Weâre self preserving. Most of us would never intentionally push someone else down to get where we want to go. The key word here is âintentionally,â because intention involves thought. When weâre triggered and not thinking, our desire to protect ourselves first takes over. When layoffs loom at a company, otherwise decent people will quickly throw each other under the bus to keep a job. Sure, they wouldnât consciously want to hurt their colleagues, but if it comes down to âthem versus me,â they will ensure they come out on top. Thatâs biology.
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When people choose not to work somewhere, the somewhere isnât a company, itâs a team. If we put you in a good team at a bad company, youâll tend to hang around, but if we put you in a bad team at a good company, you wonât be there for long. The team is the sun, the moon, and the stars of your experience at work. As Edmund Burke, the Anglo-Irish writer and philosopher put it as far back as 1790, âTo love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections.â
When we push on the data, and examine closely its patterns and variations, we arrive at this conclusion: while people might care which company they join, they donât care which company they work for. The truth is that, once there, people care which team theyâre on.
Whatever the reasons, the ways we act to protect ourselves in our relationships are fairly easy to recognize. We shield our feelings and our hearts from depending on others by doing exactly what we fear others will do to us.
⢠We donât fully commit to a relationship or a group.
⢠We aspire to be strong and independent as a way to show we donât really need a relationship or a group.
⢠We constantly search for another, better relationship (for better employees, partners, friends) or a better job; that is, we hedge our bets and withhold trust.
For instance, like all animals, we are naturally prone to defend our territory. We might not be defending a piece of terrain on the African savanna, but territory isnât just physical, itâs also psychological. Our identity is part of our territory too. When someone criticises our work, status, or how we see ourselves, we instinctively shut down or defend ourselves. When someone challenges our beliefs, we stop listening and go on the attack. No thoughts, just pure animal instinct.
Few things are more important in life than avoiding the wrong people. Itâs tempting to think that we are strong enough to avoid adopting the worst of others, but thatâs not how it typically works.
We unconsciously become what weâre near. If you work for a jerk, sooner or later youâll become one yourself. If your colleagues are selfish, sooner or later youâll become selfish. If you hang around someone whoâs unkind, youâll slowly become unkind. Little by little, you adopt the thoughts and feelings, the attitudes and standards of the people around you.
There are two safeguards against binary thinking. The first is this:
Safeguard: Imagine that one of the options is off the table. Take each of the options youâre considering, and one at a time, ask yourself, âWhat would I do if that were not possible?â
Suppose youâre considering what to do about a job where you donât get along with a coworker. Binary thinking tells you to stay or leave. Imagining one option is off the table forces you to see the problem differently. Imagine that, for some reason, there is absolutely no way to quit your job: You must stay. Now you are forced to see things through a new lens. What could you do to make going to work every day more enjoyable, despite the problem with your coworker? What could you do to remain at your job and still move closer to your goals? What could you do to give yourself more options in the future so youâre not stuck feeling powerless? Maybe staying means having a hard conversation with your boss and your coworker that you havenât had yet. Maybe it means putting in for a transfer to another department. Maybe it means asking your boss if you can work remotely.