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How to use dynamics?
A lot of organisational problems, regarded at face value, seem to point to a simple and direct solution. Problems are mostly described in a negative formulation: goals are too vague, expertise is lacking, no one keeps agreements. The solutions seem to be the inverts of the negatives: define goals more clear, start capacity building, agree on agreeing.
But simple solutions often fail, because other forces are at work. Underlying mechanisms often affect the potential capacities of the organisation. We call these forces the dynamics of the problem. The dynamics often explain why a specific problem was not solved by the self healing capacity of the organisation. The dynamics may invisibly nourish the problem. They prevent simple solutions to work. Growing individualism for instance explains why top down commands in hierarchical organisations have become less effective.
Knowing the dynamics of a problem may help to take the underlying factors into account when trying to solve the problem. Recognising the dynamics may help to prevent looking for simple solutions.
The dynamics themselves are always refractory and hardly ever manageable.
Traumatisation is known as a reaction of people who experience serious events (victims of war, accidents, sexual violence etc.)
People who try to help those traumatised victims run the risk to get traumatised themselves. This phenomenon is called secondary traumatisation.
In order to deal with the unbearable, traumatised workers may show the tendency to take a distance to the victims, to moderate the gravity of their situation, to deny the problems and even to blame the victim. The original involvement turns into creating a distance. Of course such behaviour is a coping mechanism, constructed in an unconscious way. It is defence against the human (brain driven) tendency to synchronise the own emotional and behavioural reaction to those of the victims of trauma's.
If the workers are not treated well, being themselves -secondary- victims of traumatisation, there is a chance that the whole organisation will get traumatised.
The most likely moment to become traumatised is when the biggest emergency is at its end. In the midst of a crisis people can surmount and neglect their own troubles, even if they run higher and higher. Right after the worst moment when the dead are buried and the hospitals are full of wounded, the effects of traumatisation announce themselves.
The symptoms of the organisation being traumatised are of a violent but hardly specific nature. The staff feels a strong discontent with the organisation, in particular with the management, which is heavily criticised. People are constantly quarrelling. The slightest provocation is enough to ignite a violent conflict. Nagging and gossip are the order of the day. People feel tired, unsafe, neglected, deserted and not appreciated in their efforts.
Trauma's cause a compulsion of repetition. Conflicts are repeated. The image of the external enemy seems to be present even in the organisation. If in the external world ethnic tensions have caused the problems that the organisation is working on, internal conflicts will be fought along comparable dividing lines. People really suffer from these phenomena. The absence due to illness may rise.
If the management is unaware of the trauma related specificity of these symptoms, they in turn may (unconsciously) take the role of being aggressive or neglecting, accusing the workers of dysfunctional behaviour. In this way the 'contamination' of trauma's may rage through the organisation, damaging its sanity and effectiveness.
The more violent the problems of the clients of the organisation, the more vehement the reactions of the professional helpers can be. Especially if the helpers feel powerless towards the victims and their problems.
Some other organisation linked characteristics may aggravate the traumatisation. The worst is a lack of appropriate skills leaving the helper empty handed. Other aggravating factors are a workload being too high (powerlessness) or too low (feeling of uselessness); lack of clear expectations concerning the performance of the workers; a failing trinity of tasks, authority and accountability; polluted communication channels; inadequate working conditions, lack of organised support.
If a problem in an organisation is in one way or another related to the dynamics of the traumatised organisation, simply trying to solve the isolated problem will bring no relief.
Two recommendations can be made:
If necessary the organisation should look for professional help to solve the trauma related problems.
See solution 1: building or restoring organisational hygiene.
Who wants to know more about traumatised workers, teams and organisations: This short note is borrowed from an (Dutch) article on this topic by Angeline Donk: irrational processes in the organisation