家庭如何推动企业发展

… 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 她 喜欢）。

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.

工作时感觉像个孩子

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.

为什么会发生这种情况

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 它将引导你的生活，你将称之为命运.’

童年未解决的情绪不仅会促使我们过多地付出或原谅，还会引发不合理的偏见和厌恶。如果你有一个对你推推搡搡的哥哥，或者一个不适当地触摸你的叔叔，或者一个你母亲比你更喜欢的表哥，那么无论谁在某些方面让你想起这些家庭成员，你都可能会觉得不愉快，即使他们从未做过任何错事。这种相似可能纯粹是身体上的，也可能只是与有问题的家庭成员同名同姓。如果不加以认识和解决，这种情绪甚至会驱使一个原本善良的人不公平地对待他人。

如何体现

还有一些例子可以说明你的成长经历如何影响你的工作行为：

• 您可能会觉得无法为他人或工作量本身设定界限
  
• 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
  
• 你可能会有与同事玩权力游戏的冲动（这与兄弟姐妹间的竞争不谋而合）。
  
• 作为上司，你可能会模仿过去的权威人物，而没有意识到激励下属可能有更健康、更有效的方法
  
• You might feel it’s not acceptable to stand out or to ask for what you want
  
• 你可能会因为害怕犯错而拖延，或者因为你希望从外部获得解决方法（就像你小时候那样）。
  
• 你可能有纪律方面的问题，或者有无端违抗权威的冲动
  
• You might stay at the job that doesn’t satisfy you anymore, because you’d feel guilty if you left.

如何保持成人状态

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

1. 没有意识就没有改变。关注并承认你的感受，而不是回避或忽视它。
   
2. 要认识到，这些感觉尽管强烈，但可能并不现实。
   
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. 考虑一下在你的情况下，怎样的行为才是成年人的成熟行为。
   
7. 我们大多数人最害怕的就是自己的情绪，在情绪强烈不适的时候会自动试图逃避和放弃自己。如果成年人需要做一些让你害怕的事情，那么在面对恐惧和其他不愉快情绪时，要注意善待和支持自己。与其自责或试图逃避，不如像父母或朋友那样与自己对话。
   
8. 即使你没有完美地处理这种情况（很可能就是这种情况），也要承认你所付出的努力，并认识到你在这样做中学到了什么。认识到自己能够应对不适，以后每次都会更容易，也会更了解自己。如果需要，继续给予自己情感支持。

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