Show Up, Do Your Work, Don’t Talk About Feelings

Is the corporate world on the verge of a paradigm shift?

Two years ago, I helped a friend prepare a presentation on trauma for his company’s leadership team. He wanted to introduce the concept of trauma-informed responses and how they could be applied at their global agency. The reaction he got at the end of that presentation? Crickets. Blank stares. The concept did not resonate. 

The corporate world has long asked its employees to show up, do their work, and avoid talking about feelings. But I have a hunch that two years later, amidst the pivotal realities of 2020 and now 2021, that same presentation would be received with more warmth or at least curiosity. 

A quick primer on trauma and how it differs from stress:

The word “trauma” comes from the Greek noun “traumat” which means “wound” or “injury.” Trauma can be summed up as the reactions and responses to events and circumstances that are perceived to threaten an individual or community.  

Trauma is different from stress. Stress, an outside force or event that impacts our bodies, minds or emotions, can be negative, neutral or even positive. Some stress, for example, can push us to be productive and creative. 

Traumatic stress is “an emotional wound that results from experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event or events: a highly stressful, horrifying event or series of events where one feels lack of control, powerlessness, and threat of injury or death.” (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience, curriculum, page 11). 

Most people have experienced deep trauma at some point in their lives. The CDC reports that one in 4 children experience some type of mistreatment: physical, sexual, emotional. Into adulthood, one in 4 women have experienced domestic violence. There is a world of hurt if we stop to draw back the curtain. 

Not everyone who experiences a traumatic event or traumatic situations experiences traumatic stress. Humans have three typical, instinctual responses to trauma when it occurs: fight, flight, or freeze. If not later addressed in a timely and helpful way, there can be long-term impacts. 

2020: a year when trauma comes out into the open

In the context of a pandemic, rising death rates, economic precarity, record-setting wildfires, and ongoing systemic and individual violence against Black, Indigenous and people of color, each and every organization, regardless of its location and employee makeup, has colleagues who are impacted by trauma. 

The early adopters in the trauma-informed organizational movement 

With various forms of trauma more visible and the collective trauma of going through a global pandemic, how can for-profit-companies respond? We can look to some early adopters for guidance. 

Over the past 10 years, the fields of medicine, education and community development have built shared understanding around trauma with tools like the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) diagnostic test and a myriad of trainings for health-care providers and educators working with vulnerable populations. School staff and entire districts across the U.S. have received guidance on how, for example, to react when a child melts down for seemingly no reason. Healthcare providers are trained to ask better questions when a woman sobs through a pelvic exam. A trauma-informed lens encourages us to ask “what happened to you?” instead of “what is wrong with you?” It makes room for storytelling and empathy.

But what about other fields? Do we need our bosses and coworkers to understand the existence of trauma and how it impacts us? Simply, yes. You might not need to use the term “trauma” or “trauma-informed” but an understanding of the concept can lead to a more holistic understanding of our colleagues and their needs. 

A working definition of a trauma-informed organization

A trauma-informed organization ...

1. has staff that has received training in trauma and that knows how to identify signs of trauma. Staff incorporates a trauma-informed framework into their interactions with others, meaning that they understand that people have stories and deserve to be treated with compassion and respect;
2. creates structures so that staff can practice meaningful self-care;
3. opens space for members of the organization, institution or business to speak about stress;
4. fosters a sincerely relational environment where everyone's dignity is respected; 
5. provides resources for getting help for those that need it.*

What a trauma-informed pandemic response looks like at my company. 

While we are not using the term “trauma-informed”, these 3 approaches qualify: 

• Increased pandemic communication - the leadership went from doing monthly company-wide gatherings to holding them twice a week. This allowed the team to keep everyone as informed as possible in the midst of a lot of uncertainty. We are back to meeting twice a month. The topics are less about government responses to the shutdown and more about opportunities for self-care through tools like mental health counseling and access to a meditation app and community activities.

When we feel out of control, added transparency can provide a sense of safety.

• At the start of the shutdown, our company’s founders said loud and clear and repeatedly: take the time you need to care for yourself and your family. We were encouraged to reduce the hours in our work week if needed and to rearrange the work day to prioritize family. That flexibility is still in place and communicated, one year later.

This emphasis on work-life balance is something our organization has long believed in and practiced, which set a positive precedent for the COVID-19 reaction.

• After the first shutdown, our Talent and Culture team implemented a tool for each employee to give regular feedback on how they are doing. This data is analyzed by stakeholders across the organization in order to take the pulse of employee sentiment and take actions accordingly. 

While trauma-informed language was something that I saw gaining traction over the past 7-8 years in not-for-profit community organizations and schools, I now see other fields showing signs of openness to a new, human-centric approach. 

2020 was a year of reckoning for a lot of people. We spend so much of our time at work. And we can’t always drop our baggage at the door (or now, for many, the Zoom waiting room). A shift toward trauma-informed organizations can be part of that change.  We can still show up, we can still do our work and we can also be aware that our colleagues have stories, lived histories and needs.

The author, Mikhala Lantz-Simmons, is the Director of Marketing at Absolunet. She has a master’s degree from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and has gone through the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience certifications (Levels 1 and 2) and received training on trauma from Truman Medical Center. 

*This working definition is something I worked on with Dr. Barry Hart from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in the context of one of his courses during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute. Listen to a recent podcast on Dr. Hart’s research and background here.