Staying sane at work

Improving your skills can maintain your sanity on otherwise mind numbing days. My experience has been that whatever the skill you are learning at the time, you will find ways to apply it eventually.  Sometimes…. faster than you think. Go after something that intrigues you so you stick to the learning.  Choose the topic based on how you feel about the idea.  Don’t strain too much on what to learn if something is not staring you in the face. If nothing is pressing or is required by your job, then pick something in the general vicinity of your interests. In other words….just do something… just start learning something new.

What I find is…The more I learn about something the more I love the topic. The more I love the topic the more I want to learn.

Switch gears

Improving your skills sounds like the topic has to be related to business or your work. Not true. You could be an accountant and you have always wanted to learn fencing. Go for it.  Touché. It is funny how the mind makes connections from something seemingly unrelated. That has been the argument for a Liberal Arts education. I choose interdisciplinary studies for part of my undergraduate saga ….and it was great. Loved it.

When I was the Manager of Training and Development for a medium size company in Chicago, I found a constant stream of people at my office door with requests for training of various flavors.  Funnily enough I found the really organized people wanted time management.  The accountants wanted “how to use spreadsheets”. The great communicators wanted courses to help them with their public speaking. In other words, people wanted more of what they already had. They wanted to be better at something in which they were already competent.  Makes sense ….they became accountants because they liked numbers, math, etc. So “give me more”. BUT, I seldom got requests from those individuals to take some course outside their comfy spot. Accountants weren’t asking for communications help. The great communicators weren’t asking for finance courses.

However when there was trouble brewin’ …..I would get requests from managers to send their analytical types to sensitivity training or communications classes.  Or the VP of sales would finally push for accounting classes for her reps who were trying to “give away the store”.

So look outside of your comfort zone. Look at courses in art or music if you are not so naturally inclined to those things. Look at learning Excel if you are always focused on communications issues. Take up a writing class if you are usually focused on numbers.

Not got topic?

If you are really stuck and don’t know where to improve your skills…… since we are focused on work life……It doesn’t matter what job you are in, most people could use some help on their communication skills. Listening, making points, staying on topics, following an agenda in your head, etc. Everyone in practically every job could improve their communications skills. So if you can’t figure out what you want to learn. I would suggest you start with communication skills, conflict resolution, listening, etc.

The other area that everyone can benefit from is accounting. Business runs on numbers (we hope). Numbers are a big part of the language of business. Learn to understand basic accounting or financial ideas.

But if these things seem too dry and boring to you…go learn to Tango… you will get some exercise and who doesn’t look good with a rose clenched between teeth? Join the dance.

Sometimes I think that working too much is seen as a badge of honor. We mention to others that we’ve been working so hard. We mention to friends that we put in “60 hours last week”. And although it seems we say these things to get sympathy, sometimes you wonder if you are using it to show how dedicated you are.

Working a lot doesn’t equal working well — If you work too many hours then chances are you are tired, and stressed. And you can’t do your best work tired and stressed. Research on unconscious mental processing says that the pre-frontal cortex in your brain is the part of the brain that gives you new ideas. It works on making connections. But it can only work on coming up with ideas when it is quiet and has no competing work to do. In order to get new ideas you actually have to STOP working.

The working-too-much loop — When you work too much you actually create a work-too-much habit. That makes it hard to stop. Here are some ideas of how you can get out of the loop:

• Remember that habits take at least 30 days to change — So you need to start a new habit now that has you working less.
• Re-calibrate yourself — If you’ve been working 60 or 70 hours a week then 40 feels like you are on vacation. You have to recalibrate and remember what a 40 hour work week feels like. So don’t take the hours down in increments of 2 or 3 or 5. You need to do something drastic to recalibrate. Take it down to 40, or better yet, go on vacation for a week. That will recalibrate what feels normal.
• Accept that you can’t do it all -- If your job is anything like mine you could probably work 24×7 and still not get it all done. So just accept that you can’t do it all, and do the best you can.
• Use the 80/20 rule — Figure out what is the 20% of your work that reaps 80% of the impact, and concentrate on that 20%.
• Take care of yourself first – You’ve heard it before, and I’ll say it again… Take care of yourself (by not working so much) first, and then you will be able to help others (other workers, your boss, and your customers) even better.

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Susan is a guest author at saneworklife.com. If you find this article interesting or helpful, you may want to check out Dr. Weinschenk’s popular blog: What Makes Them Click: www.whatmakesthemclick.net

We have all heard that serving others will give us a greater sense of self worth and satisfaction. Better to give than to receive, etc.  As I write this we are heading into the Christmas season. But other than the superficial giving of gifts sometimes we can fall short at work to be in a giving, serving mode.

Opportunity to serve can happen at all levels:

• Clients
• vendors
• subordinates (no I am not talking about raises for everyone)
• peers
• our bosses

Serving our clients

This one is overdone with the worn out view of “the customer’s always right”.  We all know that is not true. And in fact I would contend that we serve our customers best when we are clear in our expectations and we stick to those “agreed to commitments”, instead of bowing to every neurotic claim they may make.  This is why contracts exist.  We should strive to provide the client/customer everything within the scope of the contract.  And in every regard within that scope deliver the goods or services in an excellent way.  However, we don’t serve them [or ourselves] if we over-deliver. This happens so often because people feel we need to deliver excellent quality to our customers. Right? But that kind of over-deliver thinking has put many companies in the red and out of business.

What does providing quality really mean? One way to look at it means meeting the performance expectations of the product, service/advice that the customer is willing to pay for … no more, no less.

• In my years in HR roles I have seen people regularly struggle over being perfectionists in an environment that is unwilling to pay for that level of quality. 
• I see it in people who work with unreasonable clients;
•  In people who work with reasonable clients but they themselves have no self control and are perfectionists about what they produce;
•  In people who work within organizations that are looking to improve internal processes but don’t have the patience to see it through to the end (so they create their own frustration…It’s not happening [fast enough]).

Of course I am not opposed to doing excellent work! However, that work should not try to constantly exceed everyone’s expectations, in a manner that ultimately creates unrealistic expectations, that ends up hurting the process, relationship or a deliverable.

Giving back to vendors

What could we do to serve or give back to vendors? Well firstly, assuming they have delivered on what we asked of them…..pay them on time.  Nothing sours a relationship/partnership faster than slow pay.  Maybe you are not in charge of when people get paid on their invoices, but pay attention. If they inquire about a slow payment of their invoice, communicate internally and then back to the vendor as to what is happening with their situation. Most of the time accounts payable will want to communicate with the vendor, and that is as it should be. But you have the relationship with the vendor, so don’t ignore them. Pay them on time….. This is fair and the best way to show appreciation or “serve them”.

Another way to serve vendors is to be clear on what you need, make sure they understand your needs, and have reasonable, realistic expectations of their product, service or deliverable.

Serving subordinates

Don’t you hate that term …subordinates…..how freakin’ antiquated can you get? But that is it …. We can say associates…but that feels like peers, and in fact most people in this age still report to people. Thus we have subordinated relationships.

Serving subordinates means making it easier for them to do their jobs.

• Help get some of the crap out of their way. 
• Help them stick with what is critical to the success of your group.  Clear the way.
•  Be clear on priorities, don’t switch them every hour or two. 
• Follow up with them on the things they supply you …..So they can tell that what they have busted their but for …..mattered.

Don’t waste their time schmoozing with them. They don’t want to necessarily listen to every detail of your weekend, your views of the world or your family.  I have seen many managers who use their subordinates as therapists.  The subordinate listens to the boss because they have to.  Now I have to say, there are times to share your stories and concerns, but don’t overdo the use of the reporting relationship to provide your venting.

Peer to peer

Serving your peer may mean supporting them in meetings on issues that you are aware of that are important to their success and sanity. It may mean being clear with them on situations where they may have gone astray, missed the mark. In other words give them good feedback in a constructive manner.

Help them by giving good advice. Be objective and honest. But let me tell you the whole honesty thing is overdone. Do not be obnoxious or overly blunt. Good honest feedback does not have to mirror an intervention or encounter group.  If the situation allows, take your time to make sure they are clear with what you are saying.  Don’t do a cliffs notes version.   Impatience is one of the biggest ways to destroy a good relationship (any relationship).  Give them the time the topic deserves, unless of course timely critical feedback is urgently required. ….maybe they are about to step on a land mine. This is not the time for patience….spit it out. Stop them from committing political suicide or whatever other fate they are headed for……

Kissing up to the boss

Serving the boss does not mean kissing up.  Very few bosses get real feedback from their subordinates. People are scared to tell the guy he is a jerk.  Well…..we are all jerks at times. Give the person a break…she is only human.  Again, be patient.  If you go in to “get things off your chest”, well who is that for?  You. Not the boss.  Take the time to make the point…build the point.  This is probably one of the biggest lessons we can all learn.  How to give feedback up.  It takes courage, practice (take baby steps) and patience.   But if your boss is worth her salt, she will appreciate the sagacious advice offered in a polite, non-threatening way.   If on the other hand he or she resents even your most subtle approaches which are well thought out and objective……well that may be another topic for a different post.   What to do when you have done your best and the guy is just a jerk.  Maybe you serve him best by leaving if you have tried everything you can to provide good advice up the ladder.  But don’t be too hasty.

Serving others does work. Helping others at work will help you to feel better about whatever job you are tackling. Take other’s perspective and how it will / could help them and that …….will serve you.

Mark Soth

“Staying sane at work” is so chocked full of topics, it’s hard to know where to start.  Going insane is a much easier topic. It sort of happens naturally sometimes….well, actually in both cases; staying sane and going insane.  Why is that? You can be hit with 800 things (good or bad) in a day and feel invigorated.  A different day something (maybe just one thing) doesn’t go as expected and you think you are going to bust a blood vessel.

It all comes down to our inner state.  You could look at it as a state of consciousness, an ability to see beyond the issues, a balance, a perspective.  All are true. All are our view of the world.  A number of great seers, philosophers, gurus, teachers have said something to the effect; “The world is as you are.”  If you are worked up, negative, frustrated, then the world or your surroundings seem that way too. If you are positive, optimistic, forward looking, etc. then you tend to see things as having those qualities.  OK for many of you this is not news.  And if it is news to you …..you say….OK ………so what? I am in a shitty mood and everything looks bleak.  Yeah …..so what? What can i do with that tidbit of information?

Think about this.  Another seer once said, “the mind can’t have a mood on an abstract basis”. OK  I admit it doesn’t just jump out at you and give you an AHAA !  But here is what it means and how it can help. 

 Sometimes you just feel crappy. Period.

When you do, everything will seem crappy. No matter if the situation truly is or not.  The mind can’t just feel crappy (on an abstract basis) it has to attribute that mood to “something”.  “Something” can be a situation, a person, a discussion, etc.  How does this help? Well sometimes just knowing it is NOT the “thing”,  can be liberating.  Avoid making decisions based on your transient mood and you can avoid living with the consequences and  the painful cleanup.

I am not suggesting it is easy to do this always. But sometimes it is.

Step back and ask yourself if the feelings you have about a situation are something that came from the situation or are they as a result of how you are feeling in general. Has your mood colored the process of looking at things objectively?  We are always in control of our choices. Our choices can be our reactions to external events. Our reactions to external events can be (usually are) colored by our  internal landscape. Just knowing that can help on an intellectual level.  I will leave the topic of “gaining inner peace” for a later post.  But inner silence is the best way to “deal with ” all that is thrown at us in a workday.  Inner silence goes way beyond intellectualization or rationalization.  Again…..later. 

But before we leave the intellectual/ mental  side of things…. consider the following if you are feeling like a victim. If you are feeling out of control……that is a clue. It is time to stop. Stop intellectualizing the situation, get out of your head, go beyond the situation, gain perspective, and the only way to do that is to gain silence.     STOP.       Easiest thing to do and yet so “hard”.  Lots of methods: meditation, yoga, exercise, even music or art can take you out of your head.  We can explore these topics later.  What do you do to stop the noise?

Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., Guest author

Do you work with team members in remote locations? I do. Whether it is people scattered around one continent, like the Americas, or a truly global team with people from America, Europe, and Asia, these days a lot of my time is spent working on the phone, with email, Skype, and various collaboration tools, to communicate with members of a remote team.

Remote teams are challenging – If you work with remote teams then you are familiar with the challenges. You may have to deal with time zone differences, less than optimal phone connections, language or accent barriers. Here are some techniques I’ve used over the years to help remote teams bond quickly and work together well:

1. Challenge the remote concept – OK, maybe this is cheating, but I decided that the first tip I would start with would be to make sure it is necessary that the team work remotely, or at least question whether all the work or all the team has to be remote. When I am putting together a remote team for a project I try to see if one or more of the team members can first meet in person for a few days or weeks, and then separate and do the rest of the work remotely. This is especially important if the team members have never worked together before.

2. Use photos and bios to introduce the team – If this is a team that has not worked together before and/or if some or all of the team members have not even met each other remotely, much less in person, then it is worth it to spend some time and energy with introductions. Have all the team members put together a short “bio” with a photo about themselves and describing appropriate background and experience, as well as a few personal details about hobbies, or family. These don’t have to be long or extensive – a one page description is all you need. To encourage this, make up a template or example and send it out to the team and ask them to create one for themselves. Once everyone has a bio then they will only need to tweak it for the next team they are assigned to. Post the collection of bios up at a google doc or some other collaboration tool to share. [Read more →]

The easiest thing  to do in the world of work  is to go insane.  It happens to the best of us if we “care” about our work.  Things eat away at us around the edges and suddenly in a last straw moment, voila….., we are certifiably nuts.  Well, maybe not permanently, but we act like it for a long enough period of time that if someone were to only watch us for those few minutes or hours they would certainly not want to be our BFF.

I can’t guarantee following these few pieces of advice will totally eliminate your mental breakdowns, but they will help greatly.  I will devote an article to each topic, and in some cases a step in the plan will take several articles to explore fully.

So let’s just jump in……you need the help right?  The following topics make up the magic elixir:

1. Find a Trusted Friend at Work
2. Find Personal Balance — Staying Positive
3. Serve Others
4. Improve Your Skills
5. Become a Better Communicator
6. Ask For Improvement
7. Playing Politics – The Rules
8. Exit Strategy

Finding a friend at work

Let’s start with the assumption that you already have someone that you trust at work.  I am talking about someone at work with whom you share your concerns about work, family, finances, etc.  Maybe you don’t talk about your bank balance or intimate aspects of your love life, but they understand the drift of your life.  For instance: Maybe you are having some difficulty paying all the bills, the fact that you have some family issue, you and your boss aren’t seeing eye to eye on things, etc.  You may not hang out with them after hours or on the weekend, but you feel close enough to them that if the opportunity came up to get together for drinks, lunch,  a party, Superbowl or whatever, you would enjoy the time together, not accompanied by a feeling of dread or boredom.

If you have this person or a few people like that, hang on to them. They are like gold.  They above many things we will talk about over the next few articles, will help you to navigate the waters of work life sanity. Studies have shown that having a friend at work greatly enhances the likelihood that you will be satisfied or at least tolerate your job.  You spend a lot of frickin time at work. You might as well find someone you like to share that time with during a break or while working on projects.  That trust you have in a friend greases the wheels to getting things done efficiently and effectively. 

Now my caution here is not be overly supportive of  the codependent relationships or those that wallow in negativity and griping. Hey there is nothing wrong with a little “supportive” behavior with each other, or a good venting session to get it off your chest. But there has to be balance. Balance is a topic coming up shortly. So hold that thought.

What if you don’t have a friend at work. The question is, why not?  Are you showing genuine interest in what other people say, or do, or care about? Are you taking the time to find out about them. Again I am not talking: stalking, butt kiss up behavior, buying them gifts to be their one and only, or any other such unbalanced behavior. I am talking about, in a casual, calm way finding out about another person’s interests and concerns. Listening. Not lecturing. Not judging or trying to convince them of your beliefs, but finding out what makes them tick. And don’t play 200 questions….. just be natural about it. Be patient about it.  Becoming friends is something that can take some time.  Some people do not easily trust other folks for a variety of reasons.  Don’t push it.

But the more you are open to making friends, listening to other people’s interests and concerns, the more likely it is that a friendship will start to grow. Again, don’t force it. No pledging your trust and undying loyalty with cuts to the pinkies in the maintenance closet. 

Maybe it is too hard  to think about making “friends” at work. Maybe where you work it is not part of the culture to get too close to one another. Yes there are those places. So think about it as building a relationship with someone. No, not a romantic relationship. Just a relationship where you get to know someone better and learn more about their likes and dislikes; their preferences; their habits. Does that make it sound more possible? OK….so go for that…..just go for “I will get to know people better.”  Perhaps that is as good as it gets for you or for the environment where you work.  I hope for something more for you, but let’s just take baby steps.

So this is a big step toward maintaining your sanity at work. Find a friend, talk to that person, listen to what they have to say, support one another.  All these points are separate topics practically. Certainly there is an article about listening and another about what it means to be supportive of one another. For now let’s assume you have some pretty good idea of what that means.

Tell someone today that you appreciate some aspect of your relationship with them, or thank them for something that they did for you. It’s a start.  And no, I am not asking you to send your good wishes to 20 people in the next 15 minutes with instructions for them to do the same. This has nothing to do with Pay it Forward  or Random Acts of Kindness program. Just say a genuine thanks or compliment to someone you know at work.

I think people look for the silver bullet in so many aspects of their lives they can miss the real basic, simple things that can make a huge difference.  Pay attention to people around you, listen….stop multitasking when you are having a conversation. Focus on the other person.

Traditional long surveys are ………………

• a)   boring  
• b)   too long    
• c)   agonizing   
• d)   of questionable value…don’t get to the point   
• e)   all of the above

Answer:   e     all of the above

Have you ever noticed when you get a survey to fill out at work it is accompanied by a groan?  I had to fill out a survey for a dear friend who was going through a leadership development course.  Now keep in mind, I wanted to help my friend out, give her some honest feedback, help her grow in her career, etc.  I still groaned. AND I was practically in agony when I looked at the 3 different surveys they sent (online). Each survey was about 50 questions long. OMG. It took an hour and a half !!!

Surveys take too long.

Now, that was a leadership survey, focused on one person. I have developed, organized and distributed plenty of surveys over the years, including leadership, attitude, organization diagnosis, etc…  In the early days I wanted to be”complete” so they ended up being way too long.  Surveys focused on organizations tend to be very complex, looking at lots of dimensions. I mean, look….”We’ve got all these people’s attention and time; we better make good use of it; take advantage of the opportunity ….right?”.  NO.

Patience is a virtue

There are a ton of poor decisions made by management in any company that can be attributed to impatience. Usually these come in the guise of being proactive, decisive, pressing forward on critical initiatives. Basically Bull. A lot of it comes from fear. Fear of missed opportunities, fear of taking the time to find out the knee jerk reaction didn’t hold up under collaborative efforts, fear of something. It takes courage to be patient.  When it comes to surveys there is a desire to be complete, to ask a ton of things so we can get to the root of the problem.  More information is better right? We know that answer.  Asking too many questions and therefore getting questionable results is based on impatience and fear.  Are we offering a survey for a quick fix or are we trying to facilitate long term positive change.  Actually the answer to either of those desires (i.e. quick fix or long term change) begs for short focused surveys.

The answer

Actually, less is more. Fewer focused questions will give much more satisfactory results.  And just so I am talking out of both sides of my mouth, more short surveys scheduled over a period of time is the absolute best method of obtaining clear actionable feedback from employees. So the ideal survey system is smaller in terms of the number of questions, but more frequent surveys over time. I call this a “DRIP _tm” survey; Small doses over a long period of time.

Snap shot vs. video

The long survey is given less frequently because everyone knows what a pain it is to administer, take and give follow up feedback on each time. However, short, well planned surveys over time just become a part of the culture (hmmmm…that sounds like it might be good thing).  People may actually get the impression that management wants to hear from them more than once a year or so.  The long survey gives an impression of what people are feeling in that time period. But people’s impressions, views, needs change over time. And by the way, by the time I get to question 63 of 100…… I am probably annoyed at the company or at least the administrator of the questionnaire. Short DRIP _tm surveys over time give a better perspective of the situation to management.  Plus they have the added bonus of being adjusted from one survey to the next to home in on a really hot topic.

Size matters

The shorter DRIP _tm survey actually gives you more accurate picture over time.  In terms of the actual number of questions, well…the short one, with new questions each round yields more questions, more data.  The data can be re-verified, asked in different ways.  Open ended questions can yield new questions to find out how widespread the vocal opinions truly are.

So I will explore with you the huge advantage of DRIP _tm surveys paced out over time.  Watch for the next installment of how to set the survey up, some administrative matters, and the kinds of questions to ask and how to kick it off.