Liane Davey's Blog, page 15

Is it time to start saying “no?”

Are you tired of saying “yes?”

I know… there’s a compulsion to say “yes.” And unfortunately, the average day has a lot of them.

You want to say yes to capitalize on opportunities and not miss the next big thing.

And you want to say yes to be a good colleague—a real team player.

And there are your customers, clients, and stakeholders who expect you to say yes.

Not to mention saying yes to be a generous spouse, parent, child, neighbor, or friend.

But is saying “yes” too often making you better at any of those things? Or is it making you a lousy, substandard version of all of them—and wearing you out in the process?

I’m inviting you to join my crusade to make November the month you embrace, saying, “NO!”

I’ve been capitalizing on the name of the 11th month since 2013 when I announced my intentions in an article for Psychology Today called Happy NO-vember: 10 Things to Say “No” to This Month.

Since November 1st, 2019, it’s been a daily ritual for me to share one idea of something you might say NO to if you want to free yourself from the weight of your commitments and liberate your time and energy for more worthwhile pursuits.

Here’s a quick start guide if you want to play along. Then, I’ll be back in the following posts to help you understand why you say “yes” and how to say “no” nicely.

Opportunities to say NO Audit

Work through this checklist and identify one category that could be a priority for saying “NO” this week.

Mental and Physical Clutter

Is your attention divided like a Labrador in a field of squirrels? Maybe it’s time to work on one of these:

Inbox: is it time to remove subscriptions that clog your inbox? I highly recommend you remove as many as possible. One trick is to search your inbox for “unsubscribe” because these subscription and advertising messages all have that at the bottom. (Did you know that you can switch your frequency of emails from me to one monthly newsletter digest of all my posts.)Notifications: take this chance to review which notifications you have on your devices. Turn off as many as possible. Get good at using “Do Not Disturb” when you’re concentrating, socializing, or sleeping.Desk: This is a big one for me this week. My desk has become a dense jungle of paper (and garbage and granola bar wrappers). Would you join me in saying no to desk clutter this week?Work Tasks and Responsibilities

Is your calendar a solid rainbow of meetings and obligations? Maybe it’s time to cut back on one of these:

Meetings: are you attending standing meetings from which you could extricate yourself? Could you attend part of the meeting? Send a delegate? Reduce the frequency or duration? Suggest the forum is no longer necessary and delete it outright?Priorities: have you allowed stakeholders to pile up multiple priorities on you with no clear direction about what needs to be done first? Are you multitasking and feeling your workload balloon while your thoughtload explodes? Does your priority list need pruning?Roles: is this the time to revisit the roles you’re playing to scale back to the ones that best use your talents and expertise? Are there committees you should no longer be a part of? Volunteer efforts that have run their course? Unofficial roles that you could pass to others (like note taker, cheerleader, or liaison)?Relationships and Expectations

Are your relationships more of a drain than a well? Maybe your priority could be to work on one of these:

Friends: do you have friends who are doing more harm than good? Downers? Parasites? Lovely people, who don’t float your boat anymore? Is there someone you need to say “no” to? Or someone you need to let slip away?Emotional Labor: are there things you do in your relationships that have become a burden? Would you like to hand over the baton of menu planning, carpool organizing, or Christmas present buying? Is it time to say “NO” to arduous responsibilities you’ve been carrying for too long?Conflict Debt: have you bottled up an issue for too long? Is there something you need to get off your chest to move forward?Thoughts and Behaviors

Are you your own worst enemy? Maybe this is where you need to start:

Resilience-killers: Are you making choices that detract from your health, stamina, and resilience? Do you devalue sleep? Are you fueling yourself with low-grade food? Do you spend hours a day sitting inside in artificial light?Stress-enhancers: Is the narrator in your head spinning you into an anxious mess? Are you fretting about things you can’t control? Making up stories about what others think of you? Striving for perfection?Apologizing: Do you make a habit of apologizing for your decisions, even if they were good decisions? Do you put your needs beneath everyone else’s? Do you walk around with sorrow, guilt, or shame?

Tasks, responsibilities, and habits build up over time and eventually clog the arteries of our lives. As a result, we let people down, do a poor job, underinvest in rest, and stress ourselves out.

Review these different categories and see where you can strip out the tasks, responsibilities, and habits that no longer work for you.

Will you join me in the quest to be happier, healthier, and more productive?

Find the entire NOvember campaign in written form here on LinkedIn

Or in TikTok-style 60-second video form here on YouTube. If the link doesn’t work, here’s the URL https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLianeDave...

 

And tell me in the comments what you would add to your NO list!

Using Personality Assessments with Your Team

So, your team has just done the DiSC, Hogan, the MBTI, or the Birkman.

You feel seen.

Finally, everyone can appreciate the multitudes you contain. Things will be better now. You’ll be respected and treated as you’ve always wanted. You’ll connect better, trust each other more, and accomplish great things.

Not bloody likely.

Or at least not without a lot more effort.

I’ve spent almost twenty years helping individuals and teams better understand their motives, styles, interests, habits, and needs. As a result, I’m a big believer in psychological assessments’ power to improve business performance and team dynamics.

But each time I encourage a team to open Pandora’s box of personality, I unleash a few monsters. People who, armed with a profile that says they’re a red (or a D, or an ENFJ, or a Peacock) justify unhelpful behavior by invoking the Popeye defense, “I am what I am.”

Things go downhill from there.

Even with the risk of propagating Popeyes, I’m still a big proponent of psychometrics because I find them powerful tools. However, like most powerful tools, there’s a safe and an unsafe way to use an assessment, and you need a manual and a few warning stickers to prevent someone from getting hurt.

So, before you fire up your nifty new assessment, let’s talk about what you shouldn’t do with it.

What Not to Do with Your Assessment

#1 Do not expect your colleagues to know and understand the complex human that is you.

Buying a saw does not make you a carpenter.

A personality tool will provide useful information, but there is a wide range in reliability, validity, and comprehensiveness of these tools. An assessment won’t allow your colleagues to grasp all your nuances and quirks.

But some might come close. If they’re curious, open, and attentive, they might achieve a solid understanding of what makes you tick.

Even if they do…

#2 Do not expect your colleagues to remember all the facets of your personality in the heat of the moment.

Knowing once is not remembering forever.

Your profile has myriad complexities, and you’re only one of many people your teammate has to consider. The volume of information they would need to remember to be tuned in to everyone’s needs is overwhelming.

But maybe they do remember the salient bits. If they have a memory like a steel trap or a cheat sheet in their notebook, they might be conscious of your needs in the moment.

Even if they are…

#3 You should not expect your colleagues to change their behavior to prioritize your needs over those of others or the business.

What’s best for you is not best for all.

Your needs are your needs, but they might directly conflict with the needs of another stakeholder (like a colleague or a customer). Alternatively, your preferred way of doing things might not be viable in the situation. You might like to weigh all the options and develop scenarios for important decisions. Still, if there’s a power outage affecting the eastern seaboard, you’re gonna’ have to act in the absence of complete information.

What You Can Do with Your Assessment

Can we agree that sharing your psychological assessment findings with your team does not transfer ownership of your needs to them? Nor does it serve as a binding contract that “thou shall be treated optimally for a Purple 8 or an ISFJ at all times.”

If you agree, there are gazillions of other ways to use your assessment to make your team more effective and fun.

Try these things to unlock the benefits of greater insight with your colleagues.

1. Describe Where Your Needs Aren’t Being MetShare your findings and open up about situations where you feel that your needs aren’t met. “I’m realizing that my ability to absorb change is much higher when I get involved early, and recently, I’ve been pulled into projects late in the game.” Ask for advice on how you might make the best of these situations. “How could I encourage engineering to pull me in sooner?” Get suggestions about coping strategies. “Any idea how I can handle it if I’m called in at the last minute?”Ask for help. “I’d appreciate it if you’d advocate for me if you think there are deliberations that I should be involved in.”“Did the assessment highlight areas where you’re not being set up for success? What could I do to support you?”2. Highlight Areas of FrictionPoint out areas where your profile and that of your colleagues might create friction. “I noticed that you prefer direct and frank feedback. I’m better when feedback is a little more diplomatic, and I think I tend to deliver it that way.” Ask for examples of where they have experienced that rub. “Have you noticed me sugarcoating my feedback or delivering it in a way that doesn’t work for you?”Inquire about how they would prefer you to behave in the future and “What’s a better way to get my message across? Urge them to point out if they experience friction with your style. Will you please let me know if I start to gloss over issues or stay too vague?”3. Discuss SurprisesAsk if there were any areas where your colleagues were surprised by your results. “You laughed when the report said I had high social needs. Did that not resonate based on your experience of me?”Share any stories that would help them understand how you experience that characteristic. “I know I’m quiet, but I love being part of the team, and I get a lot of energy from being included. I might watch from the sidelines, but I get FOMO if I’m left out of the action.”“I was a little taken aback by your concrete thinking style. How do you see that playing out on the team?”4. Call Out Your Needs in the MomentRemind people of a specific aspect of your profile if their behavior is not meeting your needs. “As you saw in my profile, I like to reflect before I decide, and this is the first time I’m seeing this proposal.”Ask for a remedy. “Would it be possible to dig deeper into this before I give you my take? Could I get back to you this afternoon?”Give feedback after the fact. “I knew you needed to get my take quickly, so I did my best. I’m most confident in my contributions when I can have a night to sleep on things. How could I get more lead time on these issues?”5. Remind People You’re More Than a ColorReframe attempts to pigeonhole you or others. “I got a lot out of using the assessment too, but I don’t want to fall into the trap of thinking our profiles are our destiny. The facilitator told us that assessments don’t tell us what we can or will do; they only help us understand our defaults.” Try on other styles. “I know the test says I’m an introvert, but I’m going to flex my extrovert muscles and volunteer to be the one who hosts the town hall.”Call-out counter-type behavior. “Bruce, you said you were working on providing more clarity for your team, and I noticed how well you did that by providing details about your expectations and when to escalate.”Assessment Rights and Responsibilities

I’ve spent this entire post talking about what is not legitimate to expect from your teammates; now it’s time to be clear about what you should be able to ask of one another. I’d love for everyone on a team to commit to this list before sharing their psychological profiles.

I will treat assessment information respectfully and will not share it beyond the group.I will take people’s needs seriously and avoid belittling or invalidating them.I will not use the findings to constrain what I believe anyone is capable of.I will make reasonable accommodations to meet my colleague’s needs.I will match the approach to the business needs first and individual needs second.I will take accountability for getting my needs met and provide feedback to help my colleagues position me for success.I will flex my style and find coping strategies when the situation requires an approach that doesn’t meet my needs.

I’d love to hear how using assessments has helped you or your team. For example, what breakthroughs did understanding one another’s personalities create? And while you’re commenting, what else would you add to the Assessment Charter of Rights and Responsibilities?

Further Reading

Teambuilding Won’t Save Your Toxic Team… But This Might

What’s missing from executive teams today?

Video: What to do when your personalities clash

 

Different Approaches to Decision-making Cause Friction

The 3COze High-Performance Teams process helps colleagues understand one another’s styles and needs and how the differences in those characteristics can affect team dynamics. This article is the tenth in a series where I explain the differences that might be causing friction between you and your teammates. I’ve included links to the complete series below.  

How Do You Approach Decisions?

Are you the type of person who assesses a situation quickly and springs into action? Do you block out extraneous details to zero-in on the heart of the matter? Does your approach to decision-making emphasize progress over perfection?

Or are you the type of person who thinks long and hard before settling on a resolution? Do you tease apart the threads to understand an issue’s complexities? Does your approach to decision-making skew more toward exhaustive than expedient?

There’s no universally good or bad style, but your team’s decision-making approach can affect your productivity, your innovativeness, and your susceptibility to risks. Differences in how you deliberate can create considerable friction and might explain why your team dreads collaborative decision-making. Sadly, too much similarity in how you deliberate could be just as much of a problem. There’s too much friction, and then there’s not enough—both hamper team effectiveness.

Your Decision-making Defaults

Let’s take an example. How do you behave when you’re introducing a new process? Do you key in on the purpose of the new method, recommend a couple of options, pick the most logical one and then agree to adapt it as you go? Are you the one your team can count on to keep it simple? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy? That’s great. Teams need practical, pragmatic thinkers.

But having a bias to action isn’t the only way to contribute. Teams also need people who see the ripple effects of decisions and consider the murky areas that might make an issue more perilous than it seems on the surface. These folks prevent reckless choices. Faster isn’t always better–teams need methodical, meticulous thinkers too.

Look at this table and see if you recognize your decision-making style in the left or right column. Are you more biased toward action or reflection? Consider how your style impacts your contribution to team deliberations and your relative enthusiasm for clear, simple, and familiar topics versus complex, ambiguous, and novel ones.

It’s essential to understand this about yourself. If you tend to move too quickly, you risk over-simplifying an issue or leaving risks uncovered until you get to implementation. You might take a hairpin turn at 100 mph and careen off the track.

In contrast, you might be over-engineering your solutions if you’re frequently overthinking issues and waiting to have the perfect fail-proof plan before acting. You might take the straight-away like a Sunday driver while the competition blows past.

Can you think of a relationship where the difference between your decision-making styles is causing friction? Is a recent decision highlighting the risks of being too extreme in one direction or the other?

Thoughtfulness in Action

I made up a silly story to caricature the difference between the reflectors and actors. Imagine that you’re getting ready for work when you notice that your toilet bowl has a crack. It needs to be fixed before it breaks and leaves your garbage bin floating down the hall on a wave of bowl-freshener blue water.

Bias to Action

The action-oriented person pops by the hardware store on the way home and heaves a new toilet into the trunk. As they install it, they realize that it’s a slightly different shape than the previous one, so the floor tiles don’t line up properly. Oh well, it works, and that’s what matters. Just stick that garbage bin in a strategic spot, and no one will be the wiser!

Bias to Reflection

The reflection-oriented person sizes up the situation and realizes that the toilet is an old model and the tiles are likely to be an issue. But it’s not just the tiles. Because the original tiles were from a trip to Portugal, they were a custom depth. Changing the tiles will mess up the transition from the bathroom to the hallway, necessitating new flooring in the hall… and… maybe it’s just easier to sell the house and buy a new one!

I tell this story all the time. People often laugh. But once, a team member blushed the most excruciating shade of crimson. “It was the fridge, not the toilet,” he said and admitted that he had started into a thinking spiral that started with changing a fridge, passed through the necessity of new cabinetry, and ended with a for sale sign on the lawn. I couldn’t have asked for a better example of what it feels like to be someone who sees all the complexity of a decision.

Getting Your Needs Met

Now, look at the second half of the table, which describes the different decision-making processes you prefer, particularly as decisions become more complicated or the stakes increase.

Freedom to Act

Are you someone who needs the freedom to assess the situation and move quickly to action? Do you get frustrated and anxious if your colleagues spend too long admiring a problem? You need to make up your mind, get things moving, and tweak and adapt as you go. You bring your Fail Fast coffee mug to meetings in hopes it will get your colleagues moving.

Time to Think

That might not be you at all. You might need time to delve into an issue’s depths and understand how shifting one piece might affect the others. It’s not enough to spring a decision on you in a meeting; you need time to think in advance or else time to make up your mind afterward. You need to understand the issue comprehensively to know the risks before committing to a plan.

We had a client who was the poster child for this second group. His team had a t-shirt made for him that said, “single-handedly saving the world from simplicity.” I love it!

How To Work With People Who Have Different Decision-making Styles

Here are some things to keep in mind.

For The Decisive Types

Be careful not to rush to judgment in situations that are more novel, complex, or risky than usual. If it’s a two-way door and you can easily change the call, by all means, go fast. If it’s a one-way door and the ramifications of an error are costly, then cool your jets, calm your horses and take the time required to make the best call possible.

If you think it’s a relatively straightforward decision and your more reflective colleagues have gone from rigor to rigor mortis, don’t resort to toe-tapping, pen-clicking, and room-pacing alone. Instead, shift to something more constructive. For example, ask what other information they require to be confident in a decision. Or suggest a process where you could try something in a limited way and then evaluate and iterate.

For the Reflective Types

Be careful not to seek the perfect answer when good enough would be good enough. If it’s a one-way door and the risks of an error are high, sure, slow it down. But, if it’s a two-way door and there’s an opportunity to change on the fly, then stop boiling the ocean, swallowing the elephant, or using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and make the call.

If you think a decision requires more time and thought than your action-oriented colleagues are affording it, don’t give them the silent treatment while silently cursing their carelessness. Instead, share some areas you think need to be addressed before making a call. Or ask that you examine a small set of issues with greater diligence and list the areas where you’re willing to expedite the process.

Talking to Each Other

The secret of thriving with diverse decision-making styles (or with too many of one style or the other) is to kick off your decision-making processes with a discussion of what process would be suitable for the issue you’re working on. How much information do you need? What level of confidence does the team want in the decision? How many alternate scenarios should you consider? What’s the risk of getting it wrong? That way, you can match the approach to the situation. Of course, it won’t be exactly as you’d like every time, but it will be as you need it most of the time.

Other Posts in the Series

What does respect mean to me?

Do I need to fit in?

How much is enough structure?

How assertive are you?

Are you competing when you should be cooperating?

Are you the tortoise or the hare?

Is it Always Helpful to be Empathetic?

Where do you get your self-esteem?

To Multitask or Not to Multitask?

Further Reading

Support Effective Decision-Making When You’re Not in Charge

Improve decision-making by separating phases

How to Make the Hardest Decisions

Other experts: The Rebels Guide to Project management view on Decision-making Process

 

To Multitask or Not to Multitask?

The 3COze High-Performance Teams process helps colleagues understand one another’s styles and needs and how the differences between teammates can affect team dynamics. This article is the ninth in a series where I explain the differences that might be causing friction between you and your teammates. I’ve included links to the complete series below.

How Do You Manage Your Attention?

Are you the type of person who drives to finish one task before starting another? Do you concentrate your attention on one thing at a time? Does your satisfaction come from seeing things through to completion?

Or are you the type of person who is looking for something novel to grab your attention? Do you get engaged easily? Are you the first to volunteer for the new assignment? Does your satisfaction come from having novel situations to which you can be responsive?

How you and your teammates manage your attention affects your behavior in meetings, your project participation, and your reputation with your boss. Differences in how you respond to what’s going on in your environment can be frustrating and might explain some of the exasperating disconnects that you experience on your team.

For example, think about how you respond to someone raising a new topic in a meeting. Do you become quietly agitated and ask that you finish the first conversation before moving to another? Are you the person your team can count on to close the loop, nail things down, and keep everyone on track? That’s a great contribution to a team!

But being the focused serial processor is only one way to contribute. Other people add value by showing enthusiasm for new ideas and being willing to take risks to change for the better. These folks are attentive and responsive to what’s shifting around them. That’s super important too!

Look at this table and see if you recognize your attention as being drawn more to one task at a time or multitasking. Next, consider how your style impacts your approach to new activities and your relative enthusiasm for finishing what you’ve started versus exploring what’s next.

It’s essential to understand this about yourself. If you are too focused on one thing at a time, you risk coming off as stubborn, stuck, and risk-averse. As a result, you might miss the train as it leaves the station.

In contrast, if you are perennially shifting from one idea to the next without finishing anything, you might get a reputation as someone who’s scattered, spinning, and spread too thin. In this case, you might jump off the train before it’s arrived at the station. Ouch.

Can you think of a relationship where the difference between your styles is causing friction?

Understanding Your Needs

Now, look at the second half of the table, which describes the different environments that people prefer.

Craving Predictability

Are you someone who needs predictability and order? If so, you probably need an environment where you can concentrate. I’m guessing that the open office is not your happy place. You need to turn off your notifications and have uninterrupted time to get into a flow.

Another thing that helps you be at your best is when you avoid surprises and have the chance to give input on changes before they come into effect. Feeling like a new responsibility came out of left field will be stressful for you.

Craving Variety

On the other hand, you might be someone who needs lots of variety (it’s the spice of life, after all). If you need variety, you’ll need your manager to tap you for new initiatives coming down the pike. You’re likely also going to raise your hand for new assignments, secondments, or promotions more quickly than others. Getting stuck in a rut or having to continue doing something you’ve already mastered will kill your mojo.

Working Effectively with Others

Here are some things to keep in mind.

For The Focused Types

You might be missing signals that the environment is changing and priorities are changing along with it. Talk with someone you trust to help you decide if you’re sticking with things too long or avoiding changes that might make things better.

Don’t think of the more responsive, variety-seekers as flighty. On the contrary, they’re putting a vital tension on the team and ensuring you don’t miss great opportunities. However, if their tendency to jump from one topic to another is a problem, politely ask if you can get a resolution on the first issue before moving on to the next.

For the Responsive Types

You might be creating a lot of churn and making it hard for your team to get traction. Seek out some feedback to help you differentiate between a healthy amount of variety versus change for the sake of change.

Please don’t make the mistake of belittling the focused order-seekers or seeing them as a drag on progress. They’re adding a little resistance to your forward momentum that might keep you from going off a cliff. If their tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others is an issue, start to seed ideas early and give them a chance to feel they have some control.

Improving Understanding

How you manage your attention will have advantages and pitfalls for your team. With any luck, you’ll have teammates with different styles to balance yours. The key to working effectively together is more awareness of the strengths and gaps of your style and more appreciation of the strengths of others.

My experience is that people at either extreme on this dimension often frustrate one another. And the tricky part is that someone might behave in one way and need the exact opposite. I’m one of them!!

As a consultant and now an entrepreneur, I’ve learned to shift from one thing to the next and fill a day with writing, speaking, facilitating, sending invoices, and paying the bills. I change gears all the time. I’m a “many things at once” gal. But that’s diametrically opposed to the environment I prefer. I like to do one thing immersively for hours. I want opportunities for input rather than things sprung upon me.

The key is to share your preferences with your teammates and to reciprocate by asking them how they would prefer to work.

Other Posts in the Series

What does respect mean to me?

Do I need to fit in?

How much is enough structure?

How assertive are you?

Are you competing when you should be cooperating?

Are you the tortoise or the hare?

Is it Always Helpful to be Empathetic?

Where do you get your self-esteem?

Further Reading

Tired of People Being Distracted and Disrespectful?

How far in the weeds are you?

Experts: Check out Adam Grant’s article on Productivity and Attention in the New York Times

 

Is it Always Helpful to be Empathetic?

Most team effectiveness advice floating around the interwebs makes it sound like one size should fit all. There’s one miracle cure, one silver bullet, and one best practice. I don’t buy it. If there’s one thing my training as a psychologist taught me, it’s that different humans have different needs, and the same approaches won’t work for everyone. So, I’m returning to my psychologist roots with a series on a few of the most salient individual differences and how they impact relationships and teams.

I’m starting with a juicy one–empathy!

What is Empathy, and How Does it Show Up at Work?

Empathy is the capacity for understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another (without having the feelings communicated explicitly).  That’s a paraphrase of the Merriam-Webster definition you can read here.

Empathy is hot right now. It’s in.

But is empathizing always the best approach? If you sit with a stressed-out colleague and connect emotionally about their experience, will they feel better or value you more afterward?

It depends. (‘It depends’ could be the most psychologisty phrase ever!)

It depends on how the person defines “helpful.”

What Does Helpful Look Like for You?

There’s no one formula for being helpful. Instead, what type of assistance you offer should match what the other person is looking for. And what they’re looking for is likely a function of their personality.

Type #1: The Pragmatist

Pragmatists like to keep things practical and to the point. They share their issues and challenges with colleagues in hopes they’ll offer some ideas for what to do next. They save their appreciation for those who bring a brass-tacks approach to solving problems. Pragmatists are looking for people to respond to their concerns with concrete, workable suggestions.

or

Type #2: The Emotive

Emotives need an outlet for their feelings. They vent their issues and challenges to reduce the pressure that would otherwise build up. They appreciate others who are sympathetic while remaining hands-off in response to their problems. Emotives want people to support them without hijacking the situation.

It’s alarming how many uncomfortable interactions among teammates (not to mention among spouses) come from a mismatch between the form of help one person is looking for and what the other person thinks will be helpful.

Example: Imagine someone pulls up at your desk, perches their left butt-cheek, and starts unloading on you. They’re having trouble with a colleague who is ignoring them, and you’re getting the full rundown.

If we over-simplify, we can think of this situation as a 2×2 (ok, that’s another psychologist thing…we LOVE a 2×2).

The first dimension is what approach your colleague needs: pragmatic versus empathetic.

The second dimension is which approach you offer. Voila!

Hitting the Mark

There are two ways to get it right.

First, if your colleague needs a concrete, task-focused approach, and that’s what you give them, it will be satisfying because they’ll find your responses useful. If they tell you all about the colleague who is ignoring them, and you suggest that they invite the boss to the next meeting, they’ll say, “that might just work,” give you a big smile and a “thanks, mate!” and carry on. All good.

A second way to get it right is if your colleague needs an empathetic, person-focused approach, and that’s what you dole out. They’ll be happy because they’ll feel supported. If they vent about the colleague who is ignoring them, and you say how much that sucks and ask how the person’s disengagement is affecting them, they’ll say, “thanks for understanding,” give you a big smile, tell you, “you’re the best!” and go on their way. Perfect.

So, the good news is, there’s a fifty-fifty chance your approach matches their needs.

That means there’s just as great a chance that your response misses the mark.

It’s a coin flip.

Missing the Mark

The first way you miss the mark is if your colleague needs a concrete, task-focused approach, and you respond by empathizing with how they feel. This ends up feeling like you’re spreading emotional goo all over the person. They get the ick. And they walk away feeling no more enlightened about what to do and just a little more awkward around you.

The alternative way to mess it up is if your colleague needs an empathetic, person-focused approach and you go in hard with solutions. Unfortunately, this makes them feel you aren’t listening and don’t care about them. It might even make them think you don’t have confidence that they can solve their problems and that you must rescue them.

How to React When Someone Shares a Problem

The secret in this situation is not to make assumptions but to ask the person what they need.

Solutions Not Sympathy

As they start into their diatribe, ask them to pause for one moment and say, “what do you need,” or “how can I help,” or “what are you looking for from me?”

If they say, “I’m at a dead end and need your ideas,” or “I need your help to influence so-and-so,” or “I’m hoping you can tell me what I’m missing,” then you shift into problem-solving gear. Be practical, be creative, and be quick.

Now, if your typical style is highly empathetic, this might make you feel a little hollow, but that’s ok. It’s not about you. What your teammate needs is your head, not your heart.

Sympathy Not Solutions

If, on the other hand, they say, “I just need to vent,” or “nothing, I’ll handle it,” or “I need a friendly face,” then you zip it and let them get it all out. Nod, smile, scowl at the appearance of the villains in the story, but whatever you do, don’t try to fix it.

If your usual style is to be highly pragmatic, this might cause you to pull a muscle. It’ll heal. And you’ll have a stronger relationship as the prize.

But what if you’re the one asking for help rather than proffering it?

How to Ask for the Help You Need

Ok, this section is going to be short. The answer is: ask for the help you need.

I’ll give you a few options if you’re unsure of the right words to say to advocate for yourself in a work-friendly way.

For the Pragmatist

“I’d love your suggestions on how I handle this.”

“I’m at the end of my rope and need some ideas about how to move the ACME account forward.”

“I’d love to share my experience and then get your take on how to change it.”

And if they start goo-ing their empathy all over you, try:

“Thanks for your support. What I’d value are any alternate approaches.”

“I’m ok; I just need some ideas for how to move forward.”

“I appreciate your empathy. What I need is for you to intervene with Vickie.”

For the Emotive

“Can I just vent for a moment?”

“I’m not looking for you to do anything; I just need to get this off my chest.”

“I’m gonna deal with this, but I’d like to talk it out first.”

And if they leap over their desk to go fix the problem, try:

“I know what I’m going to do; I just need a sounding board for a moment.”

“I don’t need you to do anything; I just need a little support.”

“I’ll feel better if I can figure it out for myself; I just need a minute in a safe space.”

Be the Help That’s Needed

Can you think of a relationship where your mismatch of styles creates friction? How might you reset by communicating about what form of help is most appreciated?

And if you want to have a great laugh, this comedy short captures the concept of pragmatist and emotive better than any article I could ever write. Enjoy!

or click here to watch on YouTube It’s Not About the Nail

 

This article is based on the dimension of emotional energy that we measure using the Birkman Method® assessment. We find The Birkman an incredibly helpful tool and use it with all of our team effectiveness clients. If you’re interested in understanding how individual differences impact your team, check out their website here.

See Other Posts in the Series

What does respect mean to me?

Do I need to fit in?

How much is enough structure?

How assertive are you?

Are you competing when you should be cooperating?

Are you the tortoise or the hare?

 

Tired of People Being Distracted and Disrespectful?

Are you finding that you and your colleagues are even more distracted than normal? Is distraction detracting from your productivity, causing friction among teammates, or contributing to everyone’s general anxiety? That’s the sense I’m getting.

In the last two weeks: I was…

In a meeting when the team leader got up and walked out with no explanation of where he was going. Um, hello?!? Are you coming back? Should we stop talking? Very awkward. Facilitating a discussion while a team member emailed participants about a completely different topic. Are we in the same meeting? Did I miss a memo?Hosting a meeting where two people turned off their cameras with no explanation. Are you there? Did you leave for a moment? Did your wifi crap out? Should I stop calling on you? Talking to someone while they were looking behind me instead of making eye contact. Is George Clooney behind me? Is something on fire? What am I missing?

I’m sure you could add to the list.

On good days, I’m empathetic. You have too much going on. Too many tasks. Too much to worry about. Your workload is high, and your thoughtload is higher. I get how hard it is to stay focused when you’ve got a million things to do and a billion things to worry about.

While I’m empathetic, I also know that the torrent won’t stop anytime soon, and we can’t afford to let it zap our productivity, reduce the effectiveness of our collaborations, or cause friction in our relationships. So we have to do better.

How to Manage Distractions

Time to get serious about managing distractions. Can you try any of the following to reduce the frequency or severity of distraction or at least to reduce the feeling of disrespect it causes?

Set Yourself Up for SuccessWhen you’re in control of scheduling, slot your most important work at times of day when you can focus the most easily.Start your day by reviewing your calendar and prioritizing heads down and heads up times.Leave white space before important meetings so you can address anything urgent before you start. At the very least, book one-hour meetings for 50 minutes, so you’ve got 10 minutes to make a quick call if needed.Be clear and specific with those around you about what does and does not constitute appropriate grounds to interrupt you. Agree on how you’ll communicate with one another on non-urgent issues (e.g., email or Slack) and how they should get hold of you if something needs your immediate attention. (I recommend making your urgent communication vehicle the phone. People don’t like making phone calls anymore, so you’re only going to get a call if it’s essential.)Turn off all notifications except the one you reserve for urgent matters. I love that my phone has a Do Not Disturb option linked to my calendar, and with one click, I can pause notifications until the end of a scheduled meeting.Make Focus the NormI’m a big fan of having one person in a meeting taking notes projected onto the screen. That way, no one has the excuse of “I’m just taking notes” to keep their computer open. Even if they start taking notes, it’s way too tempting to pop into email.Give everyone Silly Putty. We do this when facilitating because a bit of motor stimulation can help with attention. Some of the email checking is just a way of burning off a little nervous energy. Silly Putty is a better option. It makes meetings feel much shorter!Start a conversation or a meeting by asking people to check-in. If something is distracting them, it’s helpful to know. Ask whether you should reschedule or else agree to how you’re going to handle the discussion (e.g., “I’m all yours unless my daughter’s doctor phones. I would need to step out to answer that.”)Use shorter, more focused meetings as a bribe. “If I could have your undivided attention for 15 minutes, I think we can get done what’s needed.”Try walking meetings. Moving will naturally disperse some energy that builds up when sitting still. Plus, looking at your phone when you’re already walking and talking is harder. You can do this in person or have people in different locations walking while listening to the call on headphones.Give A Way OutWhen someone is behaving as if they’re distracted (looking elsewhere, typing on their phone or computer), say something…“Is there something you need to deal with?”“Should we take a break for a minute?”“Do you need to defer our conversation?”If multiple people in a meeting are distracted, call it, say something like…“There are four people on phones right now.” (That’s usually all it takes for people to put them away sheepishly.)“Is this agenda item relevant to everyone, or should we table it?” (To be fair, I see so many agenda items that don’t belong that I’m sympathetic to those who want to get something checked off their to-do list rather than listening to an issue where they can’t add value.)Invite people back into the discussion. “John, Danique, Ateesh, I’d love to get your thoughts on this issue.” Own It When It’s You

You know I’m not so naïve as to think that everyone else is the problem while you’re completely innocent, always-on, ruthlessly focused, right? So what do you do when it’s you who’s distracted?

When you know in advance that you’re likely to be distracted, have the courtesy to tell people that you’ve got something else going on. Either ask for accommodation or give them your word that you’ll try to minimize the imposition.When you catch yourself having been distracted, apologize and ask for the person to reiterate what they were saying. “I’m so sorry. I was distracted. This is important; could you repeat what you said?”If you can’t get focused and won’t do the conversation justice, ask if you can defer. You might only need ten minutes to clear up something urgent, or you might need a more future-oriented decision to wait a week until you’re through your month end. Just be candid about what you need.The Final Word: Compartmentalize

I’ve written many words (and spoken a few on YouTube, as well) about why we need to deprioritize more rigorously and how we can counteract our natural tendency to do more and more and more. Whether or not you can shrink your workload, it’s important to compartmentalize it. Otherwise, distraction will make you less efficient, cause rifts in your relationships, and cause your anxiety to spiral—one thing at a time.

Further Reading

Prevent Slack and MS Teams From Overwhelming Your Team

Why You Think You’re Listening, but You’re Not

Are you meeting at the wrong time?

Video: Identify your individual stress pattern and use tailored techniques to manage your overwhelm

Other Resources: I found a few really practical tips on this post by Serene

 

Are You Taking Steps to Prevent Burnout?

A humpback whale spends the summer feeding–ingesting two tons of krill daily. Two Tons. That’s more than 6,300 Big Macs.

Some might have thought I was imitating the mighty humpback during my summer vacation—a three-course breakfast, yes, please! Dessert at lunch—absolutely!

But I digress, back to the whales.

The humpback whale needs to fuel up in the summer because their migration path requires them to travel 15,000 miles across nutrient-scarce waters and spend up to six months without food. As a result, an average whale will lose a third of its body weight. A nursing mother will lose closer to forty percent. For a humpback, winter is a long battle to survive.

Sometimes I think that we behave like whales.

We treat summer as our one annual chance to rest up and then try to run off our reserves for the rest of the year.

To be fair, most people I know aren’t exactly binging on rest in the summer. I talked to a friend recently who was frustrated with himself for only taking two weeks off, and worse, splitting them into single weeks with little time to decompress before having to ramp back up. And there’s no meaningful break in sight for him this fall.

If you, too, are staring down a marathon stretch until the December holidays, with only one long-weekend pit stop along the way, you need to think about how you’ll sustain yourself, charge your batteries, and prevent burnout.

How to Keep Your Energy Up

Here’s the good news—you’re not a whale. You don’t need to go six months without rest or nourishment. You can tap into many sources of energy and resilience. How will you integrate some of these into your schedule?

Joy

I’m starting the list with joy because it feels so radical and out of place in a business article.

You’re thinking, “Joy?!? I’d settle for less misery!”

We’ve banished joy from our vocabulary. Sure, you can probably remember a time when you felt joyous, but it’s likely a distant, fuzzy memory. And it certainly wasn’t at 2 pm on a weekday.

Start with considering sources of joy in your personal life. For example, when do you lose yourself in the moment and lose all track of time? When do you feel light?

Is it when you’re working on a hobby? My friend David Baker wrote an eloquent post on Facebook recently about how his woodworking hobby is a source of joy because he gets lost in trying to hone new skills so he can solve increasingly complex problems.

I had my own two-year saga of trying to add more joy to my life. I learned that I needed to create opportunities for joy every week and not wait for some artificial Hallmark holiday moment to spark joy. You can read this post if you want to commiserate about how miserably I failed the first year and hear a few things I figured out in my do-over attempt.

But don’t stop at off-hours joy. It’s just as realistic to find moments of joy in your work.

I get joy when the research and writing are done on a project, and I get to play with the design and visuals. Likewise, you might get joy from creating an organizational system that will make life easier for your whole team. Maybe your form of joy is when you get to be strategic and future-oriented. 

Put your hand up for the assignments that create joy for you—onboarding new people, doing a site visit, validating the plans for a new project. Whatever it is that gives you lightness, that gets you to a state of flow. Seek it out. Joy will nourish you.

Purpose

Another bountiful energy source is to tap into something that gives you purpose. It’s astonishing what is possible when your task feels meaningful.

What activities connect you to a purpose? Is it doing something at work that you know will have an impact? Is it contributing to your community or your family? Pick out a few things each month that are important rather than urgent, and you’ll get that sense of traction that is sustaining.

Connection

For most humans, strengthening your connection to another person is a powerful source of energy.

If you’re a more gregarious and extroverted type, that might mean being in large crowds (I went to the Elton John farewell concert recently and got so much energy from singing along with 45,000 strangers.)

If you’re more introverted, you might enjoy reconnecting with someone you haven’t seen much lately. A quieter, more substantive conversation might bolster you.

At work, a connection can come from mentoring others, having a candid conversation with a customer, or simply asking a co-worker to join you for a coffee. Feeling seen and understood can provide a long-lasting boost as the days get shorter.

Other Energy Sources

Joy, purpose, and connection are only a few things you can consider as you build a refueling plan. Another is to find opportunities to solve problems. The sleuthing, tinkering, and iterating required to solve a vexing problem might be highly engaging for you.

Some people find energy in vigor. Being active—chasing daunting physical goals like doing a triathlon or climbing a mountain—makes some people feel more resilient and energized. If that’s you, where have you carved out time to push yourself physically after the mental marathons of knowledge work? And don’t forget to look for daunting physical tasks at work that others shy away from (like working a booth at a trade show) that would be great for you.

You might be the type who finds creativity is the bottomless well of enthusiasm. Picking up a paintbrush, writing a poem, or engaging in fantasy role play might be the weekend versions, but there are often ways to engage your creativity at work as well.

Rest

Interestingly, most of the tactics I’ve shared are active pursuits. That’s because many endeavors require you to expend physical effort but give back so much more in emotional, intellectual, or spiritual energy.

Maybe you’re the type who can keep up that pace indefinitely. I’m not. And if you aren’t either, I encourage you to look at your calendar and book some rest. Schedule days to work at home to avoid the exhausting commute. Capitalize on afternoons where you can grab a 20-minute power nap. Protect a day off where you can sit on the couch from morning to night.

I just looked at my schedule for the next two weeks, and I already know it will tire me out. I have multiple client offsites. That means air travel, time zone changes, and late-night dinners. I will also be away the next two weekends, which will be fun. However, it will also mean that I don’t have my regular Sunday morning date with a newspaper to chill out. To compensate, I’ve already blocked off three days in October and three days in November when I can change the pace and get some rest.

Stop trying to be a hero (or a humpback). You don’t need to go months of running on your reserves. Instead, choose a couple of these strategies that will work for you, and then get them on your calendar. Stay energized and avoid burnout.

 

Related Resources

Leading Through Change Part III: Resilience

Good and bad stress

Video: How to Make Taking Vacation Less Aversive 

Expert: 10 Ways to Beat Burnout by Jeff Comer, PsyD in Psychology Today 

 

A Personalized Approach to Feeling Less Overwhelmed

Do you ever get overwhelmed?

It’s not that any single task on your to-do list is particularly arduous but that the mountain of accumulated tasks feels insurmountable. The cumulative effect of everything in front of you gives you a generalized sense of anxiety, exhaustion, or dread.

I’ve been there this week. I’m returning from a hiatus and trying to prepare for my upcoming sessions while working through a four-week backlog of emails. I realized this was triggering overwhelm when I noticed the post-it notes in front of me fluttering in the breeze caused by my giant sighs. I’ve also noticed that I’m talking to myself and starting sentences with “Ok…” to reassure myself that I can get on top of this mound of work.

The good news is that I know myself well enough at 50 to know what works and what doesn’t when I’m in this state. I also know that what works for me is very specific to my personality. And very different from what might work for you and your personality.

And thus came the inspiration to create this personalized guide to your own private hell of overwhelm. I hope it’s helpful.

What does your stress look like?

I remember learning in lifeguard training that some people who are drowning slip quietly beneath the water while others splash frantically and expend their energy in a vain attempt to stay afloat. Well, the same holds with overwhelming workloads, different people have their own self-destructive ways of reacting, and unless you can pull yourself out of yours, you’re in trouble.

Which of these descriptions sounds like your behavior when you’re overwhelmed?

Frenzy

When you get overwhelmed, do you whip yourself into a froth, pacing, twitching, doing random tasks? If you keep jumping up, moving around, tinkering, you might be someone who gets more active, almost manic, when you’re overwhelmed. Unfortunately, being more active does not mean you’re getting more done. Often, it means your starting a bunch of stuff and finishing nothing. It’s also unlikely that you’re doing the most important things and instead just attacking whatever gets in your path.

The antidote for this frenetic version of overwhelm is to lift your eyes to the horizon and think about what matters most and why. Then, based on your answers to those questions, you’ll be able to promote 10-20% of your to-do list to the top, deprioritize 50%, and remove the rest. Checking off the 10-20% will create forward momentum and have you feeling noticeably better. Prioritized to-do lists are your friends.

Rigidity

Here’s an entirely different profile.

When you get overwhelmed, do you turn to processes, rules, and organization? If you get stuck bemoaning how unfair your workload is or searching for the origins of what feels like random assignments, you might be someone who craves predictability and gets principled when you’re overwhelmed. But, unfortunately, the fact that you shouldn’t have to deal with the nature or volume of work you’re facing doesn’t change the fact that you need to.

The antidote for this rigid form of overwhelm that has you feeling like a victim is to change your language from “what should I be doing” to “what could I be doing?” Selecting the two or three tasks and prioritizing those that will reduce risk will make you feel like order will eventually prevail over chaos.

Chattiness

Or how about this one?

When you get overwhelmed, do you emote about your feelings to anyone within earshot? If you long for someone to validate just how ridiculous your workload is, you might be someone who thinks it’s a competition to see who has it worst. But, unfortunately, while you’re busy telling everyone how hard done by you are, your list of tasks is growing, and your list of allies is shrinking.

The antidote for this social contagion approach to overwhelm is to switch the nature of your competition away from “who has the most to do” to “who got the most done.” Changing your scorecard will allow you to satisfy your competitive spirit with something constructive. Giving yourself a figurative (or literal) gold star for your accomplishments will have you back to feeling like a winner in no time.

Deflation

One more.

When you get overwhelmed, do you collapse on the couch feeling like you can’t even sit upright? If you become sad and pessimistic when there’s too much to cope with, you might be someone who takes overwhelm personally and as a sign that you don’t have what it takes.

The antidote for this self-inflicted wound form of overwhelm is to take a modest task you feel you can manage and just do it. Instead of boiling the ocean, just heat one bucket. You need to overcome your inertia by getting something going.

Strategies to Feel Less Overwhelmed

While we each have our dominant version of what our stress looks like and the associated techniques for alleviating it, many of us also have a secondary aspect of our personality that we can call on to help us dig out of a hole. For example, I’m the type who gets deflated when I’m overwhelmed. As a result, I will suffer in solitude. But I also know I’m a social person, so I use that to my advantage.

Here are some secondary strategies you can use to feel less overwhelmed. Which one works for you?

Talk it Out

For the social type, phone a friend and talk it through. Likely, the other person won’t need to say a word, and just their presence, support, and smile will be all you need to feel more connected and confident. You can even ask the person to jot down a few notes as you’re talking to help you separate the priority tasks you need to address and highlight the ones that you can strike from your list.

Shake it Off

For the active type, grab your phone, put in some headphones, and get outside. Walk. Fast. The movement will help you process the scrambled thoughts in your head. Open a note on your phone and use voice dictation to document everything you think of. When you get home, you’ll be better positioned to think about what’s most important on the list and what can wait. Turn the prioritized list into a checklist and start crossing things off.

Clean it Up

For the orderly type, build a system. Make files on your desktop, draw a giant chart of everything you need to do and stick it on the wall, use Pareto time blocks, and just do something to show your to-do list who’s boss. Once you have the system, work it. Break everything down and use a timer and a tracking system to make the chunks of work more manageable. Even a daunting workload will be more doable once you’ve organized it into submission.

Make it Count

For the creative type, make it inspiring. If your version of inspiring is to make things sleek, pretty, or visual, grab a notebook and some markers and turn your list into a work of art. In contrast, if your notion of inspiring is more about substance than style, connect your tasks to a higher-order concept that you find more strategic, purposeful, or innovative. If you’re “redefining the identity of your company,” you might be more energized about tackling the workload than if you’re “changing the copy and stock images on the website.”

Feeling overwhelmed is, well…overwhelming! But it doesn’t have to be long-lived, and it doesn’t have to drag you under. Know what type of overwhelm you tend to suffer, and try these primary and secondary approaches to getting your head back above the water.

Let me know your tricks for dealing with overwhelm.

Further Reading

How Do I Talk Someone Off the Ledge?

Enough about Workload, the Problem is Thoughtload

8 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed by Your Workload

Video: 1 Yes and 3 Less (Why Deprioritizing is as Important as Prioritizing) 

Other Voices: 5 Mistakes We Make When We’re Overwhelmed– Alice Boyes in Harvard Business Review

Working for a Toxic Boss? You Have Options

 

Is your boss toxic? (video transcript)

Have you found yourself working for a really toxic boss? Is it eroding your self-esteem and starting to take a toll on your physical or mental health? 

It’s a really tough situation to be in, so I’m going to share some advice applicable to any situation that will help you protect yourself when dealing with a toxic boss. 

I want you to think about the following approaches in terms of concentric circles. First is things you can do yourself. Next is things you can do with your teammates, and then reaching out beyond there to your social supports and other people in your business network. 

Is your boss toxic, or are you overreacting?

The first thing you need to do is to consider whether or not you are overreacting.

This may not be what you feel like doing in this moment, and perhaps you feel you are fully justified in thinking you have the worst boss ever. However, it is worth considering whether there are other ways to interpret your boss’s actions.

This will help you get a sense of whether you are blowing things out of proportion. 

Is it something that truly hurts? Consider whether you are taking some negative criticism as a sign that your boss hates you simply because you were already feeling down or insecure. 

To ascertain this, try sharing your boss’s comments with somebody you trust. For example, if your boss sent an email that you think is really horrible, share it with somebody and get their take on it first. 

The next thing you can do is to take your boss’s probably very subjective, nasty, judgemental criticisms of you and try and shrink them down so that they have less of an effect on your self-esteem by making them more objective and less subjective. 

For example, if your boss has said to you, “Your work is so sloppy and you’re always missing the details”, making you think you aren’t up to the task, try thinking objectively about what they’re reacting to. 

If there were two typos in a document, it’s much better to reframe your thinking to, “I left two typos in a document” rather than “I’m sloppy.” 

Try to contain your boss’s criticisms or the ways that they’re toxic so that they won’t have as big an effect on you. 

How can you work with your team?

If your boss is toxic in the sense that they set the team up for failure or they create infighting among the team, then try and get a conversation going with your teammates to figure out how to cope with the situation.

If the boss is assigning the same work to multiple people or is really scatterbrained, see how you can rally your teammates (or at least the ones that are on side) to try and have that make less of an impact. 

It’s important to remember that your team isn’t only useful for getting that productivity support; it can also be very helpful to get social support from them. For example, if you’re feeling stressed out by your boss, you can suggest going for a walk or a quick coffee with your teammates to calm down and discuss things with them.

What about your wider network?

The other really important thing when you have a toxic boss is to also have interactions and support coming from outside of the team. Try reaching out to other people in the organization who you have strong relationships with, such as previous managers, a mentor or somebody who works in a different department, in order to get a breath of fresh air from your team. 

Talk about what you’re working on, have somebody who’s also excited. Those sorts of things can be important. As you strengthen the connection with them, you also reduce the likelihood that your toxic boss could end your career in this company. 

It gives you some new connections and paths out, which can also be really useful. 

In addition, remember to reach out to people in your friendship groups or community, and try going places where you can get away from thinking about work all together. Do things that give you joy. 

For me, it’s usually in a dance studio where I can’t worry about anything when I’m trying to tap dance, other than not falling on my butt. So building that is really, really important. 

Develop your resilience

Finally, establish what helps with your resilience. This might involve playing a soccer game or going for a run to blow off some steam, or it might be a solo activity like painting or cleaning which allows you time in your head

Resilience is super important. 

–

So if you have a toxic boss, I want you to think about it in terms of “What do I need to do myself? “What can I do with my teammates?” And then “How can I expand to build my network out into the organization, but also out into my community, so I have more supports?” 

All of those things will really help you get through a situation with a toxic boss and hopefully, it’s not a situation that lasts for too long. 

More on this

Liane’s Catalog of Toxic Bosses

How to handle a toxic boss

Toxic Team Dynamics

I’m DONE With Nice People. Let’s Do This Instead

 

Nice versus kind – which one is better? (video transcript)

You know what kind of people I don’t really like? Nice people. 

That might sound like a weird thing to say: while I don’t dislike nice people generally, I find nice is really hurtful on teams. 

Nice people will smile and compliment you after you bomb in a presentation. They think that telling you the truth would crush you. Similarly, when someone gossips to a nice person, they just smile and nod in agreement.

I think ‘nice’ on teams is an excuse for lazy passive behavior. And I don’t think it’s good enough. 

What I like to do is replace the standard of being nice with being kind. 

Kind requires something a bit more active. 

Imagine a colleague mentions to you some negative feedback they received from the boss that they don’t agree with. Rather than being ‘nice’ by consoling them with platitudes, the kind thing to do would be to ask if the boss gave any examples, and perhaps share some ideas on how they might have handled that situation differently. 

That’s kind: it means you care about the person and you want to help them be successful, rather than being polite and courteous and not actually helping them to be better. 

In the situation where your colleague comes gossiping to you, a nice person will simply stay quiet and nod along. In contrast, a kind person would point out that things don’t seem to be going well in that relationship. They might say “What do you think’s going on? Why don’t you share with me how you might broach that issue with the person, and I’ll give you some thoughts.” 

Kindness is a much higher bar and we need more kindness in our relationships. Instead of feeling like we can’t say anything to a colleague for fear of throwing them under the bus, we need a level of trust based on being honest with what someone needs to hear. 

This is less about sugarcoating something, but rather helping them turn uncomfortable situations into learning opportunities. That is a kind colleague, and I would trade a kind colleague for a nice colleague any day of the week. 

More on this

Nice is not Enough

Why You Think You’re Listening, but You’re Not

Can You Trust the Voice Inside Your Head?