Four principles for trauma-informed communication

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how everyone is traumatized.

And by that I mean that the systemic oppression and other adverse experiences we have had - or our ancestors have had, or people who share similar identities to us have had - impact how we experience and respond to current situations.

Not everyone identifies as traumatized, and that’s ok.

In fact, says Andrea Blanch, former co-chair of the Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice:

“The dynamic of trauma is that you must begin to heal before you can see the problem you’re healing from.”

To be human is to be, to some degree, traumatized - that has not changed.

Nor has the fact that marginalized communities have long been living with the impact of intergenerational, historical and systemic as well as individual trauma.

What has changed is that we have ALL - globally - been through the collective trauma of the pandemic at a scale unprecedented in the span of our careers.

For leaders, this means understanding, expecting and accounting for the fact that we and our workforce, while not all equally traumatized, are all traumatized.

“Our systems don't recognize how trauma impacts people, and as a result decision makers in those systems create trauma and hold people in a space of trauma,” says Allison Wainwright, CEO of Family Life.

I’ve written before about when trauma and power intersect.

When we can recognize, name, and acknowledge trauma - our own and that of others - we can take a trauma-informed approach to everything we do.

You don’t even have to agree that everyone is traumatized - taking a trauma-informed approach benefits everyone.

This takes me back to a framework I have talked about from “Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education” by Alex Shevrin Vent. I talked about it before specifically in the context of decision-making and planning, which is how Vent talks about it.

I’ve been thinking, though, what does this look like when applied to communication?

Here again are the four priorities:

Predictability
Flexibility
Empowerment
Connection

All of these priorities need to work in balance with one another, but let’s break this down for a moment.

PREDICTABILITY

Predictability is, I believe, one of the most important factors to consider in trauma-informed communication. One aspect of predictability is in “anticipating the moments that feel unsettled and planning to give time and space to settle” (Vent).

Change is particularly unsettling for most people, even in the best of circumstances. Early in the pandemic, things changed so quickly that things that seemed unthinkable one day, became reality the next, for example, the NBA cancelling its 2019-2020 season on March 12th, 2020. I don’t even follow basketball and I remember this shaking me up considerably.

Predictability in communication means thinking about how a traumatized workforce will respond to announcements about, in particular, change.

Are you giving them enough notice about the change?
Are you giving them enough time to prepare and “settle” in with the change?
Are you communicating multiple times and in multiple ways as not everyone will see every announcement?
Do you have a phased communication plan so that you are providing enough information at the right time? Think how you provide “scaffolding” so it’s not so much information as to be overwhelming, but not so little as to allow for confusion and alarm.
Are you ready to be grounded and regulated yourself so you can listen to any concerns with openness and empathy, and de-escalate any rising tensions?

A really good way to prepare your communication is to get input and feedback from those impacted by changes, both so that you are making better decisions, and also so you can formally or informally test for reactions so you can design a better communication plan.

At CCI, we are constantly listening to reactions and responses to our work and doing our best to adjust accordingly. This doesn’t mean that any negative or uncomfortable response is bad and to be avoided, but it’s all valuable information that informs our work.

One thing we’ve found, for example, is that it takes a while for folks to digest the findings that we deliver. Over time we’ve more carefully considered how we phase the delivery of our findings, often delivering them to smaller groups before bringing everyone together. This means that people have time to process and have their initial reactions in smaller groups where there is a higher degree of psychological safety. By the time we bring everyone together, they may have already heard the findings at least once, which can feel repetitive to some, but many have told us they can hear them differently and better the second time when they knew what to expect.

Another completely unrelated example is how some people, myself included, like to read episode recaps of TV shows that have any element of suspense, danger or violence. I’m one of those people whose nervous system just can’t take it, especially in recent years. I’m not even talking about horror movies or thrillers - I mean anything unpredictable. If I can read an episode recap or even a plot synopsis beforehand, I can handle it much better.

FLEXIBILITY

Flexibility can seem to be in conflict with predictability, but it needs to be a balance.

“Because we can end up extrasensitive to the cues in our environment and go into survival mode at a moment’s notice, people with trauma need flexibility so that they can feel their feelings and not feel rushed and out of control because they’re trying to fit into someone else’s schedule.” (Vent)

I believe everyone benefits from some flexibility - it’s another way of talking about equity, which means that everyone gets what they need, not that everyone gets the same thing.

Leaders in organizations often worry that flexibility means being “unfair” or “inconsistent” or “coddling”. When we are used to inflexible systems ourselves, it can be easy to feel “well I had to figure out how to deal with it and much worse, everyone else should too.”

Yes AND… do we really want to be passing on our own traumas?

Of course, policy and other changes need to be consistent but flexibility can be built in consistently by allowing for as much choice as possible to meet different needs. Often, a focus on outcomes can create consistency, while also providing for flexibility.

For example, at CCI, we have a standard system for tracking time (we use Toggl). It wouldn’t work for everyone to pick their own time tracking system - we need all the data in one place so it can be combined.

However, what we DO do is provide people the resources to record their time however they like, and to utilize our ops team to get the data into Toggl. A few members of the team never even touch Toggl! We have a small team, so of course it’s a little harder at scale… but not impossible.

This is not just trauma-informed, it is supportive of neurodiversity. This is probably a topic for another post but ableism means that our systems, including the workplace, often inflict a lot of trauma on those who are neurodiverse, as well as those who don’t conform to dominant culture in a variety of ways. Operationalized flexibility that is accessible to all those who need it (and not just a privileged few) is a way to mitigate some of the impacts of oppressive systems that are, almost by definition, inflexible to most.

EMPOWERMENT

Empowerment takes a “power with” rather than a “power over” approach (Vent). A lot of communication with leaders are not only about policies and changes that take a “power over” approach, but are also communicated in that same way.

However, what we see is that often even more inclusive policies and changes are communicated from a “power over” perspective that undermines both the intention and impact of those changes. DEI work itself can get opened up to weaponization when used as a cudgel, or to create a kind of “DEI police,” something that is all too common in organizations.

It’s why we believe it’s so important that the process of creating inclusion should itself be inclusive that it’s in our business name. We take our name seriously!

We are so ingrained into a culture of surveillance. Or we overcorrect and go into the opposite direction of over-permissiveness, something our team has been discussing recently.

A more empowering approach is to think about accountability, support and community care. This needs to bw embedded not just in policies and change but in how they are communicated.

Are you telling people or inviting them?
Are you expressing support or control?
Are you acknowledging and creating space for different reactions or are you telling people how to feel?
Are you building in choice, consent and agency wherever you can?

CONNECTION

Connection to me is a natural partner with empowerment. When you move from “power over” to “power with” you are opening up the possibility for more connection.

Especially when communicating change, is your communication building connection or is it purely “transactional” in communicating information?
Is your communication driven by frustration or can you tap into expressing genuine empathy that fosters connection?
Are you bringing people together or pushing them apart?

Of course, this has to be done authentically - people can smell lip service in workplace communication from a mile away.

This requires leaders to once again be grounded and regulated themselves, and I feel I should note that this is much easier said than done. Compassion fatigue is a very real and difficult aspect of trauma that we are seeing amongst leaders, and should also be addressed systemically and not just left to individuals to attempt to manage. That’s probably another topic for a future blog post as well.

Putting it all together

Communication is just one area that needs to be trauma-informed, but it’s an important one. As I said, DEI efforts can be seriously undermined otherwise.

Likely you will need to put more thought and energy into trauma-informed communication than you are used to and that can be frustrating, I get it. It can feel like unnecessary handholding that is getting in the way of your “real” job.

However, communication is part of every leader’s “real” job and I promise you, skipping over this step will only create more work in the long run.

Instead, build in time for trauma-informed communication. Plan for it at the start of each project and things will go much more smoothly.

Further reading:

The unexpected reason your team is struggling - Rachael Ellison of ReWorking Leadership
Rachael links to a longer article on Healing Systems by Laura Calderon de la Barca, Katherine Milligan & John Kania, Stanford Social Innovation Review. I got a couple of the quotes above from this article.
When trauma and power intersect - CCI blog post
Infusing trauma and equity awareness into decision making and planning - CCI blog post

Banner photo by Fang-Wei Lin on Unsplash