Work – Page 7 – mardihumphreys.com

Is There Something I Should Know?

When my friend found out I got a job with a company she was familiar with, she said, “Wait a minute. Are you smart? Because these guys are like, Big Bang Theory smart.” No pressure.

She’s right. I work with brilliant people. Everyday I’m reminded of how little I know; which is good. It both keeps me humble and forces me to learn new things. Walking into the office in the morning, I’m blissfully ignorant and full of confidence. Walking out of the office in the afternoon, I’m dolefully aware and have a to-learn list. Feeling like I know something when I actually don’t has a name: Unconscious Incompetence. And it’s dangerous. It prevents me from recognizing certain situations as problems, so I’m unaware I need help solving them. It’s the classic stage one of the learning model.

Right about now you’re asking yourself: “How do I know if I’m Unconsciously Incompetent?” You can get clues by using a process. For example, when your manager gives you an assignment, ask:

Q: What is the project?
A: Proofreading a report.
Q: What does she want done?
A: In addition to grammar and spellcheck, look at comma use and sentence fragments. Track any changes.
Q: When is it due?
A: One week from today.
Q: What should the deliverable look like?
A: A 12 page report in the company’s preferred format.

For bigger projects, give your manager regular status reports so she can course correct and ask her for KPIs. This mitigates the danger of misusing data or unintentionally ignoring important information. It decreases the odds you’ll be perceived as underperforming or at the other extreme, overconfident. This process can reveal what you don’t know. If you have much to learn, you now have time to either acquire the skills you need or reach out to a skilled team member for help before the deadline.

How can you proactively combat Unconscious Incompetence?
– Discover your weaknesses: Ask a trusted coworker where he thinks your blind spots are. Ask a friend what she think your strengths and weaknesses are.
–Take a skills test: like Strengths finder 2.0 (look for it at your local library) or you can take a free course on Lynda.com.
–Find out what skills your company values: These will be your learning objectives. For example: If your company is hiring programmers, learn some basic coding (Also from Lynda.com; it doesn’t have to cost money). There’s no point in learning to basketweave if your company doesn’t sell baskets. Learn a skill that will help you keep your (or get a new) job.
–Reflect: Recall a time you realized you didn’t know something. What did you do then? Did you read a book? Take a class? Interview a coworker who was a subject matter expert? Can you repeat that process in this situation?

Realizing you are Unconsciously Incompetent can be embarrassing at first, but it’s crucial for identifying the next step in growing your career, and that’s exciting!

Ever been Unconsciously Incompetent at work? Please share what you did to bridge your knowledge gap in the comments section below.

You’re Pushing Too Hard

As I was being electronically fingerprinted the other day, (Relax. Plenty of respectable people get fingerprinted for plenty of respectable reasons. :)) I couldn’t make my fingers print. The technician finally took my hand and scanned them herself. “Why can’t I make this work?” I wondered. She said, “You’re pushing too hard.” Story of my life. I’m impatient. I ask God to give me patience, but what He gives me is opportunities to practice it. This must mean patience is a skill we can learn. Here are four ways I’m trying at work:

Flexibility – When my schedule gets out of whack, I stress. My schedule gets whacked a lot. Most of the items on my calendar aren’t as time sensitive as I pretend. For example: I drink 72 ounces of water daily. I like to have it drunk by 3:30PM. It’s silly to be annoyed when I’m still drinking water at 5:00PM. In terms of work, are my self-imposed deadlines realistic? Is the boss going to be more impressed receiving my sales report the day before it’s due or will he be more impressed if my report contains the latest sales figures on the day it’s due?

Keep calm – Losing patience usually means getting angry. So when I feel the emotion building, I ask myself, “Will an outburst make this situation better?” Usually it won’t. Once upon a time I let loose at work and inadvertently hurt five people’s feelings. My relationship with them was never the same after my outburst. Anger is like a virus. If I cough rage all over my coworkers, pretty soon the whole team is upset. I now intentionally stop and think before I act: “Do I need a time out? Do I need to pray? Do I need to take a deep breath?”

Multitask less – Multitasking is an illusion. It actually lowers productivity. I start writing a report, which reminds me to jot down notes for Monday’s meeting, which prompts me to check on my print order, which prompts me to send an email, and pretty soon, I can’t remember which which is which. I get impatient to finish something by the end of the day. I’m trying to complete tasks one at a time. I keep a pen handy to jot down reminders of what still needs done.

Empathize – Life is fast: texts, instant pots, Netflix. We perceive waiting as negative and use that filter to evaluate work situations: “If the client was pleased with my presentation, she’d have gotten back to me by now.” “The boss didn’t return my email. I know he gets it on his phone.” I’m trying to walk in the other person’s shoes. Maybe the client is delayed because she needs to show the presentation to her program manager. Maybe the boss is delayed because he got a fire drill from his boss.

Patience is a sign of emotional intelligence. It’s a valuable, marketable skill. Tenacity is cool, but let’s recognize when we have to give the situation a rest. Pushing too hard sometimes makes things not work; like fingerprint scanners.

What do you get impatient with at work? Please share your stories in the comments section.

Micro vs Macro (Part 2)

Please see last week’s post for the micromanaging discussion. This week, let’s go to the other end of the spectrum.

What do macromanagers look like? At first glance, they seem like perfect bosses. Observing team dynamics helps us spot them: projects veering off track, missed deadlines, and team members who won’t play nice together, probably have a macromanager. They don’t interfere, hover, or prioritize accountability. Sometimes referred to as “hands off” managers, they have a “hire the right people and empower them” philosophy. Team bonding and creativity don’t happen because macromanagers don’t coach their teams. When the project encounters obstacles, egos come out and blame starts, but macromanagers are unavailable to lead their teams through conflict resolution. They force responsibility without authority onto individual contributors by abdicating tasks they should do to the team (e.g., role assignment for presentations: Who’s doing the research? Who’s creating the slide deck? Who is speaking?). Macromanagers leave deliverables open to interpretation. The team completes the project, but the result isn’t even close to what the macromanager wanted.

What if you’re macromanaged? As with micromanagers, communication is key. Meet with the whole team (I can feel your eyeroll. (LOL) I’m not a meeting fan either, but in this case, it’s the most efficient solution.) If your macromanager doesn’t want to explain details or impose order, ask him to at least provide the overall scope. Focus the macromanager on process and help the team accept responsibility for production. Ask follow up questions to help the team decide how to complete the project: Who is responsible for what? How are we going to handle conflict? To whom do we go with questions? Break the project down into smaller goals, assign roles, and set deadlines. Ask your macromanager for clear objectives and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to track the team’s progress. Find out what the deliverable should look like and make sure everyone sees it the same way. Schedule periodic one-on-ones with your macromanager to provide updates and course correct if necessary. If these meetings are not weekly, email updates between them and request feedback.

What’s the bottom line? Employees of a macromanager have freedom and opportunity, but without structured leadership, they struggle to develop new skills and effectively collaborate with their team. If your macromanager is unwilling to get involved, is there a team member willing to lead the project? Is the team willing to follow this person? If so, then the team can get work done. Ask yourself: Am I willing to lead this team but let my macromanager take credit for it? Am I willing to lead this team and take blame for it? Am I willing to acknowledge another team member as the leader and follow her? Do I have the resources to do my own professional development? Working for a macromanager is emotionally and mentally draining. If you are up for the challenge, keep good notes for performance review time (and your resume).

Have you worked for a macromanager? Please share your experience in the comments section below.

Micro vs Macro (Part 1)

Which management style is worse:

Too much help vs. not enough?

Territorial vs. letting things slip through the cracks?

Watching your every move vs. allowing coworkers to get away with murder?

The first part of the couplet describes micromanagers; the second macromanagers. While the styles are at opposite ends of the management spectrum, the results are the same. The difference is motivation. For example, micromanagers purposely withhold information forcing the team to act without all the facts. Macromanagers neglect to give information forcing the team to act without all the facts. This week, let’s limit our conversation to micromanagers

What do micromanagers look like? Aka: Helicopter Bosses, Suffocating Bosses, or Hovering Bosses. Words used to describe them: smothering, scrutinizing, criticizing, dictating. They oversee how tasks are done down to the smallest detail. Micromanaging can be too much of a good thing (e.g., bringing structure to chaos) and taken too far. They see themselves as “hands on” and leading by example instead of setting guidelines and following up. They get an adrenaline rush from successfully completing a project. Their constant fact checking and deadline reminders make employees feel inadequate and insecure because either the micromanagers don’t trust us to do our jobs or they don’t trust us to do them correctly. This makes us doubt our decisions and stifles innovation and initiative. Morale drops when they take credit for guiding the team. How are individual contributors supposed to get promoted if the managers take all the credit?

What if you’re micromanaged? Micromanaging is about control. We’re all wired to pursue control, but theirs stem from insecurity. It’s not pretty and it’s not fair, but the path of least resistance is to make micromanagers think they have it. You can do this by offering them choices. Are they afraid of failure? Assure them you are on their team and everyone rises together. Were they burned by a team member who didn’t deliver? Break the project down into goals. Set deadlines for reaching those goals. Schedule one on one meetings a week before deadlines to make sure your project is on track to their satisfaction. If they insist on checking on your progress between one on ones, encourage them to do it through email. After all, you’re just trying to free them up to get their own work done, right? 😉 Is this their first time managing a team? Boost their confidence by anticipating their pain points. Be able to answer the who, what, when, where, why, and how questions surrounding your project.

What’s the bottom line? They are the managers. If they want to course correct your plan, it’s their prerogative. Even if you disagree with their plan and you know it’s going in the wrong direction, you still have to do it. Ultimately, they are held responsible for the team’s successes and failures. Keep emails and meeting notes if you’re concerned they’ll throw you under the bus to their managers if the project fails. If that’s a real possibility, it’s time to get yourself new management.

Have you ever had micromanagers? Please share your stories in the comments section.

Scaredy Cat

“I wanna see you be brave.” Sara Bareilles

I want to be brave, but I don’t want to do stuff that scares me. Can’t I just go to Oz and ask the Wizard for courage? We admire courageous people because they fear inaction more than failure. It’s like writing code. I write a script, compile it, build it, and run it. More often than not the program doesn’t run correctly. So I go back into the script, find what needs fixed, run it again, and keep doing that until it’s right. Programmers expect their programs to fail. Each run reveals new data on what’s working and what isn’t. Let’s develop the same attitude toward life. Often when we do something that scares us, it turns out it wasn’t so scary after all and if it was, we prove we can do scary things leading us to freedom and peace of mind. Courage is a skill we can learn. Here are three ways I’m trying.

“Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing is the very thing that will set you free.” Robert Tew

I take small steps. I aim to do one thing every day that makes me uncomfortable. Are you shy? Offer to onboard your new coworker. It will give you practice talking to a stranger in a familiar setting. Afraid of driving on the highway? Get on early one Saturday morning. Drive one down exit, get off, and take the surface streets home. Next Saturday get on and drive two exits down the road, etc. After a month, try exiting the highway, then getting back on it to go home. After six weeks, try getting on at a busier time of day. After nine weeks, try getting on during rush hour.

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” Nancy D. Solomon

There’s a fine line between planning and procrastinating. The longer I think about a situation, the more bad outcomes I predict. Sound familiar? Pull out of analysis paralysis before negative thoughts like this get stuck in your head: “If I apply for the assistant manager position, and don’t get it, the rest of the team will think I’m a failure.” We assume others think about us more than they actually do. It doesn’t matter what anyone (except you) thinks. Don’t prevent yourself from getting the position.

“With great risk comes great reward.” Thomas Jefferson

What do you need the courage to do? Stand up to a bully? Change jobs? End a dysfunctional relationship? I’m a big fan of journaling. When I get fear out of my head and onto paper (or screen), it loses a bit of power. Here are some writing prompts: What are you afraid of? Why? What is the worst that can happen? What is the best that could happen? Use your answers to develop the framework for an action plan to conquer your fear. When you complete a step in your plan, celebrate! Effort is worth rewarding. It will take time and practice, but if we persist, we can cultivate the courage to achieve whatever we want.

What do you need courage to achieve? Please share your story in the comments section so we can encourage one another.

Get Some Rest

March feels never ending. It’s 31 days long, we lose an hour thanks to daylight savings time, and there are no holidays to close the office; unless your boss is a BIG March Madness or St. Patrick’s Day fan. March ends Q1, so you might work overtime to reach goal. March means the end of the school year is close, so you may be prepping for graduation or researching summer break childcare options for your little ones. Being busy all the time used to be glamorous, but now we’ve reached the tipping point and exhaustion is not a good look for us. Here’s a novel idea: Get some rest.

Pursue It – Rest doesn’t just happen. We have to go after it. Consider hiring a service to clean your house so after a particularly challenging work week you can spend Saturday morning watching the TV instead of dusting it. Take advantage of your grocery’s at-home delivery occasionally. Hire a sitter for a few hours. These aren’t luxuries. They’re emotionally intelligent ways to manage stress.

Schedule It – Rest allows our minds, bodies, and spirits to refresh, recharge, and repair. We need it at regular intervals and on a perpetual basis. Don’t cancel, postpone, or feel guilty about choosing it over chores or going out. When “My weekend is all booked” memes appear on my social media feeds, I’m reminded to put reading for pleasure on my calendar. Maybe your version of rest is a solo activity like a Sunday morning run. Or maybe it’s a group activity like brunch with squad. Either way, calendar your commitment and keep it.

Respect It – It’s not weak to need to rest; it’s human. Don’t be ashamed to recognize you need it. Prioritizing rest boosts both our creativity and productivity. I get up from my desk about once an hour to stretch, look out my office window to refocus my eyes, and hydrate. My brain solves problems faster when my attention is focused on something other than the problem.

Often, we don’t know how badly we need rest until after we get it. When we feel a little wonky we assume it’s a virus coming on or just the 3:00PM let down so we grab another cup of coffee and keep pushing. For example: For fourteen months I worked a full-time day job and a part-time side gig logging about sixty hours a week. I felt fine. I even had a theme song: “Non-Stop” from Hamilton. My full-time work didn’t suffer so it wasn’t until a couple of months after I left my side gig when I realized how different I felt. I thought clearer. I didn’t need as much caffeine to function. I felt in the moment as opposed to watching myself from outside my body. That’s how I knew I had to give up my side gig, btw. So before you start having out of body experiences too, get some rest!

How do you know it’s time to take a break? Please share in the comments section below.

Stay in Your Lane

Photo by Markus Spiske temporausch.com from Pexels

“Hi. My name is Mardi and I’m a chronic over-thinker.” *Hi Mardi!*

Sometimes, my thoughts spin so fast they trip and fall into rabbit holes leading to people that (I think) need my help. Much like Glinda in Wicked, this does not make me “Popular.” (See what I did there?)

While commuting to and from work, cars constantly merge onto the highway. I usually stay in the middle, but there are plenty of people switching lanes. Sometimes they don’t use their signals. Sometimes they race each other to see who is going to get in front of whom. All the time I’m yelling, “Stay in your lane!” This reminds me that (figuratively speaking) I have a tendency to veer out of my lane and merge on top of those around me. There are three reasons I get all up in people’s business. Do any of these sound familiar?

I know better than they do. When someone is going through a situation I’ve been through, I assume their experience is identical to mine. You know what assuming does. (If not, ask me in the comments section below.) For example: Last fall, our daughter hunted a full-time job she could start after graduating from college this spring. Been there. Done that. Three companies recruited her. She accepted the first offer. I wanted her to wait and see if something better came along. Here’s what I should probably do instead: Listen; don’t talk. Ask questions; don’t lecture. Keep my opinions to myself. People ask for my advice when they are ready to hear it, not when I’m ready to give it.

I can save them. I’m a fixer. When I see someone making poor choices, I want to step in and correct their course. For example: A coworker was struggling with potential clients. I edited her pitch to increase her close rate. I even went with her to a few meetings and demonstrated. But, instead of viewing it as process improvement, she felt discouraged. Here’s what I should probably do instead: I need to resist the urge to fix, step in, or think my intervention will save the day. If I see a butterfly struggling to shed a cocoon, and I tear it open, do you know what happens? I kill the butterfly. The struggle strengthens it. Sometimes I just have to sit on my hands and not say everything I think.

I want their attention. I want to feel like I matter. For example: I’ve unpacked pallets of boxes weighing 20lbs each, stacked them in a storage unit, and sent pictures of my work to my manager. Here’s what I should probably do instead: Rein it in. If my work is consistently good, I will get a reputation as a valued member of the team. That is not to say I shouldn’t let my manager know I’m working hard, but weekly one-on-ones would be an appropriate time to do that.

Do you have trouble staying in your lane too? Please share your tips for self-restraint in the comments section below.

What Goes Around Comes Around

You’ve no doubt heard of paranoia, the feeling someone is out to hurt you. I’ve even blogged about it. But have you ever heard of pronoia? Psychologist Brian Little defines it as: “The delusional belief that other people are plotting your well-being or saying nice things about you behind your back.”

Maybe it doesn’t have to be delusional. Could it be controlled and perceived as reaping what you sow? I’ve been on the receiving end of what I interpret as pronoia. Someone actually WAS plotting my well-being and saying nice things about me behind my back to someone with the power to change my situation.

Pronoia is a foreign concept because we’re much more likely to notice and discuss negative behaviors than positive ones. Why is that? Why is it we hear and repeat the negative? Why is that more attractive than hearing and repeating the positive?

Because it’s easy; it makes us feel important by being the one “in the know.” Even descriptions of negative impacting words are cooler than positive ones: Juicy gossip; spill the tea (gossip is NOT worth your T.E.A. btw) vs. sweet nothings and honeyed words. Wouldn’t we benefit more by training ourselves to choose to have hope, trust, and faith in our coworkers? Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D. says doing so makes us more inclined to have a disposition of optimism and resilience and not just at work. He also lists the problems of taking it too far, so let’s balance pronoia with healthy skepticism.

Let’s look for hints of the best in our coworkers and entice it out of them. If someone is being difficult, let’s assume it’s a symptom of a problem and investigate instead of assuming she just has a difficult personality. Call it what you want: Karma, paying it forward, or just plain practicing kindness, but let’s steer our companies’ cultures toward empathy. It can only benefit the team.

If the Beatles were right, and the love you take is indeed equal to the love you make, will plotting our coworkers well-being increase our chances of being on the receiving end of pronoia? What does this look like at work? We can assume our teammate isn’t trying to dump an unwanted project on us, but just needs a hand. That attitude improves our mindsets more than hers. Remember to set boundaries though. For example: Once the project is doable for our coworker, stop helping. Be a pronoia instigator. Did someone in another department give us a viable sales lead? Send an email to his manager. Has the team hired a new member? Take her to lunch and answer her onboarding questions. Does the intern need help polishing his resume? Give it the once over.

Expecting the best from people doesn’t change them. It actually changes us. It causes us to treat our coworkers differently. Think of it as the Golden Rule on steroids.

What do you do at work to spread pronoia? Please share your suggestions in the comments section below.

Dirty Glasses

I can’t tell when my glasses get dirty. At some point, my vision gets clouded and I’m unaware of it. Smudged spectacles give me a false perception of reality. “Wait, that’s not a pile of dirt in the middle of the road, that’s a speck of dust on my glasses!” One minute I’m blissfully ignorant and the next I can see all the stuff coating my lenses: dog nose prints, eye lashes, dried hair spray droplets, etc. I should clean them every day, but I don’t. Just like my lenses collect grit and grime, so does my work life. I let my good habits slide, I ignore my bad ones, I rationalize my lazy behavior, perhaps throw myself a wee pity party, and before I know it, I’m in trouble. So, I have to stop and “clean my glasses.”

When I realize I’ve made a mistake, the first thing I do is figure out how I created this big mess. For example: Recently, I had a bad glucose test result.

Why? I miscalculated the number of carbohydrates in the serving of chicken enchiladas I ate.
How? I talked myself into believing the serving size was safe because I wanted to eat the yummy chicken enchiladas.
Now what? After the pity party, I buckle down. No chicken enchiladas for a while and the next time I make them, omit the tortillas.

I use this same pattern to recover after a mistake at work. For example: I ignored the auto-generated emails from the company’s ERP notifying me of undone tasks because I was pretty sure I did them and documented them, plus the ERP was famous for sending erroneous automated you-have-a-task-awaiting-you emails. I finally got a minute to recheck my documentation against the ignored messages and discovered an error on my part. How did I fix this? I asked myself the chicken enchilada questions:

Q: Why did I make the mistake?A: Overconfidence in my assumptions.
Q: How did I make the mistake? A: Quickly checking my documentation instead of paying attention.
Q: Now what? A: Do the tasks and set up a process for paying closer attention to comparing the tasks to my documentation.

Sometimes I need help cleaning my glasses. My mom says my dad is the best glasses cleaner she knows. Every time I’m at their house, I ask him to clean them. Sometimes at work I need help from someone I trust to be honest with me, in order to help me progress; more an accountability partner than a mentor. For example: A coworker who sees me surfing my social media during the time I’m usually making client calls and asks me about it; and who would appreciate my doing the same for her. Performance reviews are great for preventing long term crashing and burning. But for ensuring I’m on the right track before I talk myself into “eating the enchiladas,” an accountability partner is great for helping me “clean my glasses.”

Do you have an accountability partner at work? Please share how you help each other in the comments below.

All by Myself

I recently attended a symposium for work. Alone. This introvert was terrified. My face flushed, my eyes darted around the banquet room, my hands shook; to look at me, you’d thought I was being chased by Freddy Krueger. “This is ridiculous,” I told myself. “You are a grown woman. Snap out of it!” Do you feel the same? Do you attend networking events solo? Here are three things I did to make myself feel (a little) more comfortable:

Loners – Surveying the room, everyone I saw had a companion. I looked for a table in the center of the room, where I could face the podium without turning my chair around, with no other tables between it and the beverage tables, and with one other person sitting at it, preferably a lone female like me. (Not that I’m picky or anything.) I found the situation I was looking for and approached the lone female. She just happened to be the organizer. At first, it was a good thing because it gave me a topic of conversation (“Oh, you’re Jane? You’re the one sending the helpful emails?”), but soon she was distracted by all the details she had to handle. She also attracted a couple of out-of-town participants who ended up sitting at our table for six, and now the three of them had business to discuss. Two other women sat with us, but they were from the same company and immediately started talking shop. If you don’t see a familiar face when you walk in the room, I recommend going to the refreshment table and listening to the conversations while you pick up food and/or a beverage. See if you can discover someone else who is attending alone, or people who are talking about something you’re interested in. Try to keep the conversation going and gravitate to a table with them. On arrival, ask if they expect anyone else. If they aren’t, sit down. People usually won’t be so rude as to ask you to leave.

Speechify – I’m new at my company, so I don’t have a good elevator speech yet. I tried my latest version on my table mates. When they asked me questions, it gave me the opportunity to hone it. Their questions revealed where the speech was weak and allowed me to revise it for the next delivery. It also gave me an opportunity to ask them for theirs to see if I could incorporate any of their style into mine.

Commonality – I looked for common ground. It was brutally cold that day and an impending polar vortex was headlining, so talking about the weather was a no-brainer. One of my table mates got on her phone and made transportation arrangements to dance class for her daughter, so asking her about her children was obvious. Another table mate had a Louis Vuitton tote, so complimenting her on it was easy. I also asked follow up questions. When they talked about the suspicious chicken salad at lunch, I asked one of my table mates for her chicken salad recipe. When my husband texted me a funny meme featuring a dog, I asked my table mates if they liked dogs and showed it to them.

I lived through the event and congratulated myself for hiding my social awkwardness for eight hours. I have another one coming up. If you have any suggestions for me, please leave a comment below!