Why Tension Spreads Through Relationships and Organizations
Several years ago, I facilitated an overnight high stakes meeting for a group of executives. A week prior to the meeting, one of the executives texted me with demanding questions about his personal sleeping arrangement. Another emailed me with suggestions about our agenda. A third called me to discuss his concern that some of the other executives shouldn’t be attending.
With every last-minute communication that came at me, I became more and more tense. Because the communications I was getting were tense. They were tense, so I became tense.
My mind spun with thoughts like:
I need to make sure Joe has adequate sleeping accommodations.
Maybe I should modify the agenda so that Jennifer is satisfied.
I wonder if I made a mistake inviting some of these executives based on the feedback from Troy.
After all, it was my meeting. The only alternative to me carrying the weight of this responsibility, I assumed, would be to not care about these details. And I was convinced that was not an option… at least at first. Then I realized I did have options besides taking on that tension.
Negative Tension is Contagious
Humans have developed emotional interdependence to build cohesion and cooperation, which is why most people’s emotions are heavily influenced by the emotions of others. According to experts, you can count on any emotional tension spreading across members of families, organizations and communities.
Maybe you’ve seen some negative examples of this in your family or at work:
Your sister is in a bad mood, so the entire family is on edge.
When your boss is upset, the team walks on eggshells.
If a teammate is disengaged in a meeting, it can bring down the energy for everyone.
Because of this emotional interdependence, negative tension is contagious. It can spread rapidly like a virus, literally “infecting” others, making them more reactive and less likely to function in alignment with their values.
So when I began receiving those messages from executives in the final week of planning for that big meeting, their tension became my tension. I found myself becoming unsettled, impatient and insecure.
Do you think that tension helped me ensure a better experience for the executives? Of course not.
Preventing the Spread of Tension
To keep yourself from “catching” negative tension, the first step is to identify the true source of what’s causing the tension for you. Naming the source allows reason to override emotion.
The most common sources of emotional tension are:
Expectations: “It should go this way.” Failure to meet someone’s expectations is one of the surest ways to generate negative emotion. Different people have different expectations, so it happens all the time. Also, expectations can be arbitrary or informed by unique personal experiences and preferences. This frequently results in tension!
Assumptions: “This must be true.” Everyone takes mental “shortcuts” in decision-making and judgments of people, places and situations. In many cases, these shortcuts are flawed or differ from the assumptions of others. Differing assumptions, like differing expectations, often lead to emotional tension.
False Beliefs: “It is or was this way.” While similar to expectations and assumptions, beliefs are derived from the stories people tell themselves regarding who, what, when, where, why and how. Stories help people make sense of things and locate themselves in the context around them, and they’re built from the interpretation of perceived facts. Stories themselves can create tension, especially when people have different stories to explain the same situation.
The Two Questions to Ask When You’re Infected with Tension
If you find yourself in a situation like I did leading up to that big meeting, you can confidently move through and beyond the tension by answering two important questions:
1. Should I challenge or change? When tension arises out of expectations, assumptions or false beliefs, you can choose to challenge it or change. Challenging the expectation, assumption or false belief attempts to align perspectives and get to shared truth. You might say: It’s not just my responsibility to ensure we’ve invited the right people to this meeting. It’s everyone’s. So if there are others you think should be here, you should invite them.
Alternatively, you might decide it’s best to change yourself. It might be important for you to grow or flex to adapt your expectations and assumptions or change your own false beliefs.
It’s difficult to know whether to change versus challenge. To determine whether you should change, you might ask yourself: Even if it’s uncomfortable, do I need to grow here? or Do people I trust think I need to change the way I’m thinking or behaving?
2. Should I be a hero or hold on? Another question to answer when dealing with tension is to ask whether it’s more appropriate to be a hero, rescuing others from the tension, or to hold on to yourself, maintaining boundaries and integrity. If you’re a hero, you might say: While these expectations don’t seem reasonable, I’m willing to rise to the occasion and do what’s needed to resolve the tension.
In other cases, you may not have the capacity to be the hero. You literally may “lose” your self-esteem, your integrity or your well-being if you try to be the hero. If that’s likely, you’re better off saying: I have limits and will honor and express those limits, even if it causes pain or disappointment, because I can’t be everything to everyone.
Ultimately, by reflecting on the source(s) of the tension and the two questions above, I was able to calm the tension inside me as I ran that meeting for the group of executives. Not only did that help me operate at my best, but it also ensured I didn’t “spread” the tension to others.
These strategies can help you too. What relationships are producing emotional tension for you right now?
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