Ines Lopez

I have a MSc in Strategic Project Management. I studied PMBOK at University and I have a PMP qualification. And I have worked as a project manager managing projects of up to £300m in very different industries, including startups.

All my “formal” training taught me theory, proceses and best practices to manage projects. All very useful, though sometimes daunting. A lot of the methodologies become a bureaucratic process that transforms a project manager into a paper pusher. A square box that sometimes limits the implementation of innovation. There is value in order and process but depending on how the methodology is being implemented in the business environment writing up documents can become 50% of your time or more. And none of this knowledge was capable of effectively manage what happened in 2020 and the effects of those events to this day.

For many people priorities have shifted. From being work focused to valuing their wellbeing and mental health more. Personal wellbeing and mental health have moved to the forefront of Human Resources departments. Many employees talking about stress interfering in their productivity (20% according to some studies) and assessing their wellbeing as a factor on whether the company they work at is good or not. Some statistics talking of 1 of 3 employees saying their employer should do more regarding mental health.

No project methodology is well equipped to deal with this situation. And yet they all tend to happen within the confine of a project or programe, organised according to project management principles. Processes and protocols can dictate how to do things, how to get permissions, what requirements need to happen to continue with a project or the standards that have to be met to achieve success. But they don’t deal effectively with emotions, feelings and all the issues that make employees human beings.

Over the last few years emotional intelligence and “soft skills” started being talked about as part of the things leaders should have in their toolkit. Negotiation, conflict resolution, motivation and communication are always going to help deal with the human aspect of business operations. But still don’t address what do you do when you have employees having a hard time, in a poor state of mental health or wellbeing.

Only looking into personal growth tools and techniques can we address those aspects so that we can help our team look into the root cause and at the same time help our project operate better. To tackle the cost of mental health to the global economy, estimated in 2024 as around 1 trillion dollars per year. Businesses must evolve and foster a work environment that has effective mechanisms to address this. And support the 60% of employees saying they feel detached at work. Because happy employees are more productive, 21% to be precise, for those organisations with high wellbeing scores according to Gallup. So it is not just a benefit for the employees, it is a benefit for the business as well.

There are emotions that are experienced by every human in the planet, very easy to identify and extremely disruptive to our wellbeing as well as our productivity: anger, sadness, lack of trust to name a few.

I would dare to state that every human has encountered them one way or another over the last few months alone. Managers may perceive the situation and depending on their emotional intelligence (ability to identify the emotion) and soft skills (communications capability) they would interact with the person or maybe stay away from them hoping they sort themselves out. More often than not emotional problems are seen as personal issues and there is the expectation that people know how to work on themselves so their emotional state doesn’t impact work. But that approach doesn’t seem realistic in a world with more and more pressure and big events happening every day. Compartmentalisation, like fixed structures are a thing of the past. A holistic approach to employee wellbeing should be the new normal.

So we could hide away in our communications plans, roles and responsibilities and that unspoken contract between employee and employer (or manager) that assumes we are not humans at work. Or we can embrace the new era we are living in and make the most of it.

There are two key simple aspects in the process of creating a safe space for our emotions at work so that we can grow, let go of what was affecting us, improve our wellbeing and as a result improve our productivity.

1.Introduce the concept of conscious living at work places.

Human beings can be defined as mind, body and spirit. What is not so widely spoken about is that there is another aspect to it all. Sometimes seen as part of the mind, sometimes as part of spirit or as a fourth component. I am referring to the shadow, the collection of all the things we repress about ourselves as well as all the characteristics, behaviours and patterns that we may know that we have but we don’t accept and don’t want anyone else to see them.

More often than not, when we get alienated by an action, comment or behaviour outside of us, it is because in a direct or indirect way that event is making a connection with a part of our shadow that we want to remain hidden. Because confronting our shadow forces us to remember (and therefore re-live) the emotions associated to those parts of ourselves. And our mind wants to protect us from that discomfort.

These relationships can be very obvious: a colleague having a behaviour that was similar to a relative when we were growing up or an event happening that makes us feel in the same way we felt years ago and therefore reminds us of that past situation). Sometimes they are harder to identify: a colleague react to us in a particular way that upsets us because deep down a part of our unconscious was at work and it activated a part of our colleagues unconscious in return. For example we subconsciously have fear that something bad would happen to our project, we are going a bit into micromanaging and our colleague feels that control and responds negatively to it because in their shadow there is an issue with over controlling parents when they were younger. To you the response from your colleague may be disproportionated and out of the blue, if you are not willing to look at your own energy in that interaction.

Our ability to travel through that connection, identify the starting point and untangle it, is going to determine whether we are able to heal ourselves and live consciously though life or remain in the dark without knowing why we react to things in the way we do. Probably repeating patterns over and over again.

Personal growth is deeply related to working with your shadow. Very often it is explored within the confines of personal issues or a healing journey, something that the person is carrying out in their personal time for whatever reason. That has to change for businesses and society to evolve.

People that are able to bring that level of self-awareness and exploration into their professional lives realise that the personal growth work is not confined to our private life. Seeing your professional life consciously opens up incredible amounts of opportunities for growth and healing. Because everything that happens in your life, whether personal or professional is going to bring you an opportunity to look into your shadow, understand a part of yourself, embrace it, accept it and as a result, defuse any control it may have over your emotions and actions. You will release limiting beliefs, emotions and events that are somewhat holding you hostage. In turn you will be happier and your relationships will become more satisfactory and enjoyable rather than a purgatory of sorts. Rather than taking things personally you will find growth and healing opportunities at every corner.

Introducing personal growth as a practice or value within a work environment would relieve the pressure and loneliness of trying to sort all of this in isolation. It would enable people to understand that work missunderstandings and conflicts are opportunities for personal growth. This can improve trust, openness and in turn collaboration. It would make businesses spaces for business growth and also personal growth. Those that achieve this would be the businesses of the future. They will always have people willing to be working there because employees will realise the exponential growth they will achieve from their experience with that company.

This doesn’t remove accountability or responsibility for following work rules and so on. Jobs should be done according to the needs of the role. Neither is a blank card to be rude or assume because shadow work is recognised you can let the shadow go wild. Common sense and education must remain. Having a conscious work environment enables space for feminine energy to be acknowledged within the work environment. Having mechanisms to help employees through that process. Truly supporting employee wellbeing and creating a better world.

2.Paying more attention to feelings, emotions and work with them consciously

Within the mind, body, spirit and shadow mix, there are also two essential aspects, masculine and feminine energy. This is regardless of our genre or genre identity. We inherit half of our chromosomes from our father and half from our mother. That in itself makes us half masculine and half feminine energy.

This duality of masculine and feminine energies is reflected across all aspects of life, not just our DNA. Masculine energy is all about drive, goals, structures and so on. Feminine energy is related to feelings, creation, flow and such. Feminine energy creates, masculine energy contains. This is how they work together, emotions and feelings help drive creation and the masculine energy provides the structure and the container for them to come to life in material form. Now let’s take this into the business world.

Methodologies, protocols, structures and so on are fixed aspects. They are related to masculine energy. Our emotions and feelings as humans, working in the business, is feminine energy. To have a healthy balance we need both aspects to be experienced safely and satisfactory in our life.

Purely relying on project management methodologies, proceses and protocols in business is going to negate the feminine energy. And in a world where more and more people are paying attention and valuing their wellbeing that is not an option. We should have balance in our work life as well as our personal life.

We need to introduce safe practices to manage our emotions at work. Meditation is a great tool but is not enough. Being able to quiet your mind is not the same as addressing the anger, fear or lack of confidence someone may be feeling. Emotional intelligence is not enough either. Identifying an emotion it is not the same as being able to work with it and transmute it so that is not in the way of what you want to achieve or feel.

A great way of specifically working with emotions from a feminine energy side of things is working with the elemental energies. You don’t need to believe in anything woo woo to connect with them because you can see them every day outside of you. You see the rivers, the mountains, the sun, the wind and the space that contains everything. That is water, earth, fire, air and ether in the planet. They also have equivalents in your body: blood, bones and muscle, body temperature, breath, edge of your body.

You can identify with those equivalents in your body or outside of it so that you can connect with them. And once you know which element can help you with which emotion you will have an ally for your personal growth work. I would leave that correlation for another post though. As a basic intro if you want to start with it:

• Water – great for forgiveness
• Fire – love and anger
• Earth – trust and feeling safe
• Air – dream and letting go
• Ether – balance and peace

Managers can help their team with this work by providing a safe space for it. We are so used to living in a cement forrest that we have forgotten the most primal connections we can have as human beings, the energies we are literally made of.

If it is innate in us, why not use them for our wellbeing and to bring a new dimension to our work life. You don’t need to over think it. Choose the element you want to connect with, visualise it in nature, take deep breaths and allow that energy to come in. As it comes in imagine that it goes into the parts of your body where the emotion you want to release is living. And it starts to neutralise it. Ask questions if you feel like it. You may not hear anything or you might. You will be developing your spiritual strength and your energetic toolkit, never bad things to have.

This way businesses are not just about project management methodologies and masculine energy structures. They will be wholesome spaces, introducing feminine energy in this environment and enabling their employees growth as human beings while growing as professionals. That is the business model for the future.