Personalization and Self-Forgiveness


Personalization and Self- Forgiveness

Gloria was a victim who worked toward agency. Along the way she fell into personalization. Once she learned to accept that she was accountable, she began to experience what she was initially afraid of: remorse over her failures. The key was for her to own the accountability and then to resist the temptation to judge herself for failing to achieve the impossible . Instead of giving in to judgment, she had to just keep moving toward her goals.

Gloria worked for me. She was a close personal friend. She had previously worked in a government organization, and I knew that bringing her on board was a risk. She would be moving from a relatively bureaucratic enterprise to an entrepreneurial one, and I wasnt sure the switch would go smoothly. Philosophically, the value systems were different. Whereas my entrepreneurial organization was interested in the three goals of optimal efficiency, optimal customer satisfaction, and optimal sales, her previous government job was focused onwell, different things. But Gloria was my friend and she was exceptionally bright. I knew she could learn.

In those days of my career, I was delivering small- group training sessions four out of five days, most weeks of the year. As a matter of fact, I was the small organizations product. Almost every day of the year, assuming I was working locally as opposed to out of town, I would wake up in the morning, take a shower, dress, then go downstairs to my mailbox and remove the training manuals for that days session, which had been put there for me overnight. This was the most efficient way to do business. On Tuesday, I would be with one company and on Wednesday, I would be with another. On Tuesday, my little team would be finalizing and printing the manuals for the Wednesday session. At the end of Tuesday they would deliver the manuals for Wednesday to my mailbox. This routine worked well for the team.

I brought Gloria on board to lead the team. After all, I was not able to work on the companys evolution because I was busy working for clients. It is a common problem in small training and consulting organizations. I needed someone I could trust to run the company while I was out serving clients .

One morning about a week into Glorias arrival, I went to the mailbox to grab the package of training manuals for that days session. There was nothing thereno manuals. This was a big problem for me. Without a set of handouts for that days session, I would be naked. Not only would I not have a document to guide me through the session, but the participants would not have a permanent learning tool into which they could record what was relevant to them.

I stood at my front door feeling concerned and curious . Gloria was new in the job. Could there have been some minor miscommunication ? Maybe she had the handouts in her car or something.

I called her. She was in her car on her way to work. ˜˜Gloria, Im going to XYZ client today for the session on management coaching, but there are no manuals in my mailbox, I said.

˜˜I know, she replied. ˜˜ Yesterday was extraordinarily busy. It was amazing.

I paused , thinking she would then explain the backup plan or the whereabouts of the days training manuals. After a few seconds, I said, ˜˜Okay. But the manuals for todaywhere are they?

˜˜Thats what I mean, she said. ˜˜We were busy yesterday; we couldnt do them.

˜˜Why didnt you tell me? ˜˜I assumed Linda told you. She said she would be talking to you, and I trusted her to do it. Didnt she tell you?

˜˜No, I said.

I had to laugh to myself . My company helped groups of people learn

about things like taking accountability, and I had hired a victim to run it.

Gloria and I needed to talk. But I had to go.

The training session that day wasnt really so bad without the printed material. I actually forget how I positioned the naked presentation, but it did work out.

When Gloria and I got the chance to dissect the matter, I was fascinated. Here was a woman of extraordinary intelligence. But here also was a victim, pure and simple. She didnt get that she was accountable. She was more interested in reality. For her, ours was a busy office and realistically things would fall through the cracks. On that morning, and over the day before, they did fall through the cracks. And that was somehow okay because, of course, we were gosh darned busy. And she couldnt be blamed for undercommunicating because, well, Linda was going to be talking to me.

When this little problem occurred, Gloria had only been with us for a short while. It was understandable that she would mismanage things a bit at the start. That was not a problem for me. My issue was with her willingness to deflect to Linda. In later conversations Gloria told me that she was afraid of my being disappointed in her so soon on the job.

˜˜It just came out, she said. ˜˜I understand, I replied. As months went by, I noticed other signs of defensiveness. Ultimately, Gloria and I started focusing our conversations on victim thinking. Through that process I learned that her parents always thought she should have perfect marks in school because she was so smart. Her father used to get very angry and give her a hard time for not being perfect. He would compare her with her brother who, he said, was not nearly as smart but often did better in school. He called her lazy, and she felt he often held back his love. Over the years Gloria learned to deflect blame and brought this tendency to her job.

Glorias transformation from victim to agent included a phase in which she had to wrestle with personalization. She discovered that she couldnt just stop behaving like a victim because it meant no longer saying, ˜˜Its not my fault. She learned that when she was tempted to say those words, it usually was her fault. But removing that bridge from guilt to defense exposed her to long-felt pain over her father.

We worked together on her self-forgiveness. In one conversation, Gloria asked, ˜˜But how can I forgive myself? Many things I set out to do have not been accomplished. I feel like a failure.

Gloria was generalizing and judging herself. The truth was that I was pleased as punch with her work. The goals she set for herself were what we call ˜˜realistic stretch goals. Gloria did attain many of her day-to-day goals. But she was not forgiving herself for the ones she missed.

This took us in conversation to the reason that she had adopted a victim orientation in the first place. It was caused by her being habituated to the disappointment her father had in her for never achieving perfection in school. Gloria and I spent time exploring her fathers judgments . I had to make it clear that neither I nor she was her father.

Gloria did learn to balance her stretch aspirations with an acceptance of not achieving some of them. She got there by self-forgiveness. She learned about the facts: She had a job. She sometimes identified herself with her job, but she was not her job. It was just a job. The job involved stretch goals. Stretch goals are good because they pull an organization forward. On the job, she was a stretch woman. By definition, some goals could be met and others could not. Gloria was also a family woman. In fact, Glorias family meant more to her than her job. She knew that I was okay with that. She was okay with that, too. There was no need to be judgmental over her failures, because most of the time she did her absolute best in the context of her jobnot her life, but her job.

Gloria was no longer a victim, afraid to own responsibility. She was a true player. She was a cause agent who made big things happen for a living. She didnt spend time on ˜˜heres why its not my fault. Her time was dedicated to ˜˜heres what were doing and how we plan to do it well. Heres what went wrong and heres the plan to avoid it in the future. I am responsible for everything I touch and oversee. Sometimes things dont work out. But I own it. We keep trying and we get better. I dont get hung up on guilt because Im busy making things work and I trust that I am okay. I have lots to learn.

What a person.




Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
ISBN: 814408354
EAN: N/A
Year: 2002
Pages: 134

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