I sometimes enjoy watching reality tel
evision. Though you can’t expect much bargain basement television, any show that follows people living together over extended periods will eventually capture the fatigued participants in heated spats. These moments are always captured as these shows documenting otherwise mundane interactions interesting. These moments usually become the lens through with the show’s narrative focuses for the rest of the season, even if the actual parties to the disagreement have forgotten the thing.
It is worth examining why these moments are considered compelling. I would contend that they are compelling because they might be some of the most genuine human moments of these often contrived shows. I imagine all of us have had a moment when our tempers and frustrations have gotten the better of us. We erupt in ill-advised aggression or mean comments. These moments where we lose control may impact our interactions for weeks, months, or years to come. The stakes of losing control are high.
A Three Year Old Within Us
I am raising a three-year-old. This is a tricky age, where the little one quickly moves back and forth between joy and anger, between exuberance and fury. A parent quickly learns what situations are likely to precipitate both reactions. Ice cream usually brings joy. Naptime usually brings anger. But these rules are not universal. Each child is different in what pushes his or her buttons.
As we grow, we mature. We know that lashing out whenever we are annoyed or upset is unproductive. We build defenses around our inner three-year-old that keeps him or her penned in when encountering dangerous situations. Over the years, most of us become quite proficient at keeping the 3-year old in check, until we get tired.
We are all different. We are all born with different preferences and ways of interacting. Those differences usually are a source of creativity and work to help us to churn through ideas and look at things from different perspectives. There is an enormous benefit to this. However, those same differences are irritants. We spend most of our adolescence developing defenses—coping mechanisms for those ways of interacting that don’t come naturally to us. We need to be able to function using these other strategies because we live in a social world and w must work with those who are different from us. Coping mechanisms are work.
Weakening Defenses
Defenses require energy and discipline. Both are in short supply when we are in the grips of fatigue. It is when we get tired that the 3-year old breaks out of the box and is revealed to others. People lose tempers, make bitter comments, craft profanity-laced tirades, or resort to counterproductive attitudes and behaviors. Sometimes, they resort to violence. When fatigue sets in the parts of ourselves we don’t want others to see are exposed.
When we are tired, we don’t feel like working. Instead of using coping mechanisms to help promote positive social interactions, we double down on our natural preferences, which only adds more irritation to social situations. Forsaking compromise, our inner three-year-old is ready to break free.
It is when we enter into this state—when our inner three-year-old is on the loose that we do stupid and sometimes terrible things. When more than one person is in this state, forget it. There is a high probability that something bad is going to happen when those folks interact.
Managing Energy
Judging individuals by their performance when they are at their worst is probably a poor measure of their real value to the team. Teams should have a mechanism that allows them to recognize when a teammate is in a really poor head space and act accordingly. Hopefully, there is a trusted friend or respected person who can tell us to go to bed or take a break. However, this perspective is sometimes in short supply in our world of aggressive deadlines and demanding requirements. Teams that are pushed to their limits need to be cognizant of the importance of managing individual and group energy.
As a manager, you must try to give people rest when they need it and reward those people who need less of it or proactively manage it. Also, as a manager, you also must recognize that you are susceptible to a three-year-old “jailbreak”. In your position, you need to govern your inner child more than others. You are in a position to do a great deal more damage to your team and to your own ability to lead. Always have a trusted deputy or confidant who will tell you when you need a break and who will hold up a mirror to you when you need a truthful evaluation of your behavior.
Don’t let your inner three-year-old derail your adult life. That’s not good for either of you.
