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Making Your Work More Meaningful

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Curiosity is critical to professional success. A curious mind will spot and solve problems, while being unafraid to try something new. It will seek out the insights of others, and open itself to expanded thinking. A curious person will never succumb to apathy, instead pushing consistently for growth, innovation, and improvement. Anyone seeking to build a successful career must embrace curiosity.

But curiosity isn’t just essential to professional advancement — it’s central to crafting purpose and meaning at work. We all want to feel that our work is meaningful, and we all have an opportunity to make it so. But it takes curiosity — about ourselves, our work, and the people we work with — to unlock deeper purpose each day.

Craft Your Work

One of the best ways to enhance the meaning you get from work is through job crafting — the art of making small changes to your work life to turn the job you have into the job you want. The idea is that by making small changes to your work, you can tailor it to your unique passions, personality, and interests in a way that maximizes its meaning to you and others. My favorite example is Curtis Jenkins, a Dallas bus driver who managed to revolutionize his position to create what reporters called a “yellow bus utopia” while changing hundreds of lives. 

Curiosity is a necessary pre-condition for job crafting. It starts with a self-evaluation. Ask yourself questions such as what am I good at (really)? What do I love to do? What makes me happy on the job? A thoughtful self-understanding explored deeply and with an open-mind can provide the foundation upon which job-crafting is built. 

Then, apply this self-awareness to the job: 

  • What elements of my job could I tweak to be more meaningful for me and more impactful for others? 
  • Can what I currently do be done differently? 
  • Is my job, as structured, solving the most important problems — for the organization and those we serve — in the best ways? 

To get started on this practice, make a list of the core people you serve in your work, then list the outcomes of your job that help to serve them well. Then reflect on your current tasks and see if there are ways in which you could serve those people as well or better by doing your work differently. You may find ways in which to craft your work that are both better for them and more meaningful for you.

Make Work a Craft

The second way to make work more meaningful is to make it a craft. For much of history, people would often practice professions inter-generationally. Trades like farming, carpentry, and cobblery might pass generation to generation in a family. And often a person would painstakingly perfect the craft over a lifetime. This quest for perfection and constant improvement created the most memorable achievements in history — from the murals of the Sistine Chapel to breakthroughs in genetics and the elegant simplicity of the original Mac. 

This commitment to craftsmanship offers a sense of purpose in and of itself. As I explain in my book, we all gain meaning from work well done. There’s intrinsic motivation and purpose in knowing that we’ve put our best efforts into something, that we’ve honed a craft in a way that challenges us.

But how can we find opportunities for craft in our modern jobs? After all, building financial models or leading a team in a factory can feel a bit distant from Michelangelo’s historic masterworks or the genius of Steve Jobs. But craft is not about historical impact. It’s about self-improvement and a quest to push the limits of our own performance — to take on new challenges and achieve something hard and unique. When I was an analyst at McKinsey, this looked like building beautiful Excel models with elegant formulas that could last clients years. I did this whether the partners noticed or not because I took pride in challenging and improving myself. In your job, it’s something else. Curiosity can unlock it. 

Ask yourself: 

  • What are the core elements of your job that require excellence? 
  • What skills do you need to perform that job well? 
  • What are one or two areas you can focus on now to make a craft, and how can you improve day-by-day until you do those things better than anyone else and to the best of your ability? 

To begin, pick one area of your work you’d like to try to hone and perfect. Make this something you enjoy that is important to your job. Then assess the 5-10 ways you could make it better and begin working to improve them and challenge yourself. Keep notes each day or save old versions sequentially so you can see your improvement over time.

Connect Work to Service

There’s almost nothing in life that improves our sense of well-being and purpose like service to others. Numerous studies have shown that acts of service have an immediate impact on happiness and fulfillment. And in my own life, I’ve rarely felt as purposeful as when building a Habitat for Humanity home with colleagues, serving in a soup kitchen, or reading to kids at a local school.

Service doesn’t have to be confined to volunteer work in a community, however. As I’ve outlined in a previous article, there are at least six opportunities to serve others in any job: clients or customers, colleagues, capital, community, partners, and people we love. Knowing this and seeking opportunities for service in each of these areas can bring meaning to work. 

But identifying the people we serve and ways to serve them requires deep-seeded curiosity. Consider these questions: 

  • Who are my clients? 
  • What do they need? 
  • What are the key obstacles to their well-being that I’m helping to overcome in my work, and how can I do it better? 
  • Which colleagues need my help the most? 
  • How can I effectively offer that with no expectation of return? 
  • Which two or three people could I best serve today?

These questions, founded in curiosity, are at the heart of service to others. Pick two of the six areas you like above — colleagues and customers for example. Think of 2-3 individuals in each of those two groups you could serve better and spend the next month trying to really understand them, and ways to use your work to serve them well. 

Invest in Positive Relationships

In social science literature, perhaps nothing is as central to happiness as meaningful positive relationships with others. Such relationships are essential to Martin Seligman’s PERMA framework for flourishing and the findings of the Harvard Grant Study that “Happiness is love.” And those findings are echoed in the works of many others.

Relationships aren’t confined to our personal lives. Each workday we spend more than 8 hours with work colleagues, whether remotely or in person. And trying to navigate work in the absence of meaningful relationships is a recipe for disappointment. Positive relationships at work can help us to flourish, can make others happy, and can create extraordinary corporate cultures. 

At work, as at home, relationships rest on empathy and curiosity. We can’t have a relationship of mutual care and respect with someone if we don’t display a genuine curiosity for that person. Ask: 

  • Who are they? 
  • What matters to them? 
  • What are their anxieties and fears, passions, and purpose? 
  • On any given day, how are they feeling? 
  • What are they interested in intellectually? 

Constantly approaching others with curiosity will naturally build your own empathy and show those people you care — creating meaningful relationships in the process. When you are interacting with work colleagues over the next month or two, consciously make a game of trying to know them better. Ask more questions than you answer. And carve out time for conversations and interactions with your colleagues that don’t just accomplish your work tasks but (in a professional way) enhance the relationship you have with them. Improving your work relationships will make you and those around you happier, and it will probably make you more productive as well. Curiosity is undoubtedly essential to professional success, but it’s also at the heart of purpose. Living with greater curiosity at work can help us to craft jobs and professional environments that help us and others flourish.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF OUR UNBIASED HR SOLUTIONS?

Take the first step towards transforming your remote work culture by requesting a free demo assessment from Great People Inside.        

Our team of experts will guide you through the assessment process, showcasing the effectiveness and value of our tailored solutions for your organization.        

During the demo, you will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive features and functionalities of our psychometric assessments, experiencing firsthand how they can empower your HR strategies and drive positive outcomes. From personality assessments to cognitive abilities and team dynamics evaluations, our assessments provide valuable insights to enhance talent management and foster inclusive remote work environments.        

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to test the power of unbiased HR solutions. Request your free demo assessment from Great People Inside today and embark on a journey of fair and effective talent management in the remote work era.        

Together, we can unlock the true potential of your remote teams and achieve remarkable success. Request a Free Demo Assessment.        

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Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2022/07/26/10-tips-for-defining-and-achieving-meaningful-work-in-your-career/
https://stressandresilience.com/3-ways-to-make-your-work-more-meaningful/
https://achievecentre.com/blog/5-practical-ways-to-make-work-meaningful/

When Should You Discuss A Problem With HR?

Working in a toxic environment can rapidly erode your feelings about your job. Just dragging yourself to the office every day can fill you with dread. And evaluating whether to speak up to HR about the toxicity — How much should you say? — can be incredibly intimidating.

We know this from firsthand experience. A few years ago, we were asked to analyse and assess what seemed like an edgy, dynamic startup. After three weeks we realised we had unwittingly joined a team trying to navigate a destructive workplace culture. The team was led by an impossible-to-please micromanager with an explosive temper. The office environment was fraught and tensions were always running high. The organisation didn’t have an HR leader, or any other senior leaders, so people didn’t know where to turn for help. It took us 18 months to start changing mentalities and toxic work habits.

To this day, we help professionals solve workplace challenges that can feel insurmountable. Toxic norms and cultures are among the hardest issues to deal with, and can make people question their values and competence, and even wonder if quitting is their only option. If you’re feeling similarly, you aren’t alone — study after study shows that these kinds of cultures drive attrition. Other people make or break our experiences at work.

Toxic Versus Irritating

For someone to be considered “toxic,” they can’t just be annoying or unpleasant. We’ve all had colleagues or bosses who we found irritating or didn’t get along with, but that doesn’t necessarily make them toxic. To be toxic, a person or situation must be outside the bounds of normal workplace behaviour. A colleague whose work style and preferences regularly conflict with your own isn’t necessarily toxic. A boss who actively undermines your career progression or a leadership team that encourages cutthroat competition between departments, on the other hand, could qualify as toxic.

This distinction is important because if you go to HR about an issue that is more annoying than toxic, they may be happy to serve as a sounding board or to offer advice — but they’ll approach it far differently than they would something truly toxic. From an HR perspective, disagreements, irritations, or isolated incidents rarely warrant escalation. If there is ongoing friction due to conflicting work styles and personalities, HR will probably advise that you and your coworker find a way to discuss and resolve the challenges. You may receive support from HR on how to have the conversation, with an emphasis on working together to find a solution. For personal support, however, I encourage you to talk to someone you trust outside of your organisation. A mentor, former boss, therapist, or career coach can be a sounding board and an objective partner to help you clarify your next steps.

You may be considering going to HR about a toxic situation at your job. If possible, you should discuss the situation with your manager first to get their input and counsel. HR will most likely ask if you’ve gone to your boss for help, so it’s a good idea to do that first. However, if your manager is contributing to the toxic environment, you should talk to a senior leader you trust to receive an objective perspective and guidance. And if you are experiencing a situation that goes against company policy or could have legal implications, HR should be your first stop.

You may worry that going to HR about a certain person or situation could backfire. Maybe you fear that the toxic person will find out you said something and take action against you. Or maybe you’re nervous that going to HR about a toxic norm in company culture could hurt your career if senior leaders hear about it. These are normal fears, and before you do anything, it’s worth thinking carefully about what you want to do and make sure you understand the possible outcomes.

What to Consider Before Going to HR

As you weigh the pros and cons of speaking to HR, here are three questions to help assess your options.

1. Have I documented what happened?

If you plan to report toxicity to HR, you will need detailed records to clearly outline your claims. Make sure to document the following:

  • What was said or done
  • The date and time of the incidents
  • If there were any witnesses

For example, your record may state: “On Tuesday, July 11, at approximately 12:30 p.m. ET, I heard [insert name] use the following language [insert exact words] within our weekly Webex team meeting. The following people were present: [insert names].”

In addition to documenting any verbal exchanges or physical interactions, it’s important to also have available text messages, emails, photographs, or any other relevant evidence of what happened. Employment lawyers recommend keeping your records at home, not at work or on your company devices. If your employment status changes in the future, you will lose access to your work computer and the emails or records may be deleted.

Documenting the details in advance allows you to provide a full account to HR and specific feedback when needed. A detailed record will also give you the opportunity to cross-reference what you’ve documented against company policies. Finally, since many toxic situations can bring up strong emotions, especially while they’re happening, documenting what occurred will ensure you have a clear, fact-based record to refer to later.

2. What’s my objective?

By the time you decide you need to talk to HR, the toxic situation may feel like it’s becoming untenable. I encourage you to identify your overarching objective in speaking up.

In other words, be clear on what you hope to accomplish. It could be that you need HR to help resolve the issue. For example, the person who is instigating a toxic situation may need professional development training or coaching to address their behaviour. You may also be hoping to bring some accountability to their actions. Or, if there’s an ongoing issue and previous interventions have failed, HR may work with the relevant supervisors to create a performance improvement plan. Clarifying your overarching objective before you act allows you to consider the implications of the potential outcomes, ranging from the best possible response to a dismissive reaction.

Remember, too, that it’s important to acknowledge the remit of the HR team, which is to serve the best interest of the employer. As an employee, any expectations that an HR person will become your primary advocate are unrealistic. This is not personal; it’s just the nature of how organisations operate.

3. Is what I’m experiencing illegal?

Finally, before going to HR, consider whether the toxic behaviour you’re experiencing is illegal.

Dealing with toxic behaviour at work — whether it’s related to harassment, discrimination, ethical concerns, safety infringements, or retaliation — can be deeply distressing. HR departments have a responsibility to ensure that companies adhere to employment laws and regulations. An employer also has a legal obligation to investigate any good-faith complaint of harassment; discrimination based on race, sex, religion, disability, or other protected status; or retaliation for reporting an issue.

If you are unsure if what you are experiencing is illegal, seek out professional counsel. An employment lawyer can answer your questions based on the applicable laws and regulations, assess the evidence, and determine the merits of your claim. If you do have a case against your employer, an attorney can explain the legal process and advise you on how to navigate your interactions with HR.

On the other hand, if what you’re experiencing isn’t illegal but is toxic, I encourage you to explore all the potential options you can pursue that align with the objective you identified. To do this, start by considering whether additional stakeholders might be able to assist. Questions to consider include: Is anyone else impacted by the toxic behaviour? Is my supervisor already aware of it? Are other contingent factors contributing to what I’m experiencing? You may be able to seek counsel from additional stakeholders before instigating a conversation with HR.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF OUR UNBIASED HR SOLUTIONS?

Take the first step towards transforming your remote work culture by requesting a free demo assessment from Great People Inside.

Our team of experts will guide you through the assessment process, showcasing the effectiveness and value of our tailored solutions for your organization.

During the demo, you will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive features and functionalities of our psychometric assessments, experiencing firsthand how they can empower your HR strategies and drive positive outcomes. From personality assessments to cognitive abilities and team dynamics evaluations, our assessments provide valuable insights to enhance talent management and foster inclusive remote work environments.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to test the power of unbiased HR solutions. Request your free demo assessment from Great People Inside today and embark on a journey of fair and effective talent management in the remote work era.

Together, we can unlock the true potential of your remote teams and achieve remarkable success.Request a Free Demo Assessment.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is B_txt_01.png

Sources:

https://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/creativity-culture/when-to-go-to-hr-for-a-problem
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-your-hr-department-is-your-friend/
https://fairygodboss.com/career-topics/when-to-go-to-hr

Communicating with Kindness

Believe that in every interpersonal communication, leaders should be on the side of kindness. This statement is seemingly simple but it takes courage to live — especially now.

We live in a world in which a host of issues are eating away at our connections with each other. Take lack of focus: When was the last time you had a conversation without one of the people involved checking their phone or multitasking? Or speed: We run from one thing to the next without reflecting on the human implications of what we just did.

But the challenge becomes harder when you consider that people may not want to be kind. Of those who felt strongly about a particular social or political issue, only 30% of people said they would help someone who held a different point of view on the latest Edelman Trust Barometer survey. As a result of political polarisation, everything is becoming a political statement (think about masking coming out of the pandemic). Perhaps as a result of these factors, common incivility is rampant in the workplace.

Great leadership is all about connecting with people by making them feel seen and heard. That means standing against all of these trends and impulses and instead practicing what we can call “gracious communication.”

This involves small gestures and an overall demeanour that allow for connection. For a senior leader — as well as any aspiring leader — this kind of communication is important in day-to-day interactions as well as in big, difficult conversations. You’ll find yourself enjoying stronger relationships and a respected leadership presence, as well as more creativity, resilience, and, ultimately, stronger leadership.

Break down defensiveness with KINDNESS

When you go into a tough environment always start by saying, “Thank you so much for inviting me here today.” Wear a smile when you say this, and I mean it. It shows that you’re there to listen and contribute, not to stonewall anyone. And that’s disarming: It lightens the mood and opens the ears. At the same time, it takes courage and shows your maturity. That allows for more creative, productive problem-solving.

To be clear, we’re not saying that there is no place for showing anger to someone. If they hurt you or your family, for example, anger is an appropriate response. But it’s not the most effective tool for opening minds and moving hearts. Anger shuts the other person down; kindness opens them up.

And, as a leader, others are always watching your communications, and if you are known to be someone who blows, you will be isolated from important negative news. An angry or volatile organisational culture makes it less likely that people will speak up about important risks or problems. That makes your organisation less able to respond quickly to crises.

Give credit where credit is due

People like to be seen and appreciated. Recognising those who deserve it engenders enthusiasm, hard work, trust, and loyalty.

Practicing gratitude and kindness also spurs your creativity: Reflecting on your interaction with someone after the fact often sparks an idea for another opportunity with them, or another way to continue the conversation. It helps you to slow down long enough for those ideas to emerge.

Giving recognition is as powerful for your peers as it is for those you lead. Every time you see someone in a group getting recognition, you must circulate it to the rest of the group. Do this because you admire the people you work with, and honestly believe what you are saying. Believe that it makes you, the credit-giver, look good too: It communicates that you have the maturity and self-confidence to appreciate someone else.

This is a surprising move because claiming credit is the big thing in the corporate world these days. Think about humblebragging: the trend in which someone bemoans how many horrible nights they stayed up late to finish an important project (the point for the audience being how important the project was and how big their role on it). Or posting on social media about how blessed or humbled they are to have achieved a huge promotion. It’s endless and nauseating, because the need to claim credit for everything is destructive and counterproductive in the end.

The urge to claim recognition can be particularly strong if someone has just taken credit for your idea or your work. But before you step in to correct the record, think twice. People are observant; they can often see who is doing the work. Staying silent in that moment, rather than rushing to say “No, I did it!” shows a lot about how confident you feel about yourself and can keep the door open for a connection with the other person.

Of course, there are situations where you should raise your hand and take a bow, such as when you are leading a team that achieved a stretch goal (in which case, say “we”) or when your company reputation is at stake. In the end, giving credit to others can be more powerful for you than taking it.

Give the other party space and clarity

No matter what conversation you want to have with someone, don’t catch them off their guard or off their game. Whether it’s an innocuous quick question or a serious piece of bad news, always ask if it’s a good time and try to give them a sense of what you want to discuss.

This gives your counterpart an opportunity to prepare themselves for any surprises or tough news that you need to share, and makes it clear that you are interested in listening to their response. It can also calm them down — they go from not knowing what to expect to understanding the lay of the land. It gives them a roadmap for your ramble.

This can be as simple as reaching out to a colleague and saying “Is now a good time to discuss our fall campaign?” (rather than just FaceTiming them at odd hours, which I used to do). It could be giving some emotional context for news that could be perceived in different ways.

For big issues this can require a little more preparation: I had something important to talk to my boss about the other week. I told him, “I’d really appreciate it if we could find a few minutes during the offsite to talk about this issue I’m having related to my team,” and sent him a few slides so he would know what it was about and knew to find me when he had 15 minutes, not two.

You won’t always have time to prepare, but there are still ways to give the other person space. If the need to push back on something or deliver bad news comes up in the moment in a conversation, you can say “lLet’s stop right there” and be candid. But if it is a group situation, if possible, wait until the meeting is over and then call them back. Let’s say they said something offensive. Give them a call and say, “You may not know how that landed,” and discuss it from there. Shaming people publicly is not a good idea, but trying to educate others in private is a great idea.

Whatever tactics you choose, the idea is not to burden the other person in your conversation, and instead to be outward focused — on the other person, not yourself. However hard that is, especially in today’s polarized and fast-paced world, it pays big dividends toward your relationships, your leadership, and your own well-being.

CURIOUS ABOUT THE IMPACT OF OUR UNBIASED HR SOLUTIONS?

Take the first step towards transforming your remote work culture by requesting a free demo assessment from Great People Inside.

Our team of experts will guide you through the assessment process, showcasing the effectiveness and value of our tailored solutions for your organization.

During the demo, you will have the opportunity to explore the comprehensive features and functionalities of our psychometric assessments, experiencing firsthand how they can empower your HR strategies and drive positive outcomes. From personality assessments to cognitive abilities and team dynamics evaluations, our assessments provide valuable insights to enhance talent management and foster inclusive remote work environments.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to test the power of unbiased HR solutions. Request your free demo assessment from Great People Inside today and embark on a journey of fair and effective talent management in the remote work era.

Together, we can unlock the true potential of your remote teams and achieve remarkable success.Request a Free Demo Assessment.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is B_txt_01.png

Sources:

https://www.spreadingkindnesscampaign.org/personal-kindness/communication
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/your-tone-matters-strategies-communicating-kindness-diane-a-ross
https://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/the-power-of-small-acts-of-kindness-how-to-encourage-a-supportive-work-environment

Understanding Your Best and Your Worst Customers

As Covid-19 declined, a European multichannel retailer observed a decline in its online revenues, which caused alarm. But then they looked at the data a different way, focusing on transactions by individual customers. When they sliced the data in this manner, they realised that their customer base was actually healthy, but that their channel behaviour had shifted: Online purchasing, which had become unnaturally accelerated during the pandemic, was now returning to a more normal pattern of online and offline purchasing.

A European multi-brand underwear retailer was a major reseller of La Perla, a premium Italian lingerie brand. A new merchandising leader undertook a review of brand profitability and saw that the company was actually losing money on its La Perla sales. The brand had relatively low margins, a high return rate, and required expensive photography costs to capture its products’ elegance online. The company debated whether it was worth carrying a brand that consistently created losses. However, when they looked at La Perla through the lens of the customer, they reached a completely different conclusion. La Perla was often the first brand purchased by their most valuable customers, who went on to purchase a wide variety of more profitable products. Instead of cutting ties with La Perla due to its lack of profits, the retailer ended up expanding their range of La Perla offerings — and this became a critical driver of its growth.

What do these two examples have in common? Companies often look at their business by focusing on geographic regions, specific brands or products, or by sales channel. This makes sense, because this data is always at hand, and organisations are often structured around geography or channels. But by looking at data and business problems from a frame of reference in which the customer is the atomic unit for analysing revenue and profitability, these firms were able to gain a new perspective on the problem they were facing, either properly diagnosing the problem or stopping themselves from making a bad decision.

As you analyse your firm’s revenues and profits, or as you make plans for the future, what’s your unit of analysis?

At too many firms, analysing the data of individual customers gets short shrift. Management reporting systems make it easier to focus on other things, and the organisational structure can make other metrics a priority. (If you have a person in charge of online sales, it feels natural to judge his or her performance by channel metrics.) This lack of focus on individual customer data is often a mistake. Revenues are generated by customers pulling out their wallets and paying for your products and services. Revenue is the sum of the value of all the customer transactions that occurred in a given time period.

Many firms recognise the need to think differently about using customer data, but they do not know where to start. They are often trapped in an old-fashioned view of their business, structured around products or channels. How do you approach the task of getting your people to shift their perspective and start thinking about your firm’s performance using the customer as the atomic unit of revenue and profitability?

We have found that performing a customer-base audit is a fundamental catalyst for change.

What is a Customer-Base Audit?

A customer-base audit is a systematic review of the buying behaviour of a firm’s customers using data captured by its transaction systems. The objective is to provide an understanding of how customers differ in their buying behaviour and how their buying behaviour evolves over time.

  • We are not talking about “knowing the customer” through the lens of traditional market research. We are not interested in the demographic profile of our customers. We are not interested in their attitudes. We are interested in understanding their actual buying behaviour.
  • It is an unashamedly descriptive and diagnostic exercise. It doesnot involve any forecasting models, AI/ML methods, or prescriptive advice. Rather, it lays the foundation to perform these kinds of tasks more effectively after the audit has been completed.

The starting point is a list of transactions for each customer (date, time, products purchased, total spend, etc.). This will reside somewhere in your company’s operational IT system.

Traditional reports will summarise performance by product. Think of an Excel worksheet where the rows correspond to individual products and the columns correspond to time (e.g., quarter).

Now, imagine an alternative summary table — again, think of an Excel worksheet — where the rows now correspond to individual customers and the columns correspond to time (e.g., quarter). The entries in the table report each customer’s total spend with the firm in that particular time period. Another table tells us how many transactions each customer made with the firm. (For most firms, these tables will contain lots of zeros.) If you’re lucky, you’ll also have an equivalent table that summarizes the profit associated with each customer in each period.

How do we approach the task of gaining insight from such a customer-level summary? As we reflect on the various questions that are asked when leaders seriously engage with the idea of understanding the performance and health of their business using the customer as the atomic unit of revenue and profitability, five broad themes appear, which we call the five lenses of a customer-base audit.

Who are our Best and Worst Customers?

If we reflect on a single vertical slice of the table, say the columns associated with last year, the following types of questions come to mind. How many customers did we have last year? How do these customers differ in terms of their value to the firm? For example, how many customers purchased from us just once last year? How many customers accounted for half of our revenue last year? Half of our profit? If we compare, say, the 10% most profitable customers to the 10% least profitable, what lies behind these differences? To what extent are they driven by differences in the number of transactions, the average value per transaction, and average margin per transaction? Digging deeper, what about differences in the types of products they purchased?

The set of simple analyses that explore how different our customers are from each other lead to a fundamental conclusion: customers are not equal. Most people underestimate just how unevenly revenue and profit are distributed across customers.

How is Customer Behaviour Changing?

If we reflect on two adjacent vertical slices of the table, say the columns associated with last year and the year before, the following types of questions come to mind. How many customers purchased from us in both years? How does their behaviour and profitability differ from those that purchased from us in just one of the two years? How stable is customer behaviour? What proportion of our “top” customers in one year remain as “top” customers the next? What lies behind the observed changes in customer-level profitability? To what extent are they driven by changes in the number of transactions (average order frequency), the average value per transaction, and average margin per transaction?

The analyses that answer these questions help identify the changes in buyer behaviour from one period to the next and show that period-on-period variances can be explained by changes in individual customers’ average order frequency and value.

How Does a Cohort of Customers Change Over Time?

Suppose we reflect on a horizontal slice of the table. In other words, we reflect on the behaviour of a cohort of customers, starting from their first-ever transaction with the firm. (A customer cohort is defined as the set of customers acquired in the same time period, e.g., those customers who made their first purchase in January, or the second quarter of the year.) Questions that arise include how many customers appear to be “one and done”? Of those that make a second purchase, how long does it take them to do so? What is the nature of the decay in customer activity? For those cohort members that remain active over time, how does their transaction frequency, average spend per transaction, and average margin evolve over time?

The analyses that answer these questions are central to getting the firm to think about the cohort as a key unit of analysis when seeking to understand revenue and profit dynamics. A common conclusion is that the revenue for each cohort decays over time and recognizing the nature of this decay is critical for understanding long-term growth.

How Do Different Cohorts Behave Differently?

Having looked at one cohort, it is natural to look at another cohort and start questioning how and why the cohorts differ. Looking beyond a superficial comparison in terms of overall revenue or profitability, the curious manager will ask questions that seek to understand the differences in terms of cohort size, how they differ in the evolution of the percentage of cohort members that remain active over time, how they differ in terms of the evolution of spend per transaction, and so on.

Putting It All Together

The fifth and final lens sees us stepping back and considering the whole customer × time worksheet (described above), integrating the types of analyses introduced via lenses 1–4 to gain an overall customer-centric view of firm performance. The types of questions answered include

  • How “healthy” is our customer base? How reliant are we on a small group of customers? How has the “quality” of our customers changed over time? How do our “newer” customers compare to our “older” customers in terms of their behaviour? Are the differences good or bad?
  • What level of business can we expect from our current customers over the next year or two? In light of this, how realistic are our growth objectives / business plans in terms of the expectations they place on customer acquisition, retention, etc.

Conclusion

Much like Copernicus changed the way people thought about the earth’s place in the universe, we have observed that taking a view of the firm’s performance using the customer as the unit of analysis can have a similarly profound impact on the way the firm thinks about assessing performance and planning for growth. This results in a mindset shift for organizations to move from talking about “what makes us money” to “who makes us money.”

We expect that some people, lurking in various parts of your organization, are conducting ad-hoc analyses that can provide the answers to some of the questions posed above. But it is rare to find the analyses being pulled together in one place, let alone making their way to senior management and the CEO.

Yet without a solid understanding of the buying behaviour of your customers, including an appreciation of how they differ in their value to the firm and a solid understanding of how their behaviour is evolving over time, how can you be expected to ask the right questions and make informed decisions?

The customer-base audit provides this foundation for any executive wanting to gain an understanding of the health of their organisation’s revenue and profit streams and the feasibility of their growth plans.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/5-good-reasons-to-fire-your-worst-customers/281680
https://www.merkle.com/blog/good-customers-vs-bad-customers-how-you-can-tell-them-apart-and-get-better-it
https://www.mindtools.com/arys2mu/dealing-with-unhappy-customers

Building Everlasting Resilience

Over the last decade, a complex web of economic, social, political, and environmental crises has challenged the conventional laws of organisational physics, calling into question our resilience and relentless pursuit of operational efficiency. As a result, many leaders who spent their careers operating and investing in relative stability were caught off-guard, and many enterprises may not have survived the Great Recession or the Covid-19 pandemic without massive government support.

However, in our research, we have discovered a category of family businesses that are naturally more resilient — those who understand the existential need for sustained investment in organisational agility, even at the expense of efficiency and profitability. Their unique approach to managing risk provides an innovative playbook for leaders everywhere as we enter what everybody is calling a new Age of Uncertainty.

Many of these families have operated for decades and even centuries in emerging and frontier markets, where uncertainty is the rule rather than the exception. In these more volatile environments, threats to property and security are more pervasive, access to capital more limited, corruption more rampant, supply chains more fragile, planning horizons much shorter, and talent harder to find. This is in addition to the familiar organizational challenges that all businesses must manage in terms of operations, finances, marketing, and leadership.

Over the last eight years, thorough research has been documented on how enterprising families survive and even thrive in the face of these chronically-elevated risks. What follows are three simple lessons that we’ve seen families deploy successfully that can help all leaders cope with the sustained uncertainty that lies ahead.

Resilience requires intention

Family businesses that operate in more volatile conditions understand and anticipate that tomorrow could be materially different than today. In these environments, public markets and institutions are often weaker, less efficient, and more opaque. There is a natural scarcity of capital, resources, and talent, since all three prefer the predictability that comes with the rule of law, freedom of information, and reliable infrastructure. Family leaders can wake up one morning to discover that their companies have been nationalized, or their profits regulated, or that their work force is facing sniper-fire on their daily commute.

Having the foresight to anticipate and plan for such volatility requires a fundamental shift in organizational design — treating operational inefficiency as a feature, not a bug. I’ve observed that family enterprises who thrive under these conditions follow the wise advice of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus that “Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.” Their managerial mantra is “just-in-case” rather than “just-in-time.” Consequently, they actively invest in organizational redundancy — frequently observed in resilient biological systems — to ensure that they can bounce back quickly from adverse shocks and sustain operations whenever they lose access to critical capital and infrastructure.

Consider the example of a Middle Eastern family that built back-up manufacturing facilities and an entire residential neighbourhood in a nearby country in anticipation of a devastating civil war. Or the Haitian hotel operator who invested in backup generators for their backup generators and multiple internet connections to cope with persistent blackouts and network failures. Or the Japanese soya sauce manufacturer who rescued the local community from famine countless times over the centuries by sharing the company’s strategic grain reserves — earning cherished access to the Imperial Court. Or the Hong Kong family that built an expensive offshore nest egg in Canada as a hedge against rising regulatory risks to their Chinese operating business.

Though each of these investments in redundancy required substantial time and resources — precious commodities for any organization — being intentional about foregoing profits to build resilience helped these families prepare for, withstand, and recover from serious disruptions and chronic stress. Like keeping a spare tire and a jack in the trunk of the car, these adaptations become a form of continuity insurance and are particularly valuable in uncertain environments, despite their additional cost. As the old military saying goes: “Two is one, and one is none.” In other words, always have a back-up plan.

In contrast, many leaders who have spent their careers operating in relatively stable markets often view these investments as wasteful or inefficient — until they are blindsided by Black Swan events like the recent conflict in Ukraine and are forced to reimagine their global supply chains, foreign currency exposure, and interest rate risk. After all, when conditions are relatively predictable — as they have been for most of the last half-century in the world’s most advanced industrialized economies — optimizing for efficiency can be one of the most reliable drivers of profitability and prosperity, so it’s no surprise that this strategy has become ubiquitous even if it is short-sighted.

Consequently, effective leaders in the Age of Uncertainty need to be more intentional about investing in resilience — paying the “tax” of organizational inefficiency to help prepare for the broad array of risks that lie ahead. 

Resilience is a systems-level challenge

For many leaders operating in more stable developed markets, the last few years have been a painful reminder that our external context can’t be fully controlled, and many outcomes can’t be reliably predicted, despite our best efforts. These investments must extend beyond internal structures and processes and project outwardly beyond the enterprise — aligning with broader efforts to support social and environmental resilience.

In the Age of Uncertainty, enterprising families need to understand that their long-term health and continuity is even more dependent on the ecosystems within which they are embedded — a form of symbiosis often observed in resilient biological systems. As in nature, neglecting or failing to adequately support the health and development of all their key stakeholders only undermines their own resilience. In other words, retreating behind the castle walls and hoping for the world to set itself straight is not a durable strategy for surviving a political revolution or an environmental catastrophe.

Once again, all family leaders should take inspiration from their peers in developing markets who have seen this all before. These resilient family enterprises are more inclined than their peers to invest in and care for their communities, in many cases funding critical infrastructure when public institutions fail to do so. Some of our client families have built roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, community centers, housing, news agencies, and even telecommunications grids, in the absence of government investment in these critical public goods. This not only fosters a loyal and trustworthy source of local labor, but also increases the likelihood of long-term success as norms of reciprocity emerge to sustain and expand the healthy ecosystem. In contrast, when companies and citizens don’t have reliable access to these resources, or they are willfully undermined by populism and campaigns of misinformation, trust in third parties is diminished, transactional costs increase, and the economic machine inevitably slows down.

Additionally, any efforts to invest in systemic resilience must also extend inwardly — by nurturing the familial and personal resilience of internal stakeholders. Chronic uncertainty generates a particular type of psychological distress that can significantly affect the wellbeing and performance of individuals and teams. Family business leaders who are dealing with this issue for the first time should draw wisdom from the vast literature on managing prolonged stress both personally, within families, and organisationally. They must also acknowledge that not all family members and business leaders will have the same exposure to risk, or cope with stress the same way. Finally, they should take comfort in the natural resilience of their peers in emerging and frontier markets, where strong family ties are often a powerful source of both individual and collective wellbeing.

Family matters

Extended kinship networks have been the dominant socioeconomic unit since the earliest human civilizations first emerged. Our primate DNA enabled and even encouraged us to form deep relationships with genetic strangers beyond our own kin to better manage resource scarcity and existential threat — sustaining the first durable micro-climates of trust. Bad actors in this context were quickly expelled from the extended family and left to navigate a sea of uncertainty on their own, while the increased chances of survival and growth for those who remained help to reinforce norms around trust and reciprocity.

Many echoes of this ancient tribal orientation persist in emerging markets today — from guanxi in China and blat in Russia, to wasta in the Middle East and compadrazgo in Latin America. In these countries, webs of familial connection help lower the frictional costs of doing business and provide an essential lubricant for the economy — conditions we have historically taken for granted in the developed world, where institutions like the judicial system and free press are (mostly) reliable and ensure that others will (mostly) follow the rules. As public institutions around the world continue to be undermined by populism, campaigns of misinformation, and budgetary constraint, family leaders will need to increase their strategic use of familial networks to ensure continued access to capital and opportunity. In short, the Age of Uncertainty will demand a fresh approach to continuity planning — one that extends beyond the conventional strategy, operations, and leadership frameworks taught in every business school and deployed in every boardroom. To succeed, families will also need to make deliberate investments to better prepare for, withstand, and recover from frequent shocks and chronic stress, develop a systems-level view of risk that considers both outward and inward resilience, and nurture deep familial ties to local communities to help sustain an oasis of stability amidst the chaos. Despite the inherent inefficiency and material cost of these investments, in uncertain environments like the ones that lie ahead, it will be much wiser to have them and not need them, then to need them and not have them.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://hbr.org/2021/01/the-secret-to-building-resilience
https://hbr.org/2016/06/resilience-is-about-how-you-recharge-not-how-you-endure
https://hbr.org/2022/09/building-resilience-into-your-family-business

Have Remote Employees Lost Touch with Customers’ Needs?

Before companies went remote or hybrid, non-sales employees usually had some minimal interaction with customers. However, as time moved on, teams with no customer interaction started to lose their connection to them. Losing sight of customers means internal teams are more likely to double down on their own agendas, putting the organisation at risk of being out-innovated and eventually becoming irrelevant (in the long term). There are ways in which leaders can bring customers “back to life” for teams who don’t interact with them.

After months of successfully working from home, the finance, HR, and legal teams of a mid-sized bank decided that they were going to adopt a hybrid model, permanently. Covid-induced remote work had proven that physical presence wasn’t a requirement for productivity.

Some employees elected to be 100% remote, others came in a few days a week, and those who wanted to work in the office were given safe spaces to do so. It all seemed fine at first; productivity stayed high. Yet after several months, they began to realise that something was missing from their daily conversations — or rather someone. One operations leader put her finger on it when she said, “We used to start meetings talking about customers. Now we hardly mention them at all.”

While much has been written about the need to keep teams connected to each other in a virtual environment, losing your organisational edge in regards to the customer is more dangerous.

In many of our clients, we have observed the following: Before their companies went remote or hybrid, most employees throughout the organisation had some sight line to customers. Even if they didn’t interface with them directly, they had regular conversations with customer-facing teammates, and when the organisation talked about “customers,” everyone was clear on who they were and what they needed. And when the pandemic hit, people rallied. The top priority was keeping the business afloat, so teams leaned into taking care of customers.

However, as time marched on, non-customer-facing teams started to lose their connection to customers. The hallway conversations stopped. They didn’t run into a sales rep in the elevator or sit next to a customer success agent in the cafeteria.

In this environment, even the most well-intended remote employees can forget that customers are their organization’s lifeblood. Internal teams are more likely to double down on their own metrics and agendas. In the short term, this puts the organization at risk for silos. In the long term, an organization without a clear sight line to customers is at risk of being out-innovated and eventually becoming irrelevant. One need look no further than Sears, Blockbuster or Monster.com to see what happens when an organization loses their tether to customers.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

When leaders are intentional about bringing customers to life for internal teams it creates an emotional (and practical) connection. It infuses the why of the business into the organizational groundwater. This has been proven to result in greater engagement, which creates bolder innovation, resulting in faster, more lasting growth.

Here are three ways leaders can bring your customers to life for teams who don’t interact with them.

1. Talk about specific customers (instead of the aggregate “customers”)

Ask yourself, which is more engaging: “Customers are counting on us!” or “Ken’s Plumbing Supply is counting on us to fill this order. Without it, he won’t be able to keep his team on schedule.”

Specificity matters. Instead of discussing customers in the aggregate, share details about individual customers to make them more real. Without this, remote employees will more likely see customers as abstract numbers on a page, rather than real-life human beings.

To build this tangible connection, we recommend leaders have regular conversations with customers, asking customers not just about what they bought, but about how what they bought is impacting their life and/or business.

Then, leaders should share what they’ve learned about specific customers (who they are, what they do, their daily challenges, etc) with all non-customer-facing remote employees. Telling an IT, or Finance, or HR team how a specific customer improved their life or business as a result of the organization’s offering infuses a purpose-driven ethos into the organization. Stories about specific customers are more memorable and repeatable than a generic value proposition.

2. Ask “How will this impact our customers?” during decision-making

Even if the decision seems like it has nothing to do with customers, putting a customer-oriented lens on decision-making enables teams to think more holistically and deeply consider the potential impact of their choices.

We recently worked with a team from a financial services firm charged with improving the cash flow of the organization. The organization had some long-standing process hiccups that were only made worse when the team shifted to working remotely.

The team met and quickly came to a decision: to require vendors to agree to 60-day payment terms in advance of working for the organization. At first blush, the decision seemed sound. Cashflow would improve and customers wouldn’t even know … or would they?

When the team asked, “What impact will this have on customers?” they realized some fatal flaws in the plan. For example: The organization had just partnered with an IT vendor who was supporting them through major internal system changes. A big part of the project was training all the teammates, some of whom are customer-facing, on the updated system.

If it took the vendor 60 days to get paid, the vendor would be required to fund staff while still waiting on payment. As result, the vendor would likely not allocate their best trainers to the project, meaning their teams wouldn’t have top-notch support and training to do their jobs. And an under-supported and undertrained team can’t support customers effectively. The team soon realized that their policy, which at first seemed unrelated to customers, could ultimately end up doing damage to customer relationships.

The ensuing conversation — which was challenging and took a while — resulted in a breakthrough. The team created a system to help vendors get paid over time, as they complete the work. This helped fend off major cashflow spikes, it made sure vendor relationships stood solid, and it enabled the organization to keep delivering for customers.

When non-customer-facing teams assess decisions and projects asking, “How will this impact customers?” it changes the frame. This simple question can be asked of any project or decision. In our experience, when internal teams make a regular practice of asking this question, the resulting priorities and projects are better aligned to improve the organization’s market position.

3. Include non-customer-facing teammates in customer meetings

When it comes to bringing customers to life, nothing is more powerful than meeting with a real, live, breathing human. One of our clients, a building supplier, began inviting one backstage team leader to each annual customer business review. When leaders like the head of supply chain, the HR manager, and the safety lead got the opportunity to meet with actual customers, even virtually, it shifted their perspective. They understood in a real and visceral way who the organization serves.

After seeing the impact, which ranged from increasing empathy for customers to actual policy shifts, the senior leaders of the organization went one step further. They made it part of each leadership role (no matter what functional area they led) to attend two or three customer meetings a year. Their only job was to listen.

After joining the customer meetings, the department leaders then briefed their teams on what they learned about the customers’ business goals and needs. This helped everyone see their customers more vividly.  After hearing the head of finance describe her meetings with several customers, one staff accountant said, “These customers used to be just numbers, now I see they’re businesses with their own hopes and dreams.”

In a world where customers have more choices than ever, it’s crucial that leaders help all employees understand who your customers are and how you serve them. Bringing customers to life for backstage teams does not have to be difficult, but it does require effort. Using these three techniques will ensure that everyone in your organization has a direct line of sight to the people who actually drive your business, your customers.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://hbr.org/2021/02/financial-targets-dont-motivate-employees
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/07/22/5-common-problems-plaguing-remote-workers-and-what-to-do-about-them/
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industries/consumer-markets/library/prioritizing-customers-in-hybrid-work-environment.html

Overwhelmed at Work? Here’s What You Can Do

Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that “what goes up must come down.” However, stress and feeling overwhelmed is not bound by the constraints of physics—it just goes up and up and up. Psychotherapists say that many of us wind up amplifying the mental health harms already placed upon us by our jobs and relationships—even when it’s the last thing we want.

In 2015, the American Psychological Association’s annual Stress in America survey revealed more and more adults were feeling “extreme stress,” and that average stress levels were slowly increasing. With that stress came increased stress-related symptoms and overall poor health caused by such a huge mental strain. Many respondents admitted to partaking in unhealthy eating habits, not sleeping well or losing patience with loved ones because of the stress, too.

When you feel overwhelmed, you may react in ways that not only don’t help the situation, but that even make it worse. Maybe you’re oblivious to these patterns, or you know what they are but struggle to do anything about them.

Feeling overwhelmed at work can make you feel stressed, confused, trapped, and at risk of burnout.  When you experience overwhelm at work it can be difficult to manage your time, energy, and focus. Overwhelm can affect your ability to think and act clearly and rationally.  Feeling overwhelmed at work can also prevent you from making effective decisions and taking appropriate action.

To stop feeling overwhelmed at work it’s important to understand the triggers.  When you feel overwhelmed at work, causes include having too much too to do, tight deadlines, work pressure, or stress. Some of the best ways to handle feeling this overwhelmed actually fall into two camps—neither of which have anything to do with working until your brain melts: taking action to get a handle on your work, and taking a break so you can keep working to the best of your abilities.

The following are common self-sabotaging mistakes overwhelmed people tend to make. There are practical solutions for each that will help you feel like you’re on top of things and do a better job of navigating your most important tasks and solving problems.

1. You think you don’t have time for actions that would help you

People often have great ideas about things that would help them feel better and more in control — for example, hiring someone to help around the house, practicing self-care, seeing a therapist, taking a vacation, or organizing a game night with friends. However, they dismiss them because they think they’re too busy or that it’s not the right time, waiting to take those actions until a more ideal moment that typically never arrives.

Instead of thinking about what would be ideal, choose the best option that’s easily available to you now. Perhaps you don’t have time to research the best therapists by interviewing multiple candidates, but you do have time to pick someone who meets a few of your criteria and try a couple of sessions with them.

When you have good ideas but don’t act on them, it can lead to a sense of powerlessness or incompetence. You may also have endless open loops of “shoulds” and waste time and energy thinking the same thoughts over and over again. Plus, when you don’t act, you miss out on the benefits you’d accrue from trying your ideas. By acting to help yourself, you’ll get practice finding doable solutions, feel more self-efficacy, and reap those benefits sooner.

2. You interpret feeling overwhelmed as a weakness

Lots of times, we feel overwhelmed simply because we need to do a task we’re not very familiar with, or because a task is high stakes and we want to do a superb job of it. By itself, this isn’t necessarily a problem. We can often work through the task despite those overwhelmed feelings.

However, sometimes we get self-critical about the very fact that we feel overwhelmed. We think: “I shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by this. It’s not that hard. I should be able to handle it without it stressing out.” When you’re self-critical, you become more likely to procrastinate, because not only does the task trigger feelings of overwhelm, it also triggers shame or anxiety about having those feelings.

Some people react to this shame and anxiety in other ways. They might approach the task with extra perfectionism, or they might become more reluctant to ask for tips and advice from others. It’s important to replace your self-criticism with compassionate self-talk, which I’ve provided specific strategies for previously.

3. You navigate towards your dominant approaches and defence mechanisms

When we get stressed out, we tend to get a bit more rigid. Because we have less cognitive and emotional bandwidth to consider other options, we become less flexible about adapting to the demands of the situation and default to our dominant ways of handling things.

We all have values, but we don’t always use them to our advantage. For example, thoughtfulness can turn into overthinking, self-reliance can morph into micromanaging or doing everything yourself, having high standards can lead to being picky or perfectionistic, and resourcefulness can steer you toward doing things in unnecessarily complicated or unconventional ways.

When you’re overwhelmed, make sure you’re matching your values to the demands of the situation. Does the particular task or problem need…? (Insert your dominant attribute, such as thoughtfulness or self-reliance.) Or would a different approach be better suited to the circumstances?

4. Wasting time and energy on things you have no control over

No one controls everything. It’s impossible. Some things are simply beyond our influence. Don’t waste your time on those things. Instead focus on areas that you can influence or change. For example, you can’t control whether the company you work for will merge or not.

Don’t waste your energy or time worrying about it. Allot yourself 5 minutes of worry time, then shift gears. Move on and get over it. Focus on what you can do to make the situation better. Figure out what skills would make you more valuable to the organization. Explore different options so that you are prepared when the decision is finally made and announced.

5. You’re Multitasking

When you feel like there’s way too much on your plate, your first instinct will probably tell you to knock out more than one task at once. But that, my friends, is an urge to ignore. While we’re multitasking we may feel as though it makes us high-achieving, it actually makes us prone to even more mistakes and increasing our feelings of being overwhelmed. Even though answering emails and writing up a project at work may make you feel productive for, like, 10 minutes, it pays to give each task (and, more importantly, yourself) some room to breathe.

Finally, just remind yourself—it will all get done. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and with the help of these strategies, you’ll be sure to get there with your work done well.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/feeling-overwhelmed-4-mis_b_9266878
https://www.baofootspa.com/blog/2020/2/21/the-3-most-common-mistakes-you-make-when-youre-stressedand-what-to-do-instead
https://www.themuse.com/advice/5-unexpected-ways-to-deal-when-youre-overwhelmed-at-work

Overthinking and How It Can Affect Physical & Mental Health

A high-achiever who processes the world more deeply than others is also known as a sensitive strive and susceptible to overthinking. Studies show that sensitive people have more active brain circuitry and neurochemicals in areas related to mental processing. This means their minds not only take in more information but also process that information in a more complex way. Sensitive strivers are often applauded for the way they explore angles and nuance. But at the same time, they are also more susceptible to stress and overwhelm.

Deliberation is an admirable and essential leadership quality that undoubtedly produces better outcomes. But for Terence and others like him, there comes a point in decision making where helpful contemplation turns into overthinking. If you can relate, here are five ways to stop the cycle of thinking too much and drive towards better, faster decisions.

1. Leave Perfectionism Behind

Perfectionism is one of the biggest blockers to swift, effective decision-making because it operates on faulty all-or-nothing thinking. For example, perfectionism can lead you to believe that if you don’t make the “correct” choice (as if there is only one right option), then you are a failure. Or that you must know everything, anticipate every eventuality, and have a thorough plan in place before making a move. Trying to weigh every possible outcome and consideration is paralysing.

In order to curb this tendency, use the following questions:

  • Which decision will have the biggest positive impact on my top priorities?
  • Of all the possible people I could please or displease, which one or two people do I least want to disappoint?
  • What is one thing I could do today that would bring me closer to my goal?
  • Based on what I know and the information I have at this moment, what’s the best next step?

After all, it’s much easier to wrap your head around and take action towards a single next step rather than trying to project months or years into the future.

2. Use Your Intuition

Intuition works like a mental pattern matching game. The brain considers a situation, quickly assesses all your experiences, and then makes the best decision given the context. This automatic process is faster than rational thought, which means intuition is a necessary decision-making tool when time is short and traditional data is not available. In fact, research shows that pairing intuition with analytical thinking helps you make better, faster, and more accurate decisions and gives you more confidence in your choices than relying on intellect alone. In one study, car buyers who used only careful analysis were ultimately happy with their purchases about a quarter of the time. Meanwhile, those who made intuitive purchases were happy 60 percent of the time. That’s because relying on rapid cognition, or thin-slicing, allows the brain to make wise decisions without overthinking.

3. Limit the exposure to decision fatigue

You make hundreds of decisions a day — from what to eat for breakfast to how to respond to an email — and each depletes your mental and emotional resources. You’re more likely to overthink when you’re drained, so the more you can eliminate minor decisions, the more energy you’ll have for ones that really matter.

Create routines and rituals to conserve your brainpower, like a weekly meal plan or capsule wardrobe. Similarly, look for opportunities to eliminate certain decisions altogether, such as by instituting best practices and standardised protocols, delegating, or removing yourself from meetings.

4. Getting the right tools

Knowing how to stop overthinking isn’t an innate gift. It isn’t genetic, or set-in stone during your childhood. Many people who are able to control their emotions and avoid getting stuck in a spiral of overthinking and anxiety have developed these skills over time. It takes determination – but it also takes the right set of tools. Discover your personal blueprint and how to align your choices with your ultimate purpose in life. Learn how to navigate pain and anxiety, rather than avoiding or suppressing it. Transform your thought process to crush negative behaviours – and any obstacles in your path.

5. Distract your senses

Overthinking and worrying are mental activities, so if they start to take hold, do something physical.

You can essentially “shock” your senses by taking the power away from one area of your body and giving it to another. Sounds confusing? It’s not.

For example, if you start to feel fearful about the uncertainty of an upcoming event, splash some cold water on your face, or smell some calming lavender oils. Your brain will start to react to the sudden change, and you’ll have less of an ability to focus on the worrisome thoughts.

Find whatever works for you to shock your senses, and keep it handy whenever possible.

Busying yourself with an activity is the best way to change the channel. Exercise, engage in conversation on a completely different subject, or get working on a project that will distract your mind from the barrage of negative thoughts. Remember that your mental depth gives you a major competitive advantage. Once you learn to keep overthinking in check, you’ll be able to harness your sensitivity for the superpower that it can be.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.themuse.com/advice/6-easy-ways-to-stop-overthinking-every-little-thing-and-just-enjoy-your-life
https://hbr.org/2021/02/how-to-stop-overthinking-everything
https://www.inc.com/business-insider/7-easy-ways-avoid-overthinking-improve-decisions.html

How to Empower Employees to Speak Up When They See Misconducts

More than 50 years after the term “bystander effect” was coined, many of us still witness workplace wrongdoing yet stay stubbornly silent. In motivating employees to speak up, most organisations still rely on traditional compliance-based tools such as codes of conduct, training, and audits. This approach has simply failed — only an estimated 1.4% of employees blow the whistle. Current strategies remain ineffective and are often counterproductive.

This matters because organisational silence perpetuates white-collar crime: It continues to rise despite companies investing millions in misconduct prevention. Scandals have slashed market valuations and ravaged the reputations of Boeing, BP, Barings, and many others. The leading cause of silence is fear of repercussions. One study showed that 82% of whistleblowers suffered harassment, 60% lost their jobs, 17% lost homes, and 10% attempted suicide. Other causes include our unconscious need for belonging, a preference for the status quo, and wilful blindness.

How can organisations motivate employees to speak up and respond to them effectively? The answer lies, of course, in behavioural science.

What Companies Often Do Wrong

Before delving into the solution, we need to understand three common mistakes or assumptions that companies make in combating misconduct.

The wrong tools. Organisations over rely on a narrow set of compliance and control tools to prevent wrongdoing and encourage its disclosure. How effective were codes of conduct, training, or audits when Volkswagen falsified the emissions of its diesel cars? Or safety training and testing when Ford launched the Pinto with a fuel-tank design flaw, saving $137 million but costing dozens of lives? The answer: Not very. Few spoke out. Why? Because sanctioning systems distort our thought process from doing the right thing. When rewards such as promotions, perks, or pay raises are threatened, self-preservation creeps in, and we use a business lens, not a moral lens, to decide what to do.

The wrong communication triggers. When companies design compliance policies and codes of conduct, they hope they will trigger our sense of duty and moral responsibility to speak up if we see bad behaviour. But they don’t inspire many people to speak up. For example, an independent longitudinal analysis concluded that codes of conduct are “insufficient to guide employee behaviour – tension-provoking when implemented across cultures – inward-looking – and dependent on effective communications.”

In many research papers done on this topic, respondents were exposed to a hypothetical situation where a senior executive bullied a junior employee to accelerate launch of a new drug, despite incomplete testing. The emotion triggered was not a feeling of responsibility to speak up, but anger at the offending manager — by a factor of four. But while 91% of respondents indicated they intended to report the incident, only 9% took action, and most associated speaking up not with responsibility but with the courage to report their superiors. Bystanders justify their inaction in what psychologists call diffusion of responsibility: the assumption others will intervene. The bigger the group, the bigger the assumption, and the bigger the problem.

The wrong assumptions about employee types. Assuming that certain populations or personality types — e.g., extroverts, optimists, or leaders — are predisposed to speak up is incorrect. Behavioural science shows that men are no more likely to blow the whistle than women, and extroverts no more likely than introverts, regardless of industry or occupation. There is no magic gender, disposition, age or personality. Anyone can speak up.

An Integrated Solution

Given that codes of conduct, training, and audits alone don’t suffice in getting people to speak up when they witness improper behaviour, other steps must be taken. Risk and compliance departments should engage with communications departments, and compliance-based tools must be supplemented with emotion-based triggers.

Based on decades of behavioural science research there have been discovered numerous strategies which work hand-in-hand with traditional compliance practices.  Managers can apply all the changes or simply cherry-pick a few. The best mix depends on a company’s culture, size, and systems.

1. Get Rid of Your “Zero Tolerance” Policies

You’re probably thinking, “Did I read that right? I thought zero tolerance is important, especially when you are talking about violence, fraud, safety, or harassment.”

To be sure, it is critical to have strongly worded and vigorously enforced policies, especially when dealing with behaviour that is illegal, that threatens employee or public safety, or that jeopardises company assets. But if your policies say (or imply) that an employee will be fired if they violate that policy, without any possibility of a lesser outcome depending on the severity of the behaviour, you may actually be dissuading employees from reporting possible concerns.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has cautioned that using the phrase “zero tolerance” may lead employees to believe that the company will automatically impose the same discipline–termination–regardless of whether misconduct is minor or devastating. But employees often don’t want their co-worker, or even their boss, to get fired over a minor offense. They frequently just want the troubling behaviour to stop, so they may opt to forego reporting and try to deal with the situation on their own, or ignore it. This can cause the behaviour to continue or to escalate, or lead to other workplace conflicts.

2. Prevent Retaliation

This point may seem incredibly intuitive, but if employees see or hear that someone has experienced retaliation after they reported a concern–or even if they simply fear that they will be retaliated against–they are less likely to come forward.

The number and percentage of retaliation charges filed with the EEOC, for example, indicates that retaliation is a big problem. Since the EEOC’s 2009 fiscal year, retaliation has been the no.1 complaint filed with the EEOC, and by FY 2018, over 50% of all charges alleged retaliation. In fact, the EEOC received 1.5 times more retaliation charges in FY 2018 than the next most frequent type of illegal behaviour, sex discrimination (32% of charges), notwithstanding the significant increase in those claims filed post #MeToo.

The challenge is that retaliation can take many forms, from subtle (a supervisor removing an employee from a lucrative project) to egregious (demotion or firing). Compounding the issue is that it is human nature to feel upset toward or uncomfortable around someone who has complained about you or someone on your team. People may feel betrayed, hurt, or confused–and as a result, may change their behaviour for a time vis-a-vis the person who complained. Some of these behaviours are illegal and some aren’t–but all can damage workplace culture and make employees think twice about coming forward in the future.

For these reasons, it is critical for employers to put safeguards in place to prevent retaliation, such as proactively and periodically checking in with whistleblowers to see how they are doing, or monitoring proposed job changes, performance evaluations, or other data post-complaint to ensure non-retaliatory treatment. Equally important, the employer also should provide coaching on conflict management and how employees can move forward in a collaborative manner post-complaint.

3. Encourage and Reward Speaking Up in the Workplace

In stark contrast to retaliation, organisations who truly want to know about concerns and who understand the value of having an accurate picture of what’s happening on the proverbial factory floor will take steps to encourage and reward speaking up.

This goes beyond simply communicating a “see something, say something” slogan. Company leaders must clearly and repeatedly articulate an authentic desire to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, and reward employees who follow through.

Here we have the example of former CEO of Ford Motor Company, Alan Mulally. He told the story of how when he first became Ford’s CEO, the company had many financial challenges and a rocky road ahead. Yet, at early meetings with his senior executive team, they each presented “all green” status reports indicating that their areas were on target to reach their goals. Mulally knew this couldn’t be right given the company’s struggles, so he encouraged one of his direct reports to ensure that his next report reflected the honest truth about what was going on.

When that subordinate’s next report at the executive team meeting showed several “red status” items, Mulally praised him enthusiastically for his candor and then asked the other executives in the room about what they could all do to help turn the situation around. Then, the following week, other executives’ reports also began to reflect “red” and “yellow” items. And once Mulally had accurate, unfiltered data, it was quickly apparent where the business was struggling–and what they could do to address it.

This two-pronged approach by Mulally–asking to know the truth and then praising the reporter publicly–was a game-changer. It proved to staff they could speak the truth without reprisal and created trust. And as a result, the company’s business was able to improve.

4. Gather Data About Reporting

If you find that workers rarely speak up about conduct violations in your organisation, one of the best steps you can take is to assess why. You may find it is as simple as a lack of awareness of policies or procedures to report incidents, in which case you can develop resources and training to make sure employees know where to go. If you find your workforce is fearful of retaliation or doesn’t feel reports will be addressed, then that information can also help the organisation to correct misperceptions, put anti-retaliation safeguards in place, and find ways to increase transparency about the post-report process.

5. Be Transparent

One of the other oft-reported reasons why employees do not speak up with a concern is because they do not believe that any action will be taken. When employees hear crickets after filing a complaint, a natural assumption is that nothing happened.

Of course, as HR, compliance, safety, and legal professionals are well aware, reported concerns generally set into motion a flurry of activity and often lead to an investigation. The contents and progress of an investigation are usually kept close to the vest to preserve the integrity of the process, and the results are usually confidential for privacy and legal reasons.

However, organizations are increasingly realizing that some degree of transparency about what happened is important to demonstrate accountability, earn trust, preserve culture, and encourage reporting. Thus, organizations should consider having follow-up meetings with the reporter and any witnesses involved in an investigation to thank them for coming forward or participating, noting that an investigation was conducted and concluded, and possibly sharing–often at a very high level and depending on the person who is being spoken to–if some sort of (usually unnamed) action would be taken as a result. Encouraging a speak up culture is a critical component of an organization’s efforts to not only ensure compliance with legal requirements and company policies but also to address inappropriate behaviour before it escalates into a larger issue. It creates a sense of shared responsibility among employees, communicating that we all have a role to play in safeguarding workplace culture. Leaders who encourage employees to speak up in the workplace, and who protect and reward those who do, demonstrate their commitment to an honest, ethical, and respectful workplace. By doing so, all employees–and the company–will thrive.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://everfi.com/blog/workplace-training/5-ways-to-encourage-a-speak-up-culture-in-the-workplace/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2020/05/22/13-best-ways-to-encourage-your-employees-to-speak-up/?sh=7063b1d41f2b
https://www.corporatecomplianceinsights.com/empowering-employees-to-speak-up-against-unethical-behavior/

Delegation Is An Art: How Should It Be Done?

Delegation is a good idea but often falls flat in practice. Despite hiring bright minds and able hands, managers often find themselves overburdened and overloaded with tasks. Best practices tell individuals to focus on the highest priorities and delegate tasks to others, especially if it offers the opportunity for growth and development of your team. While this idea is great in theory, many people run into trouble.

A one-size-fits-all approach to delegation represents a strategy doomed to defeat. You could identify an item to delegate and then rely on the direct reports to figure out how to execute it or to speak up with questions if needed to. Unfortunately, not every item or even every employee is suited to this process, and problems can reveal themselves hours or minutes before a deadline. Here are four common reasons why delegation fails and what to do about them.

Lack of Critical Thinking

While many of us want to be considered smart, focusing on how others see you can be problematic when overplayed. If you jump in too early and too often with insights, your peers and direct reports will never have an opportunity to develop their own expertise. Confidence also takes a beating when people enter a meeting knowing they will leave feeling less than their manager. And while your insights may be helpful, they’re often offered only after a team has invested weeks of work preparing a presentation. It’s also dangerous to have only one person doing most of the critical thinking in an organisation; you could be leaving your company vulnerable to blind spots.

To elevate your team’s capacity to think for themselves, embed the practice of coaching early in the process. Instead of providing answers, ask questions. The quality of their insights will be directly proportional to the quality of your questions. For instance, by asking, “How would our chief competitor respond to this strategy?” Open-ended questions allow others to broaden their lens and consider new angles, rather than merely data-gathering queries. Instead of having to supply the solution, you activate others’ critical thinking skills.

Lack of Initiative

Sometimes employees lack the initiative to make bold moves or even follow up on smaller ones. They could agree to action items that they left incomplete or fail to communicate why they would miss a deadline. If you find yourself almost always initiating follow-up discussions then that is not delegating, that resembles micromanaging a lot more.

If your attempts at delegation are failing because you think others lack initiative or follow-through, address it tactically and strategically. Assign someone to jot down notes, action items, dates, and ownership before the end of each meeting, and start the next meeting following up on promises made. While this might sound basic, nearly half of the executive teams I work with lack appropriate hygiene in follow-through. More strategically, consider crafting a “placemat”— a one-page document (about the size of a placemat) that lists top priorities. A placemat signals what you plan to reward and provides another way to increase employee motivation. By scrubbing sloppy execution and signalling what truly matters, you can shape up accountability and motivation.

Lack of Quality

Unleash your team’s ability to contribute quality. First, provide them with a list of common mistakes in a presentation and what you would like instead. For example, instead of wordsmithing the title of a slide so it’s shorter, direct your team to deliver slide titles that don’t overflow to a second line. You can even delegate drafting this list to your direct reports based on what they already know about your preferences. Second, instead of fixing the fault, point it out and request a repair. Annotate a document with comments, instead of redlining it with direct edits. This will take more time initially but save you time in the long run as your team learns what you’re looking for. This may also require earlier deadlines, so your direct reports aren’t submitting final products at the last minute — and that’s ok. By showing them where they can improve, you’ll find that you’ll have better quality presentations and more time in the future.

Lack of Speed

Almost every CEO I have worked with marches to the beat of “CEO time” — a time warp where they either think they can (or they do) complete tasks faster than others. This may be the case because the CEO is more experienced, is clear about what she wants up front, doesn’t have to spend time divining or iterating to tailor the task, and hasn’t taken into account the extra time spent by employees because they want to look professional in front of the boss.

The next time you have what you consider a “quick” task, ask your team member how long they think it will take. If there is a discrepancy, ask about their process and the reason for the estimate. If necessary, you can help shave off time but removing unnecessary frills or details. For example, they may not need to create a beautiful slide deck but simply write up two paragraphs. On the other hand, you will start to become better educated about what and how long it takes to complete a delegated task and adjust your expectations accordingly.

Managers often experience the push and pull of delegation. We push out the work, only to pull it back again when it fails to meet expectations. By diving deeper into the point of failure, we can better address the underlying causes of delegation failure and encourage our team to be more motivated and productive.

Given our current situation knowing that your colleagues or employees are best suited for this new scenario we find ourselves in. Finding the right talent, the best fit for the job and your organisation can be a very challenging task. It is now important to find out whether your managers or your team is well-equipped of working together from various locations. It requires deep knowledge of their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, interests, work style and other characteristics. Our technology and solutions will do the work for you, helping you discover if your people are resilient during times of hardship, if they are autonomous, if they are team players, without actual human contact. Given that our platform is cloud-based, everyone can use it from home as well. Humanity finds itself at a crossroad for various reasons now, why not help people discover and develop themselves from the comfort of their own homes?

Request a free demo:

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Sources:

https://www.meistertask.com/blog/delegate-tasks-effectively/
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_98.htm
https://www.inc.com/jayson-demers/7-strategies-to-delegate-better-and-get-more-done.html