International Women’s Day

The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is #InspireInclusion.

It’s a great tag line. We have come a long way – and there’s some way to go.

However, in my own experience, not many people are trying not to inspire inclusion anymore – or maybe it’s just the company I keep!

If we are trying so hard and the business case for inclusivity and diversity is so well proven, why in practical terms is there is still a long way to go?

When we try to resolve undesirable behaviours or model new standards, understanding the science of human threat triggers and the psychology of human drama helps us understand why some good intentions translate into action – and why some don’t.

Knowing the science can help us to plan what we can do in our own lives and workplaces that are likely to make a real difference. I’ve made this a 2-part blog as you can use these concepts together or separately. So first up:

Why Do We Put Up With Poor Behaviour?

When we see exclusion at work, or someone says or does something to cause offence to ourselves or others, of course we want to fix it. However, often we are trying to ‘fix’ a problem for ourselves or others with only a small portion of our logical, problem solving and long-term brain in the game. Incidents where someone has been intimidated, unfairly treated or judged create anxiety and fear which are perceived as a ‘threat’ within our brains. And ‘threats’ trigger our SCARF Reaction.

SCARF it not my acronym. It belongs to David Rock. Here’s a short video in my Tea Break Coach series that explains more.

SCARF helps us to understand that when our Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness and sense of Fairness are challenged, rather than responding in a calm and logical way, we can instead go into ‘Fight or Flight’ or ‘Freeze or Appease’ mode.

A challenge to your status could be you leading a meeting where someone unhelpfully takes the reigns or when you are the expert, and your advice is questioned. Certainty is where we thought something was going to happen, and suddenly it isn’t. Autonomy is where we thought we had free choice or responsibility for something and that changes. Relatedness is where we think some one ‘gets’ us and our motives, and they say or do something which jars with you and probably your values. Finally, Fairness is a primary trigger. We can experience fight, flight, freeze or appease when we find something unfair. The big problem with this one is that what is fair to one person can be completely different from another. This means our threat response is pretty easy to trigger!

Imagine someone unfairly challenges your work in a room full of colleagues and undermines your status. You might shout them down – that would be FIGHT. Or you might vow to avoid any dealings with them ever again – that would be FLIGHT.

There are actually two more threat responses which I think are much more helpful to us when we consider the impact of poor behaviour by senior leaders on cultural diversity – FREEZE and APPEASE.

Ever felt up embarrassed that you didn’t stick up for yourself or a colleague because you couldn’t find the right words in the moment – and then the moment was gone?

That’s an example of freeze.

Or have you ever said ‘yes’ to someone who has more power in the organisation than you, when you actually wanted to say ‘no’, but it didn’t feel it was your place? Or where you went along with the majority on something that just didn’t sit well with you – or ignored a poor behaviour in someone because everyone tolerated it or worked around it? That’s appease (sometimes also called ‘flock’ to give you 4 Fs of threat).

When I was invited to discuss this on the BBC News last year in a series of incidents of ‘Men Behaving Badly’ at work, people would ask me, “How could it have gone on for so long?” We also heard this thread reported as a defence in the papers, “If people didn’t like my behaviour, why did no one speak up before now?”

The freeze and appease responses help us to understand why this happens. When this is the most powerful trigger reaction when others in our workplaces don’t behave well, it is really hard to challenge that behaviour with our ‘fight’ response. Instead, we tend to avoid them where we can and hope the problem goes away (flight), freeze in their company because we don’t know what to say or how to say it, or appease and go along with the majority so we aren’t ‘the person’ who stands out.

Why Do We Excuse Poor Behaviour On Repeat?

These are normal human reactions to threat and therefore understandable when you know the science, but they mean incidents are repeated, the problem persists, and toxic cultures are established because they aren’t dealt with quickly.

The other consequence of the appease/flock response being hard wired in is that you can’t make excuses particularly for senior leaders or high performers. When I hear “Oh ignore Rod, his heart’s in the right place,” or “We can’t tackle that with Jayden yet, the work he is doing is too crucial and he’s a specialist” or “Freddie is just Freddie, you’ll get used to him,” my heart sinks.

Back in our hunter-gather societies our ancestors learnt to emulate the most dominant individuals in a group with higher social status so that we could gain higher status too. This neatly explains our fascination with famous people as well as why poor behaviour in our most senior leaders or influential employees absolutely can’t be ignored. Others will move towards repeating behaviour that seems to be rewarded by status or ‘allowances’ and move away from the very behaviour you are trying to embed in an inclusive workplace.

Our brains collect patterns, so when a behaviour is repeated, our brain likes it because it has seen it before so it can file it as ‘normal’. This means it doesn’t register or trigger a reaction as strong as it once did. It’s normal for your brain to normalise someone else’s poor behaviour, even if you have the highest standards of behaviour going. If you are going to do something different and challenge that behaviour, particularly at a later date, you are going to have to battle your own instincts to do it.

Feedback about a repeated poor behaviour at a later date becomes really complex. First, it’s entirely normal that you will be prompted by your brain to ask yourself, “Is it really that bad?”

Secondly for anyone who is still feeling the pain or humiliation of being in those rooms, fear and anxiety are now joined by another powerful emotional partner – shame – because we didn’t speak up sooner. Unchecked, this shame can lead to unhelpful self-talk such as “I’m weak…” or “This is another indication I’m not up to this senior role…”

And finally, when we look to our colleagues for support, not only do they appear to have been anesthetised too, that normalisation also has a powerful emotional partner – guilt – as they realise, they have seen a behaviour on repeat and their brain has skimmed over its damage.

Before you give yourself a really hard time, know that our bodies and brains are very good at blocking out shame and guilt! We often undertake another ‘flight’ response to block these complex emotions out with over drinking, overeating, too much exercise or other things which give us a quicker fix than working through the guilt or shame.

In helping clients understand why our brains normalise poor behaviour on repeat and our threat response, I can also help them to manage situations better – and to forgive themselves, allowing them a re-set to make stronger choices next time.

I’m a Grown-Up – Why on Earth don’t I get a Grip?!

Our threat responses are ‘hard wired’ and ancient. Even 40 years of corporate experience can’t compete with thousands of years of evolution. The responses were designed to keep our ancestors safe from harm. If a bear invaded our ancestral camps, freeze was a great strategy, an armed fight could work and running away might be OK if you are far enough away and really fast…

If a horde of marauding invaders came into your camp and you were outnumbered, appease worked – “yes please do have some of our food/people” – you don’t actually mean “Yes, fill your boots”, but your ancestors were buying time – appearing to be compliant to keep themselves safe in the hope of occupying them long enough to come up with a plan to kill them!

The problems with Fight, Flight, Freeze or Appease is the physical preparation our bodies undertake to get ready to fight, run, stand really still or smile through clenched cheeks, require blood and oxygen to be diverted to our extremities.

Unfortunately for the modern us, the blood and oxygen diverted to power those twitching legs, our fast-beating heart or our clenched teeth comes from the part of our brain we didn’t really use all that much when we lived in caves – the rational, longer-term visioning and problem-solving part. The part that knows a subtle truth from an outright lie. The part that makes us ask ourselves ‘what’s the unintended consequence here…?

That part of your brain has been dramatically depleted of blood and oxygen to get your body ready to run or to smile like we mean it, when that thing you did or said was absolutely not OK…Not ideal when you need all your wits about you because a colleague has just said something inappropriate and set your cheeks burning that you are experiencing a temporary lobotomy!

Those strong emotions we experience when we feel a threat simply means something matters to us. Unfortunately, it is that very strength of feeling the moment that often gets in our own way of being the best version of ourselves when it comes to solving it.

We aren’t trying to experience threat, fear or anxiety, it just happens. That’s the bad science news.

But the good science news is that we can train ourselves to take a moment, to pause and reflect on what we really want. To calm our threat response and lessen our anxiety. To then allow a space to be created where we choose how we react – and make sure our reaction enables us to take one step closer to what we want.

It can be hugely embarrassing to feel yourself filling up with tears and run from the room. It can feel really horrible to listen to your self-talk when you said nothing and think now you look like a push-over. However, these are things we can learn from if we know the science about where they come from.

A deep breath really does help!

We can isolate ourselves when we get angry and say something we don’t mean. Or we feedback something at a later date and the other person can’t see what the problem is because they were certain you would have raised it at the time if it were an issue and it felt fair enough to them. We then SCARF someone else in return…I’ll let you imagine how likely it is that 2 people with lobotomies shouting at each other are going to find a win: win?!

Taking a break to reflect is another proven solution.

I’d like to challenge you to think differently about a lack of action so far to make your workplace safer and more inclusive.

Don’t see a lack of action on your part as something to feel guilty or ashamed of. See it as normal – so far. Now you have the science, you can instead decide to work against your instincts to make things better.

Journalling or Coaching can help you to make sense of what is real and what is your brain playing tricks on you.

#MeToo worked because someone realised there is safety in numbers. Get your SCARF response under control, realise someone else might not know what you do about SCARF, so still may respond badly.

You may just be about to challenge their Status if they are more senior than you, their Certainty that there’s nothing really wrong or someone would surely have mentioned it sooner or their autonomy to behave as they always have.

Perhaps you will create a Relatedness SCARF reaction in someone when you eventually give them feedback because they think you have always ‘got’ their sense of humour or responded well to their brand of tough love because you haven’t mentioned it offends or upsets you?

Finally it is almost impossible not to bring up difficult subjects without ever treading on someone’s sense of Fairness – “It’s not fair you have spoken about this with other people before you told me,” or “It’s not fair this is now a big issue that could jeopardise my career when no-one has ever mentioned it before and I didn’t know I was upsetting anyone.” They have a point…

Plan accordingly, with professional help if you need it, so you can feedback and be heard whilst keeping your SCARF under control and help others to as well.

Science helps unfair workplaces become fair and feedback to powerful others who can most influence and model inclusivity to be safer all round? This could be big!