Own Your Armor summary

On the surface, work is the place where we earn a living and gain a sense of stability. Beyond that, it’s also a social environment where we can experience feelings of belonging, value, and appreciation for our work.

Since the workplace impacts so many aspects of life, it also presents the opportunity for a lot of threats. The largest threat will always be the possibility of losing your job. But there’s also the potential to be excluded by teammates, feel that your work is undervalued, or even be mistreated by upper management. 

When a team is dysfunctional, the initial reaction is usually to figure out who’s causing the strife. In most cases, this takes the form of rooting out “bad apples” – the culprits most likely to be driving the dysfunction.

This can lead to questions like “Who isn’t working hard enough?” “Which employees aren’t team players?” or even “Who’s driving everyone crazy?”

When you bring up the idea that everyone on the team contributes to the dysfunction, odds are at least one person will say, “But I haven’t done anything wrong!” In fact, most people will argue that they’re actively trying to make things better.

But as we learned in the last section, even well-meaning actions contribute to the overall team dynamic and culture. There are no “bad apples” who cause all of the trouble, but there are also no “good apples” who never do anything wrong. 

Most conflicts – even between couples or families – follow what Brody calls a “threat/armor cycle.” Workplace conflicts are no exception. When someone feels threatened, they put on their armor. No matter what style they choose – fight, flight, or even freeze – this irritates or threatens the other party so that they inevitably armor up too.

The biggest problem is that this vicious cycle doesn’t just affect the two parties involved – it impacts the whole team. For example, if some choose the “flight” style of armor and disengage from their work, it makes it much harder for the rest of the team to do their jobs effectively.

It may seem counterintuitive, but it’s actually very difficult to improve team dynamics using collective language or individual feedback. 

Speaking to the group as a whole and saying things like “We all need to communicate more” probably won’t have any major effect in the long run. Meanwhile, individual comments like “The way you armor up is slowing down the rest of the team” are all but certain to backfire and cause the person to become even more defensive.

Whether you’re an employee or a leader, it’s important to uncover the truth behind your armor so you can keep it from affecting the rest of the team. This process of “owning your armor” has three parts. 

The first step is to own your threats. To do this, consider a few important questions. What behaviors really bother you at work? Is there a particular person you find to be the most threatening? What is it about them that frustrates you the most? 

The goal of self-reflection is for each team member to be able to shed their armor and interact positively as their “core” or true self. The key thing to remember here is that bad communication is armored, while good communication is unarmored.

Once everyone has done the individual work of owning their armor, they can start having healthy, productive conversations about it. Talking about how other people’s actions impact you is feedback. In contrast, talking about how your actions might affect other people is owning. 

Earlier we learned that every member of a team, regardless of whether they’re typically viewed as a good or bad worker, contributes to the overall culture. This counts for leaders as well. 

Team leaders respond to threats like any other member – by armoring up. The only difference is that a leader's armor has an oversized impact, because everyone takes their cues from the top. It’s incredibly important for a leader to own their armor, but it takes courage and vulnerability.

A team that takes advantage of the Own Your Armor approach has so much to gain. This process not only fosters better team relationships, improves culture, and deepens trust – it also has the potential to increase performance at both the individual and team level. 

When members of a team operate as their core selves, they’re able to show their strengths and perform at their best on an interpersonal level. When a team armors up, the opposite happens. No matter how hard they try, the team’s strengths will always be pushed out of the way as everyone focuses on threats.