Quarantine, Stress and Burnout: value in the corporate world of a Transpersonal Coaching approach.

Article published in the Transpersonal Coaching Handbook, Second Edition. https://jevondangeli.com/product/transpersonal-coaching-handbook/

Introduction     

In 1960, Clark Kerr and colleagues (Kerr et al. 1960) proposed that by middle of the twenty-first century (year 2050) industrialization would have cleared the world from any pre-industrial societies, with a few exceptions, transforming the history of humanity on this planet. This industrial society would be destined to be “a world-wide society” with common characteristics and shared imperatives.

 Today, six decades later, and three decades short from the aforementioned halfway point of the twenty-first century, humankind is navigating a pandemic that has required many of us to adjust our daily activities. Today, people are creating different individual realities, paradoxically, at a higher degree in industrialized societies.  

In my role as a head of an 1,800 people organization in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, I have been observing many of these changes in our team members, and I have been reacting to them as they occurred. Through this article, I will reflect on what has changed so far, how changes might be a source of stress, the whereabouts of the stress evolution and propose alternatives to manage it. Especially as it becomes embedded in the new-norm work environment.

 The most significant observation through these months of pandemic is that, irrespective of the perceived individual reality of most colleagues, all seem to converge naturally towards a re-calibration of life priorities and furthermore, a desensitization of death, seen as a consequence of life, instead of a catastrophic event.

Would we, as human kind, be on the verge of a massive spiritual emergence, whereby through re-calibration of life priorities, fundamental changes lead us towards the so-called world-wide society? Furthermore, what role could companies play under this current evolution?  

Change

Since March 2020, some adjustments began to happen throughout our daily activities. The office environment in the multinational company where I work switched global meetings to a virtual setting. Our geographical location in the westernmost office of our company’s world, Mexico City, has meant that many worldwide virtual meetings start at four or five o’clock in the morning, while the usual working day in the office started around eight or nine AM. Meanwhile, the working day in Mexico City continues as normal, ending late in the afternoon.

For many colleagues, these new working hours have also altered previously developed exercise routines. As Sharon-David and Tenenbaum (2017) found, exercise seems to be a practical treatment to cope with stress and improving mental health. 

One more element around the current Quarantine restrictions to consider is the thesis that humankind is social by nature. Even before the new era, Aristotle stated that “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual.” (Aristotle, Jowett, B., Davis, H.W.C. 1920). Human anthropology has studied for a long time the origins and nature of human society (Rodseth, 1991), even analyzing to what extent evolution of communication (i.e. language) changed through development of societies.

It would not seem surprising then, that the changes in our social habits: replacing meeting rooms, having lunch together, and even that walk after lunch around the campus, by online meetings, not only seem un-natural to humankind; but also challenge the individual’s status quo, navigating areas of fear of losing what colleagues have otherwise gained.

As Hylke Faber proposes (Faber, 2018), seven fear families correspond to the different levels of Maslow’s (Maslow, 1943) pyramid of values. As an example, our Biological and Physiological needs (most basic Maslow areas of need) corresponds to the fear family that Faber defines as “Poverty”; while the highest area of need in Maslow’s pyramid (self-actualization) relates to the fear family “Losing Identity”. Right in the middle of Faber’s representation of the fear families, lies the fear of “Uncertainty”.

One important element that transpires from “Taming your Crocodiles” (Faber, 2018) is the fact that we tend to modify our behaviors based on our biggest fears at a certain point in time. Over the last months, and throughout the pandemic, I have observed in our office environment increasing behavioral adjustments potentially related to Fear of Losing Identity and Fear of Uncertainty.

There is a quote by Gandhi (Faber, 2017): “We live in a circle, the circumference of which is bounded by our fears”. If we assume this as true, then we could picture a circle whose circumference has, slowly but surely, been reduced during this quarantine, caused by fears that emerge from losing elements of our previously fulfilled needs gained over the course of our whole life.

Fear, Stress and Burnout

Several studies have explored the connection between fear, stress and anxiety. Lisa M. Shin, in 2010 shared a meta-analysis of those studies, exploring the neuro-circuitry of Fear, Stress and Anxiety. She found through neuroimaging, that some of the brain regions that react to stress, overlap with those involved in the fear – anxiety neuro-circuitry (Shin & Liberzon, 2010).

Since 1908, Yerkes and Dodson have studied the relationship between performance and stress (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908), suggesting that a certain level of stress is not bad for humans. Actually, there is a level that is perceived to be “optimum stress” (fig. 1) for optimal performance. However, if the stress level continues to increase, the effect on the individual could reach a level of overload, and eventually, burnout.

Fig. 1: https://hbr.org/2016/04/are-you-too-stressed-to-be-productive-or-not-stressed-enough. Adapted from Yerkes and Dodson Law, 1908.

In brief, fear seems to be linked to anxiety as well as stress, and through accumulation, it reaches a level of burnout. The interesting element of this evolution of stress is that if we could consciously establish an area of the Yerkes Dodson graph where we would want to be, most likely we would choose the optimum-stress. However, our conscious self will hardly be able to control where we are, and unconsciously, it would make us move around that inverted U-shape, only experiencing the consequences of the stress level. I.e. from inactivity to great performance level, or exhaustion and anxiety.

One additional element to be aware of at this point, is the concept of time in relation to stress. The Center for Creative Leadership defines the concept “rumination” as the action of reflecting on past events that negatively affect the individual (regrets) and speculating about the future with anxiety. (https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/banish-stress-stop-ruminating/). Notice that the present moment, the specific instant where we are living now, would not be a source of stress.

And to companies?

In my 2019 publication, related to Transpersonal Coaching Psychology and particularly the usage of Open Awareness (Muench, 2019), I briefly explored what burnout was costing societies in terms of health related expenses and productivity. I concluded that just for a country like Germany, the productivity loss related to Burnout was roughly 9 billion euro per year. Furthermore, there is data that suggests that in the United States of America, burnout was costing the health system per year 170 billion euro. In this case, and with all reservations made to this calculation, assuming that the USA were a company, their yearly profit would improve by one percentage point, if health expenses related to burnout were eliminated. 

In a more recent publication, McKibbin (McKibbin & Roshen, 2020) ventures to predict for example, through the creation of several scenarios considering different paths in which the pandemic might evolve, how many more waves of infection would there be and assumed increases in public health investments as a response by the G20 countries. The range of impact on the global economy from years 2020 to 2025 was estimated at between US$17.6 trillion to US$35.4 trillion.

In his publication, McKibbin explores different projection models that contemplate the impact on mortality, morbidity and increased production costs on the economies, as well as disruption to financial markets. In his model, he also explores the impact that reactions from governments through public health strategies as attempts to reduce transmission of the disease might have.

Interestingly enough, McKibbin and many other researchers fail to include an estimate of the impact that the pandemic might have on burnout, or mental health in general, in their figures. Considering the calculation from 2019 shared earlier, from a time where there was no quarantine, it would be justified to conclude that the impact of the current mental burden on the global society will be substantial.

Alternatives.

Even a couple of years before the pandemic started, our office in Mexico City established a wellness area on our campus. Our program “Balance” offers employees alternatives to reach physical, emotional, financial and work-life balance. It has included since then, therapies such as acupuncture, psychological support, health massages and fitness programs as well as nutritional support.

The biggest challenge started with the pandemic, when defining which services we would be able to provide remotely and safely to all our employees in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Clearly, we decided to postpone services that involved physical contact until further notice, yet others have been adapted.

A good example of this, starting November last year, was including a Consciousness Leadership program starting with our first three layers of leaders, based on Fred Kofman’s Conscious Business (Kofman, 2008). Simultaneously, individual coaching sessions are conducted remotely with selected few colleagues, including a Trans-personal Psychology approach, or TCP (D?ngeli, 2018).

The very core of TCP, offering a shared platform that allows a search for one’s own essence, seems to be particularly beneficial in the treatment of Burnout Syndrome - or progressive, unhealthy levels of stress, as described earlier by Yerkes Doodson. It would then seem reasonable to conclude that a Transpersonal Coaching approach today is of greatest value for society, and in a smaller unit of said society, our working environment. One should be aware, however, that often times a burnout syndrome may be part of the genesis of a spiritual crisis (as defined by Christina and Stanislav Grof (Grof & Grof, 2017), and a corresponding spiritual emergence. Integration, therefore, and further accompaniment of colleagues becomes fundamental.

The most prevalent tool used today in our company, to conduct transpersonal coaching sessions is Open Awareness (D?ngeli, 2019). Interestingly, two of the most prevalent situations observed are, for the time being, tunnel vision created in the midst of the fears developed during the pandemic and perceived inability to control our “monkey mind and body” (Chodron, 1999).

On the one hand, through Open Awareness (D?ngeli, 2019) many coaching sessions offer a space where a strong sense of compassion is created towards the self and to others, including humanity and the world. In other words, the Self (with capital S). This compassionate environment often leads to conclude how little influence the coach and client have on the world itself, how extraordinarily big our space of awareness can be, and therefore, at our very core, all just is. And all is fine, irrespective of what comes or what path of action we take.

On the other hand, to those colleagues experiencing a “monkey mind”, it has offered a space that frequently allows the coach-client duo to flow into a clearer perspective on priorities that converge on increased focus on what is “important”, and controls, in a gentle progression, the otherwise jumping monkey. In this sense, as an example, open awareness offers a space to be conscious of the time continuum presenting a valuable tool to break rumination processes in individuals.

As described in The Alchemy of Coaching (Howard, 2018) an interesting process happens in a transpersonal coaching session, beyond the conscious mind, bringing some elements into a “creative tension” or synthesis. This allows the coach-client binomial to initiate transformation or emergence, enabling the creation of something that is greater than the sum of the parts (the conscious ones) which was not there before. In the coaching sessions where this is experienced (not always), both coach and client encounter heightened awareness or engagement. Cristina Pelizzatti portrays the transpersonal coach as an external unifying center, the “I-Thou” becoming the “Self-to-Self” relationship, allowing the transpersonal process to occur in a space where the client becomes aware of the Self, intentions, and own will (Pelizzatti, 2018).

What is next at work?

Still to be explored further in our particular working environment, is a broadening of our scope of this coaching approach: coming from individual Transpersonal Coaching Sessions into a Systemic Transpersonal Coaching. Explore the “identity” of the system where we work, and the different systems (or sub-systems, for that matter) that are interrelated in our working environment. Which are the forces that move those systems, or the unconscious rules of the system that allow or block its development, as shared my Mike Horowitz (2018). In other words, further pursue growth from the strengthening of the individual self to identification and even co-creation, of the system’s Self.

This step forward, a systemic application, resonates with the Third Dimension of Leadership (3DL) as described in “Introducing 5 Dimensions of Leadership” (Evans, 2018). After Dimension 1: “Self Awareness” and Dimension 2: “Awareness of one’s impact on others”, comes the third one: “The ability to consistently see the whole picture and the dynamics between the part and the whole”. This seems to be a useful step forward in our organizational agenda.

What is next as humankind?

If we push the envelope further, and explore our contribution, as a company, to the global system itself, it would seem logical to conclude that the aforementioned third dimension of leadership could be the one element still missing in what Clark Kerr defined in 1960, as a “world-wide-society”.

This would eventually lead from evolution as a conscious individual to a conscious organization, and ultimately to a conscious world-wide society. Just as concluded by James Rogers (Rogers, 2018) in the Call of Self: Us, everything, living as one.

References.

Kerr, C.; Harbison, F.H.; Dunlop J.T.; Myers, C.A. (1960). Industrialism and Industrial Man. Studies in labor and industrialization. Inter-University Study of Labor Problems in Economic Development. Reprinted from INTERNATIONAL LABOR REVIEW Vol. LXXXII, No. 3, September 1960. Reprint no. 24

Sharon-David, H. & Tenembaum, G. (2017). The Effectiveness of Exercise Interventions on Coping with Stress: Research Synthesis. Studies in Sport Humanities. 22. 19-29. Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA. DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0012.6520

Aristotle, Jowett, B. & Davis, H.W.C. (1920). Aristotle Politics. 6th Ed., Ch. 2, Oxford At the Clarendon Press, 1920.

Rodseth, L; Wrangham, R.W.; Harrigan, A.M.; Smuts, B.B. (1991). The human community as a primate society. Current Anthropology. Vol. 32, Num. 3, June 1991. The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. 0111.3204/91/3203.0003.

Faber, H. (2017). Leader as Coach, Session 3, 2017. Executive Education at Columbia Business School. United States.

Faber, H. (2018). Taming your Crocodiles: Unlearn Fear & Become a True Leader. Ixia Press. Dover Publications. United States.

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346

Shin, L.M. & Liberzon, I. (2010). A Topographical The Neurocircuitry of Fear, Stress, and Anxiety Disorders. Neuropsychopharmacology reviews (2010) 35, 169–191.Nature Publishing Group. 0893-133X/10. United States.

Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18(5), 459–482. United States.

Muench, J. A. (2019). Can transpersonal Coaching Psychology, through usage of Open Awareness, add value in Companies and Organizations?. TCP certification essay: Developing Theoretical Knowledge, 7-8.

McKibbin, W. & Roshen, F. (2020). Global macroeconomic scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic. CAMA Working Paper 62/2020. Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis. Crawford School of Public Policy. Australian National University. June 2020.

Kofman, F. (2008). La Empresa Consciente: Como Construir Valor a Través de Valores. Aguilar. Buenos Aires. ISBN: 9789870410263.

D?ngeli, J. (2018). The Transpersonal Coaching Handbook.

Grof, C., & Grof, S. (2017). Spiritual emergency: The understanding and treatment of transpersonal crises. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 36 (2).

D?ngeli, J. (2019). The Open Awareness Handbook. Seeing with new eyes. Second Edition.  

Chodron, T. (1999). Taming the monkey mind. U.S.A. Heian Intl Pub Co, 1999. 

Howard, A. (2018). The Alchemy of Coaching. The call of self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching. Chapter 15. 195-203. Edited by Dorothy Firman, Ed. D. Synthesis Center Press. Massachusetts, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9909590-1-4.

Pelizzatti, C. (2018). I am a Psychosynthesis Coach. The Call of Self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching. Chapter 6. Edited by Dorothy Firman, Ed. D. Synthesis Center Press. Massachusetts, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9909590-1-4.

Horowitz, M. (2018). A Systems Perspective and Psychosynthesis Coaching. The Call of Self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching. Chapter 16. Edited by Dorothy Firman, Ed. D. Synthesis Center Press. Massachusetts, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9909590-1-4.

Evans, R. (2018). Introducing 5 Dimensions of Leadership. The Call of Self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching. Chapter 19. Edited by Dorothy Firman, Ed. D. Synthesis Center Press. Massachusetts, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9909590-1-4.

Rogers, J. (2018). Practicing the Call of Self-Acceptance: Acting Out Your Lovers and Demons. The Call of Self: Psychosynthesis Life Coaching. Chapter 9 Edited by Dorothy Firman, Ed. D. Synthesis Center Press. Massachusetts, 2018. ISBN 978-0-9909590-1-4.

My appreciation to those that supported me by reviewing my work: Brookie, J.; Gieskes, T. & Granados, A.