Work – mardihumphreys.com

Natural Intelligence

For 2025 our conversations will focus on Power Skills (the skills formerly known as “Soft”). Why? To future proof our jobs. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) reshapes the planet, we face a unique challenge: Staying relevant in a workplace where technology automates repetitive tasks. AI excels at technical, hard skills tasks like data analysis, coding, and project tracking. Eventually quantum computing will do hard skills jobs at enterprise-level scale. But AI can’t yet replicate humanity like our ability to adapt, connect, and relate. Power skills like flexibility, empathy, and communication, aren’t just nice to have anymore. They’re essential tools you need for surviving in the future of work.

Finding the Gaps

AI creates opportunities to offload repetitive tasks, freeing you up to focus on solving complex problems, working with others, and making decisions that require emotional intelligence. Power skills fill the gap where technology ends. What does that look like? Here are some examples:

Time management: AI can organize your schedule, but it can’t prioritize tasks based on your unique team dynamics.
Productivity: Automation tools can handle routine updates, but they can’t motivate a team to overcome roadblocks.
Decision-making: Algorithms can analyze data, but interpreting how it impacts people often requires human judgment.

Filling the Gaps

In what areas can you grow where AI struggles? Empathy, adaptability, and effective communication are hard to automate because they require context, emotional nuance, and creative problem-solving. Let’s say you’re a project manager leading a team during a major transition. AI can help forecast timelines and budgets, but it can’t address your team’s concerns about job security or coach them through adapting to new tools. That’s where your emotional intelligence and leadership come in, ensuring the transition is productive and supportive.

Foiling the Gaps

Upskill: Platforms like LinkedIn Learning offer courses on communication, leadership, and conflict resolution. Start with a course that aligns with your current challenges.
Practice: Actively listen to colleagues by summarizing their concerns before responding. This shows you’re not just hearing but also understanding them. For example, during a team meeting, you realize you dominate discussions. You adjust your approach to create space for quieter teammates to contribute, leading to better outcomes. This self-awareness and empathy are skills AI does not have.
Adapt: Volunteer for cross-functional projects or tasks outside your comfort zone. It’s a great way to build resilience and learn to pivot under pressure. For example, your company adopts a new AI-based tool. Instead of resisting, you learn its features and become the go-to resource for your team, showcasing your value.
Lead: Launch small initiatives for your team, like organizing brainstorming sessions or mentoring a colleague. For example, you take the lead on a high-visibility project. You rally the team with clear goals and encouragement making everyone feel invested in the outcome.
Evaluate: Use your 1:1 meetings with your manager to request honest feedback about your communication, adaptability, or leadership. Ask for specific examples and tips for improvement.

The workplace is evolving fast, but your ability to flex, empathize, and communicate will keep you in demand. The future of work is about using AI as a tool so you can do what it can’t. Be human.

What power skill did I forget? Please share in the comments.

Money Missteps

Your money is more than numbers in a banking app. It’s deeply tied to your emotions, habits, and decisions. Missteps like overspending, ignoring debt, or failing to prepare for the unexpected, can quietly sabotage your financial goals. Let’s explore common money mistakes, why they are dangerous, and how to fix them, so you can take control of your future.

Impulse Spending

You’ve had a long day packed with back-to-back meetings. So, you have dinner delivered. The next day, you grab an expensive coffee. The next day you splurge on a new gadget that promises to boost your productivity. Those small decisions over the course of three days added up quickly.

Why It’s Dangerous

These habits often develop as coping mechanisms and they create a false sense of comfort while draining your resources. Work stress depletes your decision-making capacity, and impulsive purchases feel like a quick fix.

How To Fix It

Pause: Before buying ask yourself, “Do I really need this?”

Parameters: Allocate a weekly budget for discretionary spending and stick to it. Track your spending to identify unnecessary expenses and cut them.

Plan: Prepping meals and bringing your own coffee to work avoids costly, last-minute decisions and helps reduce the temptation to overspend.

Convenience

It’s easy to rely on credit cards or personal loans for emergencies and make repayment a challenge for future you.

Why It’s Dangerous

Debt often feels like an immediate solution, but it can snowball into a long-term burden.

How To Fix It

Recognize: If your borrowing is fueled by emotion (e.g., you feel shamed because your phone is three years old and your coworkers’ phones are brand new) before purchasing, write a 250-word reflection on why you feel you need it.

Research: If the purchase is essential and it’s for work, check your benefits plan. Many enterprise workplaces offer employee discounts on essential purchases.

Repay: Set aside a portion of your income to pay down debt even if it means tightening your budget temporarily. Pay off credit cards and loans with the highest rates first.

Emergencies

A car repair, medical bill, or sudden job loss can derail even the best-laid plans if you don’t have a financial safety net.

Why It’s Dangerous

Building savings often feels like a luxury when you have competing demands like rent or student loans. But without an emergency fund, you’re forced to rely on credit or loans, setting back your financial progress.

How To Fix It

Activate: Begin with a goal of saving $1,500 for emergencies, then gradually build up to three to six months’ worth of expenses.

Automate: Direct deposit a percentage of each paycheck into a separate savings account. Even $20 per week adds up over time.

Analyze: Where can you cut back without feeling deprived? Redirect funds from unused subscriptions or discretionary spending toward your emergency fund.

Action Steps

Audit: Take an objective look at where your money is going and identify areas for improvement.

Boundaries: Define clear limits for discretionary spending and stick to them.

Identify: Choose one habit, like over-relying on takeout or not saving for emergencies, that you want to change.

Commit: Make one change for the next week, like packing lunch twice or setting up automatic savings.

Evaluate: At the end of the week, see what worked and what needs adjustment.

Improving your financial habits starts with small, deliberate steps that align your spending and saving with your values and long-term goals. If you manage your emotions and make thoughtful decisions, then you can build a stronger financial future starting today.

What habit have you addressed to protect your financial future? Please share in the comments.

Hurray for Quitter’s Day!

Are you getting ready to celebrate Quitter’s Day this Friday? Every year Quitter’s Day is the second Friday in January. Never heard of it? It’s the day 80% of Americans give up on their New Year’s resolutions. Why do I love Quitter’s Day so much?

Unresolved

Because I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. You don’t have to wait until January 1 to make positive changes in your life. When the pain of staying the same is too much, then please do something about it no matter what time of year it is. It doesn’t have to be a big change. In fact, Quitter’s Day is evidence that making big changes doesn’t work very well for a lot of us. Instead think about iterating your processes.

What’s to Love?

I was asked about my liberal use of the word iterate. I love the word so much because it is a shortcut. It is one word that encapsulates the entire process of continuous improvement. Let’s think about how you can apply iteration to your processes at work so you can make that work more painless.

It’s Science

Iteration is based on the scientific method which is a valuable tool for critical thinking. It helps you be more objective and find the real change you need to make instead of just focusing on the symptoms of the problem. For example, let’s say you are on a team of five people. You are the designated manager of a project. You are past the define and design phases and are stuck between the build and test phases. If you don’t do something, you’ll not reach the release phase by the deadline. Use the scientific method to get unstuck.

In Action

Observe: Analyze the current workflow. Identify the gaps.
Ask: Formulate questions about what you observed. What is happening? Where is the bottleneck? Why are you not getting the result you expect?
Hypothesize: What are the possible explanations for what you observed? Define the variables. For example, does the team member who is building the solution keep getting interrupted?
Design: Come up with an experiment that changes one of the variables. (Like, blocking an hour of the builder’s time and sending them off-site to concentrate uninterrupted.) Note the improvement you expect to get by changing the variable.
Test: Conduct your experiments for each variable to test your hypothesis. Collect the data. For example, did your builder make significant progress?
Evaluate: Use the data gathered from your experiments to draw conclusions. Did the change get you the outcome you wanted? Is it an improvement? Do you want to implement the change to the process? If not, do you need to conduct the experiment again but on a different variable?
Share: Iteration is a cycle. The cycle hinges on feedback. With each iteration, define your “Why”. In other words, what are you trying to accomplish?

Full Disclosure

The iteration process is additional work. But the more you use it, the better you get at it and the faster you move through it saving you time, energy, attention, and money in the long run. When you make good decisions up front, you have fewer messes to clean up on the back end.

How do you use the scientific method to iterate your work processes? Please share in the comments.

That’s a Wrap

Thank you for spending 2024 with me! As we begin a new year together, here are our top three conversations in each category: Time, Energy, Attention, and Money (T.E.A.M.), based on LinkedIn impressions. The first article in each category received the most impressions.

Time

Time Keeps on Ticking

All the Feels

Enquiring Minds

Energy

Underwhelmed

That is Disappointing

Serve or Protect?

Attention

Focus on the Future

Civil Service

Sustainable Success

Money

More Civil Service

High Pay Can Cost You

Working 5 to 9

What decisions around time, energy, attention, and money are you facing in the new year? Please share in the comments.

Get in Align

The end of the year is a good time to reflect. Don’t know where to start? You can modify the agile retrospective used in project management and use it to both look back on what you accomplished this year and look forward to what you want to accomplish next year.

Start with Four Basic Prompts:

What went well?

Acknowledge wins, big or small. Maybe you mastered a new tool, streamlined your workflow, or received positive feedback from a client. Recognizing these moments builds confidence and clarifies what you should keep doing.

What didn’t?

Reflect on challenges. Did you struggle to meet deadlines or communicate effectively with a coworker? Identify pain points without self-judgment.

What do I need to improve?

Be specific. If you found time management difficult, pinpoint the cause. Was it procrastination, overcommitment, or distractions?

What are some ideas for achieving that improvement?

Brainstorm solutions. If you aim to improve your productivity, think about turning notifications off on all your devices.

Need a template?

Here is an example to help you get started. Let’s say you struggled with time management this year. Your reflection might look like this:

What went well? You met your quarterly goals for client deliverables.

What didn’t go well? You felt constantly rushed and missed a few deadlines.

What do I need to improve? Prioritizing tasks better.

Ideas for improvement: Use a time-blocking app to organize your day, plan weekly reviews, and delegate admin tasks to focus on high-value work.

But Wait, There’s More

Now that you have a framework, here are some additional prompts to help you reflect more deeply.

What tasks energized me this year? What drained me?

If presenting at meetings invigorates you, but repetitive admin work wears you down, consider delegating low-impact tasks or automating processes to free up energy for high-value activities.

What can I let go of?

Free yourself from habits or projects that no longer serve you. Maybe it’s saying no to tasks outside your organization’s mission or stepping away from a committee that’s not aligned with your goals.

What skills do I want to develop next year?

If you’re aiming for a leadership role, focus on skills like strategic thinking or team-building.

Where did I spend most of my time? Was it aligned with my goals?

If a significant portion of your time went to handling urgent but unimportant tasks, consider revisiting your prioritization methods. For suggestions on tools, Google “time management techniques.”

What feedback did I receive this year? Did I act on it?

If you received repeated comments about your unclear communication, then use them to set improvement goals.

What decisions or actions had the most impact? What can I learn from them?

Reflect on high-impact decisions, whether positive or negative. Did you successfully manage a challenging project? Or did you miss an opportunity because you hesitated? Identify patterns in your decision-making process. It will sharpen your capability to continuously improve.

What prompts do you use to gain insight on your professional development? Please share in the comments.

Presents or Presence?

I checked my data to see what I spent on the holidays last year. I have lists going back to 2020. Do you do that too? No? Just me? Okay. Anyway, I checked my data because I’m looking for ways to save money and I’m struggling. I want to be generous and I need to pay the electric bill. You too? Then let’s talk about some ways we can keep the holiday spirit without going into debt.

In a survey of Americans November 6 – 20, 2024, Gallup found we plan to spend $1012 just on holiday gifts (including gifts for coworkers) this year. If that number makes your wallet sweat, you’re not alone. With inflation still pinching budgets and financial stability on everyone’s mind, it’s time to rethink holiday spending; especially at work. You don’t have to be a Scrooge, but you do have to be intentional. There are plenty of ways to show both kindness and appreciation without spending a lot of money.

Research

Think back to last year. Did you give gifts to every member of your team, your department, and your remote colleagues? If so, consider whether that was necessary or if there’s a more meaningful (and affordable) way to celebrate this year. For example, Let’s say you work on a team of six people. Last year, you gave each coworker a $20 gift card. This year, suggest an alternative like a low-cost team activity; maybe an in-person potluck lunch or a virtual happy hour where everyone can participate without financial strain.

Redirect

If the majority of your coworkers insist on a gift exchange and it’s not in your budget to participate, declining can feel awkward. But you can do it gracefully. For example, your department organizes a Secret Santa. If you need to opt out, be direct but polite. You can say, “Thanks for including me! I’m trying to stick to a strict budget this year, so I’ll sit this one out. Have fun!” If appropriate, you can suggest an activity like coordinating a cookie swap during the gift exchange. This shows you’re still invested in the celebration and offers others who feel the same way you do a way to opt out too.

Redesign

Celebrations don’t always have to involve gifts. Instead, focus on experiences or gestures that build connection. For example, let’s say you’re part of a large department where individual gift-giving isn’t feasible. You could organize a group coffee outing where everyone covers their own drink.

Refuse

Once you’ve set a budget, stick to it. Don’t feel the need to justify smaller gifts or creative alternatives. Rehearse polite ways to decline gift exchanges if necessary. The holidays should be about connection, not financial regret. Most people value the thought behind a gift more than its monetary value. For example, you can give a heartfelt card or handwritten note expressing specific appreciation for each person’s contributions. Thoughtful words of affirmation leave a positive lasting impression far beyond the holidays while costing little money.

How do you handle holiday gifting at work? Please share in the comments.

Leverage Your Impact

Anyone at any level of an organization can be influential. You don’t need a recognized leadership title to make a positive impact. How do you know whom you influence? How can you leverage it to benefit both you and your organization?

Collaborate

To identify whom you influence, understand your role relative to the entire organization. Influence happens through relationships.

Interactions

Peers: Do your decisions affect their processes? For example, if you’re a software developer, your code may directly impact a quality assurance teammate’s testing.

Managers: Does your input guide any of their decisions? For example, would having an intern help your team make the deadline on your current project? A well-reasoned suggestion in a meeting can influence high-level outcomes.

Cross-functional Teams: Do any teams outside your immediate work group rely on your deliverables? For example, do product teams use your reports to guide which features they prioritize?

Stakeholders: Does your work affect the user’s experience? For example, if you design workflows, who implements them?

Observations

Notice how people respond when you share ideas. Do they act on your suggestions? This signals influence.

Track Your Ripple Effect: Look for indirect outcomes. Did a new process you propose save time for other teams? Did a colleague adopt a tool you recommended?

Solicit Feedback: Ask peers and managers how your work impacts their tasks or decisions. Their responses can reveal areas where your influence might not be obvious.

Informal Mentoring: Pay attention to who seeks your opinion. Influence often shows up in casual ways like being the go-to person for advice in a specific area. For example, let’s say you’re a data analyst. Your influence may include other analysts who use your frameworks.

Empower

Leadership is about actions, attitudes, and the ability to both inspire and guide others.

Model: Lead by example. Qualities like ethics, expertise, and empathetic interpersonal interactions positively impact your team and your overall work environment. If you want to want to work with a team who has integrity, resilience, and enthusiasm, then you must demonstrate those values every day.

Recognize: Amplify the strengths of your peers. Say positive things about them in front of their managers. Value ideas from all levels of the company, not just from people at the top of the Org chart.

Catalyze: Leverage your networks to drive initiatives that are aligned with your organization’s goals. For example, be the hub that anchors multiple teams’ efforts and moves projects to completion.

Own

Part of owning your influence is aligning your team’s expectations.

Communicate: Clear and open communication is essential to influence. Transparency helps information flow freely within your team. Identify challenges and propose solutions to them even if they fall outside your immediate responsibilities. Actively listen to your coworkers, support their contributions, and encourage them to share their perspectives.

Mentor: Everyone needs mentors. Offer assistance to your peers, especially those less experienced. Look for people who are currently doing work you aspire to do and ask them about their career journey. Mentoring fosters a positive culture and strengthens relationships.

Reflect: What drives you? What skills do you have? What are your strengths? What sets you apart? Where do you see yourself in two years professionally? Armed with this self-awareness, you can make informed decisions about whose expectations you align with and whose you should respectfully disregard.

How does your influence show up at work? Please share in the comments.

Construct Conflict

No matter how smoothly a project starts, problems with clients are bound to happen. But conflict doesn’t have to derail your productivity or damage your relationships. The key is to have a plan in place to resolve issues quickly and constructively. When you ask the right questions you can understand the situation and use practical strategies to address it.

Why Is the Customer Upset?

Clients often react to how issues make them feel. For example, disrespected, ignored, or undervalued. Understanding the emotional undertone helps you address the real issue. So, get to the root of the problem. Is it a missed deadline, unclear deliverable, or lack of communication?

Example: Your project manager promised a deliverable by Friday, but the team discovers on Wednesday that it won’t be ready until Monday. The client is frustrated because they scheduled their own tasks based on the Friday deadline.

Strategy: Acknowledge the frustration without being defensive. Apologize for the inconvenience and provide a clear, revised timeline. For example: “I understand this delay negatively affects your schedule, and I’m sorry we didn’t flag this earlier. Here’s what we’re doing to ensure delivery by Monday.”

Has This Happened Before?

Is this a one-time issue or part of a recurring pattern? If it’s a pattern, it may signal a process or communication gap on your team’s end. Repetition of the same issue can point to systemic problems in your procedures, eroding client trust.

Example: A graphic design team repeatedly delivers drafts that don’t align with the client’s brand guidelines, despite having access to the brand kit.

Strategy: Review your internal workflows. Are team members using outdated documents? Is there a lack of clarity on what the client wants? To address recurring issues you may want to create a checklist or assign a quality controller.

Is Trust Broken?

Rebuilding trust may require more effort than simply fixing the immediate issue. Trust is fragile. If clients feel deceived, they will hesitate to continue working with you.

Example: A consultant promises weekly updates but misses two in a row without explanation. The client starts to question whether they’re a priority.

Strategy: Reach out proactively, own the mistake, and outline steps to prevent it from happening in the future. For example: “I haven’t provided the updates you were promised. Here’s a new schedule, and I’ve set calendar reminders to ensure this won’t happen again.”

Would More Communication Help?

Sometimes clients just want clarity; an explanation of what happened and what you are doing to fix it. Being transparent can defuse tension.

Example: A software development team changes the scope of a project mid-stream due to legal compliance requirements, but they fail to notify the client promptly.

Strategy: Keep communication frequent and transparent. In this case, a quick explanation could diffuse the conflict. For example, “We had to adjust the project to comply with new regulations. Let me explain how this impacts the timeline and what we’re doing to minimize delays.”

Will the Customer Participate in a Solution?

Resolution works best when both sides are involved. Determine if the client is open to collaboration or firmly in blame mode. If they’re unwilling to cooperate, then progress stalls.

Example: A financial agency submits strategy for approval, but the client rejects it without providing specific feedback, saying only, “This isn’t what I want.”

Strategy: Encourage constructive collaboration by asking open-ended questions. For example, “Can you share examples of what you’re envisioning? That will help us align with your expectations.” By framing it as a partnership, you’re more likely to get actionable feedback.

What conflicts did I forget? Please share in the comments.

Time to Give

This is the final installment of our series, Give a Little Bit. For the last three weeks we’ve talked about generously giving your energy, attention, and money to your coworkers. Let’s wrap up this topic by talking about generously giving your time. It is the most precious resource you have. Once it’s spent, you can’t get it back and you can’t make more. So, why should you give it away to your coworkers? Because it builds strong relationships which improves your team’s productivity, morale, and culture. Here are five things you can do.

Check In: Regular huddles go a long way to build a strong foundation for efficient teamwork, communication, and productivity. You can set up 15 minute weekly meetings with your team to give everyone a chance to share the most important or urgent project they’re working on, ask for assistance, and decide who is working together this week. These short meetings allow you to stay informed, connected, and aligned across projects without taking up too much time. They sustain a reliable rhythm for your team to build rapport and trust.

Shared Resource: A shared folder centralizes key information, templates, and tools. It’s especially valuable for asynchronous work when time is tight, and efficiency is crucial. Create a spreadsheet with tabs for current goals with deadlines, and a checklist of what needs to be done. Also file resources like logos, confirmation receipts, a Word document with links to pertinent articles, etc., in the shared folder. Update it regularly and encourage team members to contribute their own resources. After your weekly huddle, send out a brief recap of the week’s plan including a link to the folder. This ensures everyone has easy access to resources and keeps the whole team on the same page without lengthy meetings.

Help Out: If a colleague is struggling with a specific project, offer to work with them on a portion of it. Resist taking over the whole task. Your intention is to empower them. Could you do just the research or the data analysis or the rough draft of the report? This way, you can manage your own workload while providing immediate, practical help. You want to be known as a team player, but not a steamroller nor a doormat. If you and a teammate click, think about mutual mentorship. Can meeting informally once a quarter to share your experiences and networks be mutually beneficial? At the very least, it showcases your leadership development.

Set Goals: What gets measured, grows. Each week, aim to share one useful resource with someone on your team. Give genuine support without the expectation of getting something in return. Document these in a spreadsheet. They will be useful for your performance review. Not all accomplishments can be easily quantified. Capture anecdotal evidence describing the relationships you are strengthening, like testimonials from clients and LinkedIn recommendations from coworkers, to track the relationship-building skills you use.

Highlight Wins: When you’re in a group setting, whether it’s a team meeting or an email update, mention the accomplishments of others. It is a social norm that when you do someone a favor, like amplify their good work in front of others, they feel compelled to return that favor in kind. This should not be your only motivation to encourage your team. Instead, use it as a tool to build morale and design the environment you want to work in.

How do you generously give your time to your coworkers? Please share in the comments.

Money to Give

For the last two weeks we’ve talked about giving both your energy and your attention to your coworkers in our current series, Give a Little Bit. This week in Part 3, let’s examine how you give your money to your coworkers and neither one of you realizes it.

From Conforming to Transforming

A scarcity mindset breeds competition, anxiety, and ultimately, limits. But with an abundance mindset, you create value that leads to growth not only for you but also your entire team. When you begin to treat your job as an art, you look for opportunities to give your art away. For example: When you share knowledge it is upskilling that your coworkers don’t have to pay for. The result is continuous improvement that saves the company money. Hopefully you will benefit in the short term. But even if you don’t, you will in the long-term. People need things and place value on those who can meet those needs. Your teammates have networks. They will happily introduce you to those connections because your habitual generosity will make them look good. If you were trained to conform to the belief that taking as much as you can is how you succeed, then do the opposite because that doesn’t work any more. Transform your mindset and habits to give as much as you can without expecting anything in return.

What It Can Look Like

Mentorship: Support newer team members or coworkers who would like some guidance. This helps you practice leadership and signals you’re invested in the group’s success, not just your own.

Visibility: Speak up on behalf of colleagues who are doing good work, especially if they’re uncomfortable amplifying themselves. By elevating others when they are not in the room, your acts of generosity make you someone others want to be close to.

How It Can Backfire

Being generous is the way to go, but I’m not going to lie. It can be hard. Here are a few obstacles you may face and how to handle them:

Misinterpretation: In highly competitive settings, your generosity might initially be seen as a tactic rather than genuine support. Keep going. When you behave consistently and with transparency, your actions eventually demonstrate your authenticity.

Limited Recognition: By focusing on your team, you may get lost in the background. Document and occasionally showcase your contributions to remind your manager of your worth and positive impact.

Taking Advantage: This is probably the first thing you thought of, right? If your environment is built on taking, then you are setting yourself up as a target for your teammates to take advantage of your generosity. The bad news is there will probably be some coworkers who insist on operating in a scarcity mindset. They will interpret your generosity as a weakness. These are the teammates you’ll have to set and hold your boundaries with. The good news is they cannot diminish how modeling generosity accelerates your own achievements.

At the end of the workday, it doesn’t matter how your teammates react to your generosity. When you maintain a mindset of abundance backed by practical acts of generosity the money follows. Generosity is a leadership skill you can put on your resume, on your LinkedIn profile, and talk about in your next job interview.

What knowledge do you generously share with your teammates? Please share it with us in the comments.