5-year-olds don't change... they just get jobs.

Before I worked in organizational development, before I studied counseling, and before I learned words like attachment styles, emotional regulation, and cognitive distortions, I spent my days with a room full of five-year-olds.

As it turns out, kindergarten may have been one of the best introductions to workplace dynamics I could have ever received.

I taught kindergarten while earning my Bachelor's Degree in Clinical Psychology, and now, as a Master's student in Mental Health Counseling and a member of the team at Accompany Suite, I find myself returning to those classroom moments more often than I expected.

Because people change. But people also don't.

Different Words. Same EMotion.

Five-year-olds are wonderfully honest versions of the adults they eventually become.

If one student was upset because another student got to be the line leader,

I didn't hear:

"I feel overlooked."

I heard:

"It's not fair! He got it yesterday!"

Different words. Same emotion.

When a child crossed their arms and declared, "Fine, I'm not playing anymore," they weren't being difficult. They were protecting themselves from disappointment, embarrassment, or rejection. Adults do this too. We just call it disengagement.

Sometimes it looks like withdrawing from meetings. Sometimes it looks like silence instead of disagreement. Sometimes it looks like checking out emotionally while remaining physically present. The behavior changes form, but the need underneath often remains the same.

The Work Beneath the Conflict.

Then there were the conflict mediations.

Kindergarten teachers spend an incredible amount of time helping children navigate sentences like:

• "She won't play with me."

• "He took my marker."

• "She said my drawing wasn't good."

My role wasn't to determine a winner and a loser. It was to help them identify what happened, communicate what they needed, listen to another perspective, and repair the relationship.

Oddly enough, this sounds very similar to many workplace conversations.

The stakes are higher, the salaries are larger, and there are significantly fewer glitter glue incidents, but the work is very familiar.

People want to feel heard.

People want to feel respected.

People want to know they matter.

We Don't Outgrow the Need to Belong.

One of my favorite kindergarten memories involved a student bursting into tears because another child didn't want to marry him. At five years old, that felt catastrophic. As adults, we smile at moments like that. But then we spend days replaying conversations in our heads after feeling left out of a meeting, passed over for an opportunity, or sensing distance in a relationship that used to feel easy.

Maybe we are not as different from five-year-olds as we would like to believe.

The difference is that adults become much more sophisticated in the ways we protect ourselves.

• Five-year-olds cry when they feel excluded. Adults stop contributing in meetings.

• Five-year-olds loudly announce, "That's not fair!" Adults quietly build resentment.

• Five-year-olds tell you exactly what they're feeling. Adults often expect everyone else to figure it out without ever saying it out loud.

Behavior Always Has a Story.

My studies in clinical psychology and counseling have given me language for many of these patterns, but I first learned to recognize them sitting cross-legged on a classroom rug during morning circle.

Those experiences taught me something that my education has only continued to reinforce: behavior almost always makes sense once we understand the need, fear, or story sitting underneath it.

Every reaction tells a story. 

Every emotion points toward a need.

Every conflict usually has something deeper sitting beneath the surface.

Organizations Are Just People in a Room.

The workplace is not separate from humanity. Organizations are simply groups of people bringing their experiences, fears, strengths, assumptions, and stories into the same room and asking them to accomplish something together.

• That is why communication matters.

• That is why trust matters.

• That is why emotional intelligence matters.

  
  

The longer I spend studying human behavior, the more I realize that healthy organizations are not built by eliminating conflict or emotion. They are built by creating environments where people have the tools to navigate both well.

Ironically, some of the best lessons I ever learned about leadership, communication, and relationships came from a room full of twenty-five children who thought dinosaurs still existed and believed Band-Aids could fix almost anything.

Some days, I think they may have been onto something.

What patterns have you noticed in your

own team, or in yourself?

Sometimes the most important workplace dynamics aren't new at all. They've just become more sophisticated over time.

If you're interested in creating healthier communication, stronger relationships, and cultures where people can navigate conflict well, we'd love to continue the conversation.

Haley Goebel

Accompany Suite