Are you in a relationship where no matter what action you take that you are admonished by a person whose approval you seek?
For instance, a mother gives her son two different shirts as gifts for his birthday. He wears one of the shirts to his birthday party. His mother sees him and her first words to him are, “You didn’t like the other shirt?”
Gregory Bateson, Anglo-American psychologist, created the double bind theory to explain the situation where a person receives conflicting signals. Bateson believed that this situation is a crucial factor in cases of schizophrenia and autism.
I see a similar situation with conflicting signals far too often in organizations. For example, If an employee produces the agreed upon results, their manager admonishes them for not having produced more, having a poor attitude, or some other infraction. Nothing is ever good enough.
Although most employees don’t go into a psychotic state. I believe that a continuing state of corporate double bind leads to employee ambivalence and, ultimately, apathy. Only an insane person would say, “Thank you, may I have another dose.”
What coping strategies are better than ambivalence and apathy?
I’ll answer that question in my next post.
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