Pendulum Reaction – What to Watch Out For

Summary

Human emotions are difficult to identify and manage, even on a good day. What happens when an emotional reaction to a circumstance involves a decision to do a complete 180 on an existing attitude, belief, approach, or behaviour? When it appears that the reaction is so emotionally ‘violent’ that it can have destructive tendencies and negative outcomes? Those are the questions that I’ve been pondering for some time, so I thought now is the time to raise awareness of the pendulum effect and dive a little deeper into this topic.

Background

Work and life today involve navigating a plethora of emotions in yourself and others. Whether you’re trying to get yourself, the kid(s), or another adult ready to leave on time for wherever it is you need to be, negotiating heavy traffic when late for an appointment, bringing together key stakeholders to make an important business decision, or cheering on your favourite sports team – everything we do during any given day is accompanied by a variety of emotional responses. These responses can be predictable (whether you consider the response to be appropriate or not is not the point here), or unpredictable. Either way, a level of emotional agility is required just to get through the day.

So, what happens when an emotional reaction to a circumstance involves a decision to do a complete 180 on an existing attitude, belief, approach, or behaviour? When it appears that the reaction is so emotionally ‘violent’ that it can have destructive tendencies? Let me give you a business example. You and your team have organized an important business meeting trying to navigate a sensitive topic with some key stakeholders who have vastly differing views of what should happen next. You need a consensus-based decision from this meeting. As a team, you’ve prepped for the conversation, including a variety of scenario analyses, who will be performing what role, and are as prepared as you can be. During the meeting, your colleague begins to offer some personal opinions that cloud the topic and takes the group down a series of paths that are not materially moving things forward. On a break, you take your colleague aside and ask, “Can you ease off on readily offering your opinion on this one please? Our job is to facilitate the decision – not to influence it.” Your colleague doesn’t take kindly to the constructive feedback and offers up a sharp “Fine. If my opinions aren’t wanted or valued, I won’t say a thing from this point forward! There, happy?” Despite your attempts to explain what you meant and get your colleague back onside, you realize you’ve lost him/her. What was intended as an opportunity to reflect and make the necessary tweaks to course correct, became a volcanic reaction to the point of complete shutdown.

I like to call this the “pendulum effect”. Instead of carefully considering the circumstance and information available, then using these to build into the most appropriate course of action, the person emotionally swings from one side of the pendulum all the way to the other, even if they know that the correct spot was somewhere in between the two endpoints.

Why now…

Before we go any further, I want to be clear that I’m fairly certain I didn’t create the concept of the pendulum analogy, but I have found myself using it more and more of late as people seem to react with more unpredictability. When discussing actions and reactions with clients, I hear of their colleagues essentially working to rule (the polite way of saying ‘downing tools’) if they’ve been asked to do something they disagree with. On other occasions, once-close colleagues are no longer on speaking terms (the polite way of saying ‘friends off’) due to some perceived or real conflict.

So, I find myself pondering questions like: Is this more prevalent now in our post-pandemic (wait, are we actually out of the pandemic now?) world due to human attitudes changing during the lockdown conditions? Is it a result of rising inflation, supply chain issues, or cost of living crises being experienced across the globe? Is it because we’re at the tail end of a long (but not entirely horrible) winter and people are just desperate for spring to arrive? Or, and this is entirely possible, I’ve just started to pay a wee bit more attention to this topic? Right now, the short answer is I don’t know, but what I do know is that it’s now on my radar and I’m paying more and more attention to the pendulum effect.

It’s Important Because…

In my experience no one appreciates being labeled as emotionally volatile. Further, no one likes to be on the wrong end of an emotionally volatile reaction. Certain people might label their volatility as single-mindedness, strong willed, sticking up for themselves (or others), no-nonsense, or a number of other self-justifications. My job as a coach isn’t to convince them that they are one, any, or all of these things. My job is to help them understand that how we think influences how we feel, and how we feel influences how we act. This is a commonly understood cycle of human behaviour. Further, helping the client realize the absolute gift that emotions contain data, and this data is very important to be able to decipher situations, reactions, and results. We have everything we need in our hearts and minds to make an honest assessment of where we are, and what is an appropriate reaction. The challenge is that many have not unlocked their potential to be in tune with themselves, therefore react as they deem appropriate in a given situation.

Think of a time when you have, to coin a phrase, cut your nose off to spite your face. Where you’ve reacted in such a way that instead of compromising on where to eat out on date night, you’ve ended up completely skipping dinner and instead spent the night sulking on the couch, hungry. Who wants to do that? Not me, I can tell you that. Too often I hear or experience a reaction that at first, second and third glances (i.e., all the glances) takes a person from one side of the pendulum, all the way past several viable alternative landing spots, and slams them right at the other side where literally no one benefits.

Therefore, it is important because an overreaction to a specific circumstance can have far-reaching and avoidable negative consequences that impact more people than just the individual making the decision.

Why Write About This…

The main reasons for writing about this are primarily to raise your awareness that this is something that could be happening to or around you, and/or you could be the person who’s ‘penduluming’ (definitely not a real word, but you get the gist). When you see people (or yourself) reacting in a manner that does not appear commensurate with the circumstance they are trying to navigate, you will have more consciousness and clarity as to whether you need more information, holistically, about the situation, which will ultimately aid your reaction to their reaction. Put simply, recognizing a pendulum reaction in another will allow you to react in a way that won’t exacerbate the potential negative connotations. Fighting fire with fire is rarely a productive strategy.  To dig a wee bit further, what is important to understand is that you can’t stop another person’s reaction, and most of the time if an emotional pendulum is in play, you likely won’t be aware of it until real time (i.e., it’s happening in the moment), or it has already happened. The only thing you can control (in life in general – not just for pendulums), is your own reaction to other’s behaviours. Easier said than done, and this is why this topic is one of the main themes you’ll see through the blogs and the podcast as we move forward together.

Recognizing a pendulum response in yourself, especially if you catch it before you announce or build into your intended end state, affords you the opportunity to course correct at the earliest opportunity. This is not to suggest in any way that you’re no longer permitted to react to a situation – it’s more about allowing yourself the clarity on headspace to ensure that your reaction is the best reaction and is a reaction that will allow you to move forward knowing you did your best based on information you had at the time.

Ok, Now What…

I’ve talked about a few things in this blog and it’s important that you take some key items away related to pendulum reactions. To summarize, when a person has a pendulum reaction you will notice a dramatic change in their opinions, beliefs, values, or attitudes. This could occur immediately, or develop over time, where you will notice and experience them swinging from one extreme to another. Some key points of this behavior will most likely include:

• Overreaction: They may overreact to events or information and make sudden, drastic changes in their thinking or behaviour. Now, understand that the overreaction to an event is your interpretation of their behaviour – not theirs
• Lack of consistency: Pendulum-like behavior can lead to a lack of consistency in behaviours, which can make it difficult for you (or others) to predict or understand their behavior. It’s tough navigating the winds of change with inconsistent people
• Lack of critical thinking: In pendulum mode, people may not take the time to thoroughly analyze the situation before making a change, leading to impulsive reactions. Think about the last time you made a knee-jerk reaction to a situation with little-to-no critical thinking – how did that work for you?
• Influence of others: Some people are more easily influenced by others, and as a result, they may adopt the opinions or attitudes of those around them (even if these opinions or attitudes don’t necessarily align with their own beliefs). This isn’t you, obviously, but watch out for it in others and respectfully call it out
• Emotional involvement: An emotional involvement in a situation can (and usually does) cloud a person’s judgment, which can lead to impulsive swings. Emotions are what make us humans pretty interesting. We all have them. The key is to distinguish when you’re being led or guided by emotions. Being led might not always work in your favour, but everyone likes a nice guide, so make sure you know the difference
• Triggers: Certain events trigger certain reactions, some good and some not so. Someone triggered by an event can also be convinced to react and behave in a particular way, with minimum consciousness that it’s happening to them. Everyone has triggers. If you notice someone is penduluming (still not a word), consider whether something has triggered their reaction, and take steps to expose and address the trigger

In conclusion, people experiencing a pendulum reaction highlights the importance of emotional awareness, critical thinking and maintaining a consistent set of beliefs, opinions, and attitudes. This will help avoid being overly influenced by external factors and will help maintain stability in your own (or other’s) thinking.

I’m always open to a conversation on your thoughts, opinions, and experiences on this or any topic in the library. This being the first blog literally is the library, but in future there will be more. Get in touch by subscribing below, or by using the form on the Contact Page of the site.