Calling change professionals... no, all project professionals! What is important to know about self-care?
It’s no revelation that Change professionals work with people undergoing difficult times. When we empathise with others, sometimes our empathy has a cost. Compassion fatigue describes this cost, with many symptoms¹. For example, feeling detached from people’s plight or just plain emotionally exhausted. Social workers and psychologists bear the brunt of compassion fatigue² ³. On projects our User Experience (UX) colleagues bear the same risk of suffering compassion fatigue. Vivianne Castillo said the emotionally-neutral UX professional is a myth, speaking of the emotional toll of working in UX ⁴. Castillo believes that empathy is your greatest liability and self-care is an ethical imperative. The psychology profession prizes self-care as an essential aspect of professional service. Experienced practitioners are aware of how compassion fatigue impairs professional judgement.
Psychologists only provide psychological services within the boundaries of their professional competence. This includes, but is not restricted to:
….ensuring that their emotional, mental, and physical state does not impair their ability to provide a competent psychological service.⁵
Australian Psychological Society Code of Ethics, Part B.1.2.E
With these viewpoints from “sister professions” in mind — do you consider and plan your self-care as a change practitioner? Self-care is important in bouncing back from interactions with resistant or rude stakeholders. Some stakeholder behaviours and communication styles can be quite draining. There are many self-care techniques that can help us. Effort in your self-care keeps your energy high. You have the means to maintain your confidence and diplomacy. Not to mention a greater mental flexibility, even under duress.
Self-care techniques can be quick and immediate. Imagine: you are midway through a presentation. Your delivery is going well. Your audience is nodding their head. You cover what you know about the future state, inviting questions. One stakeholder takes up your offer, starting with difficult questions. Their accusatory tone starts to feed a different energy in the room. Smirks curl up the corners of a few audience mouths. Now, your presentation is going south — rapidly. Take time for a quick breath. You don’t need to respond straight away. Instead, you breathe and centre yourself. This way your responses are balanced and professional. And you have the mental flexibility to not only roll with the punches. A balanced, flexible mind helps you see opportunities in most conversations. This flexibility sparks a greater levity in you. You can respond to difficult questions in creative ways.
Psychologists and many health professionals plan self-care, social and peer support. They know their support-seeking helps sustain longevity in a taxing profession. Do we (as change and project) professionals look after ourselves? Do we factor in time for self-care, particularly at very taxing times on a project?
Two powerful, immediate helpers in your self-care arsenal
Box breathing and being centred
Prospective medalists will learn how to control their bodies’ instinctive reaction to stress. They can perform when it matters most — at time trials, and of course in the Olympics. They learn to regulate their response to extreme pressure. These ways include techniques such as resetting the vagus nerve, breathing methods and mental exercises⁶.
You can adopt these techniques for your change practice. Breathing can be useful before going into a difficult stakeholder engagement. During stressful times, and even afterwards as a method to immediately centre yourself. Military Special Operations use a technique known as box breathing ⁷. Box breathing is breathing to a particular cadence. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, and then hold for four seconds. You may want to try this technique, assuming you don’t have any medical conditions preventing you from doing so comfortably and safely.
When you breathe in, your breath enters your diaphragm rather than into your chest. So when you breathe in your belly expands, rather than your chest. This point is quite important in breathing deeply and naturally. Notice when babies breathe? They breathe in and their belly expands. And it seems to be a learned behaviour that we start to breathe through our chests. By breathing slowly and gently “into our belly”, you may start to feel more centred. You will benefit from box breathing in as little as a minute.
Mindfulness as a change professional
Many business books speak about mindfulness. Mindfulness doesn’t have to be a meditation session. You might find meditation difficult and your mind races. Another way to consider mindfulness? How about… orientating yourself to the present moment?
This orientation helps you take yourself out of your own thoughts, needs and worries. Like box breathing, all you need to start enjoying the benefits is a minute.
Orientating yourself to the present can have a great impact on your ability to absorb small yet important details. Try a mindfulness exercise a few minutes before meeting a challenging stakeholder. This few minutes of “effort” may set the course of the meeting in a better direction. You might experience a greater awareness of the stakeholder’s gestures. You observe their changing moods. They use inflections on various words and sentences, inflaming your curiosity. You can start to tease out nuances in what they are trying to tell you “between the lines”.
Couple mindfulness with box breathing. You now have two powerful mechanisms to prepare your mind for deep active listening. If you make these two activities a habit your mind’s incessant chatter falls away. Your capacity to empathise with your stakeholder is now enhanced. Your calm state helps buffer you from feeling the strain of difficult emotions. Instead, you might cultivate a spirit of curiosity about difficult emotions and circumstances!
By sitting in the present, you might feel various emotions surface. Liken these emotions to a good friend. Your friend may be trying to tell you something. It is worth acknowledging these emotions and the insights each emotion aims to tell you — only if you are listening. Habitual box breathing and mindfulness unlocks distinct professional advantages. It’s strange to say, but calmness begets curiosity. This curiosity applies to understanding your own emotions. This understanding helps your change practice in two ways. First, you have the clarity to make better decisions without emotions clouding your judgement. Second, your curiosity helps you observe, and even break interpersonal patterns no longer serving you.
Thus understanding a wider emotional palette is helpful. The Junto Wheel describes a broad array of emotions — helpful as you observe various emotions surfacing ⁸.
More self-care in the field
Supervision?
Supervision is an important part of self-care in the Psychology profession. At the very least, self-care helps practitioners continue to provide unimpaired professional service ⁵. Psychologists regularly meet an appointed supervisor. These meetings cover many topics. This includes challenging client encounters, ethical dilemmas, diagnosis and treatment options. Even a frank appraisal of a psychologist’s capacity to practice. Should change professionals need to have a supervisor to guide them? No. Although we may lean on executive coaches, or friends in executive roles. They might offer counsel or mentoring. Depending on the relationship, they act in that supervisory capacity. Change professionals might find supervision beneficial. For example, if you feel “stuck” with how overwhelming your project seems. Or you feel exhausted by the people problems that your project is surfacing. In this case, a good supervisor or mentor can make all the difference.
Mapping out your self-care
What drains you and energizes you? Do you know how to manage your own energy? Can you focus only on what you can control ⁹?
Many thought leaders contribute to our understanding of self-care. The Harvard Business Review considers resilience to be how you recharge¹⁰. Dr. Jen Frahm wrote about self-care for change professionals¹¹, as has PROSCI ANZ¹². Richard Koch in his book Living the 80/20 Way¹³ took the following approach. He prepared a one-page diagram and mapped out his self-care. In Koch’s case, he sought to identify the vital activities contributing to his rejuvenation and quality of life. We can think along similar lines.
Think through the self-care activities that you can engage in during tough times on a project. What self-care do you undertake, especially under duress? Can you plan out peak and trough project times, consciously planning your self-care? Are you aware of when you are feeling the strain? Are there physical signals, like tight shoulders? Emotional signals, like a sudden hair-trigger temper or feeling a bit teary? Recall any signals from peak timeframes on previous projects, or other difficult times. Do you remember any stress signals from adapting to a pandemic-stricken world?
Do activities like baking light your fire? Enjoy an ocean swim — the colder the water, the better? Like to curl up with a book, or hit the gym? Getting out into nature, or hanging with friends and family? Your most enjoyable self-care activities are as unique as you are.
During stressful times, how helpful are your thoughts? Do you acknowledge your feelings in the present moment? Do you take the time to process those feelings, despite how distressing they may be at the time? Do you cultivate your sense of humour? Life during the most difficult times on projects can be somewhat absurd. A good laugh is a great antidote to taking the absurdity too seriously!
Do you put boundaries around your self-care? If you burn out in the middle of a project, you can’t focus on your work and operate at the pace and sharpness that your team needs from you. You may have experienced burnout earlier in your career. If you haven’t — great. Why learn to avoid touching hot stoves through direct experience? Instead, put strong boundaries around looking after yourself. This way, you have the energy reserves that you can draw upon when unexpected events surface.
Recap
Professionals with enduring achievements and gas left in the tank at project go-live are not anomalies. They look after themselves! They are conscious of — and curious about — stress signals in their body, mind and emotions. They take care to centre themselves in the middle of the storm. They also forward plan their self-care and have sound boundaries about it.
Your call to action
What are your effective, go-to self-care activities? Are these incorporated throughout critical times in your project as a non-negotiable?
My book — The Change Manager’s Companion — is available now. You can also check out my online course on Change Management.
Reference List
- (PDF) Compassion fatigue as secondary traumatic stress disorder: An overview. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245720535_Compassion_fatigue_as_secondary_traumatic_stress_disorder_An_overview. Accessed November 16, 2020.
- Adams RE, Boscarino JA, Figley CR. Compassion fatigue and psychological distress among social workers: a validation study. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2006;76(1):103–108. doi:10.1037/0002–9432.76.1.103
- Linnerooth PJ, Mrdjenovich AJ, Moore BA. Professional Burnout in Clinical Military Psychologists: Recommendations Before, During, and After Deployment. Prof Psychol Res Pract. 2011;42(1):87–93. http://sfx.unilinc.edu.au:9003/csu?sid=OVID:Your+Journals%40Ovid+Full+Text&genre=article&atitle.
- Castillo V. The Emotional Toll of Working in UX. Medium.com. https://modus.medium.com/the-emotional-toll-of-being-in-ux-a7cc35bff4b5. Published 2019. Accessed October 31, 2020.
- APS. APS Code of Ethics.; 2007. doi:10.1111/j.0028–1425.2007.ethics.x
- Australian swimmers learn to stay calm under fire of the Olympic Games | ZwemZa. http://www.zwemza.com/?p=49117. Accessed October 31, 2020.
- Nazish N. How To De-Stress In 5 Minutes Or Less, According To A Navy SEAL. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2019/05/30/how-to-de-stress-in-5-minutes-or-less-according-to-a-navy-seal/?sh=2deb83c3046d. Published 2019. Accessed November 16, 2020.
- The Junto Emotion Wheel: Why and How We Use It — The Junto Institute. https://www.thejuntoinstitute.com/blog/the-junto-emotion-wheel-why-and-how-we-use-it. Accessed November 14, 2020.
- Greene R. The 33 Strategies of War. Sydney, Australia: Hodder Australia; 2005.
- Achor S, Gielan M. Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure. Hbr. 2016:2–4. https://hbr.org/2016/06/resilience-is-about-how-you-recharge-not-how-you-endure?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr. Accessed October 31, 2020.
- Frahm J. Self-Care and the Change Practitioner — Conversations of Change. www.conversationsofchange.com.au. https://conversationsofchange.com.au/self-care-and-the-change-practitioner/. Published 2019. Accessed October 31, 2020.
- Smithson C. Being resilient: Self care for Change Practitioners. Being Human. https://www.slideshare.net/ProsciANZ/being-resilient-self-care-for-change-practitioners/1. Published 2017. Accessed October 31, 2020.
- Koch R. Living the 80/20 Way. London UK: Nicholas Brealey; 2004.