Trauma Informed Workplace

A few years ago, I took the Inner MBA program. A program that encourages you to explore business through a compassionate and more human lens, I learned a few things.

If you are looking to lead with a more human touch, ask yourself these exploratory development questions:

• What are your core values as a leader?
• How do you coach the human not just the employee?
• What are your one-year, three-year, and five-year goals for your organization or your career?

Leadership Goals:

1. Write down three leadership goals
2. Write down three core values
3. Outline your plan, noting the lessons you will use moving forward
4. Determine if you can organize your plan into three measurable phases with milestones attached
5. Break each of those three phases into smaller segments so the plan feels clear and achievable

Course Take-aways

• Assume every interaction is a continuing part of an ongoing relationship
• How you behave in any engagement matters
• Learn how to negotiate - even if you don't use it in life, you will use it daily inside your own head
• Operational excellence is not a differentiator, innovation is

A Trauma Informed Workplace

Every day billions of people across the world go to work. But when they go to work, life doesn't stay behind. Along with their lunch box, they pack their worries, stresses, anxieties, and traumas.

Depending on the norm for the society, we have culturally normed levels of stress and micro-trauma. And we build our lives and workplaces around these norms.

When everyone sits down in the cafeteria for lunch, we all bring our normed levels of stress, creating a collective lunch room of stress. You'll notice it in the atmosphere, how long people stay to eat, how fast they eat, etc.

These normed levels of stress have to be maintained, otherwise we might have to feel. This is why people stay busy because when they relax they have to feel their inner speed and so instead of a cup of tea in the morning, they may read the news to consume something that matches their inner stress levels so they don't have to feel the stress.

When you're moving at the same speed of what's causing your stress, it's like a fish in water, you can't feel the wet.

Stress is another form of trauma. Trauma fragments the body, but trauma informed living reconnects everything. An integrated life means data is flowing, our digestion of what's happening to us is working well. The unintegrated life means data is not flowing well (between body, mind, soul, heart). There's poor reception, leading to health issues and prolonged stress.

We need workplace environments that help us integrate. Ones that encourage less stress, slower eating, more reflection, and a safe place to process the dissonance between our normal level of stress and a healthier version.

Create a calm workplace:

• Decorate with waterfalls and wind chimes
• Pools of water and windows to nature scenes allow for reflection
• Comfy chairs encourage a slower pace
• Soft, slow music encourages a slower heart rate and deep breathing

Contemplating the human experience and what we are all bringing to work, can inspire leaders to be more compassionate in leading the whole of the human being.

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