What Are You Avoiding?

Selçuk Kalafat, PMP – Customer Services Manager

Whatever we are avoiding, the things we avoid actually shape our lives to some extent in the background and drain our life energy.

Whether or not we are aware of it, what we avoid affects our feelings, thoughts and behavior. Sometimes these thoughts surface and we find ourselves dwelling on the things we avoid. But most of the time we choose to push them back down and carry on. In daily life, we feel the effects of the avoidance we keep in the background, yet we struggle to identify the underlying root cause.

Because we live life as a whole, avoidance in one area often affects other areas of our lives too. An issue you cannot resolve with your spouse at home can affect the tone of your conversations with colleagues, and problems you notice at work but never get a chance to raise can affect the energy you have for your family in the evening. And perhaps most importantly, delaying facing yourself and avoiding self-criticism keeps you from turning the new page you want.

What Individuals, Teams and Organizations Avoid

Individuals may be avoiding:

. Asking for open and honest feedback and listening without prejudice
. Admitting when we are wrong and apologizing
. Moving toward the area we want to grow in
. Voicing that crazy idea we have in mind
. Admitting that we are not satisfied with our current situation and are looking for something, and doing something about it
. Expanding our skills and trying something new

Teams may be avoiding:

. Raising poor quality, starting a discussion about it and actually doing something
. Openly putting on the table the future impact of the quick fixes we apply
. Confronting an employee who is not meeting expectations
. Being open with stakeholders about unrealistic deadlines
. Finding out that the product we are designing is not the right or expected product
. Trying a new technology or practice when we do not know exactly how to do it

Organizations may be avoiding:

. Knowing what value the organization creates or, more importantly, what value it fails to create
. Removing "negative" people from the organization, even if they are experts in their field
. Giving up easy short-term gains for long-term gain
. Choosing what matters most and backing that choice with actions and realistic goals
. Accepting that our old business model no longer works
. Admitting that employee engagement is insufficient and doing something about it

We Make Up Stories to Avoid Hard Work

And our battery keeps draining.

Very often, our way of avoiding is to point at others.

"With so many problems in our company culture and teamwork, I can't look at my own mistakes and focus on my areas for growth."

You have probably seen many times how teams point to organizational barriers instead of dealing with issues within their own control. You may notice that we actually spend a lot of effort justifying ourselves. We work around the topics we dislike, and all this avoidance drains our energy.

The Sign of Your Avoidance: We Are Too Busy

"We've created a culture where we think if we stay busy enough, the truth of our lives won't catch up with us." Brene Brown

Many of us have experienced drifting apart from colleagues, friends or family members because we kept putting off that difficult conversation.

And some of us, in the companies we work for, have sensed that many people at both lower and upper levels were heading in the wrong direction, yet never created an opportunity to evaluate things together and get them back on track.

We were too busy. There was work that had to be finished as soon as possible. Meeting deadlines was important.

 We postponed the difficult conversations and facing reality. We were not even sure these conversations would do any good.

What Is the Solution?

Are you looking for the "applications" running in the background that drain your energy? Start with yourself.

What are you avoiding?
Why are you avoiding these things?
How are your thoughts, feelings and behavior affected?

Then think about your team and consider the organization as a whole.

. What symptoms do you see?
. What stories are being told? Has being busy become an excuse?
. Do you feel that something is draining your energy?

Finally, you can ask yourself these questions:

. What is avoidance costing you?
. What could you do if you faced the things you are avoiding?
. Can you lead the way in creating transparency, awareness and accuracy around the work in progress?
. How can you create openness and coordination on the path to your goal?

Remember that sometimes the biggest step toward a solution is accepting that there is a problem you need to solve.

Wishing you spend your energy on the right things…

Sources

https://hbr.org/2022/04/change-is-hard-heres-how-to-make-it-less-painful
https://hbr.org/2022/08/how-to-get-your-team-on-board-with-a-major-change
https://hbr.org/2024/01/how-curiosity-can-make-your-meetings-and-team-better
https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/what-are-you-and-your-team-avoiding