This is Part One of a series that looks at the personal and productivity costs of typical Western work environments. This installment will focus on the nature of our work settings, the personal cost of chaos, and how to improve your situation through techniques of working with your mind. Part Two will focus on the professional costs of chaos.
There are two aspects of "chaos" that I want to cover here:
The fact of chaos is that broken and failed systems keep people from their goals and keep companies from their objectives.
The experience of chaos, which is how we personally experience this chaos. This can be profound. How we react to chaos is largely under our own control and, unfortunately, is often ignored in professional articles and journals.
Both aspects of this chaos are detrimental to companies and to the individuals in these companies. In this article I will focus on the individual price people pay working in these kinds of environments. Part Two will delve into the costs companies pay by being unwilling to change how they do things.
Anton is a mid-level manager at a large insurance firm. He is the Product Owner for a team that produces enhancements to their policy management system. The work the team does is important to the company. Some of the work is tied to regulatory requirements that are constantly changing. Other work delivers key features that the company hopes will increase their competitive edge in the market. There are many internal stakeholders of the team, each with their own "top priority" that needs to be delivered. The fact of chaos is clear, and the experience of this chaos is real:
Anton suffers from insomnia due to waking up multiple times, remembering tasks he cannot forget to do or thinking about contentious conversations he believes are coming.
His blood pressure has been slowly rising because of his almost constant state of agitation.
Anton tries to compensate for the organizational chaos by working many nights and weekends. The experience is amplified by the stresses this puts on his family and other personal relationships. So, in addition to working the extra hours, he also has to navigate the negative impacts to his personal life.
Anton is very goal-oriented and gains a great deal of personal satisfaction in delivering positive results. However, the wins seem to happen less and less frequently while failure and delays seem to increase at an alarming rate. This causes his sense of self-worth to diminish and with it, his motivation. He feels the cards are stacked against him.
Anton is also beginning to experience mild depression. When he does have time to himself, he spends his time doomscrolling on social media with little energy left to connect with family or pursue activities he once enjoyed.
What follows are ways Anton can deal with the experience of his dysfunctional and chaotic work environment. Many of these techniques are rooted in mindfulness meditation and other contemplative practices. They are not quick fixes or easy answers. In fact, this work might be the hardest thing a person may do in their day, but over time, the work can have real and tangible benefits.
The first and most foundational practice is some form of mindfulness meditation. Research suggests that even five minutes daily can have profound and measurable impacts on a person's stress response. Meditation can provide benefits that help a person navigate difficult circumstances, like chaos. These include:
Strength and resilience in the knowledge that you are fundamentally skilled and of worth to your company. Despite messages to the contrary, you do not need to prove anything. Your worthiness, both as an individual and as a professional, is self-evident. This won't necessarily shield you from all negative consequences, but you will not experience the intensity of the continual "what-ifs" that oftentimes never fully manifest themselves.
Confidence in your ability to reasonably respond to the chaos. Do not internalize the message that you have to be a superhero or savior (they don't exist). Instead focus on what you realistically have the ability to influence and control (more on this in Part Two). You may find that the confidence you have in yourself might allow you to take risks and form strategies that might not have otherwise occurred to you. This is not a trite self-help gimmick. It is a deep trust in yourself and your innate competence.
Awareness, insight, and clarity of vision follow from strength and confidence. By practicing the ability to focus on the present moment, you can begin to see things for what they are and trust that this insight will lead to meaningful action. Effective solutions start by trusting that you see the real problems. Meditation helps focus on the situation as it is and not on the distorted interpretations your mind and your emotions can create.
All these can lead to a state of lowered reactivity. By nature, we are intensely reactive. This is a human evolutionary trait. In the savanna, it had survival value. In today's world, however, the fight-flight-freeze responses often work against us. In our highly complex world, we need to learn to insert a gap between stimulus and response. Mindfulness trains us to insert that gap rather than immediately reacting to situations around us.
Explore the possibilities through intentional contemplation. Here we are not talking about daydreaming or fantasizing (though there's nothing wrong with these once in a while). Instead, contemplation is putting yourself in an environment where you can focus intently and thoroughly on alternative possibilities. To do this, draw on the core benefits of mindfulness listed above. For example, Anton might explore alternatives such as:
Setting clear boundaries with his company on what he is and is not willing to sacrifice for his career. He may even find that other coworkers and leaders are already doing this!
Explore professional development options, not for the sake of the company but to increase his confidence and skill sets.
Make a professional move. We often believe we are stuck where we are. That is the "freeze" aspect of the stress-response phenomenon. Contemplate what realistic change would look like, and formulate a plan. Even if you don't pursue this option, having it in one's back pocket helps manage stress.
Build a trusted community. When facing chaos, we can easily start to isolate ourselves. We do this for many reasons:
To control variability and try to eliminate danger.
To conserve our energy because we are already depleted from the chaos.
To avoid the risk that open, honest communication may lead to betrayal or other negative consequences.
Anton could, for example, form a peer group of Product Owners who can share their struggles and successes in a setting of relative safety and confidentiality. Additionally, many companies are open to forming group mindfulness programs as part of their overall wellness initiatives. Anton could seek out or, if necessary, form such a group of mindfulness practitioners within the company.
These mindfulness practices could have a tremendous benefit on Anton's reactions to the chaos around him:
When awakened at 3:00 a.m., Anton could begin practicing mindfulness meditation and work to reframe his fears as manifestations of his mind as it tries to process the chaos of work.
Mindfulness can have a physiological benefit for some people in reducing stress responses in the body (such as Anton's blood pressure). However, if these symptoms become serious, medical intervention is strongly recommended.
The long nights and weekends of endless work can be framed in terms of healthy boundary-setting. Having confidence and clarity helps us to be less reactive and therefore we might be less likely to deal with the chaos in unsustainable and self-destructive ways.
Strength and confidence are inherent qualities of being human, and mindfulness meditation helps us embrace this perspective; therefore, we can be less prone to so closely identify with the dysfunctional dynamics of the workplace to the point where they erode our self-image and sense of worthiness.
If depression is a real part of any person's life, it is important to practice mindfulness under the care and guidance of a competent mental health professional. Seek out a licensed therapist or counselor who can work on your depression with you.
This is not an exhaustive list of the negative consequences of chaos or the benefits of mindfulness practices. I hope that this list has, however, given you insight into the possibilities to improve your responses to chaos and stress. In Part Two, we will move from the experience of chaos to the root causes of chaos and what can be done about them.
If you are interested in going deeper into these topics, Mindful With John, LLC has several programs which might be of benefit to you. Please visit our site at MindfulWithJohn.com.
