Shame Compass Chronicles: SHAPE-ing Workplace?Drama with Realistic Confidence

Written by Daven Morrison, M. D., Carin-Isabel Knoop and Antonio Sadaric

In the article we mention three personas from separate vignettes depicting typical workplace behavior to illustrate our arguments:

• 'Trevors' in the workplace (logline: “Hey, just tell me what you want!”);
• 'Tinas' in the workplace (logline: “Why doesn’t anybody care but me?”); and
• 'Sarahs' in the workplace (logline: “Can’t you see I’m drowning here!”). Details available in the full article: Asking for what you want and accepting critical feedback.

The Shame Compass

Navigating how to ask for what we want and how to accept critical feedback requires tolerance and mature management of the central emotion: shame.

In one model of emotion, shame serves as a healthy and constructive signal. It is an internal signal that guides us.

Shame serves an adaptive social purpose: giving clues as to whether or not we are included or about to be excluded.

One of the most practical models for understanding when shame is maladaptive is the shame compass [2].

The four points to the compass in Figure A directly correlate to not only the challenge of asking for what we want but also dealing with critical feedback.

If these are the maladaptive ways of managing shame, what are the adaptive ways?

Lessons from couples therapy therapists can help us here as well. Nielsen talks about the importance of frustration tolerance as well as healthy self-esteem and a sense of capacity to self-validate.

Being productive at work and having a healthy relationship with your supervisor and teammates reinforce this.

Another model developed by Jerry Lewis, MD, enables an audit of all interpersonal tandems. He followed couples from engagement onward. Those who formed strong families had shared characteristics [3]:

a) Tolerance exists in both partners for time together and time apart; b) Conflict exists but does not become chronic; c) All emotions are fully expressed; d) Subjective reality is appreciated and respected; e) Power is shared; and f) Problem solving is highly evolved.

Although these may not all be possible in the workplace, they are important as they relate to appreciating the autonomy and separateness of the boss and the subordinate. These are also guidelines to help address when there have been problems.

We can reflect on whether ignoring these factors led to the chronic problems in our cases.

When one reads the list, the idea that power is shared stands out.

This is clearly not the case in structured hierarchical organizations. Or is it? Ask the local police chief or Public Works director whether they think they have the power or not.

The wise leader will note: “it depends.” As the doctor appears to know, part of her ability to lead well is to appreciate that power is shared and that acknowledging the need and dealing with critical feedback will support her.

But what of “Trevor” and “Tina”?

The goal is always to SHAPE realistic confidence.

Lt’s turn to self-esteem and consider how self-esteem exists on a continuum. There is low esteem and high. Either extreme can be a problem.

A good manager would like the subordinate to be in a healthy range of self-esteem.

From the vignette, we might conjecture that Trevor is overconfident and Tina is more self-conscious. She might be on the left of the continuum in Figure B, while Trevor is more likely on the right.

Individuals skewing towards humility may respond to reversals with depression, shame, and deed. Individuals at the other end of the continuum might tend to narcissism, arrogance, and egomania.

Managers must help individuals move from the extremes to the safe/healthy zone with guidance from the shame compass in Figure A. If reports go too far on dismissing data, reign them with it.

If they are too far in dismissal, share what’s good about them. [The concept behind the SHAPE is Setting Humility And Pride Effectively.]

If so, and revisiting the shame compass, Tina will be more likely to dismiss herself, and Trevor will be more likely to dismiss the data.

A Tina will be more withdrawn and diminutive, while a Trevor will be more confident and aggressive (attack the other), or charmingly unaware (avoid). See Figure C.

Helping Others (and you!) “Get what’s wanted”

Work is not couples’ therapy.

For example, it’s difficult to be candid in toxic environments, or even in more healthy ones, where the perception of organizational politics alters how safe people feel and how much honesty they perceive. However, it can be helpful to:

• See the emotions of asking as data (thinking beyond Emotional Intelligence) [4] and notice how and when our co-workers rally to do the common work together as the team did with Sarah.
• Be attentive to the emotions of shame behind the defensiveness. Often anger is met with reflexive mandates to “anger management” programs. This is a mistake as this mandate adds to the distress and shame, which are the emotions the person needs to understand better.
• Appreciate that fear may play a role. Given a larger organizational context can heighten distrust in organizations, the underlying fear in Tina and Trevor needs to be identified and managed.
• Understand that your style needs to be flexible. For Trevor, a manager might want to: 1) be clear that the clarity problem is Trevor’s to resolve; 2) encourage him to be more self-aware as it relates to his demands; 3) . be alert to his tendency to resort to charm and or change the conversation; and, 4) be prepared for him to be unexpectedly enraged. Tina’s supervisor might 1) encourage and support her interest and quality work; 2) reinforce her standards on behalf of the client; and, 3) help her refrain and refocus her requests for help and avoid negative self-talk and “destructive fears.”
• Consider how technology might be impacting bonding. Be aware that the absence of being in the room will make us vulnerable to being “Trevors” or “Tinas,” and imagine how hard it may be for them to articulate an ask in a fast-paced virtual world of text, email, slack, etc. Then, appreciate how they will not be ready to hear and much less incorporate negative feedback dispensed at a distance (“out of zoom, out of mind”).

As we return to our work lives, remember the shame compass.

Think about what lies behind the behavior of the Trevors, Tinas, and Sarahs of the world and how to promote realistic confidence and healthy working alliances.

This is an excerpt from an abridged version of an August 26, 2023, article by Daven Morrison, MD, on lessons for the workplace from relationship therapists: asking for what you want and accepting critical feedback, adapted by Carin-Isabel Knoop on August 28, 2023.

Main references:

[1] Arthur C. Nielsen (2023) “Asking for things and listening to criticism: Two fundamental challenges in intimate relationships and targets for couple therapy,” Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, 18:2, 262–280, DOI: 10.1080/24720038.2023.2183209

[2] Nathanson D (1992) Shame and pride: Affect, sex, and the birth of the self. New York: Norton.

[3] Lewis, J (1979), How’s Your Family? A Guide to Identifying Your Family’s Strengths and Weaknesses. Brunner-Mazel.