Rick Patterson's Blog, page 4

Psychology of Employee Recognition

The psychology of employee recognition has always caught my interest – maybe because I’m so motivated by it myself! I speak to this in great detail in my book relative to how I saw it running throughout my employment in corporate America and how I used it myself in professional ministry to manipulate people to work harder.  That said, I am increasingly aware of the amount of time and money that’s spent on this subject today and how we as employees are being manipulated by our employers by this need we have.

Recognition vs pay is a topic that gets a lot of press throughout corporate America and in businesses large and small all across this land. Businesses have learned that there are ways to improve employee morale and job satisfaction without actually having to pay anyone anything. Finding ways to recognize people for their accomplishments has reportedly become a $77 billion business – that’s about the profit General motors will achieve in 10 really good years.

As with most psychological issues, they begin in our past.  Ever since we were little children jumping up and down on the swimming pool diving board screaming to our parent to “look at me, look at me”, we have been in a perpetual hunt for that affirmation from somewhere in our lives.  For some reason, even though we are no longer children, it’s still a tremendous driver that someone notice our diving skills!!

We are so needy for recognition we are willing to be paid less to work someplace where we get more of it. In fact, a great deal of research suggests that recognition is actually more important to most of us than money! Think of it. We need money to survive. We use money to buy food, shelter, and clothing. We need to pay the heat bill, send our kids to college and pay for our health care. Why on earth would we trade what we need to materially survive for praise and recognition?

Answer? We need praise and recognition to emotionally survive. Praise and recognition feeds our psyche the same way French fries feed our physical selves. Ironically, it is almost exactly the same because French fries are of almost no use to a healthy metabolism – almost guaranteed to leave us hungry for more after we eat a bag – and they may leave us feeling guilty that we can’t break our addiction to them.

Similarly, praise and recognition are only bandages for our wounded, shame filled souls that are desperate for any morsel of acknowledgment from someone. Our souls need to know that someone has seen us and appreciates us. If we are not seen or appreciated we become angry, depressed, despondent, and resentful of those who are getting noticed. As your employer knows, it can turn the entire workplace sour.

The thing is, your employer knows this and is manipulating your need for praise to get you to work harder for less money. Your employer needs to find a way to cut costs and find a way to get its employees to sacrifice more and the more important you think you are to your organization (through recognition), the more likely you are to sacrifice. As I mention in my book, your church can function the same way.

Our goal should be to unmask this hidden driver (shame) that generates this need for recognition within us so that we can’t be manipulated by our employer, our family members, our churches, or any other institution or individual who may be attempting to get us to do what we would rather not by playing on our need for recognition.  The first step toward victory is to acknowledge its happening when it’s happening.  From there, perhaps we can begin to not bracket those feelings and attempt to find food that truly nourishes.

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God’s Calling For Me

“God’s call for me” has been a life conundrum of mine.

From Corporate America To Ministry and Back

In 2001, I left corporate America (the paper industry) to go full time into ministry since I had recently received my Master’s Degree in Divinity. It seemed like a “higher calling” at the time. It made me feel good about myself to “do something meaningful”. That sounds arrogant now that I say it out loud….

In 2011, I left ministry (after getting my doctoral degree in ministry no less!!) and went back to work in the paper industry. In ministry, my mission was to help people know and see that they are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God (1 Peter 2:9-10). I thought it was going to be an easy sell, but it didn’t work out so well. It was rather disappointing to have been unable to get more interest in such a great message!

Today, back in the paper industry, my job is to make toilet paper softer without losing strength. Today, my job is to bring softness to the backside of America without fear of our thumb ending up where it doesn’t belong.   This seems like an easier sell. We all know we want that!!

What Are the Key Drivers?

When I was in ministry, I was always a little embarrassed to tell people what I did for a living (I didn’t have a “real” job). Today I miss the “meaning” associated with being part of something “greater” than where our thumbs end up after we’re finished with the toilet.  I’m the kind of person who is never quite content, and this situation is no different.

Now that I’m crowding 50 years old, I wonder more and more about my “calling”. People have said I am a gifted preacher, but being a “pastor” didn’t work out so well. Today I focus on making toilet paper softer without losing its strength – bringing relief to the backside of America while preventing your thumb from ending up where it shouldn’t belong. I have been a foster and adoptive parent, a farmer, an entrepreneur, a landlord, an author and pastor.

The big questions:

How do you know if you are executing God’s call for YOUR life??
Does such a call even exist?
What role does shame/ego/pride play in making those decisions for us?

Unmasking Shame Critical to Hear “God’s Call for Me”

I make the claim in my book that it may never have been “God’s call” for me to go into ministry, but that it was likely my own psychological issues (shame and narcissism) that drove me there. It was as much an issue about my own needs as it was any call from a higher power. While we all of have seen plenty of examples of this in the clergy, this concept took national headlines and became beautifully ironic in the last presidential election. Scott Walker declared it was God’s call for him to run for President of the United States only to later be called to leave the race. Both of which seem remarkably akin to what he personally wanted or needed to do while retaining his appearance of humility.

Driven by Fear

Fear is what shame uses to control us.  We are driven by our fears in any number of ways:

Fear of not being enough
Fear of being seen as a failure
Fear of letting people down
Fear of not living up to expectations we or others have for us
Fear of being discovered for who we really are (the actual definition of shame)

If we are unable to unmask this driver behind our decisions, it will continue to manipulate us into doing things “in God’s name”. This gives our narcissism and shame full run to do what it desires under the guise and guide of “God’s call for me”.   There is no greater salve to our wounded souls than to know God wants (or better yet, needs) us for his mission. This can, and has, empowered great destruction throughout human history.  It’s time to unmask what drives us so it no longer controls our actions which can spur us into places we should simply not go or prevent us from venturing to the places we should.

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Shame, Psychology and Corporate America

This picture of corporate America looks idyllic.

More women than men.
Mixed racially.
A wide variety of ages.
Everyone smiling as if they all like each other.

It’s a stage being set that rarely, if ever, exists. Certainly no meeting I’ve ever been in meets the top three criteria. The fourth point can be pulled off for a camera, but the smiles fade as the work begins. Whenever you get this many people in a room, certain realities will usually set in:

Pride / ego
Competitiveness
Fear
Defensiveness
Blame (or preparation for blame)

These are all responses to what is typically known by a psychological or emotional term: shame. While the word “shame” falls frequently into these realms, the outcomes of shame find their home in reality – whether in the family, school, or corporate board room.

The outcomes of the shame concept matter in nearly every field including those that believes themselves immune to “touchy feely issues” such as corporate America. The reason is that wherever two people interact, shame responses will come into play. It’s the reality of all creation. And, in corporate America, people are constantly interacting, leveraging, positioning, negotiating, winning and losing.  Motivations are always being jostled and where motivations are engaged, shame is engaged.

Some things we know matter to business:

Employee motivation
Team building / employee moral
Innovation
Customer satisfaction

These things matter because profitability and growth matter and these things drive profitability and growth. If these things matter to you and your business, then shame matters to you and your business because all of them relate to how human beings relate to each other, what motivates them, and how and why people do what they do.

If your organization is interested in having positive interactions with your customers, building cooperative teams that are functioning to their fullest extent and innovating new technologies and ways of doing business, then this hidden driver behind our destructive decisions must be taken seriously.

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Trophy Hunting: A Shame Response

I am a trophy hunter – not with a gun – but I love a good trophy and I tend to hunt for them. That desire is key for thriving in corporate America – you got to love getting the big win and the big award recognizing your greatness.

Trophies have a lot of forms. Sports trophies. Hunting and fishing trophies. You can have a trophy wife – or trophy husband. You can have a trophy job. Or maybe your trophy is your patent, your degree, your book (if you’re an author). Some of us even make our kids our “trophy”.

Your trophy is whatever proves to the world you are of value – that you accomplished something.

The question I have to ask myself is why I need trophies? What is it inside me that demands I get presented with some kind of award that documents my greatness? Why do I need or want some kind of recognition that I beat someone in something?

I have to find and understand what drives me to get a trophy or I will sacrifice things that really matter in order to gain that trophy.

My drive for trophies has cost me financially. It has cost me in friendships. It has hurt my family. It has contributed to my inability to be truly successful in ministry and, odd as it may sound, in corporate America as well.

After the church I was pastoring closed, a member of the congregation asked this question: Rick, were we your friends or were we your trophy? Were we your partners in ministry or were we what you needed to show people that you were being successful? Was what you were trying to achieve through us for us or for yourself?

Shame is defined as a fear of having our weakness exposed – whatever we think our “weakness” is.   So we find ways to hide our weakness – shame DEMANDS we find a way to hide our weaknesses – it protects us from having our vulnerability exposed.

There are a lot of things we hide behind. One of them is trophies.

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Judgmentalism grows into humility

I know I judge books by their cover.  I didn’t know I would do it so soon after a religious conference warning me not to do it!

 

An Uber ride from judgmentalism to humility

 

I was waiting for my Uber at the Subway sandwich shop on Central Street in the Old Town section of Albuquerque. This would be my last Uber of this trip filled with Uber rides. Each ride and each driver is something of an adventure – a true splash of Americana – and each one this particular trip made me a tick nervous with their look or driving skills.  It was a welcome mat for my judgmentalism.

The car arrived.

As I approached, I immediately began shaking my judgmental head. How does Uber function? I was going to make sure I didn’t tell my wife about his particular ride as she’s not a fan of the program in general. It was a beat up old Buick LeSabre like you’d expect to see in a movie where a lone female hitchhiker is picked up along a desert road, tumbleweeds blowing off to the side of a “route 66” sign while you scream at the TV “DON’T GET IN!!!” I remember being a bit nervous as well that I didn’t see the traditional Uber sticker in his windshield.

When I opened the door I wish I could say things got better. They didn’t. They got worse. Enter judgmentalism overdrive. He smiled at me missing at least every other tooth. His baseball cap was squished down over his matted and evidently unwashed hair and his scruffy facial hair and the wild look in his eye – like the look of someone who’d spent too much time in the desert – only seemed to fully prepare me for the entire experience.

I didn’t catch his name. I never do. That right there might tell a fella something about themselves. He asked me immediately if I was with the Michael Rohr convention (which concerned me even more since it was the “Richard” Rohr convention). I said I was and he asked me to write down his name on a napkin he had in his armrest. He said he wanted to follow up on getting some of that guys materials because all the people he met from that convention all seemed to think the same way and . . . . wait for it . . . . they all seemed to think like him.

 

Turning left when judgmentalism mandates you go right

 

As we pulled into traffic – turning left just behind the “no left turn” sign (due to construction) – he smiled his toothless smile and said to me “well that was lucky”! It was poetically ironic given our entire conversation was about to take a left turn when I thought we were probably heading right.

He continued – “yeah, I’ve learned I’m just a grain of sand.”

“That’s an important thing to learn”, I said recalling we just saw a video on that at the Rohr conference and I began to expect I was going to be taught a lesson in humility.

“Yes”, he said, “I’ve come to learn I’m just a grain of sand, but I used to think I was the whole beach”.

I saw myself in him. I, too I told him, am trying to free myself from the idea that I am “the whole beach”. In fact, I’ve come to believe much of my issues in life are associated with that very idea – my shame induced narcissism and grandiosity. Was it possible that this man had come further down this path of self-understanding than I had? This man who, moments earlier, I had pre-judged and a lunatic?

I mentioned that my ego seemed to prevent me from getting to that place – that even now I was still working on it. I mentioned that it was probably my greatest hurdle at the moment.

He agreed . . . he was empathetic. Empathy is an attribute of the humble, not the arrogant. He possessed it; I am working on it. In fact, he claimed it was a daily battle for him as well. He went through a list of disasters an arrogant way of thinking had brought upon him and spoke of finding real meaning and purpose and needing to find all that in smallness. He credited his condition as a recovering alcoholic for really giving his life back to him – a message very consistent with the teachings of Fr. Rohr and inconsistent with anything I’ve experienced in life.

 

Time for some growing up…

 

“I see life as a process, Rick”, he said. “Life is a journey and living in the journey is the best we can do. We don’t want to miss the journey, Rick.”

“Don’t you just want to get to the end though”? I asked. “Don’t you get anxious about the ‘getting there’? It seems like I’m so obsessed with the goal I miss the moments.” I recalled a moment from the Rohr conference when Fr. Richard said “we all want to rush to a ‘waking up’, but few of us want to endure the ‘growing up’ it takes to get there”.

“Hell yes!!” he said.   “Why do you think I was up in the mountains this morning clearing my head? If I don’t get my head cleared and settled, I’m no good at all. Can’t even function!”

He spoke of having to zero his mind at times in order to maintain some sanity in life, which of course took me to my own ever churning mind that can get me spun around like a ski rope on a boat prop. This, of course, gave me yet another opportunity so see myself in him – to see a connection with another human who, moments before, had given me the heeby jeebies when he claimed “you people think like me”.

 

Enter the judgmentalism sledge hammer…

 

I asked him where he learned all this. I said you must be reading something if not Rohr – where did you get all this insight?

He said he enjoyed “altruistic” conversations. He paused then asked me if I knew what that meant.

I did not.

Please don’t miss the pause behind those words. I did not know. Let it sink in. I, the Rev Doctor Rick Patterson holding a BS in Engineering, a Master’s degree in divinity and a Doctoral degree in ministry, author of a book that had been endorsed by the great Fr. Richard Rohr and holder of a patent did not know what he knew. Shit.

I find my meaning on “knowing” things and I had based my judgment of this guy on his likely lack of knowledge. As soon as I saw his car I was superior to him and looking at him only confirmed my suspicion.

Yet there I was. I did not know.

I thought about guessing. Certainly I knew what “altruism” meant didn’t I? I had heard that word a million times. But in the split second that seemed like hours I couldn’t for the life of me grasp a meaning that would give any indication that I knew what that meant. Shit. I was unable to fake it.

I think I was a little embarrassed I didn’t know something but I began to realize I was being taken to school. The conference I had just attended should have set me up for this situation. I had literally just walked out of Richard Rohr’s conference encouraging me to see Christ in everyone and to recognize that we are all one life. I should have been ready for this encounter – I should have actually been looking for it, but I wasn’t. The man who I had initially judged by his appearance to be much beneath and behind me was about to take me to school – if I was willing to be schooled that is…

“I don’t know what that is”, I said.

“It’s when two people with nothing to gain from each other enter into a conversation to just listen and learn. It’s when you don’t come to a conversation with preconceived ideas or judgments but just want to learn from each other. That’s what I like to do. You see,” he said, “we all are thinking about things and judging what we see but we are never listening.”

I was nodding. Occasionally I would look at him and he would smile at me to show me the few teeth he had left. Each time I looked at him the most intelligent thing I could say is “you’re right”.

 

I hope I’m learning my judgmentalism lesson

 

It all happened so fast – only a 10-minute ride from the Subway to the airport. As we closed in on the airport he said to me, “well, you might not remember me but maybe the conversation we’ve had will mean something to you” (I found it ironic that he didn’t mention the conversation had meant anything to him :). His gaze was clear and bright and his handshake, intent. It was if to say “you hear me boy!?? Are you picking up what I’m laying down”?

It all felt as if I just had an encounter with John the Baptist or some other mystical desert teacher; my arrogant dismissal of him based on his appearance alone occurring so easily just moments after attending a 3 day conference that railed against such egotistical actions.

I said, “Oh, I’ll remember you.” The question is whether or not I’ll retain the lesson this time.

I briefly entertained the question of what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to that Subway for lunch and had just gone straight to the airport instead (a decision I did indeed initially regret when I found out their soda machine was broken down). What if “circumstances” didn’t work out that way?

Not sure it would have mattered. That driver could have been any driver or any waitress or any anyone standing or sitting in front of us at any given moment if we are simply prepared to burn the score cards and see that we are really all just one.

I feel like I should be ashamed at my judgmentalism given my role in the “church” and as an adoptive father of 4 African American kids. I am not.  Instead I’m seeing it the way my Uber driver would want me to see it: as an opportunity for growth on the journey.  I am human.  I am imperfect.  I am trying to grow up and, as you may know, I believe failure is the best avenue for growth. In the end, I believe this is all about unmasking my own shame and working through it in a helpful and productive way.

Mr. Driver, thanks for the reminder that we are just grains on a beach – I’m glad our grains collided for a moment…

Your student,

Rev. Dr. Rick Patterson

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What Would Jesus BE?

To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting. —e. e. cummings (1955)

In the 1990’s – as I was making a transition from atheism to Christianity, the phrase “what would Jesus do” and the reminder bracelet was becoming the rage.  As I sat with my daughter at lunch she was struggling with the reality that she could never do what Jesus did and it was becoming a perfectionistic nightmare for her.

I remember that situation occurring in my own self as I was first beginning to decide how much money I should give to my home church after becoming a Christian.

The church’s prescription was that I should give 10%, but that logic fell flat.  Why would I not give more?  The widow Jesus told us to use an example gave all she had.  When I brought that little fact up to people they would just dismiss it by saying “that’d be just crazy”.  Is giving 10% just an easy clean number to allow me to believe I had met the minimum requirement set by God?  Should I ever go out to eat, go on vacation, or buy a new car when I could give that money to the church?  It was my attempt to be perfect and it was maddening.

When we want to change our behavior, we frequently start with the behavior itself and hope, by force of will, that we can change that behavior.  In reality, the behavior exists for some reason and understanding WHY we do what we do provides an opportunity at a much more lasting change.  In my own example, why was I so obsessed with perfection?  What was I really afraid of?

I argue that shame or self-hatred can drive much if not all of our decision-making process using fear as it’s primary tool.  When you look at someone like Jesus, one thing that becomes obvious is that he appears to have no fear.  He isn’t afraid of what people think of him and, even though he has become the most famous person to have ever existed, clearly that was not of concern to him.

The other thing that seems missing from Jesus – perhaps the primary thing – is that he appears to be “a stranger to self-hatred” as Brennan Manning puts it in his book of the same title.

If you add up these two traits you see a man who has nothing to prove and no need to defend himself.  Everything he does seems to be a reflection of simply and fearlessly being himself regardless of the outcome and regardless of the impression it makes on others.

I wonder what might happen to us if, instead of trying to change our behavior to do what Jesus did, we looked at what is preventing us from being who he was.  What if we were to look at how much of our decisions are based in fear – fear of not having enough, fear of looking stupid, fear of being misunderstood, fear of actually BEING understood but being afraid people wouldn’t like what they found.

My daughter, at lunch, asked me if I knew anyone who could completely follow Jesus.  I said I did not know such a person.  I also said I didn’t know anyone who was a stranger to self-hatred either.  I said that the best I think we can hope for is to be in the fight – NOT to do good or stop doing bad – but be in the fight against the voice of shame in our soul that tells us we are not enough causing us to make decisions we later regret.  I told her that we might make more progress setting aside trying to do what Jesus did and tried instead to be who Jesus was.

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Mistakes and Apologies

Mistakes are what make us human and apologies are what help us survive our humanity.

— Rick Patterson, Shame Unmasked

This quote comes from the first story in the first chapter of my book and emphasizes what I believe is the most important aspect of being human – that we make mistakes and we hurt each other.

My very first Facebook post contained a picture of my family at our daughters’ homecoming coronation in high school.  All three girls were on the homecoming court for their class in the same year.  It was quite an achievement – the local newspaper was even there to do a story (back when there was a newspaper).

If you saw this picture originally when I first posted it, you may felt envious of our success and in the way our family appears to have it all together.   It’s funny how Facebook pictures can hide what’s really going on…

The reality was the picture was taken in the midst of what would be years of trauma in our family.  When the picture was taken our family was being torn apart even though the picture itself makes it look like it’s entirely “together”.

he trauma became so intense it eventually began to interfere with my ability to pastor the church we started.  I would resign a couple years later after shame got the better of me yet again.  The congregation would cease to exist shortly after that.

You may wonder what turned things around?  It’s hard to say – it has certainly been somewhat miraculous.  But if I were to give credit to ONE skill that we all learned together, it was that we became very good at giving and receiving apologies.  I believe it was this skill that saved our family.

Shame wants to prevent us from apologizing.  Shame wants to prevent reconciliation.  Shame will insist that we not back down and admit when we’re wrong.  Shame requires us to defend ourselves and blame each other.  Shame insists we continue to hate, hold grudges, and live resentful, unforgiving, wall building lives.

– – Rick Patterson, Shame Unmasked

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The Truth About Farming

I raise beef cattle.  I run about 30-50 head depending on the time of year but try and keep my momma cow population at the 20-25 level.  A lot of people envy my situation – the land and the rather romantic idea of working the land compared to the everyday grind.  I reckon there’s some truth to that (though I am also employed in corporate America, so I am very familiar with the “everyday grind” also).

For me, however, it has been an exercise in futility.  Your job, when you raise livestock, is to keep one step ahead of death.  One person told me once that the livestock owner’s job isn’t so much keeping the animals alive as it is preventing them from dying.  Another common saying is that “a cow is born looking for a way to die and your job is to find it before they do”.

It’s a daily challenge especially in the winter (I’m in a Northern climate) when trying to just get feed and water to them becomes the “daily grind” let alone treating any ailments that come along when the mud and snow is over your boots and the gates are all frozen shut.

When people ask me about it I don’t glow with appreciation for how great it is.  For me, it’s really rather brutal physically and psychologically.  This is especially true when you have to euthanize an animal you couldn’t save or you watch a calf takes it’s last breath when it’s only a couple days old.

Part of it is because I am an animal lover and hate watching death, but most of it is because I become aware of my limitations.  Farming makes me aware I am not God.  Perhaps that’s why the “bible belt” is so closely aligned with the “farm belt”.  People who grow food know they are not God.

Farming is a humbling experience.  Becoming aware you’re not God is humbling.  When you are shame-based person, it can also become humiliating.  Being humbled can be a constructive experience.  Being humiliated has no value.  When I stand in my field I find myself frequently aware of the fact that I am “not enough”.   I am not enough to keep these animals alive or even prevent myself from making mistakes along the way.

Farming can make you feel like you are a failure.  That’s the voice of shame.  There has to be some way of discerning the difference between failing at something and BEING a failure because you failed.  There has got to be some way to overcome the grief a person feels inside themselves when they continually come face to face with their limitations to acknowledge that this simply is what it means to be human (humbled) and that it doesn’t mean you are what your internal voice says about you (humiliated).

The definition of humanity is to have limitations – to be imperfect.  Frequently that can be an excruciating experience but it’s one we all must face if we are going to enter any state of psychological health in this world.

The reason I farm is to remind myself I am not God.  The reason I farm is to remind myself I’m only human – and give myself the opportunity to be OK with that.  The reason I farm is to see if I can someday get to that place where I can be humbled without feeling humiliated.  The reason I farm is to fight against the voice that is attempting to convince me to hang it up because I am a failure each time I fail.  The reason I farm is to give myself an opportunity to be OK with the fact that I am not enough.

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