Interpersonal hernia or What is common in the climate in the team and back problems

Everything in our life is subject to common logic, functions according to the same laws, follows the same rules. This truth was told to me a couple of weeks ago by my first boss, now my good friend. He cited a simple example from personal experience, comparing the structure of the army with the structure of any enterprise. Specifically, under the comparison got such a category as a team and its size, optimal for effective management. Not without reason, he, my friend, said that it was extremely difficult if not impossible to manage a group of more than 8 people. And he made an analogy with the smallest army unit. Watching Wikipedia: true, there are 3-8 people in the link.

Today a metaphorical analogy of several entities that are distant from each other came to my mind: a) an enterprise / company / firm and b) a human spine in combination with back muscles. Thus, my reasoning will be about teamwork and biomechanics, about not very good trends, about problems - about everything that these two categories, in my opinion, have in common. As a result, I will try to understand and formulate how to take care of the health of the team and the back.
Both topics are very interesting, close, somewhere painful for me. I do not claim to be an expert in any of them, I am writing solely on the basis of my practical and theoretical experience.

According to statistics, 80% of the world's population suffers from back pain. One third of the population (28.4%) aged 18–70 years experience recurrent back pain, 89% have had a relatively long back pain episode at least once throughout their lives. It seems to me that statistics regarding conflicts at work can be very similar in numbers.
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I will try to build my own analogy in order to make a start from what. I will dare to narrow down the scope of unification a little, and I choose the testing department that is close to me as the “experimental” team.

And so, the team begins with simple "ordinary" employees, with engineers. The bearing element of the human body is the spine. Therefore, I see a logical comparison of each individual worker with vertebrae and intervertebral discs. The team is divided into teams. They are working on different projects, for example, but one way or another they ultimately serve the common goal - to provide the company with profits. Similarly, the spine is conditionally divided into sections.

We will pay special attention to the most important chief of all this disgrace, in our case - the head of the QA department (in fact, the director, the president of the company, the head of the functional direction is not important). As a rule, this person is competent, experienced, strong, authoritative, rightly located on the top of the hierarchy. With its influence it covers everyone, if it is bad for him - bad for everyone, the opposite is not always true, it can easily bend people down. Here is an analogy:

“The greatest development is reached by the muscles of the surface layer, which are of the type of strong muscles that perform mainly static work.
...
The muscle that straightens the spine is the strongest of the autochthonous muscles of the back, extending along the entire length of the spine - from the sacrum to the base of the skull ”

In my opinion, the similarity is evident.

And yes, each of the teams has leaders. They plan, control, stimulate, motivate, praise and blame - in general, they turn as they please and as the situation demands. Here is their analog from the world of anatomy:

“The transverse-spinal muscle is represented by a multitude of muscle bundles arranged in layers, which extend obliquely upwards from the lateral to the medial side from the transverse to the spinous processes of the vertebrae. Muscle bundles of the cross-spinal muscles have a different length and, spreading over a different number of vertebrae, form individual muscles: semi-partial, multi-part and rotator muscles.
...
The half-bony muscle has the form of long muscle bundles, starts from the transverse processes of the underlying vertebrae, spreads through four to six vertebrae and attaches to the spinous processes ”

I turn to the description of the problems. I will push off from a back towards management.

This is how back pain evolves and how a person treats it.
1) Discomfort appears. Most often in the lumbar region. And you think: hmmmm, well, anything can happen, get more and stop. Compare: there is light tension and discomfort in the team. No one understands the reason, but something is already flying in the air.
2) It hurts, it does not stop. But you continue to sit incorrectly, lift heavy objects (most likely also incorrectly), carry buckets, jump while playing basketball, maybe even go to the gym and again try to recover. Hyperextension is fine, but if you do not re-bend. Deadlift - bad. Weight squats are very bad. Any axial load on the spine is not good. In the team: it is gradually becoming clear what is missing. Misunderstood, not grateful, not praised. And the scale does not decrease, but only increase.
3) There comes an understanding that you need to try something else. Maybe stretch? Thought fit. But stretch marks on their own, even under ideal conditions, can only relieve sensations for a while. Literally for an hour. In a team: maybe ask someone for advice? Can the alleged perpetrator try to hint? Attempts timid, futile.
4) What's next? Thoughts are not very optimistic. So much so that you decide to look to the doctor. Hello, uncle neurologist! Reception As a rule, he rarely goes beyond answering questions and tilting to the floor. “Well, freedom of movement is not limited. All is well. Here's a book for you, here are described exercises for stretching the muscles of the back. Do - get better. And still buy Nurofen and rub! ”. Arguments that stretch marks have already been tried are impossible for doctors to penetrate. He is already confident in your speedy and complete recovery, if he does not suspect a simulation at all. An analogue in a team can be an appeal to one of the related managers or simply to a senior partner for advice. Comrade convinces you that you wind yourself up and exaggerate.
5) A new exercise cycle, extremely similar to the previous one, is not crowned with radical changes in well-being. Let's go to the therapist? Perhaps. Immediately he, of course, will not determine anything. But send on x-rays. Well, why not ... X-ray is ready. Icho, as they say? Well, slightly curved spine? Well, who can boast of his perfect lines. “This distortion hurts me, doctor?” - “It’s hard to say. You should have some vitamins! ” You continue those very“ shy attempts ”no longer believing in the result. Another comrade did not open the magic path to improving the situation
6) Again, light suspicions of quackery. Maybe another neurologist? Attempt is not torture. Lucky a little more. A woman shows a little more interest in the problem, asks questions. And in general, advanced, sits on a reception with a laptop, communicates with someone in contact. The magic word “MRI” sounds. Good for someone who has a voluntary medical insurance policy, who can take the right picture for free. No LCA - please post 2-3 thousand rubles. But in general, a useful thing. Highly. At least, unlike X-rays, which show only bone images, MRI gives an idea of ​​the state of soft tissues and fluids. Namely, in them lies the reason for the whole illness, as we will find out later. For example, this is the stage at which an attempt is made to look at the situation from a slightly different angle. Conclusions - in the next paragraph.
7) The doctor looks at the MRI image, at the conclusion. It turns out that pain is not just like that. Problems of two intervertebral discs were discovered at once: protrusion and extrusion. The first is not a too terrible phenomenon, in fact, the initial stage, the second is the very “hernia”, if in a simple way. The doctor shakes his head. Yes, in general, everyone shakes their heads, if they find out that you, so young and athletic, have earned this problem. What does the doctor recommend this time? By a completely random and incredibly successful set of circumstances, she turns out to be an experienced massage therapist and offers to complete her course for a lump sum. Plus, he wants you to buy medicine for thousands of 5-6, lay down a bit under droppers, passed a course of physiotherapy. You go deep in thought. An understanding is formed that the problem is not imaginary. And the source is localized. But how to be? Maybe some fashion training? Maybe books? Unclear...
8) Well, if you do not jump right off the bat. But the pain is very unpleasant, and the brain no longer remembers even that state of lightness, when you simply do not think about your back. And ideas come to mind different, even to the desire to lie under a scalpel. After all, this is radical and surely reliable! (extremely idiotic ideas in general). But returning to the medication. 5-6 thousand? Health, after all, is more expensive. And you almost agree. And you think that they won't do worse. It is later, when smart books get into the hands, it turns out that during electrophoresis, for example, there are such regularities:

“By giving a plus to the lumbar region (with any drugs under or without an electrode), and even with currents hundreds and thousands of times higher than the currents used, for example, with electro-puncture, the physiotherapist risks spoiling the patient’s kidneys and his cardiovascular system, provide the patient with kidney stones. By applying a minus (regardless of the drugs used with or without them) to the lumbar region, the physiotherapist disrupts the patient's urine and fixes the muscular blockade of the intervertebral discs to such an extent that further treatment with other methods becomes extremely difficult and lingers for months. ”

Radicalism is possible in the team. Well you can just escape from the company nafik. But you seem to like it there, and what the hell, one wonders. They turn up by chance or not by the arm of a vacancy, but there is a realization that “there” is not at all better.
9) Luck smiles, and yet there is a third neurologist who knows his job, he is a real professional. He looks at what he has prescribed for you and shakes his head. Not because of your hernia. “If I had not seen you in front of me, I would have thought that the recipe for a patient of retirement age who was semi-paralyzed after an accident.” And the first thing this doctor finally explains to you is what's the matter and what hurts you. It turns out that these are not bones or discs - they simply cannot hurt. And no roots are pinched. Only muscles can hurt. And they hurt because they protect the spine in the very place where they gave slack discs. The muscles are fixed in one state and do not relax at all. And it continues for years. Yes, for years. That's all.

“It is obvious that the long muscles of the back, contracting, compress not one or two spinal discs, but a large number of them at once. In any case, the contraction of long back muscles occurs along their entire length, rather than selectively, in a small part of the muscle, equal to the height of one intervertebral disk. One or (less commonly) two intervertebral discs can excessively compress only short back muscles that have a length not greater than the affected part of the spine. Such short muscles are only among the so-called deep back muscles. First and foremost, these are the lateral and medial inter-transverse muscles of the lower back and interosseous muscles. It is the presence of the lateral and medial intertransverse muscles between the transverse processes of the vertebrae that distinguishes the lumbar spine from its other parts. And according to this, the largest number of cases of pronounced pain in the spine falls on its lumbar spine. ”

Remember them? It is with them above I compared the linear managers, team leads. It is in them that the cause of the spinal illness is seen and, by analogy of the command.
But back to thinking about the disease.
Finally, at least something becomes clear. Finally, the first plan to combat the disease is born, supported by theory. What needs to be done with the clamped muscles? The rule of three "P": warm up, stretch, stretch. Daily. Plus a swimming pool, sauna and contrasting showers.
You finally talked to the supreme commander. And he is the first to convince you that the problem is not fatal, that it is possible and necessary to deal with it, that there are levers of influence, only the “first”, “second” and “third” are needed.
10) You believed in the success of the enterprise and are almost ready to begin. As usual, you do it not immediately, but "from Monday". And here's the irony, a couple of days before him, by raising two kegs of water to your floor in the office, and unsuccessfully jumping into the ring in the evening, you realize that everything is bad. And you get up just turning on your stomach, sliding on the floor, on all fours, and slowly unbending. Start shooting in the leg, in the thigh. Another relationship crisis, the peak of misunderstanding, which results in another pit of negative mood and pessimism.



11) Either you have enough faith, or your instincts suggest, but you understand that only movement will help you recover, you try to sit less, go to the horizontal bar, pull your knees to your chest, through pain, you act according to the program of three "R". But since then no more basketball. And even somehow you need to make it clear to yourself (first of all) and those around you that you can no longer bring 19 liters in one hand. You understand that there seems to be nothing to lose, and finally you decide to be frank - what has been done for a long time. It is difficult and unpleasant to start, but they have moved from the dead center, the message is at least heard by those who are involved in the conflict with you.
12) Exercises really help. But it seems that for complete recovery again something very important is missing. Muscles relax, stretch, but they are still weak, and are still not able to cope with even the slightest excess of their functional threshold, as if they are just waiting to return to the state of hard stretched strings, reliable turnbuckles, which have been screwed to the limit. Muscles need to be strengthened. It seems that mutual understanding has been restored. But there is a feeling of insecurity that this will not happen again, that both have drawn the right conclusions and will try to avoid a similar situation in the future.

Here I stop the list. The evolution is complete. The presentation was formed. It took not a lot, not a little - almost 3 years.
It remains only to understand what and how to strengthen.

In order not to be frustrated and not to try the patience of those who are interested in the back as far as, I hide the answers about her in the spoiler.


Returning to our virtual team.
Imagine two situations:
1) I work in a team. The team is led by a good specialist with weak management skills. At the same time, the QA-director is an absolutely wonderful person who arouses solely respect and desire to seize the banner to run after him in any battle. What is the result? The Tim-leader tightens the screws, behaves severely, communicates with difficulty and sometimes through force, is closed, does not know the word “thank you”, poorly or imperceptibly represents the interests of the team. And it turns out that thanks to the QA-director, everything seems to be normal, the climate as a whole is not bad, there is a common goal, and everyone is moving in the same direction, in an organized way. But in one particular team there is discomfort, there is tightness, constraint. And the longer this condition persists, the worse for the team members. And if it suddenly happens that some excess amount of work falls on it, if you have to make an over-effort to overcome what you are not thanked again, some element of the team can go outside. Such a protrusion in the team. For some time, the director (I remind you, the muscle that straightens the spine) can restrain this “protrusion”. At least with the help of only his authority. But this is an extra effort on his part, an extra effort. And he can yield. And the protrusion will turn into extrusion. And the chain can be continued until people outside intervene in this whole system, HR organizations of a third-party organization, a kind of surgeons, who will take and barbarously decorate a person with a spoon.


2) The opposite is true. Imagine that the QA-director and the team lead from the previous example are reversed.The main managuer is a selfish person, he has a weak authority, indirectly spits on the team, protects the interests of only some of the members of the organization that are closest to him for one reason or another. Probably, in this situation, nothing good can come out, no matter how good the team leads. The team will turn out crooked, slouching, twisted. And no matter how hard the vertebrae and discs of this company, along with the hardworking lead, pain can not be avoided.

Why am I all this? In addition to the fact that there should not be any problems in the team, if there is a competent manager at the helm, your back will not hurt, if the muscles are in order. Any misunderstanding, inconsistency, conflicts, even, the manager can and should solve. This is quite aptly described in the notorious “Black Book of the Manager” (who does not know - written in the form of an appeal to the notorious manager):

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As you can see, I do not exclude situations when the worker is a deer. In certain situations, when the intervertebral disc is almost crushed into pieces, removing it and replacing it with an artificial one is the only option. So in the team.

What is important, moreover, is prevention of problems. The body needs to be trained, the team is team building. Sometimes treat, not without it. Drugs, as they say, are not tasty, but it is possible to suffer every six months. Exceptions, it must be admitted, occur (massage, for example, is very even a combination of the pleasant and the useful, as well as, say, high-quality group trainings for the team). It is necessary to avoid any "Nurofen". As one stupid doctor said to me, if human skin absorbed everything so well, we would all have become extinct. The team, and first of all its lead, must also carefully 1) filter what they absorb into themselves from the outside world, 2) not “rub” into themselves what is the meaning of zero.

We must remember that there is a tone and hypertonia. Either the team works in a normal mode and it is enough to spend nights, weekends, regular holidays to relieve fatigue. Either the team plows without straightening, not seeing the light of white, constant processing, working Saturdays and Sundays, no light in the tunnel - and then it is stuck. And getting out of such a state is sometimes much more difficult than getting into it.

Another interesting feature in which I once again find the similarity of the objects of my humble research: large pockets of pain drown out smaller ones, in my opinion, exactly the same way as large-scale problems in a team are minor. What is the conclusion?First, do not close your eyes to such things, because who knows what an infinitely decreasing progression of troubles is behind them. Secondly, do not flatter yourself in advance that getting rid of one will not find the other.

Yes, my analogy is not perfect. And of course there are things that can not be drawn by comparison. For example, I am sure that a good manager should not strive to preserve the reliability of his position by trying to concentrate in his hands some unique knowledge and skills. He should share them entirely, without fear of being "podsizhnym". After all, this will allow him to quietly go on vacation, sometimes to take sick leave, and he will prepare a shift in case the manager himself rises to a new step. In the back does not work. What muscles can do, vertebrae and discs cannot by any means.

My back is still not as healthy as I would like, but I understood its basic mechanisms and patterns. Now the movement towards the goal and the work on the problem have become much more conscious and directed. I am sure that this also works in management. If a manager realizes that there is a problem, reflects on its essence, conducts a dialogue, asks the “elders” for advice when necessary, remains a person, plays on the side of the Team - they will have everything Narmul.

To those who have read this far already here, I will allow you to give a little advice: treat the problems that are similar to the ones I described here, also a little philosophically. Everything in this world is given to us for a reason. And I am glad that a hernia happened to me. Do not believe?Now I know how to ensure that my children never come across this pathology. I will not carry out analogies with management here, I leave room for your imagination.

PS Take off your leg!