This will be the last in the series about lessons I’ve learned from being a dad.  We started this series with Violet and persistence.  From there we explored Alice and imagination, and then we moved to being jealous when your friend rides a bike before you.  A couple weeks ago we discussed creating an environment for people to flourish, and last week was about band-aids, bumps, and mistakes.  This week we will think about Violet and the fight vs. flight response.

I get home from work and I ask everyone how their day was.  My wife tells me that Violet almost broke her nose.  Here’s how.  My wife thought it would be really funny to sneak up on Violet and try to scare her, so she did.  The only problem with this is that while most people have the fight OR flight responses when they get scared, Violet only has fight.  When Violet fights, she doesn’t throw jabs.  Every punch she throws is a knockout punch.  So when my wife scares her, Violet responds by throwing a haymaker that smashes into my wife’s face, almost breaking her nose.  In reality, Violet wasn’t really being threatened, but her brain couldn’t recognize this in time to stop her from throwing a haymaker.  If she would have taken a second to assess the situation, she wouldn’t have thrown punches like Rocky Balboa.

You might wonder what this has to do with anything.  Much like Violet, we all have a default state that we fall into when we are threatened.  We tend to either be more fight or more flight in any situation.  When we are in these states we are irrational human beings incapable of logical thought or growth.  The problem is that the feeling of being threatened is a delicate trigger.  Feeling threatened isn’t just about being physically threatened.  Often, feeling threatened can come from being challenged in some way, especially when it comes to somebody challenging your worldview.  This is why it’s so hard for people to have conversations about politics, race, and religion.  These are all deeply held beliefs, and many people equate these beliefs to who they are.  The moment someone challenges you in one of those areas, it is kind of like they are trying to attack YOU, which triggers fight (defend your belief as hard as you can, argue without really seeking to understand, etc.) or flight (avoid the conversation).  Neither of these options is particularly helpful, because in these instances we as humans are irrational and incapable of growing.

Besides things like politics, race, and religion, the fight or flight response kicks in during conversations at work.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes people disagree with me or share viewpoints that I disagree with and my fight response kicks in.  What could have been a productive conversation, then essentially becomes a battle to see who can be right, which isn’t helpful to anyone.  Have you ever been there?  Have you ever been the one who thought their ideas were attacked?  Have you ever been the one attacking the other ideas?  So much of what occurs during these conversations is a result of fight or flight kicking in.

Over time, what I’ve found is that I need to switch my default state.  Rather than fight or flight, I have to find a way to default to being curious.  I’ve found being curious eliminates the emotional baggage that fight or flight brings with it.  Curiosity forces me to better understand the situation and the person.  Curiosity allows me to stop and assess the situation.  “What is going on in my body?  Why am I feeling so strongly about this?  What is this person truly saying?  Why do they believe it?  What do they value that would make them come to these conclusions?  How could they prove what they are saying?  Why might what they are saying be true?  Why might it not be true?”  Taking the time to breathe and process, helps me avoid my own fight or flight response, so I can have an actual conversation to address the “threat” that may or may not be real.

The challenges: Do you know when you go into fight or flight?  How can you move to a different default state?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

This blog is coming early due to the 4^th of July holiday.  Last week was about bicycles, training wheels, and jealousy.  This week is about intentionally building a culture/environment.  Let’s start by sharing some seemingly unrelated things.

• During vacation we were eating at a Dave and Busters.  Alice was building a sculpture using condiments, salt, pepper, and silverware.  As she built the sculpture she put the salt upside down, spilling salt everywhere.  I responded by saying, “We need to clean up the salt.  Remember the salt comes out from the top, so you can’t put it upside down when you build.”  Alice helped clean up the salt, and continued building.
• We have a wall in our house where guests put their handprints, a wall covered in artwork, and art supplies always accessible.
• At dinner we play the question game.  It’s a metaphor game.  “If your day was a ________.  What would it be and why?”  With my girls that blank is filled in with everything from colors, types of cats, body parts, Rescue Bot (Transformer character), sounds, food, or any other weird thing they can think of.   

While these things may appear to be random, they are very much connected. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a parent is that my wife and I are in charge of creating the environment that will help our children flourish.  It is our choices and actions that create this environment. Everything above is an example that shows how my wife and I value creative thinking and expression, so we make conscious efforts to create an environment where that can happen.  That means, when Alice makes a mess in a restaurant when she’s building something, I don’t freak out about it.  Instead, we clean up and get back to building.  It means that we have art on the walls as a way to show we value it.  It means that they always have access to art supplies and legos, so they can easily create.  It means that we play the question game, which serves to encourage creative connection making.  Doing all of these things creates an environment where creativity can flourish.

You might be wondering what this has to do with work.  Think about all the time we spend talking about culture.  Now ask yourself.  How often do we take the necessary actions to create an environment where that culture will flourish?  For example, if we want to be fast, what are we doing to create an environment where we can move fast?  In my experience, we often say we want to move fast, but then get upset when things are fast but not perfect.  That immediately kills speed.  Another example, we talk about wanting to have open and honest debate.  How often is the environment conducive to this?  I’ve found that many times it isn’t.  Many times we don’t have the foundation of trust and respect to have meaningful disagreement.  Maybe it’s because the highest ranking person quickly shuts down ideas that are not their own.  Maybe it’s because people don’t do a good job listening to other points of view.  The result is, the culture of dissent is never created.

It’s up to all of us to create the environment in which we want to work.  It’s up to us to surround ourselves with art supplies (the right resources).  It’s up to us to hang artwork on the wall (officially recognize what we say we value).  It’s up to us to help clean up the salt from a restaurant sculpture and get back to building (instead of destroying the thing we are trying to create by responding with lots of undue negativity to a mistake or messiness).  It’s up to us to set the tone that creates the environment that allows a culture and people to flourish. 

The challenge: How are you creating the environment you want to work in?  Have a great 4^th of July!

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry