The Art of Manliness - How to Resist Group Anxiety and Become a Differentiated Self

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.400 When we think about anxiety, we typically think of something that is generated and felt within

00:00:15.400 an individual. But Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist of the mid-20th century, argued that anxiety was

00:00:21.020 also created by the interactions between individuals. It could spread like a contagion

00:00:25.200 in a group, an idea known as Family Systems Theory. Here to offer an introduction to Family

00:00:30.020 Systems Theory and how its implications extend far beyond the family is Steve Kuss, who is a former

00:00:34.860 hospital chaplain, a pastor, the founder of Capable Life, which offers coaching and consultation,

00:00:39.920 and the author of Managing Leadership Anxiety, Yours and Theirs. Today on the show, Steve and I

00:00:45.240 discuss how individuals in both families and organizations can infect a situation with their

00:00:49.100 own assumptions and expectations and create a sense of anxiety that permeates a group. Steve

00:00:53.840 unpacks the false needs that create chronic anxiety in an individual, how this anxiety

00:00:58.040 spreads to others, and the unhealthy ways people deal with this tension, including becoming

00:01:02.060 fused together. And we talk about how to put this anxiety back where it belongs, and how

00:01:06.600 a single person can change a group dynamic by differentiating from it and becoming a rooted

00:01:10.680 self. After the show is over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash family systems.

00:01:23.840 All right, Steve Kuss, welcome to the show.

00:01:29.720 Brett, thanks for having me on. I've been looking forward to this.

00:01:32.420 So I have been too. I've really enjoyed your work, the books you've done, as well as the

00:01:36.960 online courses you've done. You're an interesting guy. You have a career where you train organizations

00:01:42.220 and leaders on how to deal with group anxiety and what leaders of groups that have this anxiety,

00:01:49.640 what they can do to calm things down when tensions get high. And your approach to managing group

00:01:57.680 tension is based on family systems theory that was developed by a guy named Murray Bowen back

00:02:05.240 in the 1960s. Tell us about Murray Bowen, because I'm sure a lot of people have never heard of this

00:02:09.740 guy. So tell us about his background. Who was he and how was his insights into how anxiety works

00:02:15.500 different from how a lot of psychologists think about how anxiety works?

00:02:20.320 Yeah. Murray Bowen was a psychiatrist who specialized in teenage onset paranoid schizophrenic

00:02:28.380 patients. So he worked in a 1950s and 1960s psych ward in a hospital. You can imagine pretty rough back

00:02:35.720 then. And families would commit their children once they became young adults. So 17 to 23 year old,

00:02:42.960 it was a general rule. And Bowen was the psychiatrist on the floor. And I don't know if this was the

00:02:49.460 moment systems theory was born, but one of his most famous stories was on family visitation day,

00:02:55.900 this petite mom is coming in to visit maybe her son, for example. You know, you imagine a boy who's now

00:03:02.780 a fully grown man, paranoid schizophrenic, pretty strong guy, right? So as the mom is walking toward the

00:03:09.500 son, all this stuff's going on inside the mother, guilt about handing the stunt over to the state

00:03:14.920 failure as a mother, but also some level of fear of her own son. He's this big guy. He's a little bit

00:03:20.960 dangerous as a schizophrenic. So as she's going to give him a hug, she's quite tentative. He then

00:03:27.880 reads that tentative body language and gives her a tentative hug in response. And then she pushes him 0.79

00:03:34.540 away and says, what's the matter? Aren't you glad to see me? And that's what Bowen came to call a

00:03:40.720 double bind and a mixed message. And he, it kind of awakened in Bowen this idea that anxiety exists

00:03:48.080 between us, not just inside us. So if you take like a Freud or a Carl Jung, you know, they're really

00:03:54.580 focusing on what's going on in the individual. Bowen was in some ways, not the first guy, but really the

00:03:59.840 first guy to make it famous. Hey, let's look at anxiety in us and between us and how they infect

00:04:06.140 each other. And so he developed what's famously known as the eight concepts of Bowen theory.

00:04:11.940 And I was a hospital chaplain in 1996 and one of Bowen's very first students, George Dobler,

00:04:18.440 George and Bowen's probably most famous student, Ed Friedman, would study together under Bowen. And so

00:04:24.400 I got a hefty dose when I was a chaplain, but that's functionally what Bowen did is he shifted the focus

00:04:29.240 from in us to between us. And I find that fascinating in leadership because you take

00:04:35.860 any team and so much of the anxiety is between people, not just inside people. So it's a really

00:04:41.660 powerful tool. Yeah, that was, I think that's the big insight that I got and it's changed the way I

00:04:46.760 approach whenever there's a conflict or there's someone I see is like having a problem instead of

00:04:52.180 thinking, well, what's wrong with this person? I started thinking, well, what's going on with the

00:04:57.020 dynamic in the group that might be contributing to this person displaying these certain maybe

00:05:02.320 maladaptive responses? Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you read Bowen, it's kind of wild. He didn't write

00:05:08.060 much. He really only wrote two books and one of them was actually one of his students kind of wrote

00:05:11.940 it for him. But if you read his very first book, it's just a series of lectures he gave at universities

00:05:17.380 as he was exploring this new theory. He would bring in not just mom and dad for counseling, but he'd bring

00:05:23.440 in siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. Sometimes his therapy office had like 30 family

00:05:28.880 members in it. His other big idea was how your family of origin impacts your adulthood. So he just

00:05:36.060 brought the whole family and like extended it all. And you know, he probably overdid it, but of course

00:05:41.140 he was experimenting with this brand new philosophy. And it's funny, Brett, not many people know Bowen

00:05:47.920 theory. I think those of us who know him, we would put him on the Mount Rushmore of psychology. I mean,

00:05:54.080 he'd be one of the big three or four names, but he's still after all these years, relatively unknown.

00:05:59.260 Yeah, it is really interesting. Okay. So yeah, the big takeaway, anxiety isn't just inside you. It's

00:06:04.120 also in a group. And I think that makes sense. You know, as humans, we're very attuned to other people.

00:06:10.680 We look to other people to figure out what we need to be worried about. And what can happen is that can

00:06:17.440 just get hijacked and just kind of go off the rails when we look around and start trying to think

00:06:22.440 about, well, maybe this person's thinking this and I need to change my behavior so I can just keep

00:06:28.040 things nice and calm and collected here. And it just, that just ratchets up more and more of the

00:06:32.780 anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes we do that. And then depending on how we're wired, some people,

00:06:38.280 they still focus on someone else, but they're not worried about what that person thinks. They're

00:06:43.500 frustrated at what that person thinks. So if you take the phrase, what were they

00:06:47.380 thinking? That phrase, a people pleaser would say, oh no, what are they thinking? But an irritated

00:06:53.300 person would say, what were they thinking? It's the same focus on the other. And Bowen really did

00:06:59.300 take the attention of other people. And even though he's talking about anxiety spreading in a group,

00:07:04.120 his solution is to pay attention to yourself and how you are infecting and catching the anxiety in

00:07:10.040 the room. Once you learn a few of his tools, it's a literal game changer for leadership,

00:07:15.960 organizational health. Like it's mind blowing how just a couple of these tools can really help

00:07:20.660 make a difference.

00:07:21.880 Yeah. And the idea is like he focused on families. And I think if anyone's, you know, everyone's been

00:07:25.920 part of a family at some point in their life, you see how that tension can manifest itself in a

00:07:32.560 family. And Bowen argued, well, that's how we learn how to deal with groups is in our families.

00:07:37.680 We actually take what we learned on how to deal with conflict in our family of origin and also

00:07:43.140 apply it to groups, whether it's a business, church, et cetera.

00:07:47.000 Yep. Yeah. He had a number of theories around your family of origin, the multi-generational

00:07:52.520 transmission process. That's kind of the big name for one of his concepts, multi-generational

00:07:57.300 transmission process, simple idea. You don't just look to your mom and dad and your siblings in your

00:08:02.060 immediate household. You look at the patterns that have been handed down to the third and fourth

00:08:07.460 generation in your family. And of course, you know, we, we mostly think about it when we were

00:08:12.980 kids and when you're a kid, you don't have any power. So you do kind of make meaning out of your

00:08:18.040 experiences so you can survive. And then Bowen was helping us see how we, we drag that meaning into

00:08:24.400 our adulthood. And that's why we stay stuck.

00:08:26.460 So you mentioned you got introduced to Bowen theory when you were a chaplain,

00:08:30.340 your book, managing leadership anxiety is geared towards pastors. And I've noticed that systems

00:08:35.800 theory is really popular amongst people in leadership positions at churches. Why is that?

00:08:41.300 Do you think? Oh, it's a really good question. I mean, I think the most famous student of systems

00:08:46.700 theory was Edwin Friedman. Most people know his book failure of nerve, but the book that put him on the

00:08:51.620 map was called generation to generation. And a lot of people don't know that Friedman was a

00:08:56.440 Jewish rabbi. He was a local rabbi in a local synagogue. And somehow his study of synagogues

00:09:03.120 and churches, that was his first written work. It just caught fire. This is in the early eighties.

00:09:09.860 So I think the reason it's popular among churches is because Friedman wrote generation to generation.

00:09:15.220 And then many church leaders, it just made so much sense out of their experience. That's been my

00:09:20.860 experience with systems theory when I travel around, like I've been in so many different cultures,

00:09:24.800 Brett. I'll be in Indonesia in October, I'll be in Spain, whether it's an Asian culture or Western

00:09:30.500 culture, a developing country like Kenya. Systems theory is able to name your experience. And for

00:09:36.840 many people, for the first time, give them a path through what they're feeling. And I do think a lot

00:09:43.340 of churches and synagogues and mosques struggle with volunteer culture, power mongering, some of

00:09:52.100 those behaviors. And I think systems theory really helps a leader survive it and actually even thrive

00:09:58.500 in those difficult environments. So in systems theory, there's a distinction between acute anxiety

00:10:05.000 and chronic anxiety. What's the difference between the two?

00:10:08.160 Yeah. I love that you're asking that because this is another of Bowen's distinct contributions.

00:10:14.320 If you've ever been chased by a snake, which I have, if you've ever almost been in a car accident,

00:10:19.720 if you've ever lost a child in a playground, that's acute anxiety. Acute anxiety is always around

00:10:25.300 physical safety. Your body gets a big dose of adrenaline. Your mind gets really sharp.

00:10:30.460 Chronic anxiety, this is Bowen really helped us here. Chronic anxiety is not based on a real threat.

00:10:35.820 It's based on a false threat that feels real in the moment. And so, for example, in my case,

00:10:41.940 I'm a people pleaser. I can tell you now, Brett, I like to make people happy and I'm not anxious.

00:10:48.340 But if you were to observe me later today or tomorrow, in a situation where I've let someone

00:10:53.700 down, you will see me get what's called chronic anxiety. So chronic anxiety is fascinating because

00:10:58.880 it's not built on anything real. It's built on a false need that feels real. And it's what leads

00:11:04.740 to burnout. It doesn't give you a massive dose of adrenaline like acute anxiety. It gives you just

00:11:11.080 a little drip, drip, drip of adrenaline. And, you know, most of my work is with leaders. Most leaders

00:11:17.160 carry unaddressed false needs. Oftentimes we have 30 or 40 false needs every day. And when we don't get

00:11:26.600 them met, we get chronic anxiety. So I work with a lot of leaders that say, I'm not anxious because

00:11:32.880 I don't worry about much. But chronic anxiety doesn't look like worry. It looks like reactivity.

00:11:40.100 So let's say that you're a leader that really values courtesy and timeliness on your team.

00:11:46.160 And then Jim comes in seven minutes late, like he always does. But he acts like he's not late. He

00:11:52.960 doesn't apologize. He doesn't seem to be paying the price for being late. And you as the leader are

00:11:58.260 having an anger fantasy about Jim, that's chronic anxiety because your false need of courtesy is not

00:12:05.140 being met. Now, when I say that, people might say, well, what's wrong with needing courtesy?

00:12:09.760 Nothing wrong with courtesy. It's your massive overreaction when someone's discourteous. That's

00:12:15.140 the sign. So there are five core false needs in every human. We can get into it if you want.

00:12:20.640 But people pleasing is one of them. And then there's four others. I'm happy to kind of list them for us

00:12:24.700 if that's helpful. Yeah, that would be helpful. But just to recap, acute anxiety is about a real

00:12:28.520 danger. It's about a physical thing, like your safety, etc. Chronic anxiety is a worry or maybe

00:12:35.100 anxiety about a need that's not real, a false need. And it's typically about involving the group,

00:12:41.260 like other people are involved as well. It comes from within us and it comes at us from others.

00:12:47.680 And we also put it on others. So it's the only kind of anxiety that's contagious.

00:12:53.500 No other kind of anxiety, we don't catch it. Like if somebody's grieving or somebody came home

00:12:59.500 like from a foreign war and they're carrying trauma, we don't catch that trauma. But chronic

00:13:05.880 anxiety is the only anxiety that's contagious because yes, it's in a group, but also it's in me,

00:13:12.180 like my need to make everybody like me, that's in me. But then I read you. And sometimes you might

00:13:19.200 put a expectation on me that I can't meet. I used to be a crisis interventionist in Las Vegas.

00:13:25.420 And all of these people with this chronic need coming off the street, well, they are expecting

00:13:29.560 me to solve their problem, but I'm letting them down. So their anxiety coming at me, I'm catching it

00:13:36.500 and it's infecting my false need in myself. And that's kind of how anxiety is spread in a group.

00:13:42.180 Okay. So you mentioned that there are five false needs people can have. And if one of these needs

00:13:47.940 isn't met, that can start causing someone to feel chronic anxiety. And then a person will take that

00:13:54.020 anxiety and try to put it on other people. And then the anxiety will start spreading in the group.

00:13:58.400 And by false needs, what's meant by that is that someone feels like they need something,

00:14:03.240 but it's not an actual real need. It doesn't have to be met for them to survive, for them to be okay.

00:14:08.560 Like they're not any actual danger, even though they can feel like they're under threat. So what

00:14:13.660 are the false needs people can have? Yeah. Yes. The control. There are certain kinds of people that

00:14:20.380 need to be in control. And if they're not in control, they do weird things. They manipulate

00:14:26.320 people or they get really antsy. The second one is perfection. Probably most or many of your listeners

00:14:32.580 are perfectionists. They believe the lie that they should get it perfectly right the first time they

00:14:38.140 ever do something. Like they don't allow themselves to be a rookie. Their gold standard is always a

00:14:44.440 hundred percent. And so the example of chronic anxiety, it exaggerates the outcome. So if a

00:14:50.300 perfectionist makes a mistake, like maybe they put a spelling mistake in an email, their body tells

00:14:56.060 them, man, this is the end of the world. Like that's the problem is it is these are these false

00:15:01.600 needs and we stay chasing them because we're afraid of the world ending if we don't get them. So it's

00:15:06.880 control, perfection, having the answer. This is particularly with men. This is one of mine.

00:15:13.260 I need you to know that I know something. And so if you ask me a question and I don't know the answer,

00:15:19.120 it's actually difficult for me to say, I don't know. It even gets weird. If I'm in a meeting and

00:15:25.160 Jimmy asks Renee a question, I have to stop myself from answering it, even though Jimmy didn't ask me.

00:15:32.100 So knowing the answer is the third one. Being there for people when they're hurting is the fourth one.

00:15:37.800 And then people pleasing is the fifth. That being there for others when they're hurting. Again,

00:15:42.580 you might hear that you might say, well, what's wrong with being there for people? The problem

00:15:45.840 isn't being there for people. The problem is when you can't tell the difference between their need

00:15:50.540 and your need to be needed. And so all of these have like an extreme version. So perfectionists,

00:15:57.800 when they're human size, they're not anxious. They're really good at improving things. They

00:16:02.160 can do that all day long, but that incessant chase of perfectionism, they never get it.

00:16:07.220 Control freaks are often very thoughtful and hospitable, but then when they're trying to make

00:16:12.180 sure everyone's having a good time and they feel anxious, they're taking too much responsibility.

00:16:16.680 That's when they get chronically anxious. So that's what we call the big five.

00:16:21.080 Something else that Bowen talks about is whenever there is chronic anxiety, people in the group,

00:16:27.520 he says they're fused. What does that mean to be fused?

00:16:32.100 To be fused means that you've gotten too close to each other and you cannot tell the difference

00:16:38.760 between where I end and the next person begins. So another word for fused would be merged or

00:16:45.900 enmeshed. The most famous phrase of being fused is when mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

00:16:52.160 We've all been in a room. Here'd be an example, Brett. Like if you're in a room and there's like

00:16:57.700 eight people and everyone's laughing and then Jim walks in and he's clearly having a really bad day.

00:17:04.640 Jim comes into the room and he packed his bad day and his bad days in the room with him.

00:17:09.120 There's now an unspoken agreement. We're not allowed to be happy because Jim is sad. Jim's a bit of an

00:17:14.200 Eeyore, you know, kind of the donkey from Winnie the Pooh. And he kind of infects the mood and

00:17:19.920 everything gets a little cool. That's fused. Like healthy leadership is Jim is allowed to be

00:17:25.880 depressed and we are allowed to be happy. And there's room for everybody to be exactly themselves.

00:17:32.360 But half of the room tends to fuse. And then the other half of the room tends to get distance,

00:17:38.040 opposite of fuse. We also call it detached. And that can look like kind of a writing someone off,

00:17:43.360 like, ah, Jim, there he is being all depressed again. Sometimes it can look like giving Jim

00:17:47.860 advice when he didn't ask for it. Jim, why don't you read this book on how to be cheerful? This kind

00:17:52.680 of stuff. So some people get fused when they're anxious. Some go away. And Bowen talks about the

00:17:59.680 togetherness force and the distance force and how we're always in this dance between the two.

00:18:06.240 And we'll talk about this. One of the goals of Bowen theory is to unfuse yourself. Like you want to be a

00:18:12.080 self so that there's a separation between you and the person, but while still staying connected to

00:18:18.740 the other person. So like, even if someone else is in a bad mood, like it's not going to infect you,

00:18:22.900 but you're still able to be with that person. We'll talk more about how to do that.

00:18:27.200 Okay. So chronic anxiety are these false beliefs that we have about what we need in our lives in

00:18:33.140 order to be calm and collected. The group that we're in can affect how we manifest or how we

00:18:39.700 experience chronic anxiety when there is chronic anxiety. Well, maybe we do this. Maybe this would

00:18:45.840 be helpful too. I think like, give us an example. Like what would chronic anxiety look like in a

00:18:52.020 group? So you mentioned, you know, if mom ain't happy, ain't no one happy. I'm not sure if everyone

00:18:56.040 has experienced that. There's maybe a parent who's upset and just like puts the whole house in a

00:19:01.000 funk. What else does chronic anxiety in a group look like? How have you seen it manifest itself?

00:19:05.820 Yeah, it's a great question. We can look at like a fairly simple example, and then we could look

00:19:10.980 like a really extreme example. But if we just remind people that chronic anxiety does not look

00:19:15.920 like worry and fear, it looks like reactivity. And so what you're looking for in a group is reactivity.

00:19:22.440 And when people are reactive, they're no longer human size. So they get bigger than human or they

00:19:26.500 get smaller than human. So maybe a simple example would be, if you're ever in a group of friends and

00:19:33.380 somebody goes on a political rant and they just, you've seen those people, they just have such a

00:19:39.520 strong political opinion. It's no longer a dialogue. Something has shifted in the room.

00:19:44.820 They're now like monologuing. They're really angry. One of the simplest ways to notice chronic anxiety

00:19:50.240 is anger, particularly in a man. And what's challenging about it is your average man feels

00:19:54.860 strong when they're ranting and they've become bigger. They're no longer aware that they've shut the

00:19:59.860 room down. There's no room for conversation and curiosity. There's no room for connection.

00:20:05.180 Well, that would be an example of one person's chronic anxiety infecting the whole room. It takes

00:20:10.800 tremendous strength for another person to gently reconnect everybody. So maybe Jim goes on this big

00:20:18.720 political rant and he makes these big generalizations and these broad brush statements and whatever

00:20:23.960 political persuasion he is, he makes very strong discriminatory statements about the other side.

00:20:29.860 What tends to happen after that is a lot of the group will just go quiet. That's them getting

00:20:35.180 smaller because he is generating the anxiety. They're now carrying the anxiety and they don't

00:20:40.620 know what to do. Well, a well-differentiated leader can actually reframe the room and put the anxiety

00:20:47.380 back where it belongs on the jerk that generated it. And they don't have to be a jerk about it. They can 1.00

00:20:52.820 just say, oh, Jim, I can see that you feel really strongly about that. Man, what do the rest of us

00:20:58.720 think? I'd love to make this more of a conversation than a monologue, something like that. And they're

00:21:02.460 just redistributing the anxiety. This is one of the reasons to go back to church leaders, why

00:21:07.080 church leaders love systems theory is it helps them lead a group in a whole other gear. So that would

00:21:13.300 be like a simple example. A more deadly example would be most of us have worked for a boss that behaves

00:21:21.300 badly, but they get away with it because of their position. And it's just making everyone under them

00:21:27.820 anxious. There's a lot of staff turnover in the company. This is a situation I work with all the

00:21:33.300 time. Oftentimes I'll work with like a founder CEO who has over-functioned for so long to get the company

00:21:40.760 where it is that they just think everyone else is lazy. When really what's going on is that boss is

00:21:47.800 generating most of the anxiety, the team are carrying most of the anxiety, and it's really hard when your

00:21:55.680 boss has all the power to put the anxiety back where it belongs. As you mentioned too, Brett, and I'll stop

00:22:00.380 after this, many people were raised in a family of origin where one family member generated all the anxiety.

00:22:06.780 Maybe it was dad's anger. Maybe it was mom's addiction. We're getting a little deep here, but you can also

00:22:13.280 look at what were the secrets in my family of origin? What did everyone agree to never talk about?

00:22:18.800 You know, like dad had an affair. Everyone knew it. No one talked about it. That's an example of someone

00:22:23.400 generating anxiety and someone carrying it. Yeah. Going back to that family example, one example that

00:22:28.100 I've heard that I thought was interesting, I think really can show what chronic anxiety can look like

00:22:33.420 in a family. Let's say, yeah, dad has an anger issue, or maybe he's an alcoholic. And the kids have

00:22:40.480 picked that up and they've picked up on the idea that, well, if I act really, if I just walk on

00:22:45.620 eggshells and I just try to do all I can to make dad happy, he won't start drinking and everything

00:22:51.740 will be fine in our family. They learn that kind of intuitively. So like they're reacting, they're

00:22:55.820 very reactive to dad in order to keep dad happy because they want to still feel safe. They don't

00:23:00.920 want to see dad get drunk and angry. That's right. And when they become adults, they now have developed

00:23:07.220 that coping skill from a child as a superpower. So they know how to read a room and that's a good

00:23:13.220 thing. But then it gets a hold of them and becomes chronic anxiety where they over function. They take

00:23:21.480 more responsibility than is healthy and let someone get away with bad behavior. One of the consulting

00:23:27.760 tools I use is a simple set of questions. And it's really eye opening just to ask these questions in

00:23:33.200 your context. And the first question is who is generating most of the anxiety? And then the

00:23:38.040 second question is who's carrying it? Now, at this point, it gets really interesting. The third

00:23:42.960 question, what micro adjustments are the carriers making that keeps everything the same? So like maybe

00:23:50.800 you were raised in a family with an angry dad. Let's say he wasn't violent. Let's just say he had a

00:23:56.100 red hot temper and he would blow up and then he would immediately feel better. Like the act of blowing

00:24:02.260 up for him was the relief valve. The problem is he's generating the anxiety. Now, mom and the kids

00:24:08.900 are carrying it and they're quite hurt. But the micro adjustments they're all making is no one talks

00:24:15.660 about it, right? We just run to our room and cry or we pretend he didn't just blow up. And so you start,

00:24:23.640 as you go down these questions, it's eight questions. I won't do them all on the pod, but just those first

00:24:27.320 three, who's generating it, who's carrying it, what micro adjustments are another way to say, what secret

00:24:33.300 agreements has everyone made to keep everything the same? And that's what you see in so many families

00:24:40.120 is all of the ways that people are adjusting themselves to keep everything even. That's often

00:24:46.560 what you will see in these like examples of alcoholism. I have a friend whose dad was violently

00:24:53.160 alcoholic and he learned at a young age how to keep dad laughing because that's how the family

00:24:58.880 stayed safe. It can get pretty deep. I mean, going back to the work example of the overbearing boss,

00:25:04.280 a great movie that you can watch to kind of see that in action is The Devil Wears Prada.

00:25:09.200 Yeah.

00:25:09.440 Our family just finished watching it. So yeah, Miranda Priestly, right? She's the powerful and

00:25:13.820 demanding editor-in-chief of the magazine. And she creates all the anxiety and everyone around her 1.00

00:25:19.720 reacts to her in order to keep things copacetic, basically. But it actually, in the process,

00:25:25.840 it's actually dysfunctional for everybody.

00:25:28.460 It's a great, Miranda, that's a great example. And what's fascinating about it is in systems theory,

00:25:34.660 we believe that it's not best for Miranda either. You know, the temptation is to say,

00:25:40.300 oh, she's such a jerk of a boss. But systems theory forces you to say, 1.00

00:25:44.660 the person behaving badly, that does not serve them well either. And I think Devil Wears Prada

00:25:51.660 plays that out really well. You see a bit of a taste of her home life. You see her being sabotaged 0.83

00:25:57.020 in her vocation. You kind of catch her when she's not at work and how miserable she is. 0.84

00:26:04.600 The beauty of systems theory is it takes the so-called perpetrator like a Miranda

00:26:09.240 and the interns and the employees. And it says, everybody's complicit. Everybody has a responsibility.

00:26:17.200 And the reason it's called systems theory is these people together form a system. They form a

00:26:22.380 predictable pattern of behavior. They do the same dance every day, but no one's getting better.

00:26:28.240 And so the act of putting the anxiety back on the person generating it is in fact in the culprit's

00:26:35.060 best interest. So it would have served Miranda better for her employees to say, we don't do that

00:26:41.280 here. I don't allow people to treat me. I'll give a real-time example, Brett. I was in Australia a few

00:26:46.320 months ago visiting my dad and my sister. And as I'm flying back, I'm in the Melbourne. I grew up in

00:26:52.980 the West Coast in Perth. It takes quite a while to get there. But I'm going back through the Melbourne

00:26:56.980 airport with Qantas. And I'm lined up at the customer service desk. I don't remember what I needed,

00:27:02.800 but the person, two people in front of me is swearing loudly at the customer service agent.

00:27:09.460 And she kept saying to him, I was blown away by her. She said, sir, I am not allowed to help you

00:27:14.400 when you swear at me. I've actually been instructed by my boss that I will get in trouble if I help

00:27:19.800 somebody when they're mistreating me. And he's yelling at her, I'm not effing mistreating you.

00:27:24.800 Like he was so reactive or bigger in my language. He couldn't get himself regulated.

00:27:29.500 And she kept saying very calmly to him, sir, I'll give you 30 more seconds. And if you can't,

00:27:35.900 I'm going to have to send you away. And if you won't leave, I'll have to call security. But hey,

00:27:40.420 why don't you just try to get a hold of yourself? And if you can treat me with respect, I'd be happy

00:27:44.360 to help you. That's somebody saying, it's not in my best interest to let you treat me this way,

00:27:49.540 but it's also, sir, not good for you either. Now that's next level system theory work. But Miranda

00:27:56.380 herself in Devil Wears Prada would have been a better human being if her employees wouldn't 1.00

00:28:01.240 have tolerated her bad behavior. Hey, easy for me to say on a podcast, but sometimes you have to

00:28:06.720 leave a job to be well, and that's okay too. We're going to take a quick break for a word from our

00:28:11.060 sponsors. And now back to the show. Okay. So when someone's false needs aren't being met,

00:28:21.000 they start generating anxiety. And then the other people around them have to carry that anxiety.

00:28:27.360 And there are various ways people deal with that anxiety that might not be helpful. And one of those

00:28:33.620 ways that people manage group anxiety that Bowen talks about, I think is really interesting. And once

00:28:39.800 you learn about this idea, you start seeing it everywhere. It's called triangulation. Tell us

00:28:44.980 about triangulation and how it diffuses chronic anxiety, but not in a helpful way.

00:28:50.100 Good. Yeah. Yeah. Triangulation is one of those great examples of these micro adjustments. Let's

00:28:56.180 say you have a difficult boss who does not manage his own anxiety. He's an ass. That's probably the 1.00

00:29:01.160 best word for it. And the team feel powerless to confront him. Like each individual feels like I

00:29:08.360 can't confront him. He's going to tell me off, punish me, fire me, whatever. So what I'm going to do

00:29:12.760 instead is get a couple of other people and gossip about him. That would be triangulation. Instead of

00:29:18.640 speaking to him, I'm going to speak about him. Easiest place to see triangulation and I think

00:29:23.940 the most fun place is middle school. You know, Sally comes to Peter and she's like, hey, do you

00:29:28.840 like Jane? Because if you like Jane, tell me and I'll go tell Jane. That's triangulation. Like why

00:29:33.460 doesn't Jane and Peter just sit down and define their relationship? Well, it's because they're middle

00:29:38.480 schoolers. They don't have the emotional capacity to have a direct relationship. So triangulation is

00:29:44.220 always an indirect solution to a direct problem. Easiest place to see it is gossip. But usually it's

00:29:52.020 because the people being affected don't feel like they have enough power to change. So they kind of

00:29:57.820 recruit a team to be on their side. That would be the simplest version of triangulation.

00:30:03.860 Yeah, you see it in families. Let's say there's a couple that are having marital problems. What they'll do

00:30:09.860 instead of dealing with their relationship directly with each other, they'll maybe direct all their

00:30:14.460 attention on their kid. Or maybe a mom will like look to the son as maybe a surrogate husband because 1.00

00:30:22.040 she doesn't have a good relationship with her actual husband. And that just puts a whole bunch 0.97

00:30:26.040 of pressure. So yeah, they're bringing it. You bring in a third person to kind of stabilize things.

00:30:30.700 Yeah. Yeah. It's a classic Bowen systems therapy move. The teenage daughter comes in exhibiting

00:30:38.040 signs of anxiety. And the therapist says, let me meet your mom and dad. And then having met the mom

00:30:44.500 and dad, the therapist says to the teenager, why don't you go home? I'll work with your parents.

00:30:50.780 And the therapist works with the parents and the teen's depression goes away. In Bowen theory,

00:30:56.980 they're always looking for the identified patient. Who is the person exhibiting the symptoms

00:31:02.720 of a sick group? So it's quite fascinating. You see it in staffs, you see it in families,

00:31:09.360 and people misunderstand triangulation. Right now, I've got three kids, two of them are out of the

00:31:14.960 house. One is working full-time, one's in college. So it's my wife and I and our teenage daughter at

00:31:20.180 home. We are a triangle. There are three of us in this relationship, but we are not triangulated.

00:31:27.240 So just by definition of there being three of us, we have a triangle. But if I were to say to Kaylee,

00:31:33.940 hey, here's what I really think about your mom, but don't tell her. Now I've triangulated my daughter.

00:31:38.660 I've dragged her between what really should be between my wife and I.

00:31:43.360 And you see triangulation at work. You mentioned gossip, but another one you'll see is the meeting

00:31:48.440 after the meeting, right? So you have the meeting and things are said, but like you can tell there's

00:31:53.760 sort of some tension and discomfort in the air. And then someone will pull you aside as a leader

00:31:58.780 and say, hey, I didn't want to bring this up in the meeting because so-and-so, but I want to talk

00:32:04.320 about it with you. That's another example of triangulation. It's crazy, Brett. I've seen it in

00:32:09.800 small churches and I've seen it in multi-billion dollar companies that this behavior happens so

00:32:18.840 often and it does so much damage to the system. Yeah. And then also you see this in other groups

00:32:26.280 as well, where there'll be a leader and they don't hear the feedback or criticism directly.

00:32:31.860 It's always just from a third person. Like, well, people are saying this. It's like, okay,

00:32:36.900 why didn't they just tell me that directly? Yeah. So once you learn about triangulation,

00:32:41.060 you'll start seeing it everywhere. And yeah, you said, I think in your book,

00:32:43.860 you talk about just watch teenage soap operas. You'll see it all the time.

00:32:48.940 And reality, every reality TV show. Yeah. Richard Nixon had a special advisor named Chuck Colson.

00:32:55.240 He ended up going to jail for Watergate, kind of turned his life around, came out and became quite

00:33:00.520 a fascinating guy. And he writes about the days of being Nixon. He was in the West Wing. Chuck Colson

00:33:05.680 had a West Wing office. He said he saw this dynamic again and again. People would come into Colson's

00:33:10.420 office before meeting the president in the Oval Office. And they would give Colson a piece of

00:33:16.040 their mind. They'd say, when I meet with the president, I'm going to tell him what for.

00:33:20.160 I'm going to give him a piece of my mind, tell him what he needs to do. And then Colson said,

00:33:23.880 inevitably, I'm in the Oval Office watching the same person with their hat in hand saying,

00:33:30.680 oh, Mr. President, what a great honor to meet you. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to meet the

00:33:34.240 president. Like completely different demeanor. A lot of leaders can't stand that.

00:33:39.080 You know, the higher up you are in an organization, Colin Powell teaches this,

00:33:43.640 the harder it is to get the truth. I just used to always tell my people,

00:33:47.860 if you're going to rant about me, I would prefer you just rant at me. Just give me the dignity and

00:33:52.700 respect to tell me off rather than ranting about me and then coming into my office and being all

00:33:57.740 deferential and flattering. That's a sophisticated form of triangulation too. And it just generates

00:34:04.420 anxiety because it's not true. You know, one of the chronic anxiety is always based on something

00:34:09.160 false. And even that behavior has a falsehood to it. So it generates anxiety.

00:34:13.980 Yeah. It's interesting. It's triangulation. It's a way people try to manage the chronic anxiety,

00:34:18.260 but using triangulation just increases the anxiety, right? Because you bring in the third person

00:34:23.040 because you don't have the wherewithal to just deal with the issue directly with the person.

00:34:27.200 So I'll bring in this third person and I'll feel a little bit more comfortable,

00:34:30.180 but everyone knows as soon as you bring in a third person, like there's just all this gossip

00:34:34.020 and talk and like he said this and she said that and it just ratchets it up even more. So it's a

00:34:38.900 great example of people trying to manage group anxiety and just making it worse. Another one you

00:34:45.160 talk about is over-functioning, under-functioning. What's that?

00:34:49.300 Yeah. Oftentimes in a group, you'll have over-functioners and under-functioners and it's

00:34:54.240 almost like they form a symbiotic relationship. They kind of need each other to survive.

00:34:59.320 And so an over-functioner does for somebody what they're perfectly capable of doing for

00:35:05.780 themselves, but are not doing for themselves. Maybe the simplest way to see this is when a

00:35:11.720 teenager gets to the age where they should be capable of getting themselves out of bed for

00:35:16.580 school in the morning, but they don't. That would be under-functioning. And then the parent

00:35:21.780 is angrily waking them up like five or six times in the morning. So, you know, maybe they go in

00:35:29.180 and say, Hey, you need to get up for school. It's time. But the kid doesn't get up. And then

00:35:32.980 they come back three minutes. Hey, you need to get up. And they do that over and over. That's

00:35:37.840 the over-functioning and under-functioning dynamic. That teenager, particularly, I'm not going to name

00:35:42.840 an age, but by the time they're in high school, your average teen should be able to get themselves

00:35:46.720 out of bed. But the over-functioner is staying stuck and blaming the under-functioner when they

00:35:53.080 themselves are partly to blame. Again, this is my favorite thing about systems theory. Everybody

00:35:58.280 takes responsibility for their own behavior. So maybe that over-functioning parent needs to realize,

00:36:03.660 well, what if I just let them sleep in today? And they have to now face the consequence of being

00:36:08.720 late to school on their own. You know, maybe the over-functioner warns the kid the night before,

00:36:14.900 Hey, I've gotten into this pattern with you where I'm trying to get you out of bed and I'm having to

00:36:19.060 be more and more angry just to get you out of bed. And I don't like that. So I want you to know

00:36:23.320 tomorrow morning, I'm not getting you out of bed. I'm leaving for school at 7.35 AM. If you're not

00:36:28.540 ready, you'll have to find your own way there, whatever it is, putting the anxiety back where

00:36:32.600 it belongs. But that's a very simple example of an over-functioner and an under-functioner

00:36:38.080 because that kid knows every morning, well, dad's going to come back three more times. I don't have to

00:36:43.340 get up. And then the next day it's four more times and five more times. And you see the over-functioner

00:36:49.040 an under-functioner in a symbiotic pattern with each other.

00:36:53.380 And you see that in work as well. There might be someone who's just slacking and then there's

00:36:58.320 always be someone who'll pick up the slack, even though they shouldn't. And it just, it keeps the,

00:37:02.960 it keeps things normal. Things are still going, but it's just increasing more anxiety because the

00:37:07.260 person who's over-functioning is like, ah, I'm just stretched too thin. And then I'm just stressed

00:37:12.200 out. And then the under-functioner might think, well, this person's just not respecting my

00:37:16.340 boundaries, blah, blah, blah. So again, you're trying to manage the anxiety, but you,

00:37:20.140 you increase the anxiety. And as you were talking, I can see another example of over-functioning,

00:37:24.720 like people pleasers, people pleasing, that's a form of over-functioning. Like you take responsibility

00:37:29.360 for how people feel. So you, instead of saying things just, you know, clearly and directly,

00:37:34.840 you try to massage it in a way so that you don't hurt the other person's feelings and

00:37:40.160 etc. Like that. It's crazy, Brett. You know, I'm a recovering people pleaser. And I think it was about

00:37:46.580 10 years ago, maybe 12 years ago, I noticed a pattern, you know, systems theory really is good

00:37:51.480 at helping you notice predictable patterns in your life. I would run into somebody who I hadn't seen in

00:37:56.500 a long time in some public setting. And that person would say, oh, Steve, it's been too long.

00:38:02.620 We should grab coffee. They would say that, not me. And then I would make sure to chase them down. 0.98

00:38:09.120 So we would grab coffee, because I didn't want them to feel let down. They're the one that suggested

00:38:14.860 we grab coffee. I'm the one carrying the responsibility. That's crazy. That's an exact

00:38:19.800 example of a people pleaser over-functioning. I mean, how many of those people didn't actually

00:38:24.680 want to grab coffee? Now, sure, they shouldn't have said it to me. But why is it that all they

00:38:29.680 have to do is say, we should catch up. And now I'm emailing, texting, getting it on the calendar.

00:38:35.800 That's a classic example of over-functioning.

00:38:37.780 Another way people manage anxiety, but actually just increasing anxiety, you mentioned it earlier,

00:38:42.660 distancing. You just get smaller, right? Instead of saying how you feel or trying to engage with

00:38:48.240 the person that might be causing or creating, generating the anxiety, you just stop talking

00:38:53.420 to them. You just try to reduce the amount of interaction you have with that individual.

00:38:57.860 But the chronic anxiety is still there.

00:38:59.680 Yeah, that's right. This is the harder group. When you distance, it's harder to notice that you're

00:39:05.460 anxious because it feels like wisdom or it feels kind of numb. I work with a lot of people that

00:39:11.960 don't realize that they're managing anxiety by distancing. They think they're wise. They think

00:39:17.300 they're above it all. So the classic distancing is the middle school girl who comes home heartbroken

00:39:24.700 because her boyfriend dumped her. And dad says, well, there's plenty more fish in the sea. That's not

00:39:30.120 helpful. That's distancing. That's not entering into her little middle school chaos where she feels

00:39:36.840 seen and cared for. Another example of distancing is the man cave would be a famous... I mean,

00:39:42.920 sometimes the man cave is what you need for relief, but sometimes it's because you don't have the

00:39:48.160 emotional capacity to connect to people in their chaos or in their situation. Sometimes distancing

00:39:55.900 can look like short-cutting someone's conversation, like get to the point, right? People are just

00:40:01.940 sharing, but you're trying to get them to summarize or you're trying to give them advice. So distancing

00:40:07.480 is more sophisticated, but it is this emotional detachment. You kind of referenced it. The most extreme

00:40:14.340 form is cut off is actually cutting off a relationship and not having anything to do with

00:40:19.880 that person anymore. And you say this in the book and Bowen says as well, sometimes you need to cut

00:40:24.640 off. Like if there's like abuse and things like that, you need to get that person out of your life.

00:40:28.180 But I think oftentimes with things, you know, below that, way below that, we resort to cutoffs. Like

00:40:34.020 this whole idea of there's this trend, cutting out toxic people in your life. I get it in theory,

00:40:39.500 but maybe that's not helpful. Like maybe you actually just need to engage with the person

00:40:43.820 and try to figure out a way to create a more healthy relationship.

00:40:48.040 Yeah, that's right. At least with my organization, Capable Life, we help everybody manage four

00:40:54.080 relationships. The relationship with yourself, with your people, that's two. The third relationship

00:40:59.100 is with difficult people. And to your point, Brett, there are people that you need to boundary,

00:41:05.660 but it's usually a lot less people than you think. And so systems theory really does expand your

00:41:11.500 capacity to connect to difficult people. And then, you know, for those of us who have some

00:41:16.060 kind of a faith system, the fourth relationship is with God. But that third category, difficult people,

00:41:21.880 I think it's underrated. I think one great reason to get into systems theory is to learn to increase

00:41:28.000 your tolerance for nonsense and for ambiguity and challenging people. That's a good skill.

00:41:34.020 No, I'd agree. So one of the big ideas from Bowen theory is that a single person can change the

00:41:42.780 dysfunctional system by focusing on themselves and not the relationship or the group dynamic.

00:41:50.220 And they do this by differentiating. This is a big idea, this idea of differentiation. What is

00:41:55.120 differentiation?

00:41:56.900 Differentiation is difficult. It's the cornerstone of systems theory. It's getting clear. Well, first of all,

00:42:03.960 it's deciding to have a posture where you are going to manage your anxiety rather than spill it onto

00:42:10.460 others. And at the same time, you are not going to catch others' anxiety. So if I know I'm going to

00:42:17.960 meet with a difficult person, part of my differentiation is me doing my work before I walk into that meeting

00:42:23.640 so I'm not as easily triggered. I can actually sit with that person and listen to them longer before I

00:42:29.960 start getting triggered and reactive. But also, I've made the decision as a differentiated person,

00:42:34.800 I don't need that person to treat me a certain way. They can come at me however they're going to

00:42:39.060 come at me because I'm not going to catch their anxiety. So that's step one. Step two is working on

00:42:45.920 actually being connected to that person rather than, to your earlier point, merging in or becoming

00:42:53.740 codependent with them or distancing from them. I'm actually going to stay in proximity. Differentiation

00:42:59.580 increases your capacity. Then the third step and the final step is getting really clear on who you are

00:43:06.900 and what you're about. So it's maybe the short way to say it is you're defining yourself. The powerful thing

00:43:12.960 for a leader, particularly an organizational leader, when you differentiate as a leader, you do not need your

00:43:19.800 people to agree with you to differentiate. So I used to pastor a church and we did a very

00:43:26.860 controversial affordable housing program in our neighborhood. And a lot of our neighbors didn't

00:43:31.760 want affordable housing, low-income housing in the neighborhood. And so when we would hold

00:43:35.460 neighborhood meetings, they would come very fired up at our meetings trying to shut this down.

00:43:41.640 I had to practice differentiation. So the way I defined myself was, you know, I worked on myself,

00:43:47.880 I wasn't catching. Some of them were behaving really badly. It was really quite a hostile situation.

00:43:53.520 But my best move was, I just said, listen, some of you are our neighbors and you are also our

00:43:59.560 congregants. You live in the neighborhood and you attend this church. And we know that by putting

00:44:05.520 affordable housing on our land, we've put you in a very difficult position. So we just want you to

00:44:10.220 know as the pastor of your church, if you don't think our church should have affordable housing,

00:44:15.640 we recommend you vote no at city council. But here is what we are doing. Here's why we're doing it.

00:44:22.560 And we're moving forward. So the opposite in that case of differentiation would be merging,

00:44:28.860 needing my congregants to vote yes. That would be like enmeshment or detaching and deciding they're

00:44:35.340 all of the devil, you know, writing them off. But differentiating is really working on staying

00:44:40.300 connected to these people while defining who you are and where you're going. And you can do it in your

00:44:45.060 family. You can do it at work. It's a complicated and conceptual thing. So people have trouble

00:44:50.060 grasping it, but that's kind of it in a nutshell.

00:44:53.040 Yeah. So it's being a self while still staying connected with others.

00:44:57.800 Yeah.

00:44:58.460 And what's funny is Bowen doesn't give too much advice on how to do it. Even like Edwin Friedman in

00:45:05.660 that book, he didn't have much advice on how to differentiate as well. It's just more of like a

00:45:10.660 stance you have to take. Like you said, it's hard to explain, but you know when you see it. You know

00:45:16.200 those people where you know that they've got a point of view, you know they have a solid sense of 0.96

00:45:21.140 self, but they're not a jerk about it. They're still connected with you. It's a maturity, I would 0.61

00:45:27.820 say.

00:45:28.660 Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Just think about the best boss you've ever had. She or he probably

00:45:35.400 managed their anxiety, probably had a big capacity for your anxiety, didn't get wrapped up in you,

00:45:41.420 and were probably exactly themselves. Somehow you could be exactly yourself around them. And at the

00:45:46.340 same time, you wanted to be the best version of yourself. That's a good example of a well-differentiated

00:45:50.880 leader.

00:45:51.860 And that's something that Bowen says is that differentiation isn't a destination. You can

00:45:55.920 never say, I am a differentiated individual. It's like a scale. Sometimes you are more differentiated

00:46:01.500 and less differentiated in certain situations, maybe in different parts of your life. Any tips?

00:46:07.640 Like, okay, say someone's listening to this, like, well, I want to become more differentiated. I want

00:46:10.520 to become more of a self. What can people do to start that process?

00:46:15.460 Well, I would say the first step is researching it more. A podcast is a great introduction, but

00:46:20.900 so Dr. Roberta Gilbert has an entire book just on differentiation. It's called The Cornerstone

00:46:26.380 Concept. I would say, read that book. I've got a whole chapter on it in my book, Managing

00:46:31.440 Leadership Anxiety. If you don't want to read a whole book, you can read my chapter. You

00:46:35.580 can type differentiation of self in a YouTube channel or YouTube search, and you'll see

00:46:40.860 videos on it. I'd start there. Then the next step is you're always working on grounding

00:46:45.920 yourself first. So the flight attendant tells us, first put the oxygen mask on your own face

00:46:52.160 before helping others. So if you know you're going to go into a meeting that is fairly triggering,

00:46:58.220 you're doing pre-work to over-oxygenate, kind of like bicyclists do or deep sea divers, like

00:47:05.960 those free divers. They're actually doing this breathing exercise to get more oxygen in their

00:47:11.080 body so they can stay underwater longer. That's a pretty good metaphor for differentiation. So

00:47:15.240 you are making sure you're well, checking your false needs, your triggers, managing them before

00:47:22.280 you ever walk into the room. I'm often doing that. In my case, I'm a pastor, so I'm often

00:47:26.780 using prayer for that. But I'm also just trying to remember what's true. What's true? Anxiety

00:47:32.800 wants me to turn that person into a monster. But what's true is this is a human being. They've

00:47:37.820 earned my respect. I'm going to respect them no matter how they treat me. I'm going to speak

00:47:41.840 respectfully for them. So some of that self-talk can help. And then you just got to practice,

00:47:47.120 Brett. You just got to get in there and do it badly. And then over time, you learn how to

00:47:51.920 do it better. Okay. So some things to do. Learn how to manage your own anxiety. There's

00:47:57.260 different tactics. Meditation, prayer, exercise. You talk about having these life-affirming

00:48:02.820 or life-giving practices, whether that's exercise, going out to fish, spending time with your family,

00:48:09.100 storing up those internal resources. So when you do engage in conflict or there's tension,

00:48:15.120 you're able to stay as calm as you can. Then also just have a clearly identified sense of self.

00:48:20.380 Know what you're about. Know what you believe. And learn how to not be afraid to share that

00:48:25.720 as well. And I think one of the things that you talk about and Bowen talks about as well is

00:48:30.220 as you differentiate, the amount of anxiety in the relationship or the group might actually start

00:48:36.420 going up in the short term. And that's why people think, okay, I stood up for myself and

00:48:41.300 things are now worse. I should probably just play it small again. And I think he calls that

00:48:45.900 resistance or sabotage, right? Resistance and sabotage. That's exactly right.

00:48:50.380 It is part of the differentiation process. The challenge on a podcast is always

00:48:55.200 that people are anxious to dissolve this problem in the next meeting. The goal is to dissolve this

00:49:03.860 problem in the next nine months. This is going to be a series of exercises you're going to go through.

00:49:09.240 And yes, you can expect. So for example, if you know your boss is easily triggered,

00:49:14.220 one mode of differentiation is to recognize, okay, so when we talk about it, he's going to get

00:49:19.660 triggered. So I don't have to catch the anxiety because I know it's coming. I shouldn't be surprised

00:49:23.880 when he's triggered again. You can do the same trick with sabotage and resistance. When you see

00:49:29.560 people sabotaging and resisting, you can almost check it off the to-do list rather than shut down.

00:49:35.860 And that's where Friedman really helps us with a well-differentiated leader, like a Winston Churchill

00:49:40.820 with his war cabinet. If you've ever studied that, there is a leader. I mean, I'm sure whiskey

00:49:46.880 for breakfast had to have helped Brad, but there's a leader that knew sabotage was coming,

00:49:52.880 expected it, and kept leading through it to help England. Great example of differentiation. Plus,

00:49:58.600 hey man, you get differentiation and whiskey. Like that's great. That's a great life.

00:50:02.260 So that's important to notice, but really it's important also to test your own assumptions.

00:50:09.280 Anxiety always lives in our assumptions. And I work with a lot of people that are in a toxic

00:50:15.220 work environment, and I'm encouraging them to think about what would it look like to leave.

00:50:20.520 That doesn't mean you should leave, but just exploring it makes you more free because a lot

00:50:25.940 of people feel stuck. The paycheck or all kinds of assumptions that are keeping them from speaking

00:50:31.440 up. But for some people, it's not worth the emotional damage by staying.

00:50:37.600 Yeah. So here's an example of how anxiety might increase in the short term as you try to differentiate.

00:50:43.740 Let's say there's a relationship you have where there's triangulation involved,

00:50:47.960 where someone's coming to you, a third person's coming to you to talk about

00:50:52.580 a relationship you have with a person. So let's say your boss and you have an employee's upset with

00:50:58.300 maybe a decision you've made. And instead of talking to you directly, that employee goes to

00:51:02.880 a third person and kind of talks about, I'm not liking what Steve's doing. Differentiation would

00:51:07.780 involve, well, I'm just going to go directly to that person. And that can be like, oh my gosh,

00:51:12.440 that causes a lot of anxiety. The other person could get upset. But Bowen says that in the process

00:51:16.640 of doing that in the long term, you're going to make things better.

00:51:19.780 And depending on the person, you might change their behavior too. Always a risk. Easy for me to say.

00:51:28.480 But again, back to the Devil Wears Prader example, if you are being mistreated, it's not in the

00:51:35.220 perpetrator's best interest to get away with it either. And so learning to put the anxiety back

00:51:40.780 where it belongs takes great risk. But it might be that that person respects you for not being a

00:51:47.540 doormat. Now, I'm always concerned when I'm giving theoretical kind of into the abyss. Usually if

00:51:53.960 I'm helping people, it's a couple of hours of conversation to get really clear on what's going

00:51:59.380 on. And my coaches, you know, I have a number of coaches that work for me. Their job is to listen

00:52:04.260 to assumptions, detangle the anxiety so that the person can get clarity. So what you and I talk about

00:52:10.860 now is a great tool, but it's often several hours worth of work to figure it out.

00:52:16.380 Oh, for sure. I was thinking like if someone's a people pleaser, like that over functioning people

00:52:21.040 pleaser, maybe a challenge you do is, well, I'm going to say no. I'm just going to, I'm going to

00:52:27.400 fight that urge that I have to people please and see what happens. And what might happen, you might feel

00:52:33.560 really anxious doing that. And maybe it does cause some hurt feelings on the part of the other person,

00:52:40.640 but you just have to learn how to be like, okay, you know, that was, but me saying no is reasonable.

00:52:45.220 I wasn't being mean. It was really uncomfortable, but maybe we'll be able to fix the system or

00:52:51.580 relationship that we have. Yeah. That's a great example because especially when you spend time

00:52:57.180 realizing, how am I complicit? You know, it's so tempting for humans to focus on the so-called

00:53:03.520 perpetrator, but just to remind everybody, a system says everybody is to blame. And so therefore that

00:53:10.660 gives you a lot of opportunity to take responsibility. So yeah, that's right. Like, yes, this person has

00:53:16.840 always asked you to do things and that's frustrating to you, but yes, you've always said, yes, that's the

00:53:23.440 problem. And so working on your end of that, we often coach people to actually apologize to the

00:53:29.300 perpetrator. Hey, I owe you an apology because I've been frustrated at you and I haven't known how to

00:53:35.640 tell you this because it feels to me like you take advantage of my good nature and always ask me to do

00:53:41.400 things. But honestly, I'm not pointing at the finger at you. I'm wondering why I say yes so much. So I just

00:53:47.580 want to let you know, I'm going to start saying no more because I'm getting exhausted or whatever that

00:53:51.900 looks like. But when you go to somebody who's generating the anxiety and your first move is to

00:53:56.540 apologize rather than accuse, it's really powerful. Yeah. It disarms the situation. Yeah. So hopefully

00:54:03.020 this conversation has given people a good intro to Bowen family systems theory. And I think once you

00:54:09.560 kind of grasp these different ideas, you'll start seeing it in your life everywhere. And there's a lot

00:54:14.680 more to it and your book is a great place to learn more. So where can people go to learn more about the

00:54:19.240 book and your work? Yeah, they can go to my website, SteveCussWoods.com. My last name's Cuss. I'm from

00:54:24.400 Australia. Last name Cuss. There's nothing any of us can do about it. So my website, SteveCussWoods.com. 0.69

00:54:29.920 And we do a lot of organizational consulting and speaking if there's a way to inquire about that, but

00:54:34.940 they can get access to the book. I've got a podcast and they can even get some of our courses through

00:54:39.440 that as well. Fantastic. Well, Steve Cuss, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Brett. Thanks for

00:54:43.780 having me on. My guest is Steve Cuss. He's the author of the book, Managing Leadership Anxiety. You can find

00:54:49.220 more information about his work at his website, SteveCussWoods.com. Also check out our show notes

00:54:53.820 at AOM.IS slash Family Systems. We find links to resources. We delve deeper into the topic.

00:55:05.620 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

00:55:09.540 artofmanliness.com. We find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that we've written

00:55:13.560 over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you haven't done so already,

00:55:16.900 I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a view on a podcast or Spotify. It helps that a lot.

00:55:20.640 And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend

00:55:23.820 or family member if you think we have something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued

00:55:27.680 support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay. Remind you to not listen to the AOM podcast,

00:55:31.500 but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - July 31, 2024

How to Resist Group Anxiety and Become a Differentiated Self

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