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The CEO Myth – Being The Ultimate Decision Maker

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A common misperception about the CEO’s role is that they are the ultimate decision-maker, and that the prize of getting this coveted position is that you now get to make all the decisions. In reality,  the CEO’s role is much more about shaping rather than making decisions.

There’s a fundamental reason for this subtle difference. Organisations face countless decisions daily, and it would be impossible for a CEO to be involved in each one. Attempting to do so would slow down the entire operation and could even bring it to a standstill. As a result, rather than making decisions directly, the proper role of the CEO is to enable others to make decisions the CEO can support. Of course, there are times when the CEO must be the ultimate decision-maker, but the CEO’s approach should be inspired by Occam’s razor: The fewer decisions the CEO can make, the better.

CEOs have several tools at their disposal to shape decisions in their organisations. Some are at the level of the organisation as a whole. CEOs can shape decisions by aligning everyone around a shared purpose, articulating priorities, and setting goals. Decisions are also shaped by developing a clear strategy, adopting an organisation structure that allows for the proper distribution of responsibilities, and fostering a strong culture. A clear performance measurement and reward system can also help.

Even as they build the broader context that shapes decisions across the organisation, CEOs cannot step away from decision-making entirely. Indeed, they must choose where and how they personally engage in decision-making.

The decision-making landscape in any organisation is vast. A useful map is to think of categories of decisions on one axis (e.g., strategy, structure, culture, people, products, investments, etc.) and the organisational level at which decisions need to be made on the other axis (e.g., corporate, business unit, region, function, subsidiary, plant, office, etc.). CEOs must choose how to personally engage to shape decisions across this entire landscape. This involves, at each intersection of category and level, determining the extent to which they are involved in designing the decision-making process, choosing when to participate directly, monitoring the work, and creating clarity around when and by whom a decision will be made. This framework is based on the 25 years I have spent alongside colleagues teaching CEO workshops at Harvard Business School, as well as my own experience leading organisations and advising CEOs as a board member and advisor.

Designing the Process

CEOs can influence any decision by thoughtfully designing the decision-making process. This involves setting parameters such as who is to be involved, what questions to answer, what kinds of information to gather, what guardrails to keep in mind, how many meetings to have, the structure of the discussions, and what gets decided when and by whom. The CEO may play a major role in designing some decision-making processes and a lighter role in others.

For example, a CEO we studied was heavily involved in designing the process for making key portfolio choices, such as keeping, divesting, and acquiring businesses. Working with his direct reports and a small group of high-potential managers, he defined the metrics against which to evaluate each business, chose a set of rivals to benchmark performance against, set a time frame of three months to complete the analysis, and established weekly three-hour meetings during which the team reviewed progress and agreed on next steps.

The same CEO delegated to his CFO and CHRO the task of preparing recommendations for structural changes that would result in cost-reduction goals in shared services such as HR, IT, and finance. Other than specifying that he wanted the two to work together to identify cost savings exceeding 15%, he gave them full leeway to design a process to generate these recommendations.

These two examples illustrate the intentionality CEOs must bring to these design choices. Depending on the specific matter they want to influence, they must choose the various parameters (e.g., who to task, what goals/metrics to set, what time frame to establish, and what expectations to create), and identify which issues they want to personally be involved in, and which others they are happy to delegate and trust others to make.

Participating in the Process

CEOs must then choose how much they want to participate at various stages of the decision-making process. The CEO may be active at every step, check in from time to time, or get engaged at a specific point, such as the beginning, middle, or end.

CEOs’ choices about when and how to personally step into decision-making situations often reflects their desire to make their teams active participants in the decision, as a way to increase buy-in. If you watch CEOs in these settings, what’s striking is how many of their actions are aimed at guiding others toward a decision, instead of overtly influencing the decision in a way that may feel heavy-handed. They provide this guidance by challenging the process, raising the bar, asking tough questions, and demanding better answers. Even though the CEOs are involved, they are careful to leave actual decision-making to their colleagues.

For example, the CEO who designed the strategic portfolio review process attended five of the 12 meetings. He attended the first two to set the right tone and direction. He then allowed the team to do its homework. He did one check-in in the middle of the process to ensure things were on track. Finally, he re-engaged by attending the last two meetings when the group presented its recommendations.

In contrast, on the cost-cutting workstream, he attended no meetings and instead asked the CFO and CHRO to brief him on their progress and to seek his input whenever they felt it would be helpful.

The level of personal participation CEOs choose in situations such as these reflect how tightly they want to manage each process, the importance they attach to the decision, the level of confidence they have in the leaders involved in each case, and how costly they feel it would be to intervene and change course as the process unfolds.

Monitoring the Work

CEOs must also choose how much they want to be personally engaged in monitoring the work. Providing feedback as any decision-making process unfolds is a vital element of the CEO’s role. In the case of periodic reviews, CEOs describe themselves as monitors who must check to ensure things are on track and that the organisation is executing as planned. Sometimes, CEOs describe their role as a coach, educating people, providing constructive feedback, and helping improve performance while doing little to actually influence the final decision under discussion.

By monitoring decision-making processes personally, CEOs set standards, encourage alignment, and enable course correction. In some cases, the CEO may meet regularly with the team to monitor progress. In others, they may only check in occasionally to ensure things are on track.

A key choice while monitoring decision-making processes is the altitude, or level of granularity, at which the CEO wants to engage. CEOs can choose to engage at a high level or dig deeply into the details. Some CEOs set these altitude expectations in advance; others choose them strategically in real time to keep the team alert and prepared to engage with them at any altitude they choose. Although the team may experience this as inconsistency or unpredictability, imagine yourself in this position: Might you prepare more thoroughly for a series of meetings if you know the CEO might ask questions that range from the big picture to the most nitty-gritty details?

Making the Decision

For some matters, such as setting the overall performance targets of the company, the CEO may be the principal decision-maker, choosing to make the final call after a set of recommendations have been presented. In other situations, the CEO may choose to consult with a small group of key executives and board members, as in the case of M&A deals, or while selecting top management team members. In other situations, such as formulating a business unit’s strategy, the CEO may let others, such as the business unit heads, make decisions, and then endorse them. In yet other circumstances, such as deciding which R&D projects the company should pursue, although the CEO may participate at some stage to better understand the choices under consideration, the CEO may delegate the final decision to a senior manager such as the head of R&D, because the CEO may lack the technical expertise to weigh in.

Factors to Consider in Choosing How Much to be Engaged

CEOs often use various criteria to determine the level of personal involvement they have across the decision-making landscape. These include the decision’s strategic importance: Does it matter for the CEO’s key priorities and have long-term implications for the company’s direction, vision, or mission? High-level strategy decisions almost always warrant the CEO’s direct engagement. Other factors that may influence the CEO’s involvement include the decision’s impact on the company’s financial health, either in terms of revenue, costs, or profitability; or the risk associated with the decision, either in terms of potential loss, legal implications, or harm to the company’s reputation. If a decision involves the allocation or reallocation of significant resources — like capital investments or human resources — it may warrant CEO oversight.

CEOs may also factor the extent to which the decision impacts the company’s core values and ethics. Any decision that could challenge or redefine these values require greater CEO involvement. Decisions that set a precedent for future company actions or policies often also require CEO engagement.

If a decision spans across multiple segments of the organisation or has the potential to lead to significant internal disagreement or conflict, the CEO should get more involved and consider making the final call. Decisions that will notably impact key stakeholders — including shareholders, major customers, regulators — might also draw the CEO’s attention. Urgent decisions, especially those that must be made rapidly to address immediate challenges or capitalise on opportunities, may warrant the CEO’s prompt attention.

Although CEOs tend to focus on these more significant decisions, some CEOs wisely note that they find benefit from periodically involving themselves directly in decision-making on smaller issues or at lower levels in the organisation. For example, the CEO may engage with some decisions far removed from the top, such as the strategy for a fledgling business unit or the design of an executive development program, because they want to signal its importance to the company. These symbolic opportunities for engagement can be just as important as the more substantive matters that warrant the CEO’s involvement.

Decision-making isn’t the only activity in which a CEO must make conscious choices about the right level of personal involvement. CEOs must be strategic about when to personally engage with customers, investors, regulators, the media, and other stakeholders. They must decide which senior roles require an interview with the CEO as part of the hiring process. They must decide when and how often to engage with individual directors in one-on-one conversations between full board meetings. Making the right choices about the level of personal involvement is key to a CEO’s overall effectiveness.

In conclusion, the role of the CEO is not about making every decision, but rather about creating an environment in which decisions are made effectively. By shaping decisions rather than making them, CEOs empower their teams, foster agility, and drive the organisation toward success. The CEO is more of a conductor, orchestrating the many parts to produce harmonious results, than a dictator issuing commands. It’s a shift in perspective that is required when leaders assume this pinnacle position and can be transformative for many leaders and organisations alike.

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Sources:

https://aaronhall.com/insights/debunking-ceo-myths-a-successful-start-sets-the-tone/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2023/04/18/this-ceo-has-a-better-rule-for-making-faster-decisions/
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20170803-busting-the-myths-of-successful-ceos

6 Tips for Creating a Balanced and Engaging Work Culture in 2023

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In the past, people believed that the only prerequisite to succeed in business was a great idea. While this is a prerequisite, people noticed that some businesses with great ideas last longer than others. It didn’t take them long to figure out the deciding factor was the work culture. 

With that in mind, here are the top six tips for creating a balanced and engaging work culture that will last in 2023. 

1. Become better at solving scheduling problems

The majority of workplace issues arise from scheduling problems. This is what makes people stressed out and causes conflicts in the workplace. So, by creating a balanced and engaging work culture, you have a better chance at creating a balanced and engaging work culture.

First, the easy way out. You can handle most scheduling problems and solutions via employee management software. So, getting one should be a top priority. This level of automation and coordination is hard to achieve manually. 

Still, even outside of this, there are many different areas that you should improve in so that you can create more efficient schedules. 

First, you need to understand the problem, and these problems can come in many shapes and forms:

  • Optimizing employee shifts
  • Meeting room allocation
  • Project timelines

These are just some of the issues that you’ll be facing.

Then, you need to understand that there are many constraints and that the schedule is not completely arbitrary. There are legal regulations. This may not be legal even if an employee agrees to do a 20-hour shift. 

Then, there are employee preferences and even resource availability. For instance, if you have operating space for just ten employees, having all the employees from both shifts appear simultaneously will not increase productivity. It may even decrease it.

Most important of all is the data. By getting enough information on the efficiency of your scheduling (overlapping, missed deadlines, etc.) and employee feedback, you’ll understand the problem much better.

2. Develop a better understanding of staff management

Staff management is an organizational skill that requires a lot of intelligence, multi-tasking, and empathy. Now, even though this description, it’s implied that this field requires a lot of talent, at the same time, it’s a skill, which means that you have a lot to improve.

Once again, ideally, you wouldn’t do this manually but, instead, use appropriate software for staff management. This will make your actions more accurate and proficient at core management tasks.

Other than this, you need to be better at communication. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu states that if the order is unclear, it’s the commander’s fault when they’re not executed. So, you must become better at setting clear expectations. 

Another thing you need to do is learn how to listen actively. Regarding feedback, people want to know that you’ve heard the point they were trying to make, not just nod silently while they’re speaking. You need to provide feedback while getting feedback, which is not nearly as intuitive for many people. 

Conflict resolution is one of the most important tasks of any manager. You’ll often be summoned as an arbitrator in a conflict you know little about. At this point, you must offer a compromise and remember that you can’t take sides even if one party is 100% at fault. You need to be fair and just but also conciliatory. Preserving the unity of the team is your high priority.

Your work culture is a great idea that needs to be enforced. You can achieve this through good management. 

3. Allow flexible work arrangements

You must allow people to work independently and under their conditions. This is incredibly important for many reasons. First, it can help people achieve a much better work-life balance. Second, it may drive productivity up. Finally, it will make you more appealing as an employer and drastically boost your talent attraction rates.

Just remember that setting this up isn’t a small thing. First, you need to make a choice:

  • You can set up a deadlines-based system where you put people on performance pay.
  • You can monitor their work via employee monitoring software like HubStaff. 

Each of these two has its advantages and disadvantages.

Second, with a flexible working model, you’ll likely allow people to use their devices from home. This means you must introduce a BYOD policy to ensure a higher level of cybersecurity for your entire enterprise. 

You also need to ensure that you have a positive hybrid work culture. Believe it or not, even a hybrid workplace can become toxic if you’re not careful enough. While remoteness changes workplace dynamics, this change won’t always be for the better. It also won’t eliminate some of the worst aspects of the workplace. 

By giving people a choice to work in a remote or hybrid setting, you’re not forcing them into this business model. You’re just giving them more options. This is always positive and may even help increase their sense of ownership over the workplace. 

4. Put more emphasis on recognition and rewards

One of the first things you need to do to create a better work culture is to base your organization on the appreciation and recognition of your staff. Your organization is made of people putting their work and effort into reaching your goals and objectives. Your organization is not your vision, mission, or brand – it’s the people.

Your employees must know their work is appreciated to give it their best. So, you need to learn how to do this the right way. Generic praises are not efficient enough since people can easily read the intention (or the lack thereof). So, you might even want to consider getting an employee engagement platform. This way, you’ll always have all the insight you need to guide these conversations to their successful outcome.

Next, we need to discuss the rewards. Sure, your employees will love it if everything they do right could result in a pay raise. They would also prefer to get promoted at least twice per month. The problem is that this would be utterly unsustainable from the perspective of your finances and your organization’s structure.

Instead, you must learn how to give proper micro-rewards and create this promotion/pay-raise scheme so your staff never feels underappreciated.

You also want to think about the concepts of autonomy and trust. If you micro-manage everything and insist that your employees seek your confirmation for every decision, you’re not just slowing down your process but also ruining your relationship. Give them more autonomy!

5. Provide a platform for growth and development

Many managers see talent turnover as a negative thing and refuse to acknowledge it for what it really is – an inescapable rule of the business world. Your employees, even the best ones (especially the best ones), will probably, eventually leave. Even those you promote and reward. Even those you consider friends.

You can, however, affect:

  • How long they stay
  • How hard they try while they’re in your employ
  • How well they talk about you to their future coworkers

These three things are monumental, so you must ensure they’re happy in your employ.

Now, it’s only normal that people only look for themselves and your employees work for you for one of few things. They want a decent salary and great work experience to further their career.

You’ll be seen as an ideal employer if you allow them to grow. You need enough room for them to advance and a prospect for their advancement. 

You must also provide opportunities for lateral movement within your organization, a mentorship program, and many training opportunities. Generally speaking, even some of the best books about success and affluence, like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, speak about experience and skills as more valuable than pay. Some of your most ambitious employees will feel the same. 

6. Introduce wellness programs and social activities

To show your employees that you care, you must go beyond activities that generate profit. Buying your employee a new laptop is a nice gesture, but it’s an activity that indirectly boosts their productivity, which you directly benefit from.

At the same time, by starting a wellness program or creating social activity opportunities, you’ll show that you care about more than just productivity. 

You can introduce daily exercise (or deskercise), introduce healthier options in your work cafeteria, or introduce a mandatory ten-minute meditation break.

This will result in stress relief, morale boost, increased creativity, and more.

You can also combine social activities with employee appreciation (which we’ve discussed earlier) by celebrating milestones. 

The only way for your staff to stay competitive in 2023 is in a balanced ad engaging work culture 

Your employees are the only ones who can decide how hard they’ll try and how long they’ll stay. With an engaging work culture, they’ll feel the intrinsic motivation to do more. A balanced workplace will protect them from burnout and make them feel more pleasant overall. In the end, everyone wins.  

By Srdjan Gombar

Veteran content writer, published author, and amateur boxer. Srdjan is a Bachelor of Arts in English Language & Literature and is passionate about technology, pop culture, and self-improvement. His free time he spends reading, watching movies, and playing Super Mario Bros. with his son.

Delegating Is Crucial & It’s Time to Stop Feeling Sorry About It

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Delegating and its payoff is understood by most leaders: You free yourself to focus on higher-priority work while offering your team opportunities for growth and development. Whilst this is an excellent idea in theory, many good leaders struggle to put it into practice.

There are many reasons leaders don’t delegate. Some believe they’re the only ones who can do the job properly, or that it will take longer to explain than simply doing it themselves. Others don’t want to give up their role of go-to expert or fear being upstaged by their team. More recently, however, guilt about adding more work to a team member’s to-do list has been the primary obstacle voiced by the leaders I coach.

Take Kendra, a CMO at an advertising technology company, who stated, “I am so overwhelmed, but so is my team. I feel guilty asking them to do any more work.” Or Miguel, founder of a successful fashion brand, whose concern for his team led him to continually take on work he should have delegated.

Caring about the welfare of your team and managing their workload is part of good leadership. But when unchecked guilt gets in the way of delegating, it’s a no-win situation. Increased leader workload results in anxiety, burnout, and higher-value work going undone. Further, it can have damaging effects on the very team you are trying to protect. Employees can feel they aren’t trusted, which decreases morale and engagement, and a lack of growth opportunities leads to employee turnover.

Here’s how to alleviate your guilt and delegate more while still caring for your team.

Challenge your guilt

There are two types of guilt: justified and unjustified. When we have transgressed a moral norm, the uncomfortable but justified feeling of guilt activates our sense of responsibility and encourages us to make amends. Guilt also provides preemptive feedback, enabling us to be proactive in preventing misdeeds and boosting prosocial behaviour.

But when we wrongly assume responsibility for a situation or overestimate the suffering we might cause, guilt becomes irrational and unhealthy. Persistent unjustified guilt is associated with decreased self-esteem, increased anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms.

To distinguish whether the guilt you’re feeling is justified or unjustified, ask yourself, “What is stopping me from delegating this task?” and write down whatever thoughts come to mind. For example, Miguel wanted his team to like coming to work, so he took on more tasks (“I could be the one doing this”) rather than delegating them.

Challenge your thoughts. Ask yourself: How might I be wrong? What else could be true? Miguel realised that while it was true that he could do the work, it was not the right solution for the team or the company. If you’re not hurting someone or contradicting your morals, your guilt is likely unjustified.

Fact-checking your thoughts is especially important if you are guilt-prone, when any sign or possibility of another’s suffering and discontent can spur you to take undue responsibility.

Naturally, there will be times when delegating doesn’t make sense. However, you hold yourself and your team back when guilt results in a blanket approach of holding onto responsibilities that should be distributed.

Flip your script on delegating

People who feel guilty about delegating worry they’re burdening their team. They can also feel responsible for the happiness of others or believe the needs of others supersede their own.

Instead, recognise the benefits of delegating and reframe your thoughts. For example, consider that rather than burdening your team, you are giving them the chance to grow. Instead of believing that not delegating will promote team happiness, understand that people love feeling trusted by their leader. Allowing greater contributions and more meaningful work boosts engagement, commitment, and job satisfaction.

Hoarding work at the top is also a no-win situation for your company. Doing it all means you neglect work only you can do, and opportunities are lost. Delegation shifts work to the most appropriate level and pushes out the work that matters least. With the rapid pace of change today, leaders must frequently evaluate and eliminate work that is no longer relevant.

Improve your delegation skills

If you know you don’t delegate effectively, and this contributes to your guilt and reluctance, take action. The purpose of “healthy guilt” is to trigger positive change and make amends.

This requires intention and a reallocation of your time. Instead of doing, you lead and support. Start by assessing what’s on your plate and determining what you can delegate or delete altogether. Then consider who should take it on: Who has the need or desire to develop these skills or is ready for a new challenge?

It’s also helpful to involve your team in this process. For example, Kendra began regularly reviewing all areas of responsibility with her direct reports, asking “Where am I too involved?” and “Where do you need me to get more involved?” to ensure that her team members felt both empowered and supported.

Effective delegating extends far beyond the initial clarifying of desired outcomes and handoff. Set regular checkpoints for feedback, provide coaching along the way, and acknowledge team members for their contributions and achievements. Your improved delegation skills can help team members feel empowered, supported, and motivated.

Protect your team in different ways

When guilt prevents you from delegating, it often connects to an empathetic but misplaced desire to protect your team. Fortunately, there are other ways for you to safeguard your team, without the costs that accompany a lack of delegation.

For instance, help your team members ruthlessly prioritise their work. Proactively engage them in discussions about what work is currently on their plate and quickly eliminate low-value work from their list. Help team members work through competing priorities by clarifying and anchoring in the most important goals for your organisation and that person’s role and evaluating each task in terms of its importance and urgency.

Additionally, be mindful of shielding your team from external demands. Especially when more senior outside stakeholders make requests of your team members, it can be hard for them to say no. Be willing to step in where necessary to communicate a judicious “no” or “not now” to the stakeholder making the request.

Channel your protective instincts into safeguarding your team from low-value work. In supporting them and ensuring the work they do is meaningful, you can boost team member growth and satisfaction and assuage your guilt.

Prepare for temporary discomfort

Overriding guilt around delegation is not easy. Especially when you and your team are already time-strapped, it can feel misguided to invest in delegating. But remember this investment will unlock longer-term benefits: time savings and more capable, engaged employees.

No doubt there will be discomfort and setbacks as you and your team adjust to your new leadership style. Accept that mistakes will be made. When you’re prone to guilt, you may be quick to beat yourself up and question your decision to delegate. Instead, practice self-compassion, see these missteps as learning opportunities, and move on.

Delegating is a crucial aspect of good leadership; it demonstrates your trust in your team and gives them the opportunity to stretch and grow further in their roles. With some effort, you can learn to move beyond delegation guilt — and free yourself to lead more effectively.

Delegating is an artful dance between the manager and the employee, an intricate choreography that holds immense importance for both parties involved. It is a strategic practice that not only lightens the load for managers but also cultivates a fertile ground for growth and empowerment among employees. In this symbiotic relationship, the benefits ripple far beyond mere task distribution.

For managers, effective delegation is the key that unlocks the door to higher-priority work and strategic focus. It grants them the invaluable luxury of time—the most precious resource in today’s bustling business landscape. By entrusting capable team members with responsibilities, managers free themselves from the shackles of day-to-day minutiae, enabling them to elevate their gaze and delve into the realms of visionary thinking and impactful decision-making. Delegating becomes the gateway to unlocking their true leadership potential.

However, the significance of delegation transcends the realm of managerial convenience. It stretches its arms towards the employees, offering them a ladder to ascend in their professional journey. When entrusted with meaningful tasks and granted the autonomy to make decisions, employees are invigorated by a sense of ownership and purpose. The act of delegating communicates trust—a powerful catalyst for unleashing their full potential and driving motivation. It becomes a potent stimulant for growth, as they sharpen existing skills and acquire new ones, expanding their horizons and broadening their expertise.

Delegation also fosters a culture of learning and development within organizations. By affording employees the opportunity to tackle new challenges and stretch their capabilities, it ignites a spark of curiosity and hunger for continuous improvement. As they step out of their comfort zones, employees embark on a transformative journey, honing their skills, acquiring knowledge, and cultivating a deeper understanding of their own potential. With each delegated task, they become more versatile, adaptable, and resilient, fortifying the very foundation of their professional prowess.

Moreover, delegation cultivates a sense of shared purpose and collaboration. As managers entrust employees with meaningful responsibilities, they forge a connection rooted in mutual dependence and collective success. The manager becomes not just a boss but a mentor, guiding their team towards achievement while nurturing an environment of support and camaraderie. Team members, in turn, feel valued and acknowledged, fostering a sense of belonging and loyalty that transcends the boundaries of a mere employment relationship.

However, the art of delegation is not without its challenges. Managers must tread carefully, balancing the scales between empowering employees and providing necessary guidance and support. Effective delegation requires clear communication, well-defined expectations, and a genuine understanding of each team member’s capabilities and aspirations. It necessitates a willingness to step back and let others shine, knowing that their success is intertwined with the manager’s own accomplishments.

In conclusion, delegation is a represents a basket full of trust, growth, and collaboration, shared between managers and employees. It is an essential ingredient for managerial success and a catalyst for individual and organizational development. By embracing delegation as an art form and mastering its intricacies, managers can unlock untapped potential, while employees are granted the wings to soar to new heights. Together, they co-create a harmonious work environment, where each note resonates with purpose, engagement, and unparalleled achievement.

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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.hcamag.com/asia/specialisation/leadership/how-to-delegate-properly-without-feeling-guilty/426819
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2021/5/how-delegate-without-guilt
https://womentakingthelead.com/you-need-to-delegate/

Practice Sharing Emotions as a Team

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Today’s tumultuous environment — the pandemic, the economy, war, divisive politics, the changing nature of work, and continued uncertainty — generates emotions in just about everyone. And those emotions undoubtedly have an impact on people’s engagement at work. According to Gallup, employee engagement has dropped over the last several years to 32%, and 17% of employees are actively disengaged.

To address this issue, some organisations are prioritising caring for employees. But despite innumerable well-intended efforts, a Deloitte survey of 1,000 professionals found that companies are missing the mark. The top driver of burnout is a lack of support or recognition from leadership in terms of emotions.

A simple but powerful way to connect with and care for employees is to recognise their emotions — especially negative ones. Research shows that identifying or recognising others’ emotions builds trust. Here’s why recognition is so impactful.

Why Recognition Matters

Positive feedback or recognition makes community members feel valued, reduces power and status differences between them, and may increase everybody’s sense of belonging. Although recognition costs virtually nothing, it’s a tool leaders and organisations underutilise. In a survey of over 20,000 people conducted by Tony Schwartz for Christine’s book, “Mastering Community”, some important data had been found – a mere 42% believed that their manager recognised and appreciated their work, thus impacting employees’ emotions.

When we’re recognised by members of our community, we feel a tighter tie to them. This is also what Schwartz, Founder and CEO of the Energy Project, which focuses on corporate wellness, found (pre-pandemic) when his organisation interviewed heart surgeons and their intensive care nurses at a large, well-known hospital where understaffing, long hours, and burnout were widespread. Schwartz’s team asked dozens of nurses what was the biggest challenge they faced at work. Given the intense demands these nurses face, the team assumed the answer would have something to do with exhaustion or how little time they had to recover and catch their breath. Surprisingly, the nurses said it was insufficient appreciation from the surgeons whose patients they served with such devotion.

Schwartz and his team then went to the surgeons, who were far better compensated than the nurses, but worked under difficult, high-stress conditions. What was their biggest challenge? Again, the team was surprised. The most common answer was a lack of appreciation from the hospital administrators. “I save lives every day, but I sometimes feel like I’m working in a factory,” one surgeon told them, echoing several of his colleagues.

It makes sense that caring cultures matter. Receiving praise releases dopamine, which is associated with well-being and joy, while gratitude gives the giver and receiver a mood boost. With an increase in people feeling disconnected and lonely, recognition is both harder to come by and more necessary because it helps build relationships and improve emotions.

Researchers Sigale Barsade and Olivia O’Neill studied “companionate love” — what they described as “feelings of affection, compassion, caring, and tenderness for others” — at a large, long-term healthcare facility and hospital over the course of 16 months. Compassionate love is manifested by workers “expressing caring and affection towards one another, safeguarding each other’s feelings, and showing tenderness and compassion when things don’t go well.”

Employees who felt caring from colleagues had less emotional exhaustion, less absenteeism, better teamwork, and higher satisfaction. The benefits flowed to patients, who reported more-positive moods, improved quality of life, better health outcomes, and fewer trips to the accident and emergency department. Families reported greater satisfaction and willingness to recommend.

To test whether this was unique to healthcare, the researchers then surveyed 3,201 employees in seven different industries, from financial services to to real estate, and found similar results: Employees who felt free to express care, affection, and compassion for one another were more satisfied with and committed to the organisation.

10 Empathy Exercises

While calls to reduce burnout, implement systemic fixes, and increase retention mount, managers in any industry can implement these 10 strategies immediately to listen deeply for emotions, reflect that understanding, and provide appreciation, connection, and community. These tactics can be used in both in-person and virtual environments, on a regular basis or as needed, in whichever order works for your team.

1.Appreciation round

One person completes the following sentence about a colleague and then tags the next person, or the next person volunteers:

“What I appreciate about you, John, is…”

The more specific and detailed you can be about the behaviour or attribute, the better.

2.Complete-me exercise

Have people complete one of these sentences, either verbally or written:

“Compassion is hardest when…”

“I made a difference yesterday when I…”

“I show up every day because…”

3.Step-in circles

Get everyone together in a circle and ask them to step in when they agree with a statement. After each statement, ask people to step back to the original circle.

Step in if you prefer the beach to the mountains.

Step in if you have not had a chance to exercise in a week … a month … a year.

Step in if you feel like you are not enough some days … most days.

Step in if you worry you are a failure.

Like a funnel, you start superficial, then increase vulnerability. When doing this exercise in a remote environment, ask people to use the hand-raise feature instead of stepping into the circle.

4.Raising your hand

Isolation amplifies shame and guilt — both destructive emotional forces. Knowing that other people can relate to your emotions (by raising your hand in this case) removes that isolation.

Consider the following hypothetical example: A hospital employee notified the wrong family about a patient’s death. The family was devastated. When it was later recognised that the wrong family had been informed, a new family had to be called, a disclosure to the original family had to be made, and a root cause analysis (RCA) was launched.

At the RCA, pain hung heavy in the air as the caregiver described how they felt like a failure, and shame followed, growing heavier with every passing second of silence. Someone asked if anyone in the room could imagine the heartbreak of making a mistake that caused harm to a patient and their loved ones when you’ve dedicated your life to healing others. They were asked to raise their hand if they could. Every hand went up, and the room erupted in tears.

5.The pause

Created by Jonathan Bartels to foster meaning, “The Pause” is a brief spoken recognition followed by 15 to 30 seconds of silence at the bedside to honour the passing of a patient.

However, the practice can be used in any industry. If there’s a workplace accident or shooting, if a colleague or one of their family members pass, or on the anniversary of a loss, make a brief statement about who the person was and their impact, express appreciation for those who cared for the person, and then hold a short, collective silence. These consistent rituals around what matters bind us together.

6.Personal notes

Provide note cards for employees and leaders to use to recognise someone, express gratitude, or acknowledge an emotional event. There is magic in the feel of a card in your hands and the thoughtfulness of a penned note. Remote employees can post their cards or use e-cards.

7.Creative storytelling and gratitude

Many employers read customer, employee, and patient comments or letters about employees at huddles, meetings, and town halls. Even better, ask employees to read the letters aloud. Fill the senses by playing joy-filled recorded customer calls. Ask customers or focus groups to make homemade appreciation videos for staff. Have the executives make some pop-up calls for recognition.

8.Rant exercises

When we’re put in situations that compromise our values, we experience moral distress, which contributes to burnout. Checking in on and identifying what people value helps us expand our capacity for empathy when someone is upset.

Pair people up and ask everyone to think of a frustrating situation at work or in life. Give each pair two minutes to discuss, with the speaker giving a friendly rant about the situation. The rules are that:

No rant should be personal (i.e. about a shared colleague) or inappropriate.

The details will not be shared outside of the room.

The ranting stops when the facilitator’s hand raises.

The second person should listen for what values are at stake for the speaker. For example, if someone feels angry, hurt, and afraid after being shouted at by a customer, they value respect. A person who feels betrayed or hopeless when their organisation says safety is really important, but staffing and training are inadequate — they value integrity. Someone who describes feeling excluded because they weren’t a part of a key executive meeting about their project — they value inclusion.

After two minutes, have the pairs switch roles and then ask everyone what values they heard. The rant allows us to find our collective common ground in the face of strong emotion.

9.Check-ins

Put pictures of different things on a table. For example, we’ve included pictures of a family, the beach, fairy lights, a trail in nature, a labyrinth, a smiling child, a bench in a garden, a sunset with clouds, a storm, and a large dumbbell. Ask everyone to pick one and, in 30 seconds, explain why. People might speak to what they lack, what they enjoy, how they’re feeling (hopeful, heavy, or joyful), or even share a dream. To set an example, you go first.

One-word heart check: “Give me one word that describes how you’re showing up today emotionally.”

Then simply acknowledge the range of emotions people are experiencing.

10.Wow moments

Create fond memories through unexpected “wow” gestures of recognition. For example, after hiring someone, send their family members a thank-you note for being a part of your community and supporting their loved one. Walk long-term employees to their car on their last day. The idea is to make the person feel special in a meaningful way, which will remain in their memory, and might even become the story they tell about your brand for years to come.

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

What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs

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Today it’s difficult to read the news without seeing an announcement of layoffs. Just this week, Morgan Stanley announced it will reduce its workforce by 2%, Buzzfeed said it would cut headcount by 12%, and PepsiCo said it plans to cut “hundreds” of jobs. The same is true at Redfin (13%), Lyft (13%), Stripe (14%), Snap (20%), Opendoor (18%), Meta (13%), and Twitter (50%). So many companies have initiated layoffs recently that tech and HR entrepreneurs launched trackers like TrueUp Tech and to Layoffs.fyi dedicated to monitoring the staff reductions across the tech sector.

Traditionally, employers resort to layoffs during recessions to save money. Companies continue to cling to the idea that reducing staff will provide the best, fastest, or easiest solution to financial problems.

As if layoffs aren’t painful enough, many companies make matters worse by handling them poorly. Handling layoffs in a humane way is important for the morale of both the impacted and retained employees, it will impact the company’s ability to hire strong talent later, it affects litigation risk (people who feel mistreated are more likely to sue), and, of course, it’s the right thing to do.

Layoff Myths and Mirages

Contrary to popular belief, there’s not much evidence that layoffs are a cure for weak profits, or, to use the current euphemism, that they reposition a firm for growth going forward.  It’s very difficult to sort out the relationship because firms that are laying off are almost by definition in trouble. The research evidence has not found any support for the overall idea that layoffs help firm performance. There is more support for the idea that where there is overcapacity, such as a market downturn, layoffs help firms. There is no evidence that cutting to improve profitability helps beyond the immediate, short-term accounting bump.

Employers also often underestimate the cost of layoffs in immediate financial terms, as well as in the lingering burden it places on remaining resources — both financially and emotionally. There is a huge problem in HR generally that the stuff that is easy to put on a spreadsheet outweighs the stuff that isn’t.

The toll of layoffs is high. In many industries, layoffs beget lower productivity and profits. When sales are slow, for instance, many retailers cut staff. But several studies show a correlation between bigger staffing and substantially higher sales.

Layoffs destroy trust

Eighty-five percent of respondents rated job loss as their top concern in Edelman’s 2022 Trust Barometer. Layoffs break trust by severing the connection between effort and reward. The premise of a layoff is that if it weren’t for the economic conditions facing the firm, employees would keep their jobs as long as they perform them well.

The fact that this is a psychological contract rather than in most cases a legal one is beside the point. In the domain of trust, what matters is that employees are being asked to willingly be vulnerable to the power their company has as an employer, and trust that the company will act in ways that don’t violate their trust. Research finds that, once betrayed, this trust is hard to recover.

Forgetting to be human

In the process of trying to do everything “right,” some managers forget to be human. It’s amazing how often people rigidly follow a script during notification meetings for fear of saying something wrong. It’s even more amazing how often they forget to mention the niceties, like the fact that they appreciate everything the employee did for the team or affirmation of the employee’s abilities. Layoffs are emotional and raw; it’s critical to show empathy when delivering such painful and often scary news.

It’s also critical to help employees maintain their dignity. That’s why having a security guard escort the employee out the door should be avoided, except in the rare cases where it’s truly needed.

Failing to plan ahead

Founders and executives at high-growth companies are often caught unprepared for layoffs. Many assume the only possible direction is up. With pressure to grow, it’s easy to hire too many people too fast, and later need to lay off employees quickly. And, even under conditions of sustained growth, layoffs can become necessary due to acquisitions.

Successfully managing workforce changes within today’s landscape ultimately requires evaluating your actions against the backdrop of trust. Your company will weather the storm of layoffs more successfully if you can maintain trust with three groups who will determine your success in the future: employees you let go, employees you retain, and employees who don’t yet work for you.

You have a great opportunity to be better at this than other companies. Keeping trust at the centre of your decision-making can lead to surprising, beat-the-odds success, as the above examples from Honeywell and Nokia show. Centring trust also offers leaders a reminder: Your actions will have consequences that are more visible than they’ve been in the past and you will be judged as trustworthy — or not — based on 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/2022/12/what-companies-still-get-wrong-about-layoffs
https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/the-7-worst-mistakes-companies-make-when-laying-off/307308
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-layoffs-cost-companies/

Your Job Is Not Your Whole Identity

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Reducing yourself to any single characteristic, whether it be your title or your job performance, is a deeply damaging act. Thanks to major shifts in the labor market, workers are switching organisations, functions, and even industries much more frequently than past generations. But as our careers take these dramatic leaps, we ourselves are not wholly reinvented. We often bring pieces of our past work experiences with us, making our work selves more like a manuscript than a whiteboard that can be wiped clean with each new role. 

Are you a self-objectifier in your job or career? Ask yourself a few questions, and answer them honestly.

  • Is your job the biggest part of your identity? Is it the way you introduce yourself, or even understand yourself?
  • Do you find yourself sacrificing love relationships for work? Have you forgone romance, friendship, or starting a family because of your career?
  • Do you have trouble imagining being happy if you were to lose your job or career? Does the idea of losing it feel a little like death to you?

If you answered affirmatively to any or all of these, recognise that you will never be satisfied as long as you objectify yourself. Your career or job should be an extension of you, not vice versa. Two practices can help as you reassess your priorities.

1. Get some space

Maybe you have been in an unhealthy relationship or two in your life but only recognised this when you had a break from it, whether voluntary or involuntary. Indeed, this human tendency probably contributes to the fact that most trial separations lead to divorce, especially when they last more than a year. Space provides perspective.

Use this principle in your professional life. To begin with, it should be the main goal of your vacation—to get a break from work and spend time with people you love. As obvious as this may sound, that means taking your vacation, and not working during it at all. Your employer should thank you for doing so.

In religious traditions, rest isn’t just nice to have; it is central to understanding God and ourselves. “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day,” the Book of Exodus reads. “Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” If God rests from work, maybe you should too.

Such a practice doesn’t have to be religious, and can be done in a lot of ways besides simply avoiding all work on Saturday or Sunday. For example, you can take a small Sabbath each evening by proscribing work and dedicating all your activity to relationships and leisure.

2. Make friends who don’t see you as a professional object

Many professional self-objectifiers seek out others who admire them solely for their work accomplishments. This is quite natural—it makes you feel good when a person you meet for the first time recognises you for your work. This type of relationship can easily become a barrier to the formation of healthy friendships, which we all need. By self-objectifying in your friendships, you can make it easier for your friends to objectify you.

This is why having friends outside your professional circles is so important. Striking up friendships with people who don’t have any connection to your professional life encourages you to develop out of work interests and virtues, and thus be a fuller person. The way to do this goes hand in hand with recommendation No. 1: Don’t just spend time away from work; spend it with people who have no connection to your work.

Perhaps challenging your own self-objectification makes you feel uneasy. It can freak you out. The reason is simple: We all want to stand out in some way, and working harder than others and being better at our jobs seems a straightforward way to do so. This is a normal human drive, but it can nonetheless lead to destructive ends. There are people that would rather be special than happy.

The great irony is that by trying to be special, we end up reducing ourselves to a single quality, and turning ourselves into cogs in a machine of our own making. Our work is our medium, and it becomes our message. We learn to love the image of our successful selves, not ourselves as we truly are in life. Don’t make this mistake. You are not your job. Take your eyes off the distorted reflection, and have the courage to experience your full life and true self.

Losing a Job That is Your Identity

If your job is your whole identity, losing it can be catastrophic. “But when your personal identity is heavily tied to your job, losing that job-even through no fault of your own, such as in an economic downturn or a restructuring- can seem catastrophic, causing an existential crisis or what the authors of the book Difficult Conversations call an ‘identity quake,’” says Rebecca Zucker of Harvard Business Review.

The Cell Phone in Our Pocket Prevents Work Separation

Like many of us, you may not be able to resist checking emails, chats, or texts, even on vacation. The 24-7 access is so tempting that most can never truly disconnect. Working from home further blurs the line. When our jobs are our identities, we think that we should be doing more of what we love.

But is it possible to be creative and connected to others with a constant work distraction in our pockets? When do we hit burnout? “When you’re overworked, you’re actually less productive,” says author Jeffrey Davis of Psychology Today.  “When you get more sleep, develop a healthier work/life balance, and actually learn how to separate yourself from your work, you will find that you’re capable of not just enjoying more meaningful (and productive) work, but also of creating a more meaningful and well-rounded life.”

The ever-more-volatile state of our world means that plenty of leaps await us in the years ahead. Increasingly, our psychological health and career fulfillment will hinge on our ability to assess and execute transitions without betraying our authentic selves. The VME framework can help you predict how difficult it will be to dislodge incompatible aspects of your lingering identities, or what facets might be worth fighting to keep.

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/2022/11/when-changing-jobs-changes-your-identity
https://www.artemisconsultants.net/what-happens-when-your-job-becomes-your-identity/
https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/how-to-handle-jobidentity-loss-hot-jobs

Are Work Friends Invaluable?

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Millions of people suffer from loneliness. More than 300 million people globally don’t have a single friend, according to Gallup data. And more than 20% of people don’t have friends or family they can count on whenever they need them, let alone any work friends.

The average person spends 81,396 hours — the equivalent of more than nine years — at work. “Americans are now more likely to make friends at work than any other way — including at school, in their neighbourhood, at their place of worship, or even through existing friends,” according to the Survey Centre on American Life.

So, people spend a lot of their lives at work, and that’s where they’re most likely to develop friendships. Yet of everything companies do to improve employees’ lives and promote their happiness, social well-being is the aspect they invest in least, according to a Gallup survey of CHROs of the world’s largest companies. Indeed, Gallup finds that globally, only three in 10 employees strongly agree they have a best friend at work.

Why Should Companies Care?

Despite claiming “people are our greatest asset,” many executives I’ve met expect employees to leave their personal lives at the door when they come to work. Yet Gallup’s data shows that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including improvements in profitability, safety, inventory control, and employee retention.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Minnesota not only confirmed that close friendships increase workplace productivity, they also found out why — friends are more committed, communicate better, and encourage each other. And according to a global study by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP), “Interpersonal work relationships have a sizeable and significant positive effect on the job satisfaction of the average employee. Relationships rank first out of 12 domains of workplace quality in terms of power to explain variation in job satisfaction.”

If increased productivity, profitability, job satisfaction, and retention aren’t enough, Gallup’s latest findings show that since the start of the pandemic, having a best friend at work has an even greater impact on important outcomes — like workers’ likelihood to recommend their workplace, intent to leave, and overall satisfaction. With the unavoidable increase in remote and hybrid work, best friends at work have become lifelines who provide crucial social connection, collaboration, and support for each other during times of change.

Unfortunately, the pandemic not only exacerbated global loneliness, it also took a toll on workplace friendships. Among people working in hybrid environments, Gallup has seen a five-point decline in those who say they have a best friend at work since 2019.

Whether a workplace is fully in person, fully remote, or hybrid, a culture that prioritizes and encourages work friendships is good for employees and good for the bottom line. So how can managers create and maintain a friendship-friendly workplace that delivers measurable results while also helping to combat the global epidemic of loneliness? Here are some actions to take right now:

Establish a buddy system

Everyone needs a buddy, especially when they’re new to a company. Teaming up new hires with veteran employees can expedite onboarding and productivity. Workplace buddies not only give new hires tips like where stuff is and what the unwritten rules are, but they help them make connections with other people in the company. And some of these initial connections will almost certainly lead to long-term relationships.

The key to an effective buddy system is the frequency of the interactions. Microsoft found that when its new hires met with their buddy more than eight times in their first 90 days on the job, 97% said that their buddy helped them become productive quickly. But when new hires met with their buddy only once during the first 90 days, that number was only 56%.

Increase face time

Before the pandemic, work was a place where colleagues could get coffee, have lunch, and run into each other in the hallway for impromptu conversations. For people who started working remotely full time in 2020, one of the biggest changes was the sharp decrease in hours they spent engaging socially with work friends.

Building friendships requires talking to, seeing, and being with people. The best way to connect is to see each other — even if it’s on Zoom or FaceTime. But at a minimum, co-workers need to talk more and email less. Email will never live up to face-to-face dialogue. Plus, it’s much easier to misinterpret what someone means over email.

Business leaders need to set an example: Communicate in person more and email less. Further, leaders can encourage in-person interactions by revising expectations, establishing new cultural norms, and even updating workplace configurations. For example, encourage cross-training or have workers rotate job duties so they can collaborate with people in other areas of the company. Exposure to new people creates opportunities to meet new friends. Plan on-site social events, meetings, or lunches. Move people’s workspaces closer together. Where else do you spend so much time with people from different walks of life organized around a common mission? And where else are you so dependent on the efforts of others?

Jam constantly

When people share a common goal and achieve great things together, they form a connection. The joy is in working together to produce magic. Using the Beatles as an example of a high-performing team, The Economist states: “The Beatles love what they do for a living. When they are not playing music, they are talking about it or thinking about it. They do take after take of their own songs, and jam constantly.”

If you’ve ever been part of a collaborative “jam session,” you know the feeling. Your employees want to feel that too — the satisfaction and pride of creating something great while having fun. Best friends trust, accept, and forgive each other. And when they work together, Gallup research has shown that they are significantly more likely to engage customers and internal partners, get more done in less time, support a safer workplace, innovate and share ideas, and have fun on the job.

Don’t force it.

Thanks to the pandemic, the days of all-but-mandatory happy hours and “kindergarten offices” full of games and colourful toys designed to encourage workers to stay late for fun team-building activities might be behind us. According to Paul Lopushinsky, founder of Vancouver-based consultancy Playficient, “That culture isn’t really about fun; it’s about getting people to stay longer.”

You can mandate policies, training or timesheets, but you can’t make people be friends. You don’t want your employees to start hating the very thought of company parties. If your company still discourages workplace friendships despite the proven benefits to business outcomes, remember this simple premise: To ignore friendships is to ignore human nature. In the battle between company policy and human nature, human nature always wins. The evidence suggests that people will fulfil their social needs, regardless of what is mandated. Companies do far better to harness the power of this kind of social capital than to fight against it.

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.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/business/work-friends.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katecooper/2021/09/28/the-importance-of-work-friends/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/forget-work-friends-more-americans-are-all-business-on-the-job-11660736232

Career Goals May Prolong Feeling of Overwhelmingness

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In many organisations, it’s the season for individual and team goal-setting. Deciding on career goals is generally something we want to be a rational and evidence-based exercise, combining a careful consideration of possibilities, resources, and obstacles with just the right amount of stretch. But what do you do when you feel like you have a very limited sense of what’s possible? When new obstacles seem to pop up around every corner and the sands are always shifting? When the idea of stretch seems laughable given how stressed and overwhelmed most of us are?

Setting goals in times of uncertainty and burnout can feel pointless, but it isn’t. Research shows that to engage our motivational systems and direct our brain’s energy to the right actions (both consciously and below our awareness), we need to have a clear sense of where we are, where we’re going, and whether we’re closing the gap between the two at the right rate. Without goals, we make bad choices and miss opportunities to act. But just as important, we can’t feel effective, which many psychologists believe is the most powerful source of life satisfaction and well-being humans have.

To set goals that make sense and motivate ourselves and others in such strange and often discouraging times, we need to set them with a growth mindset. And by that I don’t mean just “believe you can improve” or any of the other common oversimplifications of growth mindset. Having a growth mindset is a bit more nuanced (and more powerful) than simply believing that improvement is possible.

Your mindset is what you believe to be the larger meaning or purpose behind the work you do every day. A growth mindset is about believing that developing and making progress is the point of what you’re doing. As I’ve said before, it’s about getting better as opposed to just being good. And it’s about engaging in specific growth mindset strategies and habits to help keep you focused on the potential for growth in everything you do.

When you approach career goals through the lens of a growth mindset, you become more comfortable with uncertainty and more willing to entertain the idea of longer-term career goals. Here are two strategies to help you get there that you can use for yourself or with your team.

Use growth-mindset trigger words to frame your goals

When researchers want to study the effects of a growth mindset, one of the ways we do this is to describe the goal or task that someone is about to perform using certain words that evoke the idea of getting better rather than being good: improve, develop, over time, progress, become, and of course, grow.

These words serve as both explicit and implicit “primes” to your thinking. In other words, they shift the very meaning of the goal to being about developing, and they shift your mindset along with it. To use them, start by writing out your goal the way you would normally think about it. For example, your goal might be to “be an effective communicator” or to “increase sales by 5%.”

Then, rewrite it again using one or more growth mindset triggers. “Be an effective communicator” is now “become an effective communicator,” and “increase sales by 5%” is “develop our network of leads to improve our sales by 5%.”

This way of framing your goals isn’t about lowering the bar or being okay with poor performance. In fact, research shows that people who approach their goals with a growth mindset set more challenging stretch goals for themselves, not less. For example, in one study of medical supplies salespersons, researchers found that those who approached their work with a stronger growth mindset set more ambitious sales targets, put in more effort, engaged in more territory and account planning, and ultimately sold more units.

Establish progress and pivot points

In such uncertain times, it’s important to explicitly establish progress and pivot points on a timeline right at the outset, so you can monitor both your rate of progress and the need to shift in light of new information along the way.

It can be all too easy to lose track of your goals, or to not think much about them until you get closer to the time you expected to reach them. When that happens, you may fail to adjust when progress is slow, or cling to a goal you should have revised when resources or customer expectations started shifting. For example, you may set a goal for yourself of developing a specific skill or reaching a particular sales target by year’s end. To succeed, what should you accomplish in the first month? At six months? If you don’t know, you won’t be able to course correct and, if necessary, try a different strategy or set a revised goal to have the impact you want to see for yourself or your team.

By using these two strategies to prepare for and engage in your goal-setting conversations, as a leader or a team member, you start out with a firm growth mindset foundation that you can then sustain as you pursue your goals through uncertainty, setbacks, and challenges of all kinds — something we all need now more than ever before.

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://story-level.com/setting-career-goals-when-you-feel-overwhelmed/
https://hbr.org/2022/09/setting-career-goals-when-you-feel-overwhelmed
https://headtopics.com/us/setting-career-goals-when-you-feel-overwhelmed-30317001

Quiet Quitting Is About Bosses, Not Employees

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“Quiet quitting” is a new name for an old behaviour. The authors, who have conducted 360-degree leadership assessments for decades, have regularly asked people to rate whether their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile.” Their data indicates that quiet quitting is usually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively, and more about a manager’s ability to build a relationship with their employees where they are not counting the minutes until quitting time.

Every employee, every workday, makes a decision: Are they only willing to do the minimum work necessary to keep their job? Or are they willing to put more of their energy and effort into their work?

In the last few weeks, many of those who choose the former have self-identified as “quiet quitters.” They reject the idea that work should be a central focus of their life. They resist the expectation of giving their all or putting in extra hours. They say “no” to requests to go beyond what they think should be expected of a person in their position.

In reality, quiet quitting is a new name for an old behaviour. Organisational psychologists have been conducting 360-degree leadership assessments for decades, and they’ve regularly asked people to rate whether their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile.” To better understand the current phenomenon of quiet quitting, we looked at the data to try to answer this question: What makes the difference for those who view work as a day prison and others who feel that it gives them meaning and purpose?

The data collected indicates that quiet quitting is usually less about an employee’s willingness to work harder and more creatively, and more about a manager’s ability to build a relationship with their employees where they are not counting the minutes until quitting time.

What the Data Shows

We looked at data gathered since 2020 on 2,801 managers, who were rated by 13,048 direct reports. On average, each manager was rated by five direct reports, and we compared two data points:

Employees’ ratings of their manager’s ability to “Balance getting results with a concern for others’ needs”

Employee’s ratings of the extent to which their “work environment is a place where people want to go the extra mile”

The research term we give for those willing to give extra effort is “discretionary effort.” Its effect on organizations can be profound: If you have 10 direct reports and they each give 10% additional effort, the net results of that additional effort are increased productivity.

The graph below shows the results. We found that the least effective managers have three to four times as many people who fall in the “quiet quitting” category compared to the most effective leaders. These managers had 14% of their direct reports quietly quitting, and only 20% were willing to give extra effort. But those who were rated the highest at balancing results with relationships saw 62% of their direct reports willing to give extra effort, while only 3% were quietly quitting.

Many people, at some point in their career, have worked for a manager that moved them toward quiet quitting. This comes from feeling undervalued and unappreciated. It’s possible that the managers were biased, or they engaged in behaviour that was inappropriate. Employees’ lack of motivation was a reaction to the actions of the manager.

Most mid-career employees have also worked for a leader for whom they had a strong desire to do everything possible to accomplish goals and objectives. Occasionally working late or starting early was not resented because this manager inspired them.

What to Do If You Manage a “Quiet Quitting ”Employee

Suppose you have multiple employees who you believe to be quietly quitting. In that case, an excellent question to ask yourself is: Is this a problem with my direct reports, or is this a problem with me and my leadership abilities?

If you’re confident in your leadership abilities and only one of your direct reports is unmotivated, that may not be your fault. As the above chart shows, 3% or 4% of the best managers had direct reports who were quietly quitting.

Either way, take a hard look at your approach toward getting results with your team members. When asking your direct reports for increased productivity, do you go out of your way to make sure that team members feel valued? Open and honest dialogue with colleagues about the expectations each party has of the other goes a long way.

The most important factor is trust. When we analysed data from more than 113,000 leaders to find the top behaviour that helps effective leaders balance results with their concern for team members, the number one behaviour that helped was trust. When direct reports trusted their leader, they also assumed that the manager cared about them and was concerned about their wellbeing.

Our research has linked trust to three behaviours. First, having positive relationships with all of your direct reports. This means you look forward to connecting and enjoy talking to them. Common interests bind you together, while differences are stimulating. Some team members make it easy to have a positive relationship. Others are more challenging. This is often a result of differences (age, gender, ethnicity, or political orientation). Look for and discover common ground with these team members to build mutual trust.

The second element of trust is consistency. In addition to being totally honest, leaders need to deliver on what they promise. Most leaders believe they are more consistent than others perceive them.

The third element that builds trust is expertise. Do you know your job well? Are you out of date on any aspects of your work? Do others trust your opinions and your advice? Experts can bring clarity, a path forward, and clear insight to build trust.

By building a trusting relationship with all of your direct reports, the possibility of them quietly quitting dissipates significantly. The approach leaders took to drive for results from employees in the past is not the same approach we use today. We are building safer, more inclusive, and positive workplaces, and we must continue to do better.

It’s easy to place the blame for quiet quitting on lazy or unmotivated workers, but instead, this research is telling us to look within and recognize that individuals want to give their energy, creativity, time, and enthusiasm to the organisations and leaders that deserve it.

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.axios.com/2022/09/07/quiet-quitting-pandemic-labor-jobs-unions
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/398306/quiet-quitting-real.aspx
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/02/how-quiet-quitting-became-the-next-phase-of-the-great-resignation.html

Recreating a Community at Work

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For decades, we’ve been living lonelier, more isolated lives. As our social connectedness and sense of community has decreased, so has our happiness and mental health. And with more aspects of our lives becoming digital, it has reduced our opportunities for everyday social interaction. The nature of our work, in particular, has shifted.

In 2014, Christine and Energy Project CEO Tony Schwartz partnered to learn more about what stands in the way of being more productive and satisfied at work. One of the more surprising findings was that 65% of people didn’t feel any sense of community at work.

That seemed costly (and sad!), motivating Christine to write Mastering Community, since lonelier workers report lower job satisfaction, fewer promotions, more frequent job switching, and a higher likelihood of quitting their current job in the next six months. Lonelier employees also tend to perform worse.

During the pandemic, many of us became even more isolated. Community, which we define as a group of individuals who share a mutual concern for one another’s welfare, has proven challenging to cultivate, especially for those working virtually. To learn more, we conducted a survey with the Conference for Women in which we asked nearly 1,500 participants about their sense of community at work before and since the pandemic and found it has declined 37%. When people had a sense of community at work, we found that they were 58% more likely to thrive at work, 55% more engaged, and 66% more likely to stay with their organization. They experienced significantly less stress and were far more likely to thrive outside of work, too.

People can create community in many ways, and preferences may differ depending on their backgrounds and interests. Here are several ways companies have successfully built a sense of community at work that leaders can consider emulating at their own organizations.

Create mutual learning opportunities

After creating an internal university for training years ago, Motley Fool, the stock advisor company, realized that the teachers got even more out of it than the students. The feedback led to a vibrant coaching program in which about 10% of employees act as a coach to other employees. For many, being a coach is a favourite part of their job. Chief People Officer Lee Burbage said, “When you think of progress and growth in a career, your mind tends to stay boxed into ‘What is my current role? What am I doing?’…we really try to encourage side projects…taking on a teaching role, taking on a coaching role, being a leader in one of our ERGs, that sort of thing.”

Burbage went on to describe how the company helped foster a sense of community by enabling employees to learn from one another in a less formal way:

We’ve had incredible fun and incredible effectiveness going out to [employees] and saying, “Hey, is anybody really good at something and would be interested in teaching others?” All it takes is for them to set up a Zoom call. We’ve had everything from DJ class to butchering class. How to make drinks, how to sew. Tapping into your employees and skills they may already have that they’d be excited to teach others, especially in the virtual world, that makes for a great class and creates an opportunity again for them to progress and grow and meet new people.

Plug into your local community

Kim Malek, the cofounder of ice cream company Salt & Straw, forges a sense of meaning and connectedness among employees, customers, and beyond to the larger communities in which her shops are located. From the beginning, Kim and her cousin and cofounder, Tyler Malek, “turned to their community, asking friends — chefs, chocolatiers, brewers, and farmers — for advice, finding inspiration everywhere they looked.”

Kim and Tyler worked with the Oregon Innovation Centre, a partnership between Oregon State University and the Department of Agriculture, to help companies support the local food industry and farmers. Kim Malek told Christine that every single ice cream flavour on their menu “had a person behind it that we worked with and whose story we could tell. So that feeling of community came through in the actual ice cream you were eating.”

On the people side, Salt & Straw partners with local community groups Emerging Leaders, an organization that places BIPOC students into paid internships, and The Women’s Justice Project (WJP), a program in Oregon that helps formerly incarcerated women re-join their communities. They also work with DPI Staffing to create job opportunities for people with barriers like disabilities and criminal records, and have hired 10 people as part of that program.

In partnership with local schools, Salt & Straw holds an annual “student inventors series” where children are invited to invent a new flavour of ice cream. The winner not only has their ice cream produced, but they read it to their school at an assembly, and the entire school gets free ice cream. This past year, Salt & Straw held a “rad readers” series and invited kids to submit their wildest stories attached to a proposed ice cream flavour. Salt & Straw looks for ways like this to embed themselves in and engage with the community to help people thrive. It creates meaning for their own community while also lifting up others.

Create virtual shared experiences

Develop ways for your people to connect through shared experiences, even if they’re working virtually. Sanjay Amin, head of YouTube Music + Premium Subscription Partnerships at YouTube, will share personal stories, suggest the team listen to the same album, or try one recipe together. It varies and is voluntary. He told Christine he tries to set the tone by being “an open book” and showing his human side through vulnerability. Amin has also sent his team members a “deep question card” the day before a team meeting. It’s completely optional but allows people to speak up and share their thoughts, experiences, and feelings in response to a deep question — for example:

If you could give everyone the same superpower, which superpower would you choose?

What life lesson do you wish everyone was taught in school?

He told Christine, “Fun, playful questions like these give us each a chance to go deep quickly and understand how we uniquely view the world” and that people recognized a shared humanity and bonding.

EXOS, a coaching company, has a new program, the Game Changer, that’s a six-week experience designed to get people to rethink what it means to sustain performance and career success in the long run. Vice President Ryan Kaps told Christine, “Work is never going back to the way it was. We saw an opportunity to help people not only survive, but thrive.”

In the Game Changer, members are guided by an EXOS performance coach and industry experts to address barriers that may be holding them back from reaching their highest potential at work or in life. Members learn science-backed strategies that deepen their curiosity, awaken their creativity, and help sustain energy and focus. The program structure combines weekly individual self-led challenges and live virtual team-based huddles and accountability, which provide community and support. People who’ve completed the Game Changer call it “transformative,” with 70% of participants saying they’re less stressed and 91% reporting that it “reignited their passion and purpose.”

Make rest and renewal a team effort

Burnout is rampant and has surged during the pandemic. In our recent survey, we found that only 10% of respondents take a break daily, 50% take breaks just once or twice a week, and 22% report never taking breaks. Distancing from technology is particularly challenging, with a mere 8% of respondents reporting that they unplug from all technology daily. Consider what you can do to focus on recovery, together.

Tony Schwartz told Christine about the work his group did with a team from accounting firm Ernst and Young. In 2018, this team had been working on a particularly challenging project during the busy season, the result being that the team members became so exhausted and demoralized that a majority of them left the company afterward.

To try to change this, the 40-person EY team worked with the Energy Project to develop a collective “Resilience Boot Camp” in 2019 focused on teaching people to take more breaks and get better rest in order to manage their physical, emotional, and mental energy during especially intense periods. As a follow up, every other week for the 14 weeks of the busy season, the EY employees attended one-hour group coaching sessions during which team members discussed setbacks and challenges and supported one another in trying to embrace new recovery routines. Each participant was paired with another teammate to provide additional personal support and accountability.

Thanks to the significant shifts in behaviour, accountants completed their work in fewer hours and agreed to take off one weekend day each week during this intense period. “Employees were able to drop 12 to 20 hours per week based on these changes, while accomplishing the same amount of work,” Schwartz told Christine.

By the end of the 2019 busy season, team members felt dramatically better than at the end of 2018’s. And five months after the busy season, when accounting teams typically lost people to exhaustion and burnout, this EY team’s retention stood at 97.5%. Schwartz told Christine that his main takeaway from that experience was “the power of community.”

Community can be a survival tool — a way for people to get through challenging things together — and helps move people from surviving to thriving. As we found, it also makes people much more likely to stay with your organization. What can you do to help build a sense of community?

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.weforum.org/agenda/2021/11/researchers-discover-best-way-to-avoid-procrastination
https://medium.com/productivity-power/can-a-self-imposed-deadline-help-beat-procrastination-13936992d1ea
https://www.fastcompany.com/3026895/self-imposed-deadlines-dont-stop-procrastination-heres-what-might