Today this posting is published for HR practitioners on Discuss HR and I thought you might like to read it, too.

Last week I came back from a week’s holiday to news of ‘Plebgate’.  MP Andrew Mitchell had acknowledged his tirade against Downing Street police officers but denied the use of certain words, specifically that he had told them – as logged in the officers’ records of the incident at the time – that they were “plebs”.

Amidst the news reportage The Daily Telegraph published the full police log on 24th September, a contemporaneous record of what – according to the police officer involved – Mr. Mitchell had actually said.  A posting on the paper’s website included a poll with the question, “Has Andrew Mitchell’s integrity been so damaged that he must now resign?”  At the time I read this article, close to 13,000 respondents – an overwhelming 91% – had said yes.

I do wonder how often we look in the mirror.  Who hasn’t lost their temper every now and again and been horrified – shamed and embarrassed – after the event by their choice of language or, at the very least, by the lack of grace they had been able to bring to a situation in which their emotions were high?  Coming back from a week away with my mother I had certainly experienced the occasional sting of strong emotions in response to situations in which my needs were not easily met (though I notice I want to add that I didn’t respond with a string of insults and expletives).

Now you may be wondering:  why do I raise this incident in the context of this blog?  I do it because, despite the increasing talk of emotional intelligence in the work place, I wonder if we’ve really grasped the full implications of everything we’re learning.  Daniel Goleman (amongst others) has done so much to share with us the importance of emotional intelligence and it is by reading his writings that I have become quite familiar with the term “amygdala hijack” – for this is precisely what Andrew Mitchell experienced on the evening of Wednesday, 19th September, 2012.

It seems to me that, in our response to Mr Mitchell’s unfortunate words, we are at risk of going beyond condemning his behaviour to pretend that real people – nice people like us – never feel the sting of strong emotions.  In truth, it’s a very rare person who has never spoken in ways they regret and a rarer person still who has never experienced an amygdala hijack.  In the workplace, such a view can manifest in strange forms.  Where we have power, we can justify the occasional rant as some kind of righteous anger in response to the ineptitude of those we lead, even whilst taking firm action against a member of our frontline staff who has lost his or her temper with a colleague or, horror of horrors, with a customer.

In writing this posting, I don’t want to let Andrew Mitchell off the hook.  His behaviour really wasn’t pretty.  I do, though, wonder if we need to cultivate a more compassionate context for responding to the occasional loss of temper, which recognises that it happens to most of us sometimes.  In such a context, Mr. Mitchell might have been able to make a sincere apology and to know that yes, it is possible to draw a line under an unfortunate incident and move on.  In such a context, we would be slow to question someone’s integrity and quick to forgive.

What would this mean in the workplace?  In the first instance, it might mean providing the kind of training that helps people to understand how an amygdala hijack manifests itself and how they can manage their response both to their own feelings and to the feelings of others.  It might also involve using some kind of structure to support people following such a loss of temper.  This might include support for the person who has lost their temper as well as for anyone who has been on the receiving end.  It might also include support for the kind of dialogue between the people affected which restores understanding and goodwill.  Yes, there would need to be some way of addressing such behaviours if they had significant immediate effect or were regularly used by an individual and even then, I would hope for compassion and understanding for the individuals concerned.

I don’t think I am naive or a misty-eyed idealist, not least because I have had the privilege of practising such an approach in my own life and supporting others in this area:  I know what’s possible and I know that even this kind of restorative dialogue is no ‘soft touch’.  I wonder how you respond though – to Mr. Mitchell’s behaviour as recently reported, to the behaviours of colleagues in your workplace, to the ideas in this posting.  Please share your thoughts.