People in the workplace are prone to their role in the family. Think about your situation. What role did you play at home as a child? What role do other people in the family play and how does it relate to your role? How does this dynamic relate to your current role as an adult, as a leader? When does your role in the family be useful at work and when does it hinder? If you can identify the factors that shape your family, you can pave yourself for a new career path.
You're negotiating with your boss in the workplace, and at the age of five, you'll pop up, push your current you aside, and start asserting your own ideas. With your peers, you find yourself acting the same way you would if you were arguing with your siblings.
This illusion doesn't just lurk in the depths of memory, it also creates hunger that must be filled and manipulates the way you behave. You bring apparitions to every day of your life, which psychologists call "transference," where thoughts, feelings, and reactions acquired in one situation are activated in another.
Practitioners of family systems theory in clinical psychology, such as Murray Bowen and David KaplanKaplan), Salvador Minuchin and Virginia Satir encourage clients to change by looking back at the patterns they developed in their childhood.
A growing number of academics and executive coaches, including us, are applying family systems theory to organizational structures. We believe that it is not counseling that can help leaders make progress, but a model of self-analysis and reflection. Many of the executives we've worked with have found this approach very useful, but be warned: digging deeper into the past can expose sensitive and difficult issues to deal with.
Guided by the principles of family systems theory and our own work experience, we have summarized the factors that affect workplace performanceSix elements of family dynamics. To better understand yourself in the office, you need to understand these elements, their role in growing up, and how they affect you.
1. Values and beliefs
Each family has its own characteristics that are passed on to children through a common framework of values and beliefs. This framework determines the "how" of the family, guides individual behavior, and defines the core identity of the family as a whole.
Executives we've worked with have found that identifying core values and beliefs is a relatively straightforward step. We've heard this: education is the most important thing (presupposition: education keeps you ahead of life in life); Be caring and considerate of others (default: relationships are the most important); Don't let others see you sweating (default: success means quietness); The Father knows everything and must obey His command (presupposition: you are inferior in thinking and reasoning to Him); You must be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer or you will bring shame on your family (default: you have a responsibility to uphold your family's place in the community).
Take the time to identify your family's core values and beliefs. What is the "what to do" that has been instilled in your family since childhood? Which of these ideas have always stayed with you? When has it had a positive impact on you? When does it cause a hindrance? At what point is the implicit presupposition wrong?
2. Role
All members of the family tend to play a certain role, partly depending on the individual's personality and partly on the need for dynamic balance in the family system. Parents decide to make their children like an uncle or aunt, and they deliberately reinforce the child's similarity to that uncle or aunt to make it fixed. Families label one child as a successful one, and another child as a disappointer, a rebel, or a waste. Twins may develop in very different directions in order to establish their respective identities, such as one being an introverted artist and the other being an extroverted athlete, or they may be identical and indistinguishable. If an adult abdicates responsibility, the child may take on the role of decision-maker or breadwinner. There are a variety of possibilities. Common characters include clowns, tricksters, and wise men.
As you can imagine,People in the workplace are prone to their role in the family. Think about your situation. What role did you play at home as a child? What role do other people in the family play and how does it relate to your role? How does this dynamic relate to your current role as an adult, as a leader? When does your role in the family be useful at work and when does it hinder?
3. Secrets
Most families have secrets. Sometimes everyone in the family knows about it, but doesn't leak it to outsiders. Sometimes only some people know about it, hiding it from the rest of the family. Secrets affect the way family members communicate and behave. Secrets often involve substance abuse, a**, mental illness, sexual orientation, divorce, money, and other issues that are difficult to acknowledge and discuss.
Think about your family secrets. What topic or who is taboo? Which family members know the secret? What topics still don't you feel like you can discuss to this day? How does this affect your leadership skills?
4. Boundaries
Each family's perception of structure and boundaries is very different. In some families, you can do whatever you want, such as being half an hour late for dinner and dragging three friends with you. There are also families who are very strict and must not cross the line, such as not allowing children to party with playmates after school, and not eating five minutes late. Most families fall somewhere between these two extremes.
Needless to say,People feel more comfortable in a workplace that is similar in structure to their home environment. Think about your own situation. How would you describe your family? Is it highly structured with clear rules, roles and decision-making authority, or is it loose and flexible or even chaotic? Are the rules made and enforced only within the family, or are they subject to outside influence? How does it feel like to live in such a system, and how has it affected your current leadership style and job choices?
5. Triangular relationship
Family dynamics can easily be thought of as one-to-one relationships: sons fear their fathers; The younger sister's achievements overshadowed the older brother. But to clarify the dynamics of the family system, it is important to identify the triangular relationships within it. Parents may not discipline their children in front of their grandparents, or they may each complain to their children about each other and avoid direct conflict. Children are well-versed in this triangular relationship and often provoke competition between parents to fulfill their own desires.
Think about the triangle pattern in your home. Who makes a triangle? Which behavior pattern prevails? Are there similar patterns in your office and leadership behavior today? How does this type of model affect your work?
6. Expectation and a sense of control
All parents have expectations for their children. Some children strive to meet expectations, which creates a sense of control and forms their adult self-perception. Still others fail to live up to their family's expectations and turn to other areas to find a sense of control. Others, unable to bear the pressure of expectations, turned rebellious. We sometimes find in our research and consulting work that some seasoned executives are still struggling to meet their families' expectations. A CEO has been collecting accolades to please his parents, who have been dead for years.
What are your family's expectations? Have you met your expectations? Are you still trying?How about if you felt a sense of control in responding to expectations inside and outside your home? How has the way you responded to other people's expectations at work affected now?
The path to change
Family Phantom is a part of you. Fortunately, these factors may not necessarily have a decisive impact on you. If you can identify the dynamics that shaped your early life, you can pave a new path for yourself.
You can refer to the following steps:
Find your childhood phantom. Review the questions raised above and write down your own family dynamics in general. What surprised you? What confuses you? Some people like to write down and compare with family members, while others discuss it with a friend or partner.
When we asked executives to take this step, it dawned on many of them that they finally understood how the important pieces of their complex personality puzzle fit together. Some are relieved, some are ashamed, but after such an epiphany, they all open their hearts to change. It can take time to fully identify the patterns of behavior that have been formed in childhood, be patient and try not to be judgmental about yourself. One executive found himself unable to empower his employees more at work because he was the one at home who provided answers for everyone, and he was afraid that delegating power would make him lose his sense of identity. This connection is often evident in retrospect, but it is difficult to perceive in the present day at work and in life. Find your apparition and write down why you want to change, but find it difficult or scary to give up a cherished role or identity.
Set goals for change. Take a look at the overview you wrote down in the previous step and think about how childhood apparitions have influenced your current job. Focus on the positive impact first. Some apparitions give you resilience and are the backbone of your success. It is necessary to recognize this part of the phantom and develop on its basis. Think about the phantoms that stand in your way afterward. If you could eliminate one or the other, which one would you choose? What kind of changes will best help you become a more effective leader? Neuroscience tells us that the most effective way to change behavior is not to try to get rid of old Xi, but to create new neural pathways, so be sure to express the goal as a desire. Telling yourself to "listen carefully and encourage others to participate" is better than "don't just focus on yourself in the limelight" because the first statement focuses on developing new behavioral Xi.
Correct expression of the goal. Once you've set your goals, try to express them in a way that will guide you away from old Xi.
Michael, the executive we worked with, did just that. He wanted to be more far-sighted and strategic. But at home, he was always expected to put his plans on hold and help his sisters in need. Sometimes when he violated this expectation, his mother would harshly reprimand him for being too selfish. This criticism became part of Michael. So at work, he struggled to cope with all the goals that made him feel selfish. "Spreading his ideas throughout the organization" was one such goal that bothered him. His family apparitions wanted him to dispel that ambition. But Michael realized that he could reframe the goal as "bringing in a new vision to help the organization weather the recent changes" — so that the restatement would no longer feel selfish to him.
A new version of self-building. Once you've defined your goals, you're ready to take the first step toward change. Start by gathering clues about how your family apparition can make an impact. When do the negative effects occur? Are there any triggers? How does the presence affect how you feel, think, and act? What makes you afraid of change? With a better understanding of when negative effects occur, why they occur, and obstacles to personal development, you have room for reflection and change.
One way to do this is to build what leadership expert Herminia Ibarra calls the "hypothetical self" – a new version of the self without phantoms. The key to this approach is to find role models who do what you want to do, whether you know someone or not. Try to analyze the role model's behavior in relation to the challenges you are facing and see how they face similar challenges. Look for a few more role models, as you'll need to experiment with various behaviors without being disturbed by apparitions.
It's not enough to try new behaviors, it's also important to reflect. Are new behaviors leading to positive change? Do old thoughts and feelings still interfere with you? Keep an eye out for these questions, and one day you will be able to move in a new direction.
At the end of the day, leadership is about imagining the future you want to create for your organization and yourself. The steps discussed above involve short-term change and are all important, but you can also follow the same steps to develop a long-term vision for your new version of self.
In order to reach your full potential at work, think about these questions:What kind of leader and colleague do I want to be in 10 years? Can you find or create a place that welcomes and nourishes the kind of person I want to be? Which family apparitions should I embrace and which should I discard?
Keywords:Workplace
Deborah Ancona by Dennis Nt. perkins）|text
Deborah Ancona is the Cele Chair in Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founder of the MIT Center for Leadership. Dennis Perkins is CEO of Syncretics Group and has taught at the Yale School of Management and the Department of Psychology.
Jiang Huirong |Translated by Shi Qingjing |School button key army |Edit.
How is a high-quality network established?
People with agile learning Xi are not afraid of any change.