20 July 2007
Women have to put up with a huge amount of bullying in the City from the trouser brigade and the testorone filled offices...
Watching the television programme on Sunday on BBC2, I was sure that this was the first of a series like Hustle as it was so true to life and dealt with real challenges that people are meeting every day. It was a great that the lady won, thank goodness for cleaners, but it signalled the fact that unfortunately it was not going to be a serial.
Seems to me that here were two great writers Simon Brent and Philippa Lowthorpe willing to open up the archaic stereotype behaviours that are embedded so deeply in our financial and business institutions. If the UK is to move on and become a truly global trading power it is imperative to harness the creativity and emotional drive that women have in abundance. My male colleagues really do have to change almost 180 degrees to achieve this.
As a business coach, I see a lot of the damage that this alpha male treatment does to people, both male and female. Hats off to the BBC for putting this on and I look forward to seeing more programmes, maybe written by Simon Brent and Philippa Lowthorpe, based around this sort of environment that exposes the bullying behaviour that goes on in so many businesses.
Maybe in future BBC2 can use the well known policy of having off screen discussion after the programme for those people who have suffered as a result of bullying and maybe even have some whistle blowing.
Final comment before I disappear, and that is we will be seeing more and more pressure being brought to bear by the change in society’s view and rejection of this alpha male and female bully boy behaviour. We will see more recognition of a softer, accepting, supportive and creative role of the Emotionally Intelligent business person, for both men and women, as the Emotional Revolution takes on a stronger presence centre stage.
©William Barron Creating Insight
william@creatinginsight.co.uk
June 20th 2007
23 July 2007
Emotional Hijack – how to understand our own and other people's "out of character" behaviours that suddenly appear out of nowhere, have nothing to do with what is going on in front of you now and are all based on yesterday’s events, old coping strategies and fears….
Until I read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman I had no idea about such things as emotional intelligence – understanding and control of self and other people. Under the EI banner comes the behaviour caused by emotional hijacking, which affects all of us to a greater or less extent at various times during the day. This is especially true when we are stressed due to frustration of not being in enough control, too much work, too little time, too much emotion or whatever.
The reasons for hijacking appear to be linked into three places. The first one is the small Amygdala almond shaped area located almost dead centre of our brains just above the spinal chord, and the right and left hand sides of our pre-frontal brain, just behind our foreheads. The Amygdala is something that we humans have developed over thousands and thousands of years. It sends signals direct from where we pick them up – eyes, ears, nose, taste, skin – and bypasses all our normal considered responses. It is our body’s immediate fast response to danger that accesses learnt behaviours, which will have nothing to do with the situation you find yourself in.
Going to the other two areas, linked to hijacking, the right hand side of our frontal brain, behind our forehead apparently harbours negative responses, whilst the left hand side balances these negative thoughts with positive thoughts. Any unbalanced development of either side will have an impact on the way we behave and respond to any set of circumstances. This is why if a child has a very nasty bang on the head in either of these areas, especially when young and before it is fully developed, the bang can have big repercussions on the way the individual reacts to events, which of course can lead to bad habits being created.
We all know that sometimes we get carried away with our emotions and give the wrong response to a word, gesture or look, that was totally inappropriate to the circumstances. The strange thing to the person giving the behaviour it appeared to be perfectly natural to them in the heat of the moment. Sometimes it can be something relatively innocuous like a muttered curse or it can be a fully loaded verbal response, with appropriate body action. At the time it was obviously very appropriate behaviour for the person concerned – cutting someone up in traffic because the other person had done something by mistake, receiving a comment from a passer-by who felt they were being looked at or treated incorrectly, often involving people with dogs and/or bicycles, people in business being lambasted for nothing, members of families swearing at each other for what seemed to be nothing.
The thing is that the initiator behaviour was in fact nothing at this moment in time, but many years ago when the behaviour first occurred by another perosn, the coping behaviour or defending strategy, often of a child, involved pure terror, which led to an “over the top” response. If it occurred when the child was very small then the response was probably in a pretty crude form, without any adult refinement but if it occurred again and again then that became the stored response to that particular behaviour. Hence some really fast, immediate strange OTT responses can occur in the adult, for what seemed to be on the surface to an outsider, a relatively normal comment or look.
Lots of this sort of hijacking can be seen with families where very slight nuances of words, tone and posture, almost imperceptible to the onlooker, can have massive repercussions to those involved. Immediate screaming, tantrums and tears follow, almost as a sort of ritual, which can follow the individual outside the family home into business and their own married life. It is not that it is OK but is something that is perfectly standard and consistent with their past. This is the reason why many women and men continually meet up with and often marry a bully, because this is the standard behaviour of their past and what they are used to. The fact is that sub-consciously they set up the situation in the first place and attract the bully to themselves, without knowing it. They have been pre-programmed from an early age with this standard behaviour and they get the same result, time and time again.
The way out is through therapy, which over time creates a different set of behaviours and responses. One of the standard methods is Transactional Analysis, first described by Eric Berne in “Games People Play” and Thomas Watson in “I’m OK You’re OK”. Both these books give very powerful explanations of how people think about themselves from an early age, based on how they were treated by their parents and siblings and teachers, which programmed them up for life.
All of this is stored in the Amygdala and the neural connections that started off when we were conceived. Further development took place over time, inside and outside the womb, until we find ourselves living within the glass ceilings and walls that were created by us, for us. Emotional hijacks are all part of this and although these sorts of behaviours can over time destroy the individual and others close by, they demonstrate that underneath all of that emotion, there is a very sensitive person, who is in fact only defending themselves from the terror they felt the first time it all occurred many, many years ago.
©William Barron
Creating Insight
July 23rd 2007
10 July 2007
We are eventually seeing signs of the Emotional Revolution on the High Street but it is a very slow process. Eventually we will see it everywhere...
Sense and emotional reality is at last beginning to appear on the retail skyline. There was an excellent expose on BBC2 last night about the good guys and the bad retailers in terms of energy consumption. The Coop came out on top with Somerfields at the bottom. Tesco and Sainsbury’s were also just off the bottom, with Marks and Sparks about midway. The environmental issue is beginning to make an impact on the never ending striving by the alpha males of the stock market. It is just amazing that they say wonderful things, especially the very silver tongued spokesman for Tesco, who sent shivers down my back, and yet it is all smoke and mirrors. It was the first time that I had heard the term Greenwash and it is so incredibly apt.
Stuart Rose of Bentley fame from Marks and Spencer and Terry Leahy of “pile them high and sell them cheap” Tesco were all paraded out and said their piece. It appears that climate change and protecting our Environment for them is all about Emperors Clothes or pointing out the Elephant in the middle of the room. They just don’t hear what is going. They don’t understand it is all about being Ethical. It is all about Ecology. It is all about being Emotionally Intelligent and controlling desires and behaviour. It is all about being sensitive to the planet that supports us.
The alpha bully boys headed up by erstwhile leaders of commerce and business don’t want to lose their toys. Sir Stuart Rose does not want to give up his plane and Tony Blair does not want to give up his holiday. They seem to have collectively lost all of their grey matter. How on earth can the Earth keep giving up its resources for ever and ever, to slake their egoistical appetites for more and more. Possibly they realise that they are all going to be dead when our children and future generations hit the crash barriers and so why care. Let’s rape the planet to fill our retirement fund and bank balance and leave it up to others to pick up the pieces and clear up the mess.
How on earth Rose can talk quite calmly about M&S having their 100 environmental statements on the one hand and have growth targets on the other is nothing short of grand deceit. The word Sir Rose is oxymoron and creates conflict in the eyes of the consumer. How can Tesco decide to build another 128 stores and yet reduce their carbon footprint? The word Sir Rose is oxymoron and creates conflict in the eyes of the consumer. Strange that the last the last part of this word is moron as it applies so aptly in these cases.
Thank goodness that the BBC2 commissioned the programme. Pity they did not have more people to rubbish the strategies of these bully boys. What is interesting is to think what needs to happen for these large companies to stop their growth strategies. As one member of the public put it “they think that all their customers were born yesterday and came down with the rain. The fact that the amazing amount of rain that has fallen in unprecedented quantities is the result of the continuing relentless economical growth and the climate change that it has brought about. The saying “live by the sword die by the sword” comes to mind and I wonder how their comeuppance will appear as a result of their behaviour. I can only say huge congratulations to the Coop for coming out on top. They already have my Greenpeace credit card and now they are going to get more and more of my shopping. The Emotional Revolution is happening and long will it continue until even high powered silver tongued Greenwash is not enough to cover up the cracks that are beginning to appear all over old fashioned growth economies.
©William Barron
Creating Insight
July 10th 2007
william@creatinginsight.co.uk
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