Coerced into vulnerability session

[Watdidusay]

My team were brought into a mandatory vulnerability day with HR because of performance issues.

We were sat down and asked to share our most frightening experience. People were sharing stories of traumatic deaths of partners, being beaten nearly to death by violent family, one watched their mother jump out a window.

Everyone was bawling their eyes out.

We were then asked to share each team members best and worst trait, individually. Once again tears flooding. Comments like "maybe you're like this because of your childhood" etc were flying out.

There was no prep for this and no psychological support. Everyone said they felt coerced and are very upset.

Is this normal? We all think there's something wrong here.

God it’s absolutely awful. I can understand you not feeling to speak out about it at the time, it’s not your fault you didn’t or couldn’t stand up to it.

I’d definitely be talking to the other attendees and getting some legal advice. I know someone who had a history of trauma who was then affected by one of these “team building” exercises where they got locked in a room. She pursued it, successfully. I can’t remember the details, not that it would necessarily help anyway as every case is different.

I can foresee the office bully making up a fake story and banking everyone else's real trauma for later weaponisation.

This sounds absolutely insane. Hugely unsafe. That's not hyperbole. If people are going to engage in something like this, it's got to be run by a qualified counsellor or facilitator with the experience and expertise to set boundaries, ensure consent of all participants and contain what comes out so that people don't leave totally overwhelmed or unsupported.

I wouldn’t trust the HR office at my place of employment to run a piss upon a brewery and certainly not something so intrusive and potentially unsettling as the session you describe. They’re nice enough people, but not the sharpest knives in the box.

That sounds abusive in itself. Cant believe anyone thought that was ok plus which for me they would have needed about a week for me to talk thru past traumas lol

I have heard of these sessions, I think they’re absolutely appalling. I work in HR, I would refuse to run one or take part in one, and I would seriously consider resigning from an organisation whose management could not see why they are a terrible idea.

Sometimes, there can be some benefit in allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in a team context. Think of the old trust fall exercises! But this is absolutely not the way to do it, it should be handled with extreme care and it’s not suitable for just any team or workplace.

Blimin heck….may I suggest if any other people reading this are forced to do similar - definitely do not bring your whole self to work that day!

It really doesn't.

I have a friend who worked in education abroad. She once had to do a similarly weird session, which involved having to stare into a colleague’s eyes in silence for ten full minutes. Apparently loads of people were crying and having psychological breakdowns. She ended up quitting soon after.

Is this normal for 2020s then?

This is NOT normal. And the fact they ran it untrained is extremely dangerous.

Depending on your sector (public or private) I would take it to a senior and trustworthy journalist covering either public policy/public sector issues or on a business desk.

I wouldn't like that at all. I'm very nice and friendly at work and share the light stuff going on in my life. I'm also very private and wouldn't share some things with my friends, never mind colleagues!! Perhaps if it was an anonymous letter writing exercise, so people got a gist of what other people have going on/ have had happened to them in their lives, to make everyone more empathetic at work. It could bring up so much trauma and trigger mental health issues, all for a work exercise. Must be better ways to stop conflict at work.

Illogical thought process. This sort of thing certainly would not have happened in the 1950s. I doubt it's normal nowadays, it's certainly appalling.

The notion that a company would make their employees sit around and talk about parental suicide and familial abuse and violence, in order to increase fucking productivity and performance is Black Mirror levels of absolute depravity.

”Thanks Michael for sharing how Father Stephen touched you. I think that will really help you meet your quota next month. Jane, you’ve been underperforming in your cold call rates according to the tracker - would you like to share your story about how your mother’s narcissistic traits and alcoholism have affected your chances to form a lasting romantic relationship? Only if you feel comfortable of course”

This is utterly ridiculous and enrages me that bloody HR thinks it’s a great team building exercise but blow me down when I googled it, yes it’s a ‘thing’. Written up in the Harvard Business Review and Forbes magazine. And loads of links on how sharing vulnerabilities is a way to build teams.

As @TheAlchemistElixa perfectly puts it, it’s a step further down this insane ‘bring your authentic self to work’ idea (in order for the firm to make more money from you). Next time it won’t be run by humans though, it’ll be bots run by AI.

That sounds like psychological torture. What an awful thing to do to employees.

It is bloody dangerous. It is as some people have said what cults do.
OP can you go to the papers about this and ask to stay anonymous? Guardian are good at this or Private Eye?

I have never experienced anything quite as blatant as this vulnerability day, but I used to go along with responding to fairly personal questions when I was first working, and a bit naive about training days. Though I always found it difficult to really think of my “worst/best/ugliest/funniest X experience” when put on the spot in front a group. Then, after being asked for stuff about my childhood in one session when I was mid 20s that really hit home I realised how abusive it was. So I started refusing to answer, either saying that it was far too personal and I would not share it and couldn’t think of another or providing a cartoonish answer that was obviously false.

One way I’ve found to tone these things down quite a bit and set the expectation that we are allowed our privacy, is to refuse to agree to any sort of confidentiality for the group. Unless I’ve chosen to go to group therapy meeting, if someone says “you’re in a safe space” (or whatever) and that everyone agrees “not repeat what we hear in the room” I just say that I can’t possibly agree to it, that people really shouldn’t tell me things they weren’t happy for me to talk about with other people. That I don’t expect anyone in the room to keep my secrets and have no intention of keeping other people’s secrets, especially if they are traumatic in some way or give me insight into something about myself or others.

That sounds psychologically abusive of the organisation. I'm shocked.

I’d be going on annual leave and looking for a new job. I’d also probably seek legal advice as this is not ok and not normal!!!! No way in hell would I have participated in this shitshow. Although the fact you did could be good in hindsight if you wanted to take some legal action. I’d write down a detailed description of the day whilst it’s fresh in your mind and suggest colleagues do the same. And I’d seek legal advice.

I think telling people they don't "have to do anything" is an important step. We all need to hear this as often as possible. I think that especially people pleasers need to hear this often and to be reminded it is an option.

I think it's the first step to recovery.

I’m completely shocked this happened in your workplace. I’m also interested in the type of industry you work in that this could happen. I would speak to CAB for some free initial advice as others have said what happened is abusive and a safeguarding issue. People will be triggered by being coerced in sharing traumatic experiences without support and god knows what might happen to them afterwards

That's exactly where my mind went, yes.

"Some people had failed to give important stuff" - what? Why should they be compelled to give anything? So unprofessional. We've turned into a culture of snivelling victim fetishists.

Even if you want to do some work with a team about psychological safety to be vulnerable, this is more at the level of being able to admit you've jammed the photocopier without retribution before someone else finds it broken rather than anything personal, and a lot of it will be set by how the team manager behaves.

I remember feeling distressed by an exercise by a facilitator who should have known better about telling people what we pretend about, e.g. one person said something like "i pretend I'm better than everyone else but I'm quite ordinary". All I could think of was pretending I liked a particular type of work when I hated it, I refused a few rounds but she really picked on me and said it wasn't personal enough and implied I was hiding things on purpose rather than my brain just freezing. I think my distress was partly childhood trauma, and partly perhaps neurodivergence. I was on the edge of tears all morning. It was years ago but I still question was the problem me, but I'm pretty sure it isn't!