Office Life – Page 3 – mardihumphreys.com

There’s Nothing More Scary Than Losing Your Mind

Have you ever been gaslighted at work? The term, taken from the title of a 1938 play, refers to the process of someone slowly driving someone else crazy through psychological manipulation. It’s a specific pattern of emotional abuse and is considered workplace harassment. When it’s done by your manager, it’s very similar to Corporate Stockholm Syndrome. Since the manipulation is customized to the target, there’s no one-size-fits-all description, but here’s what gaslighting could look like coming from a coworker.

Behavior:

They consistently manipulate your perception of reality and refuse to talk about it (e.g., “I didn’t touch you inappropriately. I don’t have to listen to this.”).
They break the rules and claim you’re the one who broke them (e.g., you catch them lying and they blame you for forcing them to lie).
They withhold information you need (e.g., “The client meeting is today. Did you forget again?”).
They are ambitious, smart, critical, and have low self-esteem.
They can’t handle negative feedback, jockey for leadership positions on the team, and sabotage your work (e.g., change deadlines after you start working on the project).
They make passive aggressive comments that come off as funny.
They are charming and have great people skills.
They are office gossips; getting others to engage so they have more dirt on more coworkers.
They take credit for your ideas and when you call them on it, they say they had to tweak your idea to make it work, so it was no longer yours.

Why it happens:

They see you as competition. To get ahead, they gaslight you to make you look incompetent to management or to get you fired.
They want you to behave the way they choose while avoiding responsibility for their manipulation.
Controlling you makes them feel powerful.

Signs:

By its very nature (done slowly and sneakily), it can be hard to identify.

They make you doubt your skills, intelligence, and/or your sense of reality.
They give you backhanded compliments (e.g., “Great job on the presentation. I thought for sure you’d choke.”).
If you feel paranoid all the time (not just at work), confused (second-guessing your memory), too sensitive, overreactive, guilty, and/or depressed, you may be a victim of gaslighting.

What you should do:

Document everything; seeing the abuse in words helps you decide if gaslighting is actually happening (i.e., you are not imagining it) and it gives you proof to take to HR if you choose to.
Keep gaslighting emails they sent you in a folder under your inbox and forward them to your private email account, so you have a backup. If your company has access to your work email, just keep the evidence in your private email account.
Write down descriptions of inappropriate interactions as soon as they happen before you forget what was said, done, and where it happened. Email these documents to both your work and private accounts so they will be time and date stamped.
Ask your coworkers if it’s happening to them too. If so, ask them to document their interactions also. HR is more likely to believe you if you can prove the gaslighter is treating coworkers the same way they’re treating you.
When meeting with the gaslighter, have at least one other person in the meeting to verify what was said.
Call the gaslighter out on their behavior and words. Know your worth and expertise and hold your boundaries.
Remind yourself that you are smart and capable.

Please share your experience of being gaslighted in the comments section below.

Corporate Stockholm Syndrome is Real

While researching last week’s post, I stumbled across something I’d never heard of before: Corporate Stockholm Syndrome (CSS). It’s when an employee becomes deeply loyal to an employer who is abusive (e.g., yells at employees, expects employees to work long hours, requires employees to handle his personal errands). For a good example of this, watch the movie (or read the book), The Devil Wears Prada. Stockholm Syndrome is a phrase first coined in the 1970s to refer to a hostage who felt empathy toward her captor because even though she was abused, the captor was also the source of food, water, shelter, etc. Since a manager can also be viewed as a source of those things, when the manager is abusive, the employee experiences CSS.

1. Problems

As employees, we get a great deal of self-esteem from our jobs. This becomes problematic if our manager habitually mistreats us. An employee suffering from CSS is emotionally attached to the company and puts its needs before her own; even if that means she gets traumatized in the process. The employee is micromanaged. Her work is scrutinized and, if it displeases the manager, criticized. When she wants to advance within the company, especially to another manager’s team, her manager refuses to allow the move.

2. Symptoms

Physical: headaches, insomnia, fatigue
Mental/Emotional: fear, distrust, anger, shame, denial she’s being mistreated.
Company: the manager isolates the employee from upper management, coworkers verbally abuse each other, the company offers fringe benefits that promote loyalty to the company

3. Results

The employee is stressed out, her reputation possibly tarnished by her manager, and afraid of what will happen if she complains to Human Resources. She thinks telling someone will get back to the manager and make things worse (e.g., lose her job or not get promoted). In 2017, the Workplace Bullying Institute discovered more than 60 million employees in the US had been affected by bullying or abuse on the job. CSS is contagious. Coworkers who witness the abuse may not speak up for fear they’ll be mistreated too.

4. Solutions

It’s important to maintain healthy relationships outside of the office. Get a reality check from one of yours. Ask, “Do you see this happening?” “Is this normal?” If you’re a victim of CSS, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to change your manager’s behavior. Your best alternative is to get a new job. (That sentence makes it sound easy. I know it’s not.) Look for a company that rewards supervisors for promoting high performers. While you’re searching, take time to heal. Write down your achievements. Seek validation and encouragement from friends and family. Consider visiting a psychologist who does cognitive behavioral therapy to undo the thinking patterns created by the abuse. Be good to yourself outside of work: exercise, use a meditation app, plan something to look forward to (e.g., a concert, a vacation, the next five books you want to read). Be as good to yourself as you would be to a friend who is going through these circumstances.

Have you ever been the victim of CSS? Please share your story in the comments section below.

Balancing Act

During a conference I attended last week, we did a networking exercise similar to the Reciprocity Ring Adam Grant uses in his classes at Wharton. Most of us requested referrals, but one woman asked for tips on work-life balance. I admired her courage. We usually act like we either have it all together or wear burnout like a badge of honor. I promised to do some research. Here’s what I found.

Contributing Factors to Work-life Imbalance:

1. Household Chores

Women do more household chores than men no matter what their age, income level, workforce responsibilities, or if there are children to parent. If you’re tired of carrying the bulk of the homework, talk to your partner about traditional gender roles and work out a fair division of labor.

2. Working Remotely

If you don’t have to be on-site to do your job, working from home allows flexibility but also usually means working longer and odd hours and sets the expectation from your boss that it’s acceptable. American wages are about the same today as they were 40 years ago. Technology has produced knowledge workers, but businesses have yet to figure out how to measure their productivity. We’re still measuring it by hours on time sheets and presence in the office. So if you work remotely, you feel you have to be connected 24/7 to demonstrate productivity.

3. Your Mate’s Schedule

Women partnered to men who work long hours (50 or more per week) have significantly higher perceived stress and significantly lower work-life balance than women partnered to men who work a normal full-time week (35–49 hours).

Possible Solutions:

1. Flip the Script

Stop thinking of work as negative and home as positive. There’s nothing wrong with loving your job. It’s just that too much of a good thing still causes burnout. Alternate work schedules are becoming more common. Can you choose a schedule that allows you to balance home and work? You have to set and protect boundaries, but you would control them.

2. Embrace the Imbalance

Using time-saving hacks aren’t working any more. Imbalance is a challenge for a household where both people have jobs and no one has the exclusive responsibility to manage the home. Give each other some grace. Communicate when you have an impending work deadline signaling that your chores at home will have to wait. On the other hand, let your colleague know you will answer his email after you get home from your daughter’s basketball game.

3. Leadership

If the organization’s leaders don’t practice work-life balance, e.g., emailing at 9:00PM, calling into meetings from vacation, etc., then employees will follow suit because it shows dedication and may lead to promotion. Managers should model the behavior the company wants cultivated. Supervisors should take a lunch hour, go on vacation, and leave the office for the day at a reasonable hour. Then they should talk openly about doing all those things with their teams and encourage them to do the same.

How do you balance work with your personal life? Please share your story in the comments section below.

Increase Your Stock Value

This white paper suggests corporations that have women in C-Suite positions experience higher stock values and greater profitability than corporations whose boards are all men. This study proposes there is no physical difference between male and female brains. Both resources imply cultural bias keeps women out of boardrooms. So here we are in 2019 still banging our heads against the Glass Ceiling. What steps can we take right now to break through? One is to develop leadership presence. It’s the secret sauce to obtaining executive and senior level positions and it consists of confidence, unique voice, and physical presence.

Confidence

Research shows men apply for jobs if they meet 60% of the qualifications. Women apply if we meet 100%. When we don’t get the job, women assume we aren’t good enough to get it, and men blame external circumstances. If you work in HR, analyze your organization for diversity then filter your results through your hiring process. What can you do to attract, hire, and promote under-represented groups? (E.g., women in entry level positions taking longer to get promoted than men hired for the same position at the same time.) Make unconscious bias conscious. If your company recruits more men than women, find out why. Hiring managers tend to recruit people they like and who are like them. Does your company need more female recruiters?

Unique Voice

Research reveals when women leaders exhibit traditionally male characteristics, like decisiveness and assertion, we are perceived as bossy and aggressive. On the other hand, when female leaders display traditionally feminine characteristics like being warm and nurturing, we are perceived as incompetent. The trick is to be both warm and competent. Women don’t have to mimic men to have an influential voice, but this is a slippery slope. As LeanIn.org tweeted, “We tend to underestimate women’s performance and overestimate men’s. Women get less credit for their accomplishments and more blame for mistakes. As a result, women have to work harder than men to prove that they’re qualified.” Since women are more likely to be given leadership roles in times of crisis, we get lots of practice using our unique voices.

Physical Presence

To break through the Glass Ceiling, women must get over risk aversion. To get what we want, we have to go after it. We can acknowledge to ourselves we’re afraid, but we have to proceed. True leaders are more afraid of the status quo than of taking risk. We can start by taking up as much physical space as possible when entering a room: stand tall, sit up straight, and make eye contact. These non-verbals telegraph we’re competent contributors. Respect is earned, not given; but we can act like we expect it. We need to pay attention to women beginning employment with our companies and actively advocate for them. We should be creative, innovative, and collaborative in forming sisterhoods in our organizations. We rise and fall together.

Do you have any suggestions how women can develop leadership presence? Please share them in the comments section below.

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.

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?

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.