Q: One of my best employees loses it when I send her over to deal with our construction team. In every other way, “Margy” is terrific. She’s fantastic with numbers. She’s a brilliant marketer and great with clients. Those of us in the office love her. She has a great work ethic. But we need to grow our company and that means we need to develop new business prospects for our construction division.
When Margy first started with our company, she’d occasionally seem flustered or lose focus, but I thought she would grow out of whatever the problem was when she got comfortable with her job and our company. She hasn’t. The construction guys roll their eyes when I tell them she’s coming over to meet with them to get a handle on how to bid their work. When I first called you, you said to attend a meeting with Margy and the construction team and see what happened.
When “Paul” and “Jeff” walked into the meeting room, something came over Margy. She’d been tense on the way over to the meeting, but when the guys walked in the door she just froze. When I asked her to describe the upcoming bid, she sounded like a bubble-head. The guys didn’t do or say anything wrong, so Margy’s reaction was out of all proportion to anything going on.
I want to promote Margy for her hard work and maybe one day offer to make her a partner, but I can’t. The guys just snort when I talk with them about Margy writing proposals selling the construction division. Can you help?
A: At your request, I talked with Margy and learned what’s going on. She doesn’t think you’ll understand, but gave me permission to explain why she reacts as she does. Since I can’t divulge the very personal facts of Margy’s story, I’ll outline a scenario you might be able to relate to that I regularly use when training managing handling similar situations.
Imagine you are walking along a trail and suddenly a bear you hadn’t earlier spotted stands up in the bushes two feet from you. Your breathing halts. Every one of your instincts shifts to high alert. You may have carried a gun or bear spray when you started your hike. If so, it’s in your hands, ready for action. You quickly scan the bear for its hump or any distinguishing feature that tells you if it’s a brown or black bear. You make yourself as large as you can, even as you slowly back away, shouting in a loud, low voice “Hey, bear!”
You were trained. You’re scared but you know the basics of how to handle yourself.
That’s an example of how a normal person might react to a sudden change in their environment. Now, imagine the same scene if your best friend, you or someone close to you had been mauled by a bear two years earlier. Would you be able to think and act or would you instead freeze and go blank or worse, run?
Margy fights a private battle with post traumatic stress disorder, as do 1 in 25 Americans or one in 5 Afghanistan or Iraq combat veterans, resulting from a traumatic event seared into her mind. Individuals suffering from PTSD experience reactions to certain sights or sounds that hijack their brain and circumvent rational thinking.
For whatever reason, and through no fault of theirs, something about either Paul or Jeff triggers Margy’s fear reaction. Those impacted by PTSD often “flashback” or slip from the present into the past, so that Margy isn’t reacting to the actual coworkers in front of her but to an event from her traumatic past.
You’re not the only employer faced with this situation in which an otherwise good employee overreacts or unreasonably underperforms in an apparently innocuous situation. Often, unrecognized PTSD results in avoidable accidents; mood swings; panic attacks; abrupt departures from duties; and the loss of potentially high-producing employees. An employer who sees odd behavior should neither ignore it nor attempt to diagnose PTSD or another emotional issue, but instead discuss the problem behavior with the employee, who can elect to let the employer know what’s really happening.
Margy is committed to working on this and as an employer you need to accommodate to her situation as she is otherwise a great employee and her condition likely qualifies for protection under the American with Disabilities Act. For example, can you serve as go-between and collect the information from your construction team that Margy needs to write proposals? If so, the results she garners from secured bids will speak for themselves. Further, if Margy later gives you permission to tell others about her PTSD, can you direct them toward compassion and away from eye rolling?