You’re a junior member of staff. You wake up with a knot in your stomach. On the way in, you keep replaying yesterday’s sarcastic remark, the raised eyebrow, the slow shake of the head. Your chest feels heavy, your shoulders tight. They’re polite to you on the surface, even friendly, but they have a knack for letting you know, in small, unmistakable ways, that you’re not quite good enough.

This is how an intern felt when asked to make toast for Naga Munchetty, one of the BBC’s most recognisable news presenters, co-hosting its flagship morning programme, BBC Breakfast.

The Daily Telegraph recently reported that Munchetty “went ballistic” at an intern over how Marmite had been put on her toast. According to reports, the toast itself also wasn’t quite right: she wanted it slightly burnt, but not too burnt. Imagine the impossible precision of getting that “just right” under pressure. Other claims include complaints that her porridge had been made incorrectly and snapping at colleagues in front of others. Much of the time, she could be perfectly pleasant and polite. At the same time though, in small, unmistakable ways, she allegedly signalled that those around her were not quite good enough.

“Naga Munchetty likes her toast made just so when she presents BBC Breakfast. “It needed to be a little bit burnt, but not too much. And if you didn’t get it right, she would never shout at you, but she would act as if it was a really stupid mistake to make,” one former subordinate, who used to be tasked with fuelling the presenter, tells me. “[Instead] she would be like, ‘Oh, they can’t get the toast right, they can’t do anything.’” (The Telegraph, 12 August 20251)

These kinds of subtle cues (a sarcastic remark, a raised eyebrow, an exasperated sigh) are exactly how one person’s lack of confidence, or self-worth; their anxiety, frustration, or perfectionism can begin to infect others.

This process was first described in the mid 20th century by the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein. She called it projective identification2, a term now widely used to explain how people pass their feelings on to others.

What is projective identification?

Here’s an everyday example:

They have transferred their anxiety onto you, and now you are acting precisely as they feared you would.

Projective identification is a defence mechanism where someone unconsciously passes unwanted emotions, such as shame, anger, frustration, or not feeling good enough, to another person. They then treat that person as if those feelings genuinely belong to them. This can happen through words, tone of voice, facial expressions, timing of remarks, or even body language.

The ‘projector,’ at some level, feels not good enough or incompetent but cannot admit that to themselves; they may locate that feeling in the other person. Without realising it, the recipient starts to feel incompetent, as if they can’t do anything right, even though their behaviour is fine and nothing has been said outright. It's hard to see and stop because it's an unconscious process in both people.

The cycle repeats because the projected feelings shape behaviour, which in turn confirms the original belief.

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How to spot projective identification at work

This is a familiar dynamic in most workplaces. And when the person doing it has authority, the effect doesn’t stop with one exchange. It ripples out until the whole workplace feels tense, cautious, and risk-averse.

You might be experiencing it if:

1. You feel emotions around someone that don’t match the situation — sudden anxiety, hesitation, or defensiveness

2. Minor interactions leave you unusually flustered or self-conscious

3. You start behaving out of character: second-guessing yourself, avoiding decisions, or holding back ideas

4. Feedback feels personal or undermining rather than genuinely constructive

5. The same tense, critical dynamic seems to follow them with different people

6. Non-verbal signals like raised eyebrows, sighs, smirks, folded arms, head tilts, silences, or slow movements that leave you feeling judged

7. A single change in their tone or expression can instantly change how you feel, even without words

Why this matters for leaders

Naga Munchetty has a high profile and is highly paid, which often means bad behaviour is more likely to be overlooked.

The tension gets worse when she clashes with someone else who also sees themselves as important. Senior egos collide, and the strain rolls downhill.

For people lower down, it’s exhausting. Constant low-level criticism chips away at confidence and motivation. You stop taking initiative. You keep your head down. Success becomes about avoiding being the next target, not doing your best work.

Once it’s labelled as bullying, it stops being “just a bad day” and turns into an organisational crisis:

1. Reputational damage: headlines, social media, loss of credibility

2. Internal investigations: draining time, energy, and resources

3. Potential legal action: grievances, tribunals, costly settlements

4. Team damage: high performers leave, morale collapses, culture turns toxic

Over time, the leader of the team shapes the emotional climate for everyone involved. If they radiate pressure, the team feels pressured. If they drip-feed low-level criticism, the team becomes self-doubting and risk-averse. The more powerful the person, the stronger the effect, and the less likely anyone will challenge it.

The leadership takeaway

Projective identification can quietly turn one person’s stress into an entire team’s culture.

• Leaders need the self-awareness to recognise when their emotions are leaking into the team, and the systems to process pressure without projecting it.

• Because no one should dread going to work over something as small as a slice of toast.

Changing a team’s culture isn’t just about new processes; it means addressing psychological mechanisms like projective identification, where one person’s anxiety or criticism spreads to everyone else. A focused workshop can help teams spot these patterns, break the cycle, and replace them with trust and confidence.

Get in touch to book a workshop that will help your team identify these patterns, stop them, and build a healthier culture.

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Did you like school?

I didn’t. I hated it. It was a tough environment where bullying was just normal. I left with no formal qualifications. This wasn’t due to lack of ability (I have a doctorate and I’ve written 5 books), it was caused by being overwhelmed by anxiety or emotionally shut down for most of the school day. The place was grim. Violent. Miserable. I was either bored or scared most of the time.

Years later, I met a senior colleague who’d gone to a very posh and famous boarding schools. On paper, it couldn’t have been more different to mine, nice buildings, Latin, top grades. But you know what? He was traumatised too. Not in the same way, but the scars were there all the same. Essentially we’d had a very similar emotional experience, only the context was different.

Now I work as a leadership coach. I meet many outwardly successful people: business owners, c-suite people. When I ask them about school, they usually say something like: "It was great. Good education. Lifelong friends. My parents sacrificed a lot to send me." And, that’s all true. But, for many, that positive experience is only one side of the coin.

When I ask what it was like being eight years old, away from your parents for weeks on end... there's a pause. Then: "Well, you just got on with it. I actually felt pretty miserable when I think about it…I try not to dwell on it to be honest.”

That line – you just got on with it is usually where the trouble starts.

British boarding schools (and plenty of state schools too) teach kids to survive by shutting down. You learn early not to cry, not to miss home, not to feel too much. You learn to cope. And, eventually, you become brilliant at coping. So brilliant you barely realise you’re still doing it decades later.

That stiff upper lip cliche? Sometimes isn’t courage. It’s dissociation.

By the time you’re in your forties, you’re successful. Calm. Competent. You know how to behave in a meeting, how to write a report, how to lead a team. But inside, there's often a small part of you that never really made it out of school. That part is still frozen at eight, or eleven, or thirteen. Still quietly trying to stay safe.

Many boarding school kids are like trained actors. They smile, perform, and say they're fine. Even when they’re furious, upset or desperately missing someone. You won't hear them talk about what's wrong. But their traumatised part finds comfort through an affair, heavy drinking, or just a sense of numbness and isolation or disconnection from others.

That level of emotional shutdown doesn’t happen by accident. It comes from spending years surrounded by hundreds of other children who were also wounded in their own way. Vulnerability was an invitation to be mocked or ostracised. So you got good, really good, at hiding it. You learn not only to mask your feelings, but to disconnect from them entirely.

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Trust doesn’t come easily to boarding school kids. These environments don’t just fail to teach emotional trust, they actively discourage it. You know, in theory, that human relationships require vulnerability. But nothing in your upbringing makes you want to take that kind of risk.

A lot of my coaching clients who went to these schools are extremely bright and capable. Many were top of their class in something. The schools can produce fantastic academic results.

What they don’t tend to teach well is how to live an emotionally healthy adult life. Things like:

• How to grieve and mourn properly

• How to be open and honest about anger and needing other people

• How to be kind to people who seem weak or just vulnerable

• How to trust anyone, genuinely

It’s one of the great ironies: this type of schooling is still sold as a privilege. And, in many ways it is. Yet the emotional damage it can cause is huge. And no one talks about it until midlife, usually when something breaks. Often it takes a crisis: a divorce, a panic attack, heavy drinking, a depressive episode; before someone starts to realise that something is terribly wrong.

Small-t trauma

When people hear the word trauma, they think of big stuff: abuse, violence, serious accidents, war. That’s what psychologists call "Big T" trauma.

But there’s also "small t" trauma. It’s not particularly dramatic, but it still hurts. Things like being sent away from home too young. Being mocked by a teacher. Being the quiet kid who was always left out.

You don’t need to be beaten up to be traumatised. You just need to feel unsafe, unseen, or unloved.

For long enough that you adapt.

And adapt you did. Most of the people I coach are very good at their jobs. But under pressure, something weird happens. They overreact. Shut down. Lash out. Get anxious over nothing. Get drunk. Or just suddenly go cold/detached/distant.

That’s not them being difficult. That’s an old wounded part of them being triggered.

We all have different "parts" inside us. We have lots of mini-personalities competing for attention (like the film ‘Inside Out’) You might have a confident part, a funny part, and a perfectionist part; and you might also have a part that’s still scared, sad, or angry about what happened when you were a sensitive, vulnerable little kid.

That scared wounded part often stays hidden. But when something reminds it of the past, being told off in public, feeling left out of a meeting, someone challenging your authority, it kicks off.

One client I worked with was a senior partner at a law firm. Calm, in control, smart. But if anyone questioned him in a meeting, he'd get defensive and sarcastic. It turned out that as a child, he’d been frequently humiliated by a teacher in front of the class. That part of him still hated being put on the spot.

Once he could see that, and deal with it with a bit of compassion, things changed. He stopped being reactive. He stayed present. He still led his team well; actually better, but now he wasn’t operating from a place of fear.

• I see versions of this all the time.

• A successful entrepreneur who panics when they feel ignored.
  An entrepreneur who always needs to be the smartest person in the room.
  A CEO who struggles with staff who show emotion.

Scratch the surface, and it goes back to childhood. Not always in dramatic ways, but often in ways that shaped how they function, how they protect themselves, how they relate.

This isn’t about blaming anyone. Not your parents, not your school.

It’s about insight or in other words, self understanding. A lot of the emotional habits we learned at school weren’t healthy. They helped us survive back then. But they don’t help us thrive now.

We learn to perform, not feel. We learn to cope, not connect. We learn to survive, not trust.

So, back to that question: What was your school like?

If your answer is "It was fine," maybe give that a second look. Maybe it wasn’t. And maybe some part of you is still waiting for someone to ask the right question and actually listen to the answer.

Because until we can face what school really did to us, we risk carrying those old patterns into every boardroom, bedroom, and breakdown we find ourselves in as adults.

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And what if that so-called “flaw” you’ve been trying to hide is actually a strength you’ve just learned to suppress?

👉 Like someone who’s been told they’re “too sensitive” – but can pick up on tension in a room before anyone else notices.

👉 Or someone who hides their creativity because it wasn’t encouraged when they were young.

👉 Or the high achiever who’s brilliant at sticking to goals – but has forgotten how to relax and enjoy the moment.

We all know someone like that…

On the outside, they seem to have it all – smart, driven, confident, maybe even a bit charismatic. They dress well, speak well, and come across as focused and successful.

But still, something is not right. Despite all their effort, they’re not having the impact they imagined. And, they start to wonder why.

They might even joke, half-laughing, half-serious...

“Maybe I’m the problem.”

And in a way, they’re right, but not entirely.

The Trouble with introspection

We like to think that we know ourselves. After all, we live in our own heads — shouldn’t we be the world’s leading experts on us?

But real self-awareness isn’t just about listing your strengths and weaknesses. On a much deeper level, it involves recognising parts of yourself that you’ve spent years, sometimes a lifetime, avoiding.

Carl Jung called this hidden part of you the shadow – the aspects of yourself you try to avoid because they feel painful, shameful, or don’t fit with who you think you’re supposed to be.

We all have a shadow.

Persona vs. Shadow

To function in the world, we develop a persona. In other words the mask we wear to get by, to fit in, to be accepted. It’s not fake, but it is curated. We highlight the parts of ourselves that get approval and suppress the rest. Over time, the persona becomes so convincing that we start to believe it is us, that it’s the whole of us.

But, behind that polished mask is the shadow self, containing all the traits, emotions, desires, and vulnerabilities that are inconsistent with the carefully curated persona.

While some of these hidden parts of you may be conventionally viewed as "negative" (like anger, jealousy, or selfishness), others are surprisingly positive: ambition, confidence, sensuality, and even joy. If you were taught these qualities were unacceptable, that expressing them was dangerous, selfish, inappropriate, or showed weakness, you learnt to keep them hidden from others and eventually even from yourself.

We are what we accuse others of

The people who annoy us most, the ones who really get under our skin, remind us of something we’ve buried in ourselves.

The manager who gets constantly wound up by “lazy” or “unambitious” employees. On the surface, it seems like a values clash.

But underneath, something deeper might be going on. Perhaps that manager has been running on adrenaline and overworking for decades, believing that slowing down means failure. Resting feels like weakness, so they push through, burning out quietly. Then, along comes someone who takes a lunch break, clocks off on time, or doesn’t live for achievement. And, the seem happy! That person becomes a mirror reflecting a way of being that the manager secretly craves but believes is impossible fro them.

What initially looks like frustration, is in reality grief. They’re grieving a life they never permitted themselves to live.

Why do some individuals dislike gay people?

Imagine growing up in a home where homosexuality is not only frowned upon but condemned. Perhaps it’s a deeply conservative religious household. It is an environment where being gay is viewed as a sin, a disgrace, something profoundly shameful.

Now imagine that, from a young age, you feel attracted to people of the same sex. But, you’ve been taught, and you believe, in your heart of hearts, that these feelings are deeply wrong.

You also know, whether it’s spoken or unspoken, that to act on those feelings would bring rejection, punishment, even violence. So you learn, very quickly, to suppress them. To deny, disown, hide, repress.

You build a life around not being that person.

That hidden part of you — the incredibly powerful part that longs to love and be loved, becomes part of your shadow.

Years later, you see someone living openly and proudly as gay. They’re relaxed, confident, and happy in a way that feels both magnetic and threatening.

That encounter is likely to evoke complex and to you, inexplicable feelings: admiration, envy, resentment, and often, deep hostility. This hostility does not arise from any fault of that person but rather from the fact that they represent a version of yourself that you never got to express and live.

This is how the shadow works.

You project both the light and the dark onto other people. You idealise some and denigrate others. You likely believe you can learn from those you idealise, which is partly true. However, you might learn even more from those you despise

The Role of Complexes: when emotions hijack us

Jung also talked about complexes — clusters of emotions, memories, and beliefs form around certain themes, usually in childhood.

They’re like emotional landmines.

You might have a rejection complex that flares up whenever someone gives you feedback. Or a power complex that makes it hard to tolerate disagreement.

When a complex is triggered, you feel hijacked, reacting in ways that seem out of proportion, even to you. These complexes link directly to both your persona and your shadow. Your persona hides the complex, and your shadow holds the feelings the complex stirs up.

If you don’t recognise these dynamics, they will keep repeating, and you will label this as bad luck or fate.

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate"
CG Jung

Why this all matters, especially now

This isn’t just psychological navel-gazing. It’s the difference between reacting blindly and responding with clarity. It explains why two smart people can get locked in a power struggle that makes no sense. We are living in an era of significant complexity and volatility: in the workplace, in leadership, and in life.

Simply knowing more, doing more, and being smarter is not sufficient.

The leaders, and people, who thrive are those with emotional insight. They are the ones who can sit with discomfort and respond calmly rather than impulsively react. Stay grounded when things get messy. Self-awareness and insight aren’t just personal virtues; they are also professional superpowers.

When we don’t understand ourselves, we project our stuff onto others. We clash with people who remind us of something we’ve disowned. We repeat the same patterns, over and over, and blame other people or fate. But when we slowly bring the shadow into the light, things start to shift.

We become less defensive. More creative. More open. And perhaps most importantly we stop being strangers to ourselves.

If this resonates — if you're beginning to see how your shadow might be shaping your leadership, your relationships, or the patterns that keep repeating, then it may be time for a new kind of conversation.

Most executive coaching focuses on improving performance, boosting productivity, and hitting KPIs. And while these outcomes are important, I take a very different approach.

I believe the real goal of coaching should be to develop your consciousness — to deepen your understanding of yourself. Because when you gain true insight into how you think, feel, and relate, meaningful change happens.

Greater self-awareness leads naturally to better performance at work, and a richer, more fulfilling outside of work.

This is what sets my leadership coaching apart: it’s not just about helping you do more, but helping you become more fully yourself: grounded, intentional, and free from old patterns.

👉 If you’re ready for that kind of transformation, email me at mike@mikedrayton.org to arrange a confidential discovery call.

He wasn’t paid. He wasn’t blackmailed.
He was angry.
He felt slighted, unheard, and disrespected.

👉 And like many employees—he didn’t leave his emotions at the door.
He took them with him. And they exploded.

This isn’t just a spy story—it’s a lesson.

👉 Emotions don’t stay behind when we log off.
👉 Resentment, frustration, shame—these are organisational risks.
👉 Ignoring them isn’t neutral. It’s dangerous.

✅ Good organisations feel good to work in.
✅ Strategy succeeds when it resonates emotionally.
✅ Emotional insight = better decisions, better relationships, better results.

So ask yourself:

– What emotions dominate your team right now?
– What signals are you ignoring?
– How much of your own leadership style is shaped by old emotional patterns?

Emotions are not a distraction from business. They are the business.

If this resonates, drop a comment—or share with someone navigating the emotional undercurrent of leadership.

🧠 I’ve been using Magic Mind to support mental clarity during high-focus work, like writing my next book. No crashes. No jittery caffeine highs. Just calm, sustained focus.
It’s now part of my broader mental wealth toolkit.

If you’re ready to boost your focus and clarity, Magic Mind are offering listeners of this podcast a discount. You have a limited offer you can use now, that gets you up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purchases with code: MICHAELDRAYTON20 at checkout

If you’re ready to boost your focus and clarity, Magic Mind are offering listeners of this podcast up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one-time purchases.

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It’s that time of year—cold, dark, and the fun of Christmas feels like a distant memory. The work is piling up, and each day feels like a slog. I wonder if you’re feeling it too?

I certainly am. My next book, The Emotional Life of Organisations, is due soon, my coaching calendar is full, and I’ve been teetering on the edge of feeling overwhelmed. That hamster-wheel feeling—lots of effort, not much progress.

A few weeks ago, I noticed the warning signs:
❌ Poor sleep
❌ Struggling to focus
❌ Constant busyness, but not much impact

Sound familiar?

This got me thinking about mental wealth—not just mental health, but the psychological resources we build to stay at our best. Think of it like a pension plan for your mind—something you invest in consistently to perform well, even in tough times.

👉 Here’s the framework I use with my coaching clients to build mental wealth:

🔹 Sleep – The foundation of everything. If you’re sleep-deprived, your brain is, too.
🔹 Diet – Your brain needs fuel, not just calories. Good food = better focus.
🔹 Exercise – A 20-minute walk can reset your mind and improve clarity.
🔹 Stress Management – Chronic stress shrinks the part of your brain responsible for problem-solving. Managing it is not a luxury—it’s essential.
🔹 Exogenous Compounds – Tools like adaptogens or nootropics can help, but they support good habits, not replace them.

Lately, I’ve been testing a nootropic called Magic Mind—a mental focus shot that’s helped me stay sharp while writing. It’s been surprisingly effective, especially alongside other mental wealth practices.

But beyond habits and supplements, mental wealth also depends on energy—four types of it:
💡 Physical Energy – Your body fuels your brain. Movement, light, and breaks matter.
❤️ Emotional Energy – Strong relationships are a greater predictor of long-term health than cholesterol levels.
🧠 Cognitive Energy – Deep, focused work is where real value is created—yet distractions steal it away.
🌍 Spiritual Energy – A sense of purpose fuels resilience. Viktor Frankl discovered this in Auschwitz: meaning, not pleasure, is what sustains us.

Building mental wealth isn't about perfection. It’s about layering small, intentional habits over time. Start with one thing—maybe it’s a daily walk, maybe it’s trying Magic Mind, or maybe it’s a reflection exercise.

These little steps compound over time to create a mental wealth that sustains you.

If you’re ready to boost your focus and clarity, Magic Mind has a 45% off trial for you.

Here is the code: https://www.magicmind.com/MICHAELDRAYTONJAN

And when you try to find a way through?

You end up focusing on the negatives, interpreting neutral actions as personal attacks, and falling into the trap of a victim mindset.

Does this sound familiar?

If you've ever felt stuck or unfairly treated, you might be experiencing this mindset. But here’s the good news: You can break free from it.

Here are three practical steps to help you move from feeling like a victim to taking control:

👉 Challenge Your Certainty: When you're convinced you're being treated unfairly, ask yourself, "In what way could I be wrong?" This small shift in thinking opens up new possibilities.

👉 Shift Your Perspective: Before reacting, pause and consider the other person’s viewpoint. What might their experience be? Understanding both sides can change the dynamic.

👉 Self-Reflect: Ask yourself the tough question: "How might I have contributed to this situation?" Taking ownership of your role gives you power to change the outcome.

Remember, the power to shift your mindset lies within you. By breaking free from the victim mentality, you open up new opportunities for growth and success.

It starts with a task that makes you pause and think, “Wait, am I really qualified for this?”

Cue the flood of anxiety and self-doubt, leaving you to wrestle with feelings of inadequacy. You either push yourself to unrealistic standards, becoming a perfectionist, or find every excuse to delay—becoming the master of procrastination.

And when you finally succeed?

You downplay it. You credit overworking, luck, or even the stars aligning—anything but your own capabilities and expertise. Sound familiar?

If you’re constantly feeling like a fraud despite your achievements, you might be struggling with Impostor Syndrome. The good news? You’re not alone, and there’s a way forward.

In this free 45-minute webinar, I will explore:

• Why high achievers like you feel this way

• The cycle of self-doubt and perfectionism

• Strategies to break free from Impostor Syndrome

• How to finally own your success and step into your full potential

Join me on Tuesday, 1st October 2024, at 4:00 pm UK time and take your first steps from self-doubt to self-worth.

Ready to overcome the inner critic?

FROM SELF-DOUBT TO SELT-WORTH: Overcoming Impostor Syndrome

Register now and secure your spot!

What has the sinking of the Titanic got to do with the modern hybrid organisation?

Communication problems, that’s what.

The Titanic was the greatest ship of its time. It was the Edwardian equivalent of the Airbus 380, designed to transport a large number of passengers quickly and safely across the Atlantic.

All of the elements in the story of the sinking of the Titanic can be abstracted out and seen every day in any large organisation. This is particularly true when it comes to communication breakdowns. The Titanic and the events surrounding it serve as a metaphor for the modern hybrid organisation. 

Like the Titanic, modern hybrid organisations are technologically complex. There is frequently an overreliance on technology to manage systems (resulting in a decrease in developing robust human systems) and a belief that technology will save us. Because everyone had the brief that the Titanic was unsinkable, they underestimated the risk. The Titanic was unsinkable... until it sank. Too Big to Fail is a book by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin about the collapse of the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers (Sorkin, 2010). Of course, Lehman Brothers (and Barings Bank) were too large to fail, just as the Titanic was too large to sink.

The radio operators on the Titanic were overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks, just as we are often overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks at work and struggle to see the bigger picture. We have a tendency to overlook what is important…

If you lead a team that frequently works remotely or in a hybrid environment, you maybe interested in my free 45 minute webinar. You will gain insights to improve communication, strengthen team cohesion, and effectively manage your team, regardless of their location.

Wednesday 4th September 2024, midday UK time.

Sign up here.

In the meantime, you might like to listen to my latest podcast on communication and the Titanic.

Listen here.

All of the elements in the story of the sinking of the Titanic can be abstracted out and seen every day in any large organisation. This is particularly true when it comes to communication breakdowns. The Titanic and the events surrounding it serve as a metaphor for the modern hybrid organisation. 

Like the Titanic, modern hybrid organisations are technologically complex. There is frequently an overreliance on technology to manage systems (resulting in a decrease in developing robust human systems) and a belief that technology will save us. Because everyone had the brief that  the Titanic was unsinkable, they  underestimated the risk. The Titanic was unsinkable... until it sank. Too Big to Fail is a book by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin about the collapse of the Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers (Sorkin, 2010). Of course, Lehman Brothers (and Barings Bank) were too large to fail, just as the Titanic was too large to sink.

The radio operators on the Titanic were overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks, just as we are often overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks at work and struggle to see the bigger picture. We have a tendency to overlook what is important…

None of this prepares you for the stink that greets you the moment you enter a cowshed. In other words, for reality.

In business, knowing the theory is not the same as understanding the reality. Carl Jung once described theory and reality as similar to someone who has only read about cows, being shocked by the stink of a cowshed. This is a great way to think about working in an organisation. 

Immersing yourself in the latest business book, pursuing an MBA, and reading every article in the Harvard Business Review will provide you with a wealth of knowledge, but it will not prepare you for the reality - the "emotional stink" and office politics that pervade any large corporate organisation. 

Some leaders are astounded when confronted with the gap between their theoretical knowledge and actual experience of organisational life, between expectation and reality, between what should happen and what actually happens, and between how people should behave and how they do behave. 

The emotional life of your organisation

The corporate world is more than just strategies and models; it is also about navigating the complex web of emotions, feelings, and politics that underpins every interaction, decision, and outcome.  How to do this is the theme of my forthcoming book, ‘The Emotional Life of Organisations.’

To succeed in the corporate world, bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical experience is essential. Here are three actionable tips to help you navigate the complex landscape of emotions and office politics:

1. Seek out mentors who have extensive experience in your industry and can provide guidance on navigating the "emotional stink" of the workplace.
   

2. Practice self-awareness by regularly reflecting on your emotional reactions to workplace events and learning to manage them effectively.
   

3. Develop your emotional sensitivity by actively listening to and observing your colleagues, and striving to understand their perspectives and motivations.

Remember that theoretical knowledge is important, but practical application is what matters. Fear, resentment, or confusion are common obstacles to implementation. These feelings are the corporate equivalent of the stink in the cowshed. A strong understanding of the emotional and political landscape will distinguish you as a successful leader in your organisation. 

I discuss this question in chapter two of my new book

‘Leading Hybrid Teams: How to build trust, collaboration, and a high-performance culture,’ which is out in spring 2024.

One lesson comes from an unlikely source: the work of Thomas Allen on the 1980s US ‘Star Wars,’ defence programme.

Below, is a short extract from chapter two, ‘How to Build a Group Identity in the Hybrid Organisation,’ where I tell you all about:

• How people form strong attachments to each other, to organisations, and to places

• How to use this knowledge to improve recruitment and retention of top talent;

• Thomas Allen, the ex- US Marine turned academic,

• Ronald Regan’s Star Wars defence programme and

• How the Allen Curve could help you solve the problem of improving performance in your hybrid team.

“Two teams of people with similar qualifications and experience are both working to solve hard problems. One of the teams is excellent; they are competent and quick at getting to the answer. The other team is mediocre at best. What factor separates the excellent team from the mediocre team?

This was the problem given to Thomas Allen to solve. Allen was a professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He had an unusual background for a management school. He was a working-class boy with degrees in computer science, engineering, and management. Before his academic career, he had served with the US Marines in the Korean War and worked for big corporations such as Boeing. He was a perfect choice to lead the project.

Thomas Allen

This was the 1970s, when the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West was driving much government research, particularly in the US. These were the years leading up to Ronald Regan’s ‘Strategic Defence Initiative’, nicknamed his Star Wars programme. Government and a few private-sector technology companies were working on really difficult problems such as how satellites communicate with each other in an early-warning system for a nuclear attack.

There was a big difference between the effectiveness and efficiency of teams that at least on paper, looked equally qualified. This difference puzzled and concerned the US government, and they commissioned Thomas Allen and his team to find out what was going on.

Allen set about this challenge by finding what he called ‘twin projects’. These were projects of equal complexity being worked on by research and development (R&D) teams who were as much as possible equally matched in terms of qualifications and experience. He then looked at the overall quality of each team’s work, considering how creative or innovative their solutions were, how practical they were, and how long it had taken each team to come up with their ideas. Allen then went on to look for any common factors shared by the successful teams (Allen, 1977).

The big stand-out factor in the successful teams was how well the individuals in that team worked together. The great teams had chemistry. They frequently talked to each other, and they helped and at times robustly challenged each other. There was a degree of conflict but an absence of hard feelings. Allen said that the factor that separated the successful R&D teams from the mediocre R&D teams was the quality and frequency of communication between team members.

The next question Allen set out to answer was why some teams communicated well and others didn’t. After all, the team members in the successful and less successful groups looked at least on paper to be very similar people.

First he looked at the obvious common-sense factors. Were the successful teams, on average, younger? Did they have more/fewer female members? Were they better qualified or had the team members attended more prestigious universities? Were they more experienced (what was the average number of years of postgrad experience?).

None of these factors made any difference. Essentially, the members of the successful and least successful teams were more or less identical. Talent – meaning education, qualifications and experience – made no difference in how well the teams communicated and the outcomes they produced.

Having ruled out human factors, Allen then turned his attention to environmental factors. And it was here where he found the answer. The reason why teams communicate well or not is a simple one, and one that I’m guessing Allen least expected.

The only factor that made a difference was the distance between the team members’ desks! Allen found a very strong correlation between physical proximity and frequency and quality of communication. The closer somebody is to us, the more we talk to them and have richer, more meaningful conversations.

When Allen plotted the frequency of communication against proximity, he came up with a curve that looks like the letter J on its side. This is what eventually became known as the Allen Curve (Figure 2.1).

Figure 2.1: The Allen Curve

If your team members are six metres apart, the frequency and quality of communication goes through the roof. If team members are 50 metres apart, they become strangers. If your R&D team is spread over different floors, you may as well pack up and go home. ‘It turns out that vertical separation is a very serious thing. If you’re on a different floor in some organizations, you may as well be in a different country,’ Allen remarked.

The Allen Curve and the hybrid team

Thomas Allen’s work was done back in the 1970s with engineers who worked in open-plan offices. How might it be relevant to leading a hybrid team?

The Allen Curve is consistent with the attachment theory literature. Attachment theory is a theory of proximity. The closer we are to those we feel attached to, the happier we are. It’s a reasonable assumption to make that if teams feel happy or relaxed, they might talk more and ‘play’ more – in other words feel free to be creative.

It would seem that hybrid working would throw a spanner in the works of the Allen Curve. How can Thomas Allen’s findings be relevant to a team disrupted and disconnected by hybrid working?

Allen anticipated this question back in 2007, when the development of the internet allowed some people in the corporate world to occasionally work from home. He used data from studies of email use and from his own earlier research on communication across different sites in a manufacturing company. He said the Allen Curve predicted communication just as it did with the engineers in the open-plan office. He explained:

We do not keep separate sets of people, some of whom we communicate with by one medium and some by another. The more often we see someone face-to-face, the more likely it is that we will also telephone that person or communicate by another medium. (Allen & Henn, 2007) 

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In other words, if you have a colleague working at a different company site, you are far more likely to communicate with that person by phone or email if you have actually met them, face-to-face. That seems very relevant to leading hybrid teams.”

What could you do?

Here are three things you can do to build a sense of attachment and boost performance in your hybrid team:

First, make sure that you meet in person as frequently as is possible. Ideally, once a week, but if you’re in a widely distributed organisation even once every quarter will make a massive difference.

Second, when you do meet, use that time for creative tasks, figuring out strategy, or teambuilding. Once you’ve done that, face-to-face, you can then allocate people tasks to go off and carry out when they are working remotely.

Third, when people are together in the office make sure you provide lots of opportunities for people to bump into each other and chat informally. Have an area where there is a coffee machine and make sure people have breaks at more or less the same time so they come together. I’ve never been in a meeting where you ask for people’s opinions and there is a deathly silence; but, as soon as you break for coffee you see people are happily chatting away, offering their opinions without being asked.

If you’d like to talk about how to get the most from your hybrid organisation, drop me a line. I offer keynotes, leadership team workshops, away days, and individual or group leadership coaching.

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References:

Allen, T.J. (1977) Managing the Flow of Technology: Technology Transfer and the Dissemination of Technological Information within the R&D Organization. MIT Press, Cambridge.

Allen, T., & Henn, G. (2007). The Organization and Architecture of Innovation. Abingdon: Routledge.

Coyle, D. (2018). The culture code: The secrets of highly successful groups. London: Bantam.

Here is a second newsletter! It’s an article I wrote on Linkedin. It’s topical and so I thought it would be a shame not to send it out. You wait ages for a Substack, and then two come along at once!

Alison Rose, CEO of one of Britain's most prominent banks, NatWest resigned in the early hours of this morning, bringing to an end a career spanning over thirty years. Her departure was triggered by a high-profile incident involving the closure of Nigel Farage's bank account, but there's more to the story than meets the eye. It offers us an opportunity to reflect upon what diversity and inclusion truly means in today's corporate world.

Throughout her tenure, Alison championed a cut down version of diversity and inclusion, focussing on physical and the protected characteristics but seemed less inclined towards cognitive diversity. Those holding views different from hers or deviating from the prevailing culture of NatWest were excluded rather than included.  Perhaps if there is an element of groupthink in the board and senior leadership team at NatWest? With leaders unconsciously recruiting people with views similar to themselves. A management team getting caught up in a spiral of confirmation bias. Constantly reinforcing the prevailing view as being the only correct one. 

Did Alison Rose's creation of an echo chamber at Coutts, filled with like-minded people, allow her to make high risk decisions without challenge from her SLT or board?  She appoints people like herself (as we are all prone to do), people who agree with her. They in turn appoint people who also reflect their views.  Before you know it, the organisation becomes an echo chamber. People are breathing each other’s exhaust.  This gives those at the top a feeling of invulnerability; they feel  safe, right and virtuous.  

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The events surrounding Alison Rose’s resignation illustrate the dangers of the superficial and unreflective promotion of D&I policies. 

Diversity and inclusion extend far beyond physical attributes or protected characteristics. An essential, yet usually overlooked, aspect is cognitive diversity: the variation in how individuals perceive, process, and interpret information based on their backgrounds, experiences, skills, and thought processes. 

The real power of diversity unfolds when these distinct perspectives come together, fostering innovation and shielding against groupthink.

The case of Farage's account closure exposes this blind spot in Rose's leadership. Farage, and the political views he represented (and no doubt held by many of NatWest’s customers and staff) were deemed incompatible with the values NatWest espoused. However, by sidelining Farage due to his beliefs, NatWest rejected a commitment to real diversity and inclusion by excluding the cognitive diversity that Farage’s views represent.

Cognitive diversity's significance in driving innovation and growth is prominent  in business literature. Research cited in a 2017 Harvard Business Review article shows that cognitively diverse teams solve problems more swiftly than teams of cognitively similar individuals. For an excellent review of the literature on cognitive diversity, take a look at Matthew Syed’s, excellent book, ‘Rebel Ideas.’

The events at  NatWest show that true diversity isn't about creating an illusion of inclusivity while subtly excluding people who see the world differently to you and that's the opposite of a striving for a diverse and inclusive culture.

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Huw Edwards, the man entrusted with delivering the news to the world of Queen Elizabeth II's passing and subsequently leading the BBC's coverage of her funeral, has suffered a severe blow to his reputation. The once-respected image of integrity and dignity, embodied by his face and trusted voice as the main anchor of BBC TV News, has been tarnished.

How do you reconcile the fact that any admired and esteemed celebrity might have a darker side that doesn't align with their respected status?

The story of Huw Edwards is a sad one and raises the question of why people who are outwardly successful, intelligent and respected - people who seem to have everything - behave in a manner that risks everything?

The Times journalist Andrew Billen had had lunch with Edwards hours before the newsreader was informed of the allegations against him. Billen wrote  he was "in high spirits" during the meal and was "certainly not a man with a tremendous dark cloud hanging over him".  He went on “…the allegations when they broke this weekend and Huw’s name began to be mentioned were personally upsetting to me and flew against everything I was convinced I knew about the man.” Well, Billen didn’t know Huw Edwards, he knew only one part of Edwards, the part he chose to present to the world. 

The question, "Who am I?" has underpinned philosophical and psychological thought for centuries. The prevailing belief has always been in the existence of a singular, consistent personality. But consider your own experiences. Have you ever found yourself dealing with contradicting thoughts and emotions, like a symphony of varied voices playing within your head?

In the course of your work day, have you ever found yourself switching between roles - the decisive leader in a boardroom meeting, the patient mediator resolving a conflict, or the impatient and opinionated one in a team meeting? Have you ever paused to ask, "Who am I really?" amid these changing personas? This journey of self-inquiry may not just be about uncovering one consistent identity, but rather about recognising a multitude of mini-personalities within you. We all carry within us a spectrum of different 'selves' that surface in response to our contexts, akin to an orchestra playing different tunes in harmony.

This notion of multiple sub-personalities within us is not new. Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese poet, creatively embodied this concept through his heteronyms - fully-fleshed alter egos with distinct back stories and personalities. Much like Pessoa's 'heteronyms,' we too have different facets of our identity that surface in varied circumstances. He encapsulated this idea in his poem:

"Countless lives inhabit us

I don't know, when I think or feel,

who it is that thinks or feels.

I am merely the place

where things are thought or felt.

I have more than just one soul.

There are more I's than I myself

I exist, nevertheless

indifferent to them and

I silence them: I speak" 

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung similarly proposed that our personality comprises numerous 'complexes.' The persona we present to the world is one such 'complex,' a term derived from the Greek word for a mask used in theatre. But behind that mask exists a multitude of other selves, each offering a unique response to our environments.

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Erving Goffman also explores this idea in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956). He uses the metaphor of a theatre to depict social interaction, suggesting that we each play a variety of roles in different scenes of life - like actors on a stage. We wear various 'masks' in response to our audience and the context, shifting between backstage (private) and front stage (public) personas. These mini-personalities - or roles - we assume are not false but are integral facets of our identity. They surface or recede depending on the 'scene' we are part of, further emphasising the multiplicity of our identity.

If we embrace this concept of multiple selves, it not only reframes our understanding of ourselves but also changes the way we perceive others. Consider Charlie, your friend who is both kind and judgemental, or Karen, the diligent senior nurse whose personal life is in disarray. These contrasting facets are not isolated or false - they are simply different mini-personalities that coexist within each individual. 

However, accepting this complex picture of identity might be disconcerting. It challenges our assumption of a unified, coherent self. Yet, it also liberates us from the constraints of singular labels. We are not just a 'profession,' an 'anxious person,' or a 'confident professional.' We are a vibrant mosaic of all these identities, offering us infinite possibilities for self-expression and growth. Consider that you are, in Pessoa's words, “merely the place where things are thought and felt." 

There’s a cliche spoken by the diversity and inclusion trainers that says we should all be encouraged to “bring our whole selves to work.” I disagree. If you have ever been bullied at work, you’d probably agree that the bully shouldn’t have brought their aggressive and sadistic ‘self’ to work . We all have a dark side;  what Jung called our Shadow. We should strive to understand the different people who live within us and put a boundary around the destructive parts of our personalities rather than act them out in the workplace.

We should embrace these multiple selves, for they collectively form the dynamic, complex identities we hold. Simultaneously, by acknowledging and understanding our darker aspects, our shadow side, we can take proactive steps to manage it,and make sure  that our interactions, whether personal or professional, are shaped by respect and empathy. 

Here's what you can do to understand and embrace this multiplicity of selves in your professional life:

• Self-reflection: Regularly take time out to introspect and recognise the various sub-personalities within you. Notice how they influence your behaviour in different situations.
  

• Balanced approach: Strive for a holistic life that balances work, family, friends, and personal interests. This encourages a harmonious coexistence of your different selves.

• Empathy: Apply this understanding of multiple selves to your interactions with others. It can help you comprehend their actions and respond with more empathy and kindness.

Main points

• We all possess multiple sub-personalities that surface in response to different circumstances.

• This understanding liberates us from the constraints of singular identities and opens up infinite possibilities for self-expression and growth.

• Accepting and working with our multiplicity can help us understand ourselves and others better and lead to more empathetic and meaningful interactions.

• So, the next time you wonder, "Who am I?" remember, you are a complicated amalgamation of countless souls, each contributing to the unique and wonderful you.

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Here’s how Leonard Cohen described decision making:

"My immediate realm of thought is bureaucratic and like a traffic jam. My ordinary state of mind is very much like the waiting room at the DMV. Or, as I put it in a quatrain, “The voices in my head, they don’t care what I do, they just want to argue the matter through and through.” So to penetrate this chattering and this meaningless debate that is occupying most of my attention, I have to come up with something that really speaks to my deepest interest. Otherwise, I just nod off in one way or another. So to find that song, that urgent song, takes a lot of versions and a lot of work and a lot of sweat. But why shouldn’t my work be hard? Almost everybody’s work is hard. One is distracted by this notion that there is such a thing as inspiration, that it comes fast and easy. And some people are graced by that style. I’m not. So I have to work as hard as any stiff, to come up with the payload."

When you aren’t sure what to do you have two (maybe more) voices in your head who ‘just want to argue the matter through and through.'

There isn’t just one ‘you,’ with one set of needs. Your mind contains many ‘you’s’ with different and often competing needs. Understanding this is the key to being able to make a good enough decision when you feel stuck. 

Here’s how the mind solves problems:

Think back to a time when you had to make a difficult decision. How did you do it? How did it feel?

As an example, let’s say that you’re thinking about applying for a new job. Did you experience a back-and-forth argument in your head – like a table tennis match? Part of you would say, “the new role will be really exciting and challenging, I’m actually feeling bored where I am now.” Only to have another part say, “yes I know? But what if you’re not up to it? What if you don’t get on with the new boss? At least you have security where you are now and it’s not so bad.” And so it goes on, back-and-forth, leaving you in a state of indecision and paralysis. Sometimes, other voices intrude on this internal debate. Maybe, “what will so-and-so think if I leave?”

Our decisions are not logical or linear. They are made following a heated debate amongst the different parts of our self – amongst all the different sub-personalities that make our personality.

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Emotion plays a big role in decision-making, far more than most people realise. A big mistake that we make when trying to figure out a complex situation, is to assume that indecision is because of a lack of information. So, we look for more and more facts, which often just adds to the confusion making the decision even harder. You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘analysis paralysis.’ What is really needed is time and space to sort out our thoughts, not advice or more information

Here is what to do…

The next time you are in two minds about what to do, think about the internal debate between those voices in your head - the debate between your sub-personalities.

What helps is to listen to the warring parties and ask questions to clarify the pros and cons of each side of the debate. Then write down the conflicting arguments using a pen and paper.

Eventually the issues will become clear as a result of this process. Each internal voice will experience being heard and that will remove much of the emotional heat, which you experience as anxiety. Think of yourself as a mediator between the warring sub-personalities, rather than a decision maker and the right decision will become obvious.

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“There was a heavy thud… a couple of seconds later, I felt a wave come through the room. The thick concrete walls were bent like rubber. I thought war had broken out. We started to look for Khodenchuk, but he had been by the pumps and had been vaporised. Steam wrapped around everything; it was dark and there was a horrible hissing noise. There was no ceiling, only sky; a sky full of stars.” (Leatherbarrow, 2016).

These are the words of Sasha Yuvchenko, a young engineer at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station, describing what happened on the 26th of April 1986.

Alexandr (Sasha) Yuvchenko

Thirty people, including six firefighters, died as a direct result of the explosion and consequent radiation sickness. A further 60 people died over the coming years from cancer caused by radiation. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that the total number of long-term deaths resulting from Chernobyl will be around 4,000 (WHO, 2006). As well as the fatalities, more than 300,000 people from the area surrounding Chernobyl experienced the upheaval and psychological trauma of being relocated and resettled.

Chernobyl was a disaster waiting to happen. Many at Chernobyl knew this, but few said anything. Those who did were ignored or silenced. Earlier accidents, one at a similar nuclear plant in Leningrad and another at Chernobyl itself, had revealed weaknesses in the reactor design and operation procedures. However, the potential lessons from these accidents were largely covered up or ignored, so as not to upset those higher up in the Soviet pecking order. Engineers at Chernobyl weren’t even aware of the seriousness let alone causes of the Leningrad accident. 

Those working in the Soviet nuclear industry were not empowered to speak up when they saw that something had the potential to go wrong. 

The global disaster that was Chernobyl was caused by frightened individuals caught up in a group dynamic of denying and avoiding reality, and keeping their head down for fear of punishment. Of course, this reflected the experience of most other Soviet citizens at the time.

The Chernobyl catastrophe is a tragic real-life case study of the psychology of unconscious group dynamics and how these can affect decisions and behaviour in a positive or negative direction. The exact same psycholoical processes are alive and well and are at the root of most problems today.

A group is always more than the sum of the individuals who make up the group. Groups can unleash the potential for great creativity or great destructiveness. People behave differently in a large group compared with when they are alone. Groups generate conformity. 

Confirmation bias flourishes in groups. Consequently, groups make more extreme decisions than individuals (in social psychology, this is known as ‘risky shift’). The self-doubt, fearfulness and caution that we all experience is dissolved by the experience of being in a group, just as effectively as it is dissolved by alcohol. 

Deviating from normal behaviour in a group

The group culture at Chernobyl was a reflection of the wider political and social culture of the Soviet Union. This culture of never being the one to stand out, speak out or be different from the crowd is chillingly described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He tells a darkly comic story in his famous and profound book The Gulag Archipelago:

A district Party conference was under way in Moscow Province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the District Party Committee, replacing one recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with ‘stormy applause, rising to an ovation.’ For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the ‘stormy applause, rising to an ovation,’ continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop?

The secretary of the District Party Committee could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who’d been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on – six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly – but up there with the praesidium where everyone could see them?

The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the praesidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter...

Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.

That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him: ‘Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!’ (Solzhenitsyn, 2003) 

These are terrifying examples of how being in a group changes normal behaviour. Speaking out at Chernobyl, raising concerns, would have been a bit like being the first to stop applauding Comrade Stalin at the party conference. If you were to behave differently than the crowd then you would be ‘punished’ in one way or another. 

Human beings tend to conform to group pressure and to authority even in situations where there is no obvious political repression. Our tendency to obey those in authority and conform to the behaviour of the group that we are a part of is deeply ingrained and unconscious. 

So how exactly does being in a group influence individual behaviour?

The Asche conformity study

Imagine for a moment you are a psychology student in 1950s America. You are asked to take part in an experiment on human vision. You agree, and eventually find yourself sitting in a classroom with nine other participants. The experimenter shows you a piece of paper with several lines on it. Your task is simple: look at a comparison line on the left and then look at three other lines, labelled A, B and C, all of which are different lengths, and say which of those are the same length as the comparison line. It looks easy – it’s obviously line B. 

The experimenter then goes around the group asking which of the three lines is the same length as the comparison line and, as expected, everybody answers B. 

This is repeated a couple of times with different pieces of paper. But on the third time around, something weird happens. The obvious answer is line C, but as the experimenter goes around asking people for their answer, everybody responds with B. That’s just ridiculous; line B is much shorter than the comparison line – it’s obvious. Then the experimenter comes to you and asks which line is the same length as a comparison line. What would you answer? By this time, eight other people have answered B. What do you say? Do you stick to your guns and say C, or do you begin to doubt yourself? In the end, you think, ‘Well, eight people think the right answer is B. They can’t all be wrong.’ So you answer B. 

If that had been you, back in the 1950s, you would have been taking part in one of Solomon Asche’s now famous social psychology experiments on group conformity. Asche was interested in the power of groups to disable independent thought. He’d observed that people would often suppress their true opinion or feelings about the topic being discussed just in order to fit in with everybody else in a group. Asche came up with the ‘vision test’ to investigate this phenomenon. What you wouldn’t have known had you been a student in the experiment was that all the other ‘participants’ in the room were actually colleagues of Asche who had been briefed to answer the questions in a particular way. They were told to answer correctly for a number of trials, but on the third trial give the same incorrect answer. The only person being experimented on was you! Asche wasn’t interested in ‘human vision’, he was interested in whether you would go as far as to deny the evidence of your own senses in order to conform with the group. His results were surprising and fascinating. He found that about three quarters of all the participants chose to conform with the group rather than give the correct answer (Asche, 1956).

It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on this. Three quarters of the people would rather deny the evidence of their own senses and consciously say something that they knew to be incorrect in order to fit in with a group. It’s also interesting that the group that they wanted to fit in with was a group of strangers – people they would never see again and who probably meant very little to them. The desire to conform is so powerful, then, that you’ll even do so with people you will never see again.

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Just imagine how much more powerful this effect is if you are in a group of people who are important to you. A group of friends and colleagues whom you like and respect, or people who have power over your life in some way – who might decide whether you get a promotion, for example. Or a group you desperately want to be part of.

We like to think of ourselves as autonomous individuals who make free choices, but we all greatly underestimate how much we are influenced and how much our decisions are constrained by the social context that surrounds us.

These psychological processes were present in the Jimmy Savile and BBC child abuse scandal, the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the VW emissions scandal of 2015. A whole book could be written about the evil of the child sexual abuse perpetrated and covered up in the Roman Catholic Church.

These terrible events had one thing in common. While the wrongdoing (the evil) was being perpetrated, most people in the organisation, including leaders and senior managers, were aware of what was going on but decided to turn a blind eye. When some did raise concerns they were ignored or told to be quiet by people higher up in the pecking order.

When most people are told to do something by someone in authority, they will obey, even when they are told to do something wrong. Similarly, when put under pressure by their peers to do something wrong (or in the case of the Asche experiments, contradict the evidence of their own eyes), most people will conform. Remember, as Rollo May wrote:

the opposite of courage in society is not cowardice; it is conformity (May, 1953).

This is a profoundly true statement.

One of the biggest challenges for leaders today is how to create a culture where people feel safe to speak out when they see wrongdoing (or even evil) in the organisations in which they work. As we have seen, this is not an easy or straightforward task. 

There is an old Native American saying that goes something like this: ‘If you don’t hear the whispers, you will soon hear the screams.’

Like with anything, the best place to start in this process is with yourself. It’s very easy to criticise people who are ‘out there’ without first looking at your own internal saboteur. Carl Jung wrote:

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life. That I feed the hungry, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ – all these are undoubtedly great virtues. What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto Christ. But what if I should discover that the least among them all, the poorest of all the beggars, the most impudent of all the offenders, the very enemy himself – that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness – that I myself am the enemy who must be loved – what then?” (Jung, 1963) my emphasis

Begin by recognising and understanding your own vulnerability to turning a blind eye to evil. Jung called this your shadow. All of the ‘actors’ in the dramas of evil that I’ve described in this chapter were not, for the most part, evil people. They were people who were caught up in a system that brought out and nurtured their potential for evil – their saboteur. To paraphrase Philip Zimbardo, they weren’t ‘bad apples’, they were simply apples in a ‘rotten barrel’. And like all apples, they had the potential to go bad.

Think about you and your organisation. Do people feel safe to speak up if they see wrongdoing? If not, why not? 

References

Asch, S. E. (1956). ‘Studies of Independence and Conformity: I. A Minority of One against a Unanimous Majority’. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 70(9), 1–70.

Jung, C. G. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. London: Vintage.

Leatherbarrow, A. (2016). Chernobyl 01: 23:40: The Incredible True Story of the World’s Worst Nuclear Disaster. London: Andrew Leatherbarrow.

May, R. (1953). Man’s Search for Himself. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.

Solzhenitsyn, A. I. (2003). The Gulag Archipelago, 1918–56: An Experiment in Literary Investigation. New York: Random House.

World Health Organization (2006). Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programmes. Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum Expert Group ‘Health’. Geneva: World Health Organization.

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Meet John, an outgoing, diligent, and skilled person who comes from a humble background and has a strong regional accent. Although people generally appreciate John for who he is, he firmly believes that his colleagues judge and dismiss him based on his background and working class accent, seeing him as less intelligent, sophisticated and potentially less competent than his London born peers. This conviction erodes his self-esteem and leads him to scrutinise every remark, searching for concealed criticism where none exists. As a consequence, John grows more vulnerable and touchy around his colleagues, generating an uneasy environment. People start to avoid him, anxious about saying something that could inadvertently offend him. They feel as though they are treading on eggshells in his presence. John's actions create a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to increased isolation and feelings of rejection at work. Frustrated and resentful, he perceives himself as a victim of his circumstances and files a dignity at work grievance against his line manager . 

John had developed a victim mindset.

I recently came across a fascinating social psychology experiment when researching my next book that sheds light on this phenomenon. It reveals how we actively seek evidence to confirm our beliefs, even when they are self-destructive and incorrect (Kleck and Sentra, 1980). A group of people were asked to take part in an experiment investigating whether facial disfigurement might result in discrimination. Makeup was used to create the appearance of a realistic healed scar on the right cheek. The size and placement of the scar were designed to be clearly noticeable during face-to-face conversations.

Now, here's the twist: After showing the person their scar in a mirror, the experimenter pretended to apply a moisturiser to keep the makeup from cracking and peeling off. In reality, the experimenter secretly removed the scar makeup without the participant's knowledge. So, the participants continued to believe they had a facial scar, even though it was no longer there.

Next, the person was asked to have a conversation discussing strategies people use to make friends. After the conversation, the person (who thought they had a scar) rated their partner's behaviour on various dimensions, like eye contact, smiling, whether they felt patronised, and how much they thought the other person liked them.

The results were fascinating! They perceived hostility and discrimination in  their conversation partner which they attributed to the non-existent  facial scar. The belief that they had a  scar led them to actively look for evidence that reinforced their expectation that they would be rejected and treated unfairly, even when the supposed cause (the scar) was no longer present.

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So, what can we learn from this study?

It highlights the importance of recognising the victim mindset and how our beliefs can distort reality. By being mindful of these factors, we can work on adjusting our beliefs and expectations, fostering more positive social experiences and reducing the likelihood of perceiving discrimination or hostility where it doesn't exist.

How can we apply these insights in our everyday lives?

Next time you find yourself in a social situation feeling like you're being treated unfairly, pause and consider whether your beliefs might be prompting you to look for unfairness where none exists. By doing so, we can nurture healthier relationships, both personally and professionally, and contribute to a more empathetic and inclusive world.

I hope you found this study as intriguing as I did! Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don't hesitate to share this article with your network. Let's spread knowledge and support each other's growth. Cheers!

Kleck, R. E., & Strenta, A. (1980). Perceptions of the impact of negatively valued physical characteristics on social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(5), 861–873. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.5.861

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Once upon a time, there was a happy village where people chatted over garden fences, in the queue at the post office or in the village coffee shop. Often, if one of the villagers had a problem, one of the other villagers would be able to help them. The villagers knew each other well and had a strong sense of belonging to their happy village. They were proud of their little village and everything it stood for. Life was good, and everyone was happy.

One day, a storyteller arrived in the village and told tales of a faraway land where people talked using boxes and invisible magic called ‘the internet.’ The villagers were fascinated, and they couldn't wait to try this new way of communicating.

They set up their own boxes and began to talk to their friends using their boxes. They didn’t even need to leave their little cottages. At first, it was exciting. They could buy bread from the bakers and stamps from the post office and these would be delivered to their door. The village postman, Jeff Bezalot,  set up a village store and delivery service called ‘Hundred Acre Woods’ and promised to deliver anything by the next day. All as good.

 However, as time passed, the villagers began to realise that their previously strong community was beginning to break down. They found that communicating through the boxes was different from their old face-to-face chats. Without body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice, it was harder to express their emotions and what they really wanted to say. Misunderstandings began to pile up, and the villagers started to feel lonely and disconnected. They started to miss the simple pleasures of chatting with their friends and neighbours. They missed the sound of laughter and the warmth of a hug. They missed chatting in the queue at the post office and having coffee together. They began to feel like they no longer belonged in the happy village and some started to move out looking for a nicer happy village…

This is an analogy for the reality hybrid working in most organisations. As more and more people work remotely, it can be difficult to maintain the same level of connection, collaboration and creativity  that comes with in-person interactions. The lack of face-to-face communication can easily lead to misunderstandings and a breakdown of the company culture.

While it has its benefits, hybrid working also poses serious long term challenges to building a strong organisational identity and culture. The physical separation of employees can make it hard to maintain a consistent company culture and foster a sense of identity within the organisation. People miss the ‘chats in the post office queue’ and having coffee in the ‘happy village coffee shop.’ And, some even move away to a nicer ‘happy village’ or different company because they feel they don’t belong or even feel part of your ‘happy village’ organisation any more.

What lies at the heart of this problem is communication. Or rather the often sterile transactional style of virtual communication. We're now relying on virtual communication tools like video calls, instant messaging, and email to stay connected. While these tools are in many ways helpful, they're just not the same as face-to-face interactions that spark creativity and foster a sense of belonging.  When you're not in the same physical space as your colleagues, it's easy to miss out on nonverbal cues or tone, leading to all kinds of misunderstandings and breakdowns in communication.When communication is impaired, there is no emotional connection.  Misunderstandings occur, causing confusion and sometimes hurt, potentially harming the overall team dynamic.

Hybrid working also makes it harder for employees to identify with and feel a sense of belonging to the organisation. When employees work remotely, they can easily become disconnected from the company culture and feel like they are not really part of a team. They get into a contractor mindset rather than a group member mindset. This can lead to decreased motivation and engagement, ultimately impacting productivity.

Let's take a look at the story of Tony Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’), the former CEO of Zappos, to illustrate how hybrid working can inhibit creativity and impede the development of a strong company culture. Hsieh believed that creating a culture of innovation required building strong relationships among employees and fostering a sense of community. Hsieh argued strongly for the importance of "collisions" or chance encounters between team members, for building a creative and innovative business (Hsieh, 2010). He said that these serendipitous ‘collisions’ produce unexpected ideas and solutions to hard problems. To facilitate these collisions, he purposefully designed Zappos' headquarters with an open floor plan and common areas, making it easy for employees to interact and share ideas with each other as much as possible.

These informal social interactions in the workplace also have a massive impact on reducing stress anxiety and burnout. A decade ago, Bank of America was experiencing high levels of burnout in its call centre teams. Because of the stress people were leaving in droves. Staff turnover was a big problem. To address this issue, they brought in Ben Waber, a scientist from MIT who specialises in using social sensing technology, to conduct an analysis. Waber found  that the employees were indeed highly stressed and many were on the verge of burning out. His analysis suggested that the best way to alleviate this workplace stress was by building systems and an environment  that encouraged employees to spend time together away from their desks. He recommended that the company arrange team member schedules so that they could all take a 15-minute coffee break together every day. In addition, Waber suggested that the company invest in high quality coffee machines and place them in convenient gathering spaces to encourage interactions between team members. 

These changes had a significant impact: surprisingly turnover decreased from 40% to 12% and even more surprisingly, productivity increased by 20%. Waber’s study also found that replacing four-person tables with ten-person tables in the staff restaurant resulted in a 10% boost in productivity. The takeaway from Ben Waber’s work is that creating spaces that encourage interactions between employees dramatically improves team performance and reduces burnout and turnover (Waber, 2013).

Waber also looked at how the performance of remote working teams could be improved. For example, is it worth getting everybody In a remote team together, even if that means the cost of travel and hotels, before  starting a project? Does the additional expense, in terms of money and time, have a significant return on investment? Following his analysis, Waber concluded with an enthusiastic yes! After having a face-to-face meeting, the remote team saw significant improvements in their understanding of each other and more importantly an increase in mutual trust; as well as their ability to collaborate effectively. As a result, both the quantity and quality of communication within the team significantly improved after the team resumed the project working online. (Waber, 2013). 

Hybrid working has been great for most businesses and employees. But it has its risks and downsides. People don’t talk as much. There are fewer, if any serendipitous ‘collisions’ resulting in creative ideas. People tend to feel less attached to the organisation and find it easy to move on. A ‘happy village’ organisation is great for employees and for performance and profit. The key to holding on to your villagers seems to be increasing the opportunities for social (rather than virtual) interactions and ‘collisions.’ This is a strong argument for bringing your staff together physically rather than virtually as often as you can.

So if you're leading a team that prefers to work in their cosy pyjamas, or Pink Floyd hoodie rather than their business attire, you might find my current book project of interest.  I am writing about how organisations can make the best of hybrid working. I’m drawing on psychology literature to figure out the best way to balance out remote and office based working. I’m three quarters of the way to finishing chapter four (of ten). Among other things I’ll be writing about: building a sense of identity in a hybrid business, the best way to communicate, personality and hybrid work, health and wellbeing, motivating a hybrid team and ESG in a hybrid business.

References:

Hsieh, T. (2010). Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose. Grand Central Publishing.

Waber, B. (2013). People Analytics: How Social Sensing Technology Will Transform Business and What It Tells Us about the Future of Work. London: FT Press.

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