If You Don’t Understand People, You Don’t Understand Business

Something I come back to, again and again - in therapy, in team work, in leadership, in relationships - is this:

We’re wired to fix.

Someone’s upset, struggling, underperforming. Someone’s angry with us. Or distant. Or something just feels off.

And if we’re human - if we can feel the pain of another, the pull is always going to be strong to fix it. To make it better.

Because underneath our offer of help, whether we realise it or not, what we’re often trying to do is soothe ourselves.

We want the discomfort to stop. And if we can solve the problem quickly, then maybe that tension in our chest will ease too.

But what I’ve learned - and keep re-learning - is that connection comes before correction.

Always.
In every setting.
Therapy room. Boardroom. Living room.

If someone’s in a hole, and you rush to throw down a ladder without even getting a sense of where they are or how they got there… you miss it. You miss them.

And weirdly, the ladder often doesn’t even help because they’re not ready to climb out yet. 

And so often, the moment someone feels that you’re trying to fix them before you’ve understood them, they shut down. The defences go up. The shutters come down… Even if the advice is brilliant… Even if the solution is spot on (I know… it’s so frustrating that they just can’t hear it…)

But that’s just it - there’s a part of the brain that just can’t hear it.

I’ve talked before about how our brains are designed for threat detection and protection. And when we’re feeling deeply (in threat and protection), we’re not in a place to reflect or collaborate or take on feedback. The primal part of our brain is just trying to survive.

So when we talk about leadership - and business - and emotional intelligence - this is the bit that so often gets skipped. Most people know the right thing they should probably say. The challenge is that when you step into the emotion with someone, you often lose your ability to ‘feel and deal’ (just like I spoke about here). 

Businesses are built on relationships. And relationships rely on safety. Not just knowing what to say, but being able to stay calm and present when someone else is struggling, or when something's not going the way you wanted, or when you're triggered and every part of you wants to react or shut down or walk out.

That’s the real work. And it’s learnable (even if that’s not a word)... It really is learnable.

It starts with you. With knowing your own patterns. Your own stuff.
How you respond to stress. What gets under your skin. Where it comes from.
And how to pause long enough to notice what’s happening, so that you don’t get swept away by it.

And when you can learn to do that…
If you can regulate your own nervous system, even in the middle of something hard…
If you can stay curious instead of jumping to fix…

Then you start showing up differently.
Not reactive. Not trying to control it all.
And from there, you can actually help.
You can support the other person to think clearly again.
To climb out of the hole, on their own terms.

And, that’s what builds strength.
And that’s what makes people want to follow you, work with you, stay with you.

And when you get people - really get them - that’s when you understand business…

So there… boom… That’s my 5 minute take this week. 

I wrote this article while walking (all my best thinking happens when I walk), and maybe you can hear the energy that brought with it…

And now, I’m off for a long weekend of dog-shows and bouncy castles. 

Wishing you all a truly good bank holiday.