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HBR: How to Respond When an Employee Shares a Mental Health Challenge

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HBR: How to Respond When an Employee Shares a Mental Health Challenge

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The Covid-19 pandemic made us all vulnerable, and many of us are struggling to keep our mental health. In the U.S., the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder increased from 36.4% to 41.5% from 2020 to 2021 - so much so that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an expert panel managed by the Department of Health and Human Services, recommended that doctors screen all adult patients under age 65 for anxiety. also estimated that the pandemic caused an additional 53.2 million cases of major depressive disorder globally and an additional 76.2 million cases of anxiety disorders globally.

So, if one of your employees is struggling with their mental health, how do you talk about it? While you will have to have conversations that feel intimate and discomfiting, it's also not your job to be the office therapist, and you don't need to have all the solutions when a team member is struggling. As Daisy Auger-Dominguez, chief people officer at Vice Media Group stressed to me: "We are not therapists, [but] we have to show evidence of care in our engagement with our teams. We also must ensure employees have access to the things that they need to be able to do their work well."

The good news is that it's possible to handle mental health conversations without overstepping your expertise. And while it's natural to worry you'll start asking the wrong questions or that your employee might ask questions you can't answer, you can take steps now to create a culture where vulnerable conversations are OK, where boundaries stay in place, and where people can get the help they need.

If having conversations about employee mental health makes you nervous, here are three things to remember:

1. You'll feel more confident if you have some prepared questions about workplace mental health in your back pocket.

2. You can protect your boundaries and your team's boundaries while still having meaningful discussions about mental health.

3. Showing up is the most important thing.

Be Prepared for Vulnerable Conversations

Jen Porter, COO of the non-profit workplace mental health consultancy Mind Share Partners, says all managers need to be familiar with the basics of privacy practices in the workplace, and to have a set of questions in your back pocket for when mental health conversations happen.

Porter's advice is to be curious about the impact of an employee's mental health challenges, not the cause. She says, "You can ask anything you want about the impact of what's happening on their work and at work. That's fair game." What you shouldn't ask about, she says, is why the employee is having difficulties. Stay away from "what's going on at home, the deep causes, the health history...anything that falls into that camp. That's all therapist camp."

In the U.S., the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) offers a basic rule: You can't discriminate against someone based on health. This means "you can't force them to talk about their health," notes Porter. But you can address impacts on work - and the ADA also states employers should provide "reasonable accommodations" to employees with disabilities, including mental illness.

Porter suggests asking open-ended questions and pairing them with non-judgmental observations. "You can ask something like, 'Hey, I've noticed you've been absent in our usual meetings, just wanted to check in and see how you were,' or 'You're such an awesome project manager, but a lot of things seem to have been falling by the wayside. I just wanted to check in on you and see if there's extra support you need or, or if you need to have a conversation with someone.'" These are very human, Porter notes, but still about work.

If your employee opens up, however, what do you do? Porter says, "Clearly they've found you to be a person that they trust - well done." Your job as a manager is to listen, and then enable your employee to get help - but Porter emphasizes that you "don't want your employee to feel like you're dropping them or handing them off. ... We always recommend a more collaborative approach."

Auger-Dominguez agrees. "You can say, 'I'm feeling a little bit over my head right now. If it's ok with you, I'll reach out confidentially to HR to make sure that I'm giving you all the support that you need. And let's meet again in a week.'" You might even suggest that you and the employee walk down to the HR office or connect to a mental health employee resource group. "Just because they're getting support from someone somewhere else doesn't mean that they're [still] not getting support from you," Auger-Dominguez notes. "It just means that they're getting support from multiple places and you can focus on where you can give the right support, which is in a work-related context."

If there's low trust in HR within an organization, Porter suggests connecting an employee to ERGs and peer-based groups, which tend to have higher trust among employees. "Often people in those groups will have worked with HR or will have tried out the mental health benefits. And sometimes that storytelling and normalizing can be super helpful."

Set and Protect Boundaries

Whenever you talk about mental health, personal boundaries come into play - the limits and rules we set for ourselves in our relationships. When we cross our own or others' boundaries, things can feel uncomfortable, emotionally draining, and just not right. Many managers fear becoming their employees' go-to resource for mental health challenges because instinctively we know that our boundaries will be crossed, which will zap our own energy and mood. This might lead us to avoid having vulnerable conversations with members of our team.

However, there is a way to have these conversations and protect boundaries, says clinical psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt, who is the cofounder and chief clinical officer of the mental health gym Coa. When it comes to addressing how people should share in a work setting, Anhalt suggests using "boundaried vulnerability": sharing enough with others to invite connection, without sharing so much that you or your team has an emotional hangover.

The idea, Anhalt says, is that "There's a spectrum from too tight to too leaky. Too tight is when we don't let ourselves show up as humans at work. When we're going through a really tough time and someone asks how we're doing and we say 'I'm good, everything's fine. I don't know what you're talking about.'" This doesn't work well because people are perceptive and may feel like we're shutting off possibilities for authentic connection. Too leaky is when people "evacuate so much of their emotional stuff at work that it puts other people in a position of being their therapist or fixing something they don't have the responsibility to fix."

Let's say a person is going through a messy divorce. They're really overwhelmed, and it's affecting their work. If they pretend everything is fine, that's too tight of a boundary and not reality. You and your colleagues actually want to know how the person is doing! But on the other end of the spectrum, saying something like "My spouse is just being absolutely horrible to me, and I don't know what I'm going do about it. Every day I wake up and I don't know how I'm going get through the day and I get here and it's just more of the same. What do you think I should do? How should I handle it?" - that's too leaky.

What's the middle ground? Anhalt says the boundaried vulnerability version would be for the person to say something like, "To be honest, I'm actually going through some really tough stuff at home. It's definitely affecting how I'm showing up at work. I'm getting support with it. But what I'd really love from you, if you're open to it, is a little bit of extra time on that deadline? Is that doable?"

As managers, we can model boundaried vulnerability. If someone comes to us in a puddle, we can say, "I can tell that you're going through a lot, and I want to make sure that you get the support you deserve for this." In this situation, we're modeling own boundaries while also helping the person move to the most appropriate next steps. Auger-Dominguez says you can also keep boundaries and support an employee by holding structured time open for them. If you learn about a mental health crisis during a one-on-one check-in, you can end that meeting by saying something like: "Our next scheduled meeting is five days from now. Is it okay to wait until then? Or would you like to check in earlier?" Then, honor their preference and show up for them at their desired time.

Further, as you set your own boundaries, it's important to understand that our own anxieties and challenges may be triggered by leaning in to help our employees, says Arti Kashyap Aynsley, global head of health and wellbeing at Ocado Group. Managers want to "lean into being empathetic and compassionate, but we have tasks and deliverables and things that need to get done," and there are only so many hours in the day. Managers can provide support and guidance, but other professionals in your organization likely have time and training dedicated to help employee mental health.

However, she notes, because rates of mental ill health are so high, and so many people need additional support, companies also need to give managers the time to accommodate increased needs of their teams. It's not fair to expect managers to support their teams' needs while not building in space for these conversations to happen.

Showing Up Is the Most Important Thing

Perhaps the most important thing a manager can do to support employees is to show up and listen, and then figure out what your employee needs.

Auger-Dominguez says if a team member seems "a little wobbly," she asks a simple question: "Do you need me to witness, help, or distract you right now?"

This is important, "because if we get clear on that, I'm also normalizing asking what people need, rather than making an assumption. It also creates clarity on what the expectation is from me as their manager. Sometimes they just want me to witness, so it's not about me solving for anything. It's just about them. If they want help, I'm going to help them get the resources they need." And if the employee needs a distraction, Auger-Dominguez might say, "Hey, let's go for a virtual walk or coffee." This strategy also helps develop your employees' agency; that way, they feel empowered to ask for help, versus you trying to assume what they need.

The conversations you have with your employees are the culture you create. Dr. Thomas Insel, former director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, notes that only 10% of mental health outcomes are a result of clinical mental health care. The determinants of mental health are broader and societal, and our workplaces are a huge factor in our mental health. Mentally healthy workplaces want employees to feel valued, heard, impactful - and to have agency over their time, work, and decisions.

So, remember: You don't need to be the office therapist. You just need to be ready to listen.

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How to Respond When an Employee Shares a Mental Health Challenge

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What should you do if your employee comes to you with a mental health challenge? While you will have to have a conversation that may feel intimate and discomfiting, it's also not your job to be the office therapist, and you don't need to have all the solutions when a team member is struggling.

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HBR: What's Holding Back Your Career Development?

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HBR: What's Holding Back Your Career Development?

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Change and uncertainty are now a given in our careers. As a result, people are re-evaluating what they want from their work. For many, the traditional career ladder has been replaced by "squiggly" careers - non-linear career moves where progression goes beyond promotion and allows people to develop in different directions. In the context of constant change, personal career development is now a must-have rather than a nice-to-have.

But the reality is that career development rarely gets prioritized. The demands of the day-to-day take precedence over our improvement, and investing in our future rarely feels as urgent as the issues in our inbox. This presents a long-term risk to our engagement and enjoyment at work, as putting ourselves last means our careers can stall and our skills start to stagnate. In the short-term, failing to spend time on our personal development decreases our career resilience in the face of external job impacts like layoffs and reorgs.

At our company Amazing If, we train over 100,000 people a year in career development. We see four common challenges that get in the way of people's growth. We categorize them as when, who, what, and where challenges. Here's how you can think and act creatively to overcome these challenges and continually invest in your career development.

4 Common Career Development Challenges

Reflect on which of these challenges feel familiar for you. It's not uncommon to experience a combination of two, three, or even all of them at the same time.

The "when" challenge

Sounds like: I'll get around to career development when I have the time.

Career risk: Your development feels separate from your day job.

The "who" challenge

Sounds like: I don't have anyone who is helping me develop my skills.

Career risk: Your progression becomes dependent on other people.

The "what" challenge

Sounds like: I'm not sure what I want to develop in.

Career risk: Searching for the one "right" answer stops you from getting started.

The "where" challenge

Sounds like: There are no career development opportunities where I work.

Career risk: You feel frustrated and lose motivation.

4 Creative Ways to Unlock Career Development

Each of the following strategies have been tried and tested with our learners. They're designed to help you proactively respond to risks and put you back in control of your career development.

1. If your development challenge is when, start a five-minute mind map.

"I'll spend some time on my development when...[this project is over] or [I get past this busy period]." Sound familiar?

Reducing the time commitment required for development and increasing the regularity of your reflection can help you overcome this hurdle. Use "coach yourself" questions to increase your self-awareness and identify new opportunities for action:

Create a recurring calendar invite to yourself titled "5-minute mind map."

Put yourself in a place where there's no technology temptation.

Coach yourself questions should be open, not yes-or-no; include me/I so they're focused on your own actions; and be single questions - not multiple "stacked" questions. Here are a few to get you started:

1. What do I want to be true in 12 months that isn't true today?

2. What helped me overcome a recent obstacle in my job?

3. What do I want to build a reputation for?

4. Who am I learning from?

5. What gives me the most energy at work?

6. What am I proud of at work and at home over the past six months?

7. Who am I helping through the work that I do?

8. What are my transferable talents?

9. What am I curious to learn more about?

10. Who am I inspired by?

Spend five minutes mind-mapping your thoughts in response to one coach yourself question. For example, if your coach yourself question is what do I want to build a reputation for?, your mind-map might include relationship building, generating ideas, and making a positive impact.

At the end of the time, summarize your reflections by writing down a "so what, what now?" statement. Continuing from the previous example, yours might look like: In my next career conversation with my manager, I'm going to suggest how I could use my relationship-building strengths to help us stay better connected with the other functions across the business

2. If your development challenge is who, increase your sideways support.

In ladder-like careers, we assume that senior people are the most valuable source of support and we undervalue the importance of peer-to-peer learning. Connecting with colleagues at a similar career stage within and outside of your organization is an opportunity to share challenges, generate new ideas, and learn together.

These groups can have five people or 50; the important part is that the group's shared purpose is to support each other in development. Here's how to get started:

Start by setting up a group you'd like to be part of using an app like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or WhatsApp. For example, one of us (Sarah) created a group for squiggly career advocates.

Share the purpose of the group with five people you know who share the same interest and invite them to join.

Ask everyone to share one thing they've read, watched, or listened to that they've found helpful in their current role.

Grow your group by giving everyone the option to invite one person.

3. If your development challenge is what, create your learning navigator.

There are more ways to learn than ever, so the overwhelm of what to learn and how stops many people from getting started.

Using a learning navigator helps you prioritize what to learn in a way that feels useful and personal. To help you find a focus, distinguish what you need to know from what's nice to know, as well as what's relevant to your current role and what might be relevant for future roles.

The outcome of the learning navigator is not to only prioritize the top-righthand box based on "now" and "need" but instead to define a range of learning goals that reflects both what's most important in your role today and what matters for your career in the future. It also helps you spot common skills across quadrants, which can help you to determine where to start.

4. If your development challenge is where, prototype your progression.

It's easy to feel defeatist about your development when the options available to you at work aren't always obvious. As we wrote in a previous article, a lack of awareness of internal roles, too much process around progression, and limited support from people in positions of influence can make leaving feel easier than staying. Rather than having circumstance determine your development, prototype your progression to unlock new possibilities. Here's how to do it:

Write down one internal opportunity that you want to make happen.

Answer this prompt: This opportunity is important to me because...

Identify three other ways you could get to your important outcome in your organization.

For example:

I'd like to lead a team for the first time.

This opportunity is important to me because I enjoy the opportunity to support others with their development.

Three ways I could get to this outcome:

1. Offer to support new hires in my organization

2. Mentor people in their early career

3. Put myself forward as a lead for a new project

This approach stops from you getting stuck on one solution and helps you find different opportunities for your development within your current company.

. . .

Career challenges like reorganizations, layoffs, and a lack of personal fulfillment can feel like big bumps in the road, but instead of seeing them as obstacles, start to look for the opportunities. Take a creative approach to unlock lots of different directions for your development. Investing in your development today will pay dividends in those difficult moments.

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What's Holding Back Your Career Development?

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Career challenges like reorganizations, layoffs, and a lack of personal fulfillment can feel like big bumps in the road, but instead of seeing them as obstacles, start to look for the opportunities. Personal career development is critical for resilience in the face of uncertainty and change.

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We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks

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Edutopia: We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks

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Edutopia: We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks

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Practice makes perfect. To become ambidextrous in basketball, dribble with your left hand, switch to your right, and repeat the process again and again. Likewise, to solve differential equations in math, pile them up and work your way through them diligently.

According to one popular school of thought, it's this active, repeated manipulation of material that lays the neural foundations for skill development. All too often, time away from the basketball court-or the math books-is seen as a break in the learning process, a way to cool off, reenergize, and then return to the vital work of actual practice.

But for Leonardo Cohen, a neuroscientist at the National Institutes of Health and the senior author of a June 2021 study published in the journal Cell, the idea that breaks are a cooling-off period is a misconception.

Cohen and his colleagues used magnetoencephalography-a highly sensitive brain-scanning technique-to observe the neural activity of young adults as they learned how to type with their nondominant hand. After a practice session, the study participants were given a short break and then continued practicing for a total of 35 sessions.

When analyzing the data, Cohen's team made an intriguing discovery: They observed a spike in brain activity, mimicking the neural pattern seen during the practice session, but compressed by twentyfold. Rather than being idle, the brain was replaying the practice session over and over at an astonishingly high rate of speed-flipping the material from the neocortex, where sensory and motor skills are processed, to the hippocampus, the brain's memory center, over two dozen times in the span of 10 seconds. Stepping away from the activity, it turns out, is not stepping away from the activity at all.

The findings echo the groundbreaking discovery in 2001 that after successfully running through a maze, rats replayed those memories repeatedly during REM sleep, with the same spatial circuitry flickering to life as they slept.

An Inside Look

When we learn a new skill, we need to connect it to previous memories, explains Cohen, a process called "binding." For example, when learning how to play piano, our brains need to link a simple action-pressing a piano key-with a larger, more complex skill, such as playing a song. Until now, scientists have been unable to decipher how the brain connects these two discrete actions into a consolidated skill.

Cohen's team discovered that after learning new information, our brains continue to whir, using cognitive downtime as a virtual staging ground to process, organize, and integrate learned information. The key, they believe, lies in neural replay, the "temporally compressed reactivation of neural activity patterns representing behavioral sequences during rest." In other words, after practicing a skill, our brains rapidly cycle through the experience, compressing and imprinting the material to optimize storage and recall.

We greatly underestimate the value of breaks when learning, Cohen and his colleagues assert, commonly opting for an approach that views active practice as the only way to advance. But that's a mistake, because incorporating breaks into learning "plays just as important a role as practice in learning a new skill. It appears to be the period when our brains compress and consolidate memories of what we just practiced."

Brain Breaks During School

In the classroom, "brain breaks should take place before fatigue, boredom, distraction, and inattention set in," writes neurologist and classroom teacher Judy Willis, and that means they should be far more frequent. "As a general rule," Willis continues, basing her conclusions on decades of research, "concentrated study of 10 to 15 minutes for elementary school and 20 to 30 minutes for middle and high school students calls for a three- to five-minute break."

You don't have to overthink it, or add to your workload by planning entertaining activities. Willis recommends simple techniques, such as a stretch break, moving to a different part of the room, or singing a song to give students time to "replay" what they've learned and to prepare them for more practice or new material. Letting students chat informally for a few minutes should also work well.

As the school day progresses, there's evidence that brain breaks become increasingly important. A 2016 study found that "cognitive fatigue" sets in toward the end of the day, leading to a notable drop in test performance: For every hour later in the day, test performance decreased by 0.9 percent of a standard deviation, the researchers found-roughly the equivalent of losing 10 school days' worth of learning. Incorporating breaks, however, not only eliminated the decrease but actually increased performance. "Importantly, a break causes an improvement in test scores that is larger than the hourly deterioration," the researchers discovered. "Breaks, it appears, recharge students' cognitive energy, thus leading to better test scores."

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We Drastically Underestimate the Importance of Brain Breaks

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When it comes to optimizing learning, we don't value breaks enough, neuroscientists suggest in a new study.

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Maricopa Corporate: How Encouraging Professional Development Benefits a Business

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Maricopa Corporate: How Encouraging Professional Development Benefits a Business

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I am thrilled to be included in this article for my thoughts on this subject!

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How Encouraging Professional Development Benefits a Business | Maricopa Corporate College

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From clarifying expectations and guiding performance to increasing collective knowledge, here are 12 reasons how encouraging an employee’s professional development can benefit a business.

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World Economic Forum: From Proximity Bias to Productivity Paranoia, 8 Work Buzzwords You Need to Know

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World Economic Forum: From Proximity Bias to Productivity Paranoia, 8 Work Buzzwords You Need to Know

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Future of Work

Hybrid work is giving rise to some new work trends and buzzwords in 2022 - and bringing back some old ones. Image: REUTERS/Emily Elconin

Senior Writer, Formative Content

Stay up to date:

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There's a big gap between how leaders and employees view productivity. Image: Microsoft

Despite new work trends like remote work, the opportunity to connect with colleagues is a huge motivator for going back to the office. Image: Microsoft

A third of employees have left a job within the first 90 days. Image: Jobvite

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Hybrid working: From proximity bias to productivity paranoia, 8 work buzzwords you need to know

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Future of Work Hybrid work is giving rise to some new work trends and buzzwords in 2022 - and bringing back some old ones. Image: REUTERS/Emily Elconin Senior Writer, Formative Content Stay up to date: Future of Work Follow There's a big gap between how leaders and employees view productivity.

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Want to Be Happier? Use the 3-Minute Method to Dramatically Increase Feelings of Contentment, Satisfaction, and Well-Being

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Inc: Want to Be Happier? Use the 3-Minute Method to Dramatically Increase Feelings of Contentment, Satisfaction, and Well-Being

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Inc: Want to Be Happier? Use the 3-Minute Method to Dramatically Increase Feelings of Contentment, Satisfaction, and Well-Being

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Google Spent a Year Researching Great Managers. The Most Successful Ones Shared These 5 Traits

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Inc: Google Spent a Year Researching Great Managers. The Most Successful Ones Shared These 5 Traits

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Inc: Google Spent a Year Researching Great Managers. The Most Successful Ones Shared These 5 Traits

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6 Magic Phrases to Inspire Respect, Grounded in Emotional Intelligence

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Inc: 6 Magic Phrases to Inspire Respect, Grounded in Emotional Intelligence

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Inc: 6 Magic Phrases to Inspire Respect, Grounded in Emotional Intelligence

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Every: How to Find Clarity When You'e at a Career Crossroads

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Every: How to Find Clarity When You'e at a Career Crossroads

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In elementary school, you studied five subjects. In college, you picked a major but spent your elective credits learning about Heidegger and housing policy. You embarked on a career or got a graduate degree that added some letters after your last name, but despite having found a foothold on your professional path, your other interests nag like a pebble in your shoe. You're ready for a change but not sure what that exactly means.

There are, unfortunately, no signposts when you're at crossroads in your career. Other people's advice tends to justify their past choices, and your family and friends' definition of success may not be your own. You were told that choosing a lane would lead to clarity, but all it seems to be leading to is a healthy serving of existential angst.

If it sounds like I'm working through my past trauma, it's because I am. Before I turned 30 I worked in four different industries-tech, journalism, advertising, and design-exploring each in an effort to find my vocational soulmate. Whenever I felt too antsy on a path, I swerved in search of another.

Thankfully, I found a channel for my listlessness in the form of a research project that became a book. Over the past two years, I interviewed over 100 workers-from Wall Street bankers to kayak guides in Alaska-and pored over dozens of academic papers to uncover insight into developing a healthier relationship to work.

Though I can't point a stethoscope toward your soul's deepest yearnings, here are five research-backed principles that have helped me in my exploration.

Find a compass, not a map

A map might give you directions from A to B, but a compass will help you find true north wherever you are. Often when we seek out career advice, we look for maps: follow the morning routine of this highly successful person. Reverse-engineer your way to the C-Suite, one LinkedIn cyberstalk at a time. Even the metaphors we use with regard to careers-ladders, stepping stones, paths-assume a linearity that is rarely consistent with lived experience.

Our career maps may be distorted by other people's preferences and our own outdated ideas of what we thought we wanted. Take prestige. Prestige "warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy," writes investor Paul Graham. "It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you'd like to like." Instead of planning a route from the get-go, we benefit from first taking a step back to determine what matters, irrespective of any particular job or direction.

Figuring out what you value is different from determining what you're passionate about. As Cal Newport argues in his book So Good They Can't Ignore You, passion is often the result of, not the precursor to, good work. Whereas passions come and go, values remain core to who you are.

There are countless studies that have proven the benefits of reminding yourself of what you value. Doing so has been shown to lead to better learning outcomes in school, more decisive decision-making, and higher levels of resilience. And there are many ways to uncover your values-like journaling, card sorts, and online quizzes, to name a few. Regardless of how you determine them, clarifying your values will help you connect any career choice to what actually matters to you.

Learn through action, not rumination

Ruth Chang is a philosopher who studies how people make hard decisions. She defines a hard decision as one where one option is not clearly better than the other. Though that distinction may seem obvious, it's important to acknowledge-especially when we pressure ourselves to get decisions "right."

A hard decision is not hard because you can't seem to "figure it out." Hard decisions are hard because option A is better in some ways and option B is better in others. "When alternatives are on a par, it may matter very much which you choose, but one alternative isn't better than the other," Chang writes. "Rather, the alternatives are in the same neighborhood of value, in the same league of value, while at the same time being very different in kind of value."

This is often the case at a career crossroads. Once, I was deciding between a job at a digital magazine and another at a prestigious design firm. The journalism job felt more aligned with my passion but the design job paid 50% more. If one job were better than the other in every way, it wouldn't have been a hard decision. Yet I was convinced there was a "correct" choice that would reveal itself if I banged my head against the wall at a certain angle.

Chang sees hard choices as an opportunity to put ourselves behind an option. Rather than try to perform endless thought experiments to gain clarity, we can choose a direction and then create the reasons for why we did so. That is to say: instead of making the right choice, we have the power, through our actions, to make the choice right.

Play the long game

We often view career decisions as trap doors-that is to say, once we make a choice our lives will be irrevocably changed. Sure, a job might determine how much money you make, who you work with, and what you work on for a certain period of time. But we often discredit our ability to course-correct if things go off the rails.

When I decided to turn down the staff writer position and take the job in design, I felt like a traitor. I thought my former colleagues in journalism would judge me and that no publication would ever let me write for them again. But, in fact, much of my success in journalism came after I formally left the industry. My detour from the newsroom didn't forever taint me-in fact, now I'm freelancing more than ever.

One fascinating study of early career scientists supports the idea that snags and setbacks are rarely dealbreakers. The researchers focused on two groups of people applying for NIH grants: those who narrowly won and those who narrowly lost. The study found that scientists who narrowly lost early in their careers systematically outperformed those with narrow wins in the longer run. The researchers concluded what we already know intuitively: setbacks are "an integral part" of a successful career.

Craft the story of your job's place in your life

Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton are management professors whose research focuses on how people make meaning in taxing work environments like restaurants, hospitals, and the military. In 2000, they wanted to figure out why certain workers were so much happier than others with the same job.

Until their report, most research on job satisfaction had focused on external factors, such as how much workers enjoyed their daily tasks or how well they got along with their colleagues. But Wrzesniewski and Dutton developed a competing theory.

They conducted interviews with dozens of people who worked in jobs most would not think of as particularly meaningful-janitors in a hospital. Although the janitors all had the same role at the same hospital, there was a lot of variation in how much they liked their work. The researchers broke them down into roughly two categories.

The first group of janitors thought their work didn't require much skill. They were less willing to go out of their way to interact with others during their shifts. And they were relatively unhappy with their jobs. Group two, on the other hand, was happy with their jobs. They believed their work required more skill, and they regularly chatted with patients and other members of the hospital staff.

But the most striking difference was that workers in the second group viewed themselves as an essential part of a system whose job was to care for the sick. They saw themselves as healers. Attaching this higher purpose to their jobs made the menial aspects of their work more manageable. The narrative they each held about the impact of their work made it both more enjoyable and meaningful.

"Job boundaries, the meaning of work, and work identities are not fully determined by formal job requirements," Wrzesniewski and Dutton write. The purpose of a job is not like your eye color or height. You have the ability to craft what a job means to you. And as the research shows, that "crafting" plays a key role in your satisfaction.

But it's important to remember that there's a difference between treating a job as a source of meaning and considering it the meaning of life, which brings us to the most important principle of all.

Remember that what you do is part of-but not the entirety of-who you are

Each of us holds multiple identities. We are workers, but we are also siblings and citizens, parents and neighbors. Defining yourself solely based on one aspect of who you are is to balance on a narrow platform, vulnerable to a strong gust of wind.

When we invest in different parts of ourselves, research shows that we're better equipped to deal with life's inevitable challenges. For example, in one study, Dr. Patricia Linville found that subjects with a more differentiated idea of themselves-what she calls having greater "self-complexity"-were less prone to depression and physical illnesses following a stressful event.

Though your chosen work is important, it's equally important to remember that your job is just one-eighth of your life. From all the workers with whom I've spoken, those who were most content all had one thing in common: they had a strong sense of who they were when they weren't working. Perhaps the best career advice I've heard is to lower the stakes. When we loosen our grip on the "right" path to pursue, we open ourselves to what the universe has to offer.

That's why I like to think of careers as less like ladders and more like lily pads. In retrospect, some hops might look as if they were on a path, while others might look like a digression. Some might prioritize work, others might prioritize life outside of work. But whatever you hop to next, know you'll have the chance to hop again. Little in life is permanent.
Simone Stolzoff is a San Francisco-based author, journalist, and designer. His book If you want to go deeper in exploring what matters to you and join a community of other like-minded explorers, consider checking out the next cohort of Simone's course, Designing Your Next Step, where you'll use the design thinking process to clarify what lily pad you might want to hop toward next. Before November 24, Every readers will get with the code EVERY. You can pre-order Simone's book . The Good Enough Job will be published by Penguin Random House in the spring. If you liked this piece, you can on Twitter or subscribe to his free newsletter.

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How to Find Clarity When You're at a Career Crossroads

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In elementary school, you studied five subjects. In college, you picked a major but spent your elective credits learning about Heidegger and housing policy. You embarked on a career or got a graduate degree that added some letters after your last name, but despite having found a foothold on your professional path, your other interests nag like a pebble in your shoe.

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What is the best way to drive innovative work inside organizations? Important clues hide in the stories of world-renowned creators. It turns out that ordinary scientists, marketers, programmers, and other unsung knowledge workers, whose jobs require creative productivity every day, have more in common with famous innovators than most managers realize. The workday events that ignite their emotions, fuel their motivation, and trigger their perceptions are fundamentally the same.

The Double Helix, James Watson's 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the work that eventually earned them the Nobel Prize. After the excitement of their first attempt to build a DNA model, Watson and Crick noticed some serious flaws. According to Watson, "Our first minutes with the models...were not joyous." Later that evening, "a shape began to emerge which brought back our spirits." But when they showed their "breakthrough" to colleagues, they found that their model would not work. Dark days of doubt and ebbing motivation followed. When the duo finally had their bona fide breakthrough, and their colleagues found no fault with it, Watson wrote, "My morale skyrocketed, for I suspected that we now had the answer to the riddle." Watson and Crick were so driven by this success that they practically lived in the lab, trying to complete the work.

Throughout these episodes, Watson and Crick's progress-or lack thereof-ruled their reactions. In our recent research on creative work inside businesses, we stumbled upon a remarkably similar phenomenon. Through exhaustive analysis of diaries kept by knowledge workers, we discovered the progress principle: Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. Whether they are trying to solve a major scientific mystery or simply produce a high-quality product or service, everyday progress-even a small win-can make all the difference in how they feel and perform.

The power of progress is fundamental to human nature, but few managers understand it or know how to leverage progress to boost motivation. In fact, work motivation has been a subject of long-standing debate. In a survey asking about the keys to motivating workers, we found that some managers ranked recognition for good work as most important, while others put more stock in tangible incentives. Some focused on the value of interpersonal support, while still others thought clear goals were the answer. Interestingly, very few of our surveyed managers ranked progress first. (See the sidebar "A Surprise for Managers.")

In a 1968 issue of HBR, Frederick Herzberg published a now-classic article titled "One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?" Our findings are consistent with his message: People are most satisfied with their jobs (and therefore most motivated) when those jobs give them the opportunity to experience achievement.

The diary research we describe in this article-in which we microscopically examined the events of thousands of workdays, in real time-uncovered the mechanism underlying the sense of achievement: making consistent, meaningful progress.

But managers seem not to have taken Herzberg's lesson to heart. To assess contemporary awareness of the importance of daily work progress, we recently administered a survey to 669 managers of varying levels from dozens of companies around the world. We asked about the managerial tools that can affect employees' motivation and emotions. The respondents ranked five tools-support for making progress in the work, recognition for good work, incentives, interpersonal support, and clear goals-in order of importance.

Fully 95% of the managers who took our survey would probably be surprised to learn that supporting progress is the primary way to elevate motivation-because that's the percentage that failed to rank progress number one. In fact, only 35 managers ranked progress as the number one motivator-a mere 5%. The vast majority of respondents ranked support for making progress dead last as a motivator and third as an influence on emotion. They ranked "recognition for good work (either public or private)" as the most important factor in motivating workers and making them happy. In our diary study, recognition certainly did boost inner work life. But it wasn't nearly as prominent as progress. Besides, without work achievements, there is little to recognize.

If you are a manager, the progress principle holds clear implications for where to focus your efforts. It suggests that you have more influence than you may realize over employees' well-being, motivation, and creative output. Knowing what serves to catalyze and nourish progress-and what does the opposite-turns out to be the key to effectively managing people and their work.

In this article, we share what we have learned about the power of progress and how managers can leverage it. We spell out how a focus on progress translates into concrete managerial actions and provide a checklist to help make such behaviors habitual. But to clarify why those actions are so potent, we first describe our research and what the knowledge workers' diaries revealed about their inner work lives.

Inner Work Life and Performance

For nearly 15 years, we have been studying the psychological experiences and the performance of people doing complex work inside organizations. Early on, we realized that a central driver of creative, productive performance was the quality of a person's inner work life-the mix of emotions, motivations, and perceptions over the course of a workday. How happy workers feel; how motivated they are by an intrinsic interest in the work; how positively they view their organization, their management, their team, their work, and themselves-all these combine either to push them to higher levels of achievement or to drag them down.

To understand such interior dynamics better, we asked members of project teams to respond individually to an end-of-day e-mail survey during the course of the project-just over four months, on average. (For more on this research, see our article "Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance," HBR May 2007.) The projects-inventing kitchen gadgets, managing product lines of cleaning tools, and solving complex IT problems for a hotel empire, for example-all involved creativity. The daily survey inquired about participants' emotions and moods, motivation levels, and perceptions of the work environment that day, as well as what work they did and what events stood out in their minds.

Twenty-six project teams from seven companies participated, comprising 238 individuals. This yielded nearly 12,000 diary entries. Naturally, every individual in our population experienced ups and downs. Our goal was to discover the states of inner work life and the workday events that correlated with the highest levels of creative output.

In a dramatic rebuttal to the commonplace claim that high pressure and fear spur achievement, we found that, at least in the realm of knowledge work, people are more creative and productive when their inner work lives are positive-when they feel happy, are intrinsically motivated by the work itself, and have positive perceptions of their colleagues and the organization. Moreover, in those positive states, people are more committed to the work and more collegial toward those around them. Inner work life, we saw, can fluctuate from one day to the next-sometimes wildly-and performance along with it. A person's inner work life on a given day fuels his or her performance for the day and can even affect performance the next day.

Once this inner work life effect became clear, our inquiry turned to whether and how managerial action could set it in motion. What events could evoke positive or negative emotions, motivations, and perceptions? The answers were tucked within our research participants' diary entries. There are predictable triggers that inflate or deflate inner work life, and, even accounting for variation among individuals, they are pretty much the same for everyone.

The Power of Progress

Our hunt for inner work life triggers led us to the progress principle. When we compared our research participants' best and worst days (based on their overall mood, specific emotions, and motivation levels), we found that the most common event triggering a "best day" was any progress in the work by the individual or the team. The most common event triggering a "worst day" was a setback.

Consider, for example, how progress relates to one component of inner work life: overall mood ratings. Steps forward occurred on 76% of people's best-mood days. By contrast, setbacks occurred on only 13% of those days. (See the exhibit "What Happens on a Good Day?")

Progress-even a small step forward-occurs on many of the days people report being in a good mood.

Two other types of inner work life triggers also occur frequently on best days: Catalysts, actions that directly support work, including help from a person or group, and nourishers, events such as shows of respect and words of encouragement. Each has an opposite: Inhibitors, actions that fail to support or actively hinder work, and toxins, discouraging or undermining events. Whereas catalysts and inhibitors are directed at the project, nourishers and toxins are directed at the person. Like setbacks, inhibitors and toxins are rare on days of great inner work life.

Events on worst-mood days are nearly the mirror image of those on best-mood days (see the exhibit "What Happens on a Bad Day?"). Here, setbacks predominated, occurring on 67% of those days; progress occurred on only 25% of them. Inhibitors and toxins also marked many worst-mood days, and catalysts and nourishers were rare.

Events on bad days-setbacks and other hindrances-are nearly the mirror image of those on good days.

This is the progress principle made visible: If a person is motivated and happy at the end of the workday, it's a good bet that he or she made some progress. If the person drags out of the office disengaged and joyless, a setback is most likely to blame.

When we analyzed all 12,000 daily surveys filled out by our participants, we discovered that progress and setbacks influence all three aspects of inner work life. On days when they made progress, our participants reported more positive emotions. They not only were in a more upbeat mood in general but also expressed more joy, warmth, and pride. When they suffered setbacks, they experienced more frustration, fear, and sadness.

Motivations were also affected: On progress days, people were more intrinsically motivated-by interest in and enjoyment of the work itself. On setback days, they were not only less intrinsically motivated but also less extrinsically motivated by recognition. Apparently, setbacks can lead a person to feel generally apathetic and disinclined to do the work at all.

Perceptions differed in many ways, too. On progress days, people perceived significantly more positive challenge in their work. They saw their teams as more mutually supportive and reported more positive interactions between the teams and their supervisors. On a number of dimensions, perceptions suffered when people encountered setbacks. They found less positive challenge in the work, felt that they had less freedom in carrying it out, and reported that they had insufficient resources. On setback days, participants perceived both their teams and their supervisors as less supportive.

To be sure, our analyses establish correlations but do not prove causality. Were these changes in inner work life the result of progress and setbacks, or was the effect the other way around? The numbers alone cannot answer that. However, we do know, from reading thousands of diary entries, that more-positive perceptions, a sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, happiness, and even elation often followed progress. Here's a typical post-progress entry, from a programmer: "I smashed that bug that's been frustrating me for almost a calendar week. That may not be an event to you, but I live a very drab life, so I'm all hyped."

Likewise, we saw that deteriorating perceptions, frustration, sadness, and even disgust often followed setbacks. As another participant, a product marketer, wrote, "We spent a lot of time updating the Cost Reduction project list, and after tallying all the numbers, we are still coming up short of our goal. It is discouraging to not be able to hit it after all the time spent and hard work."

Almost certainly, the causality goes both ways, and managers can use this feedback loop between progress and inner work life to support both.

Minor Milestones

When we think about progress, we often imagine how good it feels to achieve a long-term goal or experience a major breakthrough. These big wins are great-but they are relatively rare. The good news is that even small wins can boost inner work life tremendously. Many of the progress events our research participants reported represented only minor steps forward. Yet they often evoked outsize positive reactions. Consider this diary entry from a programmer in a high-tech company, which was accompanied by very positive self-ratings of her emotions, motivations, and perceptions that day: "I figured out why something was not working correctly. I felt relieved and happy because this was a minor milestone for me."

Even ordinary, incremental progress can increase people's engagement in the work and their happiness during the workday. Across all types of events our participants reported, a notable proportion (28%) of incidents that had a minor impact on the project had a major impact on people's feelings about it. Because inner work life has such a potent effect on creativity and productivity, and because small but consistent steps forward, shared by many people, can accumulate into excellent execution, progress events that often go unnoticed are critical to the overall performance of organizations.

Unfortunately, there is a flip side. Small losses or setbacks can have an extremely negative effect on inner work life. In fact, our study and research by others show that negative events can have a more powerful impact than positive ones. Consequently, it is especially important for managers to minimize daily hassles.

Progress in Meaningful Work

We've shown how gratifying it is for workers when they are able to chip away at a goal, but recall what we said earlier: The key to motivating performance is supporting progress in meaningful work. Making headway boosts your inner work life, but only if the work matters to you.

Think of the most boring job you've ever had. Many people nominate their first job as a teenager-washing pots and pans in a restaurant kitchen, for example, or checking coats at a museum. In jobs like those, the power of progress seems elusive. No matter how hard you work, there are always more pots to wash and coats to check; only punching the time clock at the end of the day or getting the paycheck at the end of the week yields a sense of accomplishment.

In jobs with much more challenge and room for creativity, like the ones our research participants had, simply "making progress"-getting tasks done-doesn't guarantee a good inner work life, either. You may have experienced this rude fact in your own job, on days (or in projects) when you felt demotivated, devalued, and frustrated, even though you worked hard and got things done. The likely cause is your perception of the completed tasks as peripheral or irrelevant. For the progress principle to operate, the work must be meaningful to the person doing it.

In 1983, Steve Jobs was trying to entice John Sculley to leave a wildly successful career at PepsiCo to become Apple's new CEO. Jobs reportedly asked him, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?" In making his pitch, Jobs leveraged a potent psychological force: the deep-seated human desire to do meaningful work.

Fortunately, to feel meaningful, work doesn't have to involve putting the first personal computers in the hands of ordinary people, or alleviating poverty, or helping to cure cancer. Work with less profound importance to society can matter if it contributes value to something or someone important to the worker. Meaning can be as simple as making a useful and high-quality product for a customer or providing a genuine service for a community. It can be supporting a colleague or boosting an organization's profits by reducing inefficiencies in a production process. Whether the goals are lofty or modest, as long as they are meaningful to the worker and it is clear how his or her efforts contribute to them, progress toward them can galvanize inner work life.

In principle, managers shouldn't have to go to extraordinary lengths to infuse jobs with meaning. Most jobs in modern organizations are potentially meaningful for the people doing them. However, managers can make sure that employees know just how their work is contributing. And, most important, they can avoid actions that negate its value. (See the sidebar "How Work Gets Stripped of Its Meaning.") All the participants in our research were doing work that should have been meaningful; no one was washing pots or checking coats. Shockingly often, however, we saw potentially important, challenging work losing its power to inspire.

Diary entries from 238 knowledge workers who were members of creative project teams revealed four primary ways in which managers unwittingly drain work of its meaning.

One

Managers may dismiss the importance of employees' work or ideas. Consider the case of Richard, a senior lab technician at a chemical company, who found meaning in helping his new-product development team solve complex technical problems. However, in team meetings over the course of a three-week period, Richard perceived that his team leader was ignoring his suggestions and those of his teammates. As a result, he felt that his contributions were not meaningful, and his spirits flagged. When at last he believed that he was again making a substantive contribution to the success of the project, his mood improved dramatically:
I felt much better at today's team meeting. I felt that my opinions and information were important to the project and that we have made some progress.
Two

They may destroy employees' sense of ownership of their work. Frequent and abrupt reassignments often have this effect. This happened repeatedly to the members of a product development team in a giant consumer products company, as described by team member Bruce:
As I've been handing over some projects, I do realize that I don't like to give them up. Especially when you have been with them from the start and are nearly to the end. You lose ownership. This happens to us way too often.
Three

Managers may send the message that the work employees are doing will never see the light of day. They can signal this-unintentionally-by shifting their priorities or changing their minds about how something should be done. We saw the latter in an internet technology company after user-interface developer Burt had spent weeks designing seamless transitions for non-English-speaking users. Not surprisingly, Burt's mood was seriously marred on the day he reported this incident:
Other options for the international [interfaces] were [given] to the team during a team meeting, which could render the work I am doing useless.
Four

They may neglect to inform employees about unexpected changes in a customer's priorities. Often, this arises from poor customer management or inadequate communication within the company. For example, Stuart, a data transformation expert at an IT company, reported deep frustration and low motivation on the day he learned that weeks of the team's hard work might have been for naught:
Found out that there is a strong possibility that the project may not be going forward, due to a shift in the client's agenda. Therefore, there is a strong possibility that all the time and effort put into the project was a waste of our time.
Supporting Progress: Catalysts and Nourishers

What can managers do to ensure that people are motivated, committed, and happy? How can they support workers' daily progress? They can use catalysts and nourishers, the other kinds of frequent "best day" events we discovered.

Catalysts are actions that support work. They include setting clear goals, allowing autonomy, providing sufficient resources and time, helping with the work, openly learning from problems and successes, and allowing a free exchange of ideas. Their opposites, inhibitors, include failing to provide support and actively interfering with the work. Because of their impact on progress, catalysts and inhibitors ultimately affect inner work life. But they also have a more immediate impact: When people realize that they have clear and meaningful goals, sufficient resources, helpful colleagues, and so on, they get an instant boost to their emotions, their motivation to do a great job, and their perceptions of the work and the organization.

Nourishers are acts of interpersonal support, such as respect and recognition, encouragement, emotional comfort, and opportunities for affiliation. Toxins, their opposites, include disrespect, discouragement, disregard for emotions, and interpersonal conflict. For good and for ill, nourishers and toxins affect inner work life directly and immediately.

Catalysts and nourishers-and their opposites-can alter the meaningfulness of work by shifting people's perceptions of their jobs and even themselves. For instance, when a manager makes sure that people have the resources they need, it signals to them that what they are doing is important and valuable. When managers recognize people for the work they do, it signals that they are important to the organization. In this way, catalysts and nourishers can lend greater meaning to the work-and amplify the operation of the progress principle.

The managerial actions that constitute catalysts and nourishers are not particularly mysterious; they may sound like Management 101, if not just common sense and common decency. But our diary study reminded us how often they are ignored or forgotten. Even some of the more attentive managers in the companies we studied did not consistently provide catalysts and nourishers. For example, a supply-chain specialist named Michael was, in many ways and on most days, an excellent subteam manager. But he was occasionally so overwhelmed that he became toxic toward his people. When a supplier failed to complete a "hot" order on time and Michael's team had to resort to air shipping to meet the customer's deadline, he realized that the profit margin on the sale would be blown. In irritation, he lashed out at his subordinates, demeaning the solid work they had done and disregarding their own frustration with the supplier. In his diary, he admitted as much:

As of Friday, we have spent $28,000 in air freight to send 1,500 $30 spray jet mops to our number two customer. Another 2,800 remain on this order, and there is a good probability that they too will gain wings. I have turned from the kindly Supply Chain Manager into the black-masked executioner. All similarity to civility is gone, our backs are against the wall, flight is not possible, therefore fight is probable.

Even when managers don't have their backs against the wall, developing long-term strategy and launching new initiatives can often seem more important-and perhaps sexier-than making sure that subordinates have what they need to make steady progress and feel supported as human beings. But as we saw repeatedly in our research, even the best strategy will fail if managers ignore the people working in the trenches to execute it.

A Model Manager-and a Tool for Emulating Him

We could explain the many (and largely unsurprising) moves that can catalyze progress and nourish spirits, but it may be more useful to give an example of a manager who consistently used those moves-and then to provide a simple tool that can help any manager do so.

Our model manager is Graham, whom we observed leading a small team of chemical engineers within a multinational European firm we'll call Kruger-Bern. The mission of the team's NewPoly project was clear and meaningful enough: develop a safe, biodegradable polymer to replace petrochemicals in cosmetics and, eventually, in a wide range of consumer products. As in many large firms, however, the project was nested in a confusing and sometimes threatening corporate setting of shifting top-management priorities, conflicting signals, and wavering commitments. Resources were uncomfortably tight, and uncertainty loomed over the project's future-and every team member's career. Even worse, an incident early in the project, in which an important customer reacted angrily to a sample, left the team reeling. Yet Graham was able to sustain team members' inner work lives by repeatedly and visibly removing obstacles, materially supporting progress, and emotionally supporting the team.

Graham's management approach excelled in four ways. First, he established a positive climate, one event at a time, which set behavioral norms for the entire team. When the customer complaint stopped the project in its tracks, for example, he engaged immediately with the team to analyze the problem, without recriminations, and develop a plan for repairing the relationship. In doing so, he modeled how to respond to crises in the work: not by panicking or pointing fingers but by identifying problems and their causes, and developing a coordinated action plan. This is both a practical approach and a great way to give subordinates a sense of forward movement even in the face of the missteps and failures inherent in any complex project.

Second, Graham stayed attuned to his team's everyday activities and progress. In fact, the nonjudgmental climate he had established made this happen naturally. Team members updated him frequently-without being asked-on their setbacks, progress, and plans. At one point, one of his hardest-working colleagues, Brady, had to abort a trial of a new material because he couldn't get the parameters right on the equipment. It was bad news, because the NewPoly team had access to the equipment only one day a week, but Brady immediately informed Graham. In his diary entry that evening, Brady noted, "He didn't like the lost week but seemed to understand." That understanding assured Graham's place in the stream of information that would allow him to give his people just what they needed to make progress.

Third, Graham targeted his support according to recent events in the team and the project. Each day, he could anticipate what type of intervention-a catalyst or the removal of an inhibitor; a nourisher or some antidote to a toxin-would have the most impact on team members' inner work lives and progress. And if he could not make that judgment, he asked. Most days it was not hard to figure out, as on the day he received some uplifting news about his bosses' commitment to the project. He knew the team was jittery about a rumored corporate reorganization and could use the encouragement. Even though the clarification came during a well-earned vacation day, he immediately got on the phone to relay the good news to the team.

Finally, Graham established himself as a resource for team members, rather than a micromanager; he was sure to check in while never seeming to check up on them. Superficially, checking in and checking up seem quite similar, but micromanagers make four kinds of mistakes. First, they fail to allow autonomy in carrying out the work. Unlike Graham, who gave the NewPoly team a clear strategic goal but respected members' ideas about how to meet it, micromanagers dictate every move. Second, they frequently ask subordinates about their work without providing any real help. By contrast, when one of Graham's team members reported problems, Graham helped analyze them-remaining open to alternative interpretations-and often ended up helping to get things back on track. Third, micromanagers are quick to affix personal blame when problems arise, leading subordinates to hide problems rather than honestly discuss how to surmount them, as Graham did with Brady. And fourth, micromanagers tend to hoard information to use as a secret weapon. Few realize how damaging this is to inner work life. When subordinates perceive that a manager is withholding potentially useful information, they feel infantilized, their motivation wanes, and their work is handicapped. Graham was quick to communicate upper management's views of the project, customers' opinions and needs, and possible sources of assistance or resistance within and outside the organization.

In all those ways, Graham sustained his team's positive emotions, intrinsic motivation, and favorable perceptions. His actions serve as a powerful example of how managers at any level can approach each day determined to foster progress.

We know that many managers, however well-intentioned, will find it hard to establish the habits that seemed to come so naturally to Graham. Awareness, of course, is the first step. However, turning an awareness of the importance of inner work life into routine action takes discipline. With that in mind, we developed a checklist for managers to consult on a daily basis (see the exhibit "The Daily Progress Checklist"). The aim of the checklist is managing for meaningful progress, one day at a time.

Near the end of each workday, use this checklist to review the day and plan your managerial actions for the next day. After a few days, you will be able to identify issues by scanning the boldface words. First, focus on progress and setbacks and think about specific events (catalysts, nourishers, inhibitors, and toxins) that contributed to them. Next, consider any clear inner-work-life clues and what further information they provide about progress and other events. Finally, prioritize for action. The action plan for the next day is the most important part of your daily review: What is the one thing you can do to best facilitate progress?

Click here for a larger image of the graphic.
The Progress Loop

Inner work life drives performance; in turn, good performance, which depends on consistent progress, enhances inner work life. We call this the progress loop; it reveals the potential for self-reinforcing benefits.

So, the most important implication of the progress principle is this: By supporting people and their daily progress in meaningful work, managers improve not only the inner work lives of their employees but also the organization's long-term performance, which enhances inner work life even more. Of course, there is a dark side-the possibility of negative feedback loops. If managers fail to support progress and the people trying to make it, inner work life suffers and so does performance; and degraded performance further undermines inner work life.

A second implication of the progress principle is that managers needn't fret about trying to read the psyches of their workers, or manipulate complicated incentive schemes, to ensure that employees are motivated and happy. As long as they show basic respect and consideration, they can focus on supporting the work itself.

To become an effective manager, you must learn to set this positive feedback loop in motion. That may require a significant shift. Business schools, business books, and managers themselves usually focus on managing organizations or people. But if you focus on managing progress, the management of people-and even of entire organizations-becomes much more feasible. You won't have to figure out how to x-ray the inner work lives of subordinates; if you facilitate their steady progress in meaningful work, make that progress salient to them, and treat them well, they will experience the emotions, motivations, and perceptions necessary for great performance. Their superior work will contribute to organizational success. And here's the beauty of it: They will love their jobs.

A version of this article appeared in the May 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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Reprint: R1105C What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and perceptions that is critical to performance) than making progress in meaningful work.

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PeopleManagingPeople: How to Listen Better, a Look at the Different Levels of Listening

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PeopleManagingPeople: How to Listen Better, a Look at the Different Levels of Listening

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How well you listen can be directly tied to success in leadership (and life really). A leader who barks at everyone, interrupts constantly, and accepts zero feedback is rarely seen as an effective leader.

Instead, a leader who truly takes the time to listen, asks pointed questions, hears and acts on employee's concerns, and who clearly demonstrates empathy is usually both a better-liked and more effective leader.

There are 5 levels of listening that coaches use to determine how engaged someone is. Being aware of them will help you improve your communication skills.

Why is listening important?

Have you ever heard the long-term spouse joke about 'selective listening' or 'selective hearing'? Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once joked that in every long marriage it helps to be "a little deaf."

This may be true at home, but in the workplace it can be incredibly frustrating when we work with managers or colleagues who we can tell simply aren't listening to what we have to say.

Listening is such an important part of how we engage with others, and how we communicate. We know intrinsically that there are different levels of listening. That is why we come alive when we know that someone is truly listening to us, and we really feel heard.

Conversely we tend to shut down when we know that someone is half-listening and barely paying attention.

In the coaching sense, being able to listen deeply is a crucial communication skill for connecting with employees and establishing relationships.

So what are the different levels of listening that are out there, and what do they look like day to day?

What are the different levels of listening?

There are five different levels of listening, and each one takes a different level of skill and effort.

Ignoring Listening

Speaking to a listener who's ignoring feels like you're talking to a wall. This is when someone is outright either not even acknowledging that you're speaking, or you can tell that they hear you but they are not engaging or not responding. If you've ever had to call someone's name repeatedly before they pay attention, they were likely ignoring you.

Pretending Listening

This could almost be called 'presentation listening' since it is often what happens when we're pretending to listen to a speaker but we're not really taking in what they have to say. We may be able to fake it with smiles and nods until they ask a direct question, and we're caught like Homer Simpson with his fake glasses meant for falling asleep in court.

Selective Listening

This is the Ruth Bader Ginsburg approach to marriage as mentioned above, and can often be common with couples or even close friends and family. Effectively we 'hear what we want to hear,' and we don't really pay too much attention to the rest.

A listener's body language might be a great indication of whether or not they are practising selective listening. If they keep trying to push you to the end, or demanding to know the point, they're not listening to the entire message. This can quickly lead to miscommunication, or even misunderstanding, because they're missing the greater point of what you have to say.

Attentive Listening

Attentive listening denotes a high level of engagement. A listener is giving you their time, attention, and their focus, and they are truly listening to what you have to say. They are literally paying attention, and they are taking in the message without losing focus or getting distracted. Their body language should suggest that they are highly engaged in the conversation.

Most of us are attentive listeners on our best days, and that is admirable. However, the challenge is that attentive listeners hear the world through their own lens. If you're telling an attentive listener a difficult story, or speaking about something vulnerable, they will often come back with a personal anecdote or speak about how it impacts them.

Attentive listeners are trying their best to hear the other person, but they are ultimately thinking about themselves just as much (if not more) than they are thinking about you. To break out of that mold takes an extra level of attention, focus, and dedication.

Empathic Listening

An empathic listener is giving you their full time, attention, and focus because they are trying to see and hear the world through your eyes and ears. They are not only listening attentively, but they are thinking the entire time about how what you say has impacted you, not them.

Empathic listening is not easy! It takes time and attention to be that involved in a conversation, and you give your entire heart and mind over to the process.

This is level of listening required if you're going to be a coach, a crucial part of leadership.

How to improve your listening skills?

There are some naturally good listeners, but it is possible to become a better listener, and practice one's listening skills.

Next time you listen closely, focus on what the other person is telling you and where they are coming from.

Before you rush to speak or interject, put yourself in their shoes. Focus on the person's body language, and stay tuned for both their verbal cues and their nonverbal cues such as they're breathing, pauses, eye contact or movement, and hand gestures. If a person is in distress, their body language may say as much as their words do.

Also remember that your body language and nonverbal cues as a listener says a lot about your listening skills, and whether you are practising effective listening.

Keep your eyes focused on the other person, your shoulders aimed towards them, and your hands as calm and relaxed as possible. This shows the speaker that you are giving them all of your focus and attention.

A few last words for those still Listening

Effective listening can help make you a better partner, relative, friend, and colleague.

People who need an ear will be glad to come to you knowing that you're paying attention, and can help see the world through their eyes. Even better, they'll be more open to listening to you when you need an ear in return.

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How To Listen Better, A Look At The Different Levels Of Listening

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How well you listen can be directly tied to success in leadership (and life really). A leader who barks at everyone, interrupts constantly, and accepts zero feedback is rarely seen as an effective leader.

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Letting People Down In The Workplace Is Just Fine, Actually

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Refinery29: Letting People Down In the Workplace Is Just Fine, Actually 

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Refinery29: Letting People Down In the Workplace Is Just Fine, Actually 

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Allow us to paint you a picture. It's Monday at 4 a.m. and you can't sleep because you've got a high fever and your throat is on fire. You eventually roll out of bed, pick up your laptop, and log on for the day - camera off - because you'd rather work through your sickness than, heaven forbid, be a burden to your colleagues. But while we all know about burnout and that "work won't love us back," the drive to work ourselves to the bone really hits us is in our desire to keep the peace.

Author Alexa Shoen (@alexashoen) went viral recently for a TikTok with a simple message: "Your health is more important than your job," she says, "even if you have to unexpectedly let someone down today."

It sounds like a no-brainer, but when asked what pushes them to work overtime, the resounding response from friends and colleagues was just that: the idea of letting those around them down.

In 2022, we're dealing with a lot of understaffed workplaces. After the pandemic forced many companies to cut costs, and in many cases, let go of heaps of staff, for those of us still lucky to have work, resource scarcity was not just a myth imposed onto junior workers, but a reverberation of what we could clearly see happening around the world. Over 114 million jobs were lost in 2020, according to the International Labour Organisation - and those were just the ones reported. Anyone that had a job was really just focused on keeping it. But even now, as we learn to live with COVID, we're still seeing burnout skyrocket due to insurmountable workloads, inflexibility, and excessive hours.

A situation we see consistently play out is when colleagues resign or staff are let go due to declining profits, and instead of adjusting workloads or hiring replacements, working overtime to keep the business afloat becomes the norm, inadvertently convincing higher management that the job really can get done with fewer resources. Cue the burnout. Because that's what we do when we don't speak up and take on excess work out of fear of letting people down. We set a precedent for our colleagues and our bosses, telling them that the work is not only manageable, but that it's what can be expected of us going forward when, really, it's the result of us pushing ourselves past healthy limits.

While this can be fine during temporary busy periods, it's not sustainable. If we're burning ourselves out to meet the impossible goals others impose on us, we risk letting them down anyway.

The business is not going to shut down if you don't work overtime. And if it does, then there's something wrong with their operational model, not with you.

We're aware that a lot of this is easier said than done, particularly when starting at a new job or position, we feel the need to overextend ourselves to "prove our worth." But it's not about being completely unwilling to help anyone with anything, just about setting boundaries so that you can actually do your own job well - and still have a life after punching out. And in our experience, this is the critical time to establish these limits.

Boundary-setting can be pretty simple to keep up once you get started. You don't have to explain why you can't cover someone or take on extra work, all you need to do is communicate that you don't have the capacity to take on whatever it is right now. And if it is an urgent task, then explain what else you have on your plate and ask your management for advice on how they would prefer you to prioritize these tasks.

Remember, workplaces will always be fraught with social politics, and some might even utilize this to their advantage. You're not "a team player" or "not hungry enough" when you genuinely can't take on extra work - and you're not a hero for working outside your paid hours. Shit happens, targets sometimes aren't met, and life goes on. Unless your job is literally saving lives, the business is not going to shut down if you don't work overtime. And if it does, then there's something wrong with their operational model, not with you.

You're going to let people down - all the time and for the rest of your life. And people will let you down, in turn, too.

It's also good to consider is that most of the guilt we feel, the kind that ties knots in our stomachs and keeps us up at night, is mostly self-imposed. Women especially can have guilt ingrained into them from an early age, since we are traditionally expected to be more considerate of others. We also tend to facilitate non-promotable tasks at work such as organizing birthdays or coworker bonding activities. So the idea of letting people down can feel particularly triggering.

But trust us when we say that as much as it might be frustrating for a colleague or boss when you can't "help out," it's just temporary. Your health and time are finite, so there's no use stewing in all of that guilt. And besides, the act of saying no, especially when you realize that people won't actually hate you for doing so, is pretty damn liberating.

At the end of the day, stability at work will always be a fleeting state. There will be ups and downs, and not everyone will be realistic in their expectations of you. No matter what you do, you're going to let people down, all the time and for the rest of your life, and people will let you down in turn. Accept it!

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Letting People Down In The Workplace Is Just Fine, Actually

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Allow us to paint you a picture. It's Monday at 4 a.m. and you can't sleep because you've got a high fever and your throat is on fire. You eventually roll out of bed, pick up your laptop, and log on for the day - camera off - because you'd rather work through your sickness than, heaven forbid, be a burden to your colleagues.

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Officely: How Do You Prevent Proximity Bias?

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Officely: How Do You Prevent Proximity Bias?

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A challenge that comes up time and time again when employees have the option of remote or hybrid work, is proximity bias.

Hybrid workplaces present the best of both worlds when it comes to working between home and the office. However, as humans, we naturally require a certain level of connectivity and proximity to others - it's the reason many people prefer a hybrid work environment to fully remote work, which risks loneliness.

Problems start to occur when this instinct seeps into the hybrid workplace. The result is that people may feel more connected to those they have the most contact with or see the most in the office.

With remote and hybrid working on the rise, it's never been more critical for managers to be aware of the issues associated with proximity bias, and understand how to overcome them.

Whether you've seen it in your own behavior or noticed a lack of connection between certain members of your team, proximity bias in the hybrid workplace can affect morale, productivity, and even your bottom line.

The good news is proximity bias can be prevented. You just need to understand what areas of your business it could be affecting, and how everyone can work together to address it.

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What is Proximity Bias?

Proximity bias in the workplace presents itself as managers and teammates prioritizing those they are physically closer to.

It has its roots in the human survival instinct: you trust the people you see most often because you view them as 'safe'.

When this manifests in a workplace, however, this results in sub-conscious favoritism of people you see the most or, in a remote work environment, are the closest to geographically.

Proximity bias could be keeping those in the office more informed about ongoing projects, through to feeling that those in the office are more productive than those working remotely.

While studies suggest that in reality, those who work from home are more productive, the concerns around proximity bias are not unfounded.

The Society of Human Resources found that negative perceptions of remote workers still remain, with over 67% of supervisors believing remote workers to be more replaceable, and remote workers being less likely to receive a promotion.

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What are Examples of Proximity Bias?

If you're unsure whether your hybrid workplace is experiencing proximity bias, here are three of the most common issues to look out for:

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1. Asking for opinions on important decisions from those in the office rather than remote workers ‍

If you're making a decision and need input from others, the 'others' you ask for opinions from shouldn't be limited to those sitting next to you.

With so many communication tools available, there is no reason to leave out those you could send a quick Slack or Teams message to.

However, as it's easier to simply ask those around you, this feeds into proximity bias, feeding the thought process that those around you have more valuable opinions.

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2. Offering in-person employees more opportunities

There's little room for impulsive thoughts in any workplace, but it's even more important to think big decisions through when your team works from different locations.

If you have an upcoming opportunity, every person in your team or office should be given the same consideration. When proximity bias occurs, those working from home are de-prioritized as your first instinct is the people you see most often.

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3. Believing in-person employees are more productive

It's not uncommon when working in the office to have last-minute meetings. While these are usually unavoidable, it means you have a closer view of the workload of certain employees.

Workloads are not conducive to productivity, especially when you are only seeing the output of a small number of individuals. Proximity bias means subconsciously believing that those you have a closer eye on are producing more work.

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How Does Proximity Bias Impact Hybrid Workplaces?

Proximity bias feeds exclusion and low morale, but it can manifest in a variety of ways in a hybrid workplace.
Remote workers may feel like they are being "forgotten" or overlooked due to their lack of physical presence in the office.
They might find it difficult to stay informed about what's happening within their team or organization if there are fewer opportunities for them to engage with colleagues online.

These factors can lead remote workers to feel isolated and disconnected from their place of work, which could ultimately impact morale and productivity levels. This also increases the likelihood of employee churn, with over 79% of employees who quit their jobs linking it to a lack of appreciation.
Proximity bias could also result in inequitable job opportunities for those who don't live near your company's headquarters.
For instance, if internal job postings are only listed on an office bulletin, it could limit potential candidates from further away from applying and having access to those available positions.

This would result in less diverse hiring practices which could exacerbate any existing discrimination issues within the organization.

Taking steps towards establishing equality amongst all employees will, at the very least, create a more friendly, balanced workplace. At its best, it can prevent discrimination and inequitable opportunity.

So, let's take a look at how to do it.

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How Do You Prevent Proximity Bias?

Half of the battle with any subconscious thought is recognizing that it exists.

Now you've established proximity bias as a potential issue, here's how your hybrid workplace can avoid it:

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Be Proactive About Checking In

When you're in the office, how many times do you bump into colleagues in the kitchen? Or exchange pleasantries throughout the day?

Those little check-ins add up. You're learning more about those individuals and getting to know them better for it. Obviously, this is a positive thing, but it doesn't need to be exclusive to those in the office.

Use an instant messaging app to keep in touch with your remote employees; ask how their weekend is, find out how their work is going, and have informal chats throughout the week.

Providing employees who work from home with more opportunities to talk with you will also build rapport from their side and make reaching out more natural when problems arise.

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‍Prioritize Remote-First Communication

If you've adopted a hybrid work model, your central place of communication should not be in-person, in the office.

Use a communication tool like Slack to maintain a consistent form of communication whether at home or in the office and ensure every meeting has a Zoom link as a best practice.

Getting into the habit of doing this means people will feel comfortable working from home without the risk of being left out. We've all had to send a 'Can you send me a Zoom link' message to a colleague who's forgotten to add one to the calendar.

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Make it Easy for Employees to See Each Other

Proximity bias doesn't only occur when managing people, it also occurs when employees don't see each other in person.

The easiest way to make sure your team is connecting with one another is by using a tool that allows employees to see who's in the office and when.

Officely is a desk booking tool that lives in Slack. It enables employees to see who's in the office, find out what's happening each day, and book in themselves.

Managers can send out invites for teams to come in on particular days, and your team can send out announcements if something important is happening in the office that requires attendance.

When a new employee starts, for example, you can encourage your team to come in and meet them in person. This helps to build connections between team members and prevent proximity bias from the start.

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Build (and stick to) Performance Reviews

Employees in the same role or at the same level should have performance reviews to assess promotions and opportunities.

Having set performance reviews and 1-1s avoids one of the biggest issues of proximity bias - the tendency to put office workers up for promotion more than remote workers.

If you have a quota that individuals have to meet, you'll know whether your decision has come from preference and capability. Define responsibilities and expectations at your hybrid workplace so both you and your team are aware of what progression looks like for their role.

Define Your Hybrid Working Policy

The most important thing you can do as a hybrid workplace is to define your hybrid working policy. Unsurprisingly, this also impacts proximity bias as everyone has the same expectations in the workplace, preventing penalization of those who work from home more than others.
Your hybrid work policy should contain:

How many days per week/month/quarter your employees must be in the office (remote-first)

How often employees are allowed to work from home (office-first)

What software employees must have to maintain communication within the team

Health and well-being benefits for all employees, both remote and in-office

If you're unsure where to get started, you can use our hybrid work policy builder for your own customizable template.

‍

Try Officely Today

Transform your hybrid work environment, motivate employees and increase office attendance, all within Slack.

No credit card required.

To Prevent Proximity Bias, Acknowledge It

One of the most dangerous lines of thought when it comes to proximity bias in the hybrid workplace is 'it doesn't exist here'.

Burying your head in the sand always exacerbates a problem, and in this case, will lead managers and teams to ignore decisions led by proximity bias.

The rise of hybrid work and flexibility is one of the most exciting workplace transitions in modern history, however, critique and reflection are critical for it to improve.

Using a variety of tools and approaches to keep on top of proximity bias will keep your hybrid workplace from falling into its trap.

If you're a business looking to ensure your employees stay connected, you can join Officely's two-week free trial today, no credit card required.

Join Our Hybrid-Work Community

Connect, learn and grow from other office managers, HR leaders and CEOs in our exclusive Slack channel.
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How Do You Prevent Proximity Bias in a Hybrid Workplace? | Officely

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A challenge that comes up time and time again when employees have the option of remote or hybrid work, is proximity bias. Hybrid workplaces present the best of both worlds when it comes to working between home and the office.

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8 Questions You Should Be Asking Your Boss

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The Muse: 8 Questions You Should Be Asking Your Boss

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The Muse: 8 Questions You Should Be Asking Your Boss

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When my client Sarah contacted me to work out some issues at her job, I didn't think it would be a very tough assignment. After all, she was bright, good at what she did, and committed to being successful.

What's the best job for you?

Use The Muse to find a job at a company with a culture you love. Select the career path that aligns with you:

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The trouble, she explained, was her difficult boss: She saw him as an obstacle that she had to work around to achieve her goals, rather than an essential part (or, frankly, any part) of her success.

But as I continued to ask questions, I was surprised at how little she really knew about her assignments, her boss' expectations, and overall, how to work with her manager effectively. In fact, she tended to make assumptions about what her manager needed or thought, based solely on her observations-without any real facts. No wonder she was struggling!

If you're having similar issues seeing eye to eye with your manager, take the advice I gave Sarah, and initiate a one-on-one meeting to ask these eight essential questions. With the answers you receive, you'll better understand your manager's point of view, be able to work together more effectively, and, ultimately, create more opportunity for success-for the both of you.

1. "What's the Most Important Achievement You Hope to Accomplish in Your Current Role?"

This question will give you insight into your manager's short-term motivation, which will give you a better idea of what your goals and objectives should be.

Managers, unfortunately, aren't always clear with employees on their goals and plans, but if you understand a bit more about what your boss is focused on, you can better prioritize your own responsibilities and position yourself for success in your boss' eyes.

For example, perhaps your organization is in the middle of an acquisition and your manager's goal is to create a smooth transition for the newly merged department. With that information, you should be aiming to help her to succeed in that, whether that means spending a few weeks beefing up company documentation or simply volunteering to assist with training.

2. "What Are Your Career Goals?"

While similar to question number one, the answer to this will give you insight into your manager's long-term goals. Does she want to be a VP by age 35? CEO by 50? Does she want to start her own business one day? Knowing her long-term plan will help you understand why she might make certain decisions.

For instance, maybe she volunteers your department for a project that doesn't seem important to you, but it puts her squarely in the visibility of top executives-which could put her in the perfect position for a promotion.

By having insight into her goals, you'll better understand why she manages your team the way she does, instead of doubting her strategies.

3. "What Is the Most Important Thing Your Boss Cares About?"

Unless you're working for the CEO, your boss reports to a manager, too. So, asking this question will help you learn more about what the upper level of your organization expects. And finding out these higher-level goals will give you a deeper sense of meaning in your work, since you'll see exactly how you and your team fit into the bigger picture.

Plus, getting your finger on the pulse of the company's higher-level projects may give you the opportunity to volunteer for initiatives you otherwise wouldn't have been aware of.

4. "What Can I Do to Make You More Successful Today (or This Week, Month, Quarter, or Year)?"

This should be a question you ask on a regular basis-because you should always be trying to make your boss as successful as possible.

When you're able to get a straightforward answer to this, you'll be able to focus your energy in the right places-because you'll know exactly what tasks need to take priority.

(And as a bonus, it will also remind your boss that you're truly invested in his or her success.)

5. "What's One Thing I Could Do Differently?"

Having clear expectations is the key to delivering winning performance-and this question is a sneaky way to find out those expectations.

For example, if your manager says he'd like you to make more of an effort to actively participate in meetings, you'll know that he values a collaborative environment of ideas-rather than coming up with every initiative himself. And knowing that can help you perform exactly to his expectations.

6. "What Should I Know About Your Work and Management Style?"

Does your manager expect you to be available 24/7? Respond to emails on weekends? How does he or she handle stress?

Asking this straightforward question may not get you all the answers (for example, a micromanager may not readily admit to micromanaging). But even if you get just a tiny bit of insight, you'll have a better sense of what to expect and how to handle it.

7. "How Would You Like to Receive Feedback From Me?"

No matter what, you won't agree with your manager on everything. But, you don't have to simply simmer in frustration-as long as you know how to present your gripes in the right way.

To prepare yourself for an eventual point of contention, ask how your manager prefers to get feedback-you'll get a much better response if you play by his or her rules, whether that means scheduling a one-on-one meeting, rather than catching him or her off guard in a hallway conversation or summarizing your thoughts in an email.

Once you know how to deliver your constructive feedback, you'll be much more prepared to ask for what you need: Whether you'd like more frequent updates on deadlines, regular one-on-one time, or faster decision-making on projects, it's important to be able to feel comfortable making these requests.

(And if you're nervous to do it, here's how to give honest feedback that isn't scary.)

8. "Why Did You Hire Me?"

When you get a new job, you're often so excited that you forget to ask why you were selected over all the other candidates. But this is an important question to ask, because it will help you hone in on exactly how your boss believed you would make the team better.

Perhaps your boss will say that you demonstrated your ability to present complex data in a simple way better than any other candidate. And so, now you know that's a major part of what your boss expects you to deliver. (Plus, since you probably do this better than anyone else on the team, it's your chance to really shine!)

By spending some time in your manager's shoes and asking these questions, you'll be able to smooth out any rough edges of your professional relationship.

OK-it might be a little intimidating at first, but give it a try. As you build that rapport, you'll stop seeing your manager as an obstacle and start seeing him or her as an essential part of your mutual success.

Lea McLeod is an experienced manager, career consultant, and job search coach. Formerly a director-level manager at HP, Lea helps you learn skills to build confidence and competence at work and to deal with tough situations that can be super frustrating. In her articles for The Muse, Lea empowers readers to confidently identify and tackle just about every dilemma at work, from challenging colleagues and bad bosses to interviews to career changes and professional development. Her writing has also appeared in Forbes, Business Insider, and other outlets. Find her on Twitter and LinkedIn or visit her website. She authored The Resume Coloring Book, a simple and color-coded guide to writing a solid resume.

More from Lea McLeod

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8 Questions You Should Be Asking Your Boss

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When my client Sarah contacted me to work out some issues at her job, I didn't think it would be a very tough assignment. After all, she was bright, good at what she did, and committed to being successful. What's the best job for you?

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NYTimes: Unpacking the Psychology of Gift Giving

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NYTimes: Unpacking the Psychology of Gift Giving

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NYTimes: How to Save Yourself From 'Task Paralysis'

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NYTimes: How to Save Yourself From 'Task Paralysis'

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How to Save Yourself From ‘Task Paralysis’

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Your brain can see your to-do list as a threat. Here’s how to get things done anyway.

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We Got This Podcast: Intentional practices for creating psychologically safe environments

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A podcast showcasing individuals and companies that create people focused organisational cultures to help it become the norm rather than the exception.

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Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team

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HBR Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team

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HBR Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team

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One bad apple, the saying goes, can ruin the bunch. So, too, with employees.

Our research on the contagiousness of employee fraud tells us that even your most honest employees become more likely to commit misconduct if they work alongside a dishonest individual. And while it would be nice to think that the honest employees would prompt the dishonest employees to better choices, that's rarely the case.

Among co-workers, it appears easier to learn bad behavior than good.

For managers, it is important to realize that the costs of a problematic employee go beyond the direct effects of that employee's actions - bad behaviors of one employee spill over into the behaviors of other employees through peer effects. By under-appreciating these spillover effects, a few malignant employees can infect an otherwise healthy corporate culture.

History - and current events - are littered with outbreaks of misconduct among co-workers: mortgage underwriters leading up to the financial crisis, stock brokers at boiler rooms such as Stratton Oakmont, and cross-selling by salespeople at Wells Fargo.

In our research, we wanted to understand just how contagious bad behavior is. To do so, we examined peer effects in misconduct by financial advisors, focusing on mergers between financial advisory firms that each have multiple branches. In these mergers, financial advisors meet new co-workers from one of the branches of the other firm, exposing them to new ideas and behaviors.

We collected an extensive data set using the detailed regulatory filings available for financial advisors. We defined misconduct as customer complaints for which the financial advisor either paid a settlement of at least $10,000 or lost an arbitration decision. We observed when complaints occurred for each financial advisor, as well as for the advisor's co-workers.

We found that financial advisors are 37% more likely to commit misconduct if they encounter a new co-worker with a history of misconduct. This result implies that misconduct has a social multiplier of 1.59 - meaning that, on average, each case of misconduct results in an additional 0.59 cases of misconduct through peer effects.

However, observing similar behavior among co-workers does not explain why this similarity occurs. Co-workers could behave similarly because of peer effects - in which workers learn behaviors or social norms from each other - but similar behavior could arise because co-workers face the same incentives or because individuals prone to making similar choices naturally choose to work together.

In our research, we wanted to understand how peer effects contribute to the spread of misconduct. We compared financial advisors across different branches of the same firm, because this allowed us to control for the effect of the incentive structure faced by all advisors in the firm. We also focused on changes in co-workers caused by mergers, because this allowed us to remove the effect of advisors choosing their co-workers. As a result, we were able to isolate peer effects.

We also ran tests that included only advisors who did not change supervisors during the merger, allowing us to attribute all changes in behavior to peer effects from co-workers with the same rank. Within this restricted sample, we found strong evidence of peer effects just like in the main sample. These results show that, independent of any effects from managers, employee behavior is affected by the actions of peer co-workers.

Prior studies document that peer effects are stronger among individuals who share the same ethnicity. Accordingly, we use advisor ethnicity and show that peer effects in misconduct are stronger between advisors who share the same ethnicity; the contagion effect is nearly twice as large if an advisor meets a new co-worker with a history of misconduct and who shares the advisor's ethnicity. Thus, similar individuals, who likely interact more, have stronger effects on each other's behaviors.

Understanding why co-workers make similar choices about whether to commit misconduct can guide managers in preventing misconduct. Given its nature, knowledge and social norms related to misconduct must be transmitted through informal channels such as social interactions. More generally, understanding why co-workers behave in similar ways has important implications for understanding how corporate culture arises and how managers can shape it.

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Research: How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team

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Even your most honest employees become more likely to commit misconduct if they work alongside a dishonest individual. And while it would be nice to think that the honest employees would prompt the dishonest employees to better choices, that's rarely the case. Among co-workers, it appears easier to learn bad behavior than good.

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Notes of Appreciation Can Boost Individual and Team Morale

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HBR: Notes of Appreciation Can Boost Individual & Team Morale

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HBR: Notes of Appreciation Can Boost Individual & Team Morale

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Play to their strengths.
Leaders across the world instinctively know that playing to the strengths of each person on their team will accelerate both personal and organizational growth. But it's easier said than done. Identifying strengths, our own or anyone else's, can be tricky. At Disruption Advisors, the tech-enabled talent development company we co-founded, we've adopted a simple approach to identifying, then playing to strengths across teams. It's the exercise of writing notes of appreciation.

This strategy is especially effective as a wrap-up to our leadership retreats. Each attendee, whether they are the CEO or the newest junior hire, leaves with the same assignment: Write a note of appreciation to each teammate in the next two weeks. To encourage follow-through, they also copy their team leader as well as someone at our firm.

A note of appreciation isn't the generic thank-you note we've all received or, let's be honest, written a hundred times. It demands specificity. The author must offer real-world examples that clearly explains the attribute or action that is appreciated and why it's appreciated.

Consider this real-life note:

I value and appreciate your unique perspective whenever we are facing tough and complex decisions. You bring pragmatism to our conversations, which moves us from theory to action. You weigh if it is the right thing for us to do, which helps us better live our values. You view all situations with empathy, helping us make more caring decisions. You bring a team mindset to decisions, rolling up your sleeves to help whoever needs the help, and inspiring others to pitch in. You help us make decisions as a team.

The feedback to this activity has been positive. Many individuals have teared up, these notes bolstering them when the going gets rough. One person shared that the outpouring of appreciation was "one of the highlights of their year."

Why Notes of Appreciation Are So Impactful

1. They help people see their strengths.

It's common for people to not recognize their own strengths. Because our superpowers are reflexively easy for us, we're often not only blind to them, we can undervalue them. We may even be dismissive of them because we do them effortlessly.

Notes of appreciation are a mirror we can hold up to our colleagues to help them see their strengths. It also allows us to explicitly communicate that those strengths are valuable to us and our team. Also, by copying the team leader on the appreciation email, the team lead can identify common themes, better pinpointing specific individual's strengths.

2. They focus our attention on what's working.

Where we focus our attention matters. Neuroscience supports this, as Whitney explores in her latest book, Smart Growth. Our brains have a magnificent filtering mechanism, organizing millions of pieces of data using a process called the reticular activating system (RAS). We largely form this filter ourselves (whether consciously or subconsciously) by instructing our brain what to focus on. As with ads on social media feeds, whatever we pay attention to, we receive more of in return.

If we're focused on what isn't working, our brains will learn to look for more of what isn't working. But if our brain focuses on what is working, we will get more of what's going well. When we tell our teammates what they do well in a note of appreciation, we are giving them a conscious push to filter for their strengths.

3. They signal to people that they matter.

Work can become very tactical, and it can be easy to focus more on our to-do lists than our teammates. When we write a note of appreciation, we are indicating to our colleague "I see you, I appreciate the work you are doing." This is not only validating for them, but it reminds us that they are valuable.

If you think this sounds silly, you're not alone. Our human tendency is to think of critics as more discerning, more discriminating, and those who offer praise are less sophisticated.

Most of us want to be seen as sophisticated and discerning. Expressing appreciation therefore becomes much more than writing a note. It's a mental exercise that builds new neural pathways to push against the subconscious bias that elevates criticism over praise. Paraphrasing Gretchen Rubin: "Enthusiasm about a colleague requires social courage. It is an act of humility." It may be difficult, but humility and enthusiasm about our colleagues greases the gears of human interactions.

"Positive attention is 30 times more powerful than negative attention," as Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall have shared. "People don't need feedback. They need attention to what they do best...A focus on strengths increases performance. Therefore, a focus on strengths is what creates growth."

If, as a leader, you want to accelerate the growth of your team, you'll need to play to the strengths of both individuals and the collective. That begins with knowing not only your own strengths, but also the strengths of each person on your team.

And it can start with a simple, well-considered note of appreciation.

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Notes of Appreciation Can Boost Individual and Team Morale

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"Positive attention is 30 times more powerful than negative attention," as Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall have shared. "People don't need feedback. They need attention to what they do best...A focus on strengths increases performance. Therefore, a focus on strengths is what creates growth."

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When Leaders Struggle with Collaboration

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HBR: When Leaders Struggle With Collaboration 

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HBR: When Leaders Struggle With Collaboration 

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A client of Luis's, let's call him Charlie, a senior executive reporting directly to the CEO, was recently given feedback that despite his outstanding performance, his colleagues struggled to work with him. Charlie's drive to deliver results, his no-nonsense approach to offering his viewpoints, and the intensity with which he approached most everything made him appear unnecessarily competitive, despite that being the furthest thing from his intent. As a result, without realizing it, Charlie lost the trust of some of his most critical stakeholders: his peers.

Charlie isn't alone in his struggle. As consultants and executive coaches to high-performing executives, we see this frequently. It's not uncommon for talented leaders to find collaboration unnatural. After all, rugged individualism set them apart and propelled their careers. And for many, that same focus on distinguishing themselves later becomes their demise.

Harvard Business Review research reveals that the top reasons for collaboration failure include silos (67%), no collaborative vision from leaders (32%), and senior managers not wanting to give up control (32%). Today's workplace has become more collaborative than ever, with functional and divisional boundaries blurred beyond recognition, yet 39% of employees worldwide say people in their organization don't collaborate enough. Most of an enterprise's competitive value is created and delivered at organizational "seams," where functions come together to form capabilities (think marketing, consumer analytics, and R&D, together developing innovation capability). That requires leaders of those functions to collaborate across the silos to deliver that value.

If you're a leader who struggles to collaborate with your peers, you first need to understand why that is, then work to develop that skill.

Why collaboration doesn't come easy

Before you can improve, it's critical to reflect on why collaboration doesn't come naturally to you. Here are some common reasons we've seen among leaders we've worked with.

You're competitive and fear being overshadowed.

You've likely enjoyed a track record of winning and being the best. Nevertheless, the notion of sharing the spotlight with others makes you anxious. Perhaps your sense of identity and success has been reinforced by years of individual achievement.

Still, it's essential to realize that at higher organizational altitudes, success is achieved through integrated efforts. Pay close attention when you fear that others might outshine you or that your contribution won't be distinguished. Understanding the inner narrative telling you that your uniqueness will be blunted is the first step to changing it. At this level of the organization, you must believe that your contribution will be amplified if it's blended with others' contributions.

You've relied heavily on hierarchy to get things done.

Perhaps you've operated in your own functional silo and, despite caring for those you lead, have been successful in directing the work of others toward the results you've achieved. Or perhaps you grew up professionally in a culture that prizes hierarchy and deference to authority.

Recognize that at this level of the organization, influencing your peers is critical and very different from the positional authority you hold over your direct reports. You must be less directive, and more curious and conversational. One of Ron's clients who struggled with this issue had it said of him by a peer in his 360 feedback, "He barks orders at me as though I report to him." When Ron shared the feedback with his client and asked if he ever modulated his approach between direct reports and peers, his response was telling. He said, "Well, I assumed my peers understood that I respect their authority and expertise, but apparently, I was wrong." He'd failed to realize that such respect has to be mutually earned and doesn't just come along with rank.

You've focused more on results than relationships.

Human beings are hardwired for connection to other humans, but it's common for high-achieving individuals to be guarded when it comes to relationships. If you've prided yourself on not needing to be liked by others, dig deeper into why that might be. Spend time reflecting on the relationships in your life, both inside and outside of work. Where have you built meaningful connections? Where have you avoided them? Are there certain relationships where connection is easier for you?

Pay special attention to places where you avoid relationships. One client of Luis's, who grew up in India as the youngest of five children, had difficulty building collaborative relationships with people in authority. He was combative and defensive. When Luis asked him about some of his formative struggles in life, he realized that he saw his father and his brothers as "bosses" and was resentfully viewing his peers in the same way.

You have a hard time trusting.

You believe that attention to detail is your strength, and you've had some unfavorable outcomes in the past when delegating to others, which leads you to be extra careful now. You fear uncertainty and want to make sure your decisions are on solid ground. Take the example of Mario; a successful lawyer tasked with reviewing and closing critical contracts worth millions for the company. Unfortunately, as someone who felt a strong need for control, he managed to turn trivial issues into deal-breaking problems. Underlying Mario's inability to trust others with much of anything was a deeper narrative: "People will take advantage of me if I let them." Until he learned to challenge it, this assumption was the lens through which Mario saw others. Given the high stakes of your role, it's understandable to be sensitized to what might go wrong. However, there is a difference between having healthy skepticism and assuming bad intentions. When you ascribe ill motives, you send a strong message of mistrust.

You don't know how.

It may well be that collaboration is simply something you've never learned. It's a complex set of skills and attributes. It combines active listening, managing conflict, shared problem solving, self-regulation, humility, curiosity, and a caring orientation toward others. Perhaps you've cultivated some of these things, but not enough of all of them for others to see you as genuinely collaborative. Make a careful inventory of behaviors for which you know you lack sufficient skill or orientation. This will help you narrow your development focus as you prioritize learning to be more collaborative.

Once you've determined what keeps you from collaborating comfortably, you can take steps to develop your collaboration skills and rebuild lost trust with others who've struggled to work with you. Remember what you learned above about why you struggle - those insights will inform where you begin your learning journey. The first set of strategies will help you consider the reputational capital you want to build or rebuild. The second set will focus on tangible ways to strengthen your collaborative connections with others.

First, determine what you want to be known for.

Your current behaviors are a reflection of the person that, consciously or unconsciously, you believe you are. So, if you want to be known as a collaborator, you first need to adopt the mindset of a collaborator. Here are some ways to get started:

Be open to change and new ideas.

Taking new perspectives is a prerequisite to empathy and compassion. Ask questions to challenge your point of view and clarify the other person's. Doing so sends a strong signal that you care about their perspective.

Value others equally.

Put yourself in an environment where your deep expertise has minimal credibility and you "have to be like everyone else." Putting yourself in a place of mutual interdependence will help you feel what it's like to be on a level playing field. For example, you could join a team or club outside of work - a hobby group or a local recreation league for a sport you play. As you do so, journal about what you're feeling and learning. Note places where you're enjoying yourself and places where you feel uncomfortable.

Become someone others can rely on.

No matter who you are, you still need others to succeed, and others need you. Acknowledge that interdependency by deepening stakeholder relationships. Identify critical players you rely on and those who depend on you. Spend time with them. When you're with them, notice what your brain is doing - questioning motives, guarding, or feeling comfortable and curious. Identify the conditions that lead you to be more open. Building and maintaining trusting relationships is the foundation of sustainable collaboration.

Then, act on what you've learned.

So that others will see you as a genuinely collaborative leader, take actions to accelerate your reputation as a team player. The key here is to be genuine. If you do these steps in a performative way, people will see right through it, which will set your reputation back further.

Create moments of generosity.

Look for intentional ways to contribute to others when you get nothing in return. For example, offer a favor, support someone's strategic agenda, or share ideas and resources. Notice what it feels like to give without getting. How did the recipient of your kindness respond? If this is new behavior for you, don't be surprised if others are a bit cautious at first. They might not yet appreciate this "new you," so be patient and give it time.

Share the spotlight and give credit.

Find ways to purposefully cede the stage to someone else when it's shining on you. This exposes new talent to new audiences and builds that person's confidence and sense of pride. In addition, this helps others experience you as a leader who doesn't hog the limelight. (But remember, if you do it just to be seen that way, it will backfire.)

Doing this also benefits your organization. Teams that share the spotlight with each other more frequently have greater retention, and their organizations have higher growth because they collaborate more.

Ask for advice.

Approach one of your key stakeholders with a challenge you need help with. This models vulnerability, demonstrates humility, and shows that you understand you need others. If you're struggling with a particular individual, an easy way to build trust is by asking them for advice. Later, let them know how you applied it. Colleagues who believe you genuinely need them are more likely to seek your help and support your ideas in public settings.

. . .

Take heart if you're a leader needing to strengthen your collaboration. You can do it, even if it feels like an unnatural act. You've already achieved some success, which is evidence that you can work hard and learn. In today's hyper-connected world, lone wolves are becoming a thing of the past. Today, inclusive, humble, and other-oriented leaders are seen as the most credible and influential. Effectively collaborating is key to becoming and remaining a leader of lasting impact.

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When Leaders Struggle with Collaboration

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It's not uncommon for talented leaders to find collaboration unnatural. After all, rugged individualism set them apart and propelled their careers. And for many, that same focus on distinguishing themselves later becomes their demise. Most of an enterprise's competitive value is created and delivered at organizational "seams," where functions come together to form capabilities (think marketing, consumer analytics, and R&D, together developing innovation capability).

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FastCompany: 3 leadership superpowers and how to spot them in an interview

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FastCompany: 3 leadership superpowers and how to spot them in an interview

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Early: How Design Thinking Can Fix Your Workplace 

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Early: How Design Thinking Can Fix Your Workplace 

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FastCompany: Toxic Leaders Are Poisoning Your Company Culture

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FastCompany: Toxic Leaders Are Poisoning Your Company Culture

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You're worth taking care of, no matter what your brain might tell you.

It's not selfish to show up for yourself.

Cry and crumble. It's okay.

You've dealt with tough times before. You will do it again.

It's not your job to please everyone. But there is one person you need to stand by: yourself.

Some days are hard, we get it. You miss a deadline. You get sick. Your colleague makes an offensive remark. You feel like you're falling behind - at work, at life, at everything. In moments like these, what do you tell yourself?

Research suggests that one of the most effective ways to alleviate stress, worry, and general anxieties about our life is to practice more deliberate kindness and self-compassion. When you say affirming things to yourself, or look beyond the difficult moment toward the bigger picture, it draws your attention away from what you can't control and pushes you to focus on what you can. In turn, you're likely to understand what you need to cultivate more joy, gratitude, and satisfaction in your life.

But let's be honest: Being kind to yourself is easier said than done. How do you become more intentional about self-compassion? What do "good thoughts" really look like? How can we empower you to believe that you're truly awesome?

Below, we've put together five quotes from our authors to help you be there for yourself - no matter how hard it gets.

1) You're worth taking care of, no matter what your brain might tell you.

In the interview, " Doodling Helped This Artist Deal with Depression," Chuck Mullin, the London-based creator of @chuckdrawsthings, says her artwork has been an avenue to share her experience with anxiety and depression. Mullin, who uses doodles of pigeons to talk about mental health on Instagram, explains that the platform has introduced her to a community of mental health justice advocates. Sharing her work and making these connections has helped her see that taking care of yourself is not a selfish act. When we ignore our self-care needs, it only hampers our emotional growth. The first step to looking after ourselves, according to Mullin, is believing that we are worthy of love, care, and attention.

2) It's not selfish to show up for yourself.

For some of us, it's hard to practice self-compassion without a cost. Physicians, doctors, and health care workers, for instance, cannot always prioritize themselves because they're trained to assume responsibility for the people they treat. They're trained to believe that their patients always come first, no matter what - and, that they can never say no. This can often lead to burnout and be counterproductive to the very goal they're trying to accomplish.

In moments like these, author Tammie Chang, MD, in her article, " My Burnout Nearly Cost Me Everything. Now I Help Other Physicians Overcome It," shares that physicians and care givers can set healthy boundaries to look after themselves. Setting boundaries must nourish five key areas of your life, according to Chang. These include your emotional, physical, social, workplace, and societal selves.

Here's an excerpt from the piece: "If you work for an institution or organization where the culture is competitive and encourages overwork, burnout, and sleep deprivation, it may be time to re-evaluate where you work. No job is worth sacrificing your well-being."

3) Cry and crumble. It's okay.

How often have you spoken about your failures in public? While setbacks can be uncomfortable to deal with, the thing is, everyone fails. So why don't we talk more about that?

In "Let's Talk About Our Career Failure s," author Lan Nguyen Chaplin writes about the culture of silence around failures. She explains that avoiding conversations about our not-so-great moments can paint a skewed version of our journeys. That's why it's important to normalize talking about our failures just as much as sharing our successes. When we do, "we can save ourselves from suffering in isolation and gain the support we need to, slowly but surely, rebuild confidence and take back control of our careers."

4) You've dealt with tough times before. You will do it again.

Author Ann Howell, in her article, " It's Okay to Put Your Dream Job on Hold," writes that accepting your situation during a crisis is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, the discomfort you feel during such moments is transient. You will move through it. You're not powerless.

She also adds that in such moments, "what you need to do to move forward will not always be what you want to do in the moment." Sometimes you will need to make tough decisions that don't align with your initial plans, but a crisis doesn't have to define your whole life. You can reframe your thoughts and remind yourself that "sometimes it's enough to know that you are stabilizing your situation and putting yourself in a position to pursue a bigger, better opportunity down the line."

5) It's not your job to please everyone. But there is one person you need to stand by: yourself.

In the interview, " How to Stop Letting Our Fears Run the Show," author Luvvie Ajayi Jones says that we cannot live for other people's approval. Fear is natural. The need to find similarities and build community is normal. But trying to build relationships from a place of fear is unsustainable and stifling.

When we don't address our fears, we allow them to control us. For many of us, that control shows up in the form of silence. For instance, we often choose not to speak up because we're afraid of repelling those three or four people who won't agree with our idea or cause. This can be especially hard when we're having difficult conversations with our colleagues, peers, friends, or loved ones.

When this fear of speaking up grips you, Ajayi Jones asks that you remind yourself: "You are going to have certain opinions and values that others don't agree with - and that's okay. So, remove yourself from the expectation that everything you say will be palatable to everybody."

When you accept yourself and grant yourself this compassion - without the need for external approval - you're showing up for the one person who needs you the most: yourself. Sometimes being kind to yourself means letting go of what others want you to be and championing what you actually believe in.

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How are you feeling today? Here are a few quotes to remind you that you've got this! You're worth taking care of, no matter what your brain might tell you. It's not selfish to show up for yourself. Cry and crumble. It's okay. You've dealt with tough times before.

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Feeling unappreciated at work? You're not alone. Responding to the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and high levels of employee burnout, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently issued a report calling for workplaces to better protect employee mental health. Among the "essentials" for well-being at work, the report states, is "mattering," the belief that you are valued and important to others. "People want to know that they matter to those around them, and that their work makes a difference in the lives of others," the report notes.

The social psychologist Morris Rosenberg first conceived the idea of mattering in the 1980s, while studying self-esteem among adolescents. Recent research has shown that a focus on mattering can be a powerful tool for responding to the rise in loneliness, anxiety, depression and social division among Americans. "Knowing you matter has been shown to lower stress, while feeling like you do not can raise the risk for depression," according to Dr. Murthy's report. Studies in Australia, China, Israel, Japan and Italy have drawn similar conclusions, suggesting that there is a universal human need to feel seen and valued by those around us.

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Feeling unappreciated at work? You're not alone. Responding to the Great Resignation, quiet quitting and high levels of employee burnout, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy recently issued a report calling for workplaces to better protect employee mental health. Among the "essentials" for well-being at work, the report states, is "mattering," the belief that you are valued and important to others.

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Idea in Brief

The Challenge

Professionals who perform courageous acts-such as pushing to change a flawed policy or speaking out against unethical behavior-risk their reputations and even their jobs.

A Better Way

People who succeed in their courageous acts, or suffer fewer negative consequences, tend to exhibit certain behaviors and attributes: They lay the groundwork for action; they carefully choose their battles; they manage messaging and emotions; and they follow up afterward.

Getting Started

A good way to learn and master competently courageous behaviors is to engage in smaller, everyday acts before proceeding to progressively more difficult ones. Above all, keep your values and purpose front and center.

In many stories we hear about workplace courage, the people who fight for positive change end up being ostracized-and sometimes even lose their jobs. What I've seen in the course of my research, though, tells a more nuanced story. Most acts of courage don't come from whistleblowers or organizational martyrs. Instead, they come from respected insiders at all levels who take action-be it campaigning for a risky strategic move, pushing to change an unfair policy, or speaking out against unethical behavior-because they believe it's the right thing to do. Their reputations and track records enable them to make more headway than those on the margins or outside the organization could. And when they manage the process well, they don't necessarily pay a high price for their actions; indeed, they may see their status rise as they create positive change.

Consider Martha (not her real name), a finance manager at a small company. For years she endured risqué comments and sexual innuendo from her boss, the company president, and she struggled with how to handle it: Should she talk to him about his behavior, or just quit? How could she protect the other women at the firm? Then, at a staff gathering, her boss grabbed her inappropriately during a light moment, thinking it was funny. Later that day, she confronted him in his office, prepared to quit if he made no changes. She told him that his behavior made her uncomfortable and was a signal to her that she'd never advance in the company because he didn't view her as an equal. She said that perhaps he was trying to promote a fun work environment, but he was failing.

Martha was terrified that he would fire her, be angry, or tell her to toughen up. But instead, to her surprise, he apologized. He was horrified that this was how she felt-and that other women in the company probably felt the same way. He praised her for speaking out when no one else had dared to. Over subsequent months, he continued to seek her guidance on the issue and made a formal apology to the staff. A year later, Martha was promoted to a VP role: an incredible position to be in for someone who once believed that the president would never promote a woman to that level.

I began investigating workplace courage after spending more than a decade studying why people so often don't speak up at work. I've found many examples of people at all levels who created positive change without ruining their careers. Their success rested primarily on a set of attitudes and behaviors that can be learned, rather than on innate characteristics. I call people who exhibit these behaviors competently courageous because they create the right conditions for action by establishing a strong internal reputation and by improving their fallback options in case things go poorly; they carefully choose their battles, discerning whether a given opportunity to act makes sense in light of their values, the timing, and their broader objectives; they maximize the odds of in-the-moment success by managing the messaging and emotions; and they follow up to preserve relationships and marshal commitment. These steps are useful whether you're pushing for major change or trying to address a smaller or more local issue.

Lest anyone think I'm naive, let me be clear: Of course bad things do happen when people challenge authorities, norms, and institutions. Courage, after all, is about taking worthy actions despite the potential risk. If no one ever got fired, was socially isolated, or suffered other consequences for a particular action, we wouldn't consider it courageous. And good outcomes are more likely to come from some types of actions than from others. For example, challenging the inappropriate behavior of a colleague with whom you have a decent relationship is, all else being equal, likely to go better for you than defying the entire power structure over an unethical practice.

Among those I studied who had failed to create positive change, almost all still thought their risk-taking had been the right thing to do. They were proud they had stood up for what they believed in-but they wished they'd done so more skillfully. Following the four principles laid out here can help people at all levels improve their chances of creating positive change when they do decide to act.

Laying the Groundwork

My research shows that employees whose workplace courage produces good results have often spent months or years establishing that they excel at their jobs, that they are invested in the organization, and that they're evenhanded. They've demonstrated that they're able to stand both apart from and with those whose support they need. In doing so, they've accumulated what psychologists call idiosyncrasy credits-a stock of goodwill derived from their history of competence and conformity-which they can cash in when challenging norms or those with more power. (I've also seen the reverse: When people with a reputation for selfishness or ill will stand up for legitimately needed change, they tend to be less successful.)

Competently courageous people also work to earn the trust of those who see them as their champions. They invest in those relationships, too-engaging with people individually, taking the time to empathize with them, and helping them develop professionally.

Consider Catherine Gill, a former senior vice president of fundraising and communication at the nonprofit social investment fund Root Capital. Gill wanted to speak up about what she and colleagues saw as the organization's unintentional yet manifest internal bias against women. The issue was particularly tricky because criticizing the leadership could easily be viewed as criticizing the organization's socially conscious mission. But she was able to launch an honest-if painful-conversation with her colleagues in senior management about the organization's culture, leading to a number of concrete changes.

Gill's track record of excelling and fitting in at the organization was fundamental to her success. Over her first two years at Root Capital, she achieved consistently high performance as a fundraiser and exhibited the emotional and intellectual intelligence to navigate complex issues. She showed that she was deeply committed to the organization's mission, regularly adjusting her role to tackle the most pressing challenges and showing how various initiatives she launched were aligned with core strategic priorities. She was careful to point out when she didn't consider something a gender issue so that people on both sides would see her as fair. All that gave her the idiosyncrasy credits she needed to be heard by the leadership team. She determined the limits of what change was possible so that she wouldn't push too far and get "voted off the island." Through her work ethic, judgment, and humor, she set the stage for more visible moments of courageous action.

Sometimes things don't work out, even with the best preparation. Competently courageous people develop mechanisms to mitigate fallout. That might mean finding ways to make themselves indispensable to the organization, keeping external options open, or minimizing economic reliance on an employer. For example, former Telecom Italia leader Franco Bernabè rejected many of the perks that came with being the CEO of a major company, knowing that doing so made it easier to take risks. "If I had lost my job," he said, "and gone back to something more subdued and less glamorous-well, it wouldn't have changed my life."

Choosing Your Battles

Not every opportunity to display courage is worth taking. The people I've studied who have been successful in their courageous acts asked themselves two questions before moving ahead: Is this really important? and, Is this the right time?

Importance, of course, lies in the eye of the beholder. It depends on your goals and values and those of your colleagues, stakeholders, and the organization itself. As you gauge whether an issue is truly important, be aware of your emotional triggers; allow yourself to be informed but not held hostage by them. Also assess whether engaging in a potential battle-whatever the outcome might be-is likely to aid or hinder winning the war. Ask yourself, for example: Will securing resources to address this problem make it less likely that a higher-priority proposal will subsequently get funded?

Competently courageous people are masters of good timing. To avoid being seen as a broken record, they are less likely to act if they recently cashed in hard-earned idiosyncrasy credits. They observe what is going on around them, and if the timing doesn't look right, they patiently hold off. They scan the environment for events and trends that could support their efforts, making the most of an organizational change or the appearance of a new ally, for example. They stay attuned to attention cycles-to public upwellings of enthusiasm for the issue at hand. Pushing for a more globally representative strategy or leadership team, for example, was for a long time risky in many organizations; now companies are more open to tackling those issues. Unless they've concluded that taking action is necessary to preserve their sense of integrity or to plant the seed of an idea, competently courageous people don't act before those around them are ready to take them seriously.

For example, when "Mandy" joined an accessories and apparel company as a product manager, she quickly learned that one of the company's vendors was highly problematic. Its reps were rude, dishonest, and manipulative, and the product itself was subpar. However, ties between the two companies were long-standing and included a friendship between two key managers. Mandy wisely waited; she didn't suggest a change until six months later. By that point she had demonstrated her commitment to the organization, and she was better able to gauge the relationships between the people involved. She used the intervening time to collect evidence of the problems, identify alternative vendors, and quantify the improvements they could offer. When she finally did make her proposal, the VP in charge responded positively.

In some cases, conditions or events such as sagging sales or a change in leadership create urgency for courageous acts-and make them more likely to succeed. Tachi Yamada, a physician-scientist turned business leader, has been a master of seizing the day during a successful career as a senior executive in the health care sector. When Yamada became head of R&D at Smith Kline Beecham in 1999, he quickly concluded that the R&D organization needed to be restructured around disease areas or "assets" (the molecules or compounds that might eventually make it to market) rather than the traditional silos. When a merger with another pharmaceutical giant-Glaxo-was announced, he campaigned for the R&D function of the combined company to be structured in that way. The proposal didn't go over well. R&D leaders and scientists at Glaxo were particularly upset; here was the new guy from the much smaller company in the merger telling them they needed a major change. They "were pretty much aligned against me," recalls Yamada. But he knew that the timing could be used to his advantage: "The merger and the thin pipeline in both companies gave me a burning platform." His push for the reorganization succeeded in part because of his ability to recognize the opportunity and capitalize on it.

Persuading in the Moment

Workplace courage is, of course, about more than preparation. Eventually you must take action. During this step, competently courageous people focus primarily on three things: framing their issue in terms that the audience will relate to, making effective use of data, and managing the emotions in the room. (See "Further Reading" for more on persuasion.) They connect their agenda to the organization's priorities or values, or explain how it addresses critical areas of concern for stakeholders. They ensure that decision makers feel included-not attacked or pushed aside.

Mel Exon, a former executive at the advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), excels at framing proposals in ways that make them attractive to those whose support she needs. For example, when Exon and a colleague first pitched the idea for an internal innovation unit-BBH Labs-to senior management, support was far from unanimous. Some executives worried that the creation of a separate innovation group would imply that parts of BBH weren't innovative. This was a concerning in a firm that proudly considered itself the contrarian visionary in the industry, with a black sheep as its calling card.

To convince the skeptics that BBH Labs was philosophically aligned with the company's mission, Exon took advantage of internal stakeholders' pride in the black sheep image, pointing out that some of BBH's clients had come to the company specifically for groundbreaking ideas. A lab focused on innovation would fulfill exactly that need. She won over others by describing the work of the new lab as advance scouting, promising that everyone at the firm would share in its findings. Exon eventually got the go-ahead from senior management, and later BBH's CEO complimented her approach, describing it as building on the company's DNA rather than trying to change it.

Keeping your cool as you perform your courageous act can be just as important as how you make your case. A manager I'll call Erik, who was tasked with growing the solar business at one of the world's largest multinationals, frequently butted heads with senior executives in the company's traditional lines of business. When he sought their support for new business models, they often pushed back, telling him brusquely, "We don't do that" or "That will never work here." The discussions could get heated, and Erik often felt frustrated by the executives' defensiveness. But instead of taking the emotional bait, he reminded himself that their response was a normal reaction to fear of the unknown. Acknowledging their mindset helped him stay calm and concentrate on simply making data-driven arguments. In the end, he was able to bring others around to his point of view, and the business made a strong pivot toward his recommended strategy.

Following Up

Those who exhibit competent courage follow up after they take action, no matter how things turned out. They manage their relationships with the people involved: When things go well, they thank supporters and share credit. When things go badly, they address lingering emotions and repair ties with those who might be hurt or angry.

For example, Catherine Gill made an in-the-moment decision to launch her campaign to change the culture at Root Capital during a retreat with about 30 leaders present. But as a result of her spontaneous decision, she caught the CEO off guard. Knowing that the very difficult conversation that ensued might have felt to him like an indictment of his leadership-and that he might see her actions as a personal attack-Gill checked in with him privately at that evening's dinner. She assured him that she wasn't trying to start a revolution; she was trying to advance the firm's evolution into its ideal form.

Follow-up also means continuing to pursue your agenda beyond the first big moment of action. Even when their initial steps go well, the competently courageous continue to advocate, reach out to secure resources, and make sure others deliver on promises. And when things don't go well, they take it in stride, viewing setbacks as learning opportunities rather than hiding from the fallout or giving up.

Take Fred Keller, who established a welfare-to-career program at the company he founded, Cascade Engineering. In the initiative's first incarnation, participants were often late or absent, and their performance was poor. Within a few weeks, not one of the new hires remained, and Cascade's employees and supervisors were left feeling frustrated. Instead of giving up, Keller viewed the failure as an opportunity to learn. Finding that neither Cascade nor its new hires had been well prepared for the program, he reinstated it with more training for everyone involved. When this second attempt seemed headed toward a similar fate, Keller harnessed the growing criticism to get it right. He further increased training of leaders and partnered with a county official to bring a social worker on-site to work with the new hires to identify and solve problems before they escalated. This time Keller's persistence and learning paid off: The program is now a core part of the organization and is widely lauded as a model for transitioning people from welfare to work. And through his persistence, Keller earned tremendous loyalty from his staff at all levels of the company.

Getting Started

Courage isn't required only for high-stakes campaigns. My research with Evan Bruno, a PhD student at Darden, shows that a host of everyday actions require employees to act courageously. Sometimes simply doing one's job well requires courage. It's also worth noting that "risk" encompasses more than the prospect of financial ruin or getting fired. Humans naturally fear rejection, embarrassment, and all sorts of other social and economic consequences. From the outside, for example, it might be easy to question whether Fred Keller's actions required courage. As the owner of the company, Keller could do whatever he wanted, so where's the risk? But for years, he faced doubters both inside and outside his organization. To persevere knowing that people might think he was a "nutcase" or that he was wasting time or money took courage.

The good news is that the experiences of those I've studied show that competently courageous behaviors can be learned. They're dependent on effort and practice, rather than on some heroic personality trait limited to the few. (So don't use that as an excuse to let yourself off the hook if you find yourself in a situation that calls for courage!) One piece of advice I give to students and clients: Don't jump into the deep end right away. Instead, approach this work incrementally by trying smaller, more manageable acts before proceeding to progressively harder ones. That might mean having a difficult conversation in some other sphere of life, or broaching a tough topic with a colleague you like and respect, before confronting a boss about demeaning behavior. It might mean guiding your own team in a new direction before suggesting a transformation of the whole organization. And consider what "small" means to you-we all have different perceptions of which actions require courage. (To see how your perception of what takes courage lines up with others', take our Workplace Courage Acts Index self-assessment at www.workplacecai.com.) Then, as you tackle each step, focus on what you learn, not whether it goes perfectly the first time.

Above all, keep your values and purpose front and center. You'll have a stronger sense of self-respect through any setbacks you face, and you'll be less likely to regret your actions, no matter how things turn out. And by using the principles discussed in this article, you'll increase the chances of successfully creating change, making the risks you take all the more worthwhile.

A version of this article appeared in the November-December 2018 issue (p.128-135) of Harvard Business Review.

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In many stories we hear about workplace courage, the people who fight for positive change end up ostracized or lose their jobs. Most acts of courage don't come from whistle-blowers or organizational martyrs, however. They come from respected insiders at all levels who take action because they believe it's the right thing to do.

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HBR: Create a Growth Culture, Not a Performance-Obsessed One

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HBR: Create a Growth Culture, Not a Performance-Obsessed One

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Here's the dilemma: In a competitive, complex, and volatile business environment, companies need more from their employees than ever. But the same forces rocking businesses are also overwhelming employees, driving up their fear, and compromising their capacity.

It's no wonder that so many C-Suite leaders are focused on how to build higher performance cultures. The irony, we've found, is that building a culture focused on performance may not be the best, healthiest, or most sustainable way to fuel results. Instead, it may be more effective to focus on creating a culture of growth.

A culture is simply the collection of beliefs on which people build their behavior. Learning organizations - Peter Senge's term - classically focus on intellectually oriented issues such as knowledge and expertise. That's plainly critical, but a true growth culture also focuses on deeper issues connected to how people feel, and how they behave as a result. In a growth culture, people build their capacity to see through blind spots; acknowledge insecurities and shortcomings rather than unconsciously acting them out; and spend less energy defending their personal value so they have more energy available to create external value. How people feel - and make other people feel - becomes as important as how much they know.

Our approach owes a debt to the groundbreaking work of Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey around building " deliberately developmental cultures." Building a growth culture, we've found, requires a blend of individual and organizational components:

1. An environment that feels safe, fueled first by top by leaders willing to role model vulnerability and take personal responsibility for their shortcomings and missteps.

2. A focus on continuous learning through inquiry, curiosity and transparency, in place of judgment, certainty and self-protection.

3. Time-limited, manageable experiments with new behaviors in order to test our unconscious assumption that changing the status quo is dangerous and likely to have negative consequences.

4. Continuous feedback - up, down and across the organization - grounded in a shared commitment to helping each other grow and get better.

By contrast, a performance-driven culture often exacerbates people's fears by creating up a zero-sum game in which people are either succeeding or failing and "winners" quickly get weeded out from "losers." Results also matter in growth cultures, but in addition to rewarding success, they also treat failures and shortcomings as critical opportunities for learning and improving, individually and collectively.

These are easy words to say, but they're much harder to practice. Instinctively, we're each inclined to hide, rationalize, minimize, cover up, and deny our weaknesses and mistakes because they make us feel vulnerable, at risk, and unworthy. These fears narrow and limit our perspective rather than enlarging it - at a time when the complexity of the problems we face often exceeds the complexity of thinking necessary to solve them.

We began building a growth culture at my own company in the aftermath of a tumultuous period during which we brought in several new leaders, with different skill sets, to reinvent what we provided to clients and how we ran our business. Until then, we had always been a conflict-averse culture, preferring to see ourselves as a happy family for as long as our business prospered. Resentments got pushed beneath the surface, but they became harder to contain as we struggled through this period of change and uncertainty. Tension grew between our old and new employees, and our old and new ways of running our business. As CEO, I was seen as insufficiently respectful of who we'd been, and what values needed to be retained.

Once our new team was in place and I had greater clarity about the path forward, my first instinct was to surface the remaining tensions across the organization, and then work to be more transparent with one another. But realistically, we hadn't built enough safety to make that possible. Instead, we began our work with our smaller team of senior leaders, inviting all employees to anonymously share their relative level of trust in each of us, in areas including our honesty, intentions, authenticity, skills, integrity, standards, and results.

The feedback we got was raw and tough. When we sat down together to discuss it, we agreed to try to view the feedback through a lens of personal responsibility, rather than defensively. One of my colleagues jumped in courageously, owning her inclination to be controlling and harsh at times, and reflecting on what in her past influenced that self-protective behavior. She made no excuses, and her vulnerability set the tone for the rest of us. We followed by sharing the toughest feedback we'd each received, what felt most significant about it, and where we thought it came from, and what behaving differently would look like It was intense and demanding work, but we all left feeling buoyed.

A week later, we shared specific experiments we had devised to try out new ways of behaving in response to the primary challenge each of us had defined. We also agreed to meet once a week to share progress and setbacks, and invite feedback from one another. Eight weeks later, at an offsite, we shared with the rest of the company what we'd heard from them, what had resonated for us most deeply, and what we were doing about it. We'd begun the journey of building our own growth culture.

Perhaps the most fundamental lesson we've learned - including in our subsequent work with clients - is that fueling growth requires a delicate balance between challenging and nurturing. Think about a young child beginning to venture into the world. The infant crawls away from its mother to explore the environment, but frequently looks back and returns periodically in order to feel reassured and comforted. We are not so different as adults. Too much challenge, too continuously - without sufficient reassurance - eventually overwhelms us and breaks us down. Too little challenge - too much time spent in our comfort zone - precludes our growth and eventually makes us weaker.

A performance culture asks, "How much energy can we mobilize?" and the answer is only a finite amount. A growth culture asks, "How much energy can we liberate?" and the answer is infinite.

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Create a Growth Culture, Not a Performance-Obsessed One

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Many C-Suite leaders are focused on how to build higher performance cultures. The irony, we've found, is that building a culture focused on performance may not be the best, healthiest, or most sustainable way to fuel results. Instead, it may be more effective to focus on creating a culture of growth.

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Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings

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Make the Most of Your One-on-One Meetings

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Few organizations provide strong guidance or training for managers on meeting individually with their employees, but the author’s research shows that managers who don’t hold these meetings frequently enough or who manage them poorly risk leaving their team members disconnected, both functionally and…

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LucidChart: 7 Fundamental Change Management Models

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LucidChart: 7 Fundamental Change Management Models

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Lewin's change management model: A 3-step approach to change behavior that reflects the process of melting and reshaping an ice cube.

ADKAR model: A people-centered approach to facilitate change at the individual level.

Kotter's 8-step change model: A process that uses employee's experience to reduce resistance and accept change.

Kubler-Ross change curve: A strategy that breaks down how people process change using the 5 stages of grief.

McKinsey 7s model: A process centered around the alignment seven fundamental elements of any organization

PDCA: A cyclical and iterative change management process focused on continuous improvement.

Bridges Transition Model: A people-centered model focused on managing people's experience transitioning to change.

While definitions vary, change management generally refers to how teams and companies implement organizational change. Often referred to as the only constant, change-and the management of it-is an ever-evolving process that affects everyone. And although there is no one right or wrong way to mitigate change, there are a few tried-and-true change management models that organizations return to again and again.

Lewin's change management model

Developed in the 1940s, Lewin's change management model remains relevant because of its simple yet effective structure. According to the change model's namesake, Kurt Lewin, organizational change management can be broken down into three smaller, more manageable stages:

A physicist by trade, Lewin used the example of turning a cube of ice into a cone of ice and applied it to organizational change management.

Lewin's Change Management Model (Click on image to modify online)

First, a team or organization must "unfreeze" their current process and perceptions when preparing for upcoming changes. This step helps the team approach the task or challenge with a clean slate without bias or bad habits.

Next, it's time to implement changes. Effective change requires clear and constant communication across all affected channels both during and after deployment.

Finally, it's time to "refreeze." Assuming accurate feedback and ongoing communication occurred during the "change" step, the refreeze step locks into place the new process. Like ice molds, teams and organizations need to move away from an old mold before they can fit into a new one.

The Lewin change model, while too simplistic for some, is favored by others for its ability to uncover old patterns or overlooked problems as well as for its clean approach to new ways of thinking.

ADKAR model

The ADKAR model is popular for its people-focused approach to change management. Created by Jeffrey Hiatt, the ADKAR change model helps facilitate change on an individual level since change is often less about the changes themselves and more about people's reactions to them. ADKAR is an acronym for:

Awareness: Awareness of the need to change

Desire: Desire to participate in and support the change

Knowledge: Knowledge of how to change

Ability: Ability to implement the change

Reinforcement: Reinforcement to sustain the change

ADKAR Change Model (Click on image to modify online)

Since organizational change is directly dependent upon its employees for successful implementation, it's critical for individuals to have a clear understanding of what changes are occurring, why they are occurring, and how they affect them personally. The ADKAR model helps individuals process change through clearly defined stages that enable them to both understand and accept the changes at hand.

Kotter's 8-step change model

Developed by John Kotter after a survey of over 100 organizations in flux, the Kotter 8-step change model also focuses more on the people experiencing large organizational changes rather than the changes themselves. The eight steps are:

1. Create a sense of urgency.

2. Build a strong coalition.

3. Form a strategic vision.

4. Get everyone's buy-in.

5. Enable action by removing barriers.

6. Generate short-term wins.

7. Sustain acceleration.

8. Institute change.

Kotter's change management process skillfully turns possibly resistant individuals into receptive participants through trust, transparency, and teamwork. By identifying the end goal, employing everyone's involvement, and executing the impending changes together, this process remains a long-standing favorite among change management models.

Kotter's 8-step Change Model (Click on image to modify online)

Kubler-Ross change curve

Most widely known as the five stages of grief, the Kubler-Ross change curve can also be thought of as a reliable change management strategy due to its breakdown of how people process change in general. Organizations can better prepare for change when they also anticipate the possible reactions by their workforce. The five stages are:

If teams and companies lose sight of whom their changes impact the most, then their attempts to make those changes will be for naught. Changing an organization is not like changing a tire; there are emotional factors to consider.

One caveat to consider with this change management strategy is that these stages are not always sequential and that everyone can progress through them differently, so its effectiveness is not always predictive. As such, it can also be used to supplement other change management models for a two-fold approach.

Kubler-Ross Change Curve (Click on image to modify online)

McKinsey 7s model

The McKinsey 7s model was developed at the McKinsey consulting firm by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman during the 1970s to evaluate how the different parts of an organization work together. According to the 7s model, there are seven fundamental elements of every organization:

Hard elements (easiest to identify and control)

Soft elements (more subjective and difficult to change)

These elements are interconnected, and if one element is altered, the change will ripple out and affect the other elements. Companies tend to use the 7s model when they implement changes in the organization and need to align different departments and processes.

As an example, if a company grows rapidly from 15 employees to 50 employees, the staff, shared values, and structure of the organization will probably change and are going to affect the other elements. Using the 7s model, it is possible to understand the changes and realign the elements during growth to keep everything running smoothly.

McKinsey 7S Model (Click on image to modify online)

PDCA model

Also known as the Deming wheel or control cycle, the PDCA model was developed by William Deming during the 1950s. Standing for Plan-Do-Act-Change, the PDCA model is a cyclical and iterative process for continuous change and improvement.

Plan, Do, Check, Act Example (Click on image to modify online)

It helps organizations make improvements by following a simple process: devise a plan, test the plan, implement the plan, evaluate the plan's success, and make the necessary changes. Rinse and repeat.

As a powerful and versatile cycle, PDCA is best used when conducting controlled trails, finding inefficiencies, and developing new processes across businesses and industries.

Bridges Transition Model

Similar to the Kubler-Ross change curve, the Bridges Transition Model is another people-centered approach to change management. However, unlike the Kubler-Ross change curve, the Bridges Transition Model focuses on the transition to the change and people's experience rather than the change itself.

According to the Bridges Transition Model, the key to change management isn't the results of the change, but the way the employees let go of the old and accept the new. The Bridges Transition Model is best used during large changes to help employees through the process. There are three stages that occur when people transition to change:

1. Ending, losing, and letting go: As contradictory as it seems, the first step in the transition model begins with an end and is typically the most emotional for employees. Failure to acknowledge employees' feelings may cause them to reject the changes so it is important to clearly communicate the purpose and benefits of the change.

2. Neutral zone: During this phase, employees adapt to the change and get up to speed with new processes. Communicate quickly and clearly when issues arise to avoid confusion and frustration.

3. New beginnings: The last stage of the transition is acceptance. Employees have a sense of direction and understand why the changes needed to happen. Highlight the success of the changes to demonstrate the tangible results of the employees' hard work.

Bridges's Transition Model (Click on image to modify online)

Prepare for change

Change management models help organizations prepare for upcoming changes. Whether you are working on large company-wide changes or updating processes within your department, the right tools make planning for even the broadest of changes within an organization becomes possible.

Learn more about these methodologies with the resources above.

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Lewin's change management model : A 3-step approach to change behavior that reflects the process of melting and reshaping an ice cube. ADKAR model : A people-centered approach to facilitate change at the individual level. Kotter's 8-step change model : A process that uses employee's experience to reduce resistance and accept change.

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TheNewYorker: Sorry for the Delayed Response

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TheNewYorker: Sorry for the Delayed Response

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Adding some levity into your reading material!

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Sorry for the delayed response. I opened your e-mail on my phone while my date was in the bathroom, but then I saw that it required more than a "yes" or "no" reply, decided that was too much work, marked it as unread, and then forgot about it entirely until just now!

I totally meant to respond to this earlier, but I didn't know the answer to your question and I kept not caring enough to ask anyone. Now a weird amount of time has passed, so I'm going to loop Laura (cc'd) into this e-mail thread to see if she can handle this. Laura?

Sorry for the delay! I put off answering your e-mail until I had an even more tedious task that I wanted to avoid. Thanks!

So sorry that I'm just getting to this now. There were six other people on this e-mail thread and I was hoping that one of them would answer your question and I could just go on living my life.

Yikes! The little Gmail preview text made your e-mail seem like a regular "Great, thanks!" e-mail I didn't need to open, but now I see that you asked a question after the "Great, thanks!" I think we can agree that was a stupid thing for you to do, so I don't even feel bad. I assume you found someone else to answer your question by now, but, if not, Laura (cc'd) should be able to help.

Oof, I really didn't mean to take twelve days to respond to your e-mail. Does it ever feel like time is passing way too fast and you never have enough hours in the day to accomplish anything? Like, the sands of time have eroded the midpoint of the hourglass and it's all just freely falling through now? Anyway, to answer your question: Yes, I can do 3 P.M.

O.K., so it's taken me two weeks to get back to you, and I have no excuse beyond the fact that I just didn't care about your thing. I still don't care, but I'm trying to foster a false sense of productivity by cleaning out my in-box. Please don't respond to this response and undo my hard work! Looping in Laura, in case you feel that you have to write to someone.

Oh, my God, so sorry. I'm finally responding to this e-mail that I fully intended to ignore forever because I realized that I need to ask you for a favor and I don't want you to be holding an e-mail grudge against me.

You e-mailed asking for my opinion, and I wanted to give a really thorough, well-thought-out, articulate response, so I starred your e-mail, and over time it became a mascot for my illogical but oppressive sense of dread in the face of slightly annoying tasks. That little yellow star became a shining testament to the burden of modernity! Every day, it dared me to write a response worthy of the time I've made you wait, and every day I thought, Ugh, no. But today! Today I will respond! Rejoice, my patient friend! (I'm actually really busy, though, so this is going to be a vague, half-assed response that I could have easily written in the minute after I first read your e-mail, five months ago.) Sorry!

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Sorry for the delayed response. I opened your e-mail on my phone while my date was in the bathroom, but then I saw that it required more than a "yes" or "no" reply, decided that was too much work, marked it as unread, and then forgot about it entirely until just now!

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It's no secret that today's professionals are seeking environments where they can mentally and emotionally thrive. Workers are now less tolerant of hostile treatment, poor communication, and office drama. In fact, a recent study conducted by MIT's Sloan School of Management found that a toxic workplace culture is the number one reason people leave their jobs and is 10.4 times more likely to contribute to attrition than compensation.

Escaping the onslaught of stress that comes from working in a dysfunctional situation can be a boon to your well-being. But fully letting go of the effects of a toxic workplace can be difficult. In my work as an executive coach, I've witnessed countless intelligent, capable professionals struggle to recover from the unpredictably, fear-mongering, and even bullying they endured. They sometimes carry hyper-vigilance and reactivity into their next role, which affects their performance and enjoyment.

Take Gerald, who was three months into his new role as project manager at a software company. By all measures, his first 90 days had been successful. He had implemented new, much-needed procedures and had built positive relationships with key stakeholders. Despite these results, Gerald couldn't shake a feeling of uneasiness with his new manager. He told me, "I'm scarred by my last role. I had to be extremely careful with my words to avoid them being twisted and used against me by my boss. I could never bring up hard topics without him exploding."

It was clear Gerald's past experience with a toxic workplace had left a mark. And he's not alone. Workplace trauma is a real and under-discussed issue - one that's more important to address given high rates of employee burnout and turnover. It can arise from any number of damaging behaviors, from ​​verbal harassment or social isolation to racism and job insecurity. One technology strategist summed up the day-to-day experience of living with workplace trauma well by saying, "Has anyone ever had toxic workplace PTSD? Like, the chime sound of an incoming email evokes your 'fight, flight, or freeze response?' Just me?"

You've already done the hardest part: making the brave decision to say goodbye to a toxic workplace. Now you deserve to reclaim your confidence and leave the baggage of a negative environment behind you. Here's how to heal, forge ahead, and be successful in your new role.

Find closure.

You may harbor resentment toward those who mistreated you. Or perhaps you replay situations and conversations over and over in your head, wondering what you could have done or said differently. This type of rumination is common and understandable. The brain hates ambiguity and will attempt to seek answers to wrongdoings, even if it doesn't benefit us.

The need for cognitive closure is powerful and it can help us find acceptance that allows us to transition away from what's finished to something new. For instance, Gerald was still angry at his former boss for not being appreciated and attacking Gerald when he tried to be helpful. Gerald realized that he'd never receive an apology from his boss, nor did he need one. Instead, he needed to forgive and express appreciation for himself. I asked Gerald to write a letter to his past self, acknowledging that he did the best with the tools, knowledge, and experience he had at the time, which proved to be a powerful self-healing exercise.

Moving on from a job - toxic or not - is a loss, so give yourself space to grieve. Consider a releasing ritual, such as writing a "goodbye" letter (that you don't send), archiving or deleting your work files, or shredding old documents.

Take control of what you can.

No one ever deserves to be treated unfairly, bullied, or abused, yet self-blame is a common response to trauma. You may find yourself preoccupied by what-if's ( what if I had spoken up sooner?) or feel shame over the treatment you suffered. Self-compassion goes a long way to rebuild your confidence, as does taking your power back through constructive action that strengthens your sense of self.

Let's say you were expected to be responsive around the clock in your last role. It's not productive to beat yourself up for being a "pushover." After all, your previous employer is responsible for perpetuating an "always-on" environment and assigning an overwhelming workload. It's much more useful to channel your energy into improving your assertiveness skills so that you can speak up when you sense a project isn't achievable or sustainable in your new role. Put what you learned from your last role to good use by clearly communicating your boundaries and expectations.

Plan for triggers.

Pay attention to situations in your new job that feel familiar because they bring you back to old stress reactions. Identifying specific situations that are likely to emotionally trigger you can give you power to make a plan to deal with them. Common triggers include being excluded, feeling helpless, or perceived rejection.

Gerald's history with a bullying boss meant he was especially on edge ahead of one-on-ones with his new manager. Connecting those dots allowed Gerald to calm his nervous system with a few deep breaths in advance. He also developed the habit of observing the stories he was telling himself. At first, if his boss failed to offer him positive feedback, he'd think, "Here we go again. This is just like my last job. My manager doesn't appreciate me." Gerald learned to recognize that unhelpful inner talk track and judge their relationship on its own merits, without projecting the past.

Savor the positive moments.

The brain is always on watch for potential danger, but this especially true following trauma. This is why you may attune to potential slights, criticisms, and threats even once you've started a new role in a safer environment. You can rewire this tendency through savoring, a psychological technique that involves turning positive, fleeting moments into positive experiences and beliefs. Savoring has been shown to increase feelings of happiness, satisfaction, and self-efficacy.

Here's a few practices you can try:

Positive reminisce. Spending 10 minutes per day reflecting on thoughts and emotions related to an enjoyable moment.

Three good things. Writing down three positive events each day and reflecting on why they happened.

Sharing with others. Creating a daily practice of relating "daily highs" to a colleague or loved one.

Self-congratulation. Relishing in moments of strengths and times throughout the day where you exercised your strengths.

Positive imagination. Thinking about the next day and imagining in detail all the good things that could happen.

Finally, consider opening up to others once you've established trust at your new job. Everyone will have different comfort levels around disclosure, but talking about your past experiences can be an important step in healing for some.

Above all else, take care of yourself. Adjusting to a new job can be stressful under the best of circumstances, let alone when you're recovering from the effects of a toxic workplace environment. With patience and self-compassion, you can rise above and become more resilient than ever before.

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You made the brave decision to say goodbye to a toxic workplace. Now you deserve to reclaim your confidence and leave the baggage of a negative environment behind you. In this article, the author offers strategies to help you heal, forge ahead, and be successful in your new role: 1) find closure, 2) take control of what you can, 3) plan for triggers and, 4) savor the positive moments.

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HBR: How to Encourage Your Team to Give you Honest Feedback

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HBR: How to Encourage Your Team to Give you Honest Feedback

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If you're a manager, it's not enough to be giving feedback to your direct reports. It's part of your job to solicit feedback from your direct reports as well. As much as you might believe that you know your strengths and weaknesses well, without external self-awareness - an understanding of how what you say and do impacts others - you're unlikely to improve the habits, behaviors, and practices that may be holding you (or others) back.

This external self-awareness comes from asking others (especially those who report to you) to share how they experience you. How else will you know what you should keep doing and what you should be doing differently?

Nevertheless, you might find that your colleagues are reluctant to give you the feedback you need to improve, or even sustain, what's working. Here are five common barriers you might face in getting helpful feedback from your direct reports, and how to address them so that you can gain the insights you need.

1. Worrying about whether you're even open to feedback.

Far too often, team members expect to be given downward feedback, but unless they're explicitly invited to offer upward feedback, they won't know that's even on the table.

What to do: Tell your direct report that you're not only open to feedback, but that you want and expect it. One way to frame it is to share that self-improvement is a personal and professional commitment you've made to yourself - and ask for help meeting your commitment. Ask, "Would you please help me keep the commitment I've made to myself?" That way, your direct report can view their feedback as helping you make good on a promise you've made to yourself.

2. Apprehension about "doing it right."

Giving feedback adeptly is a skill that needs to be learned. If your employees haven't learned how to do it well - perhaps because they haven't had access to training, practice, or role models - then they may resist doing it at all.

What to do: Let your direct report know that feedback is a skill best learned through practice - a great development opportunity for themselves - and that you'd like to give them the opportunity to practice with you. Assure them that they don't have it do it "right." They just have to show a willingness to try, and to try to get better over time. It can also be helpful to remind them that learning any new skill goes through four stages:

1. Unconscious incompetence ("I don't know that I don't know how to do this well.")

2. Conscious incompetence ("Now I know that I don't know how to do this well.")

3. Conscious competence ("Now I know that I do know how to do this well.")

4. Unconscious competence ("I am doing this well without even thinking about it.")

Remember to acknowledge and celebrate their skill development as it progresses.

3. Fear of retaliation.

Let's face it: You're in a position of power. You have access to resources that are important to your direct report. They may worry that giving you feedback could interfere with their future opportunities. In addition, in some cultures, giving feedback "up" the hierarchy is simply not done. It would be seen as disrespectful and insubordinate. Be aware that these cultural norms can be a significant barrier.

What to do: Demonstrate empathy and humility. Try saying something like, "I know that it can feel uncomfortable to give feedback to someone who has a say in what you work on, your career advancement, etc. I have had the same concerns in giving feedback to my boss. Let me reassure you that I see your willingness to give me helpful feedback - even if it's negative - as one of your professional assets. I know that I can get better, and I want to."

4. Concern about hurting your feelings.

You're only human, right? And feedback - especially when not delivered skillfully - can activate feelings of social rejection. Your direct report may be understandably worried about hurting you and the relationship.

What to do: Demonstrate your self-awareness by taking the lead in giving yourself constructive feedback first, which can mitigate their fears. You might say, "I know that I tend to be slow and methodical in my work, often prioritizing accuracy over action. Others have shared with me that they find my style hard to work with, especially when they're facing a tight deadline. I'd like to get better at that. Would you share what you've experienced?" And then, once you have them talking, you can ask, "And is there anything else I could be working to improve right now that would make your work easier?"

5. Suspicion that nothing will change as a result of the feedback.

Giving feedback is hard, but giving feedback that doesn't result in anything improving is even harder. Soliciting feedback without addressing it and taking action on it quickly erodes trust, as it undermines your sincerity and reliability.

What to do: Tell your direct report what you plan to do with the feedback they give you. This might range from, "I appreciate you telling me this - and I'm not sure I can address it right now. Here's why..." to "This is very helpful, and I am going to take action to change this behavior. Here's my plan..." And in both cases, keep actively, openly, and assertively inviting them to give you feedback.

One final thought: As much as you might believe that you have created safe and welcoming conditions for your direct report to give you feedback, don't penalize them for not doing so. The complexity of the power imbalances, the differences between what you and they might consider "safe and welcoming," as well as prior negative experiences they may have had giving feedback in the past (that may have nothing to do with you) may make this harder for them than you've imagined.

Nevertheless, do what you can to make sure you're getting the feedback you need to grow and succeed. In the words of business executive Pamela Gill Alabaster: "Continuous learning leads to continuous improvement. Commit yourself to advancing your knowledge, skills, and expertise...Be a lifelong student."

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How to Encourage Your Team to Give You Honest Feedback

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Far too often, team members expect to be given downward feedback, but unless they're explicitly invited to offer upward feedback, they won't know that it's even an option. As a manager, it's your job to ask your employees for feedback on your own performance.

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LifeLabs Learning: Watch Feedback Delivered 3 Different Ways

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LifeLabs Learning: Watch Feedback Delivered 3 Different Ways

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ThereBeGiants: Tactical vs. Adaptive Performance: How to Find the Sweet Spot

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ThereBeGiants: Tactical vs. Adaptive Performance: How to Find the Sweet Spot

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by Molly Johnston | Dec 01, 2022

Defining the level of performance we need in today's dynamic workforce is the first step toward motivating, managing, and rewarding it. Sounds easy, so why do so many get it wrong?

Tactical performance refers to how well your organisation to its plan. The second category, adaptive performance, refers to how well your organisation from its strategy.

In order to achieve high performance, we need both types. So, it's not so much a duel, face off or showdown at dawn; the two together are necessary for victory.

In both types of performance, motivation should aim to maximise team and individual autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

The two types of performance: Tactical and adaptive

Tactical performance

Most organisations only focus on this type of performance. Tactical performance is all about hitting targets, achieving a budget, and keeping KPIs green. These are the rocks that keep the lights on, which you need to count on to repeat with consistency whilst maintaining quality.

We wouldn't blame you for thinking, "Well, isn't that all that matters?"

A prime example is a great salesperson who regularly hits targets. Their purpose is to sell, they do it well and that's what you want them to keep doing. You're able to measure their performance objectively this way, free from prejudice. While this might sound ideal, if you just define performance in this sense, then all you're likely to get is more of the same.

Teams who are responsible for repetitive output can often just be left to it when they are the ones at greater risk of feeling like their efforts just don't count.

That could be fine for some roles, but all organisations need to evolve and transform, and tracking KPIs or hitting targets alone won't enable that. Instead, you need to allow opportunities to learn from not quite hitting the mark, safely, to generate more meaningful performance and learning experiences.

Tactical performance: Pros and cons

Repeatable and consistent

Easy to measure tactical performance

Great for short-term goals and scaling

Frees up time to think creatively

Allows organisations to direct limited resources appropriately

Cons

Strict procedures

Doesn't allow for transformation

Has the potential to slow down progress

Can impede innovative employee performance

Essentially, tactical performance is about how well you deliver against your plan.

Adaptive performance

This is the kind of performance needed to drive transformation in the organisation . Adaptive performance requires learning, experimentation, agility and resilience - traits and practices that KPIs and standard performance metrics alone are not ideal for motivating and rewarding.

An example of this is the launch of a new product. Prior to launch, substantial research, testing, and adaptation are needed, so high performance in this context means being able to innovate, create, change course, and bounce back.

You're not quite sure where you will finish when you start, but you know the impact you need to have and that's what you aim for. Achieving adaptive performance requires flexibility and adaptability, while still delivering the desired results.

With many potentially downsizing or taking on fewer clients or jobs, effectively directing limited resources will be a priority across the workforce. Businesses and organisations must be able to deal with turbulence, volatility, and disruption in order to survive and thrive.

Adaptive performance: Pros and cons
Pros

Fosters innovation and experimentation

Promotes problem solving

Allows you to create value in a world of uncertainty

Focused on future goals

Cons

Can be viewed from numerous perspectives if not defined

Potential to get lost in change if not implemented correctly

Essentially, adaptive performance is about how you roll with the punches, seize the opportunities and create the future (and results) you want.

Tactical vs adaptive performance: Choosing the right approach

Well, there's no easy recipe for how adaptive and performance go together. It depends entirely on the focus of the role being performed and the team in which it sits.

Arguably, all roles need an element of both tactical and adaptive performance, but the difference is where the sweet spot is on the spectrum. For one team, like Finance, you might need a sprinkle of adaptive and a splash of tactical, whereas a completely different department, such as Marketing, needs a whole glug of adaptive and just a pinch of tactical to be effective.

Also, you can't just leave it to simmer. That all-important "sweet spot" should be reviewed regularly as the needs of the business change. It's not unusual for the balance of a team in one period to need to pivot for the next.

To achieve that balance, consider which components of an individual's role must be measured tactically and which may be opened up to adaptive performance.

Here are three tips for building a business where these two types of performance are commonplace, and how you can get started.

1. Define your objectives

Contrary to popular belief, OKRs have a place within a performance management framework if it takes into account the type of performance that's required, whether it's tactical or adaptive. When objectives are clearly defined together, communicated and reinforced, it's a surefire way to guarantee everybody is aware of your company Northstar and working towards the same goal.

For teams measured tactically, wise use of OKRs outside of performance can help build a feeling of inclusion and alignment for teams that otherwise might feel disconnected.

Regardless of team type, OKRs have a powerful role to play to unlock enormous human performance potential.

2. Reward appropriately

Rewards can have a place within this framework, but there are some stipulations. For anything other than outright KPI achievement, it's more effective to weight rewards towards attitudes and behaviours as this can cover a whole plenitude of high-performance practices.

In other words, directly linking OKR achievement to pay and reward is the quickest way to ensure people play safe and resist anything that could risk them falling short, ultimately removing any appetite to think laterally, be ambitious and try innovate and experiment. This is why we highly recommend that you don't take this approach.

You want to decouple OKRs from compensation and performance evaluation to encourage big audacious goals and drive people to think differently and achieve higher results.

Essentially, that motivation should come from within the employees themselves, and not from any external rewards.

3. Create a culture that encourages high performance

What's the definition of high performance?

There's no consistent definition of high-performance culture. Some experts describe it as a set of shared beliefs and values established by leaders and communicated and reinforced through various methods, ultimately shaping employee performance , perceptions, behaviours, and understanding.

Others just refer to it as an ideal workplace that increases employee effectiveness.

What is it that fosters a culture of high performance? Not the ping pong table in the breakout room or the bean bags in the meeting pods, but instead:

The highest-performing cultures are built upon the psychology of total motivation . The Motive Spectrum , coined by Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor in their book Primed to Perform , includes six performance motives - both direct and indirect.

This concept describes the powerful, yet predictive, motivators you can tap into to unlock employee motivation, adaptability and tactful innovation. Sounds like witchcraft, right?

You don't have to dust off any spellbooks to get started. In fact, , and are the key direct motivators - which can all be ignited by setting challenging, ambitious OKRs.

Finding the sweet spot for your organisational performance

You can rein your bets in for the tactical vs adaptive performance battle and place your chips on your people instead. Go beyond the non-negotiables to uncover clear areas where employees can act autonomously. Then focus on the impact their adaptive performance has made on the organisation.

Being adaptive doesn't happen at the expense of being tactical. Instead being tactical in the right way opens up teams to be more adaptive.

For equilibrium, you must evaluate accordingly, define your goals and foster a trusting and supportive culture. Take a look at our guide that takes you through 7 principles you'll need to master to create a healthy culture, and that sweet spot will be extra rewarding.

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Tactical vs Adaptive performance: How to find the sweet spot - There Be Giants

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by Molly Johnston | Dec 01, 2022 Defining the level of performance we need in today's dynamic workforce is the first step toward motivating, managing, and rewarding it. Sounds easy, so why do so many get it wrong? Tactical performance refers to how well your organisation to its plan.

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Forbes: Job Seekers w/Disabilities Need to Know Their Legal Rights From the Get-Go

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Forbes: Job Seekers w/Disabilities Need to Know Their Legal Rights From the Get-Go

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Portrait of smiling disabled business executive in wheelchair at meeting in office
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According to recent data published by Creative Access in the U.K. - less than one-third of individuals working in the creative industries and identifying as disabled feel optimistic about their opportunities for career progression.

That's in contrast to 69% of non-disabled survey respondents.

Additional findings showed that a mere 25% felt they had access to important contacts and networks while just a third believed they possessed the confidence to meaningfully progress their career having endured negative experiences at work.

Many such experiences revolve around employers failing to make appropriate workplace accommodations to allow them to operate at an optimum level and a general lack of awareness of disability issues amongst non-disabled co-workers.

Zooming out to view the broader picture, in the United States the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier this year that the unemployment rate of people with disabilities, at 10.1% is almost double that of non-disabled people.

At the same time, people with disabilities in the U.S. make 26% less on average than their able-bodied peers.

Much has previously been written, entirely justifiably, about the need for employers to scratch below the surface and develop a keener understanding of the intrinsic value that lies in having a diverse workforce.

Though this would likely represent the most effective driver of change - it also pitches individuals with disabilities as passive backseat passengers - waiting for both decision-makers and the overarching culture to become more open and embracing of diversity.

While the long game is not without its merits - far lower-hanging fruit is ripe for picking by both job-seekers and employees alike through simply ensuring they possess a solid grasp of the legalities concerning workplace disability inclusion.

Not only can a sense of legal surefootedness help bolster the confidence of a segment of the workforce that is often plagued by uncertainty and insecurity - it should also educate other stakeholders and assist in achieving some semblance of organizational consistency.

This is not to say that employees with disabilities must absorb the knowledge and workload of the corporate legal department in addition to their day job.

Simply arming themselves with the basics, not only on what protections they are entitled to at work but also on what they are not, should be enough to dispel misconceptions and get the job done.

Knowing your ADA rights

Roman Peskin is co-founder and CEO of ELVTR, a leading provider of workplace DEI education.

"Diversity, equity, and inclusion in a workplace is not a fashionable trend - it's the law, quite literally," says Peskin.

"While I am happy to see that more and more employers are taking the issue seriously, it's vital that each employee also knows what they are legally entitled to and, equally importantly, what they are not."

Entitlements include:
Reasonable accommodations
Reasonable accommodations involve changes to the work environment or how work is undertaken so that a person with a disability can perform the job in a similar way to other employees.

Examples may include - making physical workspaces and non-working areas accessible and usable and providing adjustable workstations and assistive technology where appropriate.

Employers are also duty-bound to consider modifying work schedules for employees with disabilities such as the use of flexible hours and rest breaks. It may also be necessary to adapt other policies, practices and procedures such as how training is undertaken.
Fair pay and benefits
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information.

This means an employer cannot lower the salary of staff members with disabilities or pay them less than their non-disabled co-workers performing the same job. Even if employers have to make workplace adjustments - they are not allowed to recover costs through any type of decrease in salary.
Respect, ethical treatment and disability disclosure
When applying for a job, an employer cannot ask candidates if they have a disability. Legally, they can only ask about someone's capability to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations.

Medical examinations can only be required after a candidate is hired and not as part of a pre-screening process. Furthermore, there would need to be an established policy or practice whereby all company employees within that particular job category were also required to undergo a medical exam.
Filing charges in the event of workplace discrimination
It's possible to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC in cases of workplace disability discrimination. Any charge must be filed within 180 to 300 days from the date the discriminatory event happened depending on state or local agency law. In such situations, it is advisable to contact an attorney or local EEOC office ahead of time to plan any next steps.

Limits of the ADA

As important as it is to have the above protections enshrined in law - the Americans with Disabilities Act is not without its limitations, so it's equally important to understand those elements that employees with disabilities simply cannot demand of their employer.

These include:
Additional health insurance
Employers are not required to provide additional health insurance to an employee with a disability, even if their disability causes them to have more complex health conditions. The ADA only requires employers to provide equal access to the same health insurance coverage to all employees.
Avoidance of drug testing
Again, the ADA does not protect employees with disabilities from drug testing, as long as the policy is applied equally to all employees.

Preference for employment and disability quotas

Certain countries around the world including France, Germany and Spain have mandated quotas in place for employing individuals with disabilities depending on the size of the company but the U.S. is not one of them.

Therefore, employers are not required by law to give preference to an individual with a disability over another equally qualified candidate.

Certainly, the existence of the regulations detailed above does not preclude the fact that workplace disability discrimination, both subtle and overt, is still commonplace in 2022.

However, it does at least offer some degree of grounding and assurance, particularly to individuals with disabilities in employment, that there is a framework in place to meet their needs. Although, there is no blank cheque.

For those still job hunting, Peskin has the following advice:

"People have biases; this is a part of human nature. Obviously, there is a long way to go before we can claim that recruiting in America is bias-free. But one bias that I want to call out specifically - is when people with disabilities assume from the outset that they are less likely to find a good job because of their disability. My advice is to be conscious of how you perceive yourself. Don't give in to fears of rejection or imposter syndrome. Look through the job requirements, and if you fit the description - just go ahead and apply for the job."

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Job Seekers With Disabilities Need To Know Their Legal Rights From The Get-Go

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Entering the jobs market as an individual with a disability can be a frustrating and confusing experience. Knowing the extent of one's legal protections straight from the get-go, both when applying and in employment, represents a great grounding to be able to move forwards with confidence.

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Sometimes, it's just about listening and not fixing. Watch this great 1:41 minute video.

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Top Ten Accomodations for Neurodivergent

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Mentre.me: Top 10 Accommodations for Neurodivergent Employees 

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Mentre.me: Top 10 Accommodations for Neurodivergent Employees 

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Top Ten Accomodations for Neurodivergent Employees

Although neurodiverse people present many strengths, they may need a modified work environment to express their full potential. Standard work environments were built without keeping the neurodiverse population in mind.

Fortunately, many enterprising businesses today are shifting away from the idea of a "one size fits all" approach to their workplace. They realize that their company benefits from neurodiversity, and are happy to provide the accommodations their employees need to succeed.

Mentra, an organization dedicated to matching neurodivergent workers with such companies, has conducted research on the most commonly requested accommodations by the neurodiverse community. In this case, both parties, employers and employees, can obtain better results from accommodating these small changes in the workplace.

Noise-canceling headphones

Many neurodiverse individuals struggle with sensory processing difficulties. For example, what might be considered a simple noise to most people could be problematic for those who are sensitive to sound. Some neuroscientists think this is due to a smaller supply of neuroinhibitors, which stop the excitation of neurons. So, instead of going back to a calm state after hearing a sound, a neurodiverse brain may continuously react to it, causing a stronger response.

It can be very distracting for a neurodiverse individual to be subject to a noisy environment, where they may not be able to filter relevant sounds to ones that are not. Noise-canceling headphones are a tool that might be a helpful way to combat this problem, as they bring quietness to a working environment.

Written, concise instructions

Reducing uncertainty can empower neurodiverse people to accomplish their work goals efficiently. By far, one of the most commonly requested accommodations by neurodiverse individuals on the Mentra platform is to have written and concise instructions. This can include a written checklist of daily or weekly goals, written examples of how to act in different scenarios, and written instructions of expectations.

Uninterrupted work time

Many autistic people report that they have difficulty shifting focus to different tasks, but can easily get "in the zone" on that task once they get going. The latter is a special skill that autistic people possess, and they can use it to excel in a working environment. However, a constantly shifting work schedule, or being exposed to other interruptions, can interfere with their potential.

Therefore, providing autistic workers with an interruption-free environment is a great way to ensure productivity and a healthy workforce. This might include a separated office, a predictable schedule with time blocked off for independent work, and/or a "do not disturb" sign.

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Many autistic people report that the most difficult part of successfully locking down a job is the interview. This makes sense, as autistic people tend to struggle with small talk and communication. Thus, putting forward a good impression can be very difficult, and those not experienced with autism may miss out on good candidates for the job. Interviewers experienced with neurodiversity can see beyond a lack of eye contact, a different handshake, or forgetting the interviewer's name, and they can focus on the fundamental skills necessary for the job at hand.

A tight schedule can be stressful to many neurodiverse individuals, as they might need breaks to handle sensory overload or difficulty focusing for long periods of time. For example, many ADHD individuals say that sitting still for too long periods of time or not having enough time to daydream and formulate new ideas can make it harder to do their job effectively. Similarly, autistic individuals may struggle from too much stimuli from a strict schedule and need time to decompress. Many neurodiverse individuals thrive doing remote work or in other opportunities where they get to choose when to work.

Email/calendar organization, which includes tools such as Google Calendar, apps that help filter emails, and executive functioning coaching, could mean the difference between missing every meeting and being a top employee. A clear work schedule with reminders on different devices can help employees deliver and meet deadlines, ensuring productivity. ​

Everyone works at their own pace. Neurodivergents are known to be more creative on average. However, rushing this process can undermine such idea generation. Lower processing speed (ADHD), difficulty with reading (dyslexia), or difficulty understanding social expectations (autism) can require its own time frame.

Often looked down upon, extra time becomes a valuable productivity booster. This frequently is an accommodation that can come together with rest breaks, which are helpful to regain focus and deal with over stimulation for the neurodiverse.

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Studies show that companies promote employees who are mentored five times more often than those who are not, and companies promote mentors themselves six times more often! Thus, having a job coaching/mentorship program at a company can benefit everyone involved. Job coaches/mentors provide help with understanding the dynamics of the processes involved in the job, and shorten the learning curve of starting new tasks; thus, providing an integral competitive tool in today's economy, and in the practices of any company in the 21st century.

Allowance of fidgeting devices

We all need to relax sometimes, and different people accomplish this in different ways. Unfortunately, the way that neurodiverse people tend to do this, through stimming or fidgeting, is frequently looked down upon. These activities decrease sensory overload, "excess" energy, and anxiety. They improve focus, and are not simply "toys". Thus, fidgeting devices are the opposite of distracting!

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Studies show that having information presented to your brain in written form, rather than just orally, improves processing and memory. Therefore, something as simple as using software that enables speech to text during meetings can make a tremendous difference to workers, especially those that process auditory information differently. This isn't just an accommodation that can help the neurodiverse, but can improve focus and remembering of tiny details during meetings for everyone.

Similarly, recording meetings is a tiny change that can help many employees. If an attendant misses something, the employee has the option to go back and listen to the meeting over again for any details that might have been missed. This can also help people during missed meetings or during breaks.

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Here Haley, Mentra's head of Data Strategy, and Shea, Mentra's Cheif Technology Officer, on how best to manage a neurodiverse team!

Hiring neurodiverse individuals offers many benefits for a company. Accommodations can sometimes be underappreciated, but they can improve the company as a whole - the little details matter. If you want help learning how to accommodate your neurodiverse employees, there are many organizations with expertise in this topic that can help you. Mentra is dedicated to not only helping companies hire the neurodiverse, but also retain and utilize these employees to their fullest potential by making sure the neurodiverse employees are satisfied in their roles.

About the Author

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Mikaela Marinis is a "quirky" #actuallyautistic professional writer for the technology industry, with backgrounds in neuroscience and computer science. She's always loved to learn, from world religions to animals, and to share what she learns with others. Mikaela frequently volunteers to help neurodiverse people in their work life, as she is neurodiverse herself and hopes to use her successes and failures to help others.

Join our Community!

If you're looking for a group of professionals that can help you along the journey, you can join Mentra's neurodiversity employment network.

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Top Ten Accomodations for Neurodivergent

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Although neurodiverse people present many strengths, they may need a modified work environment to express their full potential. Standard work environments were built without keeping the neurodiverse population in mind. Fortunately, many enterprising businesses today are shifting away from the idea of a "one size fits all" approach to their workplace.

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Powderkeg: Building a Company Culture Remotely

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Powderkeg: Building a Company Culture Remotely

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I'm so excited to have my thoughts be included in this piece!!🔥

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How can you build a company culture remotely?
Before remote jobs became commonplace in the tech community, we may have taken for granted the ease of building and maintaining corporate culture and workplace culture when we were all in the office together, naturally interacting with our colleagues in-person every day. But that everyday camaraderie is a bit harder to replicate with remote jobs and remote-first workplaces.

There are still ways to build a company culture in remote work despite the distance, especially with the advent of new tech and social apps. That's why we asked 20 tech leaders for company culture examples on the impact of remote working on company culture. They provided the following tips for culture building strategy and building company culture in a remote work environment. Follow these tips to learn how to build company culture, how to build a remote team, and learn more about what is company culture at a remote startup.

Here are 20 actionable tips from leaders at companies with remote work culture that you can use while building team culture remotely:

Spent More Time Together to Build Remote Culture

Define What Great Work Looks Like with Goals and Standards

Show Up with Humility, Equity, and Authenticity

Reach Out and Build Relationships

Turn On Your Camera

Use the 3 A's to Build a Resilient Remote Culture

Employ Active Listening With Your Team

Hold Regular, No-Agenda and Optional Meetings

Engage With Colleagues Through Events

Set up Virtual Happy Hours and Coffee Breaks

Communicate Clear-Set Goals and Standards

Intentionally Create Moments of Fun

Use a Slack Bot to Spark Conversation

Put Business Values and Company Culture First

Normalize Employee Connections Consistently

Build Strong Connections With the Employees You Lead

Encourage Accountability by Restricting Micromanagement

Respect Out-of-Work Responsibilities

Create Moments to Meaningfully Connect

Build Genuine Relationships and Human Connections

Spent More Time Together

I believe the most important factor in a strong and healthy remote culture is the same as in an in-person one: time together. It's difficult to get time with individuals and even more difficult to have the entire team in the same room when remote, but it's absolutely critical to do so as often as possible.

Mitch Causey, CEO, Demandwell

Define What Great Work Looks Like with Goals and Standards

Choosing a hybrid or remote workstyle and being flexible in our work doesn't have to mean we are allowing everybody to dictate and rule their own work schedules. Organizations can still keep to their goals and cultural standards. Once we define what great work looks like, we can give the freedom for people to work where (and when) they want to.

Stephanie Murphy, Leadership Consultant, ADVISA

Show Up with Humility, Equity, and Authenticity

Building company culture with a distributed workforce starts with regularly taking time to create a space where everyone feels safe and comfortable contributing to conversations as much or as little as they are willing, without fear of judgment. When everyone-including leaders-shows up with humility, interest, equity, authenticity, and fallibility, it strengthens trust and mutual respect. This foundation makes adopting a "one team" attitude easier. When teams are aligned and know they're "in it" together, an environment of support that's free from blame develops. Everyone rises together, and everyone catches each other together if there's a stumble

Dawn Lego, Director of Brand Engagement and Channel Marketing, Onecause

Reach Out and Build Relationships

If you are sitting next to a team member in the office every day, it won't take long to start learning about them; without even trying, you start getting a sense of who they are as a person, family life, hobbies. Find ways to reach out to team members outside of the office dialog. I've found that I tend to work better with people I know and like.

Alden Miller, Storyteller, Alchemy

Turn On Your Camera

Do not underestimate the power of body language and visual cues. There is no replacement for facetime with teammates. We believe so strongly in this that it's a requirement that all employees turn on their video during meetings - with a few exceptions.

Jake Miller, CEO, Engineered Innovation Group

Use the 3 A's to Build a Resilient Remote Culture

Building a resilient remote company culture starts with keeping your workforce human, engaged and agile. Unnecessary meetings certainly aren't unique to remote work, but it can be tempting to schedule a quick call for every little task. And as everyone knows, these "quick calls" can often turn into bigger meetings. Create agendas for meetings and ensure you stick to them. Give everyone a chance to speak but keep the pace going with time limits for particular subjects.

Above all, it's important to remember that you won't get it right straight away. Request anonymous feedback from everyone once a month. Ultimately it's about following the "3-A model": Ask your team what you think could be improved, analyze performance and responses, and act to make your changes and adjust over time.

Employ Active Listening With Your Team

Building a great company culture is very hard, especially if it's 100% remote because people are behind a computer from wherever they choose to be. Destroying a company's culture is very easy. The best way to build something that is worth it, is by being 100% inclusive and being able to actively listen to your team. People have different points of view and being able to listen to and include them is what makes a company truly special. If you are able to bring people from different backgrounds together then you are indeed building a culture worth sharing.

Hold Regular, No-Agenda and Optional Meetings

The number one recommendation I have for building a great company culture in a remote workplace is holding regular meetings with no agenda for the sole purpose of connecting with teammates. We do this a couple of times every week at Compt and it has been a fantastic opportunity to get to know everyone on a more personal, meaningful level, which builds a sense of camaraderie that's so important in a fully remote startup.

On Monday mornings we have an optional-to-attend coffee chat where we can talk about our weekends, laugh about things happening in our personal lives, or discuss anything else you typically would at the office water cooler. On Wednesday afternoons we have a Zoom meeting set aside to play games (also optional). During this time we get competitive, have fun, and release some mid-week stress. Both meetings have afforded us the opportunity to build connections across departments we may not otherwise have.

Engage With Colleagues Through Events

I personally think that being remote is great. You get time for yourself, for your family and you don't have to go through a daily commute to the office. But what you miss out is engagement with your colleagues, with your managers, leaders and friends. So, it's important that companies with remote-first culture must plan employee engagement initiatives.

This can present as regular monthly offsite events, rolling out workation once a quarter, or holding virtual and in-person hackathons. Employee engagement and bonding is extremely underrated. And it should be the priority of any organization that's willing to be remote-first.

Set up Virtual Happy Hours and Coffee Breaks

Maintaining a strong company culture can be challenging in any workplace, but it can be especially difficult in a remote environment. One way to overcome this challenge is to make sure that everyone feels like they are part of the team. This means regular check-ins with employees, encouraging collaboration and sharing of ideas, and promoting a sense of belonging. It can also be helpful to create opportunities for social interaction, such as virtual happy hours or coffee breaks. By making company culture a priority, you can help to ensure that your remote workplace is a thriving and supportive environment.

Communicate Clear-Set Goals and Standards

The distance between coworkers seems to cause certain problems. But there are a ton of ways to deal with them. My personal tip for building company culture in a remote workplace is most certainly to encourage employees to see and apply the vision behind the company.

Clear-set goals and standards, as well as systems that allow the employees to self-regulate to a degree and easily find solutions to their problems. And that's what I tirelessly try to instill in the people I work with. Regardless of what the vision for your company is, it's important that all individuals that make up the work collective within their workspace see the same vision and aspire to make that vision a reality.

Intentionally Create Moments of Fun

Don't forget to create opportunities where your team can have fun together. Your vision, mission, and values should be what define and drive your remote company culture, but you also need "moments of fun" where your team can get together, laugh, joke around, and get to know one another on a deeper level.

Think about happy hours that you'd have when working in an office together. You need to recreate those in a remote setting so that you gain the same cultural benefits from them. If you fail to incorporate these "moments of fun", your culture will feel stuffy, people won't get to know one another as closely, and it'll impact overall morale over time.

Use a Slack Bot to Spark Conversation

It's hard to make up for the watercooler talk and casual friendly updates in the workplace when you're limited to Zoom and Slack. That's why I love Slack bots like S'Up that randomly pairs team members for casual video calls. It'll give you prompts like "which superhero would you be and why" or "what's something you're looking forward to in the next few months" to spark conversation and help facilitate friendly interactions.

Put Business Values and Company Culture First

Company culture is a way of life, the safety net for any business. You have your goals in front of you, but you have the culture to back you up from behind. It's the invisible force that can sustain or ruin your future. Core values and rituals need to be implemented from day one, and every new employee should match those values. Never hire for skills alone without having that similar vibe to share with the future employee. Think in terms of tribes. It'll be much more difficult to align or fire someone who doesn't embrace your values and way of being. Business is a significant part of life. Make it worthwhile and evaluate people holistically.

Normalize Employee Connections Consistently

In order to build a positive company culture in a remote setting, employees need regular and consistent times to connect. Company values are built and sustained through action and connection, which don't happen in a vacuum. I've seen this look like weekly power hours, lunch and learns, or even regular D&D meetups which can all be done virtually. The key is to normalize connecting with each other consistently.

Build Strong Connections With the Employees You Lead

Building connections with employees when leading your remote teams provides the glue needed to strengthen work culture performance. From a TIGERS 6 Principles perspective it improves trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk resolution and success in the workplace. Getting to know your employees streamlines tasks, improves delegation, and provides you the inroads to develop employees.

When you combine this with online opportunities that introduce remote workers to one another you create new rituals and ceremonies that strengthen the beliefs and norms that make up your culture-not replace them. This ultimately means filling your employee pipeline with online activities such as learning circles where employees learn and practice training you provide them. This produces a cooperative work environment and the type of manager to co-worker relationships that feel like a tight knit family focused on helping one another and boosting employee wellbeing.

Encourage Accountability by Restricting Micromanagement

Remote working is more than just letting your team work from anywhere, at any time. If you really want to go beyond flexibility, you need to build a culture where working in silos yet collaborating with one another proactively is something everyone is accountable for. The one tip that has helped our remote marketing agency efficiently deliver work across projects, is that the team is well aware of their responsibilities and the tasks in the first week of the month.

We then make use of project management tools and Slack for communicating our sprint with the others in the team. Watching one another set realistic daily sprints also serves as a great motivation for low days; and when we do unrealistic sprints, we reach out to one another to talk about workloads. This little practice has helped us remove micromanagement by almost 90% already.

Respect Out-of-Work Responsibilities

Leaders need to understand that people have responsibilities outside the workplace. This is not about Work/Life balance where you pay faux respect to the notion that people have lives and interests outside work. This is understanding that their responsibilities outside work-caring for elderly parents, taking care of children, being involved in community groups, and anything else-are important elements of team members' lives.

Respect these responsibilities. Enable them to live up to and meet these obligations. And they'll reward you with enhanced performance in the workplace, greater employee engagement, and higher results.

Create Moments to Meaningfully Connect

I've supported tech organizations for several years now as a Talent Development & Workplace Experience Consultant and the companies that do it best create intentional spaces and moments for connection and fun. Whether it's a Slack channel for banter or skill sharing or weekly virtual lunches-organizations that thrive that focus on creating cohesion and cross-department collaboration. Strong relationships are central to successful organizations.

So, the very best cultures also nurture an environment that believes in two-way feedback, consistent 1:1s and offering opportunities for growth and development-in addition to the fun stuff. Great cultures aren't accidental, they are fostered by all levels of the organization and created with the goal in mind of building connections, competencies and elevating communication.

Elizabeth Boyd , Talent Development & Learning | Workplace Experience Consultant, TalentLab.Live

Build Genuine Relationships and Human Connections

Building company culture in a remote workplace should come from the heart. People are the heart. They're the core. Never lose sight of that. This is true, of course, in every type of company but especially important in a remote workplace. As much as our remote team loves having the flexibility and freedom of a remote work life, we all need human connection from time to time.

Build genuine relationships through online chats, share life stories, and ask others to do the same. Share updates from your life, host virtual events (sparingly), and most of all-never make people feel like anything is mandatory or an obligation. Allow people to genuinely come to you and share with the team when they want to. Post funny gifs, remember birthdays and anniversaries, and make people laugh whenever you can. Have someone responsible for this type of engagement.

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Follow these tips for building company culture in a remote work environment, and you can build a remote culture where your team members can thrive.

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20 Tips for Building Company Culture Remotely - Powderkeg

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How can you build a company culture remotely? Before remote jobs became commonplace in the tech community, we may have taken for granted the ease of building and maintaining corporate culture and workplace culture when we were all in the office together, naturally interacting with our colleagues

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604: How Remote Teams Build Belonging, with Gustavo Razzetti

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WSJ Podcast: Giving Thanks: The Right Way to Show Appreciation at Work

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WSJ Podcast: Giving Thanks: The Right Way to Show Appreciation at Work

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This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated.

Erin Delmore: Hi, I'm Erin Delmore and As We Work, we're getting in the Thanksgiving spirit and learning the power of showing appreciation for the people we work with.

Jacob Coite: I've gotten responses back where they're like, "I'm having a horrible day right now, but that just made me feel a hundred times better. I just forgot about all the stress, I forgot about the job. I forgot I had a stomach ache today." And that's really why it's so important.

Erin Delmore: This is As We Work from the Wall Street Journal, a show about the changing workplace and everything you need to know to navigate it. Coming up on the show, 'tis the season for giving thanks. What are you thankful for? Your friends, your family? What about your coworkers? We're thinking about the ways we can show our colleagues we appreciate them, even the ways we want our managers to be thanking us because doing it well is trickier than you think. When's the last time you said thank you to someone at work and really meant it? It can so often go unsaid or it can feel reflexive, "Thanks for this Email," doesn't exactly give off any warm, fuzzy vibes does it? But it turns out that saying thank you is key to keeping employees happy. In one recent survey for the employee engagement platform, Bonusly, nearly two-thirds of respondents said they would work harder if they felt like their contributions would be noticed by management. Nearly half said they'd left a job because they felt unappreciated. Which is why I'm keen on taking a look at giving thanks. Not only because the literal season of exactly that is upon us, but because our decisions about whether or not we stay in our jobs is one of the hottest issues in the work world right now. Just look at the job market. Yeah, it's cooling a little, but the latest numbers show there are still more than 10 million openings that companies are trying to fill. And a Gallup survey from October found that recognition increases an employees sense of belonging. And without it, employees are more likely to look for another job. So we'll spend today looking at the ways we show recognition, whether it's to our coworkers, clients, employees, and how we want the people in our work orbit to show their appreciation to us. We'll start with Jacob Coite, this guy is a compliment factory. The signature one-liners he often crafts about his colleagues sound like this.

Jacob Coite: When it comes to taking inbound calls, you're an answering machine. And it's because answering machine, but...

Erin Delmore: Or this.

Jacob Coite: You must have attended Hogwarts because your rebuttals are magical.

Erin Delmore: Or these.

Jacob Coite: You say the script was so much passion, I thought it was a monologue from Macbeth. If this company was a California roll, you'd be the seaweed that holds the whole thing together. Your empathy is like Kool-Aid, the way it adds flavor to a boring call. You are like a steak because workers like you are rare. Do you play soccer? Because when it comes to setting leads, you're really on the ball.

Erin Delmore: He's a supervisor at a call center and he turns out a lot of compliments.

Jacob Coite: So we use this app called Tiny Pulse and you'd send messages to each other. I'll try and send out maybe 150 to 200 a day or week depending if I have time, if I have time. When I first started, I was just quiet. I stuck to myself and stuff and I remember I would get a couple of them and it was like, "Oh wow, they actually think of me. They know I'm here." And I started to send to just a smaller group of people and then I'd start branching it off to everybody. I will send out some like, "Hey, that was a really tough call. Good for you. Hey, I really like working with you on Sunday, makes the day go by a lot quicker." But the things I typically send, there are real ones, but they're also jokey ones where I use metaphors and stuff. I mean, I've definitely learned how important it is to do this because before, I'm kind of an awkward guy so I wouldn't really go out of my way to compliment people. But when you see the difference that it makes in someone's day or week or month or how they even view their job, because I've gotten responses back where they're like, "I'm having a horrible day right now but that just made me feel a hundred times better. I just forgot about all the stress, I forgot about the job. I forgot I had a stomach ache today." And that's really why it's so important, it's because it can take you out of the whatever's bothering you, even if it's just for a split second. Since doing this, I feel like I know my coworkers so much more. They feel like they know me more. We're talking, joking around. The day goes by much quicker as opposed to before when I just sat in my little corner dialed out and didn't really talk to that many people. I've definitely noticed people coming out of their shell a little bit more. We're all closer and we joke around a lot more. I've definitely moved up in the company a few times and I don't know if this is the exact reason, but I do think it holds a little bit of weight that I'm known in the office as the guy who's really positive and trying to make everyone feel included. It's definitely a tough hurdle to get over to start just complimenting people and being honest about how you feel and things like that. And being grateful is a little bit difficult to do that first jump, but once you do it's so great to see the impact that it has on people. People will appreciate it and it'll bring people together.

Erin Delmore: Not everyone has the ability to send cheeky little compliments to their colleagues through an employer-sponsored app, but everyone has it in their power to say those magical two little words, thank you. But when and how? Can you say thanks too often? And come on, do you really need to thank other people for doing their jobs? There's actually research to guide us toward the best answers. That's next. Think you have a cool job? Well check out Sara Algoe. She's the director of something called The Love Consortium, print that on a business card. She leads a global network of researchers who use data to advance the scientific study of social connection, including gratitude. She's also a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She co-authored a study on gratitude and ran a bunch of experiments to find out how observing expressions of gratitude changes people's feelings both toward the person giving thanks and to the person receiving it. So Sara, you would think that if I thank you for something because I recognize you've done well, you would walk away feeling good. But is there something in it for me too?

Sara Algoe: So we have some really cool new evidence that thank yous seem to be the gift that keeps on giving. So if you thank me, I feel valued and I actually am more willing to work hard on the thing that you thank me for specifically. But the person who thanks themselves, they also feel better about the other person because they remember what it was that they like about the person. And this is the cool new set of findings that we have, even people who see that thank you happen, they like you more and they're more willing to go out of their way to help you in the future as well. And we think it's because you've just shown that you're the kind of person who notices other people around you and sees their contributions to what you're up to.

Erin Delmore: So if I thank somebody at work, other people who are not involved in the conversation overhear it and they think more highly of me?

Sara Algoe: Absolutely.

Erin Delmore: I like that.

Sara Algoe: Yeah. And the other cool part of those findings is that they also think more highly of the person you thank, both people.

Erin Delmore: So Sara, tell us, how do people want to be shown appreciation and gratitude in their workplaces?

Sara Algoe: Just a simple verbal thank you really goes a long way in our data. By verbal, I mean the words thank you or calling out somebody in an email or face-to-face. I don't really think it needs to be an over the top gesture of gifts. I mean, raises are probably really, really helpful to show people that you value them.

Erin Delmore: That's nice, yeah.

Sara Algoe: The rest of the story is that, in our work, it's really about if you do appreciate someone, a great way to show them is to really meet them where they are. So say what it is about the thing that they did that's really particularly noteworthy. Or if you just appreciate them as a person, then show them that you see them as a person and you see their needs and their interests. And that meeting the needs of employees is one really important way to show employees that you appreciate what they're doing and that you value them.

Erin Delmore: Okay, Sara, let's try something. Let's say that I want to thank an employee on my team for doing something above and beyond her job description. Let's say I noticed that she took the intern under her wing. How should I say thank you?

Sara Algoe: Yeah. So I would just say, "Gosh, I noticed that you have really gone above and beyond to take the intern under your wing. This is something that I know that not everybody does, and we really value that contribution. It's a really important way that I see that you tend to contribute to the welfare of the other people in our group."

Erin Delmore: Oh man.

Sara Algoe: That would be one way.

Erin Delmore: So I would be ready to say that to someone who worked for me.

Sara Algoe: Great, okay.

Erin Delmore: So what should I not do? What can backfire?

Sara Algoe: Well haven't been a big fan of this trend of thanks in advance.

Erin Delmore: Okay.

Sara Algoe: And the reason is that in our data, it's really about thanking you for something that's already happened and really being clear about the specific ways that it's above and beyond. And I've seen whispers in people's data that it actually could potentially backfire because it's a little presumptuous that the person is going to do the thing.

Erin Delmore: Okay. So it's a bad idea for me to say, "Thanks in advance for taking the intern under your wing." before she even does it, right?

Sara Algoe: I would advise against it.

Erin Delmore: Okay.

Sara Algoe: Yeah. It might not make the person feel warm and fuzzy toward the intern that you're trying to help her have a relationship with.

Erin Delmore: Gotcha. I want to try another. So let's say that you and I are colleagues, and let's say that you've been out sick and I've been picking up the slack and I didn't make a big deal about it to the team or to the boss. How are you going to say thank you to me?

Sara Algoe: I would probably do a team-based thank you. Maybe other people were aware that you were picking up the slack for me or that I was out or whatever. I really would try to make sure to acknowledge your contributions so that ideally actually other people might also see the value of what you've brought to the table, because it takes a team.

Erin Delmore: Yeah. Well that's exactly where I'm headed. So let's say that I'm leading a team and everybody's been sprinting toward this big goal. We're not there yet, how and when do I say thanks?

Sara Algoe: In the middle of the goal, you can say thank you for whatever it is that they've done so far. And I would keep their eye on the prize. I would just thank them for the specific things that have gotten them so far. But then also add something about, "Can't wait to cross the finish line with you." Or something like that.

Erin Delmore: Okay. I see your subtle reminder, but the job is not done.

Sara Algoe: In a positive way.

Erin Delmore: In a nice way.

Sara Algoe: Exactly.

Erin Delmore: Well look, there's a whole nother school of thought here where I'm wondering if I need to thank you for doing your job.

Sara Algoe: Yeah, that's true.

Erin Delmore: Let's say it's not above and beyond, it's my team's job to hit this goal. Okay, it's what you come to work for. It's what we pay you for. Do I need to be thanking you for doing your job?

Sara Algoe: The answer is yes.

Erin Delmore: Okay.

Sara Algoe: And you're not thanking them for doing their job. And I think that's the kicker. Any job like that has a huge number of components to it. You can just thank them for part of the process that they've worked on that has seemed to be exemplary. And yeah, when I first started studying this, I really got that kind of pushback from people, that sentiment that, "Oh, I shouldn't be thanking the person for doing their job." But again, all of our data show people want to feel valued and it can be motivating. The rest of the story though is about you as a leader. We have cool evidence that managers who thank people, and actually most people who thank other people, are actually seen as more competent and better leaders. I have heard the whispers behind this. It's a submissive type of a thing to thank somebody and so, especially if you're the person who's supposed to be in power or higher in the hierarchy, then why would you thank the lower ranking person? But all of our data suggests that actually it's the opposite. People see you as more competent if you're the kind of person who actually sees the value in the work that your employees are doing.

Erin Delmore: So you don't come off looking weaker or more vulnerable, or in need of other people stepping in to do the work.

Sara Algoe: Exactly, yeah.

Erin Delmore: But can you thank somebody too much?

Sara Algoe: I can imagine people can think about someone in their own personal life who is an over-thanker, every single thing they thank you for. But on average, if it's for real things, if its genuine for the person really did kind of go above and beyond and you're not pretending that they did something more than they actually did. In general, we haven't been able to find any evidence for over-thanking.

Erin Delmore: What do you most want people to know about showing gratitude at work?

Sara Algoe: If you feel it, don't forget to say it. And it's easier than you think. Say it with sincerity about a specific thing that the person did that went above and beyond. And remember how much that person will get a little boost out of hearing that thank you, even if it's just a little thank you.

Erin Delmore: Well, Sara Algoe, thank you so much for coming on this program today and for sharing your expertise and being so generous with your time. How about that?

Sara Algoe: It was my pleasure. Thank you.

Erin Delmore: I and our listeners appreciate it.

Sara Algoe: Very well done.

Erin Delmore: I was really glad to hear Sara Algoe tell us. There's no such thing as saying thank you too often, as long as it's sincere. And she says, if I thank someone, they feel more valued and they're more willing to work hard on the thing I thanked them for. And I end up remembering what I like about that person and the people who see me say a little thank you are more willing to go out of their way to help me in the future. That's why she calls it the gift that keeps on giving. Remembering what you like about your colleagues, even in stressful times, is actually at the heart of our pro tip today. We're talking about how to get along with the most annoying person in your workplace, that's next. We together appreciate your time.

Sara Algoe: Oh, that was beautiful, thank you for having me.

Erin Delmore: Okay, I'll keep working on it.

Sara Algoe: Are very good.

Erin Delmore: And I appreciate that.

Sara Algoe: We could do this all day.

Erin Delmore: You know that person at work, the one who sings to herself incessantly.

Audio: (Singing).

Erin Delmore: The one who's always late to meetings.

Audio: Guys, sorry I'm late.

Erin Delmore: And makes everybody start over.

Audio: So what did I miss?

Erin Delmore: The one who makes loud phone calls at his desk.

Audio: Hello?

Erin Delmore: Which is oh, so conveniently right next to yours.

Audio: Yeah. No man, things have been crazy here.

Erin Delmore: Wall Street Journal columnist Elizabeth Bernstein says you can learn to the most annoying person in your life and even the most annoying person in your office. She's here to show us how. Elizabeth, many of us are in the office more now than we've been in years so how do we learn to somebody who we find annoying?

Elizabeth Bernstein: When we don't like somebody, we behave a certain way, we may tense up, cross our arms, roll our eyes, turn away, do all sorts of things that can let that person know that we don't like them. And you really have to start with your own behavior. And where you can do that is to start with empathy. And so just start and think, "I wonder what's going on with that person? I'm going to give them a little grace, cut them a little slack right now." And so that's one way. So another is don't gossip. That just enforces your own negative opinion of the person. It just enforces negativity across the board. If the aim is more positivity and to like people better, you need to cut out the gossip too.

Erin Delmore: What if it's a small thing? I'm just thinking about somebody who just taps on their desk or some small thing that breaks your concentration while you're trying to work. Is it ever time to speak up? How would you even do that without making them upset?

Elizabeth Bernstein: So one thing I'm a big fan of, deep breaths. Deep breaths first, count to 10 in your head. It's always hard to do. But then with kindness, we don't have walk around with resentment all the time. We can say, "Hey, I don't even know if you're noticing this, but you're tapping the desk I'm trying to write." You can make it even funny. "I know I drive you crazy clearing my throat, whatever it is." But again, with kindness and humor, humor always helps.

Erin Delmore: Okay, gotcha. All right. So Elizabeth, if you are in an office and there's somebody who you just can't stand but you also can't get away from them, how are you going to kill them with kindness?

Elizabeth Bernstein: Well, I think I'm going to try to get to know them and I'm going to try to give them compliments. And I'm going to look for ways to do that, look for reasons to do that. So I might ask a lot of questions. I'd start to ask, "Hey, do you have kids? Where do you live?" That kind of thing. "What do you like to do?" I try really hard to get to know them that way.

Erin Delmore: Okay. And does that help us? I mean, if we can start to see even our most annoying colleague as a human person with so many things that they bring to the table, can that take the edge off?

Elizabeth Bernstein: Exactly. So sorry, my dog's gone. I'm sorry, she's gone nuts. Scout, come on.

Erin Delmore: So is she your annoying colleague right now?

Elizabeth Bernstein: I love her to death, but boy can she be annoying. She's the one who can always interrupt my writing, that bark.

Erin Delmore: Well, Elizabeth, one thing that you mentioned in your column is going on a hike together or doing something outside the office. But I've got to be honest, if somebody's annoying me at work, would I really want to ask them to go do a bonding activity with me?

Elizabeth Bernstein: You probably wouldn't say, "Let's go hiking or let's go to a comedy show or a concert." But you may say, "Let's go to coffee." Or, "Hey, there's free food on floor seven, we just got an email. Want to walk over?" So there might be an easy way in.

Erin Delmore: Okay. Well let me ask you, what are your pet peeves at work?

Elizabeth Bernstein: Anybody who talks to me while I'm really concentrating or trying to write. Anybody who just pops by to say hi and they can see that I'm really deep in concentration, that that might not be such a pet peeve but I find it super annoying.

Erin Delmore: Well, on that note, I'm really glad that I stopped writing to talk to you.

Elizabeth Bernstein: Me too.

Erin Delmore: I don't mind speaking from experience here, if you can find a way to get along with your most annoying colleague it'll make your day lighter and easier. What else would ease some of the stress you're feeling in your work life these days? Next time, we're bringing on two of our Wall Street Journal colleagues to help answer your questions, including how to get ahead and get in front of management while working remotely, and how to deal with potential layoffs on the horizon. That's coming up in two weeks. Like the show? Tell all your friends and be generous with those five star reviews, we appreciate it. As We Work is a production of the Wall Street Journal. Charlotte Gartenberg is our producer. And Jonathan Sanders-

Jacob Coite: You are like Babe Ruth, the way you always knock it out of the park.

Erin Delmore: And he's also our booking producer, Scott Saloway is our supervising producer. Jessica Fenton is our sound engineer. Our music was composed by Hansdale Hsu. I'm Erin Delmore, see ya.

Audio: (singing). All right, got to go. Oh, wait, what? Bye.

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Giving Thanks: The Right Way to Show Appreciation At Work - As We Work - WSJ Podcasts

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Thanksgiving is all about showing gratitude, but sometimes we forget to do it with some of the people we see every day: our co-workers.

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CultureAmp: 10 Performance Review Biases & How to Avoid Them

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CultureAmp: 10 Performance Review Biases & How to Avoid Them

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I am biased. You are biased. All humans are biased. Not buying it yet? Consider the research of Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist awarded the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work applying psychological insights to economics. In his research, Kahneman demonstrated one simple truth: most human decisions are based on biases, beliefs, and intuition, not facts or logic.

This is part of why people tend to bring bias into the performance review process, even when going into it with the best intentions. And when it comes to performance reviews (also known as performance appraisals), biases have a huge impact.

So, what can your and your organization do to ensure that performance review processes are as bias-free as possible? Incorporate bias blockers into each step of the process. Once you know these biases exist, you can use various strategies (and a good dose of self-awareness) to minimize their effects.

In this article, we'll share the ten types of biases that affect performance reviews, examples of they look in action, and prevention strategies to help mitigate their effects.

What is bias?

Commonly referred to as " unconscious bias" or "implicit bias," a bias is an error in judgment that happens when a person allows their conscious or unconscious prejudices to affect their evaluation of another person. It usually implies an unfair judgment against or in favor of someone.

Why is addressing biases in the performance review important?

Unconscious biases can lead to inflation or deflation of employee ratings, which can have serious implications in high-stakes situations directly affected by performance assessments. For example, promotion, compensation, hiring, or even firing decisions.

Given the weight of these decisions, it's critical to ensure that the performance management process is fair and objective as possible. Otherwise, your people will lose trust in the process, become disengaged, and lose the motivation to use the performance review as an opportunity to make improvements and grow.

10 biases that affect performance reviews

1. Recency bias
What is recency bias?
Recency bias is the tendency to focus on the most recent time period instead of the total time period.

We also call this the "What have you done for me lately?" bias. If someone recently rocked a presentation or flubbed a deal, that recent performance will loom larger in a manager's mind. Why? Because it's easier to remember things that happened recently.
Example of recency bias:
Imagine there is an employee named Jamie. At the beginning of the year, she landed a huge deal for the company and received much recognition. But in the last two months, her performance has slipped. Unfortunately, Jamie's manager focused only on the recent events of the past few months during Jamie's performance review and didn't acknowledge Jamie's incredibly valuable contributions from earlier in the year.
How to prevent recency bias:
To limit the impact of recency bias on your performance data, develop a habit of collecting employee feedback at different points throughout the year. Did someone just complete a 3-month project? Great, send their peers a request for feedback so you can get some data on how well they did. Did someone just complete internal training? Awesome, request feedback from the instructor about their participation. This way, you have more frequent data points from throughout the entire time period at the end of the year.

2. Primacy bias
What is primacy bias?
Primacy bias is the tendency to emphasize information learned early on over information encountered later.

In performance reviews, managers often fall for primacy bias when they let a first impression affect their overall assessment of that mentee.
Example of primacy bias:
Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson of Columbia Business School describes the following scenario:

If I'm a jerk to you when we first meet, and I buy you a coffee the next day to make up for it, you are going to see that nice gesture as some sort of manipulative tactic and think, "This jerk thinks he can buy me off with a coffee." However, if I make a great first impression, and buy you a coffee the next day, then you're likely to see it as an act of goodwill and think to yourself, "Wow, that Kevin really is a nice guy."
How to prevent primacy bias:
Preventing primacy bias is similar to preventing recency bias. By putting together a dossier of performance snapshots that include feedback from multiple points in time, you can dampen managers' tendency to weigh their first impressions too heavily.

3. Halo/horns effect bias
What is halo/horns effect bias?
The halo/horns effect bias is the tendency to allow one good or bad trait to overshadow others (i.e., letting an employee's congenial sense of humor override their poor communication skills.)

After all, we all have our own pet peeves and turn-ons. Sometimes those quirks and inclinations can overshadow our ability to assess people overall. For example, this bias is why attractive people are likelier to be rated as trustworthy. At the same time, if or when attractive people fail to live up to those higher expectations, they also suffer a penalty for not living up to the presumptions of others.
Example of halo/horns effect bias:
For example, a particular manager may have a soft spot for proactive, outspoken individuals. If one of their mentees tends to be quiet and withdrawn during meetings, the manager may give that mentee a lower score, even if the mentee offers other valuable qualities and contributions.
How to prevent halo/horns effect bias:
To dampen the effect of the halo/horns effect bias, evaluate performance on multiple dimensions of performance instead of leaving it open to interpretation. Are you rating individual achievement but failing to look at the way people contribute to the success of others? Does this person happen to have a particular set of highly sought-after technical skills but doesn't finish their work on time? To get a holistic view, assess at least 2-3 different aspects of performance so that one awesome or awful trait or skill doesn't overshadow everything else.

4. Centrality/central tendency bias
What is centrality bias?
Centrality bias is the tendency to rate most items in the middle of a rating scale.

While moderation is great in most things, high-stakes situations like performance appraisals often require taking a stand. When everyone receives the same rating, it isn't easy to distinguish low-performing employees from top-performing ones.
Example of centrality bias:
A manager hands in his annual performance evaluations, but almost everyone on his team scored in the middle of the scale. If the company is working on a 5-point rating scale, most employees receive a 3. This is a common occurrence as many managers don't like being extreme and trend moderate in their reviews.
How to prevent centrality bias:
Centrality bias can be overcome by taking a flexible approach to designing scales. The simplest way is to eliminate the neutral option from the rating scale, such as switching from a 5-point scale to a 4-point scale. This way, evaluators have to make a choice one way or the other.

5. Leniency bias
What is leniency bias?
Leniency bias occurs when managers give favorable ratings even though they have employees with notable room for improvement.

Like many types of biases, leniency bias can weaken the objectivity of the data. The truth is some employees do outperform others. Giving everyone a 4 out of a 5-point rating makes it challenging to distinguish who the top-performing employees are. On top of that, it becomes difficult to identify who deserves a promotion or raise, and it can leave your top talent feeling disgruntled.
Example of leniency bias:
Alex and Jamie are both managed by the same person. Alex consistently produces average-quality work. While it's not bad, he rarely goes above and beyond what's asked of him. On the other hand, Jamie is consistently one of the top-performing employees. She goes the extra mile on her projects, always raises her hand to take on more responsibilities, and delivers outstanding outcomes. Despite these differences, their manager gives them the same "above average" rating on their performance review to avoid hurting anyone's feelings. As a result, Alex and Jamie stay on similar career trajectories - leaving Jamie to wonder if anyone notices her hard work.
How to prevent leniency bias:
Instead of making "above average" the top possible rating, try using a rating scale that reflects how people talk about and think about their team members. To create more spread to identify your top people, build that spread into the rating labels.

For example, you could have a scale where the top rating is "above average."

However, if you wanted to give managers more opportunities to identify stellar performers, you could create a scale with "above average" as the middle rating and "top performer" as the top rating.

6. Similar-to-me bias
What is similar-to-me bias?
Similar-to-me bias is the inclination to give a higher rating to people with similar interests, skills, and backgrounds as the person doing the rating.

Simply put, we tend to like people that are like us. In addition to making performance reviews tricky, similar-to-me bias can make your workplace feel less and may even affect how diverse the overall makeup of the organization is.
Example of similar-to-me bias:
Imagine there is a manager that attended a top-ranked school that they loved. When conducting a performance appraisal for someone who went to the same top-ranked school, the manager may rate them higher because of their inflated impression of the school and those who graduated from that school.
How to prevent similar-to-me bias:
Reduce the effect of similar-to-me-bias by requiring specificity in managers' assessments. In three separate studies, Yale researchers found that when you first agree to the criteria used in an assessment and then you make the evaluation, you are less likely to rely on stereotypes, and your assessments are less biased.

7. Idiosyncratic rater bias
What is idiosyncratic rater bias?
Idiosyncratic rater bias occurs when managers evaluate skills they're not good at highly. Conversely, they rate others lower for skills they're great at. In other words, managers weigh their performance evaluations toward their own personal eccentricities.

In fact, one of the largest studies on feedback found that more than half of the variance associated with ratings had more to do with the quirks of the person giving the rating than the person being rated. Rater bias was the biggest predictor, holding more weight than actual performance, the performance dimension being rated, the rater's perspective, and even measurement error.

Therefore, idiosyncratic rater bias presents a huge problem in performance data because the score given often tells us more about the rater than the person being rated.
Example of idiosyncratic rater bias:
Let's say there's a manager who excels at project management but knows very little about computer programming. As a result, she unknowingly gives higher marks to those who are good at computer programming and lower marks to those who are good at project management or other skills similar to hers.

Why? Because the manager is good at project management, she's likelier to have higher standards for this skill and compare the employee to herself. On the other hand, since she's unfamiliar with computer programming, she's less familiar with the standards for performance and is more likely to be lenient. In other words, her feedback reflects more on her own skills than her employee's skills.
How to prevent idiosyncratic rater bias:
It's difficult for people to rate others on things like "lateral and strategic thinking" (whatever that means). But, as one researcher put it: "People might not be reliable raters of others, but they are reliable raters of their own intentions." So consider rewriting some performance questions to reflect your team's decisions and intentions.

Here are some examples from the Culture Amp platform:

I would always want this person on my team

I would award this person the highest possible compensation increase and bonus

I would hire this person again

This person is ready for promotion today

If this person resigned, I would do anything to retain him/her/them

8. Confirmation bias
What is confirmation bias?
The tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms a person's preexisting beliefs. Confirmation bias is a type of bias that is pretty similar to primacy bias but can tend to go much deeper.

Confirmation bias makes it easier to believe people who align with you on specific facts, beliefs, or stances. It's also why you're more likely to be skeptical of people who disagree with you. While this is a normal human tendency, it can skew the interpretation of valuable performance data.

Have you ever had a question about something and searched the internet for the answer? If you're like most people, your search terms will probably pull up web pages that confirm your existing beliefs. For instance, if you love beans and want to prevent cancer, you might Google "beans help fight cancer." But, on the other hand, if you can't stand beans, you might search for "beans cause cancer." Sure enough, you will find millions of results for both searches. Similarly, if you initially think someone might be a bad apple, you are much more likely to seek (and find) information confirming your initial suspicion.
Example of confirmation bias:
Imagine a highly productive, technically skilled employee who is a pleasure to work with. That employee's manager may receive feedback that supports these beliefs, which they're going to believe. However, when managers receive feedback contrary to their beliefs about the employee, they may discount or ignore that valuable information.
How to prevent confirmation bias:
To overcome confirmation bias, think like a scientist. When researchers ask questions, they form hypotheses that seek to disconfirm rather than confirm their initial beliefs. Whenever you have an impression about someone, seek evidence that they are the opposite or entirely different from what you suspect. When collecting feedback from others, pay close attention to the feedback that goes against your beliefs.

9. Gender bias
What is gender bias?
When giving feedback, individuals tend to focus more on the personality and attitudes of women and feminine-presenting individuals. Contrarily, they focus more on the behaviors and accomplishments of men and masculine-presenting individuals.

Priya Sundararajan, Culture Amp's Senior Data Scientist, reviewed 25,000 peer feedback statements across a performance cycle of nearly 1,500 employees. She discovered the following:

For male employees, peer feedback provided by both male and female reviewers tends to focus equally on work- and personality phrasing (for example, "Nick should gain more technical expertise in nonparametric ML models").

Female employees, on the other hand, are nearly 1.4x more likely to receive personality phrases from male reviewers (such as "Sue is a great team player and very easy to work with') and less likely to receive work-related phrases".)

Gender biases like these exacerbate gender bias, growth/promotion opportunities, and the pay gap.
Example of gender bias:
Imagine two employees - Nick and Susan - are up for promotions. They're both highly qualified, have similar years of experience, and received many positive accolades. They also received constructive feedback from their managers that needs to be taken into account for the promotion:

"Nick could work on his technical expertise."

"Susan is challenging to work with."

As you can see, Nick's feedback is based on his skill set - which can easily be improved with the right guidance and training. On the other hand, Susan's feedback is based on her work style. This raises doubts about her personality and seems like something that can't be "fixed." As a result of this feedback, Nick gets the promotion, and Susan doesn't. This situation is all too common and contributes to the gender pay gap and unequal growth opportunities experienced by women.
How to prevent gender bias:
Sometimes, unstructured feedback allows bias to creep in. Without some set criteria, people will likely reshape the criteria for success in their own image. As Stanford researchers have put it, the big takeaway is that open boxes on feedback forms make feedback open to bias. That's why it helps to take a "mad libs" approach to feedback.

Help raters by giving them a format and then allowing them to fill in the blanks. Additionally, nudge managers into specifically talking about situations, behaviors, and impacts rather than personality or style.

Quick but important reminder: Gender biases can have a huge impact on the experiences and assessments of nonbinary and/or transgender folks. Although these biases may manifest themselves in a slightly different manner, it's important to stay alert and keep your eyes peeled.

10. Law of small numbers bias
What is the law of small numbers bias?
The law of small numbers bias is the incorrect belief that a small sample closely shares the properties of the underlying population.
Example of the law of small numbers bias:
Imagine a stellar team full of top performers, with one person doing the work of four others. Naturally, you rate that person as higher than the rest and the others a bit lower. However, it turns out that even the lowest performer on your team is among the best in the whole company. So, when it comes time to look at company-wide performance, it appears your team is about average, even if they're all exceptional.
How to prevent the law of small numbers bias:
Performance review calibrations are key to overcoming this bias. Calibration is when all reviews and ratings are looked at holistically to ensure that your definition of "above average" is similar to everyone else's definition of "above average." This helps guarantee that people at the organization speak the same language and use the same nomenclature when conducting performance reviews.

Recognizing and overcoming our implicit biases

Unfortunately, we're not that good at knowing our own biases. Research has suggested that the more help you need in this area, the harder it is to recognize that you need help. People underestimate their own bias, and the most biased among us underestimate it the most.

So, one step is to check yourself through some unbiased means. One method that researchers at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Harvard University, and Yale University have used is the Implicit Association Test, which is freely available to everyone. Fair warning, though: you might not be comfortable or agree with the results, but that's probably just your bias talking.

Next, give yourself permission to be human and recognize the limits of your own understanding. Just being aware of your biases will not, in and of itself, enable you to overcome your biases. This doesn't mean we should ignore or give in to our biases. Instead, we need to set up systems, processes, procedures, and even technology that enable us to make better decisions. Ask for help. Get feedback from others. Set firm criteria and be consistent. Most of all, keep an open mind.

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Types of performance review biases & how to avoid them | Culture Amp

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Make performance reviews run better. Learn about the most common performance review biases, and how to overcome them.

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What Is Proximity Bias and How Can Managers Prevent It?

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HBR: What is Proximity Bias and How Managers Prevent It? 

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HBR: What is Proximity Bias and How Managers Prevent It? 

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Instill an "excellence from anywhere culture": First, help your organization openly acknowledge proximity bias as a potential issue. Next, commit to paying more attention. Notice when you might be falling into proximity bias, and redirect your focus to include those who contribute remotely. Collectively, practice valuing deliverables, collaboration, and innovation, as opposed to employee location.

Mitigate "face time" concerns: To address the problem of decreased face time with remote workers, initiate more frequent (weekly or biweekly), low-stakes performance evaluations or one-on-one check-ins. Use these meetings to become more aware of your team members work, and also let them know that their work is visible to you.

Push for equal treatment: If you work at an organization that allows you to make your own team rules, take advantage. For example, you may ask your team to show up every Friday for an in-person team building activity, but empower them to choose whether or not to commute Monday through Thursday.

The recent shift to remote and hybrid work has created a "visibility" concern for many employees. Proximity bias describes how people in positions of power tend to treat workers who are physically closer to them more favorably, and stems from the antiquated assumption that those who work remotely are less productive than those who work from the office.

This concern is not unwarranted. Last year, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released findings from a survey of more than 800 supervisors. SHRM reported two-thirds (67%) of supervisors overseeing remote workers admitted to believing remote workers are more replaceable than onsite workers. Forty-two percent said they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks. This may explain why remote workers get promoted less often than their peers, despite being 15% more productive on average.

These findings are problematic for several reasons, with one of them being that prejudice against remote workers exacerbates other inequities in the workplace. We know that underrepresented groups have a stronger desire for hybrid and remote work - one survey found that 21% of white knowledge workers want to return to full-time, on-site work compared to just 3% of Black knowledge workers. Professionals from marginalized communities still suffer from discrimination and microaggressions in the office. Working remotely lessens the chance that they will encounter these prejudices and the pressure to constantly code-switch. For many BIPOC workers, permanent remote work equates to better mental health.

When proximity bias combines with unconscious bias, the result is a toxic brew that has the potential to seriously harm organizational cultures and undermine DEI efforts. If you're a manager leading a remote team - new or seasoned - how can you avoid proximity bias?

Instill an "excellence from anywhere" culture.

Research-based best practices suggest you should start by helping your organization openly acknowledge proximity bias as a potential issue. Over the past few years, we've seen evidence clearly demonstrating that people are, on average, more productive at home. Without commuting, employees spend over a third of that "travel time" on work. They're able to focus better without in-office distractions. They sleep better and have improved work-life balance.

Yet, as humans, we intuitively value the contributions that we see, rather than those we don't - even if the ones we don't are substantially greater. To stop doing this, you and other leaders in your organization need to first acknowledge that it's happening, and call out the reality: Proximity bias is a natural human behavior. That doesn't mean it's good or right. Just like other forms of unconscious bias, proximity bias is not simply unjust and unfair: it's actively bad for business. It hurts employee morale, retention, and productivity, and thus company bottom lines. Moreover, given that women and people of color have a stronger desire for more remote hours per week, point out the dangers this bias poses to your DEI efforts.

With this awareness, you and others can commit to paying more attention. Notice when you might be falling into proximity bias, and redirect your focus to include those who contribute remotely. Collectively, practice valuing deliverables, collaboration, and innovation - as opposed to employee location. The more you do this, the more the tone on your office will change.

Over time, people will see that you appreciate their work equally, no matter where they do it. Your goal is to instill the idea that you are all in this together, working to achieve shared business goals.

Mitigate face time concerns proactively.

Typically, managers meet with their direct reports during quarterly or annual performance evaluations. To address the problem of decreased face time with remote workers, initiate more frequent (weekly or biweekly), low-stakes performance evaluation s or one-on-one check-ins.

Use this framework to start:

With each team member, agree on three to five weekly or biweekly performance goals. Depending on their roles, these may vary from short-term, tactical goals like "writing 10 social media posts" to longer-term goals like "reducing average response time to 48 hours."

Three days before your check-in meeting, ask your team member to send a brief report of how they're progressing, what challenges they're facing, how they might overcome them, and propose a few goals for following week(s). Ask them to keep it to a few short bullet points.

One day before the meeting, respond with your initial impressions of the report. Include any feedback you have, and a proposed agenda for your check-in.

At the one-on-one, focus on coaching your team member on how to solve any challenges they're facing, revise any goals that need to be adjusted, and affirm the work they've been contributing. These check-ins can be used to inform your more formal performance reviews later on.

The intention behind these meetings is to give personalized face time to each of your team members, ensure that you're aware of their work, and also let them know that their work is visible to you. Most importantly, keeping track of their goals - both short and long term - will help you more fairly evaluate their performance in formal setting, and give each person a clearer indication of where they stand at all times.

Push for equal treatment.

To instill equal treatment on a larger scale, you should aim to decentralize decision-making around hybrid and remote work and adopt a team-led culture for determining work arrangements. As a leader who has access to the room where decisions are made, push back against rigid, top-down policies and advocate for employees to determine autonomously where they will work - with the support of their managers.

Particularly, if you work at an organization that allows you to make your own team rules, take advantage. After all, who knows better than you what is most appropriate for your people? A team of salespeople, for instance, has different needs and preferences than a team of accountants. Through your weekly or biweekly check-ins, you'll begin to observe how and where people work best. Use this information to set a standard of which days team members come to the office, and be clear about your intentions. As an example, you may ask your team to show up every Friday for an in-person team building activity, but empower them to choose whether or not to commute Monday through Thursday. Or, you may ask team members to come in at least one day a week, whenever they choose, to encourage collaboration. As a general best practice, require each team member to come into the office the same amount of time. This team-led model addresses both concerns about face time with the boss and about resentments over some people doing less commuting than others.

On a smaller scale, you can promote equity by adjusting the way you hold meetings. In hybrid meetings, remote attendees often face technical challenges, and can have a harder time contributing ideas. One helpful strategy is to switch all meetings with at least one person working remotely to video conferences. Another more formal and costly strategy involves investing in meeting facilitation training and development to improve the quality of virtual learning experiences for remote workers.

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Emerging leaders, specifically, have a unique opportunity to champion better cultures for the next generation of remote workers. Over the past two years, the workforce has changed dramatically. Use these changes to drive conversations that help bring people together - not isolate them from each other. Seasoned managers, alike, can use the strategies above to reframe their former approaches to work and make a better workplace for everyone.

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What Is Proximity Bias and How Can Managers Prevent It?

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The antiquated assumption that those who work from home are less productive than those who work from the office has given rise to "visibility" concerns. In a recent survey, 42% of managers said they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks.

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Esther Perel PODCAST: Couples Therapy With My Boss

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Esther Perel PODCAST: Couples Therapy With My Boss

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HBR: How to Get People to Actualy Participate in Virtual Meetings

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HBR: How to Get People to Actualy Participate in Virtual Meetings

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In these difficult times, we've made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR's content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.

These days it's hard to get people to pay attention in any meeting, but when people aren't in the same room, it can be especially difficult. And it's particularly annoying when you make a nine-minute argument, pause for an expected reaction, and get: "I'm not sure I followed you" which might as well mean: "I was shampooing my cat and didn't realize I would be called on."

Let's face it, most meetings have always sucked because there's often little to zero accountability for engagement. When we are together in a room, we often compensate with coercive eye contact. Participants feel some obligation to feign interest (even if they're staring at their phones). In situations where you can't demand attention with ocular oppression, you have to learn to do what we should've mastered long ago: create voluntary engagement. In other words, you have to create structured opportunities for attendees to engage fully.

There are four broad reasons to hold a meeting: to influence others, to make decisions, to solve problems, or to strengthen relationships. Since all of these are active processes, passive passengers in a meeting rarely do quality work. The precondition for effective meetings - virtual or otherwise - is voluntary engagement.

We've spent the last few years studying virtual training sessions to understand why most virtual gatherings bore groups into a coma. As we've done so, we've discovered and tested five rules that lead to predictably better meeting outcomes. In one study we did, comparing 200 attendees of a face-to-face experience with 200 of a virtual experience, we found that when these rules are applied, 86% of participants report as high or higher levels of engagement as in face-to-face meetings. And we've now applied these rules with over 15,000 meeting participants.

Here's what works.

Let's take Raul, a mid-level manager, who is about to lead a 15-minute virtual presentation to 16 of his peers scattered from North to South America. His goal is to convince them they should identify some global sales opportunities from each of their regional account portfolios, then cooperate in pursuing them. To avoid a passive lecture and engage the group, he plans to use 18 slides. Here are the rules Raul should follow.

1. The 60-second rule.

First, never engage a group in solving a problem until they have felt the problem. Do something in the first 60 seconds to help them experience it. You might share shocking or provocative statistics, anecdotes, or analogies that dramatize the problem. For example, Raul could share a statistic showing average global deal sizes for a competitor that provokes a sense of inferiority with the group. He could share an anecdote about a frustrated customer who discontinued purchasing because the team failed to offer global pricing and support. Or, he could engage emotions by making an analogy to whales who feed far more effectively when they work together to encircle large schools of krill- and then take turns gorging on the feast. No matter what tactic you use, your goal is to make sure the group empathetically understands the problem (or opportunity) before you try to solve it.

2. The responsibility rule.

When people enter any social setting, they tacitly work to determine their role. For example, when you enter a movie theater, you unconsciously define your role as observer - you are there to be entertained. When you enter the gym, you are an actor - you are there to work out. The biggest engagement threat in virtual meetings is allowing team members to unconsciously take the role of observer. Many already happily defined their role this way when they received the meeting invite. To counteract this implicit decision, create an experience of shared responsibility early on in your presentation. Don't do it by saying, "Okay, I want this to be a conversation, not a presentation. I need all of you to be involved." That rarely works. Instead, create an opportunity for them to take meaningful responsibility. This is best done using the next rule.

3. The nowhere to hide rule.

Research shows that a person appearing to have a heart attack on a subway is less likely to get help the more people there are on the train. Social psychologists refer to this phenomenon as diffusion of responsibility. If everyone is responsible, then no one feels responsible. Avoid this in your meeting by giving people tasks that they can actively engage in so there is nowhere to hide. Define a problem that can be solved quickly, assign people to groups of two or three (max). Give them a medium with which to communicate with one another (video conference, Slack channel, messaging platform, audio breakouts). If you're on a virtual meeting platform that allows for breakout groups, use them liberally. Give them a very limited time frame to take on a highly structured and brief task. For example, three minutes into his pitch, Raul could say something like, "The next slide shows who your partner will be. I want you to take two minutes in your breakout group to identify a global regret: a client you believe you could have had a much bigger deal with if we had worked together better in the past 12 months." Next, he could ask everyone to type their answers into the chat pod, and/or call on one or two to share their example over the phone.

4. The MVP rule.

Nothing disengages a group more reliably than assaulting them with slide after slide of mind-numbing data organized in endless bullet points. It doesn't matter how smart or sophisticated the group is, if your goal is engagement, you must mix facts and stories. We encourage people to determine the Minimum Viable PowerPoint (MVP) deck they need. In other words, select the least amount of data you need to inform and engage the group. Don't add a single slide more. A side benefit of this rule is that it forces you to engage the attendees. If you have too many slides, you feel enslaved to "getting through them." If Raul has 18 minutes to get his job done, 15 slides is far too many. He should be able to make his case with one or two slides, then use any additional slides to accomplish the tasks in rules 1-3 above.

5. The 5-minute rule.

Never go longer than 5 minutes without giving the group another problem to solve. Participants are in rooms scattered hither and yon with dozens of tempting distractions. If you don't sustain a continual expectation of meaningful involvement, they will retreat into that alluring observer role, and you'll have to work hard to bring them back. In his 15-minute presentation, Raul should have 2-3 brief, well-defined, and meaningful engagement opportunities. For example, he could wrap up his presentation with a group-generated list of options, then throw out a polling/voting opportunity to determine the team's opinion about where to begin.

The truth is these rules should already be second nature, no matter what kind of meeting you're leading. But the stakes are even higher today when team members are out of sight and their minds are free to wander. Following these five rules will dramatically and immediately change the productivity of any virtual gathering.

If our content helps you to contend with coronavirus and other challenges, please consider subscribing to HBR. A subscription purchase is the best way to support the creation of these resources.

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How to Get People to Actually Participate in Virtual Meetings

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In these difficult times, we've made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR's content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter. These days it's hard to get people to pay attention in any meeting, but when people aren't in the same room, it can be especially difficult.

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Inc: Warren Buffet Says Your Overall Leadership Success Really Comes Down to 2 Simple Strategies

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Inc: Warren Buffet Says Your Overall Leadership Success Really Comes Down to 2 Simple Strategies

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62 minutes of music

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Ted-Ed Video: 4 Things All Great Listeners Know

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Ted-Ed Video: 4 Things All Great Listeners Know

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It’s easy to tell when someone’s not paying attention, but it can be surprisingly tricky to know what good listening looks like. Good listening is one of the most important things we can do to improve our relationships, develop our worldview, and potentially change people’s minds. So what can we do to become better listeners? Dig into different strategies that can improve your listening skills. [Directed by Maryna Buchynska, and action agency, narrated by Jack Cutmore-Scott, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio].

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WaPo: Showing Gratitude is Good For All of Us, So Why Don't We Give Thanks More?

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WaPo: Showing Gratitude is Good For All of Us, So Why Don't We Give Thanks More?

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(George Wylesol for The Washington Post)

Giving thanks is good for the person giving it as well as the one receiving it. So why don't we express gratitude more often?

Research suggests that many people don't realize how much a simple gesture of thanks can mean.In one 2018 study published in Psychological Science, over 300 participants were asked to write a letter of gratitude to someone who positively impacted them - their parents, friends, coachesor teachers from long ago.

Importantly, the letter writers were asked to predict how surprised, happy and awkward the recipients would feel after receiving their gratitude. The researchers then followed up with the recipients to see how they reported feeling.

The gratitude expressers consistently underestimated how much people appreciate being appreciated. And therecipients of the letters found it significantly less awkward than the writers predicted. In short, receiving gratitude was far more likely to make someone's day than the people giving them gratitude expected.

"In everyday life, we seem to not fully realize the magnitude of the impact that we're having on other people," said Amit Kumar, professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and an author of the study.

This miscalibrated expectation may be one potent reason we often do not express our gratitude more often, Kumar said. "Essentially, if you think you're not going to be making that much of an impact, you might not actually bother to do so," he said.

Why thanks isn't given as often as it should be

Undervaluing gratitude's effects on the receiver may be because of a mismatch in the perspectives between what the gratitude giver and receiver focus on. The words left unsaid and the thanks left ungiven may be because of these misconceptions.

Kumar and his colleagues found that the participants writing the gratitude letters were hung up on competence expressing their appreciation - was their letter articulate and eloquent enough?

But the people receiving those letters cared more about the feelings of interpersonal warmth and did not judge the writers as harshly on how the appreciation letter was written: They were happy simply for receiving gratitude in the first place.

"In some cases, this inordinate concern with competence can actually stand in the way of engaging in these sorts of actions," Kumar said.

Intriguingly, participants in these research studies reported they want to perform these prosocial actions more often. But by undervaluing the benefits of sharing gratitude with the recipient, we build barriers to both our own well-being and that of those we care about.

Unfortunately, we do not often have opportunities to recalibrate our sense of how our appreciation impacted someone's day, which may make it harder to overcome this "misplaced barrier." This also means missing out on the benefits of expressing gratitude for ourselves; research consistently finds practices such as writing down what you are grateful for improves happiness and well-being.

Emerging social cognition research shows we have a bias toward " undersociality," where we underestimate how positively others respond to our social outreach, extends to all manners of prosocial behavior, whether it is performing acts of kindness, asking for help or just striking up a conversation.

But making an active intention to give thanks when you feel grateful can make a difference.

Gratitude helps bind us together

"At the end of the day, it boils down to: most people want to be valued," said Sara Algoe, psychologist who runs the Emotions and Social Interactions in Relationships Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "We need social relationships, we value social relationships, we crave being connected with other people."

Gratitude is a unique catalyst for not only finding these connections but also strengthening them, Algoe said. The " find-remind-and-bind " theory proposes that feeling grateful helps us find new contacts, reminds us that current connections care about us, and binds us closer together.

In one 2022 study published in Scientific Reports involving 125 couples in a five-week field experiment, Algoe and her colleagues found that nudging one partner to express more gratitude led to more time spent together as a couple.

In the experiment, half of the couples had one person who was encouraged to express their gratitude whenever they felt grateful to their partner. The prompt was formulated to "really capitalize on people's natural opportunities to experience gratitude and show them that there are these opportunities to express it and then have them make a plan to express it," Algoe said.

The gratitude-expressing partner was also encouraged to keep this extra assignment a secret so that their appreciation would be received as more genuine. (Most partners kept the secret, but one did confess that they talked about the experiment as soon as they left the laboratory, Algoe said.)

Those encouraged to express thanks did share their gratitude with their partners more often; these couples increased the amount of time they spent together by an estimated 68 minutes a day on average, which represents more social investment and stronger social bonds.

"I think one of the big takeaways is that gratitude can contribute to well-being, and part of the reason that it contributes to well-being is because it helps us feel connected to other people," Kumar said.

How to express gratitude

You likely have people in your life who you are grateful for. So how should you express this gratitude?

"The first thing is do it," Algoe said. "Don't forget that basic step. And don't overthink it."

You can also make it easier to express gratitude. Kumar said that after seeing the benefits of gratitude from his research, he began keeping a supply of thank-you cards on his desk to help him remember to express gratitude more often in his daily life.

Algoe suggests reframing the goal of what gratitude is for. She calls it putting the "you" in "thank you."

"It's subtle, this just turning it away from yourself and turning it toward them and what it was about their actions that were great," she said.

Ultimately, just remind yourself that saying thank you really does make a difference.

"It's not like a huge amount of effort," Kumar said. But a small shift in how often you express thanks can make a "pretty big difference when it comes to how we feel and how we treat others."
Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column.
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Showing gratitude is good for all of us, so why don't we give thanks more?

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Giving thanks is good for the person giving it as well as the one receiving it. So why don't we express gratitude more often? Research suggests that many people don't realize how much a simple gesture of thanks can mean.In one 2018 study published in Psychological Science, over 300 participants were asked to write a letter of gratitude to someone who positively impacted them - their parents, friends, coachesor teachers from long ago.

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INC: 4 Behaviors That Will Quickly Point to Someone With Bad Leadership Skills

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INC: 4 Behaviors That Will Quickly Point to Someone With Bad Leadership Skills

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What can policymakers learn from happiness research?

In 1978, a trio of psychologists curious about happiness assembled two groups of subjects. In the first were winners of the Illinois state lottery. These men and women had received jackpots of between fifty thousand and a million dollars. In the second group were victims of devastating accidents. Some had been left paralyzed from the waist down. For the others, paralysis started at the neck.

The researchers asked the members of both groups a battery of questions about their lives. On a scale of "the best and worst things that could happen," how did the members of the first group rank becoming rich and the second wheelchair-bound? How happy had they been before these events? How about now? How happy did they expect to be in a couple of years? How much pleasure did they take in daily experiences such as talking with a friend, hearing a joke, or reading a magazine? (The lottery winners were also asked how much they enjoyed buying clothes, a question that was omitted in the case of the quadriplegics.) For a control, the psychologists assembled a third group, made up of Illinois residents selected at random from the phone book.

When the psychologists tabulated the answers, they found that the lottery group rated winning as a highly positive experience and the accident group ranked victimhood as a negative one. Clearly, the winners realized that they'd been fortunate. But this only made the subsequent results more puzzling. The winners considered themselves no happier at the time of the interviews than the members of the control group did. In the future, the winners expected to become slightly happier, but, once again, no more so than the control-group members. (Even the accident victims expected to be happier than the lottery winners within a few years.) Meanwhile, the winners took significantly less pleasure in daily activities-including clothes-buying-than the members of the other two groups.

Perhaps, the psychologists hypothesized, people who buy lottery tickets tend to be melancholy to begin with, and this had skewed the results. They randomly selected another group of Illinoisans, some of whom had bought lottery tickets in the past and some of whom hadn't. The buyers and the non-buyers exhibited no significant affective differences. The members of this new panel, too, rated themselves just as happy as the lottery winners, and reported getting more pleasure from their daily lives.

The researchers wrote up their findings on the lottery winners and the accident victims in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The paper is now considered one of the founding texts of happiness studies, a field that has yielded some surprisingly morose results. It's not just hitting the jackpot that fails to lift spirits; a whole range of activities that people tend to think will make them happy-getting a raise, moving to California, having kids-do not, it turns out, have that effect. (Studies have shown that women find caring for their children less pleasurable than napping or jogging and only slightly more satisfying than doing the dishes.) As the happiness researchers Tim Wilson and Daniel Gilbert have put it, "People routinely mispredict how much pleasure or displeasure future events will bring."

What should we do with information like this? On an individual level, it's possible to stop buying lottery tickets, move back to Minnesota, and, provided the news reaches you in time, have your tubes tied. But there are more far-reaching societal implications to consider. Or so Derek Bok argues in his new book, "The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being" (Princeton; $24.95).

Bok, who served two stints as president of Harvard, begins with a discussion of prosperity and its discontents. Over the past three and a half decades, real per-capita income in the United States has risen from just over seventeen thousand dollars to almost twenty-seven thousand dollars. During that same period, the average new home in the U.S. grew in size by almost fifty per cent; the number of cars in the country increased by more than a hundred and twenty million; the proportion of families owning personal computers rose from zero to seventy per cent; and so on. Yet, since the early seventies, the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as either "very happy" or "pretty happy" has remained virtually unchanged. Indeed, the average level of self-reported happiness, or "subjective well-being," appears to have been flat going all the way back to the nineteen-fifties, when real per-capita income was less than half what it is today.

Several theories have been offered to explain why the United States is, in effect, a nation of joyless lottery winners. One, the so-called "hedonic treadmill" hypothesis, holds that people rapidly adjust to improved situations; thus, as soon as they acquire some new delight-a second house, a third car, a fourth-generation iPhone-their expectations ramp upward, and they are left no happier than before. Another is that people are relativists; they are interested not so much in having more stuff as in having more than those around them. Hence, if Jack and Joe both blow their year-end bonuses on Maseratis, nothing has really changed and neither is any more satisfied.

America's felicific stagnation shouldn't be ignored, Bok argues, whatever the explanation. Growth, after all, has its costs, and often quite substantial ones. If "rising incomes have failed to make Americans happier over the last fifty years," he writes, "what is the point of working such long hours and risking environmental disaster in order to keep on doubling and redoubling our Gross Domestic Product?"

To suggest that the U.S. abandon economic growth as a policy goal is a fairly far-reaching proposal. Bok concedes as much-"The implications of this critique are profound"-but he insists that all he's doing is attending to the data. He takes a similarly provocative and, again, empirically driven position in a chapter titled "What to Do About Inequality." His answer is, in a word, "Nothing."

It's true, Bok acknowledges, that rich Americans tend, on average, to be happier than poor ones. It's also true that the incomes of the country's top earners have, in recent decades, grown several times as fast as those of the earners at the bottom. But the statistics show that, over the past few decades, the subjective well-being of those at the bottom has remained unchanged. If the poor aren't bothered by the growing disparity, Bok asks, why should anyone else be?

"The most obvious reason for deploring income inequality is our instinctive sympathy for those who must make do with many fewer goods and services," he observes. "It is not immediately clear, however, why growing inequality should elicit such compassion if lower-income Americans themselves have not become less happy."

After scratching growth and income redistribution off his list, Bok goes on to discuss measures that, the evidence suggests, would increase aggregate happiness. Job loss, he points out, has been shown to be singularly upsetting. According to one frequently cited study, as a downer it outranks divorce or separation. Even when workers find a new position at similar pay, they often fail to regain their earlier level of happiness. But the U.S., according to Bok, does "less than virtually any other advanced industrial nation to cushion the shock of unemployment." Surely, there is room here for improvement. Bok recommends that unemployment insurance be extended to the fifty per cent (or more) of American workers who are not now covered, and that aid be offered to those who lose their jobs and want to go back to school.

Chronic pain is another source of misery that could be ameliorated by better policy. Current regulations on painkillers, which are aimed at keeping drugs like Oxycontin out of the hands of addicts, have the unfortunate effect of also keeping them away from cancer victims. Depression, too, is often inadequately treated; Bok cites research that suggests that only one out of every six seriously depressed Americans receives the proper care.

"It is not unreasonable to expect the government to . . . provide some simple way to help the mentally ill cope with the confusing array of health care options and agencies and guide them to appropriate treatment," he writes. "Nor is it impossible to create a health care system that covers all of the mentally ill."

Bok's recommendations continue in this vein-better treatment of sleep disorders, more recreational sports programs for kids, improved civics classes. (Research shows that people who participate in political activities such as voting are happier than those who don't.) The measures may strike readers as inadequate to the task of increasing gross national happiness. But that, it could be argued, only proves Bok's point: "People do not always know what will give them lasting satisfaction."

In recent years, happiness research has gone international, and in "Happiness Around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires" (Oxford; $24.95), Carol Graham, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, reports on some of the findings. As in the United States, she notes, the rich in any given country tend to be happier than the less affluent. But, once again, the relationship between money and well-being turns out to be a lot less straightforward than is generally assumed.

Take the case of Nigeria. The country's per-capita G.D.P. last year was about fourteen hundred dollars. (In real terms, this is significantly lower than it was when the nation declared its independence, in 1960.) Yet the proportion of Nigerians who rate themselves happy is as high as the proportion of Japanese, whose per-capita G.D.P. is almost twenty-five times as great. The percentage of Bangladeshis who report themselves satisfied is twice as high as the percentage of Russians, though Russians are more than four times as rich, and the proportion of happy Panamanians is twice as high as that of happy Argentines, though the Argentines have double the income. Research that Graham has done in Afghanistan shows that, despite three decades of war and widespread destitution, Afghans are, on average, a pretty cheerful lot. (The most cheerful areas of the country tend to be those in which the Taliban's influence is stronger.) Graham's research in Latin America shows that the very poor are often remarkably upbeat. "Higher per capita income levels do not translate directly into higher average happiness levels," she writes.

Graham entertains several possible explanations for "the paradox of the happy peasant," a phrase of her own invention. One is founded on genetics. Research on twins suggests that some people are hard-wired to be glad and others to be dejected. Perhaps the poor, she proposes, have happy DNA. Or, conversely, perhaps people who are, by nature, malcontents tend to strive more. As a consequence, they make more money, and so the naturally happy end up being disproportionately penniless. A third (and probably more plausible) alternative is that it's a matter of conditioning; just as people adjust to winning a million dollars, so, too, they adjust to living on a dollar a day. "There is evidence of a great deal of upward and downward adaptation," Graham observes.

Like Bok, Graham argues that policymakers ought to take happiness studies more seriously. Indeed, the whole premise of her book is that the research has practical applications. But she's reluctant to suggest what those applications might be. Should the very poor be left to enjoy their relative contentment? Graham clearly appreciates the awkwardness of this argument; she quotes the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, who has observed, "The grumbling rich man may well be less happy than the contented peasant, but he does have a higher standard of living." At the same time, she notes, there doesn't seem much to be gained from trying to convince the "happy peasant" that, really, he ought to be miserable. The implications "for policy are very unclear," she writes, which may be a roundabout way of saying that the implications of her work make her unhappy.

In the best-selling book "Stumbling on Happiness" (2006), Daniel Gilbert, a psychology professor at Harvard, offers a catalogue of the ways that people misjudge their own satisfactions. They tend to think that they'll be happier with more variety, when, in fact, they get more pleasure from being offered the same thing over and over again. They are willing to pay a premium to preserve their options, but they're more contented when they commit themselves to a particular choice. They anticipate being overjoyed by events that, when they actually occur, leave them unmoved. A study illustrating this last point was conducted in the aftermath of the November 7, 2000, election. On November 8th, researchers asked voters from both parties to predict how happy (or unhappy) they would be when either Al Gore or George W. Bush was declared the winner. On December 13th, Gore conceded to Bush, and the day after that the researchers asked the voters how they felt. The Bush voters were only about a third as happy as they had expected to be. Conversely, the Gore voters were only about a fourth as disappointed. Finally, on April 1, 2001, the researchers asked the voters to recall how they had felt back in December. Interestingly, both sets of voters remembered themselves as having been just as happy-or sad-as they had initially predicted they would be in November. (The actual experience of winning-or losing-apparently made less of an impression on them than the anticipated one.)

If happiness research simply confirmed what people already believed, there would be no need, and really no reason, to argue for its relevance. It's the counterintuitive cast of the results that makes the work provocative and "the politics of happiness" worth thinking about. As the studies make clear, the same sorts of mistakes that individuals are prone to are widely replicated on a national level. People place their hopes on higher incomes, countries on higher G.D.P., and both end up disappointed. (Indeed, according to Graham, rapid economic expansion is just as likely to reduce happiness as the reverse, a situation that she refers to as "the paradox of unhappy growth.")

The idea that happiness research should at least be considered by policymakers is, increasingly, a mainstream position. Two years ago, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, appointed a commission to look into ways to improve the measurement of government performance. When the commission, headed by Amartya Sen and another Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, issued its final report, last fall, it was critical of the current reliance on G.D.P., which, it argued, is a poor proxy for social progress: "For example, traffic jams may increase G.D.P. as a result of the increased use of gasoline, but obviously not the quality of life." The group recommended that a wide variety of new statistical tools be developed, including ones that measure income distribution, natural-resource depletion, and happiness.

"Statistical offices should incorporate questions to capture people's life evaluations, hedonic experiences and priorities," the report concludes. "Research has shown that it is possible to collect meaningful and reliable data on subjective as well as objective well-being."

Strict happiness advocates take things quite a bit further. Bok, for his part, argues that lawmakers should act on the findings of happiness research, even when doing so goes against the wishes of their constituents. "Most voters would probably prefer to be happy rather than have their representative mechanically accept their mistaken impressions of how to reach this goal," he writes.

But even if it were possible-and the political challenges are far from trivial-the limits of such a rigorously "hedonomical" approach seem pretty obvious. As a long line of moral philosophers have noted, there's more to life than subjective well-being. ("It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied" is John Stuart Mill's famous formulation.) And happiness, at least as it's defined by happiness studies, offers little guidance on many of the choices that matter most.

Consider again the finding that a half century of escalating consumption has not brought Americans increased satisfaction. This is a disturbing fact, and certainly one that seems pertinent to discussions of economic policy.

But let's imagine, for a moment, that we had enjoyed ourselves for the past fifty years. Surely, trashing the planet is just as wrong if people take pleasure in the process as it is if they don't. The same holds true for leaving future generations in hock and for exploiting the poor and for shrugging off inequality. Happiness is a good thing; it's just not the only thing. ♦

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What can policymakers learn from happiness research? In 1978, a trio of psychologists curious about happiness assembled two groups of subjects. In the first were winners of the Illinois state lottery. These men and women had received jackpots of between fifty thousand and a million dollars.

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The year’s notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

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Inc.com: Harvard Study Reveals the 1 Thing That Makes Humans Happy. Why Are You Doing the Complete Opposite?

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Inc.com: Harvard Study Reveals the 1 Thing That Makes Humans Happy. Why Are You Doing the Complete Opposite?

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The Cut: Winter Movie Dates Are Keeping My Winter Blues at Bay

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The Cut: Winter Movie Dates Are Keeping My Winter Blues at Bay

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Weekly Movie Dates Are Keeping My Winter Blues at Bay

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NYTimes: How to Make the Most of E-Books, and Find Free Ones

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NYTimes: How to Make the Most of E-Books, and Find Free Ones

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How to Make the Most of E-Books, and Find Free Ones

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Even if you still love printed books, the digital option lets you put an entire library in your bag, just in time for holiday travel and vacation.

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CNBC: People Who Make Time for This at Work Are 21% More Likely to be Happier Than Those That Don't

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CNBC: People Who Make Time for This at Work Are 21% More Likely to be Happier Than Those That Don't

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People who make time for this at work are 21% more likely to be happy than those who don’t

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New research by LinkedIn shows that professionals who spend five or more hours a week learning are less stressed, more confident and feel more successful and happy at work than peers who spend less than a hour learning each week.

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Time and time again when I engage on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) matters with employees, managers, and leaders of companies across the world, I'm met with the question: What can I do?

Despite many companies' recent efforts to develop DEI strategies and roadmaps, inequalities in our workplaces are still rampant. The latest World Economic Forum Report states that it will take us 132 years to achieve gender parity, with that number being much higher for some intersectional identities than others. What are we missing, and how do we move the pendulum from where it seems to be stuck toward inclusive environments for everyone?

Here's the thing: We don't experience inclusion through strategies and roadmaps. We experience it through our day-to-day interactions with our colleagues - over lunch, by the coffee machine, during meetings, etc. We can't move the pendulum without each one of us seeing ourselves as key enablers of inclusive workplaces - workplaces where everyone feels valued, respected, appreciated, and enjoys a sense of belonging. Every employee needs to see their role in this, and we need everybody to make efforts to act in a way that nurtures inclusive environments. That's what's missing, but we don't have everybody on board yet. Why? Fear.

Over many years of working with employees, managers, and leaders in the DEI space, I've found that, when it comes to DEI, there is plenty of fear. Those who are well-represented in any context are fearful of the change and loss of power that real inclusion will bring, fearful of getting uncomfortable, and fearful of saying and doing the wrong thing. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard white male CEOs say that they want to support DEI efforts but are afraid of being cancelled. On the other hand, people from marginalized, discriminated, and underrepresented groups are also fearful: fearful of being the lone voice and being perceived as the token, fearful of addressing biases and discrimination, and fearful of the impact on their careers.

The answer to the question What can I do? lies in overcoming these fears through allyship. Allyship is the key to creating inclusive workplaces. According to recent research, employees of organizations that foster strong allyship and inclusion cultures are 50% less likely to leave, 56% more likely to improve their performance, 75% less likely to take a sick day, and up to 167% more likely to recommend their organizations as great places to work.

Allyship is a lifelong process of building and nurturing supportive relationships with underrepresented, marginalized, or discriminated individuals or groups with the aim of advancing inclusion. It is through this process that we overcome our fears of engaging with DEI. Allyship is about progress, not perfection. Allyship is active, not passive. It requires frequent and consistent behaviors. Allyship is not performative. It's about lifting others and creating platforms for them so that their voices are heard. Allyship is not about fixing others.

I believe that what we need to make our workplaces truly inclusive is a clear set of practical behaviors that we can embed into our day-to-day working lives. To address this need, below are the seven allyship behaviors that I explore in my book The Art of Active Allyship. Employees at any level can engage in these actions to nurture inclusion in their workplaces.

The first three of the seven allyship behaviors are meant to empower you with information about yourself and the people you work with. In the words of the nineteenth-century American writer Mary Roberts Reinhart: "When knowledge comes in the door, fear and superstition fly out." The more we understand something and the more we know what to do, the less fearful we are of it.

1. Deep curiosity

Understanding the issues surrounding DEI starts with a deep curiosity about our own and others' diversity thumbprint: each individual's intersectional identity of multiple dimensions coexisting at the same time.

To help gain an understanding of your own and others' experience in the world, explore the wealth of resources out there and make a conscious effort to:

Identify intersectional dimensions of diversity that are different from your own diversity thumbprint

Understand the biases and discrimination that people different from you experience

Understand the historical, political, and social contexts that have led to these biases and discrimination

Understand the impact of these biases and discrimination on individuals, organizations, and society

2. Honest introspection

Honest introspection begins with understanding our own biases and how they impact what we say and do, the decisions we make, and whom we tend to view as successful in the workplace.

In my book Diversifying Diversity, I wrote, "If you have a brain, you are biased." Our brain receives 11 million bits of information every single second. We consciously process only 40 bits of this information, with the remaining covered by our unconscious mind. We rely on heuristics and algorithms that we have built through our life experiences to help us make sense of this vast input.

While these heuristics and algorithms can keep us safe, we also use them when we meet someone for the first time, when we look through resumes to decide whom to recruit or promote, and when we design products and services. These biases can also give rise to the "cookie cutters" we see in our workplaces: the prototypes of who we consider to be successful leaders or ideal employees.

Think about the people you work with. How similar are they to each other? These observations will help reveal where biases lie in your organization. To assess where your own unconscious biases may lie, you can use tools like the Harvard Implicit Association Test.

3. Humble acknowledgement

We must humbly acknowledge that we don't know or fully comprehend how someone else experiences life. Humble acknowledgement requires admitting "I don't know" and reflecting on our own sources of privilege. Privilege is assuming something is not a problem because it's not a problem for you.

Hearing the word privilege is enough to make many of us cringe, but privilege is something we can use to lift others. Make a list of all the things in your life that you take for granted. How many of the statements below are true for you? These are your sources of privilege. Reflect on these and draw on them to remind you to use your privilege to lift others:

I am never stopped at immigration queues when traveling for work because of my nationality.

I have never had to explain and defend where I am from and/or answer the follow-up question: Where are you actually from?

I have never had to alter my hair to be seen as professional.

I have never had to make considered choices about what to wear to be taken seriously.

I have never been refused an opportunity or job because of my age.

I have never had to hide who I love out of fear of judgement or worse, criminal persecution.

I have never felt like altering or changing my first or last name.

I have never had to downplay my invisible disabilities to get an interview.

I have never had to go through additional rounds of job interviews.

I have never been declined a job on the basis of "not fitting in."

4. Empathetic engagement

More often than not, when we address microaggressions - what I refer to in my book as termite biases - we're met with defensiveness: "Oh, come on. I didn't mean it that way," "You're being oversensitive. Can't you take a joke?," or, "Don't make a big deal out of this." These responses arise from fear: fear of being judged or of being seen as a "bad person."

Empathetic engagement is about asking the right questions in the right tone to help the person engaging in bias-driven behavior to unpack their biases while preventing their wall of defense from coming up. The next time you witness a termite bias, instead of saying "that was a microaggression" or "you're being biased," ask questions like: "How did you get to that decision/conclusion?" or "I didn't understand the joke, would you be able to please explain it to me?" or "That's an interesting way of looking at it, why don't you tell me more?" Asking the right questions in the right tone can be a powerful way of getting the other person to reflect on their biases without judgement.

Empathetic engagement is also about listening without getting defensive, apologizing without over-apologizing, and reflecting on what you can do better when your own termite biases are pointed out.

5. Authentic conversations

Enabling allyship at work requires honest and open conversations, and those require psychological safety: "a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes, and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking." In a psychologically safe environment, employees feel safe to address the biases and discrimination they witness - without the fear of professional or social repercussions.

Individuals can nurture psychological safety by making a deliberate effort not to gaslight the those from underrepresented, marginalized, or discriminated groups when they experience biased behavior. This involves not denying a colleague's recollection of events, not dismissing and belittling their experience, and not casting doubts over their feelings, behavior, and state of mind. Instead, engage empathetically in honest and open conversations about what happened, being careful not to dismiss or get defensive. Be sure not to interrupt the person raising the concern and keep focused on what you can learn and do differently.

6. Vulnerable interactions

To help overcome the fear of being uncomfortable or saying the wrong thing, allies need to embrace their own vulnerability and work with others to identify their own biases - especially the unconscious ones.

To do this, form a bias compass circle: a trusted, diverse group of colleagues with whom you're comfortable being vulnerable checking your biases. Be intentional about whom you ask to come into this circle. They must be colleagues who are committed to inclusion themselves and keen to support your efforts to become aware of your biases. This group can provide you with constructive and motivational feedback on where your biases may lie in what you're communicating or a decision you're making. If you're being biased, your bias compass circle can help you understand more about a dimension of diversity you may not yet fully comprehend. This bias compass circle provides a safe zone to be vulnerable and helps you become more inclusive.

7. Courageous responsibilities

Taking courageous responsibility is about making the most of your own sphere of influence. Be observant of who tends to get opportunities to be seen and heard - then take steps to include and amplify those who don't.

For example, when developing ideas or making decisions, make it a habit to ask others around you: Whose perspective are we missing? Recommend an underrepresented colleague for the next sought-after project or to present their work to leadership. Ask yourself and your teammates: What common words and phrases that we use favor some people over others, and what language should we use instead? Take opportunities to mentor colleagues who are different from you.

. . .

Returning to the question: What can I do?

It turns out that there's plenty each one of us can do. In order to overcome the fears that perpetuate exclusion, we can start with ourselves - with deep curiosity, honest introspection, and humble acknowledgement. Then we can be deliberate about taking steps to include others through behaviors driven by empathy, authenticity, vulnerability, and courage.

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Despite many companies' recent efforts to develop DEI strategies and roadmaps, inequalities in our workplaces are still rampant. Every employee needs to see their role in inclusion, but not everybody is on board yet. Why? Fear.

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What Is Proximity Bias and How Can Managers Prevent It?

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HBR: What is Proximity Bias and How Managers Prevent It? 

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HBR: What is Proximity Bias and How Managers Prevent It? 

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Instill an "excellence from anywhere culture": First, help your organization openly acknowledge proximity bias as a potential issue. Next, commit to paying more attention. Notice when you might be falling into proximity bias, and redirect your focus to include those who contribute remotely. Collectively, practice valuing deliverables, collaboration, and innovation, as opposed to employee location.

Mitigate "face time" concerns: To address the problem of decreased face time with remote workers, initiate more frequent (weekly or biweekly), low-stakes performance evaluations or one-on-one check-ins. Use these meetings to become more aware of your team members work, and also let them know that their work is visible to you.

Push for equal treatment: If you work at an organization that allows you to make your own team rules, take advantage. For example, you may ask your team to show up every Friday for an in-person team building activity, but empower them to choose whether or not to commute Monday through Thursday.

The recent shift to remote and hybrid work has created a "visibility" concern for many employees. Proximity bias describes how people in positions of power tend to treat workers who are physically closer to them more favorably, and stems from the antiquated assumption that those who work remotely are less productive than those who work from the office.

This concern is not unwarranted. Last year, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released findings from a survey of more than 800 supervisors. SHRM reported two-thirds (67%) of supervisors overseeing remote workers admitted to believing remote workers are more replaceable than onsite workers. Forty-two percent said they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks. This may explain why remote workers get promoted less often than their peers, despite being 15% more productive on average.

These findings are problematic for several reasons, with one of them being that prejudice against remote workers exacerbates other inequities in the workplace. We know that underrepresented groups have a stronger desire for hybrid and remote work - one survey found that 21% of white knowledge workers want to return to full-time, on-site work compared to just 3% of Black knowledge workers. Professionals from marginalized communities still suffer from discrimination and microaggressions in the office. Working remotely lessens the chance that they will encounter these prejudices and the pressure to constantly code-switch. For many BIPOC workers, permanent remote work equates to better mental health.

When proximity bias combines with unconscious bias, the result is a toxic brew that has the potential to seriously harm organizational cultures and undermine DEI efforts. If you're a manager leading a remote team - new or seasoned - how can you avoid proximity bias?

Instill an "excellence from anywhere" culture.

Research-based best practices suggest you should start by helping your organization openly acknowledge proximity bias as a potential issue. Over the past few years, we've seen evidence clearly demonstrating that people are, on average, more productive at home. Without commuting, employees spend over a third of that "travel time" on work. They're able to focus better without in-office distractions. They sleep better and have improved work-life balance.

Yet, as humans, we intuitively value the contributions that we see, rather than those we don't - even if the ones we don't are substantially greater. To stop doing this, you and other leaders in your organization need to first acknowledge that it's happening, and call out the reality: Proximity bias is a natural human behavior. That doesn't mean it's good or right. Just like other forms of unconscious bias, proximity bias is not simply unjust and unfair: it's actively bad for business. It hurts employee morale, retention, and productivity, and thus company bottom lines. Moreover, given that women and people of color have a stronger desire for more remote hours per week, point out the dangers this bias poses to your DEI efforts.

With this awareness, you and others can commit to paying more attention. Notice when you might be falling into proximity bias, and redirect your focus to include those who contribute remotely. Collectively, practice valuing deliverables, collaboration, and innovation - as opposed to employee location. The more you do this, the more the tone on your office will change.

Over time, people will see that you appreciate their work equally, no matter where they do it. Your goal is to instill the idea that you are all in this together, working to achieve shared business goals.

Mitigate face time concerns proactively.

Typically, managers meet with their direct reports during quarterly or annual performance evaluations. To address the problem of decreased face time with remote workers, initiate more frequent (weekly or biweekly), low-stakes performance evaluation s or one-on-one check-ins.

Use this framework to start:

With each team member, agree on three to five weekly or biweekly performance goals. Depending on their roles, these may vary from short-term, tactical goals like "writing 10 social media posts" to longer-term goals like "reducing average response time to 48 hours."

Three days before your check-in meeting, ask your team member to send a brief report of how they're progressing, what challenges they're facing, how they might overcome them, and propose a few goals for following week(s). Ask them to keep it to a few short bullet points.

One day before the meeting, respond with your initial impressions of the report. Include any feedback you have, and a proposed agenda for your check-in.

At the one-on-one, focus on coaching your team member on how to solve any challenges they're facing, revise any goals that need to be adjusted, and affirm the work they've been contributing. These check-ins can be used to inform your more formal performance reviews later on.

The intention behind these meetings is to give personalized face time to each of your team members, ensure that you're aware of their work, and also let them know that their work is visible to you. Most importantly, keeping track of their goals - both short and long term - will help you more fairly evaluate their performance in formal setting, and give each person a clearer indication of where they stand at all times.

Push for equal treatment.

To instill equal treatment on a larger scale, you should aim to decentralize decision-making around hybrid and remote work and adopt a team-led culture for determining work arrangements. As a leader who has access to the room where decisions are made, push back against rigid, top-down policies and advocate for employees to determine autonomously where they will work - with the support of their managers.

Particularly, if you work at an organization that allows you to make your own team rules, take advantage. After all, who knows better than you what is most appropriate for your people? A team of salespeople, for instance, has different needs and preferences than a team of accountants. Through your weekly or biweekly check-ins, you'll begin to observe how and where people work best. Use this information to set a standard of which days team members come to the office, and be clear about your intentions. As an example, you may ask your team to show up every Friday for an in-person team building activity, but empower them to choose whether or not to commute Monday through Thursday. Or, you may ask team members to come in at least one day a week, whenever they choose, to encourage collaboration. As a general best practice, require each team member to come into the office the same amount of time. This team-led model addresses both concerns about face time with the boss and about resentments over some people doing less commuting than others.

On a smaller scale, you can promote equity by adjusting the way you hold meetings. In hybrid meetings, remote attendees often face technical challenges, and can have a harder time contributing ideas. One helpful strategy is to switch all meetings with at least one person working remotely to video conferences. Another more formal and costly strategy involves investing in meeting facilitation training and development to improve the quality of virtual learning experiences for remote workers.

-***

Emerging leaders, specifically, have a unique opportunity to champion better cultures for the next generation of remote workers. Over the past two years, the workforce has changed dramatically. Use these changes to drive conversations that help bring people together - not isolate them from each other. Seasoned managers, alike, can use the strategies above to reframe their former approaches to work and make a better workplace for everyone.

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What Is Proximity Bias and How Can Managers Prevent It?

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The antiquated assumption that those who work from home are less productive than those who work from the office has given rise to "visibility" concerns. In a recent survey, 42% of managers said they sometimes forget about remote workers when assigning tasks.

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HR Magazine - Introverts are as important as extroverts for a successful business

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HR Magazine UK:  Introverts Are As Important As Extroverts For a Successful Business 

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HR Magazine UK:  Introverts Are As Important As Extroverts For a Successful Business 

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Employers may be being misled by the power of a louder voice, or the notion that the traits of an extrovert such as being a natural-born leader, someone who is self-assured, or a decisive communicator are more favourable.

This means they are at risk of ignoring the important input from introverted workers thereby not getting the best out of all their employees and not accommodating different personality types as part of an inclusive, productive workforce.
Making room for introverts: HR should offer more support to introvert employees The power of introverts in innovation HR mythbusting: Can people be sorted into personality categories at work?
Previously many businesses, especially industries like finance and law, were dominated by assertive, extroverted individuals.

We certainly need charismatic and confident people in business, but neglecting introverts who are associated with deep thinking, reflection, being self-aware and thinking before acting is to the cost of the organisation.

Interestingly though, most businesses are roughly equally made up of introverts and extroverts. It is what happens in the workplace that shows that they are geared towards extroverts and that introverts are often not regarded in an equal light or utilised for the valuable skills that they bring to the table.

According to Myers-Briggs, the descriptors for extroversion are: outgoing, imaginative, enthusiastic, alert, practical, ingenious, decisive and responsible - and who doesn't want people fitting those descriptions in their organisation?

But equally the descriptors used for introversion are just as attractive: dependable, realistic, conscientious, insightful, original, tolerant, sensitive and loyal. These traits are ones that are being increasingly favoured by organisations that value and prioritise inclusion, flexibility, equality and diversity.

Importantly let's remember that most people are ambiverts, rather than 100% introverted or extroverted. The vast majority of us are quiet in some situations and loud in others, feel sociable in some circumstances and not in others.

So, how can we get the best out of our introverts (and extroverts)?
Reality check
Introversion is not an obstacle to successful leadership in fact many leaders of Fortune 500 companies are introverts. It may pay for a leader to be an extrovert for employees who are passive or need inspirational leadership, but reflective bosses are ideal for business models which revolve around teamwork and interaction.
Set the organisation structure to work for both
A good business needs a range of personality types. Extroverts and introverts are able to learn and benefit from one another's strengths, which if harnessed productively, makes for a far more successful team and business.
Be flexible to meet needs
Some introverts (and extroverts) thrived working from home during the pandemic, others did not. Know the best way to get the best out of them but all the while ensuring inclusion.
Listen to all voices
Avoid allowing meetings to be overtaken by overly dominant voices and ensure the whole group listens to each individual's input so that valuable or even goldmine ideas are not lost.
Value everyone's skills and talents
While many extroverts bring energy, good communication and decisive action to the business, introverts often have a strong and intuitive ability to reflect, appreciate, be open to ideas and listen to suggestions which are increasingly traits required in a business world where positive respectful culture is not negotiable.
Recognise the team as individuals
Thanks to neuroimaging technology, we know that different parts of the brain are more or less activated in line with if you are an introvert or extrovert and this will differ in each individual.

A great leader will recognise the strengths of their employees and be able to bring out their best qualities and give them tasks that they excel at, as well as ones which they might initially find challenging. A group which comprises both introverts and extroverts who are both allowed a voice is optimal.
Lynda Shaw is a brain and behaviour specialist and neuroscientist

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HR Magazine - Introverts are as important as extroverts for a successful business

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Employers may be being misled by the power of a louder voice, or the notion that the traits of an extrovert such as being a natural-born leader, someone who is self-assured, or a decisive communicator are more favourable.

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FastCompany:  Follow These 4 Steps to Creat Psychological Safety on Your Teams

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FastCompany:  Follow These 4 Steps to Creat Psychological Safety on Your Teams

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Their people-pleasing tendencies can be maddening. But they can teach us a lot about promoting our contributions and interacting with the boss.

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CultureAmp Podcast: How to Learn, Unlearn, & Stay Curious at Work

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CultureAmp Podcast: How to Learn, Unlearn, & Stay Curious at Work

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Culture First Podcast: How to learn, unlearn & stay curious at work | Culture Amp

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In this episode, Damon Klotz and Chip Conley explore what it means to be a modern elder, ponder the notion of our identity being wrapped up in our work, and why the older generation's emotional intelligence is just as important as the younger generation's digital intelligence.

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4 emotional workouts to help you feel empowered and promote resilience

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WaPo: 4 Emotional Workouts to Help You Feel Empowered & Promote Resilience 

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WaPo: 4 Emotional Workouts to Help You Feel Empowered & Promote Resilience 

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(Celia Jacobs for The Washington Post)

As the pandemic continues, so does the mental health crisis. Many of us are struggling with the grief and trauma the coronavirus unleashed, as well as stressors such as mass shootings and climate change. With so much suffering, there is a greater need for therapy, but many psychotherapists - myself included - can't meet the rising demand.
Sign up for the Well+Being newsletter for weekly tips on food, fitness and mental health
When new patients contact me, I help those in crisis find emergency care and connect others with counselors or group support. But when capital "S" stressors such as unrelenting anxiety, depleting depression and insomnia roar loud, some patients want more immediate help. This might explain why many prospective patients ask me: "What can I do now to improve my mental health?"

One possible solution, says clinical psychologist Emily Anhalt, is to add an "emotional workout" to your self-care regimen. "Just like working out prevents high blood pressure and heart disease, emotional fitness can be a proactive stance toward stress management," says Anhalt, the co-founder of Coa, a gym for mental health.

In Coa's virtual classes, Anhalt and her team teach exercises called "emotional push-ups," which are small ways to work on yourself each day. "The purpose is to strengthen your mental health muscles so that you're in a better position to face life's challenges," she says.

Self-care tools can be helpful, especially when barriers such as high-deductible insurance plans, high co-pays and living in remote areas can make mental health care difficult to afford or access. And while the pandemic isn't solely to blame for the lack of therapists, it's certainly made things worse, says Vaile Wright, the senior director of health-care innovation at the American Psychological Association.

This is why it's so hard to find mental health counseling right now

With too few mental health resources, we need innovative ways to make psychological care more accessible, she says. If you're waiting to see a therapist, can't afford mental health care or have recently finished therapy, emotional exercises are one way to strengthen your psychological muscles. While these workouts aren't meant to replace individual or group therapy, Anhalt says they can promote resilience and help you feel empowered.

Here are some expert-backed exercises to help you begin.

Overwhelmed? Schedule a 'worry date.'

The uptick in world turmoil is understandably rattling our mental health. Wright says the near constant "bad news" cycle and social media discussions can heighten our feelings of worry and overwhelm.

Researchers state that worry has a cognitive component, which is why ruminations often spur on troubling thoughts that play on repeat. One way to cope with this distress is to schedule a "worry date." "Set a time on your daily calendar to worry, obsess and ruminate," Anhalt suggests. During this date, take 10 to 15 minutes to jot down your woes.

In her book, " Cards Against Anxiety," mental health educator and author Pooky Knightsmith says a date with worry can stop this uneasy feeling from becoming the boss and taking over.

8 ways to feel less anxious about things beyond your control

Annoyed with a loved one? Practice the 'self-reflection push-up.'

When you're frustrated because your partner went to a concert maskless or a co-worker stole the spotlight, it's natural to see the annoying party as the problem. But another approach is to take the opportunity to learn about yourself, Anhalt says.

Feeling hurt, annoyed or angry with someone else's behavior might reflect something we dislike about ourselves. To examine this possibility, Anhalt suggests practicing an exercise she calls the "self-reflection push-up." This push-up uses the "3 Js, which stand for join, jealous and judge" to guide you.

Ask yourself if the other person's behavior is something you also do (join), are envious of (jealous) or criticize (judge). For instance, if you're annoyed with your friend for being selfish, you might realize that you've behaved the same way. Putting the spotlight on our actions allows us to take responsibility, Anhalt says.

When it comes to building close relationships, research shows that self-awareness can increase cognitive empathy, which is our ability to understand someone else's emotions from their perspective.

Feeling down? Befriend tough emotions.

As humans, we're wired to avoid pain. When uncomfortable emotions such as anger or sadness arise, we may try to distract ourselves from feeling bad. We may scroll through social media, drink an extra glass of wine or binge on Netflix. These tactics are called "defenses," which are thoughts and behaviors that keep us from feeling the unbearable. But when we solely rely on defenses, we avoid feeling our emotions, which hinders our ability to process them.

When upset emotions arise, try to befriend your feelings. Start by naming your emotions, a technique psychologists call "affect labeling." You can also become a detective by exploring where your feelings show up in your body. For example, I ask my patients, "Where do you feel that emotion?" and "What might it be trying to tell you?" The goal isn't to alter the emotion, but to bring awareness to how it feels in the moment.

It's natural to feel happy and sad at the same time. Here's when it can become a problem.

A 2018 research review states that " focusing on our feelings, without trying to change them" can help ease distress. This "in-the-moment" mind-set is what dialectical-behavior therapist Marsha Linehan calls "radical acceptance," and it's one way to stop pain from persisting. Many people assume that radical acceptance hinders change, but this liberating stance can escort transformation, says clinical psychologist Jenny Taitz.

Reeling with anxiety? Exercise curiosity.

About 32 percent of U.S. adults showed symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder in the week before Aug. 8, the Household Pulse Survey showed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For a smaller percentage of people, anxiety symptoms are a mental illness such as generalized anxiety disorder, which affects approximately 3 percent of Americans, or social anxiety disorder, which affects closer to 7 percent of the general population.

If you want to disarm your anxiety, adopting a curious mind-set may help. When fear and uncertainty strike, we're often quick to ask, "Why is this happening?" explains psychiatrist and neuroscientist Judson Brewer, author of " Unwinding Anxiety" and medical director of Sharecare. "The mind latches onto this 'why' question because we believe that uncovering the answer will fix our anxiety," Brewer explains. But in reality, this mind-set can keep us feeling helpless and stuck. To climb out of this rabbit hole, try to enter the "anxiety-free zone," the neuroscientist recommends.

How to make friends with your inner critic

One grounding exercise is to sit down, look at your feet, and ask, which "foot is warmer than the other?" This question helps spark curiosity, Brewer says. This wondrous feeling also can open the mind to possibilities, allowing us to see our situations in a different light, research shows. "When anxiety throws us for a loop, replacing 'Why is this happening?' with 'What is happening?' can pull us out of the anxiety-laden 'why zone,' " Brewer says.

Mental health exercises can teach us to better manage our worrisome thoughts and upset feelings. These workouts may also help us think about our discomfort in a different way. "Symptoms like anxiety and depression are the body's alarm system," Anhalt says. "By trying to understand them, we can uncover the root cause of our suffering."

If you're looking for additional mental health exercises, Wondermind offers a free newsletter with mental fitness tips, Coa offers a complimentary 15-minute emotional fitness class, and Liberate provides wellness classes to help people cope with stress and burnout.

We welcome your comments on this column at OnYourMind@washpost.com.

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4 emotional workouts to help you feel empowered and promote resilience

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As the pandemic continues, so does the mental health crisis. Many of us are struggling with the grief and trauma the coronavirus unleashed, as well as stressors such as mass shootings and climate change. With so much suffering, there is a greater need for therapy, but many psychotherapists - myself included - can't meet the rising demand.

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The brain loves a challenge. Here's why.

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WaPo: Why It Feels Good to Do Hard Things 

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WaPo: Why It Feels Good to Do Hard Things 

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(George Wylesol for The Washington Post)

As a rock climber, I fight against gravity while I scale the walls and their rocklike holds. But my arms invariably fatigue, my grip slips with sweat, and, sometimes, my nerves question whether I should stick to easier climbing routes.
Live well every day with tips and guidance on food, fitness and mental health, delivered to your inbox every Thursday.
Trying to do hard things is, well, hard. And exerting ourselves physically and mentally often feels bad.

Yet we seek out these challenges without any obvious extrinsic reward. I'm paying a monthly membership fee for the experience of flailing and falling in a rock-climbing gym.

Others go even further, scaling mountains, running marathons or even ultramarathons. And many people spend their leisure time exercising their minds on crossword puzzles, strategizing in board games, or playing video games.

Our penchant for doing hard things that make us feel bad is what researchers call the Effort Paradox. Trying hardis costly and aversive, but it's something humans value.

Our brains constantly conduct cost-benefit analyses on choices and actions. When we are hard at work, the anterior cingulate cortex located near the front of our brain tracks our efforts, and its neural activity appears to be associated with how bad the exertion feels. These effort signals help our brain evaluate whether it's worth it to keep trying or do something else.

Easy just feels better

Historically, the fields of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral economics have focused on the very intuitive notion that making an effort is tough a lot of the time. When presented with the choice of two cognitive tasks, people clearly prefer to do the easier one and are willing to accept fewer rewards to avoid having to try harder. One recent study found that people are willing to accept physical pain to avoid cognitively demanding tasks.

And it's not just humans who like being lazy. What scientists call the " law of least effort " seems to apply to animals as well. Rats, too, avoid physically challenging parts of the maze and cognitively demanding tasks.

Mental effort also exacts a physical toll: Our "fight-or-flight" sympathetic nervous systems activate, our pupils dilate, and our hearts beat harder.

Effort "just feels bad, and we tend to avoid it. That's why it's costly," said Michael Inzlicht, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. Yet at the same time, "there's something about pushing yourself that seems to be valuable and enjoyable as well."

One obvious reason we make an effort is for the end product, be it a championship trophy, personal record or end-of-year bonus. Generally, "in the real world, the harder you work, the more rewards you tend to get," Inzlicht said.

Neuroimaging shows that the ventral striatum, a brain region that plays a key role in processing rewarding outcomes, is more strongly activated when we achieve somethingthrough higher effort than lower effort.

We tend to value effort

The more effort something takes, the more we tend to value it.

People are willing to pay more for an object they built themselves than the same object built by experts - a phenomenon aptly named the IKEA effect.

But why do we value effort that feels bad? Why do mountaineers and other outdoors thrill seekers search for " Type II fun " even when the exertion itself feels terrible in the moment?

One study suggests that the answer may lie in the effort. Researchers found that rewarding effort - and not the outcome - prompted people to seek out more difficult tasks later, even if they didn't get additional rewards.

In the first experiment, 121 people were outfitted with electrodes to monitor their cardiovascular activity as a physical measure of how hard their brains were working on a standard memory task.

One group of participants was rewarded based on how much effort they exerted. Another group was rewarded with random amounts of money regardless of their effort.

Then, the same participants had to complete a different cognitive challenge of solving math problems and were allowed to pick the difficulty. Crucially, the participants were told they would not get paid for this portion of the experiment.

Despite this lack of extrinsic reward, the participants who were previously rewarded for their efforts decided to tackle more difficult math problems compared with the participants who got random rewards.

The second set of experiments conducted online with almost 1,500 participants found a similar result: Again, participants who were previously rewarded for exerting more cognitive effort chose to do more demanding math problems free.

The study suggests we can learn to enjoy the journey, regardless of the destination. The effort itself can be rewarding.

While the effects are relatively small, the results are exciting given that the training sessions were only about 15 minutes, said Veronika Job, a professor of motivation psychology at the University of Vienna and an author of the study.

"How we value effort is determined by what we experience in everyday life. We have this whole learning history" in schools and workthat tends to reward outcomes and achievements more than the effort we put in, Job said. Yet a short stint in the lab was able to make participants appreciate the intrinsic value of mental labormore.

The new studyis a just starting point to figuring out how to train oneself to be more effortful.

This doesn't mean going full throttle in all domains of your life all the time: Overexertion, burnout and possible injury are not healthy or desirable outcomes.

But being able to try hard is a useful skill for achieving challenging goals that you value. In one preprint study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, Inzlicht and his colleagues found that people who find meaning in their efforts tend to report higher life satisfaction and meaning as well.

Finding the value in effort is why we are able to climb mountains and find that hidden reserve of strength during a race or near a deadline.

For her part, Job has applied her findings to how she runs her lab. Celebrations now happen when grant applications are submitted, not just when they are accepted so "it's connected and more contingent on the actual effort," she said.

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Do you have a question about human behavior or neuroscience? Email BrainMatters@washpost.com and we may answer it in a future column. View 3 more stories

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The brain loves a challenge. Here's why.

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New research suggests we can learn to enjoy effort for its own sake with just a little bit of training.

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NYTimes Opinion (Adam Grant): The Science of Reasoning with Unreasonable People

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NYTimes Opinion (Adam Grant): The Science of Reasoning with Unreasonable People

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Opinion | The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People (Published 2021)

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Don’t try to change someone else’s mind. Instead, help them find their own motivation to change.

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High Performance Podcast: Finding Your Voice & Speaking Up

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High Performance Podcast: Finding Your Voice & Speaking Up

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E144 - Amanda Blanc: Finding your voice and speaking up

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Listen to this episode from The High Performance Podcast on Spotify. This episode is the start of our CEO Series, in which we will be deep diving into what it takes to be a CEO.Amanda Blanc is a Welsh businesswoman and the current CEO of Aviva, stepping into the role in July 2020.

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How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride on Your Team

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HBR: How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, & Pride on Your Team

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HBR: How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, & Pride on Your Team

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As a leader, what traits should you cultivate in your employees? Grit - the ability to persevere in the face of challenges? Sure. A willingness to accept some sacrifices and work hard toward a successful future are essential for the members of any team. But I believe there's another component that matters just as much: grace. I don't mean the ability to move elegantly or anything religious. Rather, I mean qualities of decency, respect, and generosity, all of which mark a person as someone with whom others want to cooperate.

Consider the results of Google's Project Oxygen, a multiyear research initiative designed to identify the manager qualities that enhanced a team's success. What they found is that yes, driving a team to be productive and results-oriented mattered, but so did being even-keeled, making times for one-on-one meetings, working with a team in the trenches to solve problems, and taking an interest in employees' social lives. In fact, these "character" qualities outranked sheer drive and technical expertise when it came to predicting success.

This makes sense. Innovation typically requires team effort. Expertise has to be combined to solve problems, necessitating cooperation. And cooperation requires a willingness to share credit and support one another as opposed to always striving to take credit for oneself.

So as a manager, what's the best way to instill grit and grace in your team? My research shows that it's about cultivating three specific emotions: gratitude, compassion, and pride.

These three emotions not only increase patience and perseverance, but also build social bonds. For most of human evolutionary history, the ability to succeed rested almost entirely on the ability to form relationships. People needed to be honest, fair, and diligent - qualities that required a willingness to inhibit selfish desires to profit at the expense of others. And it was moral emotions like gratitude, compassion, and an authentic pride that motivated these actions. For example, research has shown that when people feel grateful, they're willing to devote more effort to help others, to be loyal even at a cost to themselves, and to split profits equally with partners rather than take more money for themselves. When they feel compassion, they're willing to devote time, effort, and money to aid others. And when they feel proud - an authentic pride based on their abilities as opposed to a hubristic one - they'll work harder to help colleagues solve problems. And all of these behaviors draw others to us. People who express gratitude, compassion, and pride are viewed positively by those around them.

These emotions also build grit. They increase the value people place on future goals relative to present ones, and thereby pave the way to perseverance. Work from my lab, for example, shows that people induced to feel grateful show double the patience when it comes to financial rewards. They're twice as willing to forgo an immediate smaller profit so that they can invest it for a longer-term gain. In a similar vein, people made to feel pride or compassion are willing to persevere more than 30% longer on challenging tasks compared to those feeling other positive emotions, such as happiness, precisely because pride and compassion induce them to place greater value on future rewards.

You and Your Team Series

Building Good Habits

Unlike using willpower to keep your nose to the grindstone, using these emotions also helps solve an increasingly common problem of professional life: loneliness. Today, loneliness has become an epidemic in the U.S., with 53% of American workers regularly reporting feeling isolated in their public lives - an immense problem given the toll loneliness takes on the both physical and mental health. Regularly feeling gratitude, compassion, and pride - because these emotions automatically make people behave in more communal and supportive ways - builds social connections. For example, people assigned to engage in simple interventions to feel and express gratitude show enhanced feelings of social connection and relationship satisfaction over time.

Because of the connection between these emotions and grit and social connection, managers who cultivate gratitude, compassion, and pride in their team will see increased productivity and wellbeing of their workers. As one example, Adam Grant and Francesca Gino examined perseverance in an environment that is rife with more rejection than almost any other: fundraising. Over a two-week period, they recorded the number of calls fundraisers made in an effort to solicit donations for a university. Between the first and second week, however, half of the fundraisers received a visit from the university's director of annual giving, during which she expressed her appreciation for their work. To get a sense of how this expression of gratitude affected the fundraisers, Gino and Grant had them report how valued and appreciated they felt by their superiors.

Whereas the average performance of both groups had been virtually the same during the first week of the study, those who had heard the grateful message upped their fundraising efforts by 50% during the second week. What's particularly interesting here is the way the benefits of gratitude and pride can feed off one another. In another study on fundraisers, Grant and Amy Wrzesniewski found that the gratitude managers expressed toward their employees stoked the employees' pride, which in turn, bolstered their efforts.

Compassion, too, builds dedication. Surveying over 200 people working in different units within a large long-term care facility, Sigal Barsade and Mandy O'Neil found that those who worked in units characterized by higher feelings of social attachment, trust, acceptance, and support - a composite that could easily be called empathy and compassion - not only showed superior performance and engagement, but also increased work satisfaction, less exhaustion, and lower absenteeism.

Gratitude, compassion, and pride make us more willing to cooperate with and invest in others. But because they accomplish this feat by increasing the value the mind places on future gains, they also nudge us to invest in our own futures. In so doing, they make both teams, and the individuals who comprise them, more successful and resilient.

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How to Cultivate Gratitude, Compassion, and Pride on Your Team

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Leaders want teams that work hard and persevere in the face of challenges. But it's not enough to nurture grit among your employees. You also need to encourage grace - decency, respect, and generosity, all of which mark a person as someone with whom others want to cooperate.

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Hi! Dan here. Every once in a while I run into a writer who creates a piece so comprehensive, so well-thought out, and so full of insights that I'm jealous, because I wish I was smart enough to have been able to write it myself. This essay by Dr. Gena Gorlin is exactly that kind of piece. Dr. Gorlin is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Austin, and if you're a founder, or a builder looking to embark on a journey of self-transformation-this is the definitive place to start. I'm jealous-but I'm also immensely proud that we get to publish it. Enjoy!
One of the most satisfying parts of my job as therapist and coach is getting to "catch" my clients in personality changes that have become so second-nature as to escape their notice.

Like when I'm sitting with a client who perpetually doubted her own judgment and sought constant reassurance at the start of our work together, and, 6 months in, I notice her expressing mild annoyance that her colleagues haven't yet come around to her independently formed view of a prospective hire.

Or when, a year into working with a narcissistic patient who felt aggrieved by everyone in the world and never admitted fault under any circumstances, he spontaneously takes ownership of his role in fueling a conflict of which the other guy was the far more obvious instigator.

When I point out these changes, my clients' eyes often widen, followed by a quiet half-smile of recognition and a musing to the effect of, "wow, yeah, that would've never even occurred to old me..."

What delights and impresses me about these moments is that I've gotten to witness the evolution that led to them: the imperceptibly gradual turning of the flywheel by which a client has diligently pried away old perspectives and ways of doing things and effortfully laid down new ones, again and again, in circumstance after circumstance, through setback after setback, until finally the new ones had seeped far and wide enough into the foundations of their psyche to have become the new default.

What I'm describing here is not mere habit change or mere attitude change; I'm talking about deep, enduring character change. The kind of change that runs against our grain, that defies all our psychological defaults, that only happens through an unrelenting, deliberate campaign of radical self-betterment.

I'm talking about the kind of change undertaken by radical-Islamist-turned-global-peace-activist Maajid Nawaz, who narrates his evolution from fighting for the violent overthrow of America to advocating for a "secular Islam." His account reflects the kind of honest reckoning he has had to do with his previous self, whom he describes, for instance, as "[spreading] the very prejudice I claimed I was fighting."

I'm talking about the kind of change exemplified by luminary psychologist Marsha Linehan, who details her journey from spending 21 months in a psychiatric hospital isolation ward due to severe, intractable Borderline Personality Disorder, to pioneering the world's first and most widely renowned scientifically-based treatment for same-in a memoir aptly titled Building a Life Worth Living.

I'm talking about the kind of change by which Steve Jobs transformed himself from a "reckless upstart" into a "visionary leader" in the years after getting fired from his own company-a story told, not by Jobs himself, but by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli in their diligently researched biography Becoming Steve Jobs.

It is instructive that Schlender and Tetzeli wrote their biography partly as a corrective for the "one-dimensional myths about Steve" as an "unchanging half-genius, half-asshole from birth" that were "ossifying in the public mind" after his death. I suspect this discrepancy between Jobs' public persona and his private story of self-transformation illustrates a broader cultural phenomenon: stories of radical self-betterment are hard to come by, not because they are rare, but because they are rarely told. It takes far less effort and imagination to depict a static "half-hero / half-villain" figure-an easily pictured archetype in the tradition of Jeckyll and Hyde-than to piece together the complex, winding, idiosyncratic, often unglamorous struggle by which a person chisels away at his or her own character over time.

As a therapist and coach for ambitious founders and other "upstarts," I've both witnessed and lived that struggle in its many forms and iterations. I know how excruciatingly hard, and also profoundly rewarding, it can be. And I know it's not limited to high-profile, larger-than-life personalities like Nawaz, Linehan, and Jobs.

But I contend it should be more common still.

This is not to say everyone should always be focused on radically bettering themselves (see "The case against radical self-betterment" below for some reasons not to focus on it). Like any ambitious project you might take on, the work of radical self-betterment is too costly to undertake without good reason. Nawaz, Linehan, and Jobs all underwent their self-transformations out of what they would have probably described as necessity: the necessity of resolving painful, even deadly contradictions in his approach to life, in Nawaz's case; of finding a reason to stay alive, in Linehan's case; of fulfilling his creative and aesthetic vision for the technologies he loved, in Jobs' case. And each of them prioritized the changes that were mission-critical to achieving these aims, while learning to accept or compensate for character flaws that were less mission-critical.

The reason to care about your character is not because you need to prove anything to anyone, but because your character is your ultimate instrument for enacting the kind of life you want. So keep it as sharp as it needs to be in order to serve your chosen aims-and don't obsess over the dull bits a minute longer than your aims demand.

If you do choose radical self-betterment as your path, what follows is a step-by-guide that will help you along your journey from start to finish.

Step 1: Articulate your vision

The first step to determining whether and how you want to change is not necessarily to start listing out problems or deficits you wish you didn't have, though this may seem like the intuitive starting point. Rather, I suggest starting with a clear positive vision of what you really want out of your life, supposing psychological barriers weren't an issue.Really take some time to envision your ideal case scenario. The kinds of exercises in this Life Vision Worksheet, which I've assembled and adapted from the much larger toolkit of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) values clarification exercises (see a sampling here), can be quite helpful. Questions to ask yourself include: What do you long to experience, and with whom? What kind of work would you find most fulfilling? Where, how, with whom, and at what scale would you ideally be doing that work? What do you yearn for most deeply in your relationships, your friendships, your home, your family life? What would be your happiest and proudest reminiscences about the life you've lived, when you're 120 years old and writing your memoirs? What sort of mark would you most want to have left on the world, and on the loved ones who carry on your legacy?

Don't hold back when answering these questions. If you feel a sense of trepidation, anxiety, even guilt or sadness when certain possibilities occur to you, those are good signs that you might be onto something.

In addition to any concrete outcomes you already know you want to include in your ideal life vision (like "have at least one kid" or "write a book"), make sure you also identify the kinds of activities or experiences you want your life to be chock full of-at whatever level of description you can specify them. These are like general "directions of travel" rather than discrete milestones along your journey, and they are what psychologists typically refer to as "values."

For instance, I know I'll always value "building intimate, mutually inspiring emotional connections with smart, ambitious people." This has been a common denominator in many of the activities and interactions I've found most rewarding throughout my life, from therapy and coaching to academic mentoring to romance. I don't know all the exact milestones I'll need to hit in order to continue reaping these rewards throughout my life, but I know some of the character-building challenges I'll need to navigate-such as saying "no" to an ever-widening range of professional demands that eat into my time pursuing this value, or cultivating a network of increasingly impressive people without getting intimidated or distracted from my purpose.

Once you've articulated some of your own core values, it might help to boil them down into a "personal mission statement"-a short phrase or image that sums up the essence of what you're after in your life as succinctly and vividly as possible. This "personal mission statement" should quickly remind you, at a visceral emotional level, of the "truth North" you are pursuing, even through whatever difficult changes you need to make along the way.

For instance, my personal mission statement for many years has been "inspiring and empowering ambitious self-creation"-a purpose that animates me when I'm at my best, not only in my work, but in my marriage, parenting, friendships, and most private reveries.

While we can only guess at what Steve Jobs' personal mission statement might have been, if he had one, some recurring and idiosyncratically Jobs-ian themes do readily suggest themselves: the mission to extend the reach of human agency by building "a bicycle for the mind," for example, and even more fundamentally, to "make a dent in the universe"; or the advice he famously gave to the graduating class at Stanford to "stay hungry, stay foolish." It is not hard to imagine how some mix of these iconic statements might have resounded in his own head and urged him to keep growing in pursuit of his insatiable hunger and "foolish" idealism-even when it meant reckoning with his own deficiencies as a leader, and, ultimately, making a big dent in his own character in order to do it. Indeed, the Becoming Steve Jobs biography quotes Jobs' long-time friend Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar and later President of Walt Disney Animation Studios, reflecting on how the profound changes in Jobs' character over the years were intimately intertwined with his vision for the world: "I look at Steve as someone who was actually always trying to change, but he didn't express it in the same ways as others, and he didn't communicate with people about that. He really was trying to change the world. It didn't come across as him being personally introspective."

As to Linehan, she vowed early on, while still hospitalized and dealing with sometimes irresistible urges to cut herself, that "I would get myself out of hell-and that once I did, I would find a way to get others out of hell, too." Of course she knew very little at the time about the details of her long, circuitous journey toward realizing that mission, or that it would eventually materialize into a goal of "develop[ing] a behavior therapy that would help highly suicidal people live lives worth living." Yet that original vow, she writes, "has controlled most of my life," giving it the purpose and direction she would eventually help so many people find for themselves.

Step 2: Identify plausible paths to ideal life vision

Now, what might it realistically take to realize your ideal life vision, in whole or in part? Obviously you won't know the path in every detail, and there will almost always be multiple alternative paths you could consider. But usually there are probable steps and milestones you can identify, at least to some moderate level of specificity.

This is easier for some paths than others, of course: for instance, if you want to become a doctor, the path is fairly well-defined, at least to a point. If you want to become a writer or an entrepreneur, the path is much less "set," with almost infinite permutations on how you could get there and in what form you could pursue it. But there are certain broad elements you can specify even just in virtue of this indeterminateness: for instance, you'll need to get comfortable with risk; you'll need to learn to navigate highly uncertain decisions and environments; you'll need to get good at communicating and pitching ideas; you'll need to develop a network of fellow travelers and potential collaborators.

Here again, don't be too quick to rule out a given path because it seems too implausible or psychologically costly for you. You'll be better equipped to make this determination once you've reviewed steps 3-5 below.

Step 3: Identify change targets

Having thought through the potential path(s) to your ideal life vision, ask yourself: is there anything I could realistically be doing to get on this path, or to speed or improve my progress along this path, if my psychology worked differently than it does now?

If the answer is "yes" (or even "maybe"), then the next question is: what would need to be different? And how much time, energy, and capital would this change require?

For instance, perhaps you determine that you'll need to overcome your dysfunctional relationship with creative work in order to write that book you've always wanted to write; or that you need to develop a more secure attachment style in order to build the more uninhibited and mutually rewarding relationships you seek with your partner and kids.

Perhaps, like Marsha Linehan, you need to learn to love yourself and the fact of your existence for its own sake, rather than staking your worth on the approval of others or on whatever prerequisites you've learned you must satisfy before being allowed to pursue your own "life worth living." Maybe you're "drowning in an ocean of self-loathing and shame, of feeling unloved and unlovable, and of indescribable emotional agony" like 18-year-old Marsha, or maybe you just shy from setting boundaries or asserting your own needs on occasion because you feel it would be "selfish." Either way, you may need to firm up your self-love if you want to muster the will to fight for your own ideal life vision.

Or perhaps you need to develop greater agency over your own life and mind, so you can more often take the driver's seat rather than assume the role of a helpless passenger. This is so pervasive a theme that it features prominently in the stories of all three of our earlier protagonists: Linehan, who went from being "a victim of [her] depression to being a choice-maker," learning she has "control over what [her] mind can do" and can "slow down and decide" how to react in times of difficulty; Jobs, whose early life and career were hobbled by uncontrolled outbursts of anger and impetuous decisions he would later regret (as when he infamously denied paternity of his own child in 1978); and Nawaz, who had to overcome the "Islamist narrative of victimization" largely by reckoning with his own responsibility for perpetuating the kinds of violence and prejudice he claimed to be decrying.

Or perhaps you need to gain some self-credibility before you can fully trust yourself in the driver's seat of your life. As I've written about here, here, and here, we build or undermine our own self-trust over time by how honestly or evasively we deal with reality. This is again so pervasive an issue that each of our three self-transformation warriors had to grapple with it in some form. The theme of facing reality looms large in Linehan's personal journey and, consequently, in her therapy: "in order to change who/what you are," she writes, explaining the tenets underlying her concept of "radical acceptance," "you must first accept who/what you are. You have to accept reality in order to change it. Reality is what it is.... In order to have a chance of winning the game, you have to be in the game, playing the cards you're dealt." And it's not enough just to accept reality once; "you have to do it over and over and over. You have to practice turning your mind toward acceptance" of reality.

This is the kind of self-honest reassessment that any ambitious growth and change requires-and the more you practice it, the more you internalize it as part of your character for use in whatever further inquiries you might pursue.

To the extent that you haven't fully internalized one or more of these "big three"-self-love, self-trust, or agency-as part of your character, you'll likely find this interferes with your ability to pursue whatever ideals you've articulated. By contrast, when dealing with more concrete psychological hangups, like a fear of public speaking or an impulsive streak, you can often set up your life in ways that minimize their impact or even leverage them as strengths, without having to uproot them entirely. For instance, Steve Jobs' biographers describe how his "ballsy brashness" came to serve him well as a negotiator, once he decoupled it from old insecurities that would skew his judgment of what was truly non-negotiable.

Step 4: Develop accurate self-awareness

Once you've identified change targets, you need to develop self-awareness. As Linehan reminds us, "You have to accept reality in order to change it"-and you cannot accept that which you do not know. We need an accurate, uncensored awareness of our inner and outer worlds, however undesirable they may be, for the same reason that an architect needs an accurate, uncensored awareness of the physical landscape and raw materials she is working with. We cannot hope to build a better-suited self without first getting intimately acquainted with our own inner and outer landscape, including the psychological "raw materials" we're starting from. "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed," as Francis Bacon famously quipped; and the same goes for our second nature-that is, the habitual patterns of thought, emotion, motivation, and action that constitute our character.

The tools for building such self-awareness are vast and varied. Most involve some form of written self-reflection on what you're feeling, thinking, and doing, when, and why. Here is a "self-coaching worksheet" I've assembled that combines a bunch of widely used self-reflection tools and exercises, repackaged in a way that resonates with me and my clients. Of course this isn't the only way to do it, and it's not going to work for everyone. Some might have more success with free-form journaling, or thought records, or any of the countless mindfulness meditation or mood tracking apps, or talking to a coach or therapist, or any combination of these. Whatever your chosen method of systematically observing yourself, you'll want to review your observations in aggregate once in a while, so you can start identifying patterns in the data: for instance, what are the recurring feedback loops that keep you thinking, feeling, or acting in ways that don't clearly serve your purpose? What are the chains of events that get you to that same point each time? What actual or apparent needs do these behaviors serve, and where are those needs coming from?

Eventually you should have enough data to start identifying certain common underlying mindsets-implicit beliefs or attitudes about yourself, others, or the world, whether consciously endorsed by you or not-that both explain and are further reinforced by the feeling, thought, and action patterns you've observed in yourself.

In the Becoming Jobs biography, for example, we see multiple instances in which the young Jobs gets frustrated with his team members' performance and responds by shortchanging them the very resources and support they would need to improve their performance, thus further fueling his frustration and perpetuating the cycle. The underlying mindset, if I had to speculate based on similar patterns I've observed in my clients, might have amounted to something like "people either get it or they don't"-a kind of fixed mindset applied to the talents and capabilities of others.

The biography also notes several instances in which Jobs demonstrated increasing awareness of this pattern, as when he observed and admired the more patient and deliberate management style by which Catmull led Pixar's creative team to greatness: reflecting on whether Jobs ever explicitly acknowledged Catmull's influence on his own management approach, Catmull recalled how Jobs "said he valued what I did, and knew it was very different from what he did."

Consider giving your own names to the mindsets that show up most often for you or seem to wreak the most havoc; for example, the "guilting parent" mindset, or the "helpless victim" mindset, or the "people are impossible" mindset.

Step 5: Conscious re-assessment

Having identified the mindsets that show up for you most often or in the most impactful ways, you gain the power to separate them out for dialoguing and critical inspection. Instead of automatically letting them run your life, you now have the opportunity to reassess them in the light of day, ultimately forming a considered judgment of where you actually stand on them.

For example: do you believe, in your honest, considered adult judgment, that you are fundamentally helpless to affect your life circumstances? "Helpless" to do or effect what, exactly? How do you know? Are there any respects in which you're not helpless? How do you know?

Sometimes it may help to identify where your mindsets originated: for instance, whether your view of yourself as a helpless victim was an overgeneralization from early traumatic experiences you truly were helpless to control or prevent, or a message internalized from your early caregivers. Whether you can trace your mindsets back to their developmental origins or not, just know that such origins exist; and that they need not define you a moment longer than it takes you to scrutinize the resulting mindsets afresh.

You might find, upon self-honest scrutiny, that some of your mindsets are defensive narratives rather than sincerely held beliefs. For instance, perhaps your "I'm a helpless victim" narrative is just a front for an underlying fear that your problems might actually be your fault. If in doubt, you can try pulling aside the part of you that feels fundamentally helpless, just as you might pull aside a child who keeps getting in fights at school and blaming the other kids. Ask yourself, as you might ask the child: between us, how much do you actually believe this story? Like, would you swear to it under oath, or bet a lot of money on its being true? Or is there perhaps some other possibility that feels truer, though you're afraid to think about it?

If this does surface some hidden fear, like that you're at least partly responsible for the problems in your life, then that becomes a premise you can scrutinize. For instance, are you actually responsible in some way? How? If so, why doesn't this feel like good news, given what it means for your power to improve the situation going forward? If it feels like a threat to your self-worth, what standard of worth are you judging yourself against? Do you actually endorse that standard, upon reflection? Or would you love yourself as much or more for stepping up to take responsibility for your life, as for evading it?

A common mistake at this stage is to stop at "intellectually I know X belief is false, but emotionally it feels true." This is a normal state to slip into when you're first trying to remember and apply an alternative perspective in the wild, but if you don't feel at least slightly emotionally compelled by the new perspective even as you contemplate your reasons for believing it, then odds are you're not fully convinced of it yet. Keep reflecting, and see if you can take whatever it is you "know intellectually" and make it viscerally real to yourself.

If what you "know" is that you're "capable of persevering through challenges": what are the specific memories and moments in your life that best exemplify this fact about you? The ones that fill you with fierce and tender pride, even if tinged (as such memories often are) with the pain of loss and longing? Travel back to those moments and really take them in; the sights, the sounds, the stomach knots, all of it. What hard choices did you make at that time? How did you muster the courage or wherewithal to see them through? Now is the knowledge of your capacity to persevere through challenges becoming emotionally real to you? Or are there perhaps real questions or competing hypotheses (e.g., "I can persevere even through unexpected challenges" versus "I can only handle the routine and familiar ones") that remain?

This process is rarely a one-shot deal, of course; more often it will take the form of a diligent self-educational campaign. For more charged and complex issues, it may take weeks or months to go from competing hypotheses to a dominant working theory to a firmly held view in which you have unconflicted emotional buy-in.

Crucially, reaching this last step is not a prerequisite to taking action. On the contrary, the data you need in order to clarify and gather confidence in your hypotheses will often be the sort you can only get from lived experience, which you can only give yourself by testing out your competing hypotheses in action-e.g., by working on your book for at least 10 minutes daily, despite the internal resistance telling you it will be too painful or hard; or resisting the urge to check up on your kids again, despite the fear that this will backfire.

Step 6: Gather corrective experiences

Firmly deciding where you stand is just the beginning. Sewing this new conviction into the fabric of your character takes a lot more work. Even after having emotionally convinced yourself of your agential powers once, thrice, a thousand times, you'll still find your "victim mindset" showing up in a million new guises, rearing its ugly head every time you think you're past it, showing up in full regalia every time you find yourself in a different context than the ones where you've successfully discredited it in the crucible of lived experience.

The only way we become convinced of anything "all the way down" is by repeatedly staking our own safety and comfort on its truth. That's why taking action in the presence of conflicting emotions is a linchpin of virtually every form of psychotherapy. Though it goes by many different names-from " corrective emotional experience" to " behavioral experiment" to "exposure" to "opposite action"-the essence is the same. If you want to believe you can handle a difficult conversation, don't just try to think your way into believing it; take your fear by the hand, and go have the conversation. Let your fear see what you're capable of, and it will ease up its warnings the next time around. Some would describe such an act as "faking it till you make it," but I see it as the opposite: it is acting on what you know. This, I submit, is the essence of integrity. Don't let an outdated emotion fake you out into playing the victim, when you have the accumulated wisdom to know better.

While it is difficult to guess at another person's intention in pursuing a given experience, Job's experience of working with the Pixar creative team did appear to serve just such a corrective function in reshaping his "people either get it or they don't" mindset. As John Lasseter, one of the lead animators at Pixar, is quoted saying in the biography, "Watching our collaboration, seeing us make ourselves better by working together, I think that fueled Steve... I think that was one of the key changes when he went back to Apple. He was more open to the talent of others, to be inspired by and challenged by that talent, and also to the idea of inspiring them to do amazing things he knew he couldn't do himself."

Likewise, Linehan writes of how surrounding herself with people who deeply, genuinely loved her, even while still emotionally convinced she was unloveable, helped erode this belief by degrees. Of someone who feels trapped in a loveless hell, she writes, "they are like someone walking in a mist. They don't see the mist... [Yet] each moment of love adds to the mist, adds to the water in the pail. By itself, each moment of love may not be enough. But ultimately the pail fills and the person who has been in hell will be able to drink that water of love and be transformed. I know. I have been there. I have drunk from that pail."

If you seek out these needed experiences consistently over time, your feelings and thoughts of helplessness will eventually cease occurring to you, or at least will occur to you far less frequently and with far less of the emotional intensity they used to command. Like my clients from earlier, you'll be genuinely surprised when a friend points out just how much more confident or in control you've been sounding or acting lately.

This is the road to character change. It is a long road, but it is a scenic one-with at least as many delightful detours as painful ones. And you are always in charge of deciding where and how fast to go.

Step 7: Track progress and (re)calibrate expectations

Ok, so you accept that it's a long road and a winding one, but you may still want some idea of how long it will take to enact certain changes-especially if those changes center on time-sensitive life goals like "writing a book" or "starting a family." How can you estimate the time it will take, or know whether you're making enough progress?

On the one hand, there are loose averages that can inform your starting predictions to some extent. For instance, most therapies for specific psychological disorders like depression or anxiety offer significant symptom relief after 12-16 weeks, and effect significant and enduring change in more general personality traits-like emotional stability and extraversion-after an average of 24 weeks. That said, therapies targeting more global and pervasive personality pathologies, like Borderline Personality Disorder, tend to take closer to a year to get sustained results, and often require more intensive work by both patient and therapist.

Then again, these averages come with enormous error bars. No single aggregated statistic can tell you how or at what rate you can expect the tectonic structure of your personality to shift and rearrange itself, given your particular history and dispositions and aims and challenges-certainly not better than you can tell by observing your own progress and pitfalls over time, and updating your model accordingly. There are just a few broad principles you can be sure of.

"A 10-fold decrease in how long it takes to go from passive ruminating to active problem-solving after a setback" (6-8 weeks)

"At least one major life decision made without first seeking reassurance from my parents" (3-6 months)

"Feeling nervous excitement rather than dread as my dominant emotion when presented with an unexpected work opportunity" (12-16 months)

First, your progress will be non-linear, with numerous lapses and backslides along the way. Former smokers make somewhere from 6 to 30 quit attempts before successfully quitting cigarettes. And that's for one discrete (albeit highly addictive) behavior; you can expect higher numbers, all else being equal, in proportion to the complexity and ambitiousness of what you're trying to change about yourself. You'll be better equipped to handle these inevitable setbacks if you can build them into your predictive model, along with plausible plans for getting yourself back on track. Some of my clients find the "lapse vs relapse vs collapse" distinction helpful in this regard.

Second, while the work of radical self-betterment never really "ends," there are plenty of incremental progress markers you can track and celebrate along the way. For instance, if you're trying to reengineer your character around a core belief in your own agency, your incremental change goals could include:

Third, you will inevitably face all manner of discomfort and resistance along the way, and it will sometimes be hard to distinguish friendly fire from enemy fire: the discomfort of fighting for our values despite what feels like great risk, versus the discomfort of betraying them to escape that risk. Be alert to the difference between these discomforts-between what I call "growing pains" and "stagnation pains". As you get better at recognizing and distinguishing them, you can practice embracing the former and flinching at the latter.

With all that said, the best and most direct metric of your progress, of course, is whether you are getting more of what you want in life. Are you making headway on that ideal life vision you articulated? Are you actively writing that book? Are you getting more joy and fulfillment from your relationships? Are you scaling your company successfully thanks to your improved leadership? These are the ends to which radical self-betterment is the means, remember; so keep them close, and don't let anything replace them as your rudder.
It's really, really hard. (Plot spoiler: this is not actually a good reason not to do it, though it can often feel like one.)
The case against radical self-betterment
We are actively discouraged from doing it.
With all of this said, there are compelling reasons why more people don'tpursue radical self-betterment, or don't end up sticking with it even if they try.

Changing your character in a fundamental, enduring way is one of the hardest things you can do. It means waging a war on inertia, on entropy, on all the homeostatic forces and dynamical systems whose sole function is to keep you in an unchanging equilibrium. Most people either underestimate how hard it is, or write it off as impossible-or more likely oscillate between the two. And if they've internalized any of the various shades of fatalism or determinism with which our culture is well-saturated, they are that much less likely to believe themselves capable of changing through their own efforts, and thus less motivated to persevere in them. That's why internalizing a belief in your agency-your fundamental capacity to solve your own problems and shape the basic course of your life through your own efforts-is among the most game-changing changes you can pursue.

The idea that people should raise their psychological ambitiousness would be highly controversial among my fellow psychologists. And they'd be right to worry, given the real risk of adding fuel to the fire of the perfectionistic inner drill sergeant that brings so much psychological misery to so many of us already.
People try to "better themselves" for the wrong reasons, or just because they feel they "should"-and burn out harder than if they hadn't tried at all.
Where I've come to differ from the psychological establishment is that I don't think the drill sergeant should have a monopoly on the ambitious pursuit of excellence. If we listen past the angry, nervous clamor of our inner drill sergeant, what we will often find is the voice of our inner builder: the part of us that wants to live in a beautiful, abundant world of our own design, as guided by our own highest values and ideals. Building that world demands excellence, yes; but it is an excellence defined by nobody's standards and pursued for nobody's sake except our own.

As I've written elsewhere, it's the builder, not the drill sergeant, who genuinely cares about excellence; for the builder's excellence is in service of the particular life she wants to build, whereas the drill sergeant threatens you with "excellence" as a vague, arbitrary dictate you have to appease before being allowed to build your own chosen life in the first place.
The tradeoffs may not be worth it.
The reason to care about your self-betterment is not because some inner drill sergeant, be it the voice of God or your parents or your boss or society or even this article-commands it. Such reasons have never compelled anyone to change themselves in any deep, enduringly positive way, and nor should they. You're the only one who has to live with you forever; so your character is nobody's business but your own.

By the same token, if you ever find that "working on your character" becomes a distraction from pursuing your valued goals, rather than a means to them, you're probably better off ceasing and desisting.

Only you can decide, in the context of your particular life and goals, what changes are and are not worth pursuing. Even if you find yourself afflicted by a lack of self-worth or a trauma-induced victim mindset, you may reasonably judge that it's not necessary or worthwhile to try to uproot it entirely: it may be enough to gain awareness of the ways it pushes you around, so you can override it in the moment and not let it control what you actually say and do. Just as someone might reasonably choose to live with a chronic illness rather than opt for a costly experimental cure, so you might reasonably choose to live with some residual learned helplessness or self-loathing rather than go through the costly process of reengineering your psychology. This may be a perfectly valid choice, so long as you recognize that it is a choice, and that there are real tradeoffs involved.

Loving the growth: a source of stability through change

Elsewhere I've written about how the "builder's mindset" rejects the dichotomy between "outcome-focused" and "process-focused" approaches, recognizing that the process by which we build our chosen life is inseparable from the outcomes we seek. This applies in spades to our efforts at radical self-betterment: it is not just for the sake of some distant future reward that we undertake this project. It is for the joy and thrill and fascination of exercising our nature as the kind of being that aggressively seeks to better itself; and it is for our love of that being as it already exists within us. That love is not so unlike the love a parent feels for a child: it is a love that encompasses all that we are, and all that we are striving and struggling to become.

If we can love that striving, struggling part of ourselves with all our might, then nurturing and tending to our character becomes a natural expression of our love. And even as we envision and set our sights on a much better future version of ourselves, there are many ways to enjoy the promise of that future even in the here-and-now. With every small act of facing a fear we had previously avoided, we bring new, previously off-limits situations and opportunities within our reach-thus both experiencing and strengthening our commitment to a life of courage. With every mental reframe of an "I can't" into an "I don't want to right now", we expand the choices within our reach-thus both experiencing and strengthening our commitment to a life of ever-growing agency.

And even as we guide ourselves over and over through the inevitable lapses and neurotic self-doubts and self-sabotaging patterns, there's a deeper part of us that knows who we really are and why we're doing all this. We are the builders of our own better future. And in fighting for that better future, we get to live in it today.

Dr. Gena Gorlin, is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a licensed psychologist specializing in the needs of ambitious people looking to build.

The Stable Diffusion prompt used to create the cover image for this piece is: a caterpillar becoming a butterfly omnidimensional electroluminescent wire by matisse

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Hi! Dan here. Every once in a while I run into a writer who creates a piece so comprehensive, so well-thought out, and so full of insights that I'm jealous, because I wish I was smart enough to have been able to write it myself.

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