家族がビジネスをどう動かすか

… 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 彼女 が好きだ。）

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.

職場で子供のように感じる

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.

なぜ起こるのか

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 それはあなたの人生を方向づけ、あなたはそれを運命と呼ぶだろう。.’

幼少期の未解決の感情は、私たちに与える意欲や許しすぎる意欲を起こさせるだけでなく、理不尽な偏見や嫌悪感を引き起こすこともある。もしあなたに、あなたを振り回す兄や、不適切に体を触る叔父、あるいは母親があなたより好きだった従兄弟がいたとしたら、たとえその家族が悪いことをしたことがなくても、あなたにその家族の面影を思い出させるような人物は、あなたにとって不愉快に映るかもしれない。似ているのは純粋に物理的なことかもしれないし、問題のある家族と同じ名前を持っているだけかもしれない。このような感情を認識し、解決しなければ、善良な人であっても、誰かを不当に扱ってしまう可能性がある。

それはどのように現れるのか

生い立ちが職場での行動にどのような影響を与えるか、いくつか例を挙げよう：

• 他人や仕事そのものに境界線を設定できないと感じるかもしれない。
  
• 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
  
• 同僚とパワーゲームをしたい衝動に駆られるかもしれない。
  
• 上司として、部下のやる気を引き出すもっと健全で生産的な方法があることに気づかず、過去の権力者の真似をしてしまうかもしれない。
  
• You might feel it’s not acceptable to stand out or to ask for what you want
  
• ミスを恐れて先延ばしにしてしまったり、（小さい頃のように）解決策が外からやってくることを期待してしまったりする。
  
• 規律に問題があったり、正当な理由なく当局に逆らう衝動に駆られるかもしれない。
  
• You might stay at the job that doesn’t satisfy you anymore, because you’d feel guilty if you left.

大人であり続けるには

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

1. 気づきなくして変化はない。避けるのではなく、無視するのでもなく、注意を払い、感じたことを認める。
   
2. 強いとはいえ、その感情はおそらく現実的ではないことを認識すること。
   
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. 自分の置かれた状況において、何が大人として成熟した振る舞いなのかを考える。
   
7. 私たちのほとんどは、自分自身の感情を何よりも恐れており、激しい感情的不快感の瞬間には、自動的に自分自身から逃れ、見捨てようとする。大人として行動するために、自分を怖がらせるようなことをする必要がある場合は、恐怖やその他の不快な感情と向き合いながら、自分に優しく、支えてあげるように注意を払う。自分を責めたり、逃げようとしたりするのではなく、思いやりのある親や友人がするように、自分に語りかけるのだ。
   
8. たとえその状況に完璧に対処できなかったとしても（おそらくそうだったのだろう）、自分の努力を認め、そうして学んだことを認識する。不快な状況に対処できたことを認識し、今後は毎回、もっと楽になり、もっとよくわかるようになるだろう。必要であれば、自分自身を精神的に支え続ける。

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