The boss picks you to draft a special report on the department's
work. The bigger budget you've been lobbying for could be in the offing.
But you're in a mega-fury: Not only have both of your colleagues been
asked to turn over their notes to you, but you have to sacrifice the
weekend as well. By the time you deliver the draft on Monday, you' re
still fuming, you're sniping at your coworkers, and you're exhausted to
boot.
Your outsize emotional response should serve as the big clue to
what could really be going on, say Rick Weinberg, Ph.D., and Larry
Mauksch, M.Ed. Feelings and experiences from your family of origin have
contaminated your work relationships.
It's long been known that family dynamics get played out in our
love lives. Now, the duo reports in the Journal of Marital and Family
Therapy, they carry over into our work lives as well. They say the
spillover of family interaction patterns into office conflicts is the
source of a lot of job stress.
It's perfectly normal for family-of-origin relations to affect
behavior in later times and places. After all, it's from our families
that we learn specific ways to solve problems and handle interactions.
But such patterns are problematic when they furtively limit our options
or interfere with our abilities to react to life's many demands.
Weinberg, associate professor of psychology at the University of
South Florida, and Mauksch, clinical assistant professor at the
University of Washington Medical Center, advise three steps to avoid
using old behavior patterns to tackle office problems:
1. Think of a recent upsetting situation at work. What were you
being asked to do? Who else was involved? What was their relationship to
you? What about your performance seemed ineffective?
2. Describe patterns of behavior from your family of origin. What
were relations among family members like? How did you react when family
members fought? What stresses did your family face? What roles were
played by family members? How did you gain approval?
3. Compare the work situation to your family structure and
dynamics.
For most people, the impact of what they discover comes home in a
single word: "Aha!"
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