How Learned Helplessness Shows Up In The Workplace

Learned helplessness is a term you may have never heard of, but possibly you've experienced it ...

Have you ever worked in a team that was stuck? A team that was spending more time complaining, feeling frustrated and discontent than actually getting on and performing?

How do teams learn to be like this? What causes a team to stagnate, to be unable to grow, change or perform as a team?

Generally it happens over time. Past experience dictates people's thoughts and consequently their beliefs about what they can and can't do. When a group begins to believe that they only have a small locus of control over their destiny they begin to behave that way.

If you hear people saying things like "We've tried that before and it didn't work" or "What's the point, we won't be allowed" you are hearing people who have what is known in psychological terms as 'learned helplessness'.

Elephants provide us with a great example of learned helplessness. When young they are tied to a large tree with heavy chains. Initially the elephant tries to move away. After a while though the elephant realizes it is futile. They can resist all they want, but they can't move away.

Once that happens, the trainer can remove the chains and put on only a slight rope. The elephant has learned 'why bother, I've tried it before and it doesn't matter what I do, I can't get away'.

The elephant's past experience is now dictating its belief system and its current and future behavior. It has learned apathy. It has learned helplessness.

Can you see how that can happen in the work context? Can you see how people can get the 'why bother-itis'.

Learned Helplessness Takes On A Life Of Its Own

The challenge for you as leader, is that learned helplessness can take on a life of its own. The belief that 'we can't make a difference' becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When people become victims and move below the line you must not let them get away with it.

A workplace where people are exhibiting the symptoms of learned helplessness is depressing. People have given up trying and become passive, submissive and expect less from their jobs.

The Leader Must Challenge Faulty Beliefs.

Letting faulty beliefs go unchallenged is a real danger. Call people on it and throw down the gauntlet to them to think of ways to overcome the problem.

In the scenario above, it might be that the leader needs to challenge each of the beliefs that the team is holding. Maybe there are new ways of doing quality checks that weren't available the first time around. Maybe there are no longer budgetary constraints in place that might have caused it to fail before. Maybe .... you get the idea.

Here is a three step process that helps teams to get unstuck and move from learned helplessness.

The Leader Does Make The Difference

A leader can have so much influence over whether his/her team is vital, alive and kicking goals or being apathetic.

In the surburb I live in there are two supermarkets both run by the same company. Yet there is an amazing difference in the feel of each of these two stores. In the first the team seems to be engaged, wanting to help and having a good time. In the second the feel you get is that the team members would rather be anywhere but there. They are all clock watching and waiting for the chance to get out the door.

Leader One is definitely doing something right. Both of these leaders are operating in the same system, with the same constraints, yet they are producing amazingly different results, from a customer perspective. (I would love to see their bottom-line figures, I'd imagine Leader One's store will be far out-performing that of Leader Two).