Overview

In this exercise, participants have an opportunity to learn how ethical team leaders can help drive out specific fears via specific actions.

Purpose

To explore one cause of fear in the workplace.

To understand better the ethical and unethical approaches to dealing with fear.

Group Size

Any number of individuals can participate. Participants will first work alone, then as an entire group, and finally in small groups.

Room Arrangement

No special arrangements are required.

Materials

Flipchart and marking pens

Projector for transparencies or for PowerPoint slides

Transparency 48.1, “There Is No Terror”

Procedure

1.Begin by asking participants to think of the worst thing they have ever done, something they wouldn’t want others in the group to know. (If you sense some may be uncomfortable, you can lighten the mood a bit by suggesting, “It may be the time you ate a whole chocolate cake by yourself and pretended to know nothing about its disappearance, or the time you dressed as Elvis, then drove your teenager to the mall and identified yourself to mall-walkers as the teen’s parent.”)

2.After a few minutes, assure them they won’t be asked to share their misdeeds but that you’d like to know how they felt when they thought they might have to.

3.To encourage input, show Transparency 48.1, “There Is No Terror,” and lead a brief discussion of Alfred Hitchcock’s observation, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

4.List the tension-related feelings on a sheet of flipchart paper. (Participants will probably mention “fear,” “nervousness,” “shame,” “guilt,” “vulnerable,” “worried,” “shaken,” “exposed,” “panicked,” “increased heartbeat,” “anxious,” “pressured.” If the participant-supplied words do not number at least 10, add some of these, as you will need two words from this list to give to each small group.

5.Segue to a discussion of how these and other negative feelings (especially fear of the unknown) can impact team effectiveness if they are not resolved in some way.

6.Explain that when a team leader is just forming a group or when a leader of any kind is secretive and others don’t know “where he or she is coming from,” the resulting tension can seriously impact morale and output as well. Acknowledge, too, that there are individuals in positions of power who seem to play upon people’s worst fears in order to advance their own agendas.

7.Extend discussion, if possible, to the question of trust, and what happens when national leaders take questionably ethical or clearly unethical actions that erode that trust. (It might, for example, be FDR’s efforts to keep his disability a secret. Or, JFK’s womanizing. Or, Richard Nixon’s cover-up of the Watergate scandal.)

8.Assign one or two of the negative, tension-related feelings on the flipchart to each table group. Have them discuss ways a team leader can determine what the causes of these feelings might be. They should also discuss the most ethical way to deal with such feelings and the causes that produced them. For example, one cause of “anxiety” that a team member might experience could be a lack of clarity regarding the team’s mission. One way to deal with this problem would be for a team leader to state the mission on the agenda and repeatedly to assure the team that it’s capable of achieving that mission.

9.Ask each group to synthesize their discussion and reduce it, if possible, to a single, memorable phrase. For example, “Agenda + Mission = Antidote for Anxiety.”

10.As groups present their synthesized sentences, write them on the flipchart. Bring in the ethical relevancy of each. For example, “When groups are not clear about their mission, they may easily veer off in the wrong direction or else, completely fail to fulfill the charter they were given. Such outcomes, which can be avoided, are violations of taxpayers’ or clients’ trust and money (depending on the nature of the workplace make-up: government office or corporate entity).”

11.Wrap up by reviewing the group’s statements on the flipchart and encouraging participants not to take advantage of co-workers who are fearful but rather to uncover those fears and reduce their causes.

Variation

Icebreaker: To help reduce the fear team members naturally bring to their first team meeting, ask each member this question and have them write down their answers: “In relation to work, what lights your fire?” Once they’ve finished, ask next, “In relation to work, what burns you up?” Again, have them record their answers. Go around the table and ask each person to share his or her first answer. (Allow input from others if they are so inclined.) Record the work activities that “light their fires.” You can use these later when making assignments, for example, assign data analysis to the person who likes to “crunch numbers,” rather than to the individual with a more creative bent.

Conclude this introductory exercise by asking each team member what bothers him or her. Make note of these answers as well, to avoid future embarrassment or transgressions. The individual who, for example, is angered when his or her integrity is questioned requires delicately posed questions. The individual who resents micromanagement will need a freer rein than others will. Respecting individuals and their unique personalities lies at the heart of ethical treatment of others.

Discussion

Recall a time when someone took advantage of you by exploiting a fear you have.

What is the worst error someone on your team could make?

How can team leaders best handle the aftermath of mistakes team members might make?

What connections can you make between fear and rumors?

Quotation

“Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

—Helen Keller

Points of Interest

Tom Peters (and numerous other experts) acknowledge mistakes as a normal part of ultimate success. Says Peters, “Mistakes are not the ‘spice’ of life. Mistakes are life. Mistakes are not to be tolerated. They are to be encouraged. (And, mostly, the bigger the better.)”

Team leaders can help reduce the fear of mistakes and their consequences by sharing the procedure that will be employed should a mistake be made. This is the procedure recommended by Ernest Fair:

1.Uncover causes carefully.

2.Reexamine operating procedure.

3.Apply a mistake’s solution to other areas of your business.

4.Examine any recent changes in routine.

5.Remember your shortcomings.

TRANSPARENCY 48.1