Mental Health – Page 5 – mardihumphreys.com

Secret Identity

In 2018, Mike Robbins wrote a book called, Bring Your Whole Self to Work: How Vulnerability Unlocks Creativity, Connection, and Performance advocating authenticity in the workplace. If you have about 12 minutes, his TEDxBerkeley Talk is worth watching. Since the concept depends on interpretation, how do you know what bringing your whole self to work looks like at your organization? As an employee, what is your responsibility? Is it really a good idea to bring your whole self to work?

What Does it Look Like?

In 1990, through his research in diverse workplaces, organizational psychologist William Kahn defined employee engagement. He theorized that employees have personas they put on to go to work, like actors portraying characters. The gap between employees’ true selves and their personas depends on how engaged they are with their jobs. For example, when an employee wants purpose from their job, they are crushed when they don’t get the promotion they expected. This can lead to disengagement like complaining about the job or looking for another one. If the employee doesn’t base their identity on their job, they recover from the same setback more quickly. At the most basic level, bringing your whole self to work means revealing what is impacting your life outside of the job and how it is affecting you on the job. It also means respecting coworkers who share that information about themselves with you.

What is Your Responsibility?

At minimum, managers should strive to create an environment where people feel accepted and respected no matter how invested they are in their work personas. Normalizing the fact that what we experience outside the workplace (e.g., family responsibilities, discrimination, COVID-19) affects us on the job produces a more loyal workforce. It takes a great deal of courage to bring your whole self to work. It also takes cooperation, tolerance, and patience. It has to be part of an organization’s culture. It is work in addition to the job you were hired to do. Bringing your whole self to work requires self-awareness and emotional intelligence. As a team member, you have to pay it forward by extending grace to your coworkers. For example, if you gave your best effort to a project and the client still rejected it, do you blame the coworker who was distracted by a sick child? Or do you choose to believe that they gave their best effort too?

Is it a Good Idea?

A workforce enabled to be real is a workforce empowered to show empathy. This is especially useful in relation to customer service. Some things are universal, like the desire to be heard. For example, when a customer has a complaint, they want acknowledgement. When a member of your workforce spends time listening to the customer’s experience, the customer feels more positive toward your business even if their problem isn’t immediately solvable. Now, having said all of the above, it is not lost on me that the rules of bringing your whole self to work are different for people of color. That is a whole ‘nuther conversation, and you can start it here.

How do you define bringing your whole self to work? Please share in the comments.

Cyber Scary

October is practically here and while that means full on Halloween celebrating for most people, in my world, it means Cybersecurity Awareness Month. You know to keep your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like Social Security number and bank account information secret, but you have no control over those banks getting hacked by Threat Actors. Nor can your computer’s and phone’s firewalls stop every phishing email from reaching you. Last year, identity theft cost Americans $5.8 BILLION. Here are some Don’ts and Dos to protect your identity.

Don’t Believe Everything Your Phone Shows You

We’ve talked before about not clicking on links in texts or emails unless you are expecting the communication. Now cyber scammers are getting bolder. They call claiming to be a representative from your bank, spoofing the bank’s phone number so that it looks legitimate on your caller ID. They speak in an urgent tone claiming there is something wrong with your account and they need to fix it right now using your bank’s money transfer service. They instruct you to transfer money out of your account and into their holding account, but the only holding going on is the cybercriminal holding on to your money and vanishing.

Don’t Be Lazy

From January – June, 2022, 817 American companies were compromised by cybercriminals with 53.4 million victims affected. Check here for a list of the most stolen PII. Before giving any company your PII, check their website to see what their cyber defenses are. If that information isn’t on the site, ask customer service: How may attacks have they withstood? What is their protocol for notifying you that a breach happened? How often do they update and patch their cybersecurity systems?

Don’t Leave It On

When you’re not using Bluetooth-enabled devices, turn Bluetooth off. Leaving it on allows hackers to see devices that you previously connected with. They can pretend to be one of those devices to access another one and steal your PII. For example, if you have a wireless printer in your home office, turn it off when you aren’t printing. Here is a good resource for more information.

Do Enable Two-factor Authentication

When a website, for example, your bank or favorite social media platform, gives you the option to enable two-factor authentication, say yes. I know you are rarely in the mood, but the protection is worth the time it takes to set up. It will take way more time to try to get back the identity a cybercriminal stole than it will take you to wait for and input the code the company sends you.

Do Shred

If you still receive paper statements for your bank accounts, credit cards, student loans, or any documents with PII on them, then shred them on a regular basis. If you don’t own a shredder, or have a friend who will let you borrow theirs, go online and search for “community shredding events near you.”

Do Monitor Your Accounts

Ultimately, you are responsible for your own cybersecurity. If you do not currently check your bank accounts weekly, then start. If you see something weird, like a transaction you did not initiate, contact your bank and investigate. If you do not check your credit score twice a year, then start. If you have experienced an attack on your credit, consider freezing it. Freezing your credit is a bit of a task and has pros and cons. Read about them here.

What do you do to protect your PII from cybercriminals? Please share in the comments.

It’s Just a Pause

I have a confession to make. I’m Team Oxford Comma. People can get passionate about correct comma usage. I did not realize there is such controversy over a crooked little mark. It’s just a pause, people! Sometimes a sentence has multiple commas because the author wants to slow down, make a list, or clarify. These three things are also useful in the workplace.

Slow Down

Plan A does not always work. When your team is trying to complete a project and hits an obstacle, pausing can help cool their frustrations. For example, I ask my clients to tell me what hurts. Their answers give me clues to solving their problems. Sometimes just thinking about the pain and how wide-spread it is sends them into a panic spiral. They talk faster, the pitch of their voices gets higher, their eyes get wider, their flight-fight-or-freeze mechanisms activate. That’s when I know it’s time to respond with slow, low, gentle-toned reassurances full of commas. By the same token, encouraging your team to take a pause helps everyone reset. Then you can calmly regroup and figure out together how to deal with the obstacle.

Make a List

Every task on your to-do list is the top priority and needs done yesterday, but you’ll get more work done if you stop what you’re doing. This is very counter-intuitive, but it’s like a flywheel. You can’t see the progression of the wheel turning while you’re pushing it. Much like you can’t feel the earth constantly turning while you’re standing on it. When you complete the push that makes the flywheel take off, you suddenly have lots of time. To get to the final push, sometimes you have to use a comma. Take a minute to box breath, then look at your task list. Determine which tasks are important and which are urgent. Take one action that gets one urgent task closer to completion, then pause. Look at your important tasks list. What is one action you can take in the next 15 minutes to get one item on it closer to completion? Then continue on with your urgent task list. At the end of the workday, reflect (another comma, btw). Celebrate how far you got on both the urgent and the important tasks, especially if you did not mark everything off both lists. Do not dwell on what is still left to do. Make a quick note of the next steps you’ll take on both lists tomorrow.

Clarify

Mental noise surrounds you 24/7/365. There is an overwhelming amount of information available to you. How do you make sense of any of it? Use a comma.

Pause – Stop. Breathe. Drink a glass of water
Reflect – Your wheels are turning, but you’re upside down. How did that happen?
Focus – What is the Why?
Refine – What is the most important next step or course correction?
Iterate – Take the next step
Repeat

How do you make the best use of pauses at work? Please share in the comments.

What Did You Expect?

Once upon a time, I worked for a manager who gave me a priority list every Monday. Then every Friday I gave him a status report which shaped his list for the following Monday. He gave me in writing what he expected over the next week, month, and quarter. I knew what he wanted and he knew what I was doing. Our expectations were aligned and we worked happily ever after. Sound like a fairy tale?

In subsequent employment, my procedure is to figure out what my manager wants and give it to them. Sometimes I’m a hit. Sometimes I’m a miscommunication. Here are a few things I’ve learned about aligning expectations with managers, teammates, and clients.

Managers

Communication is hard. Conflicts happen. These are opportunities. Even if the only upside is that your emotional intelligence gets a workout. You can only control you. You can’t control other people’s opinions of you and sometimes that stings. One of the best ways to take the stinger out is to get curious. For example, ask, “What events led to this conclusion?” “What boundary was crossed?” “Please define the non-negotiables.” The answers to these questions can reveal what your next steps should be. Maybe a different department is a better fit for you. Maybe a different company is a better fit for you. At the very least, conflict gives you better questions to ask. This data is useful because you rarely have the full scope of variables that led to the conflict.

Teammates

Everyone brings their preferences for working together to the team. You approach a project thinking you know how this is going to go, and so does everyone else. Organizations hire people for different positions, put them on a team, and expect them to get projects done. If they don’t assign and communicate roles, expectations, and how tasks should pass from one coworker to another, then how will anything get done? Throw in the fact that Plan A rarely works, and you have a mess of wrong intentions, confused roles, and misaligned expectations on your hands. To remedy this, have a kick-off meeting for each new project and ask each team member to answer these questions out loud. “What is our goal?” “What is your role in achieving it?” By the end of the meeting every member should know both their role as well as all their teammate’s roles in achieving the goal.

Clients

If you do the above with your coworkers, then satisfying the client is much easier, but it’s only part of the equation. You need to close the loop by consistently aligning your team’s expectations with your customer’s. On the team side, you can check with direct reports after giving instructions. For example, ask, “Do you have any questions?” On the client side, you can reiterate the instructions you receive. For example, “This is what I heard you say that you need from us…” You can also survey clients after a project. For example, ask, “What did you like best about the way we communicated?” “For future reference, what improvements in communication would you like us to implement?”

One wrong assumption and adverse reaction leads to another. Habitual unchecked communication fuels suspicion and negative reactions. Once this pattern is normalized, it’s hard to break. You cannot build effective working relationships without effective communication.

What is your process for aligning expectations at work? Please share in the comments.

Minor Offenses

Last week in part one of this series, we talked about how obstacles to communication can lead to misaligned expectations. This week, let’s explore how that combination can lead to criticism, envy, or grudges and what you can do to prevent them.

Criticism

Taking criticism is like being randomly pelted by Wiffle balls all day. If you let criticism get to you instead of letting it go, then you risk derailing your career instead of protecting your brand. For example, Alexander Hamilton could not tolerate having his reputation questioned. Marty McFly could not stand being called chicken. One way to ease the pain of criticism is to identify your triggers. How did you feel when you were criticized? Embarrassed? Angry? Surprised? Consider the source of the feedback. Is it from someone you respect? Or did it come from someone who gains from tearing you down? When you figure out what triggers the emotion, you can disrupt it. This is one of the handful of times I do not suggest communication as a solution. Try letting it go first. If addressing the criticism is absolutely necessary to continue working with this person, then proceed with caution. 0% emotion, 0% sarcasm, 100% statement of the facts. E.g., “I’m aware that it has always been handled this way, but let’s both present our options to our manager and let them decide.”

Envy

You don’t advertise your struggles, right? Your resume is full of your hits, not your misses. When jealous of someone else’s success, ask yourself, What did they do to achieve it? What do they have to do to keep it? Is that even what I want? For example, if a coworker received a promotion that you wanted, then make a plan to get it during the next round. Figure out how they got the promotion. Did they receive high-risk projects? Did they make their successes visible to your manager? Did they communicate their expectation of moving up to those who promote? The answers will help you define your goals. Then list what actions you have to take to achieve them. Break those down into steps. Assign each step a deadline. Determine if it is worth your T.E.A.M.

Grudges

The negative energy holding a grudge produces manifests itself in your mind (depression), body (high blood pressure), and spirit (self-esteem). A grudge begins with feeling like you were treated unfairly. Then you repeatedly relive the incident substituting what you wish you’d said or done. Carrying those thoughts around is like trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on it. Reset your expectations to the reality of this moment. Do something to force yourself to stay in the present and out of the past: Meditate, take a walk, pray, journal.

Your coworkers will offend you and you will offend them. Most teammates don’t realize they offended you. Some don’t care. You give someone power over you when you retain negative emotions toward them. Decide to be the only one who dictates how you feel. It is extremely difficult to make wise choices at work if you’re resentful.

How do you deflect criticism, envy and grudges at work? Please share in the comments.

Hit and Miscommunication

It’s a tale as old as time. No, not Beauty and the Beast; I’m referring to miscommunication in the workplace. Because we get so much practice at it, most of us think we are great communicators. Yet this recent study found 81% of employees reported that miscommunication happens very frequently, frequently, or occasionally. Let’s think about the quality of our workplace communication and not just when it is spoken or written. A cocked eyebrow after a coworker shares an opinion, looking at your phone during meetings, even taking longer than 24 hours to reply to an email, are all forms of communication. Here are five ways you can upgrade the quality of your communication at work.

You Have Issues

Realize you bring your personal challenges to work with you. This effects both how you receive and transmit communication. For example, if you are a nurse and had a bad commute to the hospital, then you bring that stress both to your patients and coworkers. If you are a self-aware nurse, then you take a minute at the beginning of your shift to breathe, let go of the tension, and refocus.

Perception Is Reality

The brain takes bits of information and creates a story around them. You come to believe this narrative is the truth. When the story turns negative about a conversation with a teammate, stop and think. Was his tone defensive? Was his body language aggressive? Was he looking you in the eye during your heated debate? For example, weary can present as annoyed. When you recall the difficult conversation and your thoughts drift negative, try processing your memories through the filter of assuming that everyone is doing their best. It helps your brain construct a better narrative.

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

It’s tedious in the short run, but going back to your coworker and asking for clarity will save time in the long run. It will help you figure out how to more effectively communicate with them in the future. It will let them know you see them. It may prevent future conflict. Using a format like, when you told me that, this is what I heard. I interpreted it to mean the other. Did you mean what I think you meant?

Control The Environment

Create an environment conducive to listening, speaking, and writing. If you work in an office with an open layout, then communication is inherently difficult. For example, the music piped throughout the office, a neighboring coworker’s videoconference, and the random fun facts your teammate keeps interrupting your work with are all obstacles to active listening and effective email writing. When a conversation is important to get correct, find a quiet space to talk. When an email is important to get correct, listen to white noise through your noise-cancelling earbuds.

Seek Feedback

The sooner you receive data on your job performance after a project, the better. If your manager does not hold a weekly 1:1 with you, then request those recurring meetings. Ask not only how your manager thinks you did, but also how their manager thinks you did. Positive feedback tells you that you’re on the right track. Negative feedback allows you to course correct for the next project.

How do you manage expectations at work? Please share in the comments.

Transferable Skills

My mom’s birthday is this week. When I think about celebrating her, the usual motherly attributes come to mind. She is kind, supportive, available, etc. But none of those characteristics are number one on my list. The first thing I remember about growing up with my mother is leadership. Now, maybe that’s because leadership is always on my mind, but hear, er, read me out. A woman who chooses to raise a child is one of the first people to lead that child. Mothers teach how to eat, speak, walk, etc. When raising a child, a mother must learn skills that, coincidentally, make her an effective leader in the workforce. I’m not suggesting that every woman needs to have a child in order to be a good leader. I’m saying that motherhood is, by default, leadership training.

For the next month, we’ll examine some of the leadership skills a woman cultivates when she becomes a mother. In part one of this series, let’s look at how developing confidence through raising a child produces a confident leader in the workforce. Moms learn what works best for their families through trial and error. This gives them confidence to rely on their instincts in similar situations at work.

Flexibility

A mom must adapt to the circumstances and situations around her. For example, she is up every two hours during the night to comfort her child. The next day she is at work giving a presentation. Being flexible also fosters a growth mindset which is critical both for raising children and for leading coworkers. When a mom trains her child to be a life-longer learner, the child believes they can train to do whatever interests them. When a manager who happens to be a mom arranges upskilling for her staff, they believe they have the capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn hard-skills like computer languages.

Analysis

A mom must make rational decisions for her child’s physical, emotional, and mental health. When researching options, she filters information through that lens. She collects feedback employing the scientific method: who, what, when, where, why, and how. She customizes that knowledge, data, and opinion to build a plan unique to her child. A mom in the workplace can apply this process when she decides what project to assign to which of her employees.

Juggling

A mom handles multiple tasks simultaneously. This requires her to learn how to determine what is important and what isn’t. Once she decides what tasks are important, then she can prioritize them. After that, she can organize multiple resources to accomplish what needs done. At home this may look like packing the same meal for both her and her child’s lunch because she is crunched for time. At work this may look like pulling certain team members from their work to contribute to a last-minute presentation requested by a client. This level of organizational dexterity builds trust with both children and coworkers.

What other aspects of motherhood do you think builds the confidence necessary to be an effective leader in the workplace? Please share in the comments.

Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

COVID kept you cooped up for so long that you’re determined to get back to traveling. Stories of canceled flights, lack of rental cars, and inflated accommodation prices due to demand are not enough to deter you from summer vacationing. You know why you want to travel, now you have to figure out where, when, what, who, and how.

Where are you going?

Every decision that follows will be based on this one. For example, Are you going to drive or fly? Are you going to stay on a resort’s site or off? If you fly, will you need a rental car? Will you get all your meals from restaurants? How many and what kind of souvenirs do you think you may purchase? The more you are able to visualize your trip, the better you can estimate how much the variables may cost.

When are you going?

Once you decide where you want to go, the next decision is when. Summer is traditionally vacation season, so that’s when airfare, accommodations, and entertainment are the most expensive. Can you afford the higher prices or can you delay gratification and go in the off-season? Waiting is hard, but it gives you time to save money toward the trip and avoid the summer crowds. If you have the flexibility to be spontaneous, travel apps like Hopper and KAYAK will notify you when your desired trip gets discounted.

What will you do while you’re there?

After the where and when, estimate how much money you’re going to need for transportation, accommodations, meals, souvenirs, and entertainment. Then add 10% for miscellaneous or unpredictable circumstances. Once you’re on your trip, you can use an app to keep track of your spending.

Who is going with you?

If the more you think about the expense of a vacation the more out of reach it seems, then what are your options? Are family and/or friends in the same situation as you? Can you go together? If you all agree on a destination that you can drive to, you can carpool and all chip in for gas. If you stay in a vacation home, you can all share the rental cost. You can stop at a grocery along the way, pick up food, and eat at the rental instead of at restaurants. If you are at a destination that rents canoes or gives guided tours, then you can split those costs with your group.

How can you take a break without taking a vacation?

Maybe it’s just too expensive to take a long or faraway trip right now. Start saving toward that goal and consider taking a break closer to home instead. Do you camp? Campgrounds are usually cheaper accommodations than hotels, especially if you have your own equipment (tent, camper, RV, bike, kayak, food). It’s also mentally beneficial to commune with nature. Or what about the old staycation? Have you visited your city’s museums, MetroParks, or historical sites recently? If so, then what about a city about an hour’s drive away? You get to sleep in your own bed, eat your food, and you save yourself the stress of taking a big trip.

Do you plan to travel this summer? Please share your destinations and money-saving tips in the comments.

The Home Team

While at the grocery store, I passed the coffee kiosk. It was fairly busy. The barista was at the register taking orders. A couple of women waited near the pick-up counter. A man with a sleeping baby in a carrier approached the pickup counter and found his coffee. He excused himself around the two women waiting for their orders. One of the women said, “What a good daddy you are!” I silently wondered, if it was a woman with an iced grande caramel macchiato in one hand and a baby carrier in the other, would the speaker have said, “What a good mommy you are!”? I hope so, but society does not train us to praise mothers for parenting.

From the Beginning

Let’s normalize a team approach to getting the invisible, unpaid work done; especially when it comes to parenting. In a heterosexual, two-parent household, when a baby is born the only thing the mother can do that the father cannot is feed the baby with her own body. Everything else is a level playing field. Mothers don’t instinctively know what a baby needs. For example, when a baby cries in the middle of the night, waking up, getting out of bed, and soothing that baby is not a talent unique to mothers.

In this Together

Let’s stop perceiving domestic work through the lens that society perpetually trains us to use. All genders can learn to change diapers, wash dishes, do laundry, take out the trash, get the kids to school, rehearsal, practice, the dentist, etc. Let’s rethink the assumption that the person in the couple with the lowest income (typically the woman) is by default the family manager. In a heterosexual household, let’s stop sending the message to men that they are “helping” around the house. Even if he takes on the burden of the physical work, the mental and emotional burden is still on the woman if she has to know and decide what, where, when, and how that work gets done.

For the Future

When/If you become a parent, if you have a partner, please normalize co-parenting. In learning to navigate the world they live in, children need each parent’s strength and time. One partner should not be limited to the role of financial provider. The other should not be limited to the role of domestic provider. Doing so denies parents the opportunity to model genderless behavior to their children. For example, it is extremely beneficial for children to witness their father supporting their mother’s passions and goals while managing his daily routines. When they see their father being patient, unselfish, kind, and collaborative, then they look for those qualities in the people they choose to be in their lives.

What are some things you do to promote co-parenting? Please share in the comments.

Setting the Standards

If your husband is also a father, do you get him a gift for Father’s Day? Why do we lump husband and father together? The roles are very different. Here’s what I’m thinking.

Criteria for Husbands

Be a friend – Your wife should be the first person who hears your breaking news, whether good or bad. You are the person your wife should be able to trust the most, so keep her secrets. Everyone has faults, and your wife is probably painfully aware of hers, so resist pointing them out.

No wife jokes – Like these. I propose the traditional marriage vows be amended to say, “to love, cherish, and respect until parted by death.”

Ride or die – You and your wife are a team. Your first loyalty is to her for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, yada, yada, yada.

Responsible – Do what you say you’re going to do. If you tell her you’re going to mow the lawn today, do it. If you change your mind, tell her.

Unselfish – Put your wife’s needs ahead of your own. Has she worked overtime this week? Then suggest she stay home from your company softball game tonight.

Affection – This isn’t necessarily public displays of physical affection or mushy social media posts. It can be as simple as letting her know you’re paying attention. For example, my husband doesn’t usually tell me when he’s read something I wrote. After I published this he bought me a coffee mug. I thanked him and mentioned that it matched the article’s specifications. In his best Han Solo imitation, he said, “I know.” I not only love the mug, (and him!) but I also love knowing that he read something I wrote.

Communication – Disagreements are a given, but fights don’t have to be. It helps to remember that it is the two of you against the challenge not the two of you against each other. Even when the challenge is your wife, speaking the truth in love will resolve an issue faster.

BTW, You should expect these same considerations from your wife.

Criteria for Fathers

Physical security – You contribute to the provision of food, clothing, and shelter.

Emotional safety – You enforce the rules. When you show your children where their boundaries are, it instills confidence in them. Kids want to make dad proud and now they know how.

Relationship role model – If you are loving and kind, then your children will seek those qualities in the people they choose to allow into their lives. Their behavior in their relationships will also be loving and kind because they saw their father model it.

Unconditional love – Consistently reassuring your children that you will love them no matter what gives your kids peace of mind.

Proactive parenting – You are raising your children to be adults capable of functioning without you. You plan your time with them to achieve that goal.

Present and involved – You set aside time (and your phone, and your laptop, etc.) to focus on your children and what they are interested in and/or struggling with.

Respects the mother – Whether you live with your children and their mother or not, you present a united front with her. You keep your disagreements between the two of you and resolve them in private.

Do you agree with these theories? What did I get wrong or forget to mention? Please share in the comments.