Stressing or connecting; you can’t do both.
There’s a reason athletes and their coaches watch game footage in slow motion. When we are in the moment, we can’t really appreciate everything that’s going on. It takes time to register all the forces in play—the options, the challenges, the critical timing, and the choices ultimately made. If only life had a slow mo replay button.
I’ve been thinking about what this looks like in the day-to-day connections people make (or fail to make). Especially as it relates to processing challenging or unwelcome news. I’ve posted a lot about the polarization of civic engagement. It helps to consider people’s reactions in terms of the fight-or-flight response. What might we change if we could slow down and focus on correcting the things that provoke stress—the poorly chosen words, the aggressive body language, a chaotic atmosphere, the assumption that other people are even interested in our opinions? By taking time to slow down myself, I’ve realized that sometimes the greatest communication failures come not when people choose to fight or to run away, but when they freeze. It’s those deer-in-the-headlights situations, when a decision must be made, but panic makes action impossible. It’s disconcerting in personal life, but in business it can prove critical.
This sounds overly dramatic, but here’s what I’ve observed. The art of communicating has grown increasingly complicated in the last 25 years. There are so many distractions and so many ways to try to connect. Sometimes the sheer force of data input and the demands on our attention can be overwhelming. Especially when we don’t really want to own whatever it is we’re being told.
It’s easy to adopt a “fight” stance—to push back on every argument tossed our way or respond with escalated aggression. For many, that’s the attraction of social media. It feels like taking a stand, even when it does nothing to actually make a connection or resolve a problem.
It’s even easier to adopt a “flight” strategy—the plausible-deniability defense. We intentionally avoid the person or issues we don’t want to deal with and get on with the next thing. We can even build a rationale for this; we feel we are taking the high road by dodging a confrontation.
But what happens when fear makes us incapable of doing anything? Here’s the metaphor: If you are running with the bulls in Pamplona, you could literally grab the bull by the horns, but it’s smarter to get out of the way. Freezing just won’t work. Ever. The same is true when your business colleagues, your friends, or the available data analysis suggest that something is amiss that affects you and yours. Paralysis isn’t a viable response.
The truth is, meaningful connection never happens under duress. The next time you are on the giving or receiving end of a stressful communication, slow down and keep an eye out for things that trigger a fight, flight, or freeze response. Find a safe place. Schedule plenty of time to talk. Listen carefully. Repair the connection if you need to. Take time for a thoughtful response.