Mardi Humphreys

We Just Disagree

When you put two or more human beings in a room together, it won’t be long until they find something to disagree about. Throw in a complicated project for a demanding client that takes weeks to deliver and you have a recipe for major conflict to erupt. It’s not a question of if you have conflict with your coworkers, but when. Here are three ways to manage it.

1. Rip off the Band-Aid

Conflict is like a wound. If left untreated, it can get infected and hurt the whole team. Going to the source and clearing the air as soon as you recognize conflict keeps it from spreading. When I feel like a coworker’s vibe toward me is negative, in private, I ask if I’ve unwittingly offended him. Sometimes, I’m the one who feels offended, but I still go to the person I feel has offended me. Often conflict is a result of miscommunication, so the first thing I do is listen to his issue. I try to ignore any emotion either one of us is feeling and concentrate on the words he’s saying. Then I reflect back to him what he said in the form of a question, “You’re stumbling over _____ because _____. Is that right?” If I’ve offended him, I apologize. If he offended me, I forget about blame and I don’t expect an apology. I can’t change his personality, but I can ask him to modify his behavior. If the situation is a misunderstanding, my coworker now knows I’m not afraid of conflict and I’m willing to deal with the source instead of gossiping to the rest of the team.

2. You need to calm down

If a coworker gets angry, talks sarcastically, or raises his voice, I do the opposite. I control my non-verbals: uncross my arms, put on a poker face, and speak in a soft tone. It can feel like an attack, but another person’s opinion of my decision is only his opinion. Just because he’s mad doesn’t mean he’s right. He’s not open to the possibility of being wrong when he’s mad, so I refrain from pointing out flawed logic while he’s venting. Why he feels so strongly about a perceived slight could have absolutely nothing to do with me. A gentle answer turns away wrath.

3. Find the yes

There’s more than one way to bake a cake, everyone wants to do it their own way, and sometimes they are very vocal about it. What I need to find is a solution everyone can live with (not necessarily agree on) so we can have cake; er, I mean, a deliverable. When a discussion gets heated, I throw water on the fire instead of gasoline. I try to find either common ground, something positive they did to further this project, or something we agreed on in the past in order to build a compromise.

Conflict is inevitable. When we learn to perceive it as data to be analyzed and interpreted we can mitigate it more quickly.

Do you have a favorite strategy to manage conflict with your coworkers? Please share your tips in the comment section below.

You May be a Leader

Time for a riddle:
What’s the difference between someone who is a leader and someone who is in charge?

Answer:
Leader = one who glues a team together and gets things done
Bureaucrat = one who is titled and officially in charge

Can this be the same person? Sure. Is it always? (That’s not a riddle.) If you don’t have a managerial title, how can you tell if you’re a leader?

Leadership is simply influence and everyone has it. You probably lead something or someone whether or not you recognize it as leadership. To find out, ask yourself these 10 questions.

1. Do I live in the future?

If you look two weeks down the road, plan two steps ahead, or see what currently exists and how it could be used to create something that doesn’t yet exist, you may be a leader.

2. Do I look at current processes and imagine how they could be improved?

When a coworker says, “But this is the way we’ve always done it.” If you say, “Yeah, but what if we can find a better way?” you may be a leader.

3. Do I communicate clearly?

If you can present the overview of how to achieve the project’s deliverable, as well as the steps necessary to create it, you may be a leader.

4. Do I collect people into teams?

If you identify coworkers who share your value system, solicit their opinions on your projects, invite collaboration, and facilitate partnership, you may be a leader.

5. Do I hate waste?

If you know a teammate has an underused ability that can enhance the project, and you appeal to their sense of purpose to focus it on accelerating the project, you may be a leader.

6. Do I reproduce myself?

If you teach teammates how to do what you do thereby sharing your power and encouraging them to find theirs, you may be a leader.

7. Do I connect people?

If you meet someone at a networking event and immediately think, “How can I help this person achieve her goals?” you may be a leader.

8. Do I eliminate obstacles?

If you know what action to take to keep the project moving toward completion and do it, if you ask for forgiveness instead of seeking approval, or if you think any decision is better than no decision, you may be a leader.

9. Do I make wise choices?

If you filter decisions through your company’s mission statement, you may be a leader.

10. Do I think more about others than about me?

If your main concern is advancing the project, even if it means a coworker will outshine you, you may be a leader.

The bureaucrat has the fancy title and big salary because he is held responsible for the team’s success. The leader has influence to achieve that success. If that person is not one and the same in your workplace, follow the leader.

Do you have managers in your office who aren’t leaders? Do you have managers in your office who are leaders? Please share your observations in the comments section.

Full Belly, Empty Wallet?

We’ve talked about saving money at the grocery. Now let’s tackle eating out. Americans spend about $3008 a year eating at restaurants. Talk about treat yo self. One of the fastest ways to save money is to stop going to restaurants. Since that’s not going to happen, here are three ways to save.

Skip the Drinks: Skip soft drinks and alcohol and drink water instead. For sanitation purposes, I’d avoid ordering it with a lemon wedge, but don’t get me started on restaurant cleanliness. Restaurants make a tidy profit from your drink order because most mark it up 10-45%. Water is free and better for your body.

Work the System: Eat at restaurants that have dollar menus or order from the kids’ menu if the restaurant doesn’t have age restrictions on it. Plenty of restaurants serve huge portions (I’m looking at you, Cheesecake Factory). Order something you know you won’t finish; something that won’t get soggy overnight, e.g. order spaghetti and meatballs instead of a Rueben sandwich. Take the rest home to eat for lunch at the office tomorrow. You can save money by either skipping the appetizer or making it your meal. You could also split a meal if you are eating out with someone. E.g., you order eggs and bacon ala carte; he orders an omelette that comes with bacon, hash browns and toast. You eat the hash browns. If you have a choice, eat out at lunch time. A restaurant’s lunch menu is smaller (so are the portions), and consequently cheaper, than their dinner menu. If you have to go out in the evening, you could opt for just dessert, or just appetizers or go to an ice cream parlor or a coffee shop.

Convenience Costs Money: Buying a cup of coffee on the way to the office every day can add up to over $1000 a year. I brew Starbucks at home and actually use 1/3 of generic ground coffee to 2/3 Starbucks to stretch it even further. Your favorite restaurant’s website probably offers to send you ecoupons if you sign up for their mailing list. If you can stand a bunch of ads clogging up your inbox, you could save some cash. Our favorite pizza place puts a coupon in a monthly direct mailer. We only eat there with the coupon. Uber Eats, GrubHub, and DoorDash add up. If you have to have Chipotle, pick it up on your way home from work instead of having it delivered to your door. Skipping the breakfast drive-thru (you can pack your breakfast as well as your lunch) helps your waistline as well as your wallet.

These suggestions require planning, but a little brain power can save you a lot of money. Make eating out a treat, not a habit. When our daughter was little, we went to McDonalds so infrequently that she used to get excited to eat there. Yes. We were THOSE parents.

What do you do to save money on eating out? Please share your tips in the comments section.

There’s Nothing Holding Me Back

Do you compare yourself to others? How’s that workin’ out for ya? Most of us have an innate sense of competition. Your teammate reaching his sales goal while you struggle frustrates you. You’re jealous when a coworker receives a promotion and you don’t. But just because someone is winning doesn’t mean you’re losing. You can allow these circumstances to set the bar you pole vault over. Here are four things you can do to be your own competition.

Determine what success means to you. It will look different on you than on those to whom you compare yourself. Use your definition to filter your decisions, actions, and goals. For example, do you want a promotion? If your company thinks customer service is important, make sure you are giving your customers great service. When a customer compliments you on how you treated her, be proactive. Give her your manager’s email address and ask her to send your manager a brief note.

Write down your S.M.A.R.T. goals. It isn’t enough just to think about them. Track them weekly. At the end of the month, ask yourself: What went well? What didn’t? What could I have done differently? What action will I take to improve? This will help you maintain focus. When you get distracted from your goals, you get disoriented. This makes improvement and success both harder and slower to obtain. Develop habits that concentrate on your own path and no one else’s. At the end of the day ask yourself: Am I better today than I was yesterday? Did I stop a negative thought and replace it with a positive action step?

Have a conversation (over coffee, of course). Brainstorm with a confidante who doesn’t have your same job title. Someone outside your industry has a different perspective and sees possibilities you can’t. Even if what they suggest isn’t feasible for you, the point isn’t for them to give you a new business model, it’s to pull you out of the spin cycle in your head so you can think differently about your situation. I had coffee recently with a former coworker I’d not spoken to in about a year. Just by catching up we saw things in each other’s journeys that left us with new ways to approach our jobs.

Take a break. Does social media impact how you think of yourself? There is always going to be someone else with a bigger house, a nicer car, and a more exciting life. If their Instagram posts inspire you to push forward, great. But remember, those people are advertising their values and goals which are not necessarily the same as yours. You can’t generate momentum to reach your goals if your attention is diverted to someone else’s. Don’t compare yourself to other people living their best lives. If scrolling makes you miserable, close the apps for a while.

You are unique. Even with the same job title, you’re different from your coworker. You don’t have the same abilities, resources, obligations, motivations, or challenges. You are your biggest competition.

What adjustments do you make when you realize you’re the only one holding you back? Please share them in the comments section.

Summer Slump?

Summer weekends bring more daylight hours, lots of community activities, and plenty of opportunities to get outside and forget about work. It almost feels like a mini-vacation. Then Monday comes. My inbox overflows because something happened on Saturday. A project halts because a coworker is on vacation. Interruptions prevent me from completing anything. Mondays seem more difficult during the summer. Here are some things I do to make them easier.

Saturday: I sleep in thirty minutes later than during the week signaling my body the routine is different today. During the week, I allow stuff to pile up: laundry, bills, personal email, etc., so I tackle the low hanging fruit early in the day. Saturday is the day to grocery shop, clean bathrooms, change bed linens, and food prep. This leaves the rest of the day to relax. Unless a work emergency happens, I don’t think about the office and I don’t check my email.

Sunday: Again, I sleep in thirty minutes later than normal and get stuff done early. I like to do something meaningful like take a walk with my husband to watch the sun rise, watch our church’s service, write a LinkedIn article, or read. I also try to connect with other people by FaceTiming our daughter, texting my parents, or having coffee with a friend. (Some other suggestions: volunteer, ride bikes with nieces/nephews, brunch with friends.) Then, I get a head start on the week. Around 6:30pm I glance at my calendar for the upcoming week and check my work email in case something’s come up affecting one of Monday’s meetings. I don’t reply unless it’s an emergency. The only thing I may do is send myself a reminder note regarding what’s coming up this week and what I need to do to prepare for it. After that, I set out clothes for the next day so I have one less thing to think about on Monday morning. These minor actions eliminate the Sunday Scaries so I can enjoy my last evening before work.

Monday: I get out of bed at my normal work-week time and try to ease re-entry. I get to the office about ninety minutes before my first meeting of the day to set up my work space, get coffee and water, take action on any reminder emails I sent myself yesterday, and check my notes from Friday. As the day progresses, I take short breaks to increase my productivity. During these breaks, I may reward myself by checking social media, but just one platform so I don’t fall down that rabbit hole and lose track of time. I also try to change my scenery. If it’s nice outside, I can walk around the building. Thirty minutes before before the end of the day, I take stock and make to-do lists for tomorrow so that summer Monday feeling doesn’t bleed into Tuesday.

Do summer Mondays seem harder to you too? Please share what you do to combat the summer slump in the comments section.

The Never-ending Workday

I love to work. I love relieving companies of the pain their current processes cause them. When I see a business operation that could be automated, I just want to get my hands on the workflow and clean it up. Consequently, I see room for improvement everywhere. It’s tough to turn that section of my brain off, but I need to recharge those creative thinking batteries. With devices and software that allow constant communication with coworkers, shorter and shorter deadlines, and the ability to work remotely, how do I know when to put my foot (and my laptop) down and pay attention to my personal life?

Boundaries – It’s not enough to set them; I have to protect them. For example, I try not to work weekends. Typically, my weekend starts at 4:00PM on Friday, so around 3:00PM, I start prepping for Monday. Do I have all the data I’ll need for Monday’s meetings? Do I have calls/emails to return before Monday? What follow up needs done first thing next week? But when a project comes up at 2:45PM and it’s due by noon on Monday, I have to bend my boundary. When working over the weekend, I set the timer on my phone and force myself to take breaks. If I need to communicate with a coworker, it’s email or phone calls scheduled around existing weekend plans. I also have to be patient with delayed communication because it’s the weekend for whomever I need to communicate with too.

Exercise – Elle Woods was right about endorphins. When I start to feel overwhelmed, I close my eyes and box breathe. Forcing my body to calm down eases my mind. We often treat exercise like it’s optional, but it needs to be habitual much like brushing our teeth. I walk on our treadmill every day, lift weights five times a week, and take weekly walks with my husband. These activities not only reduce my stress, but build up my immune system. I don’t let work interfere with these activities because doing something good for my body makes my brain more productive.

Get ruthless – When life feels out of control, I need to analyze why. Do I have toxic people in my life? Is social media wasting my time? Is binge watching Stranger Things interfering with my sleep? Are there tasks I can delegate? Then I have to make difficult decisions based on the answers. For example, after weekly staff meetings, a coworker wants to update me on office gossip. I can decide to politely excuse myself.

Needing to balance work and life implies that one (usually work) is bad and the other (usually life) is good. I believe the trick is to play to my strengths in both because when I do that, I love whatever I’m doing.

What about you? Do you have any suggestions on balancing work and life?

Food for Thought

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American household spent $7729 on food in 2017 (the latest information available as of April 2019). The only items we spent more money on were housing and transportation. We have a little control over how much we pay for housing and transportation, but we have a lot of control over how much we spend on food. Here are five strategies I use to save money at the grocery.

Prep – I plan meals for the following week before my husband and I go to the grocery. I use our grocer’s weekly circular on their app, find out what’s on sale, look up recipes online featuring those ingredients, make a list of them, and buy only them. I avoid the dazzling displays tempting me to buy impulsively. Many groceries have a Manager’s Special section where the food whose sell-by date is imminent. We shop those and if the price is right and we can either eat it in the next few days or freeze it before the sell-by date, we buy it. This prep means all lunches and dinners for the following week are made, so it’s super easy to pull leftovers out of the fridge instead of hitting the drive-thru for lunch at work.

Convenience – Pre-cut mixed fruit bowls cost more than buying the fruits, cleaning them, cutting them up, and mixing them myself, so I don’t buy them. The same thing goes for meal kits, frozen dinners, and pre-washed salad. You have to decide if the convenience is worth your time and money.

Coupons – I look for paper and electronic coupons for the items on my grocery list. I don’t use coupons to try a new brand name product. If I can buy a sale item with a coupon, that’s a win. My research turned up other apps that save money on groceries and I’m anxious to try one.

Generics – Did you know groceries are strategically laid out so popular items like produce and dairy are on opposite sides of the store; forcing us to walk through the entire grocery and be tempted to buy what we didn’t go there for? Grocery shelves are organized so the most expensive brand name products are at eye level. There are very few brand-named items we think are worth the extra cost. Generics are usually on shelves higher or lower than eye level. I have to remember to look at the shelves above and below what’s right in front of me to find cheaper brands.

Budget – I’ve calculated a realistic amount of money to spend weekly at the grocery based on what products we buy and how many people we’re buying for. As we put items in the cart, I ballpark a running total in my head to make sure we’re sticking close to that number.

Does this sound like work? It is, initially. But once it became a habit, these processes got faster. Is it worth my T.E.A.M.? It definitely is for me. What about you? Please share some of your money saving grocery tips in the comments section.

Undefeated

Photo by walking photographer from Pexels

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Frederick Maryat

As I mentioned last week, I do a lot of cold calling which means I get rejected. A lot. So the word resilience has been in my face lately. A lot. Merriam-Webster defines it as, “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” As usual, I have questions.

“It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” Rocky Balboa

How do I get resilience? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice. As a woman in the workforce, I feel like I have plenty of opportunity to practice resiliency. From sexism (e.g. Since I’m the only woman in the meeting I must be the note taker, right?) To family responsibilities competing with work (e.g. leaving a day-long corporate meeting “early” (6:00PM) to volunteer at my daughter’s school event.). Every day seems to offer a chance to practice resiliency.

“Instead of letting your hardships and failures discourage or exhaust you, let them inspire you. Let them make you even hungrier to succeed.” Michelle Obama

Why is it important to cultivate? Because life is hard and stressful, yet we don’t assume it will be. We should be surprised when the Memorial Day tornadoes of 2019 happen, but we shouldn’t be surprised when our coworker tries to steal our lead. Again. We can’t predict all the problems life throws at us, but we can prepare our minds to process them, work through them, and maybe even use them to become stronger. When setbacks happen we can remind ourselves of our positive qualities, formulate a realistic plan to overcome the problem, manage our emotions, remain calm and breathe, think about communication and make it effective, and think of ourselves as survivors and not victims.

“You gotta get up and try, and try, and try” Pink

When I fail, how do I work through it? My best example of resiliency is our daughter flunking the road test for her driver’s license the first time she took it. There was much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth on the way home. As I selfishly thought how angry I was that I’d have to take yet another afternoon off work to let her try again, God thumped me on the head and said, “Ten years from now, it won’t matter that you took more time off work, but what you say in the next ten minutes will. Don’t screw it up.” I told her, “We’ll be home in five minutes, so you have five minutes to wallow in self-pity. Then, pick yourself up and decide what you’re going to do to fix this.” We were home about an hour when she told me she’d called a friend for consolation and found out she’d failed her first try too. She was angry enough to work on what flunked her and retake the test. My husband got off work to take her for the second try, and she passed.

Now, when I get knocked down, I follow her example: I wallow in self-pity for five minutes, talk to someone who knows what I went through, practice what I failed, then go back and try again. It works pretty well. Maybe you should give it a…try.

Please share your stories of resilience in the comments section.

I’m Freezing

Phone rings

HER: Hello. Widgets R Us. How may I direct your call?
ME: May I speak to your IT Director please?
HER: (suspicious tone) Which one? We have a department full of them.
ME: Uh…the one who does the troubleshooting
HER: (annoyed tone) They all do the troubleshooting. Hang on. I’ll see who’s back there.
ME: Thank you.

37 seconds go by. The music from final Jeopardy plays in my head.

HIM: Widgets R Us, this is Him. How can I help you?
ME: (gives elevator speech in pleasant tone)…Do you have any IT issues we can help you with?
HIM: (heavy sigh) We already have someone who does our IT. (Hangs up)

Well, THAT went well.

My cold call game stinks. Even if I make it past the gate keeper, more often than not, I have to leave a voicemail. We all know it’s a numbers game. In May, I made 22 calls, talked to 7 people, got 2 appointments and 0 jobs. Also in May, I sent 61 emails, got 24 replies, made 6 appointments, and got 3 jobs. Given that data sample I’m wondering, has the cold call been replaced by the cold email?

Pros to cold email:

The message gets right to the decision maker
They can be written and sent anytime 24/7/365
If you are a better writer than speaker, email is more comfortable
If you get a reply, you have time to stop, think, and gather intelligence on the prospect through any number of sources: LinkedIn, Google, the prospect’s website, etc.

There is one big con to cold email: it’s easily ignored. You don’t even know if it was received, much less read; unless you put a read receipt on it and that can annoy your recipient.

When cold emailing, here are some things I do:

Use as few words in the subject line as possible
Open with something or someone in common to start the conversation pleasantly
Write a sentence about a project I’m working on and how it occurred to me that his company might have the same challenge; then ask if he’d like to hear more
Carefully proofread; especially when sending more than six at a time. I look for mismatched information (e.g., Does the email address match the decision maker’s name?)
I incorporate the company’s name in the body of the message so the email is easily found in my sent folder

When I Googled, “What is better cold calling or cold emailing?” I got back a page full of blog posts and most of them suggested doing both; which makes sense to me. Sending a prospect an email gives me an excuse to call her and ask, “Did you have an opportunity to read it? Do you have any questions?”

Is this one-two punch the best option? No. Face to face is. Relationships are best built looking someone in the eye, asking her what her company does, thinking about how what my company does can help her, and brainstorming what we can accomplish together.

Do you have to make cold calls? Do you prefer cold emailing? Have you tracked data on which activity gets you better results? Please share your experience in the comments section.

Like Jogging in Three Feet of Water

Being busy is like jogging in three feet of water. We’re working hard, but not getting anywhere. When interpreted, busy usually means we just don’t:

Prioritize
Have the guts to say no
Want to do what needs done
Plan ahead
Want others to not like us if we say no

I’m guilty of all these things. Here’s what I learned.

Prioritize – I make a to-do list then don’t stop to think if the way I’m doing it is the best way to do it. Confused? Me too. (You’re imagining a caged hamster running on a wheel right now, aren’t you?) I prioritize tasks at the beginning of a work project. I seldom revise my list. Who has time to stop momentum for reflection? But reevaluating to-do lists weekly makes time to accommodate unexpected challenges that inevitably arise. This allows me to inject margin into my schedule, which is a big stress reliever.

Be brave – When I stop, observe, question, and listen, I have a better chance of putting all the pieces of the why-I’m-so-busy puzzle together. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t like the picture the puzzle makes. At that point, I have to ask myself hard questions and answer them honestly: Why is this project so difficult? What can I do differently to achieve the results I want? Is it a big change? Do I need help? Courage to admit I don’t have all the answers can mobilize the team to push the project closer to completion.

Don’t be lazy – Google says the definition of busy is: “having a great deal to do or keep occupied” implying what we’re doing is important. What am I occupying my time with? Chatting with coworkers in the break room? I should be honest when I need a break, but I shouldn’t call it busyness and use it as an excuse to not return email.

Templates are my friends – Sometimes I can’t achieve my goal through sheer force of will. E.g., I can’t force people to buy my company’s service. What I can do is figure out the best plan to connect with potential partners by asking: How can I identify decision makers? How can I make them comfortable enough to tell me what their operational challenges are? How does what we offer relieve the pain points of their business? These questions are a universal roadmap I can follow to help any business.

Other people’s opinions – I once had a demanding coworker with a perpetual list of busy work she expected me to handle for her. Not all of her requests were out of line, but the way she requested them often was. I wanted her to like me, but not if it meant doing parts of her job for her. If it was a task she could do herself, I encouraged and empowered her to do it. (E.g.,“Oh, you need to send a package? Remember to fill out an expense report. You can get reimbursed for both shipping and mileage!”)

Saying I’m busy no longer makes me sound important, it makes me sound like I can’t handle my life.

Under what circumstances do you feel compelled to fall back on the “I’m busy” excuse? Please share in the comments section.