Unmanaged Workplace Strategy

Hi. I’m Elizabeth and this is Unmanaged. When a team breaks, there are no longer collective goals. The goal for each person becomes survival. And inadvertently, people fighting a toxic work environment sometimes contribute to that environment without the support of a team and or a leader. Each person becomes siloed. Thanks for reading Unmanaged! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support...

This week was heavy — naming abusive tactics at work, looking at them directly, sitting with what they do. If that took something out of you, that's not weakness. It means you were paying attention. This closing video is about what you leave the week with. In this video: What gossip, sabotage, DARVO, gaslighting, and exclusion all have in common — and what they're designed to do Why knowing yourse...

Deep breaths. Maybe you were gaslit today. Maybe it happens every day. It’s real, and it’s not okay. Tonight we are going to take the tools we’ve been building this week and breathe life into them — because gaslighting works by taking air out of the room. We are putting it back. Ready? Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Feet on the floor. Feel the floor underneath you. That is your documented realit...

DARVO happened. You wrote your reality anchor notes. You read them repeatedly. You feel confident in your account of what occurred. And then you try to go to sleep. The thoughts start: What if they’re right? This is the moment to return to what you know — about what happened, and about yourself. After my confrontation with my boss, I found myself circling back to the apology I had offered. I apolo...

“I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” I remember laughing at Al Franken’s character Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live. And then, many years later, I remember saying those exact words in earnest — standing in front of a mirror, trying to get ready for a job that was proving to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated. Sometimes someone else’s narrative takes...

Elizabeth Arnott: I’ve been doing this work for 25 years. Now, it has a home. I’m Elizabeth, this is Unmanaged, and I want to tell you something that I’ve been working on for a long time. Elizabeth Arnott: For 25 years, people have been finding me. Former colleagues, friends of friends, people I worked alongside years earlier who were in something difficult and didn’t have anywhere else to turn. E...

Depending on your environment, you might hear gossip every single day. The opportunities for speculation and sensationalism are constant — and sometimes tantalizing. Resist. Here’s the thing. You know what you know. You have your own reality anchors. You know what is true, what is connected to you, and what isn’t. The practice is learning to return to that — deliberately, and on purpose. Start wit...

You know the ones. The meetings that follow you home. That replay on the drive back, over dinner, at two in the morning when you should be asleep. The ones where the volume — literal or emotional — was high enough that your nervous system is still running the tape hours later. This is one of the most common and most draining features of a difficult work environment. And it’s where containment beco...

Today we talked about collaboration — how working with the right people, in the right way, builds your reputation and deepens others’ confidence in you. Tonight we’re taking that one step further. Because collaboration isn’t just about the work. It’s about what you signal to the people around you while the work is happening. Let’s ground first. Feet on the floor. Feel the ground supporting you. De...

“Hey, can I stop by on my way back to my office?” Heather worked in a different building across the street. We had just come out of a contentious leadership meeting that had ended in confusion, raised voices, and — I’m not making this up — a barking dog. She was upset. She needed to debrief. This is a familiar moment. Someone you work with wants to process what just happened, and they’ve chosen yo...

Yesterday we prepared for the people. Today, we’re in the room with them. You did the work. You grounded yourself. You ran through the likely scenarios. You practiced staying calm in the moments you could see coming. Now the meeting is actually happening — and Brenda has just started loudly countering Keri’s point. Keri raises her voice. They are talking about your work. Here we go. Feet on the fl...

You already know who’s going to be in this meeting. And if you’ve worked with these people for any length of time, you already know what’s coming. Mary gets defensive the moment her department comes up. Mark will find a way to make this about something completely unrelated. Jenna receives feedback like it’s a personal attack and returns fire accordingly. You know the performances. You’ve seen them...

This week we talked about strategy. Trend watching. Testing communication. SWOT analysis. Scenario planning. Mission, vision, values. All of it matters. But none of it works if you remove the most important variable. You. You are the strategy. Not your resume. Not your savings account. Not your manager’s approval. You. And if you neglect yourself while building a plan, the plan will collapse under...

After talking about planning today, I want to slow it down. Because planning is not about urgency. It’s about peace. Because the opposite of feeling trapped is not escape. It’s choice. And choice — even small, quiet choice — changes your nervous system. When you believe there is only one path, your body tightens. When you see multiple paths, something softens. You don’t have to take them. You just...

Today we talked about conducting a Self-SWOT. Strengths. Weaknesses. Opportunities. Threats. On paper, that can feel clinical. But underneath it is something much more personal. Self-discovery. If you are in a hard workplace right now, it can feel like you’re stranded. Like you’ve washed up somewhere you didn’t choose. Like everyone else is moving forward and you’re stuck assessing damage. But tha...

If you are in a hard workplace right now, I want to say something clearly. You are not stuck. It may feel that way. It may look that way on paper. But feeling stuck and being stuck are not the same thing. Today we talked about using your employer as a testing ground. Trying different communication methods. Testing boundaries. Watching how different personalities respond. That is not desperation. T...

Today we talked about watching internal and external trends. Who’s leaving. What’s shifting. Where the market is moving. But tonight, I want to bring this back to you. Because all the data in the world will not help you if you don’t trust your own interpretation of it. Here’s what I mean. You already know things. You know: * How your body reacts when something feels unstable. * What kind of pace d...

We’re closing the week with something simple. Steady is strong. Not loud. Not forceful. Not dominating. Steady. In chaotic systems, strength often gets confused with intensity. The fastest responder looks powerful. The sharpest voice sounds confident. The most emotional reaction feels convincing. But intensity is not strength. Intensity is activation. Strength is regulation. This week, you practic...

Today we practiced something deceptively simple: Document, don’t defend. Send the alignment email. Choose clarity over convincing. Tonight, I want to ground us in why this matters. In volatile environments, it’s easy to slip into convincing mode. Convincing that you were right. Convincing that you weren’t at fault. Convincing that your memory is accurate. Convincing that your tone was appropriate....

Today we talked about neutral acknowledgments versus agreements and neutral phrases to use instead of emotional reactions. Tonight, I want to bring it together with this idea: Neutrality as a verbal boundary. Most of us were never taught how to set boundaries calmly. We were taught two extremes. Silent seething on one end. Emotional escalation on the other. Neutrality lives in the middle. It says:...

Today we practiced neutrality. We observed without absorbing. We paused after our gut reaction to notice, pause and ask. Tonight I want to name what this actually builds: Calm observation is POWER . Not loud power. Not positional power. Not dominating power. Internal power. In a chaotic or emotionally charged workplace, the strongest emotional current usually wins the room. But when you remain neu...

Today we started learning neutrality. This morning we talked about approaching neutrality as regulated participation instead of withdrawing from a situation. And this afternoon, we practiced the Reactivity Check — noticing breath, posture, tone, and thought speed in emotional meetings. Tonight, I want to bring this together with one steady truth: You don’t have to react to be responsible. In toxic...

This week, we built something steady. We started with zooming out. Then we filtered noise from information. We mapped context — power, audience, stakes. We practiced the pause. And today, we dialed in our level of engagement. Each of those skills stands alone. Together, they form discernment. Discernment is not suspicion. It’s not cynicism. It’s not emotional detachment. It is clarity in motion. I...

Today we slowed things down. This morning, we named speed as the enemy of discernment. This afternoon, we practiced the 24-hour rule — waiting before responding when something activates you. Now let’s talk about what actually happens inside the pause because pausing is not passive. It’s active regulation. When you rest on an idea, a response, or an action, several things shift. Emotional intensity...

Today we layered two powerful filters. This morning, we talked about how context changes meaning. This afternoon, we mapped context — looking at power, audience, stakes, and informal influence. Now we bring that together with something you practiced a couple of weeks ago: Patterns. Because context explains a moment. Patterns explain repetition. Discernment lives where those two overlap. Let’s slow...