Lean Agile Brighton 2024
Zombie apocalypse! - Overwhelm, conflict, stress (& hope) for teams facing the end of the world
In this practical and gently interactive session, we'll walk through the evolutionary, psychological and neuroscientific factors that have made teamwork during a pandemic so challenging.
Neatly sidestepping pseudoscience and pop psych, we'll explore what actually happens in our brains and bodies (and why) when we experience extremely challenging events – and how this affects our ability to stop, collaborate and listen. And, without a squeezy ball in sight, we'll look at real steps and activities to help your team(s) to pull through and work together more effectively when things get tough.
Participant Takeaways
Participants walk away feeling optimistic and enthused, and with a pocketful of insights including:
- Understanding where our reactions come from, and what extreme emotion is good for.
- The ability to identify how this impacts teamwork in a face-to-face, online and hybrid setting, and how to support this.
- Clarity around the immediate and wider impact of workplace drama in communication, conflict and feedback.
- Tools, activities and practices to help teams working through stress, overwhelm and unhealthy conflict (with or without the added influence of a pandemic.)
- Explanations that help you understand what happens in your brain (it's got nothing to do with lizards).
- The ability to identify who might need extra support before it's critical.
Further Reading
Emotional intelligence by Susan David
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, Emily Gregory
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett
Nonviolent Communication - A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg
References
Neural foundations of imagery Nature Reviews Neuroscience
Kosslyn, S., Ganis, G. & Thompson, W. Neural foundations of imagery. Nat Rev Neurosci 2, 635–642 (2001).
Memory distortion: an adaptive perspective Cell Press
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2011.08.004
Attenuating Neural Threat Expression with Imagination Cell Press
Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain PNAS
Ethan Kross, Marc G. Berman, Walter Mischel, Edward E. Smith1, Tor D. Wager
PNAS Vol. 108, No. 15
36 Questions for Increasing Closeness