Liane Davey's Blog, page 11

October 22, 2023

What to Do After a Difficult Conversation

This is the third post in a series about difficult conversations. The first delved into what makes a conversation difficult and provided a series of steps to prepare for a difficult conversation—the second focused on the techniques you can use in the discussion to keep things constructive.

Don’t head for the hills once you’ve survived the difficult conversation. It’s not a “we must never speak of this again” scenario. Instead, follow up in a way that creates closure, ensures alignment, and cements the relationship benefits that come with candor. You get an A+ for broaching the difficult conversation only after the follow-up.

How to Follow Up After a Difficult ConversationStart with Thanks

Post-it note stuck to a computer monitor that say, If you have the wherewithal at the end of the difficult conversation, take a beat and then thank the person. Thank them for not running away. Thank them for helping you see another perspective. Thank them for investing in your business or relationship by working through something uncomfortable. Don’t pretend that it was nothing. Don’t take it for granted. Say, thank you.

If you didn’t have the presence of mind in the moment, or you weren’t exactly feeling a “thanks” at the end of the conversation, go back to it as soon as you feel able. That might be a text message as you return to your desk. “That was important. Thank you.” It could be a fly-by later in the day, even before you fully process the conversation. Heck, you might not be ready for contact, but you can still put a sticky note on their computer while they’re in the bathroom. Just make sure you get that thank you in there at some point.

Discuss Next Steps

One of the biggest mistakes people make (and a giant waste of energy for all involved) is to end the conversation and not revisit the resolution and any next steps. In the heat of a difficult conversation, neither of you is in the best state to remember objectively what you’ve committed to. You might remember those commitments differently and set up a conflict when you fail to meet each other’s expectations. Worse, you might have completely blocked out what you agreed to do. Ugh.

To avoid that problem, document your understanding of the agreement. Keep it short and sweet. “We agreed that when there are concerns in the future, you will let me know before the meeting so I can be prepared. I’m going to increase the lead time on sending out materials, so you have more opportunity to review and get back to me.”

I refer to this alignment step (which should happen after any form of conflict) as “sticking the landing.” Like the gymnast, no matter how many impressive flips and contortions you made in the midst of the conversation, you won’t get credit if you don’t stick the landing.

I’m partial to written forms of communication for this step because they force precision and can also be used later for reference.

Ask for Feedback

After the fact, when you’ve each had a little time to decompress, ask for feedback about what you shared or how you shared it. You can couch it if it makes it more comfortable. “I was so nervous about raising that issue with you, and I tried to be clear and kind. What advice would you give me when I’m approaching uncomfortable conversations in the future?” Alternatively, specify, “What do you wish I would do differently next time?”

I prefer the future-focused questions because you’ll get a sense of what needs to be different without the excruciating rehash of the initial conversation. I also recommend the expression “what do you wish” as a more suggestive way for someone to tell you what they want. More on using “I wish” as a tool for constructive conflict here.

End with Thanks

Yup, I know we already went through one round of thank yous, and now I’m recommending a second: think of it as the Thank You (Reprise), like in a musical. While your first thank you is a demarcation between icky uncomfortable and okay breathe, the second thanks should be a signal that you’re moving on better than before. It should focus on the relationship benefits of having difficult conversations.

This second thank you might come a week (or two or a month or two) after the conversation. Now’s your big chance to share what it means to you to have colleagues willing to go through the mud with you in service of a healthy team and business. There are many versions to choose from; here are a few:

“I was reflecting on our conversation about sharing the credit for work and realizing that not many people would have been as open to that feedback as you were. I’m grateful that you make it feel safe to have these conversations.”

“You really changed my perspective over the past couple of weeks. I was locked into thinking of this through the design lens, and you pushing me to consider the implementation challenges was so valuable. I know I didn’t make it easy, so thank you!”

“There was a lot of emotion close to the surface in our discussion, and you didn’t back away. It gave me the chance to work through things and come to a good resolution. I feel much more confident about our ability to find our way through other contentious issues.”

“You are the best partner from sales I’ve ever had. I feel like we can fight the good fight, and you’re always looking for the best answer, not what’s expedient or necessarily the best for sales. Thank you for that.”  

Why You Shouldn’t Apologize

One last thought…

You might behave in many ways in a difficult conversation that warrant an apology after the fact. That list includes aggressive interrupting, yelling, name-calling, getting your facts wrong, etc. If you did one of those things during the contentious conversation, it’s worth apologizing. Here are the detailed instructions for what makes a good apology.

But for most things you’re ruminating on and berating yourself for, a thank you is a better next step than an apology. Why? Because if we use language that reinforces the notion that difficult conversations are inappropriate or aversive or that being human and emotional is a failing, we’re never going to normalize the discomfort of being on a great team. If you catch yourself wanting to say, “sorry,” could you swap in one of these alternatives?

Instead of saying, “I’m sorry I got upset,” try “Thank you so much for sticking with the conversation. That was really emotional for me.”

Instead of, “I’m sorry to add another thing to your plate,” say, “I realize you have a lot going on right now. Thank you for making time for this.”

Instead of “I’m sorry that I upset you,” go with, “Thank you for being open to this feedback.”

In general, the formula is to replace “my bad” with “your good.”

When you take the time to close the loop on a difficult conversation, you make it worth the time and effort. Not only does it give you a chance to ensure you’re on the same page about what comes next, but it also reinforces the fact that candor, vulnerability, and shared discomfort strengthen trust; they don’t erode it.

Additional Resources

End Your Meetings Properly

How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation Remotely

Do one uncomfortable thing

 

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Published on October 22, 2023 05:03

October 15, 2023

The Art of the Difficult Conversation

In the previous post, I talked about the inevitability of difficult conversations, the things that make them difficult (like the risk of being candid or the risk of harming a relationship), and the steps you can take to prepare for them to maximize the chance it will be worth the effort.

If you’ve done everything possible to set yourself up for success, it’s time to broach the difficult conversation.

How to Have a Difficult Conversation

Here are some strategies and techniques to make your difficult conversation more likely to lead to a good outcome rather than spiraling into an unhealthy and unpleasant fight.

Begin with Context

If you’re framing the conversation as difficult, you might feel considerable anxiety at the outset. That might make you a little more direct, or even blunt, than is helpful. When broaching an uncomfortable topic, don’t go straight to the heart of it, “Bob, I need to tell you that you offended me in this morning’s meeting!” That will feel like an ambush and trigger a response from Bob that’s not likely to be pleasant.

Instead of going straight to the heart of it, provide a little context. You might say, “Bob, I’ve been thinking about our meeting this morning, and something you said isn’t sitting well. I don’t want to stew over it without talking to you… .” Your context statement can include things like the situation you’re talking about, your motives in raising the issue, the value you place on your relationship, etc.

Lest you get carried away with describing the entire historical context for your conversation ‘since the beginning of time,’ it’s important to say that too much context can be as troublesome as too little. Suppose your version of anxiety is to become woefully indirect, use too many words, and nervously beat around the bush. In that case, your discomfort will likely transfer to the other person, and you’ll both be squirming before you even get to the point. So, give some context, but keep it tight.

Share Your Perspective

Now that you’ve set the stage for the conversation, you can raise the specific issue you want to address. Again, taking care in how you position your point or request will make a significant difference in how it lands and what happens as a result. Here are the most important things to remember:

Avoid absolutes. You might be feeling that the person “always” or “never” does something or that “everyone” or “no one” agrees. Still, absolutes are triggering and make the conversation more extreme than necessary. Use “often,” “most,” or “frequently,” or better yet, be specific, “in the previous three meetings” or “of the six customers I spoke with.”

Soften assertions. Rather than boldly stating what “must” be done or what “has to happen,” use language that promotes a two-way dialogue. For example, you can say, “I’m wondering” instead of “I believe” or “How would” in place of “You should.”

Start with the issue, not the solution. Another way I see difficult conversations devolving into fights is when you go straight to proposing a solution without first aligning on the problem. This is a significant issue in cross-functional teams where people often over-step by telling someone in another department how to solve a problem without the background or expertise to get it right. Instead, frame the problem. “I’m worried we’re going to annoy our suppliers. How could we minimize that risk?”

Be objective about them and subjective about you. When describing another person, keep it sterile and as fact-based as possible. Don’t talk about others being “unresponsive” or “in the weeds.” Instead, say, “I haven’t heard back from them since I left a message on Tuesday,” or “They are giving me grammar corrections while I’m still building the outline.”

Do the opposite when it comes to sharing your take. Expose your feelings, perceptions, and interpretations so the other person has a window into your thinking. For example, it can be helpful to say, “I’m feeling ignored,” or “I’m frustrated that we’re focusing on the wrong thing.” A little vulnerability goes a long way in making a difficult conversation more valuable.

How you serve up your contentious comments will make a world of difference in how easy they are to swallow.

Ask Open Ended Questions

100 Productive Conflict QuestionsAnother hallmark of a great conversation is that you’re listening as much as you’re talking. When the subject matter is contentious, they might not show their cards without the correct prompt. You’ll need to be good at forming questions that create an entrée for them to share their perspective.

The basics of good questions apply. The first rule is that they should be open-ended to broaden the conversation and deepen the connection (I’ll talk in a moment about the place for closed-ended questions). The second tip is to avoid questions that start with ‘why’ because they tend to make people defensive rather than curious. And no, smart a$s, WTF doesn’t count as a great question even though it meets both criteria.

Beyond the basics, good questions are like projective tests that allow the other person to tell the story that is relevant to them. Avoid leading questions that are basically a version of “This is what I think; you agree with me…right?” Try examples like, “How do you see this playing out,” “What would have to be true for you,” or “Where should we be focusing our attention?”

This downloadable resource has 100 questions you can deliver as is or use as inspiration to come up with your own open-ended questions. (Click the image to download.)

Listen for Treasure

Dial showing the subcomponents of the three levels of listeningAfter you’ve served up a great open-ended question, zip it!! Listen. And not just for the information they share with you. Listen beneath that for what emotions are emerging. You’ll hear what they’re feeling in their word choice and tone, pitch, and volume. And listen for what’s not said, too. What do they value that’s making the conversation difficult? What hypotheses can you form? What’s the treasure they are protecting? Here’s a deep dive into what I call Level III Listening–it’s the kind you want to employ in a Difficult Conversation.

Validate Their Perspective

We’ve talked about the importance of open-ended questions and good listening. There’s one other move you’ll see often in a productive conversation—validation. As the person shares their perspective, concerns, and proposed actions, stop and paraphrase what you’re learning before adding anything new. For example, “If I understand correctly, you believe the proposal is getting too expensive, and we won’t win.”

If you get it right, you’ll lock in some progress—ratcheting toward better understanding and potential resolutions. If you get it wrong, the fact that you tried will provide enough goodwill for them to clarify and for you to get another chance. With some luck, they’ll even return the favor and start validating your points.

Test a Proposal

If you get close to a potential resolution, don’t go for the close too quickly. Tossing off a “Great, so we’ll do x, y, and z” before you’re good and sure that’s what they have in mind could make things worse instead of better. Instead, when you see a path forward, treat it as a possibility rather than a certainty. Ask, “It seems like if we did x, y, and z, that would address the key issues. Would that work for you?”

You’ll notice that this is a closed-ended question. This is the point at which you want to switch from open- to closed-ended because you’re trying to converge on a path forward. If, instead of “Would that work,” you ask, “How does that work,” they might give you a long, meandering answer that leaves it unclear whether you have an agreement or not. Stick to questions that require a yes or no response.

As with validation, it’s less about getting it exactly right and more about the signal you send by trying to move forward together rather than imposing your view too definitively. If the proposed solution doesn’t work for them, you’ll probably get a chance to modify it and try a new version.

Stick the Landing

One last step before you run off to exhale and treat yourself to a libation: state the resolution clearly. “I am going to do A. You are going to do B.” If there’s more to it, get it all out. The point here is to ensure you both have the same picture in your heads of what will happen next. Otherwise, you’re likely to go off in different directions, fail to meet each other’s expectations, and set up an even more difficult conversation in the future.

Difficult conversations expend a lot of energy and emotional capital. These few approaches can make them more effective at resolving an issue and more efficient in getting to that resolution with as little pain and suffering as possible.

In the next post, we’ll talk about how to follow up on a difficult conversation in a way that strengthens the trust between you and the other person. Stay tuned.

Additional Resources

How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation Remotely

How to Broach an Uncomfortable Topic

Pay Off One Conflict Debt in Your Life

 

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Published on October 15, 2023 05:22

October 8, 2023

How to Prepare for a Difficult Conversation

Life is full of difficult conversations. Telling a direct report that their performance isn’t up to par. Letting a teammate know that their comments in a meeting hurt you. Asking your manager for something you think you deserve but haven’t been getting. These are stomach-flipping, palm-moistening, sleep-thrashing kinds of discussions. But if they’re unavoidable, how do you get through them with grace?

What Makes a Conversation Difficult?

First, it’s probably worth figuring out what qualifies as a difficult conversation. It might be difficult because it’s…

Difficult to Say

You know you’ll feel awkward or uncomfortable delivering the message. Perhaps you’ll be more candid or vulnerable than usual, and you’re worried you’ll ramble, obfuscate, get upset, or feel like puking the whole time.

Difficult to Describe

You don’t quite know how to parlay the message you want to send. The idea is a bit nebulous, or you don’t have the right words and are anxious about how to frame the issue. You imagine yourself fumbling your words, being ambiguous, and not landing your point.

Difficult to Hear

You expect the message you deliver to upset the person receiving it. It might cause self-doubt, hurt their feelings, or disrupt your relationship. You imagine the other person’s devastated face or deflated demeanor.

Difficult to Defend

You think the person might attack you in response. They might get angry, yell, or say vicious things about you (to your face or behind your back). You can think of a dozen ways that saying something could make things worse instead of better.

Difficult to Anticipate

You aren’t sure how the conversation is going to go. You don’t necessarily think it will be terrible, but the fact that it’s unpredictable is enough for the noisy narrator in your head to convince you that you should be nervous.

Difficult to Win

You aren’t confident that broaching the issue and making your case will work. You’re worried you will spend relationship capital and have nothing to show for it. Or worse, that you’ll burn bridges or erode trust. You won’t have another move after this one. Checkmate.

What else makes a conversation ‘difficult’ for you? Tell me in the comments.

How to Get Ready for a Difficult Conversation

You can take a few steps to prepare for a difficult conversation. Investing the effort will put you in the best position to maximize the positive outcomes of the discussion while minimizing the downsides. Spend a few minutes to work through each of these steps. If there are any that you can’t honestly say you’ve completed, consider holding off on the conversation until you do.

Clarify Your Message

Start by thinking about what it is you want to say. Are you sharing feedback? Asking for something? Raising a concern? Are you expecting the person to do something in response? If so, what?

Now, go one layer deeper. Why do you feel it’s important to share this message? Why now? Who will benefit? Does answering these questions lead you to a new understanding of the core message you want to deliver?

Articulate what you hope to achieve—for you, them, the team, and the business. Can you point to anything meaningful that will be better after the conversation, or are you just getting something off your chest?

If you’re not clear on your message and why it matters…WAIT.

Prepare Concrete Examples

Next, think of examples to help the person understand what you mean. Was there a specific piece of work they did that you’re reacting to? What about it left you feeling the way you feel? Your goal here is to find examples the person will remember and describe them in a way that will ring true to them.

If you can’t come up with any examples or describe them objectively, it might be better to wait before delivering your message. In that case, pay attention for the next little while and see if you can find an example of what you’re trying to describe.

Alternatively, ask someone you trust to help you. “I feel Sara doesn’t value my ideas, but I don’t want to say anything if I’m just imagining things. Have you seen examples that could explain what I’m feeling?”

If you don’t have a concrete example…WAIT

Interrogate Your Feelings

Now that you’ve been thinking about the issue, check in with how you’re feeling. Are you angry, sad, anxious, or offended as you reflect on the subject? Where are you feeling it? Are your thoughts spiraling, is your pulse racing, are your palms sweaty, or stomach lurching? Grab an emotion wheel and see if you can pinpoint an emotion more specifically than anger or sadness.

It’s okay to have a difficult conversation while feeling heightened emotions. It’s risky to have it if you aren’t aware of what those feelings are or how they affect your ability to have a rational discussion.

If your feelings are still overwhelming your thinking…WAIT

Test Your Story

You’ll notice now that what you’re feeling is directly related to what story you’re telling yourself about the situation and their behavior. What is that story? What are you assuming about their intent? How might their intentions have been different from their impact?

Consider alternative plot lines, especially ones where they aren’t the villain, and you aren’t the victim. My book, You First, has a chapter called Start with a Positive Assumption. Changing the door through which you enter the conversation can change everything. You want to have a difficult conversation, not a fight.

If you’re not ready to start with a positive assumption…WAIT

Write a Happy Ending

One of the more uncomfortable situations to find yourself in is being on the receiving end of a difficult conversation where the person just dumps their negative feelings or feedback on you with no guidance about how they want things to be different. Don’t be that person.

Before you share your difficult message, have a picture in your head of what you would like the person to do as a result. Are you asking for an apology, looking for different behavior, or asking them to accept your decision? What would be a good outcome? What would be fantastic? What’s the minimum that would be acceptable to you?

If you don’t know what you’re asking for…WAIT

Set the Scene

One last set of things to consider before having a difficult conversation—who, when, where, and how.

Who should be present for the conversation? Is it a one-on-one discussion with an individual, or are there others involved who need to be present? If multiple people are involved, do you need to speak with each separately before bringing everyone together?

When is a good time for the conversation? Are there days of the week or month when there is enough time to be measured and calm? What else is going on that’s creating stress that might intensify the conversation?

Where would be a good place to have the conversation? Can you find privacy somewhere in the office? Is there a spot where you can sit in parallel to reduce the intensity of too much eye contact? Where could you go so that if either of you get visibly emotional, you could exit without being seen?

How should you have to have the conversation? Are you remote from the person you need to talk with? Is this a situation for a video call, or could you revert to the relative intimacy and safety of a phone call?

You’ve gone to all the effort of preparing what you want to say; now make sure you’re equally deliberate about who, when, where, and how to foster a productive dialogue.

If you don’t have the right moment or the right spot…WAIT.

If you’re raising uncomfortable issues regularly, you’ll find that problems can be addressed before they rise to the level of a difficult conversation. But if you find yourself in a situation where the only option is to have a difficult conversation or get into further conflict debt, choose difficult conversation. Put the pieces in place to ensure you’re ready for a constructive discussion. In my next post, I’ll share some techniques to use while you’re in the middle of a difficult conversation.

Additional Resources

Pay Off One Conflict Debt in Your Life

How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation Remotely

How to Tell if Your Work Conflict is Healthy

 

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Published on October 08, 2023 05:31

September 24, 2023

Improve Your Team Dynamics

In my previous post, I shared tactics you can use to realign your team if the inevitable changes in the external environment, shifts in organizational strategy, bumps in the road, and feelings of lethargy have you at less than full speed ahead.

If you want to reset your team, it’s best to start with realignment (clarifying what the team needs to do) for two reasons. First, connecting your attention and action to what’s most important for your organization is critical. Second, many team dysfunctions that manifest as trust issues are misalignment issues in disguise. If you didn’t have a chance to do the exercises from the first post, start there and then loop back here.

Address Team Dynamic Issues

Once everyone is on the same page concerning your team’s purpose, goals, strategies, and tactics, you can consider your team’s dynamic. Have you noticed that lately, your team is less of a team and more of a loose collection of individuals who meet on Tuesdays? Or worse, is friction or mistrust making it feel harder than it should? Then, it’s time to switch from focusing on what your team needs to do to how you do it.

Reset Your Communication

It’s easy to get into communication ruts that interrupt connection. Take some time to think through when and how you interact with one another, looking for opportunities to enhance candor, improve clarity, or increase efficiency.

Different messages suit different communication approaches, but many teams get stuck using only one or two methods for their interactions. (What percentage of your team’s communication is in a meeting or an email?). Auditing your communication and looking for better approaches can be a great refresh.

Change the Channel

Communication channels like face-to-face meetings, hallway huddles, video calls, email, Slack, IM, text, and phone calls have pros and cons. When you use the wrong channel, it degrades the quality of the communication. For example, if you’re using a meeting to share information and an email to debate a contentious topic, you’ve got it backward. Look for opportunities to use rich communication channels for content that’s new, contentious, or complex (and if you’re including participants who aren’t as familiar with your tea or your jargon). Shunt anything routine, informational, or detailed to Slack or email.

Get in Sync

Studies conducted by Microsoft show that the average employee has more than double the hours of meetings they had before the pandemic. That is hugely inefficient (and at an average of 22 hours per week, when is there time to do anything with what you decide in a meeting?!?) Consider which types of communication and what information would suit asynchronous communication that doesn’t disrupt people’s schedules and simultaneously force their attention on the same topic.

Fade to Black

Another excellent tactic to reset your communication is managing the barrage of emails people get. Check out my guidelines for making email suck less here. In addition, you can institute blackout periods during the day where everyone can turn off their notifications and work uninterrupted for an hour or two twice a day. Making communication with colleagues seem like less of a burden is refreshing.

Reset your Meetings

Meetings are another excellent opportunity to change things up to revitalize your team. Here are some options to consider.

Do More of the Same

Standing meetings are often chock-a-block with content of all different types. In your standard Monday meeting, you’re trying to cover the most strategic and the most mundane, the most proactive and the most urgent. That’s not optimized for how our brains work. Try having separate meetings for operational, organizational, and strategic content. I’ve outlined how to do that in this HBR article.

Revise the Guest List

Another way to improve the conversation might be to change the participants. Are there new voices who would bring fresh perspectives or renewed energy? Could regular participants send delegates occasionally to mix things up while providing developmental opportunities? Would new people bring new perspectives that will unlock productive conflict? If the same group has been meeting regularly for months or years, it might be time to revise the guest list.

Prime the Pump

It’s a common refrain to hear people complaining about meetings. But meetings can be fantastic. It’s inefficient, ineffective meetings that are infuriating. The difference between a great use of time and a complete waste is often how prepared people were when they walked into the room. Revisit your approach to meeting prep and double down on the discipline of meeting primers. That way, the person who owns the agenda item has done the work to set up the conversation, and the people contributing are ready to add value. Find the instructions here.

Reset Your Behavior

Once you’ve explored the process changes that could make your team more effective, you can consider the required behavior changes if you’re going to reset your team dynamic.

Set the Rules

Ground rules effectively define how people need to show up if they want to be a positive part of the team. Do you have a set of ground rules that was top of mind for a while but needs to be revisited? Are your ground rules at the bottom of every agenda, but still, you ignore flagrant violations? Is the idea of ground rules completely new? Here’s an example of how to create ground rules for productive conflict.

Pay off Debts

Conflict debt is the term I use to describe the plaque of unresolved issues that choke a team’s blood flow. If you have conflict debt on your team, identifying the underlying dissent and gradually working through resolutions can be one of the most liberating exercises available to you. Identify the unresolved prioritization trade-offs, the lingering resentments about past decisions, and the friction among people with different styles. Stop ignoring these issues and start addressing them.

Gain Insight

Unsavory and unproductive team dynamics sometimes stem from a need for more self-awareness and empathy with different styles. In those cases, enlisting help from a team development expert is well worth your time and money. They can bring psychometric tools, group coaching, and team development exercises to help you appreciate and benefit from those different styles.

If your team is getting things done but not having much fun in the process, use one or more of these techniques to improve that trajectory.

Additional Resources

An Exercise to Expose Team Dysfunction in One Meeting

How To Repair A Workplace Relationship When Trust Is Broken

Video: Does Your Team Have Too Much Conflict or Not Enough? 

 

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Published on September 24, 2023 06:22

September 17, 2023

Is Your Team Misaligned?

Is your team feeling stuck, stymied, or just a bit stale? Does it feel like you’re working at cross-purposes? Or have you pulled apart and started toiling away in isolation? It happens.

In the next two posts, I share some advice on how to reset your team in hopes of getting back on the right path.

While there are as many versions of team dysfunction as there are teams (actually, there are exponentially more than that because each team member experiences the same team’s dysfunction uniquely), in my experience, the dysfunctions fall into two categories. There are two different scenarios. First is the team that has lost the plot. It’s no longer clear why you exist as a team; you don’t know what’s important, what you’re trying to achieve, or who should do what first, second, and third. In that case, your reset needs to focus on realignment.

The other possibility is that the relationships among team members are the issue, and your team’s behavior is causing problems. You’re barely interacting, everyone feels like no one is listening, or there’s friction over even the most minor issues. In that case, your reset needs to focus on revitalization.

I’ll focus on realignment first for two reasons. Many dysfunctions that look like trust issues result from the misalignment of goals, expectations, and priorities and not from people being intentional jerks. Getting people working toward the same goals alleviates much of the friction. Also, even when I’m more worried about team dynamics, I start with realignment because it ties the necessary behavior change to the business rationale (e.g., changing external environment, new strategy) rather than pointing fingers at bad behavior. That increases the people’s receptivity to change.

How to Get Your Team Aligned

Here are a few options for how you can realign your team. You might want to participate in a dedicated session or spread the exercises over several meetings. Alternatively, you might only need one or two of these tactics to get something important to click into place. Pick a place that feels relevant and dig in.

Reset your team’s mandate

It’s possible that you’re working toward an out-of-date purpose, and it’s time to reflect on the value your team needs to add. Here are some possibilities and prompts to consider.

Shifting External Environment

What is changing in the outside work that requires us to evolve—or transform? What macro trends are emerging in society, the economy, industry, or technology that require your attention? How do those changes impact what your organization depends on you to deliver? For example, if you lead the facilities team, how does hybrid work affect your real estate footprint and office design? How will rising interest rates and declining demand for commercial real estate net out? And what about climate changes—do you have an assessment of how your facilities will fare with hotter temperatures and increased storm severity? What about environmental standards? How will new corporate sustainability regulations affect what you measure? Sheesh—you’ve got a LOT to keep up with if you’re in facilities!!!

Shifting Corporate Strategy

As you can see in the external context section, many things are changing outside your organization that you need to consider. Of course, things changing inside may also require adjustments to your team’s mandate.

Does your company have a new strategy, and if so, how can your team change tack to stay on course? It could be a new vision, a new product line, a new market, or new goals (or all of the above) that require you to change your mandate. For example, if you’re a marketing team and part of a grocery chain that has gone from selling branded products to adding your own white-labeled goods, you need to rethink your purpose as a team. If you’re in procurement and your organization is starting a global expansion, buckle up.

Reset Your Team’s Goals

If your mandate has changed because of changes in the world inside or outside your organization, you will definitely need to revisit your goals. Even without those major changes, you might want to take a fresh look at your goals. These are valid reasons to consider moving the goalposts.

Respond to Internal Changes

Consider whether your existing goals are still pointing you in the right direction and whether they are appropriately challenging. How do you need to shift your focus in light of a new strategy? Are there goals that are more and less important now? Do you need an entirely new goal to reflect a new role your team is expected to play?

Maybe the goal definition is fine, but it’s the target that needs to be revised. What have you accomplished in the past year, and how does that impact what’s left to do? If you’ve been outperforming consistently, do you need more stretch? If you’ve fallen short, do you need to lower your goals or risk demoralizing everyone?

Respond to External Changes

External factors impact your goals, too. If you work in the auto parts industry, how does a strike by the North American auto workers affect what’s possible? Myriad factors emerge in the environment that are significant headwinds that might make it appropriate to temper your expectations. Of course, there are environmental tailwinds as well. If you’re a team of content marketers, coders, or paralegals, how will LLMs like ChatGPT allow you to improve your productivity? Does it make sense to up your targets?

Some goal resets are about heading in a new direction, some about how far you need to go, and others are less about changing the destination and more about clarifying it. Is there an opportunity to make your goals more specific and less ambiguous? You might enhance alignment on your team by tightening up the definitions or targeting the metrics so that everyone can see whether you’re progressing.

Reset Your Strategies and Tactics

You might need new strategies if the competitive environment has changed or your customers are shifting. Changes to your mandate or goals will necessitate new strategies and tactics, but even if those things haven’t changed, you might be due for a rethink. Looking for new and better ways to accomplish your goals is something you should do routinely. For example, if you’re in a law firm, how does the introduction of significant new legislation create an opportunity for competitive advantage?

The other possibility is that your tactics need sprucing up. Stay with the law firm example; the strategy of focusing on the new legislation might still be valid, but is your approach yielding as much as you’d like? Maybe you need to change your target organizations, punch up your marketing messages, or standardize tools for delivering the work. You’re looking for tactics to tweak, abandon, or double down on.

Finally, you might not need to change your current strategies or tactics, but it might be worth considering a few contingencies that could emerge. Anticipating potential scenarios and getting prepared might be enough of a shot in the arm to revitalize your team. What did you assume in developing your existing plan? If you swap out those assumptions for other possibilities, how would that necessitate a change to your strategy or tactics?  What will you monitor to know if Plan A needs to switch to Plan B?

Reset your Roles

One last opportunity to realign your team comes from asking whether you are optimizing the energy and talents of the individuals on your team. Sometimes, a genuine mismatch exists between someone’s skills and talents and their role. Other times, it’s been too long of doing the same thing, and they need a new challenge to reinvigorate them.

Consider a shuffle where people change roles. Certainly, if there’s a skills mismatch, you’ll want to find everyone a role where they’re positioned to succeed. But there are other rationales for changing positions as well. You might want to use it to cross-skill people, expose more people to other parts of your operations, or set up a succession possibility. Or maybe you just want to give someone a new challenge.

Even within existing roles, you might want to tidy up people’s accountabilities. Can you make the accountabilities associated with a more compelling or straightforward? Do you have situations where shared accountability is eroding ownership, causing duplication of effort, or resulting in dropped balls? Cleaning up who is doing what, with whom, and by when might just be a breath of fresh air that gets everyone re-engaged.

Even the most talented, dedicated, hardworking team can stall occasionally. The first thing to do is question whether a reset and realignment are in order. If so, take a fresh look at what your organization, colleagues, and customers need from you and how your goals, strategies, tactics, roles, and accountabilities can be better aligned with delivering it. You’ll be surprised at how many team dynamic issues fade away in light of better alignment.

Further Reading

10 Tips to Prevent Misalignment from Destroying Trust

Prioritize Means Deprioritize

Common Mistakes in Strategic Planning

 

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Published on September 17, 2023 06:21

September 10, 2023

Are You Working in the Right Organization?

I’ll throw it out there—your relationship with your current employer might have passed its best-before date. It might be time to move along, jump ship, hit the road. And when it’s time, it’s time. Dragging out the process is hard on you and hard on your organization. Take a moment to consider whether you’ve reached that point.

When is it time to leave your organization?You Don’t Suit the Stage

One of the most common reasons I see for switching organizations is that your company has entered a new phase, and it’s not one that you enjoy or excel at. It might be because you joined a start-up and loved the scrappy culture and the chance to play various roles; now, the company is growing up, and the added structure makes you feel like someone traded your hoodie for a collared shirt and tie.

Alternatively, you might have joined a company in its heyday with money to burn and opportunities galore. Now, you’re past the peak, and it’s all about prudently managing the decline. Whatever the scenario, it might be time to move on if your company has reached a stage that no longer works for you.

You Don’t Believe in the Strategy

Another reason you might not be motivated to stay is that your company has changed tack, and you can’t get behind the new strategy. Maybe it’s a new product line, a new business model, or a different customer segment, but it’s not something that excites you, uses your skills, or is set up for success. When you’re not a fit with the strategy, dedicating the time and energy required to do your job well is hard. It feels like a slog, and you don’t want to slog for too long in life.

You’ve Lost Faith in the Leadership

Another good reason to look outside your current organization is that you’ve lost confidence in your company’s leadership. Perhaps they are so indecisive that your organization stagnates while the competition passes you by. Or maybe it’s the opposite problem; they are changing their minds and flip-flopping so often that no strategy has time to get traction before it’s abandoned. Alternatively, it might be less about your leadership’s business savvy and more about their lack of people savvy. If they’ve created a toxic environment, it might be time to get out before it damages your relationship with work.

You’re Not Growing Anymore

The first time I decided I needed to leave my organization wasn’t because I doubted the organization or its leadership but because my learning had stalled. The firm I was in had too narrow of a focus, and there wasn’t an obvious spot for me to go that would stretch me with new assignments, industries, and perspectives. I liked the organization, but it wasn’t enough anymore.

These are a few scenarios where the best option is to leave the organization; there are others. Let me know in the comments which ones I missed.

Should I Stay at my Organization?

If you find yourself in one of these scenarios, you’re probably humming and hah-ing about whether to stick it out and for how long. The reasons for sticking around are apparent:

You need to pay the rent and can’t be without a jobYou’ve invested a lot in the company and don’t want to start againYou like your manager or coworkersYour tenure is short, and leaving so soon won’t look good on your resumeYou don’t relish change

Any of those reasons might be causing you to remain in your organization past the point where it’s healthy for you or the organization. Consider some of these downsides of staying with an organization you no longer believe in.

Heightened Doubt and Stress

When working somewhere you don’t fit, the most salient issue is that your concerns contribute to higher-than-normal stress, disrupt your sleep, and ultimately affect your health. You’ve probably got the energy reserves to live with this kind of stress for a while (maybe six months), but living with it for much longer isn’t worth it. And remember, if your frustrations with your organization affect your mental health, they will also ripple to your family and friends.

Negative Impact on Colleagues

While they might not be your primary concern if you’re having a crisis of faith in your organization, your colleagues also feel the effects when you start doubting the company. It will take a toll on your teammates if you’re frequently challenging the status quo, questioning decisions, and generally showing your frustration with the company’s direction. Emotions are contagious; it’s worth asking if you’re spreading something nasty.

Tarnished Reputation

Another important consideration is the cost to your reputation of staying in an organization you can’t believe in anymore. If you take your foot off the gas or actively undermine the strategy or leadership, it’s going to take a toll on your personal brand. In my experience, managers and colleagues understand that sometimes it’s time to move on, and many will support you, open their networks, and provide a great reference. But if you leave on a sour note, all those options disappear, and potential allies may become detractors.

I see it more often than I’d like—people who have stayed in a company past the point when they happily contribute. The costs are high for the individual, the team, and the organization. So, it’s worth taking a moment to ask yourself whether the time to leave has come.

How do you assess whether it’s time to leave an organization?

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Published on September 10, 2023 09:51

June 25, 2023

Are You Aware of Your Strengths?

For the final post in my series on gaps in self-awareness, I thought it worth considering another costly self-awareness deficit: what if you’re clueless about your strengths?

After talking about the damage done by people unaware of the impact of their negative behaviors, it’s important to remember that being naïve about your strong suits can also be a problem.

Why You Need to Understand Your Strengths

Having a superpower isn’t much good if you don’t know you’ve got it at your disposal—or that you’re the only one who can save the day. Plus, if you’re unaware of your strength, you might inadvertently wreak havoc by overpowering those who don’t have your gifts.

Here are a few more reasons why you want to be aware of your strengths.

Contribute Confidently

When you’re in tune with your talents, skills, insights, and perspectives, it’s good for your confidence. When you know you have something unique to contribute, you realize that staying silent means foregoing an angle that others might not see. Knowing your strengths helps you overcome awkwardness or sheepishness and bolsters the sense of obligation to share what you have to offer.

Teach and Model

When you’re aware of the skills and behaviors that make you stand out, you’re in a better position to model and teach them to others. You might take your Excel prowess for granted, but the person next to you might be struggling with their pivot table and longing for someone to help them. If you think your skills are run-of-the-mill, dime-a-dozen, you don’t realize others would love to learn from you.

Build on Strengths

It’s easy to fill up your developmental plan with all the weaknesses you want to address or new things you need to learn. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is essential, but having strengths to build on is also important. You’ll probably get more traction by investing in developing your strengths than trying to remedy your weaknesses.

Shape Your Career

Over your career, you can move toward tasks and roles that amplify your strengths. According to Gallup’s research, doing so is associated with massive engagement and quality of life increases. You won’t know which roles you’re best suited to if you aren’t clear on those strengths. Your strengths are your differentiators in earning new jobs and promotions, so be sure you’re seeking out the spots where they matter and then highlighting them in the selection process.

Avoid Over-strengths

When you’re aware of your strengths, you can be deliberate about when you use them. Just because your default approach works most of the time doesn’t mean it works all the time or that doubling down on it will lead to good outcomes. And you may be so intense at something that you can inadvertently overpower a colleague or pull a whole deliberation off track if you aren’t aware of the force of your contributions.

How to Become More Aware of Your Strengths

In How to Become More Self-Aware, I shared a template you can use to solicit feedback from trusted colleagues. Two of the questions I included can provide valuable insight into your strengths.

Understand What Works

First, ask people to share what they see as your strengths, particularly the skills, behaviors, competencies, attitudes, and contributions that you’re uniquely good at. Hopefully, you’ll recognize most things on their list, but maybe you’ll hear about something you hadn’t appreciated before. Highlighting it allows you to reflect on how you might further deploy that strength.

Learn When It’s Too Much of a Good Thing

The second question from the feedback tool is, “What are my over-strengths?” You want your confidant to give you their perspective on how your strengths might have an unintended downside or be causing issues. For example, you might be an extrovert, confident speaking off the cuff but starting to rely on that comfort to shoot from the hip too often.

Alternatively, the problem might be that your strengths could be taking up more space and leaving little room for others to contribute. If you’re amazingly analytical, you might see the underlying issue in a dataset, and someone needs to tell you that your teammates need time to get there themselves.

Finally, it’s also possible that you’re using your strength in a situation that doesn’t make sense. You want your teammate’s perspective on those scenarios, too. If you’re a great debater using your fierce attacks to undermine your client’s logic, you might be doing more harm than good.

Reflected Best Self

The Reflected Best Self exercise is another option for increasing your appreciation of your strengths. A team of organizational psychology experts developed this exercise. You can find all the instructions in this concise Harvard Business Review article.

Whichever way you choose to do it, make sure that your journey of self-exploration doesn’t just focus on your gaps, flaws, and foibles. Be just as deliberate about raising your awareness of your strengths. You’ll have much more to contribute once you tap into all your unique talents.

Additional Resources

Recognizing Superpowers

It’s not too late to change who you are

In the Mirror: Where do you get your self-esteem?

 

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Published on June 25, 2023 06:09

June 22, 2023

Become a Pro at Dealing With Emotions in the Workplace

 

Become a Pro at Dealing With Emotions in the Workplace

Have you ever been witness to crying in the workplace? Maybe it was a coworker in the cubicle next to yours, or someone sitting across from you in a conference room meeting. You’re not alone.

The problem: we often work in corporate environments where the unspoken code of conduct is, to show emotion is unprofessional. Not only unprofessional, but unproductive, which is a crime to the bottom line.

What an outdated way of thinking!

Deal With The Outliers

Unfortunately we sometimes encounter an extreme scenario. Where things get overly dramatic and devolves into a cry-fest, or worse, a screaming match. That’s a big issue. But this is what I would consider an outlying circumstance. That type of scene simply doesn’t happen very often. If you find yourself in this type of situation, it’s likely a sign there’s something very, very wrong going on, either for the individual or with the organizational culture. Or, there’s something wrong with the workplace in general.

Emotions Are Normal

What we’re talking about are the times when somebody gets really frustrated with a work issue, to the point where tears well up in their eyes. Or when someone starts to raise their voice to the level of aggression and intimidation. Emotional expressions like these come with being part of a workplace community, it’s absolutely normal.

I’m going to give you the magic line to say when this happens:

“This is important. What do I need to understand?”

I think these words are super impactful. When somebody starts to get emotional, whatever that looks like, just say, “This is important. What do I need to understand?” Simple, short and sweet, and a lot better than the alternatives that we tend to say instead.

What to Avoid Saying

One of the alternatives is to say, “DON’T get upset.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a time when somebody telling me not to get upset has done anything other than make me more upset than I was to begin with! It’s also very invalidating.

Sometimes I hear people say, “I was told to acknowledge the emotion and say, ‘I see you’re upset.‘” I don’t like overstepping and telling somebody how they’re feeling or what they’re thinking. That seems like an unfair assumption.

Another bad option when someone gets upset, is to say, “It’ll be okay.” Another invalidating statement. When you say this, you’re basically saying a condensed version of “I don’t know why you’re getting upset. Your reaction is really out of sync with what’s actually going on. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. It’s going to be fine.”

This is just another way of saying, “It’s not okay to be human and have emotions in the workplace.” While we may mean it as a vote of confidence in the person (“You’re amazing, you’ll get through this”), that’s likely not how they’ll receive it.

The Root of the Emotion

When someone gets upset it’s because they haven’t been effective in protecting something they care a lot about with other means. They maybe tried to explain their point of view calmly, or presented work they’ve done to protect something they care about, but it hasn’t been effective. That’s why they’re crying or yelling. They want to be heard.

Try to Understand Their Feelings

When we tell someone how they should feel, or when we try to sweep their emotions under the carpet, we are likely to make them either erupt into more frustration, or go underground and become quite passive aggressive.

Instead, just say, “Hey, this is important. What do I need to understand?” As they explain the source of their emotions, they will start to dissipate. Within a couple of minutes most people will have stopped crying and they’ll be able to explain what’s really going on.

Similarly, if you’re yelling at someone and they tell you, “Okay, this is important. What do I need to understand?”, it would be pretty hard for you to keep yelling. We’re going to get to something much more constructive.

Use the Right Words

If someone gets really emotional; upset, cries, yells, pounds the table, even if they run away and you have to chase them, just say, “This is important, what do I need to understand?” You’ll get to a much deeper understanding of what’s going on. You’ll also build trust and they will know that you’re a safe person with whom to be candid and share their emotional reactions.

What is so counterintuitive, is when we feel safe with someone, we’re actually less likely to get emotional. We feel like they’re a person where we can expose, share, and be candid about our experiences WITHOUT having to let emotions bubble over.

If you see emotion in the workplace, it’s okay. You don’t have to call 9-1-1 or pull the fire alarm or don a hazmat suit. When it happens, just lean into it.

“This is important. What do I need to know?”

More On This

When conflict gets emotional

3 questions to interrupt an emotional diatribe

Managing Fear and Emotions

Video: Why Listening Is the Best Skill You’ll Ever Develop

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Published on June 22, 2023 02:05

June 18, 2023

Dealing With a Colleague Who is Intentionally Malicious

I’m in the middle of a series on self-awareness and what its absence does to teams. I started by discussing how to deal with someone who isn’t self-aware and provided a series of techniques to help the person see the error of their ways.

As I dug into the research on self-awareness, it became clear that you and I might be the proverbial people in glass houses throwing stones when it comes to complaining about other people’s lack of self-awareness. While 95% of us think we’re self-aware, only 10-15% actually are. That led to the second post in the series with some counter-intuitive evidence for what helps and hinders when it comes to enhancing self-awareness.

Now, let’s return to the original scenario of dealing with someone who isn’t self-aware. Only this time, let’s consider the possibility that your colleague or manager is acting like a jerk not because they don’t realize the impact of their behavior but precisely because of it. What if you’re working with (or for) a malicious, self-serving pain-in-the-butt who’s making uncivil, aggressive, hostile behavior their modus operandi?  Buckle up.

How Bad Can It Be?

Before we talk about what you can do when you’re stuck with a colleague who’s a nasty piece of work, I want to share some evidence of why you don’t want to succumb to their hostility. One fascinating controlled lab study by Porath & Erez demonstrated adverse outcomes worth mentioning:

Being subjected to rudeness or derision reduces problem-solving and creativity.Being poorly treated disrupts cognitive processes, including thinking and memory.Being on the receiving end of insults causes you to be less helpful to the perpetrator and other people around you who had no fault in the matter.

Given that being subjected to malicious, rude, or otherwise nasty behavior affects your job performance and your teamwork, not to mention your stress levels, it might be time to do something about it. But what?

Stop Rewarding Their Bad Behavior

My first recommendation will feel like blaming the victim but stay with me. If you reflect on how you behave in response to your colleague’s nefarious nonsense, is it possible you’re encouraging them? I know, I know, it’s not your fault… but could it be true?

If they scream and yell at you to prioritize their needs over those of others, do you begrudgingly move their tasks to the top of the pile?

If they make a snide remark about you to bolster their fragile self-esteem, does it send you for a loop and give them the dopamine hit they were looking for?

If they unrelentingly badger you to abandon your proposed approach to go along with theirs, do you relent?

It’s tough to confront, but are you making their bad behavior work for them?

As long as it’s working for them, they won’t stop. You’re going to have to interrupt that reinforcement cycle.

Change Your Self-talk

Another essential part of surviving a malicious co-worker is monitoring your self-talk and ensuring you’re not starting to buy into their baloney.

If you are letting some of their abuse get through (normal), try reframing your thoughts to something less damaging to your self-esteem or agency.

Instead of thinking that you’re weak and don’t know how to stand up to them, reframe it to they don’t know how to get what they need without yelling.

Instead of ruminating about a witty, coupe de gras comeback or a way you could get revenge (which Porath & Erez hypothesize might be the reason your performance is suffering—too much “you’re a jerky” and not enough “worky, worky”), think of one thing you could do to change the trajectory of the relationship or to get the work on track.

Instead of focusing on the nasty person’s negative behaviors, pick one colleague who treats you well and expresses gratitude to them.

Tap Into a Support System

Expressing gratitude to a colleague is a good segue into the third strategy; build your support network and let them bolster you when the going gets tough. You can use your trusted colleagues to check in and calibrate your reactions. It’s worth asking, “Am I reading more into this than I should be,” or “How did you interpret that comment?”

Beyond using them as a reality check, you can also turn to your teammates as allies who might have more success working with the meanie than you. There are snake charmers out there, and if you’ve got one in your network, ask for their help when the stakes are high.

Can I Reduce the Power They Hold on Me?

Here’s a somewhat cheeky way to upend the power relationship between you and the bad actor; start rewarding yourself when they mistreat you.

This technique is not my invention. Many years ago, a psychologist taught me a technique to reduce the impact of someone’s negative behaviors. He said to pick the things that the person says or does that are most like a sucker punch to the gut. Then count each time they happen. (Think of it like the punch card at your local coffee shop—one closer to your freebie.) When you tally enough points, share your success with a trusted friend who then treats you to a reward. I prefer a venti venting session (with my favorite Venti-sized Starbucks beverage—a half-sweet chai tea latte).

You’ll notice that soon you’re almost hoping the person will toss off their favorite condescending one-liner or chastise you in the hallway for not getting them their report two days before you agreed.

This isn’t taking the high road, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to survive a toxic teammate. And interestingly, it might just unlock the relationship in a way you never expected.

Given the statistics on how many people are not self-aware (85-90%), I’m still betting that your noxious colleague doesn’t realize the damage they’re causing. But if you’ve already tried the constructive techniques I outlined in my previous post, it might be time to resort to the Plan B tactics I’ve summarized here.

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Published on June 18, 2023 10:15

June 11, 2023

How to Become More Self-aware

In my previous post, I shared data that suggest most of us overestimate our self-awareness. When I say “most,” I mean 95% think they’ve got it, while only 10-15% actually do. That’s a problem because being in touch with ourselves is associated with positive outcomes that range from improved self-regulation, enhanced mood, greater creativity, better relationships, and higher achievement.

Those are things worth investing in. But if you want to bolster your self-awareness, where can you start? First, it’s essential to understand the components of self-awareness.

Your Inner World

The first dimension, which can be described as internal self-awareness, describes how clearly you understand your own thoughts, values, aspirations, and triggers. It’s about being in touch with your inner world. Research suggests that the more internally self-aware you are, the higher your job satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness, and the lower your anxiety, stress, and depression.

The Outer World

The second dimension is external self-awareness. It’s about understanding how other people perceive you. Being externally self-aware means appreciating the impression you make on the world. Studies show that increased external self-awareness is associated with greater empathy, productive conflict, and better decision-making. That’s probably why externally self-aware leaders have better relationships with their employees and enhanced ratings of effectiveness overall.

Interestingly, a large body of research has found no relationship between internal and external self-awareness. You can have one without the other!

How to Improve Your Self-awareness

So, if self-awareness is good for you and the people around you, it sounds like something worth investing in, right? Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how.

Introspection—Asking Why

One obvious answer is that you become more self-aware (at least internally self-aware) by interrogating your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. That makes sense.

Except it doesn’t seem to work.

Worse than that, it seems to make things worse. At least it makes you less self-aware, less satisfied with your job, and less healthy overall. Whoops, that’s not good. We’re looking for self-help, not self-hurt.

How could introspection be so problematic? According to Tasha Eurich, whose book Insight is the go-to for those seeking the benefits of self-awareness, it turns out that most of us are doing it wrong. She argues that most of us introspect by asking why. “Why did I lash out at my coworker? Why am I acting defensively? Why did I accidentally hit reply all on my snarky response to Esther’s email???”

When you ask why, you tap into your conscious rationale for your behavior. Sadly, that conscious rationale has little to do with the subconscious reasons why you actually did the thing. Rather than accessing some profound truth, you’re concocting a logical-sounding story to explain your behavior. It might seem logical, but it’s probably not accurate.

The case against asking why is bolstered by the fact that it often triggers unproductive negative thoughts. You’re more likely to beat yourself up over your failures and shortcomings than to gain true insight into why you did what you did and how to do better next time.

Let’s agree to stop asking ourselves why we did what we did.

Introspection—Asking What

The better alternative to asking yourself why you did something is to ask a question about what was going on. For example, instead of asking, “Why did I lash out at my coworker,” you can ask, “What could I do differently to stay calm when I get feedback?”

The difference between asking yourself why versus what questions seems to correspond to the difference between two different forms of introspection: rumination versus reflection. Rumination, which is related to the Big Five personality trait of neuroticism, suggests a tendency to focus on negative self-perceptions.

On the other hand, reflection, which is correlated with the Big Five trait of openness, corresponds to a willingness to consider the facts more objectively. But one caveat: objectivity doesn’t work without self-compassion. Research by Anna Sutton suggests that you want to pair reflection with acceptance to get the positive effects of self-awareness without inadvertently unleashing self-doubt. If you want to learn more, I found a series of articles by Kelly Miller to be valuable.

Punchline: less rumination, more reflection, all with a heavy dose of compassion.

Does Keeping a Journal Work?

Here’s another counterintuitive finding—or at least another it depends on how you do it finding…

Journaling—the much-ballyhooed practice that I’m constantly beating myself up for not doing; well, it turns out it might not be so great after all. Research by Grant, Franklin, and Langford did not demonstrate increased insight in people who kept a journal, instead suggesting that perhaps journals were less about improving one’s insight and more about discharging negative emotions. Thus, journals might be more for ruminating on your problems rather than focusing on solutions.

Practices to Enhance Self-awareness

I know it’s a bit grim to start with all the things that don’t work, but I found the research so interesting that I couldn’t resist debunking a few strategies that seem like common sense but don’t have the backing of research.

Now let’s get to the good stuff. The following practices added to your day, week, or month will help you become more self-aware:

Enhancing Internal Self-awarenessWhat Not Why

Respond to challenges and uncomfortable situations by asking yourself questions that start with What. “What was happening in the situation?” “What could I say differently next time?” “What can I do to avoid being in a similar situation in the future?” As a side note, asking what questions rather than why questions is also valuable for having productive conflict with others. It’s such important advice that I made a snazzy little image you can make into a temporary wallpaper for your phone’s lock screen while you build the habit.

Tools Will Help

You can also use one of many psychometric tools to understand your motives and drivers better. I’m a fan of the Birkman® assessment, and over the years, it’s given me many new insights about myself—most of which I resisted, denied, and railed against before realizing that they are profoundly true and salient. The Birkman is just one; many other tools will help you access your interests, biases, needs, and motivations if you are open to learning something new about yourself.

Embodiment

We’ve talked about shifting from why to what; now, you can go one step further. There’s much to be gained by shifting your focus from what you think and feel to where and how you’re experiencing it. The idea of embodiment (the mind-body connection) is both ancient and cutting-edge.

I found this article by Willa Blyth Baker both instructive and accessible. If you want to be more self-aware, start listening to your body’s wisdom. I’ve found my early efforts here are allowing me to pick up on emotional reactions before they overwhelm me… much like a tsunami early warning system. Very valuable!

Enhancing External Self-awareness

Remember, you can be profoundly internally self-aware and clueless about how you impact those around you. I encourage you to supplement your internal self-awareness practice with these approaches, which will help you become more externally self-aware:

Feedback

You probably get very little helpful feedback, so if you’re on a mission to increase your external self-awareness, you will have to draw it out of people. Make asking for growth-oriented feedback a habit. (It’s ok to tell them you’re working on your self-awareness so they have some context for why you’re asking these unconventional questions.) For example, try asking what your choices made people think and what they made them feel.

As you build rapport with people and they become accustomed to your appetite for feedback, encourage them to personalize their input more. “What impact did my behavior have on you?” “Did my choices have had an unintended impact that I might not be aware of?”

Building a feedback habit will likely take a while, but it’s worth it.

Over-strengths and Blind Spots

In addition to specific feedback about a particular situation, you can ask for more general impressions of your contributions. I’m always amazed at how much rich information comes from these four questions.

Send a few trusted colleagues a request to help you increase your self-awareness. Ask for feedback and examples for each of the following:

my value (things I’m good at, particularly things you think I’m uniquely good at)my weaknesses (things I’m aware I’m not good at)my over-strengths (positive behaviors I use too intensely or in the wrong situation)my blind spots (issues and concerns you suspect I’m unaware of).

In my experience, you’ll learn that competencies you take for granted show up as strengths to your colleagues. (Hey, gaining self-awareness can be learning you’re more awesome than you thought!) You’ll discover that weaknesses that you acknowledge can be mitigated and don’t have to be career-limiting. You’ll learn you’re over-applying traits and behaviors that have become your defaults. You’ll discover that a few of your behaviors are making an unwanted impact that you had no clue about. I love these four questions. Give them a try with the people who are invested in your success.

Self-awareness leads to greater happiness and fulfillment, better relationships, and more creativity and productivity. But it doesn’t come easily. What will you do to get in touch with yourself?

Additional Resources

Try Giving Feedback to a Leader With Low Self-Awareness

How self-aware are you?

Tasha Eurich is the guru on self-awareness. Check out her book, Insight, or some of her many articles on self-awareness, such as this one. What self-awareness really is and how to cultivate it

I found the self-awareness resources on PositivePsychology.com really useful, particularly those by Kelly Miller.

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Published on June 11, 2023 06:20