Mother Always Liked You Best—Dysfunctional Family Patterns In The Workplace
|
From Lorraine Segal's Conflict Remedy Blog February 2010 |
If you‘ve ever felt like your managers, co-workers or employees were acting like children, you may be right. For better or worse, many of our habitual patterns of communication and conflict in the workplace come from our families of origin. When people bring these unconscious understandings and roles to work, it is a volatile recipe for conflict, miscommunication, and a negative, poorly functioning organization.
Some of the dysfunctional family roles I’ve observed at workplaces include the following:
- Mother’s/boss’ little helpers, praising everything the boss does and angelically assisting the parent/ boss with whatever he/she needs. These may be happy, happy “children” in denial about any problems or abuses in the workplace.
- The problem “children”, writing inflammatory memos, always complaining, happily settling for negative attention and disapproval rather than being ignored.
- The jealous “siblings”, feeling everyone around them got more love and appreciation, jealous of anyone else’s praise and hyper conscious of any marks of status recognition such as office size or memo name order.
- The abused “children”, so desperate to please that they never set limits. They may do others’ work for them or put in lots of unpaid overtime, with resentment and martyr energy leaking out sideways
- The invisible “children” who hide in their office or cubicle and try to avoid notice of any kind.
- The bullying “children” who, feeling inadequate, try to prove they’re right and everyone else is wrong. They can’t admit their mistakes, criticize and bully everyone below them in the hierarchy, and never praise anyone’s accomplishments except their own. This pattern may include temper tantrums if the bullies don’t get their way.
How can understanding these roles help us in the workplace?
Well, we can’t make anyone else change patterns they are not aware of. But, with support, we can learn about our own patterns and then consciously choose not to act them out. When we make different choices in our interactions, we create the possibility of change, even if the other person is still locked into the old behavior. Our awareness can also help us let go of resentments and find a little compassion for frustrating co-workers who are merely following the only patterns they know.
While many workplace problems cannot be solved by individual awareness, a conflict coach, for example, can help clients assess what problems they can work on and what problems need organizational commitment to resolve. The good news is that with awareness and practice, we can all learn to communicate more effectively and to have more realistic expectations of ourselves and others, no matter what age we are–or feel.
Biography
Lorraine Segal, M.A., has her own Sonoma County mediation, conflict coaching, and training business, Conflict Remedy, based in Santa Rosa, California. She specializes in teen-parent communication. She teaches classes at Sonoma State University in conflict resolution and leads communication skills workshops for parents, teens, and professionals through Recourse Mediation Services and other local nonprofits. Her coaching services are available by telephone as well as face to face.
As well as communication workshops, she has offered workshops and presentations on conflict resolution at work and in relationships including brown bag presentations at worksites, Introduction to Mediation for administration of justice students, Intercultural Communication and Conflict Resolution for Community College Instructors.
Lorraine has led and co-led mediations for organizations, as well as facilitating larger meetings to resolve multi-party conflicts around institutional budgets and worker-administration disputes at non-profit organizations. She has also helped organizations in Napa and Sonoma County create vision and mission statements and helped schools create student learning outcomes.
Comments
| Free subscription to comments on this article | Add Brief Comment |