Managing "Transference" to deal with conflicts

I came across an article in Business Week written by Michelle Conlan of New York, almost 6 years ago, the caption of which caught my attention. It said, ‘I am a bad boss; blame my dad.’ It continues – more executives are studying family pasts to root out work place dysfunction. I was intrigued by that and thought that I should think through the issue a little bit. It seemed to be a good thing to share with you on this Tuesday call. ‘I am a bad boss; blame my dad’ basically saying that what I am today has to do with what I was yesterday. And the yesterday is impinging on my today.


The article goes on to talk of an executive Peter Tilton, of Microsoft, who had a revelation one day when he was sitting in the conference room, meeting with his group. Then somebody, who he considered incompetent, questioned him about his own work and progress on a project. Peter Tilton flew off the handle and within seconds he was banging his fist on the whiteboard, yelling his face off. Even in a place like Microsoft, it seemed to be routine to put down another person’s idea. He couldn’t understand this emotional outburst until he realized that it had something to do with how his parents had responded to him way back in the 7th grade. He said that when that colleague touched that button, it took him back almost 30 years, back to the time when he was a 7th grader and was told that he couldn’t wear a particular type of jeans, because that was not how his parents wanted him to dress to school. That triggered this kind of an outburst.

“There is an increasing awareness now that some of what’s going on in the work
place has to do with what happened earlier. Conflicts happening in the workplace
today are really the tip of the iceberg that they have to do with things that
have happened in our past that we have responded to or didn’t respond to
particularly well.”

Michelle Conlan goes on to say that “the basic concept is this: people tend to re-create their family dynamics at the office. Buttressed by new research in workplace dynamics, more high profile coaches and consultants are applying family systems therapy to business organizations, to grapple with what has come to be seen as a new frontier in productivity, i.e. emotional inefficiency which includes all the bickering, back stabbing and ridiculous playing for approval that are a mark of the modern workplace.” What she is saying is that all the bickering and back stabbing etc, things which drain productivity, have something to do with family systems which didn’t take place well, earlier on.

This theory is gaining resonance as corporations become evermore cognizant that talented employees quit bosses, not companies. They don’t leave because of the company. They leave because of their bosses, because of a conflict. CEOs often get hired for their skills, but get fired for their personalities. That’s interesting, isn’t it? She ends the article by saying, “Like many, people are beginning to realize that being analytically savvy is enough. Being emotionally competent is now part of the job.

We don’t often think about that. We think about a skill, about what we bring to the table, and rarely think that some of our emotional outbursts, some of the things that trigger in our workplace, don’t have to do with our training so much as with the handicap that we have carried all these years. It piggy backed on a book that I was reading by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, “Conflicts with authority have to do with transference” They describe transference as when you experience feelings in the present that belong to some unfinished business in the past. And when a transference relationship starts, you begin to act out all the old patterns you did with your parents. And this never works because you become a child on the job.

It boils down to a lack of boundaries. To have boundaries is to take the responsibility for transference. They say, “Face the transference. Find out! This is not right. It’s coming from somewhere else and begin to deal with that little bit of emotional instability that is creeping in your present. Until you face your own feelings, you can’t even see what those really are, because you’re looking at them through your own distortions, through your own unfinished business.”

What are boundaries? Having clear boundaries is essential to a healthy balanced lifestyle. Townsend and Cloud say: A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Boundaries impact all areas of our life.

• Physical boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances.
• Mental boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts and opinions.
• Emotional boundaries help us deal with our own emotions and disengage from the harmful manipulative emotions of others.
• Spiritual boundaries help us to distinguish what is God’s will from our own, and give us renewed awe for our Creator, helping us know what is God’s will and what is my will that is trying to come to the fore. Because it would be good for us to do what God has, because He put us together. And to be able to do the things that he wants us to do would be the best for our lives.

Out here’s the problem. Transference. Do we bring our past into our present? As you look at your own jobs, the way you operate in your workplace, do you find yourself suddenly unreasonable about something? Do you find yourself suddenly getting angry? Do you have feelings that are inappropriate for the situation that you are facing? And you wonder where it is coming from. It’s not consistent; it’s not right for the kind of situation that I am facing. It seems out of proportion, blown up. And it could be, my friends, that it has something to do with an emotional imbalance that was never treated earlier.

People increasingly come to the workplace wanting the company to be a family, Townsend and Cloud goes on to say. And sometimes that is the issue, that we operate in our workplaces, looking for our colleagues and our bosses to be an extended family. We look for the proverbial pat on the back or “A good job done!” and while those are good words of encouragement that come our way and must come our way, it cannot come because we need that sense of approval because we didn’t get it in our own families. We cannot transfer what has happened in our families at an earlier point into our days, today. That will only give us more and more trouble.

The lack of boundaries between the personal and work life is fraught with all sorts of difficulties. The workplace ideally, should be supportive, safe and nurturing. And we all agree on that. But this atmosphere should primarily support the employee in work-related ways, to help him or her learn, improve and get a job done. The problem arises when someone wants the job to provide what his or her parents did not provide for them, which is primary nurturing, relationship, self-esteem and approval. Work is not set up this way, nor is it what the typical job asks of someone.

The inherent conflict in this set up is this: the job expects adult functioning and the person wants childhood needs met. And these differing expectations will inevitably collide.
So what we need to do is to keep firm boundaries, protect those hurt places from the workplace, which is not only not set up to heal, but may also wound unintentionally. So you open yourself up to even have more hurt fostered in that area. Do set that boundary and say, ‘this has nothing to do with my work. It has something to do with my past and I need to deal with that separately but not in the area of my work’.

Daniel Daynor in his book “Conflict or Resolution” says that there are 4 strategies for eliminating or handling conflict strife at work.

1. Address the conflict early. As soon as you see a conflict, the first response is to distance yourself and that allows the unresolved problem to fester. Distinguish between a permanent withdrawal, when you walk away with no intention to re-engage and a tactical withdrawal, when you agree to have a dialogue once tempers cool down.
2. Avoid a one-sided solution. As a manager, you’re in a position to call the shots. But encouraging two sides to come together to solve a problem always builds long-term cooperation.
3. Take risks. Offer a conciliatory gesture like apologizing, taking responsibility for your role in the problem or expressing positive feelings.
4. Respect other’s peace-making gestures. Avoid the temptation to exploit a counterpart’s conciliatory gesture and allow that to bring resolution.

I don’t know where you are, whether this has made any sense to you? Maybe you are thinking that it is true, thinking that you have an area that really doesn’t make sense. You are pretty much of a left-brain, logical, analytical person, but you get these emotional outbursts that have nothing to do with what’s going on. Maybe there’s an issue that’s creeping into your workplace that needs a boundary to be set on it.

There’s a verse in the Bible that says: God will restore to us the years that the locusts have eaten.” The years that have gone unfulfilled, where there’s a problem, and we think those are wasted years, God says “Because I am God, I can restore it. I can bring healing to it. I can make it whole once again.” And maybe today you need to take those unresolved issues to the Almighty God and ask Him to help you to deal with it. But keep it out of the office so that it does not involve any kind of conflict in the workplace.

God Bless Us All