The Key To A Better New Year

 

One More Time With Feeling

A few weeks ago, a junior colleague came to me with a mental health concern. They were overwhelmed by the number of tasks in front of them, in both their personal and professional lives, and felt as if they were letting everyone down. 

I was able to give comfort and practical advice through an old productivity trick, which is to give myself five minutes to make a list of what I had to do, then five minutes to prioritize it. When the 10 minutes are up, I make myself do something -- anything -- from that list. This gives me the positive boost from getting something done, and puts me in a better place to keep moving on to other tasks, rather than getting stuck. 

I also tend to do things like schedule workouts and cleaning chores as a calendar event, which has the necessary element of knowing when such things will end, rather than putting me in a position of obsessing over a small point no one else will notice. But that's not the point of the post.

My list trick worked as a strategy, and the colleague thanked me later. But as a subsequent event shows, giving advice and acting on it are two different activities.

I was listening to an executive client talk about the amazing year their company had, the opportunities they saw moving forward, and in nearly the same breadth, being responsible to the mental health challenges of teammates. This was all happening in virtual space only, unlike what was planned previously, because of the Omicron outbreak, which the executive also noted.

This client also has previously negotiated on price (in 2021, during the seeming boom times) when M&AD did not have leverage to do much other than take the new reality. We've since diversified income with clients that are paying our preferred rate, which is always the right idea in the long term, but never fun in the short.

Hearing these points delivered by this client in this fashion generated heat in me personally, which... well, had to be overcome if we are going to continue in the relationship. (Spoiler alert: we will). Saying cognitively dissonant things in rapid succession is not evidence of hypocrisy or bad faith. Correlation is not causality, and taking things personally in business is rarely a great idea. 

But with my issues with my client and my junior colleague's concern, what was really needed is clear. Put on your own mental blinders, focus on the work and what you can do, and keep moving. Diversifying the income is hard enough. Doing it while hamstringing yourself is just good money after bad. (FYI in case you have needs: we are not at full bandwidth, so by all means, get in touch.)

Something to keep in mind as case counts mount, and as others lose focus around you.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

Our best to you and yours in what will be a Better New Year.

What It's Like To Work With Us

Here's a case study that was put together by the folks at Advisable. If you're curious as to what it's like to do a deep dive with us, it'll give you a good idea -- and about a lot more than just limited executions.

Having Fun At Work (With People Who Aren't Fun)

A few start ups ago, I had to work with a person that everyone in the building, to be blunt, dreaded. 

They were essential to the enterprise -- the way that everyone like this is. They knew way more about lots of things that other people didn't know. They didn't have people report to them directly, because of a number of reasons that everyone involved probably didn't want to admit, which may have contributed to their unprofessional attitude. And they dealt in 100% Candor and telling it like it is, and going into the details of how things worked, regardless of whether you had any interest in those details. 

Giving them feedback about how any of that came off was pointless. Either they accepted it with grace and then fell back into old habits, or they regarded the submission as a personal attack. To be fair, it's hard for adults, especially ones that have achieved some things in their lives, to change their ways. Especially when they have very good reasons to think they are right about something.

The overwhelming feeling that you got from working with them was, well, fatigue. Changing anything was going to be too hard, so what constitutional lawyers refer to as a cooling effect came into play. You either did as little as possible to limit your exposure to them, or you did new initiatives without their knowledge, and crossed your fingers that the land mine would stay buried. If you did have to interact with them, you did so with as much prep as possible, in the hope that they'd see your data or your work and just back off.

They have their reasons for being this way. Maybe even really good ones. I'm also sure that life was an unending slog of underperforming co-workers that aren't up to their standards. That also must suck. 

But if the only thing in life that is important is who gets to be right, and never ever doing the wrong thing... 

Well, you aren't going to learn very much. Or do very much, really.

 Or seem very happy about anything, because...

The human sensation of Fun comes from a twist in pattern recognition in a part of the brain called the hippocampus. If something seems like something you recognize but with a novel (but not threatening) variation, your hippocampus sends some dopamine along to the amygdala. Everyone loves that dopamine, and hey presto, Fun. For a little while.

If you find that you are having No Fun at work -- because no one is doing things your way, because your attempts at collaborating are either unsuccessful or unwanted, and everyone involved seems like they'd rather just do it themselves...

Well, there's a chance that you are becoming the problem co-worker for them.

And really may need need to try new things, or ways to work.

Because, well, changing yourself has a hell of a lot more chance to work than changing anyone else...