[Neurons] 2010 Meta Reflections #34

[L. Michael Hall]

From: L. Michael Hall

Meta Reflections - 2010 

July 22, 2010

 

IF I WERE UNEMPLOYED

PART II

 

 

Since the beginning of this year, the wage-earners within four of the
families who live in some of my properties have been unemployed, two still
are.  So I've had the privilege of talking to them about their time of
unemployment.  I say privilege because I've been amazed at how the
conversations get to the heart of things very quickly.  What typically would
take a lot of pacing, a lot of getting through the roles and personas that
people normally put up and hide behind.  But with unemployment, things
quickly go back to fundamentals- money for food and shelter.  And so
frustration is right there on the surface, and immediately behind it are all
kinds of other strong feelings and thoughts- anger, injustice, blame, fear,
confusion, etc.

 

One young guy lost his job and he defined it immediately and entirely the
fault of his manager.  "If she was a decent person she would not have done
that; she plays politics and never did like me; she increased my hours
without increasing my pay; she was out for me from the beginning."  After a
dozen of those "reasons" which he offered as why he lost his job and didn't
have his rent money, I said, "So you take no responsibility for losing your
job?"  He immediately agreed.  So I slowed the tempo of my words and asked
the question again, 

"So you take absolutely not even one percent of the responsibility ... you
are a complete victim of your manager's actions?  Really?" 

 

He still would not step up to his personal powers and responses and instead
tried to give me a psychological profile of "that bitch."  When he finished
his dark description, I said,

"This is great.  What's her name?   I have to go study this totally depraved
and pathological manager.  I've met some incompetent ones, some that were
over their heads, some others that brought lots of personal problems to
work, but never in my life someone with that much pathology.  There's always
a way to manage up inside an organization, but this may be the exception.
What's her name?"

 

That shook him a bit, perhaps knowing that I was a psychologist made him
think I'd actually go talk to her. "Well, she's not that bad."

"Oh, okay.  So what did you do to make friends with her, build a
relationship of rapport and exercise your influence so that you managed
upward?"

 

Silence.  "Don't tell me that you just reacted in fear and anger and
frustration to her?  Don't tell me that you let her set the atmosphere at
work and you just lived inside that atmosphere without bringing your
influence in?   Don't tell me that you let her set the frame for the games
there?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so."

"So you played the game that you were a victim of her meanness and
nastiness!  That's what you did?  That's how you gave your power away to her
and let her control your emotions and thoughts?  You handed her the strings
to your inner responses as if you were a puppet in her hands?  Is that what
you're telling me?"

 

"Yeah, but there was nothing else I could do."

"Yes, I know -that's the song you sing and the dance you dance."

                                                            

"What song?  What dance?"

"The victim song and dance, of course.  Just as you are doing with me this
very moment, you played the victim.  You set the frame in your mind in that
whiny tone - 'There's nothing else I can do.'  And so with that frame in
your mind, you have to play that game, the Victim Game.  And it sounds like
you did a good job, and are still dancing to that tune."

 

That finally got his attention and from there he began to come out from
behind himself and that false identity (of being a victim) and the
conversation began to became real.  Eventually he asked me what I would do
with such a mean and nasty boss.  "I would manage her."  He wanted to know
how.

"If you have a relationship with someone then you have a role that you play
in that relationship and that gives you power.  The other can only make the
responses that he or she makes.  You have the power to make your
responses-to set frames.  And that's what I would do.  I'd manage her with
my responses- I'd set a high intention to win her as my internal champion in
the company by creating a deep rapport with her, by letting her know that I
wanted to be on her "A List" of valued employees, by bringing out the best
in her, and so on."

 

"But I don't like her enough to do that.  I could never do that."

"Ah, so is that your choice- to not like her and refuse to do that? [Yeah.]
And if she was the warden in a prison with life and death in her hands would
you still do that? [Well, no.] Ah, so you do have a price!  That's good.
If you have a big enough intention, you'd stop being a slave to your
emotions, and take the effective actions.  Good.  Now you know where to
start."

 

While he was processing through all of that, I said, 

"Do you know what's one of the worst things about being unemployed?  It is
having an attitude of being helpless.  It is acting as if you are without
your own powers of influence.  If I was unemployed, I'd make sure to
super-charge my attitude to keep it robust and resilient.  That's what I
would do."

 

 

 

 




 

 

 

L.  Michael Hall, Ph.D.

(ISNS) International Society of Neuro-Semantics

The International Meta-Coach System

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO.  81520 USA

1 970-523-7877

      <http://www.neurosemantics.com/> www.neurosemantics.com 

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www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com 

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