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Coaching for Leaders: Help Your Team Embrace Growth Mindset

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Coaching for Leaders: Help Your Team Embrace Growth Mindset

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644: Help Your Team Embrace Growth Mindset, with Eduardo Briceño

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Listen to this episode from Coaching for Leaders on Spotify. Eduardo Briceño: The Performance Paradox Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker and facilitator who guides many of the world's leading companies in developing cultures of learning and high performance.

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Francesca Gino, a professor at Harvard Business School, shares a compelling business case for curiosity. Her research shows allowing employees to exercise their curiosity can lead to fewer conflicts and better outcomes. However, even managers who value inquisitive thinking often discourage curiosity…

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Developer Career Roadmap: Open Minded Curiosity

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Developer Career Roadmap: Open Minded Curiosity

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DCR: Open Minded Curiosity

Episode Summary

Today's episode is the next of a series of episodes extending our previous discussions from the Developer Career Roadmap. The first episode from that series can be found here: https://spec.fm/podcasts/developer-tea/49656 Today's episode focuses on cultivating your curiosity. Today's episode is brought to you by Linode. Linode Provides superfast SSD based Linux servers in the cloud starting at $5 a month. Linode is offering Developer Tea listeners $20 worth of credit if you use the code DEVELOPERTEA2017 at checkout. Head over to spec.fm/linode to learn more about what Linode has to offer to Developer Tea listeners .

Episode Notes

Today's episode is the next of a series of episodes extending our previous discussions from the Developer Career Roadmap. The first episode from that series can be found here: https://spec.fm/podcasts/developer-tea/49656

Today's episode focuses on cultivating your curiosity.

Today's episode is brought to you by Linode.

Linode provides superfast SSD based Linux servers in the cloud starting at $5 a month. Linode is offering Developer Tea listeners $20 worth of credit if you use the code DEVELOPERTEA2017 at checkout. Head over to spec.fm/linode to learn more about what Linode has to offer to Developer Tea listeners!

Episode Transcription

Why are new ideas important and where do they come from? That's what we're talking about in today's episode of Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cutrell and my goal on this show is to help you become a better developer. And do that by coaching you through ways of thinking and important questions that you can ask yourself to interrogate your mind, to create new patterns of thinking and new perspectives in yourself. All of these things are important. You know, we've talked about multiple traits of a great developer recently and today is another episode in that series, the traits of a great developer. This is an extension of the developer career Romab episodes that we did last year. And I highly recommend you go and listen to those, but these traits, these are all things that you can kind of maintain no matter what stage you are in your career. So we ask this question, you know, why are new ideas important and where do they come from? Let's start with the first part of this. Why are new ideas important? Let me ask you a different kind of parallel question. How do you solve a problem? It's easy to think that we solve problems with a limited set of information. So for example, I draw on my, the learning that I did in math class to solve a math problem. But our brains aren't that simple. And in fact, our brains are significantly smarter than that. Our brains use information that is connected to other information. In other words, it really is kind of a jumbled mess in our brains of ideas that are interconnected in ways that we can never intuitively predict. So even though you and I may have the same outcome, the same, you know, objective answer to an algebra equation, ultimately we have different experiences. We have different experiences as two different humans. We have different memories. We have different ways of remembering those particular algebraic techniques. But more importantly, we have additional information that we use and that we draw from in order to solve those algebraic problems. Now if we're solving more complicated problems like for example, if we're trying to decide on a variable name, that's a more complicated problem, determining the name for something is a highly contextual concept. Having a semantic wrapper around a piece of code, that's a highly contextual concept. And so there are things in my brain that are not necessarily in your brain and there's things in your brain that are not necessarily in my brain. Memories and experiences and ideas that I draw from because once again, our brains have interconnected those ideas. We don't have perfectly compartmentalized parts of our brain that are only fired when certain activities are engaged in. Instead we recall information and we anchor information very differently from each other. We have different memories and different experiences. I've returned to this over and over because it is so important that even the room that you're in when you learn a subject or when you learn a particular technique or something like that, that room will actually stick with you in your mind. This seems so trivial and it seems very easy to pass off as unimportant, but as it turns out, these ideas matter significantly. And this is why, especially if you are from the United States and you grew up around the same time I did, you probably, any time you need to remember what order a particular letter comes in the alphabet, you probably sing the alphabet song. This acts as an anchor in your mind to help you solve a specific problem, a procedural problem. You can't jump straight to that letter. You actually have to access that information through that anchor. Now I'm not a neuroscientist. I don't claim that this is perfect information or perfect theory about how our brains work. In fact, there's still a lot of mysteries surrounding how the human mind actually works. But rather this is giving you a way of thinking about why new ideas are important and how they can affect your work on a day-to-day basis. So it is important what your brain creates. It's important what you experience. So if new ideas are important, then how can we set ourselves up to have new ideas or to have new experiences? That's what we're going to talk about right after we talk about today's sponsor, Linode. Linode is like a super platform for developers. They have products that cover every experience level and every product need that you might have for something you're building, whether it's a side project or a highly scaled software as a service, something like that. Linode has something that will provide you with the level of support that you need at the price that you need it at. They start at $5 a month and they go up from there depending on how much RAM you want to use. Also, all of their stuff is built on an hourly basis. So if you have a particular day of the month that your site or your service needs to be more robust and needs to be able to handle more traffic, then you can scale up just for that one day and then scale back down. You don't have to pay for a whole month worth of extra service in that scenario. On top of that, they have things like a powerful API to script your servers together if you have multiple servers. They have SSDs and a 40 gigabit per second internal network. So everything is incredibly fast. On top of this, they have extra services like backups and node balancers and long view and Linode managed even to help you keep things running smoothly. Go and check it out. They have 99.9% uptime guaranteed, by the way. Go and check out what Linode has to offer. Spec.fm slash Linode, they're going to provide you with $20 worth of credit just for being a developer to you. Listener, thank you again to Linode for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. When you check out, use the code Developer Tea. 2017. That code will get you the $20 worth of credit. Thanks again to Linode. So we're talking about new ideas and we're talking about the traits of a great developer and that brings us to today's trait. Open-minded curiosity. Open-minded curiosity. Now, we're going to talk about what that means and then we're going to talk a little bit about the antithesis or signals that show you that you don't have that open-minded curiosity. And really, this is going to be kind of an engine for new ideas, for new experiences in your life and for new ways of thinking about the same problems. Open-minded curiosity is kind of characterized as having an appetite for new. Having an appetite for new perspectives, new ways of thinking, new techniques, new ways of working, new products, new services, new frameworks, new languages, having an appetite for new, but also having an appetite for old, right? Having an appetite for understanding the history of things, understanding how things came to be, having an appetite for the now, understanding your customers, what they think and what they feel, understanding what the current state of the market is, truthfully, curiosity, curiosity is not about any particular state of time or any particular thing, it's about learning, right? It's about having an appetite for input, having an appetite for information that you previously didn't have and understanding and exploring that information. In that sense, curiosity is about having an appetite or a desire to learn new information, to input new information into your brain. This is so important because this is actually where those new ideas come from. If you are not curious, if you have no appetite for that new information, then the inflow, the input that you have into your brain is going to be limited to the things that happen by chance. If you're not actively seeking out this new information and new experiences, then the new stuff that goes into your brain, the rate of that new information going in is going to be significantly lower than if you did have an appetite for that new information. This is where those new ideas come from. The reason this is so important is because the more ideas you have, the more anchors you have in your mind, and the broader range of experiences that you have, not only as a developer, but in general, the broader range that you have, the more perspective you have to solve a given problem. The more ways that you've created to get to information in your brain that is relevant. The open-minded part of this, the curiosity is important, but the open-minded curiosity is particularly important because what that means is that you're willing to let this new information update the way you think. In other words, you're not so set on your old perspective that the new information goes in and then becomes rejected. That instead, you're actually using that new information to create new thinking, create new ways of thinking, new filters on the way that you think. What are some signs that maybe you aren't as curious as you could be, or that perhaps your lack of curiosity is going to limit you in your career? One tangible way of identifying a red flag of curiosity for developers is you haven't built anything that you weren't assigned to build in a significant period of time. Notice that we aren't saying that you must have a side project of substantial size. Here it could be something as small as a script that runs on your computer, or it could be a hello world in a new language that you've never used in production before. Or it very well could be that side project. This is a sign that you as a developer within the development career space and within the development tool space, if you haven't tried anything new or if you haven't done anything that you haven't been directed explicitly to do, then it's likely that you aren't cultivating curiosity for yourself. Another red flag, a signal that would tell you that you may have a limit on your curiosity is if you have a pattern of cynicism. This is a developer poison that we talked about in the past. Cynicism, essentially shutting down an idea before you really even have a chance to understand the idea or shutting down with a lens of pessimism, anything that somebody is presenting to you. These are forms of anti-curiosity. You're closing your mind off to the surrounding world. Perhaps you're closing your mind off to new and better ways of thinking or new and better ways of doing something or perhaps just a new variety, a new way of thinking, whether it's better or not is kind of irrelevant. This really goes back to our previous trait of a great developer and that is having a fixed mindset versus a growth oriented mindset. If you have a fixed mindset, then you're going to lack in curiosity. Your curiosity is going to help your growth mindset. It's going to maximize your growth mindset. I have a simple exercise for you to do this week after you listen to this episode and it's very simple, extremely simple and it doesn't have to be directly related to software development because, again, your mind is not compartmentalizing your experiences. Every experience you have can help you think better. It's very simple. I want you to every single day, I want you to do something new. The following day, I want you to identify the new thing that you did yesterday and something that you noticed about it that surprised you or otherwise you didn't know before. It was new information. I want you to write about that. Write two or three sentences each day of something new that you experienced the day before. This means intentionally seeking out something new and it can be very small. It doesn't have to be a big thing. You all know that I'm a big proponent of doing small things. Do something very small that's new each day. It could be as simple as trying a new restaurant for lunch one day or it could be as simple as having a meeting with somebody that you've never had a meeting before. A one-on-one conversation, maybe with a coworker that you've never had a one-on-one conversation with. These are all new experiences and you have to seek out the new and that's kind of the hallmark of curiosity. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I want to encourage you to develop an authentic curiosity for yourself. Take the extra five minutes to literally go the long way home from work today. These are very simple things that you can do to help keep your brain in a dynamic atmosphere and keep new information rolling in. Thank you so much to Linode for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea with Linode. You can build pretty much anything that you can imagine. It's Linux on a server. It sounds simple but it's incredibly powerful, especially when it's backed by all of the services that Linode provides. Go and check it out, spec.fm slash Linode and use the code Developer Tea2017 at checkout. They're going to give you $20 worth of credit just for being a listener of the show. So go and check that out, spec.fm slash Linode. And by the way, if you are a listener of the show or if you're brand new to this, as somebody sent you a link to this. I highly recommend that you subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use. We release a lot of episodes. And so you're going to get behind or you're going to forget about it if you don't subscribe and then you're going to be behind. And you may miss out on an episode that's really valuable to you. So subscribe in whatever podcasting app you use. Thanks so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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Today's episode is the next of a series of episodes extending our previous discussions from the Developer Career Roadmap. The first episode from that series can be found here: https://spec.fm/podcasts/developer-tea/49656 Today's episode focuses on cultivating your curiosity. Today's episode is brought to you by Linode.

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By tapping into our inherent need for human connection and a sense of community at work, learning in a group environment can yield remarkable results.

September 18, 2023

Group learning has long been recognized as an effective approach to learning and talent development. However, many organizations underestimate its true power in fostering relationships, collaboration, culture and inclusion in the workplace. Group learning can break down long-standing silos, drive culture change, build critical skills and leverage diverse perspectives in decision-making. By tapping into our inherent need for human connection and a sense of community at work, learning in a group environment can yield remarkable results.

Human beings are social creatures by nature. We thrive on connections and the feeling of belonging to a community. In the workplace, fostering an environment where employees feel connected and included is vital for productivity, innovation and overall job satisfaction. The shift to hybrid work has made it harder to bring employees together and create that sense of community, but group learning offers a powerful tool to tap into these innate needs. It serves as a platform where individuals can come together, and share their knowledge and experiences while developing a deeper understanding of themselves and greater trust with their colleagues.

Group learning offers a number of benefits. First, it can provide the catalyst for culture change. As a case in point, one of our clients wanted to transition from a top-down "command-and-control" culture to a collaborative, servant-based leadership approach. The organization used group coaching sessions to develop the new culture by helping leaders identify mindsets and behaviors to stop, start and continue. Group coaching built trust across functions and silos and led to a deeper commitment to the new culture as leaders supported one another in making the transition. The top five levels of leadership participated in monthly group coaching sessions, while individual coaching was provided to each leader to help with specific challenges and application. Culture change takes time, but group learning can accelerate the shift and improve the chances of success.

A second benefit of group learning is that it can help leaders develop critical skills to navigate the changing business environment. Another client, a national manufacturing company, used group learning to help leaders develop and refine their leadership skills in response to a changing workforce. They implemented a curriculum-based group coaching program, addressing various leadership gaps. Monthly group sessions, complemented by individual coaching, were conducted across functions and locations. Leaders discussed challenges they faced, shared best practices, and reflected on specific changes they needed to make to demonstrate new skills and behaviors. The pilot's success prompted program expansion to multiple cohorts within the initial division and several hundred leaders in a second division. The program not only provided valuable learning opportunities, but also fostered relationships and networks that will continue to support these leaders long after program completion.

A third benefit of group learning is that it can create connection among employees in a hybrid work environment, leading to a more cohesive work culture. Organizations have embraced hybrid work because it can provide better work-life balance, reduce the risk of burnout and improve productivity. But there are tradeoffs. In many companies, hybrid and remote employees feel isolated and lack a sense of belonging to the organization. Hybrid work requires a new set of skills to communicate and collaborate effectively. At another client organization, group coaching served as a powerful tool that bridged geographical gaps, enhanced teamwork and fostered a sense of community among its completely remote workforce.

To maximize the effectiveness of group learning, organizations should consider a few key principles. First, senior leadership support is essential to ensuring participants fully engage in the program. In many cases, senior leadership participated as their own cohort so they could speak with authenticity about the power of group learning. Next, it is important to create a psychologically safe environment where participants feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas without fear of judgment. Making a firm commitment to confidentiality within the group and utilizing a coach skilled in group dynamics can go a long way toward creating psychological safety. Finally, organizations should encourage ongoing learning and support mechanisms to sustain the benefits of group learning over time.

Group learning is a powerful tool for organizations seeking to build relationships, collaboration, culture and inclusion in the workplace. Perhaps the greatest benefit of all is that it is a cost-effective way to not only prompt change, but to also accelerate it. Bringing people together and creating shared experiences taps into our innate need for connection and brings about greater engagement, fulfillment and productivity at work.

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By tapping into our inherent need for human connection and a sense of community at work, learning in a group environment can yield remarkable results.

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HBR: 5 Types of Stories Leaders Need to Tell

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HBR: 5 Types of Stories Leaders Need to Tell

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The Edge of Work Podcast: The Role of the Manager in Delivering a Great Employee Experience

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The Edge of Work Podcast: The Role of the Manager in Delivering a Great Employee Experience

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S3:E12: The Role of the Manager in Delivering a Great Employee Experience with Angela Cheng-Cimini

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Listen to this episode from The Edge of Work on Spotify. Angela Cheng-Cimini is the Chief Human Resources Officers at Harvard Business Publishing. As a seasoned HR Leader, Angela is passionate about creating employee experiences that unleash the purpose and potential of each employee.

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The Edge of Work Podcast: How Leaders Can Help Their People Thrive in a Constantly Changing World of Work

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The Edge of Work Podcast: How Leaders Can Help Their People Thrive in a Constantly Changing World of Work

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S3:E17: How Leaders can to Help Their People Thrive in a Constantly Changing World of Work

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HBR: Why Managers Design Jobs to Be More Boring Than They Need to Be

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HBR: Why Managers Design Jobs to Be More Boring Than They Need to Be

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Why Managers Design Jobs to Be More Boring Than They Need to Be

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Researchers believe that the lack of engagement, burnout, and dissatisfaction many employees are experiencing worldwide is a result of poorly designed work. When work is well-designed, workers have interesting tasks, autonomy over those tasks, a meaningful degree of social contact with others, and a…

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Medium: Icebreakers You Can Steam for a Better Meeting

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Medium: Icebreakers You Can Steam for a Better Meeting

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What kicks off a day of collaborative work on a good note? How do you create a sense of camaraderie amongst colleagues or perfect strangers?

The truth is simple: icebreakers. Now, bear with me, because I know there's a perception that they're old school, or fluffy, or even cheesy. But that's only if you aren't using them correctly. There's actually an art behind employing the right icebreaker at the right time, and after 1000s of hours of group facilitation I can confidently say that they absolutely impact the group's willingness to do the work that lies ahead.

What comes next are three common scenarios in which icebreakers are particularly helpful, along with specific examples so you can copy and paste them into your next session.

1. When you're kicking off a workshop or meeting

Prompt: "Share your three most-used emojis with the group, and why. Then check your phone for the remainder of the session (in a basket or away in your bag)."

Prompt: "Choose the emojis that represent how you're doing now. Then check your phone for the remainder of the session (in a basket or away in your bag)."

Why it works: It gives you a pulse on how people are feeling entering the workshop without asking them to be too vulnerable. It also brings peoples' awareness into the room and onto the team they'll be collaborating with. I love the emoji prompt because it's a straightforward and accessible way for people to express their emotions. Sometimes people share a little, sometimes they share a lot. You might find group members laughing together, or commiserating, or consoling one another. After each group member has shared, kindly ask everyone to put away their technology in a place where it won't be a distraction during the session (it's a natural extension of the emoji icebreaker).

This tip is two-fold, and I almost always include it when kicking off an in-person workshop.

2. When you know a lot of idea generation needs to happen

Prompt: "What's the best thing that's happened to you this morning (besides coffee)?"

Prompt: "Tell us about something that made you smile this week?"

Why it works: If you're asking folks to get creative and focus on the big picture, it helps to have them approach the exercise from a place of gratitude, abundance and optimism. Why? When's the last time you felt crabby and creative, or bogged down andexploratory? Starting the activity with a pseudo gratitude practice cultivates positive mindsets, and from there new ideas can grow.

At the onset of a day of brainstorming, prototyping, or idea generation, try to get the team into a positive mindset.

3. When you want to foster camaraderie amongst the team

Prompt: "What's something you own that people would be surprised to know you have?"

Prompt: "Tell us about a hobby or collection you have."

Why it works: When you get people talking about themselves it allows them to share something slightly personal without forcing vulnerability, which opens up a space for connection, empathy and humanization. It's really fun to see teams that have been working together for years reveal something unexpected that everyone gets a kick out of. At a recent workshop, an engineer shared that he loved to paint and had been doing so his whole life. The rest of his team was shocked, and it inspired some really fun conversation and connection. Even this tenured team still had things to learn about one another. For groups of strangers it can be even more important to create an opportunity for participants to get to know one another as people rather than as titles (or with preconceived ideas about each other). When we humanize one another we establish a sense of camaraderie among the group, and that's key to getting work done.

Your team is your greatest asset, so it's important that they get along and want to collaborate with one another.

The facilitator should always demo a response to the prompt first. Participants will take your lead and follow your format, which helps manage time and expectations.

Call on people to keep things moving along. This will save you from long pauses and your team from the anxiety that comes with deciding when to speak up.

Read the room and don't be afraid to adjust your prompt based on the natural flow of conversation and the vibe of the team. In a recent workshop, a conversation about spare change arose naturally as people settled in. One product owner shared that she kept her change in an old ceramic piggy bank that doubles as a book-end. And, voila, the icebreaker for the day became, "Where do you keep your spare change?"

If you plan to employ any of these icebreakers, here are just a few tips to make sure things run smoothly:

These are the icebreakers that I use most often because they create connection between the team without forcing vulnerability or inviting oversharing. They're key to helping people feel more comfortable and open. They also draw participants into the present moment so they're no longer preoccupied with thoughts around the work ahead, or their busy mornings, or their email inboxes. And all of these mindsets are precursors to getting the work done in a productive, collaborative and receptive way.

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Icebreakers You Can Steal For a Better Meeting (I Promise)

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What kicks off a day of collaborative work on a good note? How do you create a sense of camaraderie amongst colleagues or perfect strangers? The truth is simple: icebreakers. Now, bear with me...

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Little Book of Coachable Questions by Ally Jones & Liz Whitney

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Little Book of Coachable Questions by Ally Jones & Liz Whitney

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4 TED Talks to help you stop being such a perfectionist

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Ted Playlist: How Perfectionism Fails Us

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Ted Playlist: How Perfectionism Fails Us

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Why it’s best to celebrate the little wins and imperfect moments alongside the big successes to combat our fear of failure.

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Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% Is the Magic Number for Productivity.

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WSJ: Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% is the Magic Number for Productivity. 

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WSJ: Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% is the Magic Number for Productivity. 

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Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% Is the Magic Number for Productivity.

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To do the best work of your life, take it down a notch.

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BetterUp: Self-Advocacy: Improve Your Life by Speaking Up

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BetterUp: Self-Advocacy: Improve Your Life by Speaking Up

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What is self-advocacy?

Self-advocacy is the ability to speak up on your behalf effectively. You might do this to bring about positive results in any of the various contexts in which you interact - whether at work, in organizations, school, community, or family.

If there are decisions being made on your behalf or conditions that affect your well-being, it's your right to speak up powerfully about them. You have the right to assert your own best interests.

However, for one reason or another, many of us don't feel comfortable advocating for ourselves. Self-advocacy is a learned behavior, but not everyone has seen it modeled or had the opportunity to practice it. Sometimes, our past experiences stifle our ability to speak up or our belief that our needs are valid and worth fighting for.

Over time, you can become more skilled in speaking up for yourself in an empowered way.

What are the critical elements of self-advocacy?

As you may imagine, self-advocacy will look different from person to person and from situation to situation. While it is often associated with people who have particular conditions or disabilities, self-advocacy is something that everyone can learn, practice, and encourage in others.

Most self-advocacy groups are focused on teaching young adults, particularly those with autism and intellectual disabilities, how to speak up and request accommodations that they are entitled to by law. Up through postsecondary education, these programs are supported by individualized education programs (IEPs).

However, understanding and requesting these accommodations in adult life is rarely so straightforward. Most workplaces don't include self-advocacy groups. Further complicating the matter, many employers aren't aware of disability rights or how to accommodate learning disabilities at work. Truth be told, after high school, these conversations - and the resulting awareness - often falls by the wayside.

That's why teaching self-advocacy skills becomes even more important. The value of self-determination skills isn't limited to special education. It's a conversation that every person benefits from. Learning to self-advocate improves self-esteem, opens the door for creative problem solving, and creates a deeper sense of belonging.

Understanding yourself, your values, and your needs

Self-advocacy requires that you first understand yourself (your values, your needs, and your rights) in the context in which you operate. It requires that you are aware of the support that you need and the resources that are available.

Self-advocacy also requires the ability to communicate your value, your needs, and your human rights in a way that will be understood and offer you the greatest return on the ask.

To understand who you are, ask the following questions:

What are my values?

What matters to me most and why?

What are my particular needs? What do I need to accomplish my tasks or fulfill my responsibilities? What do I need to feel respected and to maintain my emotional, physical, and financial well-being?

What are my strengths and growth areas?

Understanding your context

Second, you need to understand yourself in the context of your role within the larger group. This means having a good understanding of the organization's values, rules, rights, and resources. For instance, look at your organization's mission and your team's role in fulfilling that mission.

Ask yourself:
How do I serve the team and thereby serve the organization as a whole? What are my responsibilities to the organization, and what are the organization's responsibilities to me? Do our values and talents match? Can I serve the organization? Does my work for the organization benefit me?
Be realistic. One workplace, one organization, may not fill all the buckets you need to fulfill you in all ways.

It is an excellent awareness to have as you set expectations for which needs and desires this part of your life serves. At the very least, you'll want to be aware of the rules governing your role, workplace, and/or situation.

Also, familiarize yourself with the resources allocated to support you within and outside of the organization. Are there offices in place to assist you as an employee, a person who needs accommodation, etc.?

Cultivate support

Often, receiving the accommodations required by law requires self-advocacy. Negotiating a pay raise and setting boundaries to a 24/7 open line of communication when working on a global team requires self-advocacy. Speaking up for your civil rights as a person from an underrepresented background requires it as well.

Whether or not it seems fair, all of these instances illustrate how often improving an aspect of your life requires you to speak up and make your case. While there are legal and institutional structures designed to support you, you have agency and responsibility to speak for the care and treatment you deserve. Building and seeking help from a support system when it matters is essential.

Here are 4 steps you can take to build up a support system:

1. Develop a robust and direct line of communication with your manager. Your manager is in the best position to advocate on your behalf. They know both you and the organization. Ideally, that person will be your best ally in the workplace, understanding your needs and the resources available at the organization and mentoring you along the way.

2. Join - and lead - organizations that are there to support you and others, within and outside of your organization. Connect with like and unlike individuals who are united in building visibility, programming, and policies to support people in your organization. There is power in multiple voices and perspectives united as one. There is also a wealth of experiences from which to learn.

3. Be an ally and advocate for others. Speaking up for others is often less angst-inducing than speaking up for ourselves. Practice speaking up on behalf of others, and you'll gain more confidence to do so for yourself. The people who you advocated for in the past may also become your future allies.

4. Continue developing yourself, building relationships with others (yes, the oft-maligned "networking"), and being aware of opportunities and resources within your field inside and outside your present organization. There is a power in knowing that you have alternatives. Sometimes, those alternatives may exist outside of the organization that is no longer serving your personal and professional needs.

How to communicate your needs

Organizations and their leaders should comply with the law and act ethically and morally.

Many conflicts, however, don't fall into the obvious category of someone knowingly skirting the law or trying to deny others. And, there can be fairly different interpretations of what is required.

Self-advocacy can be hard if you're feeling frustrated and deliberately ignored. When you don't feel under attack, you can find strength and advocate for yourself more effectively. Starting with an assumption of good intent gives you and the other party an opportunity to find common ground.

No one wants to hear a continual list of complaints and how the organization is not doing its job. If the leadership begins to feel under attack, they may choose to frame your request as "your problem." Rather than hear your words, they will actively tune them out.

For effective self-advocacy, it is your responsibility to do the work of presenting your issue in a clear and compelling way that others will see as an issue worth solving - and moreover, a strong case for doing so. With the right intentions, they will be grateful to hear a solution that takes their needs into account as well.

When the time comes to advocate for yourself and others, make sure to take the following steps: prepare, consult, draft, and state your case.

1. To prepare, start by documenting your concerns in detail. When does it happen? What happens? Which players are involved? What is the negative consequence on you and others?

2. Do your research. Which laws govern the issue on a federal, state, and local level? What do the governing rules of your organization state about the situation you are experiencing? Is there a group that is assigned to enforce the laws? Is there an ombuds office to consult on the issue you are experiencing and help you craft the needed communication? How have other organizations addressed similar issues? Do the research, and use your resources!

3. Consult your support network for their feedback and input. Have others experienced the situation you have experienced? What were their lessons? Has research been conducted on the topic with which you are addressing? What were the findings and outcomes? Knowledge is power. Understand your issue in the broader context to make your particular case as compelling as can be from the start.

4. Begin to draft (and redraft, if necessary) a solution. Write out the following in detail:
What is the issue?

What is the negative impact on you and your team, and ultimately the organization?

What is the desired resolution?

How can it be a win not only for yourself but for others involved?

What is your best alternative?

What are your non-negotiables?

5. When you feel like you've considered all possible angles, reach out to your established and trusted network of experts. Get their feedback and input.

6. Now you are ready to state your case with clarity and confidence. As you approach the person, remember to use open-ended questions to invite the person into a conversation. Perhaps that there is another alternative that you are not seeing. However, be clear going into the conversation what you are willing to compromise on, and what you are not - and why.

Sometimes, rules are not followed. In those times, knowing your rights and having alternate areas of influence, and ideally income streams, matter. They allow you greater freedom to choose and to have the power to speak up without fear of retribution.

7 benefits of self-advocacy

Self-advocacy is an important skill to master, and not just for success at work. Practicing speaking up for yourself and others creates several important benefits:

1. You empower yourself and others by practicing and honing self-advocacy skills. In doing so, you build a psychologically safe and inclusive environment where other people are more apt to share their ideas and flourish.

2. You take control of your own life. You set the boundaries and make choices based on your values. You understand what matters most to you and why.

3. With your increased self-awareness, understanding of the needs of others, and knowledge of governing principles, you become better at decision making.

4. You use open-ended questions to engage in conversations. You become better able to hear the perspectives of others that you hadn't previously considered.

5. You become an effective problem solver. You know how to research the problem at hand and how to consider multiple perspectives. You know that to get to what you want, you have to present a solution in a way that is compelling to yourself and others.

6. You develop yourself continually and are an active member of organizations that impact governing policies that matter to you and the larger group.

7. You speak up for yourself and others. It's a continual win-win!

Resources to learn self-advocacy

The following resources are helpful in further learning aspects of self-advocacy:

Increase your self-awareness

Read the following article on the importance and benefits of self-awareness in all aspects of your life from PositivePsychology.com . Exercises to enhance your self-awareness are included.

Identify your values

Navigate your response to the world with a clear understanding of what matters to you most and why. This exercise is deceptively simple and so impactful.

Know your strengths

Collect the feedback of family and friends on what they consider to be your top strengths. Reflect on their responses and what you think to be your top strengths. How have those strengths served you in the past and the present? How may they aid you in the future?

Develop a growth mindset

Having a growth mindset means that you believe in continual development and growth. Check out this article from Psychology Today to learn how you can further develop your growth mindset.

Take on a different perspective

Fred Kofman, author of Conscious Business , shares the importance of considering someone else's perspective in a difficult conversation and equates it to a dance in the following video .

Believe in yourself

Self-advocacy requires that you know yourself, what matters most to you and why. With that clarity, the boundaries you maintain act as safety rails that guide you and the people around you. Be an ally to others, and in turn, people will be allies to you. Experience the power of speaking up for others and develop the confidence to do so for yourself. Have the courage to take on the challenge, knowing that you have prepared and allies are all around.

As a final note, always keep in mind that no one road is the only path to success. Knowing that you have alternatives gives you greater power and the freedom to choose how you will approach the situation - without fear of losing a privileged position. Believe in yourself and your ability to advocate for yourself and others. Your generous and courageous act begets another!

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Self-Advocacy: Improve Your Life by Speaking Up

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Most of us don't hesitate to speak up for others, but self advocacy can be scary. Learn the benefits of self advocacy and how to put your voice into action.

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Perfectionism is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can motivate you to perform at a high level and deliver top-quality work. On the other hand, it can cause you unnecessary anxiety and slow you down. How can you harness the positives of your perfectionism while mitigating the negatives? What measures or practices can you use to keep your perfectionism in check? Should you enlist the help of others?

What the Experts Say
"A lot of perfectionistic tendencies are rooted in fear and insecurity," says Matt Plummer, founder of Zarvana, the online coaching service that helps workers become more productive. "Many perfectionists worry that if they let go of their [meticulousness and conscientiousness], it will hurt their performance and standing." And so they cling to their perfectionism even when it's counterproductive. If this describes you, take heart. Reining in your perfectionistic propensities is not as hard as it sounds. "It's about rechanneling a strength of yours rather than aiming for a lower goal." Your aim is to take "some of the pressure off yourself," says Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist and author of The Healthy Mind Toolkit and The Anxiety Toolkit. Of course that's easier said than done. But the fact remains, "if you genuinely want to be a high achiever, you're bound to do some things imperfectly." Here are some ideas of how to let go of your penchant for perfectionism.

See the big picture
As any perfectionist will tell you, being perfect isn't easy. Your diligence "takes a lot of effort," and your attention to detail is "incredibly time-consuming," says Plummer. Of course, as a perfectionist you're never going to aim for merely adequate - nor should you. But you must also " recognize the opportunity cost and time" of your behavior. "Ask yourself: Am I using my time wisely? Am I being productive?" He recommends focusing on "maximizing the impact" of your work. "You can spend an extra three hours making a presentation perfect, but does that improve the impact for the client or your organization?" Boyes concurs. "Shift your mindset," she says. You're going to be "less perfect about some things, so you can concentrate on what's important." If you're continuing to tinker on an assignment that most others would consider complete, try to " recognize that just getting it done " is a decent goal. "There's a point of diminishing returns" when it comes to sweating the small stuff and nitpicking niggling details.

Adjust your standards
Managing your perfectionism also requires you to "calibrate your standards," says Plummer. Say, for example, you're grinding out an important memo for your organization. He suggests showing your efforts to a colleague or supervisor early in the process. You may discover it's "already good enough" and "that task you thought could take 10 hours could really take only five." Don't be shy or embarrassed. "It's your first draft," says Boyes. And even if you need to continue to work on it, the "feedback you receive will help you improve." Keep in mind, too, that this memo needn't be worthy of a Pulitzer. "What you're saying doesn't have to be the final word, it just has to contribute something useful."

Create a checklist
The pursuit of perfection is a bit like wandering on an aimless journey, says Plummer. "You keep walking and walking, but you're not sure that you're getting any closer to your destination," he says. Similarly, "a perfectionist is always going to want to keep working [on a given assignment.] But the end result is rarely satisfying." So, rather than toil "in search of this amorphous goal of perfection," he recommends, "creating a checklist" for each task. Say, for instance, you're working on an important client pitch. The perfectionist in you might fret over the font choice and sweat every semi-colon. But with a checklist that reminds you to confirm you've spelled things correctly and to eliminate basic editing errors, you needn't endlessly slog. "You're following a process with discrete and measurable goals," he says. Once you've ticked off the items on your list, "you're done."

Break the cycle of rumination
Many perfectionists have a proclivity to ruminate - repetitively mulling over a thought or problem without ever coming to a resolution. "It's related to anxiety," says Boyes. People who ruminate tend to be "less forgiving of themselves." It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive. "Don't confuse ruminating with problem-solving." Instead look for ways to disrupt the cycle.

Identify your triggers. The first step in conquering this habit is to "learn to recognize when you're ruminating," says Boyes. Figure out what sets you off. Make note of the situation: where you are, the time of day, and who's around. "Find your consistent patterns," then think about ways you might steer clear of or control those factors.

Don't trust your first reaction. If you're dwelling on a past event, such as an interaction with a colleague, be cautious. You might not have an accurate read of the situation, says Boyes. When you ruminate, "you tend to focus on all the bad things," she says. "So you can't trust what your ruminating mind is telling you." Try hard to get perspective and give yourself time and distance before taking action. You might be "blowing it out of proportion."

Seek a diversion. "Distractions are useful," says Boyes. "Do something that is cognitively absorbing but that's also tedious and doesn't induce anxiety, such as filling out an expense report." Often spending just 10 minutes on a mundane but practical task like that "breaks the chain" and keeps you from "spinning your wheels."

Think positive. Ruminating often leads to "avoidance" of certain tasks, notes Boyes. "There's a feeling of, 'If I can't do it perfectly I won't bother,'" she says. To combat this idea, she recommends reflecting on times in your past when you tried something new. "Think about the successes you've had," she says. By reminding yourself of the pathways that led to your accomplishments, you'll be able to see that you achieved a meaningful outcome despite not being "100% certain of success" in advance. This helps you "learn from your experiences," she says.

Get perspective
You may find it "helpful to talk to someone about your tendencies," says Boyes. That person could be "a boss who's willing to engage with you emotionally, a friend, sibling, mentor, or spouse." Be honest and open. Tell this person that you're working on getting better. "Say, 'I give you permission to let me know if I'm being too fussy/high maintenance/finicky'" about a given topic. Make it clear that you want to hear how you come across. "Say, 'I may get defensive, but I promise to think about what you say.'" And be sure to make good on that pledge.

Monitor your progress
As you're working on moderating your perfectionist tendencies, Boyes recommends undertaking "a weekly review" in which you reflect on your progress. Try to get some "psychological distance" and ask yourself, "Was there anything I avoided this week due to fear of making mistakes? Were there any instances where my perfectionism was not worth it? Were there any times this week when I took action, even when I felt uncertain, and ended up moving things forward?" Your objective, says Plummer, is to "learn where perfectionism has a positive impact and where it does not." Remember, you're not fundamentally "changing course"; rather, you're, "redirecting your personality."
Principles to Remember Do

Learn to recognize the point of diminishing returns when you're aiming to complete a task perfectly. Sometimes just getting it done is a worthy goal.

Reflect on your progress. Identify examples of when you successfully moderated your perfectionist tendencies.

Calibrate your standards. Oftentimes what you're writing or saying doesn't have to be the final word, it just has to contribute something useful.

Don't

Mistake ruminating for problem solving. When your mind is twisting and turning, seek out distractions to break the cycle.

Toil in pursuit of an amorphous goal of perfection. Create a checklist that ensures you follow a process with measurable targets.

Go it alone. Ask others - a trusted colleague, friend, or mentor - for perspective and support.

Case Study #1: Shift your mindset and get comfortable with imperfection
In the past, Stacy Caprio's perfectionism led her to avoid certain tasks. "I never wanted to start something unless I knew exactly how to do it," she says. "It was a roadblock. It literally stopped me from doing new things."

Earlier in her career, she worked for an online marketing agency. One of her tasks was to add tracking tags to client websites, which would allow her organization to gather more information about their customers' revenue and sales.

Stacy had never added a tag before and was petrified of doing it wrong. "I wanted my work to be good, and I wanted to be seen as doing a good job," she says. "I didn't want to mess up."

Instead of trying and risking imperfection, Stacy busied herself with email, building ad sets, and working on other marketing campaigns.

Her avoidance of the task didn't keep her from ruminating on it, though. "I thought about it constantly," she says. "Every time I have something new to do, it doesn't go away for me. It was at the top of my to-do list."

Still, she couldn't force herself to try. She realized a shift in mindset was in order. "To get this in check, I needed to make it clear to myself that getting it done was more important than making it perfect."

The turning point came when she happened upon a series of blogs by published authors. "Writers talked about that first step of getting a draft on paper," she says. "The first draft is usually terrible. But then they go back and edit and rework it."

Learning more about the writing process helped her gain perspective on her situation. "I had to give myself permission to know that the first one was not going to be great; it might not even work," she says. "But I will get better."

Eventually, she plucked up her courage and took a shot. Her first one was fine; her second one was an improvement. Her third attempt was great.

Today Stacy is her own boss. She runs a website devoted to inspiring side hustles, her.ceo. She has learned many lessons about battling her perfectionist demons. "Just because I think something is perfect doesn't mean it is," she says. "I likely need feedback from others, especially customers, so that I can change the product over time to keep making it better."

Case Study #2: Seek support and perspective and focus on the big picture
Flame Schoeder, a professional certified coach based in Omaha, Nebraska, admits she is a "recovering perfectionist." While her perfectionism has helped her excel professionally, it has also contributed to feelings of insecurity.

Earlier in her career, for instance, she noticed that she sometimes had the tendency to "freeze up" when talking to clients. "I'd get so in my head," she says. "I'd have something to say and then I'd think, 'That's not a smart enough or insightful enough comment,' and so I wouldn't say it."

A similar thing happened when she had a big client proposal to write. Beginning the project was hard because she "had a ton of self-doubt."

The solution: "I realized that all I needed to do was ask for help," she says.

Flame discovered that reaching out to a friend or colleague and "talking through ideas" helps her see that she does indeed have something to offer. Now she does this every time she's having difficulty getting a project under way. "It needs to be someone who knows that I am a perfectionist and knows that I get stuck," she says. "They give me the solid ground and the creative energy to start moving."

Colleagues also give her perspective on her work. Recently, she was working with a team on a marketing pitch for a restaurant brand. The pitch was for a new client, so "there was some uncertainty" about what this client would like or dislike.

Flame and another colleague - a fellow perfectionist - hemmed and hawed over the proposal. "Perfectionists tend to focus on what needs to be fixed and we negate everything that's good," she says. "The two of us went over and over the details and reworked things."

Finally, Flame asked her colleague a critical question: Is this pitch good enough for the client? "And we both had an 'ah-ha moment' that it was," she says.

They submitted the pitch, and the client loved it. "The client never saw that anything was missing," she says. "They saw the creativity, the polish, and the finesse."

This approval was a powerful signal to Flame. "I try to remind myself that I am not dealing with life-or-death situations. It's just marketing."

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Perfectionism is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can motivate you to perform at a high level and deliver top-quality work. On the other, it can cause you unnecessary anxiety and sometimes annoy your colleagues. How can you harness the positives of your perfectionism while mitigating the negatives?

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HBR: How to be Direct Without Being Rude

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HBR: How to be Direct Without Being Rude

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When giving feedback, talk facts - not emotions. Facts are objective, while emotions are subjective. When you refer to facts, you remove your personal emotions from the conversation, and instead, give people hard evidence around what they can improve upon. In doing so, you're actually being more considerate by seeking to help the other person grow as opposed to expressing a negative, emotion-driven opinion.

When expressing an opinion, use "I" statements - not "you" statements. When you speak in accusatory language or start every sentence with "you did this" or "you did that," the conversation either shuts down or escalates because the receiver gets defensive. Instead of pointing fingers, use "I" statements when discussing your subjective opinions, or if you want to remain objective, refer to the work you're discussing (as opposed to the person doing the work).

When turning someone down, turn a "no" into a soft "yes." When you're neck deep in work and someone asks you for something, as a direct person, your instinct may be to clearly say "no" to the least important of these requests. But, if you're too blunt, you will likely be perceived as someone who refuses to collaborate or provide others with much-needed guidance. Turn your hard no's into soft yes's. Find the compassion to thoughtfully offer the requester an alternative that works better for you and your schedule.

When making a request, be considerate - not commanding. Many people plan out their day and know exactly what they're going to do and how they're going to tick things off of their to-do list. When you come in with a request, know that someone is going to have to make time for it. It's okay to tell them exactly what you want, but be considerate. Instead of coming across bossy, let them you you appreciate their time and help, while being clear about what you need help with.

You're pressed for time and have a zillion emails sitting in your inbox. You also need to send your boss the weekly sales report ASAP. You quickly shoot a message to your team:

Please send me your individual sales numbers for this week. I need them pronto, no later than 10 am.

Your work BFF later says she saw the message, and thought it was a tad rude.

You don't agree with her assessment, but the feedback is not entirely new. Last week, during a brainstorm meeting, someone pitched an idea you thought would never work. You said: "Your idea isn't going to work because of X, Y, and Z. You haven't considered those roadblocks. I highly recommend we go in another direction." Afterward, your manager said that you came across a little too strong.

Even your intern once said that your communication style is frustrating. That confused you because you value clarity and try to be direct.

Do any of these scenarios resonate with you?

Many people are great at "telling it like it is" and may even find pride in doing so. If you're one of them, this communication style has likely worked well throughout your education and career. You've probably found it's an efficient way to get things done sans all the fluff and small talk. When you have a problem to solve, why beat around the bush?

You're not wrong. "Telling it like it is" can be a big asset, especially for people leading teams. It's best not to camouflage critical feedback, provide people with vague guidance, or set unclear expectations. Clearly communicating what you want and need from your people, and why, makes everything more efficient. The issue arises when leaders toe the line between being direct and being abrasive. This can be incredibly difficult for new managers, who are trying to show authority while also forming a trusting relationship with their team.

Here's the thing: If you come across too harshly, you can end up doing more harm than good, and irrevocably damage your relationships and the opportunity for positive collaboration. When you move from honesty to inconsideration, people end up feeling frustrated and hurt, leading to a disengaged and demotivated team who doesn't respect, like, or trust you.

So, how do you find a healthy balance? How do you be honest, direct, compassionate, kind, and clear - all at the same time?

Here are some simple strategies you can use to make your point without being disrespectful.

When giving feedback, talk facts - not emotions.

Facts are objective, while emotions are subjective. When you refer to facts, you remove your personal emotions from the conversation, and instead, give people hard evidence around what they can improve upon. In doing so, you're actually being more considerate by seeking to help the other person grow as opposed to expressing a negative, emotion-driven opinion.

Say, for example, a team member asks you for feedback on their presentation. You might think that their presentation was terrible and lacked the data needed to back up their point. As a direct person, you might want to say, "You had too much text on most slides, and too little data. In the end, it was tiring to read and boring to listen to."

Instead, you can be just as direct, but more kind, by providing them with points of improvement, and entering the conversation with the positive intention of helping them learn. It can also help to start with one thing that did work, objectively: "The first half of your presentation had a good balance of data and visuals to back up your point. Between slides five and 10, the information became harder to digest because there was a lot of text to read at once, and less data to support your points. Around then, I noticed that some people in the audience were finding it too hard to follow or were confused. Here is what I'd recommend for next time..."

Notice here, that while you're still direct, you've backed up your feedback with evidence which will also make it easier for your colleague to accept the feedback, and more importantly, grow.

When expressing an opinion, use "I" statements - not "you" statements.

Nobody likes to be accused or told they're wrong. When you speak in accusatory language or start every sentence with "you did this" or "you did that," the conversation either shuts down or escalates because the receiver gets defensive. You want to avoid both situations. Instead of pointing fingers, use "I" statements when discussing your subjective opinions, or if you want to remain objective, refer to the work you're discussing (as opposed to the person doing the work).

For example, let's say you're in a brainstorm meeting and disagree with someone else's idea. Don't say: "Your idea won't work. You're not considering X, Y, and Z, which would be big roadblocks and potentially set us up for failure." Instead, show that you hear what the other person is saying by first acknowledging their efforts, and then proceed to express your opinion or perspective using "I" statements: "I can see that you put a lot of thought into this idea - thank you for your hard work on it. I want to bring up that, based on my experience, I feel we need to consider the potential roadblocks of X, Y, Z." To be extra thoughtful, you can end with something like, "I would love to help you think through how we might address those challenges."

Here, instead of criticizing your colleague, you've criticized her idea while also acknowledging the work she put in, pointing out potential problems, and offering to help solve them.

When turning someone down, turn a "no" into a soft "yes."

In the rush of your busy day, you might find yourself prioritizing and reprioritizing tasks. Even when it feels impossible to add another item to your to-do list, your peer wants to share a new idea, your manager asks you to attend an urgent meeting, and your direct report wants feedback on their work. As a direct person, your instinct may be to clearly say "no" to the least important of these requests. But, if you're too blunt, you will likely be perceived as someone who refuses to collaborate or provide others with much-needed guidance.

A better approach is to turn your hard "no" into a soft "yes." This doesn't mean you suddenly become a "yes" person and prioritize work over your own wellbeing. It means that you find the compassion to thoughtfully offer the requester an alternative that works better for you and your schedule.

Imagine, for instance, that you're already behind on several projects when a colleague reaches and asks you to help them write an agenda for the meeting he is leading next week. Your instinct might be to say: "I have no time today, sorry. Too many other priorities at the moment."

A soft "yes" looks more like this: "My schedule is super packed over the next few weeks, but I could help asynchronously as I find the time. Does that work for you? Alternatively, [name of colleague or direct report] usually has great ideas. Feel free to reach out to them and we'll support you the best we can."

While the fact remains that you don't have time, you haven't said a "no" flat out. You've let them know you are pressed for time and offered an alternate solution, which they will likely appreciate. In the case that you need to say "no" without offering an alternative, thoughtfully explain your reasoning and express goodwill by saying something kind, like: "I really wish I had more time to help. I know you'll do a great job, though. You always do!"

When making a request, be considerate - not commanding.

Many people plan out their day ahead of time, and know exactly how they're going to tick each item off of their to-do list. So, when you come in with a request, someone is going to have to make time for it. It's okay to tell them exactly what you want, but be considerate.

Let's say, for example, that you're working on a presentation for a client, and you suddenly realize you haven't pulled together the impact numbers you had intended to add at the end. You still have to fine tune the presentation and if you spend time number crunching, you'll be terribly delayed. Instead of saying, "Hey Jo. I'm going to need you to help me with the impact analysis of the XY project. I need numbers from January-June 2023. I need this, like yesterday, as I'm already behind on putting it all together in the presentation. Thanks," try, "Hi Jo. I need your help with pulling together the impact analysis for the XY project from January-June 2023. I know it's a last-minute request, but I'm really hoping I can rely on you to send it to me by 3 pm. I appreciate you making the time for it."

While in the former statement, you come across authoritative and bossy, in the latter statement, you've still told your employee that you need their immediate help, but you've been mindful that they will need to readjust their schedule to complete an additional task.

. . .

While there is nothing wrong with being direct and honest, you can do so without hurting other people's feeling and maintaining a culture of kindness. These strategies can help you be honest and direct in a clear and respectful way by providing facts, not pointing fingers, and finding ways to support your colleagues.

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Telling it like it is" can be a big asset, especially for people leading teams. It's best not to camouflage critical feedback, provide people with vague guidance, or set unclear expectations. Clearly communicating what you want and need from your people, and why, makes everything more efficient.

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Critical Thinking Is About Asking Better Questions

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HBR: Critical Thinking is About Asking Better Questions 

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HBR: Critical Thinking is About Asking Better Questions 

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Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution. At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions. For effective questioning, start by holding your hypotheses loosely. Be willing to fundamentally reconsider your initial conclusions - and do so without defensiveness. Second, listen more than you talk through active listening. Third, leave your queries open-ended, and avoid yes-or-no questions. Fourth, consider the counterintuitive to avoid falling into groupthink. Fifth, take the time to stew in a problem, rather than making decisions unnecessarily quickly. Last, ask thoughtful, even difficult, follow-ups.

Are you tackling a new and difficult problem at work? Recently promoted and trying to both understand your new role and bring a fresh perspective? Or are you new to the workforce and seeking ways to meaningfully contribute alongside your more experienced colleagues? If so, critical thinking - the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution - will be core to your success. And at the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions.

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Critical Thinking Is About Asking Better Questions

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Critical thinking is the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution. At the heart of critical thinking is the ability to formulate deep, different, and effective questions. For effective questioning, start by holding your hypotheses loosely.

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Unstuck: The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook

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Unstuck: The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook

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The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook

When people behave in ways that bother us - a callous comment, an interruption, a self-appointed license to take what's ours without giving back - why do so many of us find it easier just to let it go? We make excuses for the other person. Or we pretend to shrug it off, though the behavior continues to niggle us, deep in our thoughts. Worse, we start avoiding the other person. Complaining behind her back, resenting her. But we never speak up.

Those negative feelings don't go away because we suppress them. Sometimes they poison a once-wonderful relationship. Or, our mind starts to run on a victim script: I'm always putting up with other people's bad behavior. People are so inconsiderate. I follow the rules, why don't they?

Here's the thing: When we're silent, we can become resentful, and then we don't live the best life we possibly could. We make our voices tinier, our expectations smaller. And, in those gaps, insecurity sprouts. Our reluctant manner tells others that we care less about our needs and feelings than we actually do. In short, we're cheating ourselves.

Yes, confrontation can be scary, but let's imagine we do speak up. Each time, it enhances our options, our confidence, our comfort in the world. It also demonstrates what we value and how we want to be treated. In short, we open up our possibilities.

Given the choice of shrinking or expanding your life, logic points to the latter. But our emotions might lean toward the former. (Trust us, we know the feeling!) That's why we put together this guide, to show us all how confrontation can lead to far better things than a black-eye.

WHEN TO CONFRONT AND HOW
Barbara Pachter wrote the book The Power of Positive Confrontation with strategies that work for everyone. The key to handling any confrontation - whether work- or home-related - Pachter says, is to use her WAC'em™ dialogue, which consists of three essential parts:

the What = a specific description of the behavior that bothers you

the Ask = a request to change it

the Check-in = a question to make sure you've been heard and understood.

"The first part is about not labeling the other person's behavior," she says. "We're so quick to label each other as jerks, and that can lead to aggression. But, when you choose to confront someone and get your words together in this way - what comes to your mind is going to be polite, calm, direct, and non-accusatory. You know what's bothering you, you know the other person's point of view, you know what you want. And you ask for it." She adds, "Then you have to turn it over, get the other person's response. Just because you're asking for something doesn't mean you're going to get it."

Our printable practice sheet, The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook, gives examples of how to apply this formula in four common conflict situations, and also what to do when the other person's response is negative.

WHO YOU MAY BE CONFRONTING
1. The Takers: You're giving and they're taking.
Your friend doesn't pay you back for movie night. Your sister calls you daily to complain your ear off. This is the second time you cooked dinner for your roommate and she hasn't helped clean up. Your manager gives you all the work and takes all the credit...

2. The Rule-breakers: They think they're above the law.
Your coworker is consistently late with deadlines. The girl you're seeing texts 20 minutes before dinner to say that she can't make it. Someone jams the printer and doesn't fix it. He doesn't remember your anniversary...

3. The Self-involved: They're stuck on Planet Clueless.
Your mother insists on a Hawaiian family vacation, even though you can't afford it. No one's vegan but she's making a tofurkey for the "fun" of it. Your friend's Facebook post about your ex's fancy holiday shindig makes you feel bad. Your sister knows that you won't be in town that week, but guess when she schedules the baby shower? It's your meeting, but he takes it over...

4. The Insulters: They think rudeness is just being real.
That guy thinks dumb blonde jokes are really funny. She calls you an idiot because you didn't know how to work the coffee machine. Your dad puts you down at every family gathering. Your friend says you're too fat to wear a bathing suit. Every time she gets mad, she swears at you...

WHEN TO LET IT GO
Sometimes - not all the time - it's best not to confront. When you're faced with any of these four scenarios below, Pachter says to walk away:

The other person is out-of-control (angry, manic, tearful, etc), or at risk of becoming so.

The other person's offensive behavior is simply out-of-character. It's okay to dial up your empathy - everyone has off-days - and let it go.

You're in a bad mood. Even the littlest thing (an empty milk carton, a coworker correcting your grammar) feels like a huge deal. Save your words for when you're more in control.

This is one of those friendships where you give a little, you take a little. He puts up with your foibles, and you shrug it off when he invites himself over and drinks all your beer.

But in other situations where you're bothered and beleaguered, speaking up is often the best way to solve the problem. So let's practice with this worksheet.

INCLUDES:
PDF worksheet (1 page)

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The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook

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The Reluctant Person's Confrontation Playbook

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Forbes: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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Forbes: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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The last three years have seen huge shifts in the economy, including in production, supply chains, knowledge-based services and the way we live and work.

Consider the movement of talent, and the disruptions that have driven the "Great Resignation" wage spikes, and over 10 million U.S. job openings. Amid the perfect storm of pandemic and geopolitical tensions, what's at the top of most CEOs' priority list? Talent. Continuing a pre-pandemic trend, human capital is among the top strategic concerns for corporate leaders. In our December 2021 national survey of c-suite executives, nearly 80 percent expected especially strong competition for skilled talent as they manage the new world of remote and hybrid work, increasing digitization, and automation.

Yet most of our nation's infrastructure and models for talent development are largely stuck in the last century. The complaints about our postsecondary education system, for example, are consistent: not applied or inclusive enough; increasingly unaffordable; slow to adapt; not natively digital. It's one of the reasons that many business leaders see employers themselves as the entities best equipped to meet the growing demand for upskilling, reskilling, and lifelong learning. Despite gaps, our research shows there are a number of exciting innovations emerging-but actualizing their potential will require greater engagement from employers.

There is growing support for employee learning in the workplace. After being flat for many years, employer investments in upskilling have grown as companies try to stay competitive and drive employee retention. The shift to more remote working led to a boom in online professional development options. Learning is increasingly happening in the flow of work and is trending toward just-in-time "microlearning." Employee "training" is today less likely to be in an outside business school classroom or training site but instead embedded in the workplace itself, supported by new types of digital platforms. Here, employers have an opportunity-and many business leaders we've surveyed view it as a responsibility or obligation-to provide and curate professional development paths for their employees.

A small but growing number of employers are even becoming education providers and issuing credentials themselves, and it's a novel way to tighten integration between education and work. Examples include Google's and IBM's educational offerings that are open to the public, and professional services companies PwC and EY's issuance of digital badges to their workforce.

These same employers and others are also strategically partnering with community colleges and universities to integrate corporate-led programs in areas like analytics, cloud computing, and AI directly into higher education curriculum. And, in a more established practice, employers are investing in and deepening their partnerships with colleges as regional talent pipelines. Examples include Northeastern University Roux Institute's employer partnerships, which aim to grow the Portland, Maine economy; semiconductor developer Wolfspeed's partnerships in North Carolina and New York; and Amazon's HQ2's higher education investments in Virginia.

In the dialogue about strategic talent pipelines, experiential or work-integrated learning looms large. Apprenticeships have received outsized attention in recent years, especially from government policymakers and certain business leaders, but they are often challenging to scale. Experiential learning is a wide continuum of models that also includes internships, cooperative education, practical placements, and now a burgeoning world of micro-internships and online project work, which accelerated during 2020's experiments with remote working and learning.

Our past research with executives identified experiential learning as a proven model for early talent and workforce diversity, but we also found that, too often, businesses think of these programs as tactical philanthropic efforts rather than the strategic talent acquisition vehicles they can be. Meanwhile, many Fortune 100 leaders advanced in talent analytics have found that internships are often their number one best performing talent acquisition channel.

These are just some of the avenues through which savvy businesses are not just passive consumers of talent, but rather proactive participants in talent development and work-integrated learning. This approach affords business the opportunity to drive mutual benefit by accessing new talent and helping employees find new ways to meaningful work.

Beyond just being aware of these trends, what actions should business leaders be considering?

Engage with learning providers-whether colleges or edtech startups-as they build their offerings to meet employer demand. Aligning with them now will have a significant return when it comes time to hire or develop workers.

Recognize that there are new learning alternatives and choices emerging that are complementary to the traditional education system-and be willing to experiment.

Support and invest in your employees' professional development needs based on their individual goals and aptitudes.

Step out and explore mutually beneficial opportunities to co-create programs with educational providers and consider providing the guidance that our community needs to create a more modern, digital, skills-based ecosystem for hiring and workforce development.

Partner with peers in your industry sector to jointly articulate and define the skills and competencies needed for tomorrow.

In this more competitive and digitally transforming landscape, these actions can help better integrate education and work for the direct benefit of employers, driving innovation and competitiveness, and for employees themselves, boosting their confidence to contribute and their career fulfillment.

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Stand Together BrandVoice: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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Most of our nation's infrastructure and models for talent development are largely stuck in the last century.

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Get a daily email featuring the latest talk, plus a quick mix of trending content.

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Liz Fosslien: How to embrace emotions at work

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"You can't just flip a switch when you step into the office and turn your emotions off. Feeling feelings is part of being human," says author and illustrator Liz Fosslien. She shares why selective vulnerability is the key to bringing your authentic self to work.

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ChatGPT doesn't come with an instruction manual. But maybe it should. Only a quarter of Americans who have heard of the AI chatbot say they have used it, Pew Research Center reported this week.

"The hardest lesson" for new AI chatbot users to learn, says Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor and chatbot enthusiast, "is that they're really difficult to use." Or at least, to use well.

The Washington Post talked with Mollick and other experts about how to get the most out of AI chatbots - from OpenAI's ChatGPT to Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing - and how to avoid common pitfalls. Often, users' first mistake is to treat them like all-knowing oracles, instead of the powerful but flawed language tools that they really are.

Here's our guide to their favorite strategies for asking a chatbot to help with explaining, writing and brainstorming. Just select a topic and follow along.

explain

A complicated concept:
Cryptocurrency

Explain it like I'm 5 Use a comparison

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A contentious debate:
Marijuana legalization

Play pretend Start a discussion

Go to Next Page
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write

A professional request:
A raise

Provide details

Go to Next Page
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A fun speech:
A wedding toast

Request an interview

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brainstorm

Business names:
A cat cafe

Ask for more Get other perspectives

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A custom experience:
A meal

Make it personal

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An invention:
A unique toothbrush

Try again Break it down

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AI chatbots can be impressive, especially once you start to learn how to coax better answers from them. But understanding their limitations is at least as important as discovering their strengths, Willison says.

It's crucial to remember that they're not human, and they're not reliable sources of information, even about themselves. So if a chatbot makes a factual claim, verify it elsewhere. And if it's acting like it has thoughts and feelings - or wants to break up your marriage - remember that it's just playing off your prompts, drawing on billions of human interactions in its training data to predict the most likely response.

Similarly, if chatbots show cultural biases or say offensive things, it's a reminder that they've ingested some of the ugliest material the internet has to offer, and they lack the independent judgment to filter that out.

AI may or may not be coming for your job. But if you familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses, you'll be better positioned to fend it off, or even turn it to your advantage.

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The Washington Post's guide to getting the most out of AI chatbots - from OpenAI's ChatGPT to Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing- and avoiding common pitfalls.

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HBR: To Help Your Team Grow, Give Them Space to Struggle

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HBR: To Help Your Team Grow, Give Them Space to Struggle

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HBR Podcast: Find Joy in Any Job - How Do I Improve the Role I Have?

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HBR Podcast: Find Joy in Any Job - How Do I Improve the Role I Have?

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ALISON BEARD: I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBR IdeaCast.

We're doing a special series looking at how to find joy in our work. At a time when a lot of people are feeling burnt out, disengaged and unhappy in their professional lives, we're explaining, with the help of author Marcus Buckingham, how to change our jobs for the better. We've already talked about the problem of disengagement and how to figure out what makes us happy. Today we're going to discuss how to shift our jobs so we spend more time doing those things.

SPEAKER 1: I've had great managers that have helped to support me in doing those things that I've liked. And I've always been very vocal about saying, "Hey, I really enjoy this. Is there more opportunity for me to do this? Or is there an opportunity to do less of this? Maybe there's a way to delegate some of those tasks.

SPEAKER 2: I approached my firm with a proposal that I focus more on delivery and supporting sales. We negotiated an agreement and a little over a year ago, I switched to a role where I have a small sales obligation instead of a quite large one and I support my colleagues and I spend more of my time really building client relationships and uncovering business development opportunities. And it is so much more fun than what I was doing before.

SPEAKER 3: Earlier in my career was when I was ready to move on and try something new and started to look at opportunities elsewhere. And went into my boss's office and told him about this. And his response was, "We don't want to see you go. What are you interested in doing? And let's see if there's a match between what you want to do and what we need done." And it turns out there was, and we were able to set up an opportunity for me to do that. And so, I've tried to offer similar opportunities for folks now that I'm in a leadership capacity.

ALISON BEARD: Marcus's book is called Love and Work. Marcus, very happy to have you back again.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Lovely to be here, Alison.

ALISON BEARD: Okay. So we have decided that we have a few red threads at our job, but a lot of other colored threads. We've made our loved and our loathed lists. We've thought a lot about what really makes us happy. So what we do about it? How do we make sure that we have more of those red threads and fewer of the other color every day?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Well, there's something that you can do for yourself and then there's something you can do with other people because obviously, work is a place in which there are other people. The first thing just for you is it begins with you changing your mindset toward your own life. So the first thing you start with is going, "Today, intentionally, what are the red threads that I'm going to find today?" Just try it. Change your relationship to your morning. You're waking up, you're going, "Life's trying to show me some red threads today, where are they and how can I use them, turn them into contribution in some way?" So to begin with, it begins with intentional attention, that's the first place to start.

Second, when you have got vividness... And we talked last time about, doesn't matter when, who, doesn't matter why, doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter how, whatever the verb is that's on your "I love it when" note and you put that detail to it. Can you find a way to volunteer that for the benefit of the team over and above that which you're doing? Can you find a way that, maybe, you don't just have 20% of it that day? Can it be 50% that day? Can you find some way in which that particular set of red threads is useful for the team more than what it was before? Can you volunteer it and turn up the dial on it?

Third, can you learn some new skill or technique that takes that natural love, appetite, red-threadness and turns it into an actual contribution where the team goes, "Oh, my word, that's useful." So if you like communications and you aren't actually in a marketing role, but it's a small team and there's an opportunity for you to think about how you can help and you just always liked that "How do we reach people and create an experience for them?" Can you learn MailChimp? Can you learn Eloqua? Can you learn particular software or tools that help you take a natural instinct or orientation of yours and turn it into an actual contribution? Don't wait for somebody to give you permission because they can't read your mind. Instead, can you take it upon yourself to learn something that elevates a natural love into a contribution?

The second thing, of course, is you do have, many of us anyway, a team leader and the routine and the ritual that you can and you should expect of your team leader is what I would call a check-in, which is really like doing sort of a mini Love it/Loathe it, but it's every week. And what it sounds like is this, every week, your team leader and you are going to talk about what's your love last week? What's your loathe? What are your priorities this week? How can that leader help you? The best team leaders, when we run the data on this, if team leaders are checking in with their people every week, in the next three months, engagement goes up 77% and employee turnover goes down 67%. There's really good data that shows that frequent light-touch attention between you and your team leader is massively important in terms of your contribution.

ALISON BEARD: But what if you don't have a boss like that? I imagine many people don't have bosses like that, in part, because I think people are strapped. You had mentioned before that nurse supervisor who has an average of 60 nurses, that's hard.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Yeah. And that's not just one nurse supervisor, that's the standard span. We call it the span of control, but we should really call it span of attention because that poor nurse supervisor can't give individualized attention to what people love, what they loathe, what they're doing every week. She can't do it or he can't do it. It's too many people. Now it makes sense on a balance sheet, but it doesn't make sense for humans.

So, the first thing is though, for a team member, it has to come from you first. And all you are really saying, all you are saying to your team leader is, "Could you talk to me for 15 minutes about the next week that's upcoming? I want to share with you a bit about what I'm into, what my red threads are for last week." Or however you want to say it. "What I got a kick out of last week." If you're not comfortable with the word love, use joy or use passion or use interest or something. And then, "Here's what I'm focused on this week." That's 15 minutes. That's 10 minutes. Maybe you have a longer conversation because something you bring up prompts a coaching moment from her or him and you got 20 minutes. Okay, all you're asking is, "You want me to be productive this next week, right? Okay. We got 52 of these weeks, I want to talk to you each week about the next week just so that I can figure out how I can have a week that's actually both productive and nourishing. That's what I want, that's what you want."

ALISON BEARD: Can you do it under the radar without having that kind of conversation for people who do have absentee bosses or bosses that are too controlling and prescriptive?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Obviously, going back to the 73% of people who say they have the freedom to maneuver to fit their jobs better, there's a lot of stuff that we need to do ourselves and we can do ourselves. We can identify our red threads. We can put the detail to that in terms of, "I love it when..." And we, and we alone, frankly, can put the detail to that. We can volunteer those. We can learn skills to refine and sharpen those. We can deliberately try to tilt the floor, if you like, to mix my metaphors, so that you're doing more and more of those. You can, you do have that power.

Having said that, all the data that I've been aware of these last 25 years shows that you do develop best in response to a human being and often, that other human being is a team leader. So if you are working with someone who is controlling, mistrustful, you can try to go up and say, "Hey, listen, this next week, what are the priorities? How can I help? Can you run some interference for me? This is what I'm thinking about next week in terms of what I could do more of or what I could do less of." You should try that. If you are consistently being shut down, then all of the data that I've seen shows that you will never be as productive or as engaged or as resilient as you could be. Your team leader, I'm afraid, is a very important part of your work ecosystem. When they're absent-

ALISON BEARD: So need support in finding those red threads. I mean not finding them, you need support in shifting to them.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Well, yes. Then if you keep getting shut down, then you'll have to make some very practical decisions about where you scavenge next. Because if you're with someone who basically tries to shut you down, there's just no way to sugarcoat that. And you may have to earn the money. There may be no other job for you. Although right now, and probably for the next five years, there's going to be more choice, perhaps, than you've ever had. But your team leader is a critical, critical part of the way in which you get to experience joy and passion and nourishment at work. I'm sorry, the data's unequivocal.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And so, you've found these red threads, you're gathering them, you're focusing more of your time on them, but there's still all the other colored threads and all of that work needs to get done. So how do you stop doing stuff that you loathe but allow the organization and your team to still function?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Well, what's interesting is that if you actually take the steps that we were talking about before, first of all, you pay attention to it, you understand the detail of that red thread, you start volunteering even if it's a not in your job description, you volunteer for it, you learn skills that refine it and sharpen it. And over time, what you'll find... I mean, I ran a company. I had 150 odd people, all different teams. And I promise you, managers want people to step into a space and do more, but they don't read people's minds so they don't quite know where people are going to give you that discretionary effort. So if you are doing all the things I'm just describing, people will start going, "Ooh, that, whenever I need that, she's the one I turn to, she's the one I turn to, she's the one I turn to."

And what you'll find is, not always, particularly if your manager is controlling and weird, but you'll find, the world starts maneuvering you into a place where more and more and more of that very valuable thing is what people start asking you to do, which gives you power, by the way, to turn to your manager or your colleagues and go, "Listen, if you really want me to do this and this and this, then I don't have time for this and this and this." It doesn't always work out that way, but if you begin to express so much value in terms of your contribution in the area of that which you love and you've taken your love seriously, then people will start, I promise you, any kind of moderately good team leader will start maneuvering to go, "Well, we can't have her not do that. We need that to the Nth degree."

It's when you don't take that initiative and when you don't take your loves seriously that you sort of sit back and wait for some manager to come design the perfect job for you, that is never going to happen. But if you take that initiative, the world starts sort of maneuvering itself toward that which you love. Love is attractive, it's a weird, magnetic sort of thing. And then, in the end, you are going to have many, many occasions where the team will start to go, "We need her to do an awful lot more of that and therefore, we're going to have to take this off her plate." Now-

ALISON BEARD: That's a very optimistic view of teams and organizations because in my experience, particularly recently, I think that people have just had the work piled on and don't feel that they have that opportunity to offload as much as they would like.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Yes. So look, try that, everything I just said. It could be optimistic, but you look at the best teams, that happens a lot. So try that first. Of course, if it doesn't actually shake out that way, then the opportunity for you exists to use your red threads to give you the nourishment that you need, because frankly, for most of us, and I know this is going to sound a little bit simplistic as I say it, but for most of us, the challenge isn't that we don't have enough time, it's that we don't have enough energy. And so your red threads are powerful because they give you energy, they nourish you.

So some people say, "Well, you should do all the things you hate first so that you're then rewarded by doing the stuff that you love." I actually do the opposite. There's a bunch of stuff in my job, because I don't love everything that I do, that I do only after I've started off my day, every day for me, I start off with all my red threads because they give me energy. And then, I found I can plow through the stuff that... Like I don't like confrontation, I so don't like confrontation. But if I've done a lot of stuff in the beginning of the day that actually invigorates me, I find I can almost talk to anyone about anything.

I'm often called upon to mingle. I hate mingling, it's super stressful for me. Maybe it comes back from when I had a stammer and I couldn't speak, but I hate it and it will never not stress me out.

So one of the things that you can do is what I can do. I love interviewing people. Well, can you look at some of the stuff that drains you through the lens of that which you love? Whenever I now have to mingle, either remotely or now in the reality of the world, I just take three people that I'm going to meet and I'll just interview them for 20 minutes, one after another. And that's my mingling. Doesn't always work, but you can actually use the power of that which you love to kind of transform some of the other activities that bring you down.

ALISON BEARD: I mingle in exactly that same way and I ask so many questions that my husband often apologizes and says, "I'm sorry, she's a journalist."

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Just asking questions and shutting up is a really good way to get through a party.

ALISON BEARD: So, have you seen people, individuals that you've worked with in any kind of job move their existing role so that they have more of those red threads they're focusing on every single day and getting rid of the other ones? Like you've seen this work in practice?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: All the time. When you actually put the data to this, you can track it through very simple measurements of sentiment. So you could start with a team and ask some very simple questions, which we do all the time, "Do I have a chance to use my strengths every day? Do I have a chance to do something that I love every day?" And you can see data where the person starts off and they're at a 3.2 or a 3.3 or the team, in general, is it a 3.2 on a scale of one to five, 3.2, 3.3 on those questions.

But what I've seen time and time again is you fast forward three months and these numbers move really quickly. You can get teams where that's at a 4.9 or even a 5.0 across the entire team. And it's not like the team's doing different work, it's just that they've had the conversations where somebody went, "I lean into this, but I need help here." Somebody else went, "I need help here, but I lean into this." And lo and behold, the team begins to coalesce around the uniqueness of each person on it. You see it happening all the time and it happens really quickly.

ALISON BEARD: Is that for everyone on the totem pole? Can the lowest tier employee do this just as easily as a C-suite executive?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: It depends on the C-suite executive and it depends on the person lower on the totem pole. We have designed an awful lot of jobs so that the people lowest on the totem pole have less choice, they have less or to autonomy on what they're doing. Having said that, if you look at retail, if you look at hospitals, if you look at warehouse work, if you look at manufacturing work, there has been, over the last decade or so, an increasing understanding of the need, just in order to get better quality, to have decisions being made as close to the action as possible.

What encourages me is there's more and more realization, even just for pragmatic reasons like quality, like safety, to push decision making down into the team. Well, when you do that, you are actually letting people make more decisions about how they do their work, how they support one another, how they check in with one another.

Does that happen as much at senior levels? No, probably not. I don't know that for a fact. I actually don't have data that suggests that you only see these big transformations at senior levels, you actually see transitions in teams at all levels. The variable seems to be whether or not there's trust that exists between the team and the team leader, regardless of the level. Where there's trust, then there's individualization, where there's no trust, there isn't.

ALISON BEARD: Is it possible that in a scenario where you don't have a great boss or you don't lot of trust that you can identify these red threads, try to shift a little bit, but the real answer is maybe not quitting your job, but shifting your role, getting a new title, such that it's very clear to everyone that you're now going to be focusing on X, Y and Z that you do love and not on ABC that you don't?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Yeah. Once you've scavenged and you've found some of these red threads and you volunteered, maybe you're in human resources, but you found that you are always instinctively aware of brand and every time you go to a conference, you are aware of how the company's branded. And so, you keep sending emails about it and you keep sending emails about it. And then, eventually, somebody goes, "You seem to be fixated. I mean, you're in HR for crying out loud, but you seem to be fixated on how we're coming across to our customers." At that point, keep volunteering. But at some juncture, it absolutely makes sense to go, "You know what? I need to change the role because the role I want to be in, frankly, is I want to be in charge of brand. I want brand to be part of my responsibilities."

One of the big changes that we can do is to change jobs from defining them in terms of the steps that are needed to defining them in terms of the outcomes. And so, if you are the sort of person who's like, "I'm into brand," then putting that and making sure that's put into your title, into your job description, even in terms of what you put on LinkedIn or Indeed or whatever, formalizes it for people. And that kind of symbolism is really, really useful.

Now, again, if you've got a manager who's stuck in their set ways, that's going to be trickier. I mean, in some organizations you've got to kind of run it up to... I don't know where you have to run it up to, but heaven itself to get your title changed. But in other organizations, many smaller organizations, for people to go, "You know what? She's our brand person and she wasn't before and her work history doesn't suggest she should be, but her red threads lead her there all the time so now we're actually going to turn that into our expectations of you and then, we're going to codify that."

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. Or even a sort of formal change in roles and responsibilities I think could work. The HR example is good, actually, because there's so much focus on employer brand too, so she could actually stay in HR and just have that become the role that she plays on that team.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Yes.

ALISON BEARD: It does seem also that a big part of making this transition for yourself with or without your boss' support is finding or helping people find their red threads. So I hate spreadsheets, I have a colleague who really loves them and is really good at it and sort of the record keeping part of our job. And so, when you know that, you can encourage those people to sort of follow their red threads more in a way that divides the labor better for everyone, right?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: And that's where we're going, because one of the most beautiful things of taking your own red threads seriously, which you should have been taught to do at nine, but you weren't, but okay, life still goes on so you can learn it now, one of the great things of taking that seriously for yourself and understanding the vivid detail, the fine filigreed nature of what you love is you start to realize that other people are unique and filigreed in their red threads as well.

If I've got 5,000 murky ways in me and I've got red threads that are weird and wonderful and unique and want to be turned into contribution, then that person over there does too. And their race and their gender and their nationality and their religion really doesn't tell me very much at all about what their uniqueness is. And so, every introduction, every person you work with, if we could build into work more curiosity about that person's loves and loathes, not to be narcissistic, but so that we can be kind of awe-inspired by, "Oh my word, this person's so not me and yet so has a contribution to make."

And that's not idealistic. You look at the best platoons or rather, squads in the army, you see stuff like that. You look at the best teams in a Best Buy, you see stuff like that. As I was mentioning on a previous episode, you look at the best housekeeping teams in hotels, you see that kind of, "Oh my word, she's like this. And he's like that." And that's awesome.

So yes, sometimes we're all going to have to, by the way, wade in and just do the tough, dirty work ourselves that we all don't like, okay, that's fine, that sometimes happens. The Mayo Clinic stuff says maybe 80% of your job is differently colored threads. All right. But to your point, Alison, we want work to be one of those places where we are seen for all that we are. And I don't mean just in a diversity, equity and inclusion sense, I mean, just in the full sense of who are you, Alison? Who am I?

ALISON BEARD: And if you can't find that in your job, but you also can't quit, is a side hustle the solution?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Yes. People talk about work-life balance as though that's what we should be striving for. Of course, that's a terrible metaphor because nothing healthy in nature is balanced. Everything in nature is moving. And how do you move through life in such a way that you gain nourishment from the movement. And so, our lives are filled with our job, they're filled with our kids, they're filled with our grandparents, our parents, our community activism, our faith. and it may be that some of us have no bloody red threads at all in our job, okay. There might be other domains in which you can find other red threads. Don't do the side hustle to make an extra buck, well, you can, I suppose, but you're trying to, actually, fill your life with more love because you're more creative, more resilient, you're more collaborative, et cetera, when you've got more love in your life. And so, side hustles, really, are part of that scavenging for more love in your life.

And we look around the world and gosh, you can see so many darn examples of people who followed their love into a side hustle and then turned it in something magnificent. I mean, for crying out loud, Albert Einstein was a patent clerk, being a physicist was a side hustle. And he followed that. Now he's an extreme example, of course, but when you find something that you love outside of your work, we do see, time and time again, that people, because the love connects to appetite and the appetite connects to resilience, and then that connects to learning, you do see people basically leaving the loveless work they have behind as they move into a side hustle that's just, frankly, got way more red threads in it. And that's an entirely legit strategy.

I wouldn't suggest you start there, necessarily because there's a lot that we could do. There's the 73% of us who maneuver our jobs to fit ourselves better and we haven't tried to do that. But side hustles are a beautiful way to scavenge.

ALISON BEARD: And so, what is the end game? What do you find in your research when people are able to make this shift and have more red threads reach that 20% threshold? What does it do for them?

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: Well, what we're looking for in the end for you is this isn't - it's not, how much more stuff can I cram into my day? It's not one efficiency mechanism after another. That's not what we're all after. What you're looking for as an overall outcome is, do you feel that you can look forward positively to a day? Do you have positive anticipation for that day? Second, do you feel some sense of self mastery so that you are in control of how much love you feel in a day?

Your love is, in a sense, for contribution because you can feel a thing about what your love and then you don't pat yourself on the back for it, you turn into contribution and then, the way in which you contribute gives more detail to that which you love, which then, in turn, leads into more contribution. It's this ongoing kind of infinity loop of love leading to work, and then work and forming love. That's what you're after.

ALISON BEARD: Now, Marcus, what I really want is hard statistics like how much happier am I going to be? How much more engaged am I going to be? Give me some data.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: So what we do know from data is if you say that you have a chance to do something that you love every day, even if you're not good at it, you are more than 10 times more likely to be highly engaged at work and you're more than 17 times more likely to be more resilient at work. And when we look at resilience and engagement, that drives all sorts of things from customer satisfaction, to productivity and performance, to lost work days, to employee turnover. So love drives to the tune of 10 to 17 times more likely to be engaged and resilient. Love can give you all of that.

ALISON BEARD: Terrific. We've now finished up talking about what the individual can do. And next episode, we're going to talk about how to make more love filled teams and organizations. Marcus, thanks so much for being around.

MARCUS BUCKINGHAM: My pleasure.

ALISON BEARD: That's Marcus Buckingham, author of Love and Work. Listen to the entire mini series on finding joy in your job at hbr.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode was produced by Mary Dooe. We get technical help from Rob Eckhardt. Ian Fox is our audio product manager. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. I'm Alison Beard.

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Find Joy in Any Job: How Do I Improve the Role I Have?

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ALISON BEARD: I'm Alison Beard and this is the HBR IdeaCast. We're doing a special series looking at how to find joy in our work. At a time when a lot of people are feeling burnt out, disengaged and unhappy in their professional lives, we're explaining, with the help of author Marcus Buckingham, how to change our jobs for the better.

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HBR: Arrange Your Meeting Schedule to Boost Your Energy

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HBR: Arrange Your Meeting Schedule to Boost Your Energy

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Meetings remain a frequent challenge for most knowledge workers. While common advice and prior research often focuses on making meetings more effective or reducing the time we spend in them, there is another critical aspect rarely taken into account: the way we schedule and arrange our meetings on a daily basis. Scheduling can, however, aid or impede our energy and productivity at work, and thus warrants a closer look.

In our research, we investigate the impact of knowledge workers' daily meeting scheduling, including how certain strategies may seem smart but can, in fact, unintentionally drain our own energy. Let's consider two examples.

Taylor, a senior data specialist who leads a team of junior analysts, notices two meetings on his Thursday calendar - one with a vendor liaison and another with senior specialists from other departments. Then he realizes that he also needs to arrange some check-ins with his junior analysts. Should he squeeze in those extra meetings on Thursday alongside the existing two, or should he schedule them for Friday instead? He is tempted to stack the meetings on Thursday, so that he can save time and keep his Friday schedule "clean" to focus on his own portion of a project report.

In another context, Minli, a seasoned software engineer and manager of a development team, faces two upcoming meetings this week. On Tuesday, she is scheduled to present to the strategic committee, a critical meeting with potential budget implications. The next day, she is tasked with an orientation session for new interns - a familiar and relatively easy duty. Alongside these meetings, Minli must also tackle her own technical work on two projects: one encountering some serious challenges, and the other nearly complete, needing only a few final touches. Should she work on the difficult project on Tuesday and handle the easier one on Wednesday, or reverse the plan? Minli leans towards the first option. By addressing the most demanding challenges on Tuesday, both in her meetings and her individual work, she anticipates a less stressful remainder of the week.

Taylor and Minli's approaches are common: compacting meeting schedules to save time, or pairing critical meetings with intense individual tasks on the same day to finish them as soon as possible. However, our research findings reveal that these strategies come with their own drawbacks, particularly when considering their impact on workday energy.

We conducted two studies in which we tracked the daily work activities of over 400 full-time knowledge workers, some from technology companies and others from diverse industries involving intellectual work. Throughout the workweek, workers were surveyed at the middle and the end of each workday about their meetings, individual tasks, and other activities during the morning and the afternoon, as well as their energy levels at the end of each half-day period. Additionally, we drew insights into their work performance, including task performance and creativity, from their supervisors.

We made two important discoveries. First, what impacts knowledge workers' energy is not the sheer amount of time they spend in meetings, but the relative proportion of meeting time compared to what they spend on individual tasks. We found that, on a given day, the more time knowledge workers dedicate to meetings relative to their own individual tasks, the less they engage in small break activities (e.g., a short walk, casual conversations, brief fun reading) to restore their energy during that day. The absence of such break activities, which are crucial for periodic replenishment, harms their workday energy. The impaired energy in turn has a negative impact on the knowledge workers' task performance, creativity, and job satisfaction at work.

Further, we discovered that, when structured appropriately, meetings and individual tasks can create what we call a "pressure complementarity effect" during the workday. Two complementary configurations - high-pressure individual tasks accompanied by a low-pressure meeting, or conversely, low-pressure individual tasks accompanied by a high-pressure meeting-can benefit a person's energy. For instance, on a day when a data specialist breezes through routine paperwork, she may find a high-stakes meeting where she pitches a new initiative energizing; conversely, on a day when she is wrestling with a high-pressure report, a low-pressure update meeting about the company's IT system can offer a needed respite for her energy. We found that this complementary effect is most pronounced when a knowledge worker has not yet been consumed by the day's demands, specifically during the morning rather than the afternoon.

These research findings shed light on how Taylor and Minli's scheduling approaches might inadvertently undermine their workday energy, and they also reveal pathways for potential improvements. Taylor's decision to stack meetings on a single day creates a substantial imbalance in time between meetings and individual work on that day, which will likely reduce his engagement in short break activities crucial for his energy replenishment. Despite aiming to optimize his schedule, this approach may instead lead to energy depletion and reduced performance. A more balanced spread of meetings and individual tasks across the two days may enhance his energy and effectiveness.

In Minli's situation, her plan to tackle a difficult project and a critical meeting both on Tuesday could create undue pressure without sufficient opportunity for relief and restoration. Conversely, her Wednesday, filled with a low-pressure meeting and an easier project, may lack stimulation. If, instead, Minli can pair the more demanding individual tasks with the less taxing meeting on one day, and vice versa on the other day, she is more likely to sustain her energy throughout both days.

So, when faced with the challenge of scheduling your workday, particularly arranging meetings alongside individual tasks, consider the following:

Focus on the relative proportion of meeting time to individual work time on a specific day, not just the total hours spent in meetings.

A reasonable balance between meetings and individual tasks allows for essential breaks and energy replenishment throughout the workday. This approach requires not overloading a single day with many meetings, even if it may sometimes seem like a time-saving strategy. Managing the proportion of meeting time relative to individual work on a daily basis can enhance energy levels at work, thereby contributing to improved performance, creativity, and job satisfaction.

Design your workday to create complements between meetings and individual tasks.

Recognize the benefits of pairing high-pressure meetings with low-pressure individual tasks, or vice versa. Rather than clustering activities of the same pressure level into a single period, distribute challenging tasks and meetings across different days or different time segments of the day. This approach fosters proper pressure complementarity, thereby enhancing workday energy to facilitate better performance.

Adopt a more holistic approach to workday scheduling.

Rather than simply fitting a meeting or individual task into the calendar for its own convenience, consider the broader implications for your workday structure. Be mindful of how a scheduling decision may alter the arrangement pattern of your workday, potentially influencing your energy and productivity.

The following questions might be useful in your planning process:

How will this scheduling decision impact the balance between my meetings and individual work time on this specific day?

Will adding this meeting to this specific segment of the day compress my individual work time too much, sacrificing essential breaks and replenishment?

Will this schedule lead to back-to-back high-pressure meetings and tasks in a single day? How can that be avoided?

Is there a better spot in my schedule to place this meeting or task, facilitating a more effective mix of high-pressure and low-pressure work throughout the day?

For knowledge workers, managing meetings is not merely about increasing effectiveness and time efficiency; it also calls for a strategic approach to everyday scheduling. This means considering daily meetings alongside individual tasks, both in terms of time allocation and how much pressure they will put on you. Being mindful of these aspects can help you steer clear of subtle scheduling traps and prevent unexpected drains on your energy and productivity. Indeed, by embracing a more holistic approach to meeting scheduling, you may transform the way you approach your workday, leading to a more balanced and fruitful arrangement of daily responsibilities.

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Arrange Your Meeting Schedule to Boost Your Energy

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Most meeting advice focuses on how to make meetings more effective or how to cut down on the number of meetings you have altogether. But what about how to schedule your meetings alongside other work tasks to best manage your productivity?

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TED Playlist: The Pursuit of Curiosity & Understanding

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TED Playlist: The Pursuit of Curiosity & Understanding

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For the best experience, please turn JavaScript on. Here's how

Curious about the world? These fascinating talks will encourage you to seek and experience the endless delight and intrigue it offers. (Curated in partnership with the Qatar Foundation.)

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The pursuit of curiosity and understanding

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You have JavaScript disabled For the best experience, please turn JavaScript on. Here's how Curious about the world? These fascinating talks will encourage you to seek and experience the endless delight and intrigue it offers. (Curated in partnership with the Qatar Foundation.)

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Webinar Recording: Organizational Health - A Powerful Advantage

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Webinar Recording: Organizational Health - A Powerful Advantage

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LeeAnn Renninger: The secret to giving great feedback

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Humans have been coming up with ways to give constructive criticism for centuries, but somehow we’re still pretty terrible at it. Cognitive psychologist LeeAnn Renninger shares a scientifically proven method for giving effective feedback.

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Forbes: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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Forbes: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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The last three years have seen huge shifts in the economy, including in production, supply chains, knowledge-based services and the way we live and work.

Consider the movement of talent, and the disruptions that have driven the "Great Resignation" wage spikes, and over 10 million U.S. job openings. Amid the perfect storm of pandemic and geopolitical tensions, what's at the top of most CEOs' priority list? Talent. Continuing a pre-pandemic trend, human capital is among the top strategic concerns for corporate leaders. In our December 2021 national survey of c-suite executives, nearly 80 percent expected especially strong competition for skilled talent as they manage the new world of remote and hybrid work, increasing digitization, and automation.

Yet most of our nation's infrastructure and models for talent development are largely stuck in the last century. The complaints about our postsecondary education system, for example, are consistent: not applied or inclusive enough; increasingly unaffordable; slow to adapt; not natively digital. It's one of the reasons that many business leaders see employers themselves as the entities best equipped to meet the growing demand for upskilling, reskilling, and lifelong learning. Despite gaps, our research shows there are a number of exciting innovations emerging-but actualizing their potential will require greater engagement from employers.

There is growing support for employee learning in the workplace. After being flat for many years, employer investments in upskilling have grown as companies try to stay competitive and drive employee retention. The shift to more remote working led to a boom in online professional development options. Learning is increasingly happening in the flow of work and is trending toward just-in-time "microlearning." Employee "training" is today less likely to be in an outside business school classroom or training site but instead embedded in the workplace itself, supported by new types of digital platforms. Here, employers have an opportunity-and many business leaders we've surveyed view it as a responsibility or obligation-to provide and curate professional development paths for their employees.

A small but growing number of employers are even becoming education providers and issuing credentials themselves, and it's a novel way to tighten integration between education and work. Examples include Google's and IBM's educational offerings that are open to the public, and professional services companies PwC and EY's issuance of digital badges to their workforce.

These same employers and others are also strategically partnering with community colleges and universities to integrate corporate-led programs in areas like analytics, cloud computing, and AI directly into higher education curriculum. And, in a more established practice, employers are investing in and deepening their partnerships with colleges as regional talent pipelines. Examples include Northeastern University Roux Institute's employer partnerships, which aim to grow the Portland, Maine economy; semiconductor developer Wolfspeed's partnerships in North Carolina and New York; and Amazon's HQ2's higher education investments in Virginia.

In the dialogue about strategic talent pipelines, experiential or work-integrated learning looms large. Apprenticeships have received outsized attention in recent years, especially from government policymakers and certain business leaders, but they are often challenging to scale. Experiential learning is a wide continuum of models that also includes internships, cooperative education, practical placements, and now a burgeoning world of micro-internships and online project work, which accelerated during 2020's experiments with remote working and learning.

Our past research with executives identified experiential learning as a proven model for early talent and workforce diversity, but we also found that, too often, businesses think of these programs as tactical philanthropic efforts rather than the strategic talent acquisition vehicles they can be. Meanwhile, many Fortune 100 leaders advanced in talent analytics have found that internships are often their number one best performing talent acquisition channel.

These are just some of the avenues through which savvy businesses are not just passive consumers of talent, but rather proactive participants in talent development and work-integrated learning. This approach affords business the opportunity to drive mutual benefit by accessing new talent and helping employees find new ways to meaningful work.

Beyond just being aware of these trends, what actions should business leaders be considering?

Engage with learning providers-whether colleges or edtech startups-as they build their offerings to meet employer demand. Aligning with them now will have a significant return when it comes time to hire or develop workers.

Recognize that there are new learning alternatives and choices emerging that are complementary to the traditional education system-and be willing to experiment.

Support and invest in your employees' professional development needs based on their individual goals and aptitudes.

Step out and explore mutually beneficial opportunities to co-create programs with educational providers and consider providing the guidance that our community needs to create a more modern, digital, skills-based ecosystem for hiring and workforce development.

Partner with peers in your industry sector to jointly articulate and define the skills and competencies needed for tomorrow.

In this more competitive and digitally transforming landscape, these actions can help better integrate education and work for the direct benefit of employers, driving innovation and competitiveness, and for employees themselves, boosting their confidence to contribute and their career fulfillment.

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Stand Together BrandVoice: Investing In Talent With Work-Integrated Learning

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Most of our nation's infrastructure and models for talent development are largely stuck in the last century.

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PowderKeg Podcasts: How to Improve Company Culture, Build Better Teams, and Level Up as a Leader

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PowderKeg Podcasts: How to Improve Company Culture, Build Better Teams, and Level Up as a Leader

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There are dozens of leadership styles out there. How do you know which one is right for you and your company?

The internet is full of self-help gurus slinging courses to level up your leadership skills. Some of them are great, but others... not so much.

On today's episode of Get IN., we sit down with two lifelong leaders to share a few must have leadership practices that you can implement today.

Heather Haas is the President at , a company focused on driving change through leadership effectiveness.

Doug Allgood is the President and CEO at Blackink IT , an innovative leader in managed technology services.

These two have over 30 years of combined executive experience leading teams at dynamic companies across several different verticals.

Be sure to check out these great clips from the show:

[9:49] First exposures to great leadership and what they learned

[19:00] How to interact with different personalities in the workplace

[20:28] Helpful changes around the work environment

[26:10] Things you can do now to prepare to be a leader in the future

[30:54] Visualize your path to success

Get IN. is the show focused on the unfolding stories and most extraordinary innovations happening in the heartland today. Get IN. is brought to you by and Elevate Ventures .

In our conversation with Heather and Doug, you will learn:

That values are the pillars of your intentional culture, and every leader has to carry that culture

Actionable leadership skills

Why learning is a social process

How to build exceptional company culture

"Leaders don't have the best answers, they have the best questions"

Want to listen to this episode on your chosen app?
Join the Indiana Tech Community on Powderkeg for Email Updates about Get IN.
If you like this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also follow us on . We have an incredible lineup of interviews we'll be releasing every Wednesday here on Get IN.

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How to Improve Company Culture, Build Better Teams, and Level Up as a Leader with Heather Haas & Doug Allgood - Powderkeg

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Jeff Smulyan has had a long and illustrious career thus far. As the founder of Emmis Communications, he helped give David Letterman his start, created the world's first all-sports radio station, owned the Seattle Mariners MLB team, and created Hip Hop Radio powerhouse Power 106 in Los Angeles-and he isn't done yet.

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Curious about what L&D does? Click below!

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Curious about what L&D does? Click below!

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<aside> ❤️‍🔥 Fractional Director of Talent Development & Learning | Workplace Experience 🌱 Learning & Development 🌱 Talent Management & Performance Cycle 🌱 Pre- & Onboarding | Retention Strategy 🌱 Virtual & IRL Employee Experience | Engagement 🌱 DEIBA 🌱 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

</aside>

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Fractional Director of Talent Development & Learning | Workplace Experience 🌱 Learning & Development 🌱 Talent Management & Performance Cycle 🌱 Pre- & Onboarding | Retention Strategy 🌱 Virtual & IRL Employee Experience | Engagement 🌱 DEIBA 🌱 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

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Podcast: Brene Brown w/ Mike Erwin - Leadership Is a Relationship

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Podcast: Brene Brown w/ Mike Erwin - Leadership Is a Relationship

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Brené with Mike Erwin on Leadership Is a Relationship, Part 2 of 2

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Listen to this episode from Dare to Lead with Brené Brown on Spotify. We're back with Part 2 of my conversation with Mike Erwin, the founder and CEO of the Character and Leadership Center and the co-author of Leadership Is a Relationship. In this episode, we continue to dig into how the most effective leaders prioritize relationships.

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In the news

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LA Times

Many New Year's resolutions are only half-intended from the get-go. But if you're serious about improving your health or fitness, a commitment contract can give you hundreds of reasons to see it through each week.

read more

Scientific American

To take one notable example, on the commitment contract website stickK.com, users put down some money (say, $200) and state a goal they want to achieve (such as to lose ten pounds in a month). They also need to state what will happen to the money if they don't stick to their commitments (eg, it'll go to a friend or to a charity they do not like).

read more

Inc.com

...stickK, the app that promises to help you achieve life, business, health, and career goals. Created by behavioral economists at Yale University, the free goal-setting platform influences behavior change through loss aversion and accountability.

read more

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Self-improvement. Powered by behavioral science.

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view more articles Many New Year's resolutions are only half-intended from the get-go. But if you're serious about improving your health or fitness, a commitment contract can give you hundreds of reasons to see it through each week.

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​After discovering a co-worker washing out his colostomy bag in the restroom at his workplace, another employee complained to his boss about it. The manager, similarly disturbed by the behavior, went to HR seeking to fire the co-worker for safety and hygiene violations.

That wasn't the right response, says Margaret Driscoll, who was a senior regional HR director at the New England-based company at the time, as there were no job-related performance issues at play in this instance.

So instead of preparing termination paperwork, Driscoll sat down with the employee to talk, and she learned the reason for his behavior: He was washing and reusing his colostomy bag to save money to pay for his wife's expensive medical treatments. Driscoll addressed the situation by arranging for benefits to assist with the medical care for the employee's wife.

"He needed help, and we got him help," Driscoll says. "We were able to use our current medical plan, plus other resources from the American Cancer Society, to best assist him and his family during those hard times."

While employee conflicts are inevitable, this incident underscores the importance of talking to employees before irritations and minor disagreements escalate into full-scale warfare. "You try to understand what the issue is," says Driscoll, now chief people and culture officer at Blackbaud, a cloud computing provider based in Charleston, S.C. "You have to learn empathy and care."

Simmering Tensions

Employee conflicts can be a huge distraction at work, leading to reduced productivity and lower morale. They can also be time-consuming. Employees and managers spend an average of 4.3 hours a week dealing with conflict, according to Conflict at Work, a 2022 global research report by the Myers-Briggs Co. Of the 271 employees surveyed, most of whom were from the U.S. and the United Kingdom, 36 percent said they deal with workplace conflict "often" or "all the time."

The most common causes of conflict? Poor communication, lack of role clarity and heavy workloads, the survey results revealed. Those conflicts take a toll on job satisfaction. Employees who spend more hours dealing with conflict are also more likely to be dissatisfied with their jobs than those who spend less time handling conflict, the report concluded.

Of course, not all conflict is unhealthy. Some conflict in the workplace can be a good thing, according to Amy Gallo, author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) (Harvard Business Review Press, 2022) and HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict (Harvard Business Review Press, 2017). "Healthy conflict includes disagreements, debates or discussions that advance a conversation, meeting or project toward a goal," Gallo says. "It has lots of benefits, including better work outcomes, innovation, improved relationships, and opportunities for those involved to learn and grow."

However, she adds, "conflict turns unhealthy when people begin to disrespect one another. They get stuck in an endless tug of war, or those involved start focusing on the people rather than the problem." Frustrations can be magnified in a remote-work environment, where relationships exist primarily on computer screens. In such situations, "conflict has the ability to simmer longer than if it was in person," Driscoll says.

Reduce the Heat

Company executives should encourage managers to work out issues among their team members as long as the complaints don't raise legal concerns, experts say.

No one in HR wants employees coming to them with minor issues such as scheduling conflicts or other matters that fall under a supervisor's purview, says Myrna L. Maysonet, chief diversity officer and partner at law firm Greenspoon Marder LLP in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "The goal should be solving it at the lowest level possible," Maysonet says. "You want your manager to manage the everyday issues. HR can't be the arbitrator of things all the time. Nobody can do that."

That means HR leaders should train managers on how to resolve employee conflicts and on when to elevate issues. "HR has the responsibility to ensure the managers are equipped and know where to go for the resources" to handle infighting on their teams, Maysonet says. If they don't know what to do, company leaders should encourage them to ask for help.

To defuse tensions within teams, managers should motivate individuals to resolve conflicts among themselves and coach them on how to do so, Gallo advises. "The tricky part is that people often end up in a disagreement without knowing exactly what they're disagreeing about, so part of your job is to help them clarify what the issue is."

Some managers-and HR professionals-prefer to avoid conflict or don't want to admit that they can't handle a problem themselves. While it's tempting to think a problem will go away if ignored, that never happens, says Sharon Lovoy, an HR consultant and communications trainer based in the Birmingham, Ala., area. "If there is water on the plant floor, you wouldn't want someone not to say something. That's a safety issue," she points out.

The same is true for raising people-related concerns. When a manager comes to HR leadership about a conflict between employees, those leaders must then weigh whether the issue is a matter of people not getting along, or if more egregious behavior is involved.

If the disagreement is minor, Lovoy favors bringing the two parties together to talk. She suggests HR professionals help alleged offenders understand why their behaviors were problematic and facilitate a process in which those involved in the conflict can have a conversation. Sometimes the offended party just wants an apology and an acknowledgment that the behavior was unacceptable. But apologies must be authentic-simply saying "I'm sorry if I offended you" won't fly-and must include a promise not to repeat the behavior at issue.

Conflict can also occur between departments, especially when they have different agendas, objectives and cultures. If departments can't resolve their differences on their own, company leaders can assist them by trying to understand what's at stake. "What is the nature of the conflict? What is the core issue that the departments can't agree on? Once you have a sense of what that is, you can encourage the people in those departments to understand how their goals are connected," Gallo says. Then call attention to how the departments rely on each other.

"It can also be helpful to facilitate a conversation with the relevant stakeholders to help them articulate what they would ideally want an outcome to look like," Gallo adds. "Then, seek to find common ground in what each department wants."

Put Out the Fire

Sometimes the resolution fails, and company leaders have no choice but to terminate the offending party. That was the case some years ago when Kimberley Pasquarella, SHRM-SCP, was the HR director at a call center in the Northeast. A junior employee was struggling at work because her supervisor was giving her unreasonable deadlines, withholding information, micromanaging and verbally abusing her. She "was nervous all of the time, constantly in fear of being ridiculed," recalls Pasquarella, who is now vice president of employee experience at LeadingAge, a nonprofit membership organization for providers of aging services in Washington, D.C.

The situation went on for several months, but the employee was afraid to confront her boss and felt uncomfortable going to HR. The problem didn't come to light until a concerned co-worker informed HR.

The two-member HR department launched an investigation. While there was no evidence of discrimination on the basis of a protected class, it became clear that the manager was undermining the employee at every turn. "There was definitely a pattern," Pasquarella says. "It started out by the person sort of micromanaging to the point [where] the employee really couldn't do her job. Everything she did was not up to the standards of this person."

Then, complaints about the supervisor started rolling in from other employees. HR noticed absentee rates were up for her team and for cross-functional teams working directly with her. Pasquarella and the CEO coached the supervisor. They also brought in an external coach and required the supervisor to attend anti-harassment training. While the individual showed some improvement at first, complaints resurfaced within eight months; ultimately, the company dismissed her.

"We really valued what that leader was bringing to the organization, but ultimately the cost was too great to the organization to allow the behavior" to continue, Pasquarella says. "We took all the steps we felt we could take, but at some point the accused has to be accountable for themselves."

Lay the Groundwork

Employers should have certain protocols in place for handling employee conflicts. For example, organizations should craft a written anti-discrimination policy, establish reporting procedures and develop a documentation process for information gathered during an investigation, Maysonet says. Those investigations should involve talking to both parties and any witnesses and gathering evidence. When complaints involve sexual harassment, company leaders should take immediate steps to separate the parties.

Maysonet's firm advises company executives to be alert for the types of complaints that could turn into big problems, such as discrimination allegations and issues related to the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Family and Medical Leave Act. Addressing anonymous complaints that don't contain specifics, such as the date and time of an alleged incident and the identities of the person or people involved, can be challenging. However, if the department is identified, it's worth talking to the manager, says David L. Barron, an attorney with Cozen O'Connor who practices in Dallas and Houston. There could be an opportunity for training.

If a worker complains about colleagues' rude behavior, for example, the manager could take five minutes at the start of a shift to talk to employees about treating each other with respect. Doing so can demonstrate that HR and the company's leadership take complaints seriously.

When dealing with discrimination-related complaints lodged by employees in protected classes, company leaders should guard against retaliation, Barron says. Federal law protects individuals against retaliation when they allege discrimination in the workplace, regardless of the validity or reasonableness of the complaint-and retaliation charges are harder for employers to defend against. It's important for a company's leaders to create a nonretaliation policy and communicate it to everyone involved in an investigation, including witnesses and supervisors, Barron says.

A supervisor who has been accused of discriminating against an employee might react by avoiding the employee who complained. However, that can lead to allegations of retaliation. For example, Barron warns, the employee might say, " 'People won't talk to me anymore. They don't invite me to lunch anymore. I was not in this meeting. I wasn't aware of promotional opportunities.' So it's a slippery slope."

Mutual Respect

Ultimately, company leaders can minimize employee conflicts by cultivating a strong workplace culture built on fairness, trust and mutual respect at all levels of the organization. That requires executives and managers to lead by example.

To minimize conflicts at Blackbaud, for example, employees are required to complete annual online training on expectations for respectful conduct at work. "We want our employees to know how their leadership should be communicating to them [and] what to do if you see something," Driscoll says.

Preventing damaging conflict is easier when an organization has a strong, supportive workplace culture that cultivates trust. Here are some tips for company leaders to help build that trust, encourage healthy conflict, and prevent or address destructive conflict:

Survey employees. Conduct annual engagement surveys and have conversations with employees in the interim. Ask employees how well the company handles conflict. The results can help identify departments that have widespread problems so company leaders can know where they need to concentrate training and intervention.

Celebrate desired behavior. Have managers seek out opportunities to acknowledge and praise employees.

Welcome healthy dissent. Managers should encourage dissent that's focused on tasks, strategies and mission. Sometimes a retreat with an outside facilitator is the best way to get beyond surface conversations.

Create diverse teams. Create work teams whose members have diverse expertise, ways of thinking and backgrounds. Appointing a rotating "devil's advocate" is a good way to stir up productive conflict.

Create accountability. This can help prevent conflicts, since many fights arise from a lack of clarity over who has the final authority to make a decision. Making sure roles are well established and communicated clearly can prevent problems from arising.

Encourage people to manage their own conflicts. Tell employees to work out conflict at the level it occurs rather than pushing it up the organizational chain. Doing so will give people confidence that they're capable of handling these issues on their own.

Provide training. Employers can help people learn the skills they need to handle conflict by sending them to courses or recommending helpful books. Conflicts tend to become emotionally fraught when someone chooses not to focus on the issue at hand but rather to question another person's competency, autonomy or integrity.

Kathy Gurchiek is an online writer/editor for SHRM who focuses on topics related to students and emerging professionals.

Explore Further

SHRM provides information and research to help business leaders manage conflict in the workplace and address its underlying causes.

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Discord among workers can be a huge distraction, leading to reduced productivity and lower morale. Here's how company leaders can help.

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Free Slack community of forward-thinking HR leaders. The community provides a place for asking questions, communicating with peers, and staying up to date on the latest trends in HR.

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How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? - Boosting Your People Skills

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MindTools: How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? - Boosting Your People Skills

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MindTools: How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? - Boosting Your People Skills

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Let's look at how you can develop good skills in each area.

Self-Awareness (Questions 1, 8, 11)

In his 1995 book "Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More Than IQ," Goleman explained that people with high self-awareness are "aware of their moods as they are having them." [2]

To increase self-awareness, learn about mindfulness. This involves focusing on the present moment - including how you're feeling. And keep a journal in which you write about and analyze the emotional situations you experience from day to day.

Self-Regulation (Questions 2, 4, 7)

Motivation (Questions 6, 10, 12)

Self-motivation is strongly affected by your emotions. When you're distracted by your emotions, you may find it hard to see tasks through.

Boost your motivation levels by developing self-discipline, and by looking for and celebrating small wins - simple jobs that, when you've completed them, give you a sense of achievement.

Empathy (Questions 3, 13, 15)

Empathy is the ability to recognize other people's emotions and understand their perspectives. Goleman calls this aspect of EI "the fundamental people skill."

Social Skills (Questions 5, 9, 14)

Even if you're not a natural "people person," it is possible to develop better social skills.

Start by taking our quiz to see which communication skills you need to improve on. Then, find out how you can develop trust and rapport with people - this is an essential part of building good working relationships.
Key Points
Self-awareness.

Self-regulation.

Motivation.

Empathy.

Social skills.

Five Ways to Show Emotional Intelligence Infographic

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How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? - Boosting Your People Skills

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Take this quiz to find out how strong you are in five areas of emotional intelligence, and learn what you can do to boost it.

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Whether you’re just entering the workforce, starting a new job, or transitioning into people management, kindness can be a valuable attribute that speaks volumes about your character, commitment, and long-term value. Here are a few simple routines you can integrate into your everyday work life that…