Whether it's a conflict at work or a steep mountain slope, face your challenges head-on
Former employment attorney and author Jathan Janove writes for SHRM Online on how to inject greater humanity into HR compliance. He welcomes your questions and suggestions for future columns. Contact him at the e-mail address at the end of this column.
Back in my employment lawyer days, my business card said, "Attorney at Law." Yet I often felt like a different kind of professional—a coroner.
Why? Because each new employment lawsuit meant a workplace relationship had become "terminal." What started out win-win ended up toxic lose-lose.
I'd perform an "autopsy" to see what turned the relationship toxic, and why.
After hundreds of these autopsies, certain patterns emerged. Perhaps the most common was people following what I call the "instinct to avoid."
Homo sapiens come by this instinct naturally. Mother Nature imbues us with a hair-trigger threat detector. Out for a walk in the woods? "Hmmm, is that a stick or is it a snake?" Actually, you won't be calmly and rationally analyzing this question. Instead, your threat-recognition system shuts off your reasoning brain. Your body assumes it's a snake until proven otherwise and responds by leaving the scene as quickly as possible. Threat avoided.
Over the millennia, this instinct has no doubt served our species well. However, I don't think it helps us in today's workplace. Just the opposite, in fact.
When something goes wrong at work,...
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