
By Jeff Bell.
In metropolitan Perth, we’re lucky enough not to be facing the daily existential threat of those who live in the battlefields of the Ukraine or the Gaza Strip, much less the fireground of southern California. For the unfortunate souls in those regions fight or flight is a clear and present reality.
Nonetheless, we are programmed like every other human to make an instant judgement, when faced with apparent trauma of any source or scale. Do we meet it head-on or turn and run?
In the business context, feeling that we are under attack may cause us to defend or even counter-attack. This is the Fight Response to stress or possible trauma. Our intuition is to resist the force we see confronting us, perhaps in the hope of catching the aggressor by surprise, thereby gaining an advantage. It may just be a verbal confrontation, but this may escalate to the physical, where blows are traded. Ramping up in such a situation has an obvious risk—we may win, at least in the short term, but we may also incur more of the same, or increased aggression.
If on the other hand, we turn and walk, or even run, away, we are exhibiting the Flight Response. To avoid conflict, we protect ourself from any physical harm and perhaps from hearing anything that we may find offensive or damaging. As a result, the aggressor has a victory—which may be all that they were wanting to achieve. If it is not enough, then we can expect more of the same. We become known as an easy target—for this aggressor and others—thus inviting more attacks. We are physically intact in the short term, but this is no guarantee for the future.
But we now understand that there are 3 other possible responses to the traumatic situation.
While not exiting the scene, we close down. We feel perhaps isolated and dissociated, both of which will increase our anxiety, rather than our coping capacity. This is the Freeze Response. We have become immobilised. We find that we are living in constant fear and feel incapable of doing anything about it. We are unable to make decisions in regard to this and any other stressful situation. As an automatic response, besides the merest self-preservation, it creates no positive outcome, nor is it a model for others. There is no freedom, no joy, no real hope and over time we may slide into depression.
As soon as we see conflict approaching, we look for ways to make it better. We seek easy answers, along the line of least resistance which means compromise and saying “yes” to everything. This is the Fawn Response. We believe that if we are nice to others, they will be nice to us—but not everyone follows the same mantra. Others may completely disregard our boundaries and behave with complete contempt. We will fall into a similar disregard for ourselves and instead of providing push-back, we will accept that what we want doesn’t matter. Then we will not matter. No hope and inevitable depression.
In the most extreme version of withdrawal, we lose control of our autonomic nervous system. This is the Flop Response. We go limp, we faint and we may even become incontinent. In reality, this is a life-threatening situation, or at least our perception that all is lost and truly there is no hope. We have given up the capacity to avert the situation, resist the aggressor or even seek help from others. Emotional and perhaps even physical survival will be a matter of good fortune, and nothing over which we have any influence at all. How did it ever come to be like this?
So, what to make of these 5 responses. While we acknowledge our programming as humans, we also need to accept that we have the force of freewill—we are not the helpless victims of our own chemistry.
Chinese military strategist, Taoist philosopher, and general in the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu, had a great point of view, way back then:
“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
Clearly, this belongs in a sixth possibility: Resolution Response.