Wie Ihre Familie Ihr Geschäft antreibt

… even when you are not aware of it

Some time back, I was working with a small business owner who employed 7-8 people. On the outside, she had everything she needed to succeed: she was driven, innovative, genuinely cared about her customers, and offered services that for many people were a need rather than a luxury. Yet her results were bad and her business coach has told her she’d be bankrupt within 6 months if nothing would change.

She said the problems started when she ceased to be involved in „hands-on” activities and focused primarily on management. She trusted her staff to work well when she was not around, but instead they were continuously under-performing. Some of them started treating her with open or passive disrespect, making more and more demands or unexpectedly missing work.

I asked her how does she select her staff; she told me she delegates that to one of her senior staff members (let’s call her Mary). Soon it turned out that Mary was the key problem; one of her duties was to select and train new staff, but she slacked in both. Mary was also manipulative; she would hide certain passwords from her boss, would lie and gaslight her while in the same time pretending to care and worry for her. It wouldn’t take long before new employees would copy that attitude (And Mary would, of course, employ the kind of people sie gefallen.)

My client was aware of all or most of that. The obvious next question was, why wouldn’t she let Mary go? The answer was not so obvious. She felt somehow emotionally attached to Mary; she was also afraid that other employees who liked Mary would be angry, but the key problem was hope. Somehow she felt she had to believe that Mary would finally „see the light” and change. (See also: When Hope is a “Negative” Emotion)

A few questions later, it turned out that Mary reminded her of her younger sister she was made to take care of when she was young. The sister soon learned to exploit such a situation and manipulate the parents against my client. This was now mostly in the past, but unconsciously, the unresolved emotions and unfulfilled hopes were still there – and the unrealistic sense of responsibility, too.

We can easily guess Mary learned her complementary behavioral patterns with/from her family, too. She didn’t necessarily have to be a spoiled younger child, she could have also observed such behavior from other family members. Perhaps, as a defensive strategy, she adopted the same behavior others used to control her when she was a child. She would reap some short term benefits from such behavior, but in the long run she would lose trust and respect.

Sich bei der Arbeit wie ein Kind fühlen

I worked with some more bosses and managers with similar issues, and, on the other side, quite a few regular employees who would suddenly feel small and resource-less in front of their boss. Some of them told me they would literally feel as if they were physically shrinking to a very small size. I would ask: „How old do you feel then?” The answer tends to hover around 3 years old.

For some people, simply seeing an authority figure they feel they depend on, unconsciously reminds them of their original parent-child relationship and causes them to forget most of their adult resources. They might say, „It feels like my head is suddenly empty and I can’t find any words to say”. This sounds like they age-regress to memories created before they learned to speak.

Warum passiert das?

When we were children, particularly while we were toddlers, our brains were working in overdrive, trying to figure out the world and how to deal with it, as soon as possible. Through a combination of imitation and experimenting, we eventually learned what behaviors result in the most benefit and the least trouble around our family members. Those experiences became the script our brains tend to resort to in challenging situations. For some people, it’s to create drama, or to play a victim. For others, it’s to freeze and try to fade into the background. For some, it might be to blame themselves or to take responsibility. The problem is, what worked best in our families might not work best in the adult world.

The process of adapting to our families often requires us to ignore and suppress various painful emotions – and sometimes even happy emotions if they were not welcome in our families. However, life keeps showing us that suppressed does not mean gone. As one of the pioneering psychoanalysts C. G. Jung said, ‘Until you make the unconscious bewusst, es wird Ihr Leben lenken und Sie werden es Schicksal nennen.’

Ungelöste Emotionen aus der Kindheit können uns nicht nur dazu bewegen, zu viel zu geben oder zu vergeben, sondern auch unangemessene Vorurteile und Abneigung auslösen. Wenn Sie einen Bruder hatten, der Sie herumgeschubst hat, oder einen Onkel, der Sie unangemessen berührt hat, oder einen Cousin, den Ihre Mutter mehr mochte als Sie, könnte Ihnen jeder, der Sie in irgendeiner Weise an diese Familienmitglieder erinnert, unangenehm erscheinen, selbst wenn er nie etwas Falsches tut. Die Ähnlichkeit kann rein physisch sein oder sie haben einfach den gleichen Namen wie das problematische Familienmitglied. Wenn sie nicht erkannt und gelöst werden, können solche Emotionen sogar einen ansonsten guten Menschen dazu bringen, jemanden ungerecht zu behandeln.

Wie manifestiert sie sich

Einige weitere Beispiele dafür, wie Ihre Erziehung Ihr Verhalten bei der Arbeit beeinflusst:

• Sie fühlen sich vielleicht nicht in der Lage, anderen oder der Arbeitsbelastung selbst Grenzen zu setzen
  
• You might try to prove yourself too hard, and never feel it’s enough (I had a client who would even deny herself food and sleep until she’d finish everything she’d expect herself to do in a day, which was, as you can guess, usually too much)

• You might feel spontaneously attracted to people who seem „normal” or „familiar” to you, even if they don’t treat you well, and might not feel able to let them go, out of guilt or fear or hope
  
• Sie könnten den Drang verspüren, mit Ihren Kollegen Machtspiele zu spielen (was an die Rivalität unter Geschwistern erinnert)
  
• Als Chef imitieren Sie vielleicht Autoritätspersonen aus Ihrer Vergangenheit und erkennen nicht, dass es vielleicht gesündere und produktivere Wege gibt, Ihre Untergebenen zu motivieren
  
• You might feel it’s not acceptable to stand out or to ask for what you want
  
• Vielleicht zögern Sie es hinaus, entweder aus Angst vor Fehlern oder weil Sie hoffen, dass die Lösungen von außen kommen (wie damals, als Sie klein waren)
  
• Sie haben vielleicht Probleme mit der Disziplin oder den Drang, sich Autoritäten ohne triftigen Grund zu widersetzen
  
• You might stay at the job that doesn’t satisfy you anymore, because you’d feel guilty if you left.

Wie man erwachsen bleibt

Describing all of our coaching would require a book (which I’m writing), but here are some helpful first-aid steps:

1. Ohne Bewusstsein gibt es keine Veränderung. Achten Sie darauf und erkennen Sie an, was Sie fühlen, anstatt es zu vermeiden oder zu ignorieren.
   
2. Erkennen Sie, dass diese Gefühle, obwohl sie stark sind, wahrscheinlich nicht realistisch sind.
   
3. Remind yourself: “These feelings are a reaction to the past, not the present.”
   
4. Ask yourself: “Who or what does this person/situation remind me of? How old do I feel emotionally?”
   
5. Remind yourself: “This is not the same person or the same situation. I am an adult now and I have learned a lot since I was a child. What has worked in my family will likely not work now.”
   
6. Überlegen Sie, was in Ihrer Situation ein erwachsenes und reifes Verhalten wäre.
   
7. Die meisten von uns haben mehr Angst vor ihren eigenen Emotionen als vor irgendetwas anderem und versuchen automatisch, in Momenten intensiven emotionalen Unbehagens zu fliehen und sich selbst aufzugeben. Wenn Sie als Erwachsener etwas tun müssen, das Ihnen Angst macht, achten Sie darauf, freundlich und unterstützend zu sich selbst zu sein, während Sie mit der Angst und anderen unangenehmen Gefühlen umgehen. Anstatt sich selbst zu verurteilen oder zu versuchen zu fliehen, sprechen Sie mit sich selbst, wie es ein fürsorglicher und mitfühlender Elternteil oder Freund tun würde.
   
8. Selbst wenn Sie die Situation nicht perfekt gemeistert haben (was wahrscheinlich der Fall war), erkennen Sie die Mühe an, die Sie sich gemacht haben, und erkennen Sie, was Sie dabei gelernt haben. Erkennen Sie an, dass Sie in der Lage waren, mit dem Unbehagen umzugehen und dass es in Zukunft jedes Mal leichter sein wird und Sie es noch besser wissen werden. Geben Sie sich weiterhin emotionale Unterstützung, falls erforderlich.

Verwandte Artikel:

Interne Probleme und externe Lösungen

Wie man mit Integrität lebt

Emotionale Logik

Alle Artikel 

Online Nachhilfe