Backchanneling: When reactivity reigns
Someone hurries into your office, or pulls you into theirs, or sideline chats online with you while the meeting is happening. That’s what I call the “meeting after the meeting” - aka backchanneling. It’s the unofficial space where disagreements, perceived slights, or confusion get hashed over and over. Yet not addressed where they matter most: in the room, during the meeting itself, or to the person actually involved.
It’s the surge of frustrations that started well before that moment. In organizational terms, backchanneling is often fueled by frustration that hasn’t been addressed in the right space. If it’s left unchecked, it can escalate into collective or explosive rage, spreading negativity and reactivity across the team. Sadly, I know too many stories about that one colleague who went off during a meeting in a fit of rage and no one did anything to intervene.
At first, it might feel like a harmless connection, or even a necessary release. But this venting is more likely unfiltered rage and irritation that quickly turns reactive. It spreads through the team like a contagion, eroding trust, lowering morale, and pulling energy away from collaboration.
People spend more time managing emotions than doing meaningful work, and before long, creativity stalls and productivity drops. I have clients who, because of their caring nature and people-pleasing patterns, end up as the sounding board for this reactivity. One people manager, when she and I first started working together, would spend the majority of her days ‘therapizing’ (my made-up word) her team members individually. She asked me how she was ever supposed to get her work done. My answer was simple in words: stop rescuing them and being complicit in their complaining without self-accountability.
That’s exactly where my Resilient Teams program steps in. Over 10 weeks, teams, along with their leaders or managers, learn to transform reactive energy into intentional action. We focus on building the capacity to notice triggers, regulate responses, and create space for direct, constructive dialogue.
Here’s what we rebuild together:
Self- and systems awareness: Recognize how stress, frustration, and old patterns ripple through the team.
Emotional and cognitive regulation: Pause, notice triggers, and respond intentionally rather than reactively.
Transparent communication and trust-building: Learn to surface tensions constructively so that backchanneling loses its hold. Distinguish gossip from real feedback and have critical conversations confidently.
Proactive problem-solving: Replace cycles of blame or avoidance with shared accountability and forward momentum.
In that same biotech company I worked with, where the people manager was stuck therapizing, we worked together through two major rounds of restructuring. These resilience skill sets made tangible, lasting differences. Teams built steadiness and trust, even under high pressure. Nine months later, individuals were still using the tools, checking in with each other, and noticing when patterns of backchanneling or reactivity were creeping in. The result? Resilience became the norm, not stress.
Teams that master the shift from rage to reactivity survive challenges, and some thrive. If your team is navigating high stakes, organizational change, or everyday overwhelm, this program helps them carry resilience together, instead of carrying stress.
Schedule a consultation today to explore how we can tailor this program to your team’s needs and leadership goals.