An interview with Vivian Dittmar, author of the book \u201cThe emotional rucksack: How we deal with unhealthy feelings\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone who deals intensively with change processes knows the emotions that overwhelm us as participants and trigger resistance. In many places, they ensure that transformation processes do not proceed at the desired speed or in the desired direction. <\/p>\n
Vivian Dittmar is a driving force behind cultural change in companies and has done a lot of work on emotions in the business environment in recent years. Andrea Montua spoke to her about the importance of emotions in change processes and about the \u201cemotional rucksack\u201d. <\/p>\n
AM<\/strong>: Vivian, you support companies in cultural change and especially with regard to emotions. Based on this experience: What role do emotions play when companies embark on transformation processes? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: When companies embark on real transformation processes, emotions automatically play a role – simply because they always arise where something is really important to us. These processes are all about getting down to business, otherwise there will be no transformation. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: Over the last few years, you have been working intensively on the topic of the \u201cemotional rucksack\u201d and have also written a book about it. What is it all about? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: The book came about when I had been working on the topic of \u201cfeelings and emotions in companies\u201d for a few years and realized that many people don’t even know what emotional baggage is, how to recognize it and how to deal with it. That’s when I decided to write this book. Because this inability to deal with our emotional baggage is the biggest obstacle to successful cooperation in all areas of life. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: How do we realize that our emotional rucksack is being activated?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: There are very different symptoms. The easiest to recognize are the activations that occur very suddenly and violently, when our entire emotional household is derailed from one moment to the next. This manifests itself in strong emotions such as anger, fear or sadness, but often it is also a jumble of emotions, a mixture of all of these. It is less easy to recognize activations that build up slowly and just as often it is not recognized at all or too late that a total absence of emotions is a sign of emotional activation. We still have this completely outdated image that we can do without bad feelings and that everything is great when they are absent. People who are very rational, especially in the professional world, believe that they function best without emotions anyway. From a scientific point of view, this has long been refuted. A person who only functions rationally does not work. Nevertheless, the image is still very powerful and ensures that the problem is often not recognized. As a result, the exchange between people in meetings, conflicts or other situations of cooperation is totally blocked. There is only a very superficial exchange on a supposedly factual level. As a result, it is not possible to create a real ability to resonate and this leads to a blockage. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: Let’s take a major change situation in a company: Worries, fears, anger – there’s a lot going on in the teams. Even if you manage to raise awareness of the emotional rucksack, which employee is willing to deal with it in a professional context? What advice do you have for companies? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: The number of people who are willing or even want to do this is growing. It is certainly still a minority, but it is steadily increasing. So we need to find a new way of dealing with this. Until now, the way it has been handled is that the person higher up in the hierarchy simply passes on their legacy to the bottom by letting off steam. The younger generation in particular no longer agrees with this. My strategy is two-pronged: first of all, I want to educate people by addressing the issue and taking it out of the taboo zone. This gives people permission to talk about it and deal with it. The second part builds on this and creates spaces in which emotions and feelings can be named and shown. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: Your advice is to put the topic of emotions on the agenda early on in the change process?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: Yes, definitely. People are often afraid that things will derail if things get too emotional. Then it makes sense to bring in external process support who is not afraid of strong emotions. In any case, it makes sense to have a neutral person in the room who has process support skills. Of course, things can get heated from time to time, but when an emotional level is touched, it brings a team together enormously. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: What steps do you recommend a manager take when things are really boiling over in a team? Address it? Get support? Read your book or another book first? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: That actually depends very much on the emotional competence of the manager. If you have good access and are not afraid of your own emotions and feelings, you can usually go into the team with them and talk about your own feelings and emotions, about your own vulnerability – that is the key. And that is precisely the change that is currently taking place in our understanding of leadership. In the old understanding of leadership, it is unthinkable for a manager to expose themselves in this way, to show themselves to be vulnerable. The new image of leadership, which is really about relationships, leadership at eye level, a whole new way of working together, requires relationship skills. This increases a manager’s reputation. Anyone who is prepared to do this but does not have the courage to be the icebreaker may need external support. Someone who can invite everyone to exchange ideas at this level. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: Do I have to work on my own emotional rucksack before I get involved in team processes, or does the work happen all by itself when I start the process?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: Important question. The answer is that I can only work on my own backpack. At the same time, there is something called the emotional competence of a team or an organization. Then I have a culture in which people say in a meeting that things are emotionally dense or difficult. You consciously part ways and discharge your emotions first in teams of two or a similar constellation. So everyone does their homework, works on their rucksack and then work can continue. Some people also do this preventively before they start. But there are also cultures in which this is unthinkable. For a cultural change, however, a new quality of togetherness is needed, a relationship level on which vulnerability and transparency are cultivated. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: You just mentioned the subject of discharges. What do you mean by that, how do they manifest themselves and how do you deal with them when you are confronted with them in someone else? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: Discharging was the key for me to heal my relationship with my backpack. We all know situations in which the backpack is activated, creating a great urge to go somewhere with this energy. The emotions want to move. Unfortunately, what often happens is that we unconsciously discharge by shouting at the next best person: The coworker, the trainee, the kids or our partner. This is destructive and relationships suffer greatly as a result. I call this a lack of emotional hygiene, which is often widespread today. At the same time, it’s not healthy to simply stuff your emotions back into your backpack. I attribute addictions that we find in society precisely to this. Consciously discharging as a practice was key for me to resolve this conflict. Creating a space where discharge is allowed to happen without relationships suffering. The practice of conscious discharge is based on the simple realization that we usually cannot consciously feel emotions because they overwhelm us. We therefore need the compassion of another person in order to be able to feel them. This sympathy temporarily expands our emotional capacity so that we can feel something that was not possible before. Through this conscious feeling, old emotions are processed and healing actually takes place. This strategy is very different from others in which we try to bring ourselves down – through sport or chocolate or whatever it takes to calm down. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: In your book, you recommend finding a \u201cbackpack partner\u201d with whom you can regularly practice this unloading. What would that look like – both professionally and privately? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: The most important thing is that it’s a person with whom I feel comfortable, with whom I have a basic trust. That could be my best friend, my partner, my favorite colleague, but also someone with whom I have no relationship at all. This can work surprisingly well. You need someone who has the same interest and wants to do it regularly. In companies, it really depends on the corporate culture. There are companies where the level of trust is so low that people can’t even imagine doing this with a colleague. But there are also companies where it seems possible with everyone in the team. You have to take an honest look at who fits. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: I would then talk to my colleague about what activated me emotionally and he or she would take a close look? What was it, where did it come from, what does it remind me of? <\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: That would be very reflective, but that’s not what it’s about, it’s about feeling. This means that the person listening only listens, under the condition of special confidentiality. The person doesn’t talk about it with anyone else and doesn’t mention it to you. This is what makes this space so particularly safe. And safety is so important because we have to switch from a cognitive to an emotional level. This is a completely different part of our personality, our consciousness and our brain. Letting this part speak requires some practice at first. It can be helpful to imagine that you are lending your voice to this emotion. It doesn’t have to make sense, you don’t have to agree with it, because it’s often very immature things that come up, completely unreflected or childish. The emotions are left exactly where they were not processed. <\/p>\n AM: <\/strong>What does the backpack partner do with it?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: Nothing – and that’s exactly what most people are totally unaccustomed to. The partner doesn’t give any feedback, just space and therefore sympathy. That’s very irritating at first because we’re used to communicating in response. We don’t understand what the point is if the other person doesn’t say anything. After a while, we realize that this is a much bigger confrontation, a bigger mirror, when I listen to myself and give all the answers. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: Does it make sense to look for a backpack partner for the old emotions of the past and one for the current emotions?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: When I am activated today, it is always based on the past. If I really engage with the emotional level and follow my inner fuse, then I dive through different layers of my emotional baggage, for example from anger to fear to sadness and back again. I experience different time levels, images of situations emerge in which I have felt this before. These can be very early childhood things, but also more recent experiences. So I can’t distinguish between my current backpack and a previous one. What I strongly recommend is emotional hygiene, i.e. regular conscious discharge. Life offers enough moments of activation that I can take care of by giving myself the space I need. If I take the space to consciously discharge, then the things that need to happen now will show up. Of course, you can also go to therapy from time to time to take a closer look at things, but you shouldn’t poke around in your backpack as an end in itself. <\/p>\n AM<\/strong>: You spoke earlier about the difference between feelings and emotions – can you go into that again?<\/p>\n VD<\/strong>: For me, this distinction is important, as is the fact that people give these phenomena different names. When I talk about emotions, I mean emotional baggage, i.e. unfelt feelings from the past. Feelings that were overwhelming for us at the time and therefore could not be felt. So we put them in the emotional rucksack for later processing. The catch with this strategy is that we often don’t process them later and we keep charging our emotional credit card until we are over-indebted. In contrast, feelings arise directly from the moment. They arise in the now and relate to the present. They arise through the interpretation of a situation in the now. An example: I arrive at work, an important deadline is looming and half the team is not there. I may misinterpret the situation and create anger as a result. This anger force, ideally it is a force, gives me energy to take action. I might call everyone to find out what’s going on, I might look for a replacement for my colleagues or try to finish everything myself at full speed. Whatever it is, but that is the function of anger. A healthy anger force is used up afterwards. Nothing hangs around anymore, I no longer carry resentment around with me, I am no longer activated. An emotion in its pure form is something very practical. <\/p>\n