Workplace Intelligence

Unconscious Forces and How to Manage Them

Anton Obholzer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367225599
• eBook ISBN: 9781000289206
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Workplace Intelligence provides a range of insights into the unconscious processes at play in the workplace and an introduction to a balanced approach to organizations.

The book explores key concepts, showing how our emotions and early experiences inform the roles we play at work, as well as how we react to other people. It encourages close observation and reflection and utilization of this knowledge for managing ourselves and others fruitfully. It also provides managers with the methods to intervene and tackle these issues, elaborating on topics from leadership and group dynamics to meetings and work-life balance.

The book will be a fascinating read for those in leadership roles, organizational consultants, executive coaches, students of occupational psychology, as well as anyone interested in understanding workplace dynamics in general.

Part 1

The dynamics of human development

Introduction

1 The terminology used

2 The structure of this book

3 On observation

4 Your picture of the world and how it affects your work and personal life

5 On beginnings

6 On transference

7 On joining a ‘new’ organization

8 On anxiety in the workplace

9 Personal manifestations of anxiety

10 Work manifestations of anxiety

Introduction

This book is intended for all who perform a work leadership or management role, and also for those who, in turn, are led or managed in their professional life. Most of the ideas expressed, of course, also have relevance in one’s personal or social life, but the main emphasis of this work is on managing oneself in role in the most constructive way – to self, to colleagues, to work. To adapt a Roman concept ‘mens sana, in corpore sano, in corporation sana’ (a healthy mind, in a healthy body, in a healthy workplace). This work aims to be a bridge between the psychological approach to leadership that most people don’t bother to engage with, it supposedly being ‘too wet’ and ‘touchy feely’, and the business school approach which is peppered with case studies that few people find easy to apply in their own back-home work setting.

Both approaches have their merits, but the risk is of being a zealot of one or other, rather than seeing matters from an overall ‘ecological’ perspective. Without anchoring one’s approach in the personal experience of development, any system of relating to others is likely to be shallow and awkwardly artificial.

After much thought and discussion, I have settled on the title of the book as Workplace Intelligence. Intelligence, of course, has two meanings – in everyday language – it refers to information about the military environment, politics, and the views of others. Intelligence is also used to refer to the ‘intellectual giftedness’ of the person as measured in the Intelligence Quota (IQ). Later, the concept of emotional intelligence (EQ) developed, referring to the individual’s capacity to relate to others and his/her surroundings. This required being in touch with self and others. Workplace intelligence is intended as a state of mind that applies the above two mentioned concepts to a third setting, namely the workplace.

Chapter 1

The terminology used

I use the term organization to describe the bricks and mortar and staff and equipment component of a boundaried group of individuals who have a common primary task. A factory, a school, a business, would be examples of such a structure.

I use the term institution to describe the state of mind or functioning of the organization. Institution would thus describe the organization’s ‘soft’ conscious and unconscious working practices and beliefs.

I use the term group to describe a collection of individuals in pursuit of a common goal. Thus a dahlia-growing society might not have bricks and mortar and employees, but they would have a common goal – the study and growing of dahlias.

A transient collection of individuals in a restaurant or bus queue, by contrast, would not be seen as a group.

With organizations, institutions, and groups certain dynamics are inherent. An awareness and knowledge of these lay the foundations for what is going on, and to an extent why it happens. It thus helps to have a certain number of fundamental concepts to begin to understand the specific dynamics of what one is about to experience.

I use the term observation to mean a state of mind free of preconception – one of noting the behaviour and quality of the interactions and processes inherent in the functioning of the observed, whether concrete or symbolic, conscious or unconscious.

Chapter 2

The structure of this book

The book is divided into five parts. The first is about the ecology and dynamics of human development. The second is about the everyday dynamics of organizations – what is normal in the sense of institutional functioning, and, therefore, to be expected, and what is not within the norms of the everyday workplace. The third is about the connection between self and workplace dynamics and how these might be managed as member, as manager or leader, or as coach and consultant. The fourth is about practical and technical matters and the fifth about coaching, consultancy, and related matters.

In my attempt to make the book more sympathetic to its audience, I have committed two cardinal academic sins: no footnotes and no references, and one venal sin: no acknowledgements.

If you can’t say it in the general communication you have in mind, it probably isn’t worth the footnote. As regards references, they take up an awful lot of space and time in their creation, and anybody who really wants to follow-up an idea can nowadays find endless references on the internet.

As for acknowledgements, I am so indebted to a multitude of teachers, colleagues, patients, clients, that I cannot even get round to naming them all.

The book is an attempt to help create a symbolic tailored ‘leadership suit’ to your personal and organizational needs, rather than a garment that flops around you or is too constrictive and one-size-fits-all.

In creating the suit the first thing that needs to be taken into account is your body shape. No one in their right mind would assume that we all have the same body shape, yet in relation to work issues it is almost a given that we assume that everybody does, or should, see events the same way as we do. There is an assumption that we all have the identical ‘mental shape’ in seeing the world.

When it does become clear that, in fact, everyone has their own particular way of seeing things, we, as a result, are inclined to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to get others to see things our way rather than to freely consider their version of events. Not that either way is necessarily right or wrong – it is more a matter of keeping an open mind and being free to consider a variety of perspectives.

When it comes to bodies, it is fairly obvious as to what the determinants of our shape are – genetics, family history, diet (mental and physical), exercise, and culture. When it comes to our own states of mind, matters are a lot more complex. To understand how we come to have our particular emotional apparatus for seeing things, it is necessary to have some insight into how we got to be that way, how it affects our perception both consciously and unconsciously, and, therefore, how it affects us in our work and leadership roles. Having some understanding along these lines can contribute to understanding our strengths and weaknesses, and can protect us to a degree from a ‘blind’ and ‘thoughtless’ approach to life and work.

This, in turn, can facilitate us to create and maintain a more ‘wholesome’ work–life balance for us and for those around us. In doing so, we may also become better role models for those in both personal and work roles who, at least in part, model themselves on us.

Keeping an eye on understanding our own personal behaviour and reactions also puts us into a better position to ‘put oneself into other people’s shoes’. As a wise colleague of mine once said ‘in order to put yourself into someone else’s shoes, you have to take your own shoes off first’. So, hopefully, we now have a suit and shoes. The rest will follow with time.

Chapter 3

On observation

The basic approach of this book is based on observation of human behaviour in all its forms, at all ages, and in a variety of social and cultural settings. Following this the emphasis is on applying the above basic ‘ecological’ principles to application in our everyday professional conduct and procedures.

Perhaps the best illustration of the ecology approach is in agriculture. The maximum production approach totally ignores the ecology of local flora and fauna and turns the landscape into prairies doused with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. In the short term this produces maximum output; in the long term it destroys the natural ecosystem and makes the system less able to adapt to new circumstances. Symbolically, a non-ecological global management approach has the same results as in agriculture.

In pursuing the ecological metaphor, the most fruitful settings for observations are as follows:

1. The self and observing one’s own feelings and reactions to the environment
2. Observing others in a variety of settings and the workplace – as mentioned, the observation needs to be as free as possible of one’s own preconceptions
3. Forming a tentative hypothesis as to what is going on and what it means. However, you need to ‘flirt with the hypothesis and not marry it’. The moment you do the latter you close down all other possibilities and blinker yourself
4. Plan a tentative intervention and observe the response
5. Continue with the cycle as above

This approach assumes that a great deal of learning is to be gained from observing how human beings deal with certain issues ‘in nature’ as it were, and to then see whether following the basic principles observed might lead to progress in addressing similar problems at another level of human functioning – specifically in professional and leadership roles.

A simple metaphor for this approach would be a ‘Russian Doll’. All the dolls packed into each other are the same, but the sizes are different. The smallest doll might symbolize the individual or the individual’s inner world make-up. The largest doll might represent society or the dynamics of the particular industry concerned. Intermediate dolls might represent subgroup, group, or inter-group representations.

The idea is that if one is stuck trying to understand the dynamic of one setting, for example, in a small work group, they can scale down the range of Russian Doll concepts, perhaps to the natural dynamic of a family group. In this way, one might reach a new understanding based on parallels between the family small group dynamics and the work group. This has the potential to shift the ‘logjam’ experienced and help to find a way ahead.

For example, one might again get in touch with the reality that rivalry and tension in family groups is a normal everyday event, and feel somewhat less surprised and annoyed that a similar dynamic might appear in a family-sized work group. A degree of perspective will thus have been gained that hopefully will somewhat defuse the tension and irritation of finding oneself in a ‘dysfunctional’ group. Dysfunction in a family group from time to time is a normal occurrence, just as it is in a small working group.

The point to be taken from the above example is that, if seen from a developmental (Russian Doll) perspective, the problem can be viewed and addressed from a more relaxed position than if it were viewed solely from a rigid management perspective. The latter view might be expressed as: small working groups should function well, and if they don’t there is either something wrong with the group, its members (or more specifically one particular member), or with me in my membership/leadership role.

This may, of course, be partially or rarely even wholly true, but seeing it from only that perspective then leads to either ‘bullying’ the group into a pseudo-well-functioning mode, or else of scapegoating a member or self. Neither process makes for good ongoing institutional functioning.

Implied in the above approach is also the need to exercise the capacity to tolerate for some time a sense of uncertainty and of not knowing, instead of taking immediate flight into supposedly remedial action.

This book follows a human developmental pattern – what is to be learnt from basic human development from conception to death, and how these processes manifest themselves in our everyday personal and work settings. In work settings they would apply both in our role as managers and leaders, but also in being managed and led.

The view is that an approach based on observation and learning from experience makes for a more viable and realistic professional way ahead than one that is based on unrealistic ideals on the basis of wish-fulfilment or self-idealization.

Chapter 4

Your picture of the world and how it affects your work and personal life

One thinks one is in control of one’s destiny, but, in fact, one is carried along by the stream.

To the unthinking this might appear to be another one of those frivolous philosophical fancies. In reality, it is a very insightful perspective on life, for it acknowledges that although consciously we believe that we are directly in charge of our lives – and thus of our personal and professional lives – that is only part of the story. This ‘stream’ is a key factor that influences our lives and the greater awareness we have of its ways, the greater our capacity to manage ourselves. Insight into the meanderings and attributes of the unconscious stream that carries us along is, therefore, a worthwhile quality to pursue; for example, a cox who understands where the current flows will know that sometimes cutting corners on a river and going the shortest route will, in fact, result in a slower time. This is because travelling with the current and using its power gives a distinct advantage. The key element of this unconscious stream that influences our life and conduct is not only that it affects the way we live our life, but, more importantly, that it influences how we see ourselves and, especially, how we see, judge, and manage others.

The unconscious stream thus operates as the equivalent of a lens (with all the accuracy as well as all the faults of such an optical apparatus) through which we see the world. How does the formation of this psychic lens happen? All parents will have noticed that each child’s personality from birth onwards is different. Some are calm and innately content, others restless and miserable, and so on. This early behaviour is initially on account of inherited genetics, and there is also some recent evidence that intra-uterine and birth experience may play a part. Following that, the child interacts with its environment, and in so doing builds up an ‘inner world’ picture of the external world – initially, in relation to the mother or mothering function – and so on. There are obviously a multiplicity of factors that contribute to the picture, but the ‘transitional’ end result is that the child lays the foundation in its personality of the world and its inhabitants. It is this reality that makes for the essentials of the unconscious stream of perceptions and assumptions that carries us through life – the lens through which we see and evaluate the world and its inhabitants.

Example

If the inner world picture is one in which the world and its inhabitants is an uncaring place and that one had better look out for oneself because no one else will do so, this might very well function as an effective spur to becoming a ‘self-made’ entrepreneur, and a successful one at that. There may, however, be a personal price to pay, as one might not allow oneself to be ca...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Part 1 The dynamics of human development
• Part 2 The everyday dynamics of organizations
• Part 3 Self and workplace dynamics
• Part 4 Practical and technical matters
• Part 5 Coaching, consultancy, and related matters
• Conclusion