle, more intentionally?

?“We suggest working as much as possible in a ‘window of enjoyment’ – the capacity of the client’s system to experience pleasure within positive reinforcement…” Hoskinson & Ho

Without gross over-simplification, I can’t do justice to Hoskinson’s and Ho’s thinking in this short blog. Please take the time to read their paper for yourselves. Also, the adaptation of therapeutic approaches to a very different organisational context risks misrepresenting the research. But this central idea about the evocation of pleasure is a provocative one for us as coaches, consultants and managers who might be working with cultural trauma in business. I think it bears some creative consideration.

The importance of pleasure when working with organisational trauma

I find it hard to tell business leaders that a reason their competitors are outpacing them, or that change initiatives don’t work, or that their people are disengaged, or their strategy implementation is stuck, is that their organisation might be traumatised. For one thing, the concept that a culture (instead of a person) could be traumatised is shockingly new and often met with scepticism or outright disbelief; and no leader likes to think that they are in charge of a wounded culture – denial, guilt, shame and politics get in the way. Sometimes, naming the dynamic can feel pathologising and unhelpful – no-one likes to be labelled. So more often, I find myself working in ‘stealth’ mode in this area…

Also, more direct approaches to working with organisational trauma – while often effective – are insufficient. As Hoskinson and Ho acknowledge, multi-disciplinary and diverse approaches are called for. So, to design interventions that do not focus on what is wrong, and where the client experience of pleasure emerges naturally and organically from the nature of the engagement, gets around the issue of labelling.

What do we mean by ‘pleasure’?

What do we mean by ‘pleasure’ in this work context? Hoskinson and Ho track five ‘channels’ of pleasure in their work with individual clients: image, sensation, orientation, meaning and emotion. My own translation of possible organisational equivalents includes the following:

• ?Pleasure in self-perception and self-image: how do we develop and instil a clearer sense of what is positive about the team or business? Traumatised teams often have a preference for identifying (and identifying with) what is wrong. This reinforces a negative perception of their functioning. Mirroring what is good, and true, and beautiful – reflecting what is genuinely experienced as working well in the moment – can reinforce healthy functioning and return a sense of pride.
• Pleasure in the experience of sensation: How do we draw attention to a working group’s embodied experience of engaging together on a task? Building ‘serious play’ into our facilitation processes and reflecting back what we see and experience at an embodied level can sometimes be eye-opening for clients, who might be numbed from direct conscious experience of their bodies breathing more deeply, smiling, laughing, moving with energy…
• Pleasure in the orientation to the working environment: how do we help clients feel safe, held, interested and engaged in the physical environment they are working in? This is about drawing attention to the quality of our sensory connection to the working environment. Most office environments are sterile, but it does not take much to beautify a space… something that is particularly possible on awaydays from the office – and overlooked as a dimension of virtual, home-based working.
• Pleasure in meaning-making: how do we help the client gain satisfaction from the process of insight-generation; of learning, of analysing and thinking more generally? Exploring the rationale for tasks more thoroughly, so that understanding of why teams need to do what they do, is beneficial.
• Pleasure in emotional experience: how do we support a greater sense of inclusion, belonging, and fun for clients in task execution? Highlighting moments of flow, of satisfaction, of positive emotions in the here-and-now, is pleasurable.

There are of course other aspects of pleasure to be considered. As a constellations practitioner, I know from experience that the simple but brave act of naming truths can be experienced by clients as pleasurable even – paradoxically – when the ‘truth’ is unpalatable. Acknowledgement is fundamental to systemic ordering principles but is rarely framed as a source of pleasure. Remembering agency and developing autonomy is another dimension of pleasure; as is the cultivation of creativity and playfulness at work.

A short blog such as this can only suggest a core concept rather than unpack that concept more fully. For those interested in learning more, please get in touch about the 2-day workshop I’m hosting in Cardiff soon, where this and other ideas will be explored with fellow practitioners.

https://meus.co.uk/workshops/organisational-trauma-constellations-455

Sources

Hoskinson, S. & Ho, B., (2022) ‘A Non-Directive Positive Reinforcement Framework for Trauma and Addiction Treatment’ in International Body Psychotherapy Journal, Spring/Summer. 21: 1. 53 - 65.

Francis, T., Moir, E., Evans, G. & Roques, A. (2023) ‘A Framework for working with Organisational Trauma'. Meus White Paper. Cardiff/Bristol, UK. Available at www.meus.co.uk