Triggered?
Today's social interactions are complicated by an increased sensitivity to the emotional reactions of others. Such considerations pay dividends. They also complicate the job of leaders who must make organizational policy. Anyone who wishes to maximize their agency must navigate these waters. In today's episode, we explore the issue of 'triggers' and how that relates to our personal power.
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Triggered?
A relatively new driver of policies, both public and private, is how organizations respond to potential triggers for the people in and around their orbit. The positive element of this emergence is enhanced sensitivity to the emotional makeup of constituents. This pays dividends in opening opportunities and potential benefits from a wider array of perspectives. As with everything, these good effects come at a price. When we establish rewards and incentives for our behavior, we get more of that behavior. It makes sense then that we should be judicious about these incentives we install.
What are these around the concept of triggers? The word triggered is a loose psychological term, which has come to mean having an intense, negative emotional reaction often tied to past trauma. The specifics of these vary along a wide subjective spectrum. That makes the goal of eliminating triggers difficult in the extreme. The debate becomes about reasonability. What policies can be reasonably adopted to reduce instances of intense negative emotion? We might also ask what mission-centered outcomes we are willing to sacrifice to minimize emotional risk. Two quick examples come to mind.
The Mars Company has decided to shelve its cartoon representations of its M&M candies in its promotional videos. This was in reaction to ostensible complaints they'd received about the way the characters were depicted. Another was at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. In the ancient Egyptian section, they have decided that displaying mummies could be disturbing for certain patrons and they're removing them from public display. The same officials don't seem to have a similar sensitivity in the adjoining Museum of Art where they have dismembered heads and other partial female bodies in cages on display.
I'm not sure who or how many are offended by cartoon candy or historical objects or why but it's enough to warrant significant expenditures. Full disclosure, I'm relatively old school on this issue. One of the biggest influences in my life has been Don Miguel Ruiz through his book, The Four Agreements. If you're not familiar, it's well worth your time to become so.
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)
The four agreements are simple but not easy. 1) Be impeccable with your word. That means never lying to others or yourself. 2) Take nothing personally. What others do or don't do towards us think or don't think about us is their business, not ours. 3) Make no assumptions. We don't know what we don't know and that's always a lot. 4) Always do your best. That way you can lay your head on your pillow every night with a clear conscience.
The result of mastery of The Four Agreements is a powerful state of being. It becomes part of our character. Don Miguel calls this place Imperturbability. It means that a person becomes emotionally impervious to emotional and circumstantial hardship or attack. This characteristic is commensurate with maximizing our power. Therefore, I tend toward the side of not wanting to pay a price of accommodating incentives for the opposite, less powerful state of, let's say, trigger sensitivity.
There is a whole vernacular around enhanced sensitivity. It's useful because we want to be well-equipped to show respect for where people are. In that way, we position ourselves to be a positive force in their lives because we can build relationships based on trust. One such model is called SCARF. Maybe you're familiar. SCARF is an acronym that stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. It's a shorthand for remembering the ways people may be made to feel marginalized or disrespected. Regardless of organizational policy, it's a more powerful personal policy to minimize our proclivity to make people feel less.
Therefore, incorporating SCARF into our communication habits can pay real dividends. We do that by first becoming aware of the five buttons or triggers. Here is the official breakdown of how to understand and use the SCARF Model. 1) Status. The status button is about feeling important or socially respected. We press it positively whenever we validate people's work or show them appreciation. Pressed negatively, it can lead to low self-esteem, public shaming, and an endangered reputation.
2) Certainty. Certainty is about our concerns about the future. It's about being capable to predict and anticipate. We can press it positively when we promise to deliver something important in time, and we do keep our promise, or when we arrive on time for a date. It's pressed negatively when somebody we're waiting for doesn't show up and we can't even reach them or the fact that we don't know what happens after we die, which is what most religions aim to solve for us. They offer the answers we need.
3) Autonomy. Autonomy is about feeling that we have control over our lives, personal freedom, and self-determination. It can be pressed positively when offering options to someone making them feel like they have the liberty to choose for themselves. It's often pressed negatively by our parents during childhood when they threaten us to face the consequences. If we don't do as they say, it usually makes anyone either defensive, passive, or aggressive. It can also be pressed by heavy-handed use of authority or micromanaging.
4) Relatedness. Relatedness is essentially about familiarity, being able to recognize something we know. It can be pressed positively when we hear our native language spoken in a foreign country or when somebody mentions a familiar concept during a presentation. There might be a bit of dopamine released in our brain at that specific moment.
It's pressed negatively when we use an application or a website for a long time and the owner changes its interface so we might feel anger or frustration because it's no longer something we can easily handle. Relatedness can also be applied to any situation when we have to face new groups of people, whether it's related to work or personal life. We feel anxiety at the beginning but it disappears after we get used to the new faces and get acquainted with them.
5) Fairness. Fairness is about how we perceive the exchanges that we make with those around us, whether they are correct or not, and about getting what we deserve. It's commonly pressed negatively when we notice we are being paid less than someone else for the same job, even though we might have been satisfied with what we receive before knowing about the other person without making the comparison.
Awareness of these perceptive sensitivities helps us minimize if they don't inoculate us against our chances of offending someone. In no way do I believe or suggest that it is our only goal when we communicate with others. There are circumstances where the risk of offense is secondary to mission-oriented, critical action but short of this, it is more powerful when we maintain respect and connection. We do this by properly framing our communications and behaving in ways that show our respect for others as ends and values in themselves, not simply means to achieve our aims.
We move in the direction of power when we minimize the ways we are triggered. In other words, when we move toward the ideal of Imperturbability. We also increase our power when we minimize how we might trigger those who are not so far down this path. The wisdom of the guiding vision of The Four Agreements and using pneumatic models such as SCARF help us do these things, and so does the Eye of Power Model. It helps us see the ways our attitudes and actions toward ourselves and others restrict or expand our agency.
We move in the direction of power when we minimize the ways in which we are triggered.
These kinds of models are handy as they help us keep such matters top of mind as we build the muscle memory that defines mastery. The price of mastery is the discipline of sustained effort. It is so worth it. I invite you along on the wonderful journey. It leads to a place of more peace and joy. It leads to a better world where people are gracious to each other. Let's go.