Would you prefer to quit rather than have a difficult conflict conversation with someone at work? In this coaching reflection video, I want to talk again about being emotional at work and why it’s important to acknowledge them.
Transcript
Intro
[00:00:00] Would you prefer to quit rather than have a difficult conflict conversation with someone at work? In this coaching reflection video, I want to talk again about being emotional at work. It’s often seen as a negative thing. You are so emotional or you had an emotional outburst. We never obviously talk about an “outburst of rationality”.
Emotions at work
[00:00:19] And yet work, especially leadership, is really all about relationships and not the worky work part of the work. The famous psychotherapist and couples counselor, Esther Perel talks about how there’s this kind of pandemic of people breaking up and getting divorced because they’re unable to talk about sex in their relationships.
[00:00:37] And I think there’s a parallel to this in terms of talking about emotions at work. I think it brings up all the same kind of sense of vulnerability, fear, and anxiety. I hear it quite often in coaching sessions. That someone is having a real clash with someone, it makes them so miserable and yet the fear of actually having the conversation with them on a heart to heart level is too great. And they would prefer to quit and look for another job.
What do you really want to say?
[00:01:00] So what I do in coaching sessions is I ask people, what is it that you really want to say? And it’s not usually about the work. It’s not usually about process stuff or whatever it is. It’s generally a much more human thing. That you are being left out, you’re feeling excluded, not heard, not seen, or all those kinds of things.
[00:01:18] So I asked them to come up with the, the sweary version of it. Like, what would you really want to say with the filter off, and you come up with all of that and you, oh, this, that, and you are like this. And then we work through and come up with the non sweary version and the kind of I version rather than new version. By which I mean, “When this happens, I feel these things” and it’s not, “You are doing this and you are doing that”. So it’s, I feel excluded. Not that you are excluding me and so on. And as we then work through that, we come up with a version that is vulnerable. It still tackles the emotions and it is honest, but it’s also something that’s not gonna create a huge fight.
Try it!
[00:01:54] I really recommend you try this. If you’re thinking of quitting, you have little to lose anyway. I know in some situations you may have something to lose, you might fear you’re gonna lose the promotion. You might fear that you’re gonna received some retribution, but I really recommend you give it a go because generally people respond well to someone being vulnerable. I’ve seen it completely unlock a conflict and I’ve seen it help people really connect on a human level at work and, and that’s either peers or it’s even someone and their boss.
Outro
[00:02:21] I hope that’s useful for you. Let me know how that any of that goes in the comments, or if you want to talk more about it, that’s one of the things I do in my coaching practice, which you’ll find at polaine.com/coaching, and I’ll put the link below.
[00:02:33] Thanks very much. I’ll see you again soon.
