"You idiots. Instead of working, all you can think about is going home?"
With a three-day holiday weekend just around the corner and quitting time approaching, a hot-tempered senior team leader erupts. A deadline is looming, and the team's report has not even reached a first draft.
The team has three members — A, B and C. Each reacts differently to the outburst. The reason lies in how each person perceives and processes stimuli, and in the beliefs and attitudes they bring to the moment.
The relationship each person has built with the team leader also plays a significant role. Someone who has long enjoyed a good rapport with the leader will not absorb a negative provocation the same way as someone who has not. The cushioning effect differs enormously.
The human brain is fundamentally inclined toward laziness — a tendency rooted, researchers say, in the primal instinct to conserve energy. Rather than laboriously weighing right from wrong or efficiency from inefficiency before responding to outside stimuli, the brain takes shortcuts. That, the thinking goes, is how we evolved.
This is why the relationship a person has built with the team leader kicks in first. It is the reason reactions to the same shock vary so widely from one individual to the next.
Even a remark intended to wound can sometimes be received as advice rather than an insult — and sometimes not. Some people brush off even blatant gapjil without much trouble, while others respond with fierce hostility.
Also, expressions of contempt — being made to feel ignored — tend to provoke stronger backlash than outright hateful language. People who feel dismissed suffer deep psychological harm and often respond with fear or hostility.
Human beings are, above all, creatures driven by emotion. For that reason, HR experts say, a culture that takes people's feelings seriously — one built on empathy, respect and consideration — is central to effective organizational management. In any organization that depends on communication and cooperation, the psychological well-being of its people must come first. Allowing them to retreat into avoidance, conflict or destructive behavior is not an option.
Ultimately, some argue, the degree to which an organization manages internal conflict determines whether it succeeds or fails. When people are in the right frame of mind, they can readily perform at two or three times their usual capacity.
Attending to people's inner lives, forging genuine emotional bonds, communicating openly and exchanging positive influence — this, HR professionals say, is the essence of organizational management.
freiheit@heraldcorp.com
