The Flinch
It's weird, I think, that we don't talk about our bodies much in the workplace. I don't mean in sexy ways obviously. I mean in terms of what's going on in them. We act as if we're all just rational brains completely disassociated from the meat-sacks hosting them.
But we're not - and it is important for our wellbeing to remember that. I once worked in a place where three quarters of the leadership team had ended up on blood pressure medication before the end of their bosses' tenure. Extreme stress can do lifelong damage (and no job or client is worth it).
Yesterday I was catching up with a friend when she checked her phone over dinner and I saw her physically flinch in response to a newly arrived email from a client she was working with.
A flinch is a fight or flight response. It means your body has started to associate emails from that person with stress, fear or threat and pushed you into hypervigilance mode. It reacts to the threat of emotional pain as it would respond to the experience of physical danger. Seeing the sender's name on a new email, your brain anticipates the email's stressful contents and starts readying your adrenaline for the predicted impact of it.
Overnight I couldn't sleep for thinking about this. What would I do if it were me?
I'd turn email pop-up notifications off. And I'd either only go into my inbox to check for emails at particular times of the day - or I'd filter emails from that person into a separate inbox and only look at them after I'd readied myself for it
I'd ground myself - do a little deep breathing, give myself some perspective (I haven't even read it yet, it might be nothing)(life is too short, I need to be less emotionally invested), and then plan how to respond (in myself) if the email is a challenging one
I'd reveal to my team how difficult I was finding it, and share the burden by literally sharing challenging emails with them and getting their input - how are they interpreting it, have I misinterpreted it, how would they respond, how they predict the sender would respond, is it going to be more effective to say nothing, should I send a holding reply. My team is awesome and we make much better calls as a collective than any of us do individually, I reckon.
I'd talk to a leader in my firm about it - really, if it's this extreme, then they need to know if there is actually a safety risk here. Organisations have a duty of care to their staff - and if the person is not ordinarily anxious and having trauma responses to emails, but a specific person (staff or client) is triggering that in them, then something needs to be done. They need to be helped, and/or protected. And I'd want the leader to check in with the rest of the team, so that any others experiencing the same get the help and/or protection they need.
If I came to the conclusion that the issue was largely the person sending those emails (not the resilience of an otherwise very resilient person/team), then I'd want someone to have a word with them. Are they aware their communication is triggering this response? There are clearly some problematic leadership or management behaviours involved - are they working on that? Do they need support, feedback on what of their efforts are/aren't working? Do they want coaching? Have they considered therapy?
Internally I'd want my leadership to have a plan for moving forward. Consulting gigs aren't "tours of duty" where you're expecting people to be willing to put themselves in harms' way, because they "know what they signed up for". If the emailer doesn't change their ways really quite quickly, then other changes need to be made. Can we talk to the sponsor client side and ask for the emailer to be replaced by someone else on the project? Do we need an exit strategy? I'd want my leadership to have it clear in their own minds that the current situation can't continue. Having been there myself, I know that's just wishful thinking - you either end up with unwell staff and low morale, or a massively understaffed team that can't deliver effectively or build up any pace because of frequent departures.
If you are the flincher - please consider the above, and consider forwarding this to your boss (Kelly, I know you will).
If you are the emailer - you need to know about this, you need to be working on this. If you care about outcomes, this will stop you delivering what's possible. If you care about your career, then know that people flinching when they see your name is going to limit your progress up the ladder. It isn't just a "them" problem. And "they" talk.