Dealing with the Elephant in the Room

Never in the history of calming down has anyone calmed down by being told to calm down. But how do we address the ‘elephant in the room’ if we are afraid of other people losing their cool and us not being able to handle it? Especially if we need to act professionally at work.

It is important to engage with individuals in an organisation at a personal level to make change happen. Getting other people to make a change we want them to do is hard unless we appeal to both the emotional and the rational sides of their brains. The emotional side of the brain can be described as an elephant and the rational side brain as its rider. When things are going well, the rider appears to be in control. But the rider’s control is in fact precarious because if the six-tonne elephant doesn’t want to let the rider lead it, the rider is helpless. And if the elephant becomes angry, scared or hurt, the rider is at its complete mercy.