A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

The Fear Factor: Understanding and Conquering Fear in the Workplace

• Jimmy Barber, James Lawther, Dawn Wray and Amanda Gilbert • Season 2 • Episode 28

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In this episode, we are joined by returning guests Amanda Gilbert and Dawn Wray to discuss the pervasive impact of fear in the workplace. We explore various sources of fear, including individual anxieties, interpersonal dynamics, and systemic issues. 

The conversation, featuring personal anecdotes and professional insights, highlights how fear can hinder performance and well-being and occasionally serve as a motivator in specific contexts. It discusses key strategies for overcoming anxiety, such as gaining perspective and leveraging support systems.

The episode emphasises the importance of normalising conversations about fear to improve organisational culture and everyone's performance and enjoyment at work.

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, a podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

Jimmy:

Good afternoon, James.

James:

Good afternoon. How are you?

Jimmy:

I'm very well. How are you doing?

James:

I'm a bit nervous to be honest with you. We normally we'd have the two of us on this podcast Sometimes we have three But today we have four people on the podcast and it will be like herding cats I'm sure of that not any of our guests are cats or dogs or anyway, we'll move on quickly.

Jimmy:

Before you dig yourself an even deeper hole, we will introduce our two guests. They have joined us previously, so you may be familiar if you've listened to some of our older episodes. Amanda Gilbert, our L& D guru. Dawn,

Amanda:

Hello.

Jimmy:

Dawn Ray, what's the best way of describing you

Dawn:

Psychotherapeutic corch, let's call it that.

Jimmy:

and Dawn Ray, our psychotherapeutic coach. I managed to get

James:

That's nice coach mate Kurtz.

Jimmy:

Sorry,

Dawn:

I was waiting for that!

Jimmy:

coach.

James:

Kurtz.

Dawn:

It's all in the nuance.

Jimmy:

Well, what have you been up to, James, since we the last

James:

I'm on the big come down. This time yesterday I was in Budapest and here I am talking to you.

Jimmy:

How was Budapest?

James:

cold. It's, yeah, beautiful, beautiful, but it was very, very cold. So I now understand when people talk about invading Ukraine, it being bad in the winter, I totally get it because it is cold out in Central Europe at this time of year.

Jimmy:

glad, I'm glad you think that you traipsing around as a tourist around

James:

Budapest is like invading, yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy:

war and the suffering that there, there's a parallel anyhow, Amanda, what have you been up to since we last saw you?

Amanda:

Well, it's been a little while, hasn't it now? So, yeah all sorts of bits and pieces. No more line dancing. I've been privileged enough to work with some clients around some team development work and some culture work, which has just been fascinating

Jimmy:

and Dawn, what have you been up to since we last saw you?

Dawn:

It's a bit the same really. So I've been doing a piece of research. We're working with a charity called Tough to Talk and we're doing a piece of research which we're hoping to publish actually later this year. And it's about how workplace support might affect overall well being and mitigate the risk of male suicide.

Jimmy:

oh, fascinating.

Dawn:

Which is really, yeah, which is, it's a huge topic and we're hugely privileged to be able to interview about 50 people from across one organisation to try and understand from a lived experience perspective what would support men, particularly in the workplace.

Jimmy:

I look forward to

Dawn:

And then a bit of learning, bit like you Amanda, been learning. I'm doing some more training, so I'm training to be a supervisor of therapists of all things.

Jimmy:

Well since we last talked, I have been Like Nottingham Forest very inconsistent. So life is up and down one minute. We're winning seven nil the next minute we're losing five nil. So forest season is very reflective of life in general. Anyway. Today we are talking about fear in our working lives. We think it has a significant impact, mostly negative, but sometimes positive. And we think that by having this conversation, we can do two things. One is help. normalize the subject that fear in the workplace is a thing that we all suffer and also share some of our insights into how you can overcome fear and improve your performance enjoyment at work.

Amanda:

I'm just a little bit worried about when we talk about fear. In the workplace I like to believe that actually the workplace itself isn't full of fear, but on this particular instance, we're just kind of taking a lens on this for helpfulness. I think

James:

I think that depends on your workplace actually, but we'll get into that.

Jimmy:

yeah, but I think the point is fear isn't universal

Dawn:

I also think, and maybe I'll get to this in in some of the things I want to say later, but I always think fear is a bit more nuanced. It's not that I am overtly fearful in my workplace, but anticipation of something that's gone wrong in the past or How I might be responded to by another person can be a very subtle thing, but I would still name that as fear.

Jimmy:

Yes. And I think that's one of the issues that we should explore as well is that fear as a concept, isn't often talked about. And therefore when I feel it, I'm not, always able to be open about it and I call it different things and reacting it to different ways.

Dawn:

Can I share this quote that I found? Because I think it kind of speaks nicely to that. It says, well, the chapter in this book is called, If anything appears to go wrong, there may be unacknowledged fear in the system. Which I thought was interesting. And it says, anger, blame, criticism and judgment can be traced back to fear. It. So there's something about fear itself, but then the outward behaviours that get associated with fear that I think is interesting in this conversation.

Jimmy:

If you don't embrace things going wrong and fear is the output of things going wrong, you're not going to embrace testing and exploring.

Dawn:

The paragraph ends, we believe it's not fear itself that creates the problem, but the failure to recognise it and inability to share it, which is also culturally enforced, which I think is what the. We'll be talking about it anyway.

Jimmy:

do you think that fear is commonplace in the workplace?

James:

think, yeah, that's a good question. So if you just come on this. I think it is actually. Or it's commonplace in a lot of workplaces, not all workplaces, but I do think there is a large element of fear in a lot of workplaces because work is so important to people's lives. And, and their livelihood's more to the point, then there's always some nervousness about the implications of things for people. And that drives a whole load, then to Jordan's point, it drives a whole load of unhelpful behaviours. So I think it probably is quite common in a lot of workplaces.

Jimmy:

It's the consequence of something, isn't it? because the, you're fearful of if I do this wrong, or if I say this, or if I don't fit in, if I don't perform. The consequence of losing your job can have a major impact on your, your life.

James:

Because that's what people are scared of. what does it mean for me? So I think not all the time in all the But I don't think i've ever worked in an organization when there hasn't been any fear You know, you're looking very grim at that thought amanda.

Amanda:

It doesn't fill me with joy, but I get what I get. And I agree with exactly what you're saying. There's an element of, is an emotion that people experience and now we're naming it and we're calling it fear. I don't think the word fear is used very often. Or acknowledged very often actively discouraged in an organization. But I think what we're describing here is fundamentally though, however you dress it up, it may exist to a greater or lesser degree in your organization. And what's important here is what's the impact of that. And actually, can you make it better? I don't think you'll ever eradicate it based on the kind of nuances that we were talking about. And I also read something really interesting the other day, which is people have different response to fear So for some people, that's a negative thing and a negative experience. And actually. impacts their, their performance and arguably their well being. But actually for some people, Interestingly becomes a motivator, becomes re expressed as kind of excitement and just enough edge to make them perform. So kind of the opposite, which I thought was fascinating.

Jimmy:

Somebody told me many, many years ago that in terms of your emotional response, your physical, mental response, there is a fine line between fear and excitement. And some of that fine line is how do I look at this? My mindset? And not saying it works all the time, but you can choose to be more excited about a subject than, than, than scared of it.

James:

But so I don't think we, so we don't talk about fear a lot, but we will talk about angst a lot in the workplace and being anxious. And angst is, here you go, this is a literary for you, is Dutch for fear, so there is Yeah, I think it is quite common,

Dawn:

I think you're really making me think about, if you assume it's a really blunt tool, but it'll think I'll make the point, that the four core basic emotions are fear, sadness, joy and anger. And everything else kind of flows from those four things. Massive oversimplification, but they exist everywhere. Whether that's in a family, whether that's in an organization, whether that's in a culture, like it's about being human. So before we all get too depressed about fear in the workplace and how it plays out, I think it leads on to there are ways to overcome this. It's not it's it's a perfectly normal, unusual thing to feel afraid, to feel sad, to feel angry. Happiness isn't always the answer we can't all possibly be joyful all of the time. We are driven by all of the other things as well as human beings.

Jimmy:

and when, when we were talking about doing an episode on fear I tried to categorize fear in the workplace in three ways. And this isn't meant to be definitive, but it was fear that you have as an individual. And that's, your internal anxieties, your internal insecurities, the self talk that you have, well, that sort of stuff. It's part of the human condition, I think. Then there's fear of The behaviors around you, which is a little bit off, how senior people behave, how your colleagues behave, that and that can bring fear into so fear of others. And the third bit was fear that's driven by the system. So we work in a system where you might be judged, in terms of your performance. You might be rewarded. It might be a system where there's very strong rules and, there's strong governance around things. And so they were the kind of three ways. I don't know if that makes sense to you guys in terms of how I was thinking about fear at the workplace.

Dawn:

Makes a lot of sense to me. I think there's the fear you hold as an individual is a, how each of our. Backgrounds foreshadows our foreground, like if something bad has happened in the past, there's going to be an automatic anxiety, fear, of something in the future. I think the fear of others brings into play difference and power dynamics, which are always going to be there in a workplace. And situationally, I would widen that out from the organization. I would even widen it out further to culture and society. There's a certain culture and a certain normative way of being that gets set, that if you're different to that, that can create an anxiety and a fear too. Like, we all worked for an American organization once, and That had a very different culture

Jimmy:

Yes.

Dawn:

globally than it would do if you're working in a very British working culture, for

Jimmy:

And, The other day, Dawn, and just to your first point, I gave that quote that we've all come across, which is, past, past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior. And my other half, Vic turned around to me scornfully and said, you're such an insurance person. I was like, I'm sorry, but I learned that in behavioral interviewing at Capital One, that was nothing to do with insurance. But

Amanda:

I actually learned it in insurance prior to working at Gavcon in a different organization. So I'm, I'm, I'm going with her.

Jimmy:

wasn't my finest moment. Sorry, Amanda, what do you, what was your view on the categorization?

Amanda:

I love the categorization and I loved where Dawn was building that too because what I could see was the interplay. how those things work together. Potentially operate in combination in that kind of systemic way too. So me as an individual working in an organization, reporting to certain people with more power than I, within a system which manages my performance, like crikey, all the dimensions and the categories there in combination, and then apply a societal lens to that as well, Dawn, and crikey, it feels like there's a lot of fear in the system then, or potential for that,

Jimmy:

And James, you always like a good categorization and structure about things.

James:

Dawn's point is, you know, what you are fearful of yourself may or may not be well founded. just you've had a bad experience or something. Whereas the other two, fear of people and fear of the system, I think are are much more tangible, yeah because I do think those exist.

Dawn:

In the work that I do with leaders though, James, the first one might be unfounded, like what I'm fearful of from my past and how that might play out in my conversations with someone in the workplace is unfounded and not necessarily grounded in anything, but for me, it's true.

James:

yeah, I get that.

Dawn:

And I think in my work with leaders, that's what, and people in workplaces, that's what plays through. It doesn't matter that it's not real, because it plays through in the relationships, and in how people feel about their work, and how they conduct their work. And so, although it's unfounded, I agree, it also has a exponential effect on how we feel

Jimmy:

We're talking about fear in very negative terms, but there can be examples where fear and how you overcome fear can be a positive. Would anyone agree with that? Or got any examples of that?

Amanda:

Well, yeah, in the most simple form, the fire alarm goes off, get out of here quick. You know, there's that element of this signals there is danger. I need to take an action. And that is maybe an oversimplified, The other might be around the risk that I'm about to take with a piece of work or an action or a decision I'm about to take. A healthy amount of fear might make me look again, and check out your thinking or your decision making process, I would say.

Jimmy:

it can be quite a strong motivator though, particularly in the short term, your example, Amanda, about fire alarms, in, in the very short term, some fear can really motivate whether it always does long term is a. A point to, to debate perhaps.

James:

and I think it is time bound, right? So a fire alarm, fine, absolutely, but if you are scared all the time, then that can create an awful lot of stress and it's just not healthy, and Drive a whole load of inappropriate behaviors, but also it's just not good for your health. And so I'm firmly of the opinion, you know, if you think fear is a management tool and it is appropriate Then I think you're absolutely wrong.

Amanda:

And do you think that happens

James:

Yeah No, I do. So I think well I'm just going to go on and talk about it If you look at what's happening in the states at the moment And you look at donald trump and you look at the republican senators You Though, you know, I was reading an article in the Oh, what was it in? Hang on, sorry. No, it wasn't the Guardian.

Jimmy:

that's a, that's a shock, James,

James:

was hang

Jimmy:

reading of a choice. Surely I

James:

I was reading an article in Vanity Fair and the title of the article

Jimmy:

to be fair,

James:

Vanity Fair, they're scared shitless, yeah, the threat of political violence informing Trump's grip on Congress. But you've got people who, A, are scared for their jobs, because, you know, if they don't say yes to Donald, then Hulon will come along with effectively unlimited money and will effectively cause them to lose their job in the next set of elections, but they're also scared for their lives. You know, people are actually making death threats. According to the FBI, you've got credible death threats. Now I know that is an extreme example, but it does happen. And so I think fear is Dreadful in the workplace

Jimmy:

that the example obviously nowhere near as extreme as that, when I was working in betting shops early in my career, There was a point when I, I was robbed in one of the shops and after that I spent I think probably a couple of years still working in shops, but every day without fail, I would be scared at the start and the end of the day that the shop might be robbed. And in the end, I took the view I don't wanna live my life this way when I'm living in constant fear, I'll get out and got another job just because I couldn't, I couldn't have fear in my life every single day with work.

Amanda:

So a real experience left you with a daily I want to say imagining, but a recall of that experience as if it may apply today, tomorrow and into the future. That, that one off occurrence, awful as that must have been, then left that residual. I mean, our psychotherapist friend can help us with that one a little bit.

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Dawn:

I was going to build on that. I think from, from what Jimmy said, I think there's two things were important that was, that was going to be the second one that Jimmy had the resources to be able to find himself another job. If, if I'm working with, with middle aged senior managers and they feel like there's nowhere else to go, that can be a really stressful place to be. And then, then, then that fear becomes something really quite problematic. The first one though was Jimmy's Robbery in the betting shop was a real, real experience, real fear. So his anticipation of that happening again in the future is anticipation of something quite violent happening to him again, and then you're in the realms of trauma. If people have been violated in the past, either, physically or verbally or power over in a work situation and there's an expectation that that is going to happen again in the future because it has happened in the past, then people can feel, with a small t, traumatised. And then, then you're in a different place altogether.

Amanda:

Dawn, as you described that, and the scenario that Jimmy was describing was a, pretty horrific one and hopefully unusual one. But it caused me to wonder, actually people have other experiences in work, maybe an experience of working with someone they didn't particularly get on with or they felt mistreated., but that kind of replay can occur more commonly with some of, some of the other less extreme events that happen in people's working lives?

Dawn:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it leads into your point around the three categories blending together. So I've worked with quite a few, actually they're all male. That's interesting. A few clients where they have been literally bullied by previous managers and previous workplaces, often in a venture capitalist type of environment where it's very different set of rules. So what you're playing there in is the bullying and the kind of actual abuse. in small letters in the past, and then the cultural and systemic environment in which they live in can be really difficult for people to deal with. And I think that plays out in all kinds of ways.

Jimmy:

I'm not for one second defending the the bullies of this world but I think the, one of the interesting aspects of this is what, what drives the behavior of the bullies and quite often it can be. fear I've got, I'm a senior person. I've got to know all the answers. I've got to be right. I've got to show I'm in control. I've got to show I'm in charge. And so fear at certain levels with certain people can drive really negative behaviors, That, which then impacts others.

Amanda:

exactly. It doesn't even have to be that you're particularly senior. I can remember doing some work in an organization. But we ran a training where we were talking to managers, Managers but still with enough power over the group of people that they led make a difference and they were talking a lot about what were we talking about? But how do you, empower people kind of be the best that they can possibly be, all of that really great motivational stuff, spent a long time of it, two days, probably doing lots of practice, lots of exercise, but at the end, when we were doing a more, a conversation on how do you apply this, essentially the feedback that was coming back was, well, we won't do that. We won't give them too much autonomy and freedom because if they do X and get it wrong, I will get in trouble. So I'm actually going to flatten. The capability and the potential essentially of the people that work for me for fear that the people above me won't like what they're doing and then I'll get it in the neck.

Jimmy:

In that, that example, Amanda, fear, fear cascades downwards, doesn't it? I'm afraid of what my bosses are going to say to me. So I don't give you any autonomy that makes you fearful of me because I'm giving you no autonomy.

Amanda:

Exactly

Jimmy:

Back to the point that fear can sometimes be positive just the, the follow up to the story about working in betting shops, I then got a job working in a contact center and on my first day I walked in and, The first thing that the person in charge had to do was do a morning briefing to all the staff, and this meant standing up at the front with a microphone telling people what was going to happen that day But you had to do this in front of up to two or 300 people. And I was like, Oh my God, what have I done? I think I was better off, you know, being threatened with armed robbery than having to stand up in front of 300 people and tell them what swap. I was. Absolutely shit scared of that as a task that I had to do and got used to and but you had to. So, in order to do this job, this is one thing you had to do. And over time, I face into it. I did it when it was quiet I didn't, built up and built up by the end. I'd be walking around with the microphone, you know, on a Saturday morning, calling people out, taking the piss out of people. The point is.

Dawn:

That's how it

Jimmy:

Overcoming my fear made me much more comfortable in talking publicly to people. That was my first experience of that sort of public presentation in at the deep end, overcoming fear. I felt good about overcoming my fear when I had done it. And it set me up for the rest of my career to be okay talking in front of people. So it can be a

Dawn:

and that begs a question. Yeah, then that begs a question, Jimmy, what, what resources are available to us in order to overcome fear, but there is internal resources and external resources to enable us to recognise and therefore be with fear. And when those resources are absent, I think that's what we've been talking

Jimmy:

Yeah. Cause you feel isolated if you haven't got, if there's, if there's no help for you, I'm just conscious of, we, you know, I've talked to a couple of examples of mine about fear. Anyone else got any examples where they felt fear in the workplace? I can't be the only one.

Dawn:

I was going to use an example of taking, I've taken over a, a new job and I've been handed over this project to complete. And didn't think it was the right project to do. I've been given this new fancy job title and thought I should be doing all these cool things. And I got into the job and thought that we were taking the wrong strategic direction. But, but my fear was that I had to go to our head honcho and say, I don't think this is the right thing to do. And the project had already started. That was absolutely terrifying.

Jimmy:

What were you terrified of, Dom?

Dawn:

That I was wrong, that I would be told to get on with it. It was already sunk that I'd look stupid in my job when I'd only been in it for a couple of months. I'd been proven right, you know, the imposter syndrome, she couldn't do it anyway. Yeah, absolutely terrified.

James:

And what was the outcome

Dawn:

We actually changed the project and did something else., and Preparing for this, I was thinking about what, what enabled me to do that. And I think we'll probably be meandering into a different territory now, but it, it was about recognizing my fear and understanding what really mattered to me. I remember driving home with my husband saying, I don't care if they sack me. Like I feel so strongly about this, that I'm going to do it anyway, but I had to be secure in myself and in the environment I was in to be able to, to take that. Decision and to take a risk, because it is a risk, overcoming fear means taking a risk.

James:

well, sorry, my pet peeve, but performance management, a lot of organizations instigate processes, which just scare people and drive a whole host of them. Unnecessary behavior. And so I do think in some cases it just is endemic within an organization and it is because of the processes and systems that organizations put in place. Not all organizations, but some.

Jimmy:

Because how you manage performance and depending on how that's structured, that can often drive a lot of fear of either the judgment or the process itself. And now that now it's not, that's not the intention of it. it's about impact, not intention in these things

James:

I totally agree. And then, yeah. How do you minimize it? And that's basically you'd have to come to the conclusion that fear is a bad thing in an organization. I don't know. Do you know what I think it is? But until you really come to that conclusion, if you are a senior person and you have got your way by frankly bullying people and that is the way in which you manage and that is the way you understand how to manage and you don't actually know another way of doing it then you're probably not going to drive it out, are you?

Jimmy:

Well, I guess you could also argue that if, if your way of getting things done is through something negative, you know, in this example, a negative emotion, any results you get will be very, very short term. it's not a sustainable way to run a team, an organization, a country, whatever, to, to do it by fear.

James:

Yeah, I'd agree.

Amanda:

I feel like this is a horrible reflection of organizational life. It's making me quite sad.. I do recognize that there could be elements of this in play in all organizations. I like to think it's not an intentional thing, like a leadership strategy that you were just pointing to there Cause otherwise, like who would go to work?

Dawn:

on response to James. Like, I don't think there are many managers when not in the organizations I've worked in anywhere who intentionally would rule by fear, but I think it calls into question intent and impact. If the organizational system supports certain ways of being like the performance management system and there'll be other finance systems, that's probably another good one, isn't it? Budgets. Then that system supports people doing and behaving and doing their jobs in certain ways where the intent of what people are doing and the impact on the people in their organization are not necessarily the same thing.

James:

No, absolutely right. I do think it is a minority of people who manage in that way. Unfortunately, you only need one senior person to manage in that way and it will cascade down through that organization. So, and therefore affect those below it will then, you know, follow their boss. So it can have a disproportionately large effect, I think.

Amanda:

Well, this is interesting, isn't it? Because when you say manage in that way, that requires you to have some self awareness of your management impact, you don't always know, not always self aware or it could be a stylistic thing.

James:

Yeah, because the impact may be real or it may be imagined, but it doesn't really matter if you're on the receiving end of it. Yeah.

Jimmy:

And just for, before we get too depressed

Amanda:

I am depressed because

Jimmy:

To your point, Amanda, I don't think we're saying that fear is. universal, as in it's the whole of a working life. I think what we are saying is that fear is universal in that it may exist in most organizations at some point or another, but it isn't necessarily systemic. So what we're doing is exploring the subject. So fear as a concept of how I feel internally, my fear of behavior, my fear of the system as a way of helping people understand and maybe figure out how they might behave differently in order to overcome fear and improve their performance and enjoyment at work. So we should move swiftly on to talking about perhaps some of the things that we have done seen experience that helped us overcome fear Think if you didn't experience some form of fear, you'd never step outside your comfort zone.

Dawn:

Exactly.

Jimmy:

you know, if you want to improve performance, at some points, you do need to push don't you?

Amanda:

Yeah, that's in coaching terms, we would call that the stretch zone.

Jimmy:

Okay. Well, who wants to kick off in terms of experiences of what's helped you overcome fear?

James:

take the first one first, which is fear at a personal level. I think it's about understanding what he's driving that and understanding how bad it will be. So very mundane example. I I've written a book and I am publicizing that book and I don't like. self promotion, and I sent a promotional thing to a whole host of journalists, about 40 journalists, and my fear was that not one of them would respond. And you know what? Not one of them responded. Have I died? No. Am I still here? Yes. Have I you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So even if the worst thing happens, you know, it's really probably not that bad. But just facing it and understanding that and realizing well, how bad could it be? It's actually quite a good way of overcoming your fears,

Dawn:

I would often talk about that as

James:

Yeah.

Dawn:

What, what, what's the perspective? And it's quite difficult to get a different perspective on something on your own. So one of the resources is other people. And if those other people are people in positions of power that you trust, and that you can go to and get a broader perspective or a different perspective, then that is massively helpful in overcoming fear. or making a choiceful decision to go with something or not with something.

James:

Yeah. Quite often in organizations what is a huge problem for you is not a problem for the people around you at all. And so that the whole thing, you know, a problem shared is a problem halved. It's very, very true. There's invariably somebody who can help you and solve your problem. So yeah, talk to people, Dawn. I think it's very important. Very valid

Jimmy:

I know this is not quite exactly overcoming fear, but being thoughtful about the impact you have as a leader, I think is really important I've realized that one experience was When I went out on a site visit, I used to behave a certain way. And I really think it was very intimidating. I used to go and sit next to people and, just wander around and chat to people. And somebody, somebody did take me aside and said, just remember that people are not always afraid of you. You, it's the job And you have to be thoughtful of that because, I found that then actually I just had to probably think about the impact I was having and maybe work a little bit harder to overcome that fear that people had of my job role to help them open up so that they could talk to me about stuff so I could learn about their jobs and what was going, really going on. but that was a prompt from somebody, but I think that Being thoughtful about as a leader. What's the impact I'm really having? Not what I intend, not how I feel about things. I'm not hierarchical, so it doesn't matter to me. But it's what is the actual impact I'm having on people?

Amanda:

Yeah,

Dawn:

Can I nudge that up a notch? Because somebody said earlier on the word self aware, and we can only ever be, I'm a therapist, so self awareness is a big part of what I do, right? But you can only ever be self aware to a point. So to nudge your example up a notch. thoughtful yes, ask the

Amanda:

get the feedback.

Dawn:

be in dialogue, like actually know how you're impacting other people and be, and, and sounds contrite, but no, actually ask the question

Jimmy:

yeah, yeah, no, that's

Dawn:

never know, you'll never know otherwise.

Jimmy:

point, Dawn, because I was assuming the impact I was having and somebody was helpful enough to tell me.,, if they hadn't told me, I wouldn't have asked the question. I would never have really known the impact I was having. And it wasn't the impact I wanted to have. So,

Dawn:

Yeah, and people will carry around these perceptions that they believe to be real until they're proven otherwise.

Jimmy:

When I started off my career, I always remember thinking that people in senior positions, they were like, near deities, they were like all powerful, they knew everything.? But as progressed through my career and I became close to those people, I think seeing that they were only human and they were driven by human emotions and they had their fallibilities and, you know, just being generally more realistic about senior people. and frankly disappointed that they weren't deities and sometimes they were very confident and definitive about answers because they didn't know what the answer was. And understanding all those nuances in behavior, that made me a lot less afraid of particularly senior people in, in organizations. So I think that, more, more data, more information and thinking objectively about, what's really going on here. That's kind of what helps me. It's a little bit like the wizard of Oz seeing a bit behind the curtain there.

Dawn:

I was going to talk about how you manage when you're afraid of a boss. There's, what are you afraid of? Comes into play for me. So what are you afraid? And then the work on myself, so it's me, my self awareness and what it is that I fear might happen to me if I speak my mind. mind becomes part of how you unlock the relationship between you. You can't unlock them, you can't change them, but you can understand what it is that I'm afraid of and what it is that's going on for me and what stops me from saying what I need to in order to feel safer.

Jimmy:

So sometimes it is about just getting some more information, more data on a particular subject to help you to understand where, is your fear justified or not?

Dawn:

In me and my process and how I navigate my world that stops me from going and having that conversation. So there's a part that's self awareness, and then there's a part of when you meet the other person, what happens then. There's a lovely phrase that I was taught around, it comes up in therapy, like the relational bridge it gets called. So if I'm at this end of the relational bridge and James is at that end of the relational bridge, then what helps me to take a step onto the bridge? That's all I need to do. And then hopefully that'll mean the other person takes their step onto the bridge. But there's something in that that I need to find a way to step in first before I'll ever know whether objectively it's true or not.

James:

Because of that phrase isn't it, you can't change others, you can only change yourself. The other thing I think is really important is to realize that particularly in the corporate world, you know, bosses come and bosses go. These things do change. They're not for life. Yeah. And all right. It might mean you have a miserable two years. But these things are never permanent. So there is always some light at the end of the tunnel. Their

Dawn:

so it's not strictly true, that can they change me, I can't change you, but if I stand up to a bully, when most people don't, then their response will be different. So you don't change them, but you do change the, the shape of the dialogue, the dialogue. Cause if, you know, it's like schoolyard stuff, isn't it? If you stand up to the bully, suddenly they're not as big and brave as you think they are.

Amanda:

and the consequence of that is, even if they don't change that much, the fact that you have found within yourself the resource to say something, give voice to whatever's going on for you, actually changes your relationship with yourself. So I've taken the first step on the bridge. Oh, that proves to me actually, I've got it within me to raise an issue here. See what I mean?

Jimmy:

I think one of the things about fear is we simplify it to, it drives a fight or flight response, but it can also drive paralysis. Sometimes you can feel that there's nothing you can do about something and, at that, at that point it is, it is tough. We went over it a little bit, but my response earlier, I spent a good couple of years working in, in, in an environment that made me fearful on a daily basis and I thought there was nothing I could do about it. But you always, you do always have a choice. You might not like the choices that you have. Even when you're paralyzed, you have a choice and by staying in paralysis, you are making a choice to stay in paralysis ultimately. So eventually in the example we talked about, I realized that I couldn't overcome that internal fear that I had, that my betting shop was going to be robbed. And so I had a choice to make, which was go and find another job. What other insights have we got into possible solutions for dealing with fear?

Amanda:

There's something about vulnerability as well. Like it'd be really super powerful, wouldn't it? If you said to someone, hey, you know what, Every time I'm interacting with you, for some reason, I'm super worried or I get nervous or I get a bit tongue tied around. How, how could that be better? And actually, again, it's that bridging thing, but the activity of being prepared to be vulnerable as opposed to held in the fear state naming it, facing into it. More importantly, I think the other way around with leaders. I can't help but think that this is just such a brilliant leadership opportunity to be vulnerable themselves. Talk about what they're fearful of. Chances are then people in your teams might give voice to. You know, what's going on for them and what they're worried about.

Jimmy:

Another thing that we've quoted a few times is progress, not perfection. So back to my point, when, when you're fearful of, any situation, a task, a person, just seeing yourself take some progress and being You know, feeling good about the progress also helps you overcome fears because, you're looking for the perfect relationship to your point, Dawn, you know, there is a relational bridge. If you're looking for it to jump from where we are today to the perfect relationship that don't happen. Yeah. If I'm looking to be, scared of presenting to being the world's greatest, that don't happen. It's the baby steps that you can take and feeling good about those baby steps and not beating yourself up because there's still another load of steps to take, that can help you overcome your fears.

Dawn:

And with a healthy dollop of of Acknowledging difference, I might have a manager direct report relationship with you, but it doesn't mean I have to necessarily agree with everything you say or like you or have perfection. We're just different. We'll have different opinions. The other thing I'll say earlier on to what you're saying, Jimmy, about fight, flight or, or freezing and paralysis. There's also two more. There's flop and fawn. And they play out as, as the responses to trauma, but fear can induce trauma like we talked about before. And Flop and Thorn are, Flop is like playing dead, like a mouse in a cat's mouth, like you can't just give up. It's an option, it is a choice, it's, but as long as it's a conscious choice. And I think Thorn plays out in the workplace because that's people pleasing. That's doing everything, being a yes person, saying everything my boss wants, just sucking everything up because it's easier to blend in than it is to be different.

Amanda:

a lot

Dawn:

And I think these are all the behaviors that play out in workplaces around responses to trauma and fear is fight, flight, freeze, but there's fall and flop

Jimmy:

And it's interesting as well, Dorman, on you sometimes see people, I'm not going to be here for that long. You know, I'm, I've only got another year to do. I've only got another two years before I, retire whatever it is, they, adopt some of those tactics just because it's easier. Because this is a temporary situation. And I remember working with a certain boss in one organization that we worked in, James, and I knew he was a wrong un and I wasn't bothered because I was going to be out shortly and I thought, well, you know.

James:

I noticed that I was stood there for two years, yeah,

Jimmy:

do, you do, you think like, I don't have to deal with this because I'm moving on. But the

James:

fight, fight, flight, flight. That's what that was. that was. flight.

Jimmy:

That was definitely flight.

Dawn:

Your point, Jemmy, about doing it in awareness, like doing nothing is always an option, isn't that always what they say? But doing it in awareness of what action I'm taking in response to the situation I'm in is important, I

Jimmy:

Yes.

James:

there is another element, there is the question, which is if you are the manager in the organization, what can you do about it?

Amanda:

that's 100 percent where I'm at. Yes, good question.

James:

Yeah. Because I think you can, be aware of your own behavior or get somebody to tell you what you are doing, which is causing the issue. Yeah, so feedback, discussion, but be conscious of how you are driving that. But then there is also, you can shield people from it.

Jimmy:

well, I think the other thing is we heard not so long ago from one of our guests James and he, he was saying just remember leadership is, is a privilege. And, and therefore, you should think about the impact you're having on others

Amanda:

yeah, take an action. I think to create the, I don't know, psychological safety that goes with absence of trust.

Dawn:

onto the

Amanda:

Do it. Yeah, it's an action. It's not a, and that means from a leadership perspective. Acknowledging that if fear is normal, but you don't want it to be the lead emotion in your organization, what would you like? And then how are you going to create that culture? How are you going to make it safe for people to take risks? How are you going to respond if someone comes to you and says they've made a mistake? How are you going to make it easy for others to ask for help? And often that's about your own sharing. Leader goes first. Again, share, Make it safe, ask questions, be curious, respond appropriately when something goes wrong. It's not about being so soft and it's not about not holding people accountable. But it is actually about doing all of those things very, very consciously, declaring your intention about the environment you want to create, et cetera.

Jimmy:

For me, I think about two things. One is I'm, I'm here to help this team perform. And fear won't necessarily get the best results. Long term sustainable performance out of this team. And secondly, back to the, leadership's a privilege. I have a moral responsibility. Do I want to use that responsibility to create fear? Is that, is that the, the legacy, the impact I want to have on people's lives? So whether it's a performance or morals perspective, I think, trying to figure out how you, minimize fear in the workplace is, is a positive thing.

Amanda:

And as individuals, even without being a manager, but having your own personal power, how do you actually create that for people in the organization around you? You know, your peers, your colleagues, the people maybe that are more junior in your organization, the, how do you greet and how do you interact and behave around other people? Because I suspect that fear begets fear. I also suspect that, joy and happiness actually influence one another too. So, Are you being the positive force for what you'd like to see in your organization too, regardless of whether you have the official title of manager, the leader within

Jimmy:

Just to, so, so just to wrap things up, Dawn, you talked earlier about. Fear is a normal human emotion, didn't you?

Dawn:

Yeah, I would, I would wrap up by saying that it's a, it's a completely normal human emotion and all of the blame, judgment, criticism, anxiety, whatever you want to call it. I think As a leader having a disproportionate amount of power in an organization, the first step onto that bridge is acknowledging that those so called negative things exist. It's not a slight on your ability if they exist in your team, they just are going to be there. And I think if we acknowledge that they are going to be there, just like joy, just like anger, just like sadness. then you're already on the way to normalizing what's going on in your team and then showing up as the person that you want to be.

Jimmy:

fear is a normal human emotion. Despite Amanda's slight depression that it's, it's everywhere all the time, the

Amanda:

no. My depression is that we may be suggesting that through the

Jimmy:

Oh, definitely

Amanda:

got on it now. So let's not. make it that it's not, I don't, I don't believe it to be true everywhere. It's just we might be inferring that

Jimmy:

To be really explicit, what we are saying is, fear is It's going to exist in the workplace, either internally your fear of behavior, your fear of the system, there is going to be some fear at some point in your working life and why we're talking about it today is because a to Dawn's point, it's not talked about enough and so it's not normalized as a conversation within the workplace, but hopefully today we've, expressed it. And, and our experiences of it and talked about most important of the ways that we have overcome fear during our careers

James:

And those ways, the two biggest ones are understand how bad it can be. And secondly, talk to somebody. Those are the key things I've taken away from it.

Jimmy:

Dawn, what was your key takeaway?

Dawn:

Awareness, like I've loved the fact that you've all talked about personal awareness and being aware of what I'm contributing and what someone else might be contributing. It was like music to my ears, like in my work day to day. Raising people's awareness of who they are and how they are and how they see the world and how that might therefore be playing out in their team comes up over and over and over again.

Jimmy:

Thanks, Dawn. And Amanda, what are your takeaway?

Amanda:

It's, it's massively linked to, this is normal. So we all fear, fear, sorry, we all feel fear. On occasion that's us and the bosses too. And so with that being true actually having a conversation about it and working through it, particularly that bridging step that Dawn was talking about being so powerful is my key takeaway, actually notice it, be aware of it, take action on it,

Jimmy:

And mine was the fact that it is normal and you always have a choice in how you behave and how you respond to this. So I guess that's about us. So hopefully everyone's found that a really useful episode. Thank you, Amanda and Dawn for joining us.

Amanda:

pleasure.

Dawn:

Pleasure.

James:

Thank you very much. Cheers now.

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast from purpose to corporate jargon, but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well, easier said than done. So if you've got. Unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck. If your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiraling and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver. We can help if you need to improve your performance, your team's performance or your organization's. Get in touch at jimmy at jobdonewell. com or james at jobdonewell. com

People on this episode

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James Lawther

Co-host
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Jimmy Barber

Co-host
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Amanda Gilbert

Guest
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Dawn Wray

Guest