I wish I had taken my own advice from my most recent Upmarket Column, posted for Seth Godin’s newest online magazine.  Because that would have framed my weekend in a very different light.

So if you want to know how you can lead teams (or kids) in the midst of change, check it out!  And to tease you, here’s a blurb:

There was a time when people knew what was expected of them.  Their father had been a carpenter. Their grandfather had been a carpenter.  And they were going to be a carpenter.  They probably lived in the same village, if not the same house, for generations.  This is the way life was done.  It was predictable.  And expectations were set over generations.  People knew how to behave and how to fit into the group.

Today, this isn’t the case.  Factories close.  Employees quit.  Organizations relocate.  Change is the nature of the game.

Which means that virtually every day someone new is coming into your organization, your team, or your sphere of influence.  The problem with newcomers isn’t’ a lack of skill, but rather a lack of knowing the rules.  In almost every social context there are different rules.  Sometimes these differences are subtle (like who gets to eat first at the dinner table), other times they are obvious (like a suit and tie culture vs. jeans and a t-shirt.)

So how do you keep leading when everything keeps changing?  (Read More…)

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And while there’s certainly a place for that type of thinking and action, conflict is not one of them!

Conflict generally causes two casualties.  First, we run the risk of ruining our project, our business, or our goals.  In other words, the things we’re trying to accomplish, our tasks, are at risk.  The second casualty is more obvious, and that’s relationships.  How much conflict you have, and how you resolve that conflict go a long way in determining how relationships survive (or die.)  Ask anyone who is married, and they’ll tell you just that.

In general there are 4 strategies to dealing with conflict. Each of these strategies impacts this task / relationship dynamic.

1. Equity Focus happens when everyone gets a say in the conflict.  Their ideas are listened to (and more importantly) valued.  However, not everyone gets a final say in the decision.  The ultimate decision rests with usually one, but sometimes, several key decision makers.  Despite what you may think, this is the most useful for improving both Task and Relationship outcomes.
2. Group Democracy appeals to us, because as a culture we’re told that everyone’s opinion is equal, and everyone should get a say.  Using this one-to-one vote system to determine the outcome of conflict is useful for improving Task outcome but not relationship outcomes.
3. Equality (not to be confused with Equity) is all about maximizing the benefits to the individuals, at the expense of the task.  It’s about making sure everyone’s feelings are handled and cared for.  Even if it comes at the expense of the project.  As you can imagine, this works well for maintaining relationships, but not so much for your tasks.
4. Ad Hoc is all about doing things randomly.  For every conflict a new way of “handling” it is tried.  Different people get the final say.  There is no consistency.  And not surprisingly, Ad Hoc reduces both task AND relationship performance

The next time you find yourself confronting a challenge, whether it’s on a project, getting the budget you need for your work, or even fighting with your spouse over what to eat for dinner, just remember these four strategies.  And whatever you do, don’t make a decision randomly!

Behfar, K. J., Peterson, R. S., Mannix, E. A., and Trochim, W. M. K. (2008.)  The Critical Role of Conflict Resolution in Teams: A Close Look at the Links Between Conflict Type, Conflict Management Strategies, and Team Outcomes.  Journal of Applied Psychology.  93, p. 170-188.

image provided by flickr user Robert Whitehead

People have a limited amount of psychological resources to withstand stress, uncertainty and to produce creative and unique works.  In other words, if you keep going back to the well, with no chance to replenish it, it’s going to run dry.

So how do we replenish our psychological wells?  It turns out just “having” a weekend isn’t enough.  We need to do certain things.  And the more we focus on these activities, the more rested we’ll be for the coming week.

1.  Relaxation.  This is exactly what you’d expect it to be.  Relaxing activities are those things that take little physical or mental activity.  Like listening to music, watching TV, going for a walk.  The things we do to “unwind.”

2.  Mastery.  When we engage in hobbies, we get the added benefit that comes with pursuing things that excite us.  With Mastery we’re gaining experience, knowledge, and skills that excite us.

3.  Control.  Despite the technological revolution in working from home, most of us are still trapped in desk jobs and time clocks.  We’re expected to sit in one place for 40 hours and that’s how we prove our “value.”  Because of this, we often feel that things are out of our control.  Taking time to act on things we can control during the weekends, is a way we can regain a sense of independence and individuality.

4.  Detachment.  This is simply being away from work.  It’s a psychological separation from thinking of work, stressing about work, or focusing on work.  Or, you guessed it, working on work.

While all of these things can improve our moods and productivity, control is the least important.  So if you’re going to focus on something, pick one of the others first!

This is part 3 of a 4 part series on improving your productivity.  Photo provided by Heather Elizabeth Studios.

Related research:  Fritz, C., Sonnentag, S., Spector, P.E., and McInroe, J.A., (2010)  The weekend matters: relationships between stress recovery and affective experiences.  Journal of Organizational Behavior.  31.  1137-1162.

I’ve tried everything to stop procrastinating.  But it always seems like I’m waiting until the last minute to get it done.  Of course over the years I’ve had to learn to procrastinate less.  I’ve learned that what worked in college doesn’t work when you work in industry.

But there are still days when I feel like I must be the foremost expert on procrastination.

So what causes procrastination, especially when we know it’s only going to cause us stress and problems down the road?

Well according to research, procrastination happens when we avoid a task.  We can be avoiding this task because we don’t like it and don’t want to be good at it (hello statistics homework!) or because we don’t want to compare ourselves to others who are good at something.

What’s more, the desire to avoid is stronger in influencing procrastination than the desire to be good at a task (in psychology lingo this is called “mastery.”)

So how do you stop procrastination?  Well based on a study by Seo (not to be confused with “search engine optimization”), there are three ways we can go about doing this.

1.  Focus on your strengths.  If you want to achieve a goal, you’re less likely to procrastinate.  It makes sense.  We’re more likely to play video games than do differential calculus.  We’re more likely to surf Facebook than write our next report for work.  (Assuming we don’t like calculus or report writing.)

2.  Understand why you’re avoiding the task.  Are you afraid of failure?  If you finish the task will something bad happen?  Is there a reason that makes you not want to start?  Sometimes not knowing what’s going to happen next is enough to get us to avoid a task.

3.  Clarify your goals.  The more we know what our goals are, the easier it is to understand why we’re avoiding the task.  It’s also easier to know how our strengths play into the task.  Plus, nothing good ever comes from mushy, ambiguous goals.

These three ideas will give you a jump start in stopping procrastination.  Especially if before you start on a project you sit down and focus on these actions.

(If you’re managing people who are chronic procrastinators, you can use these three ideas to help your employees overcome their desire to procrastinate.)

This is part 2 of a 4 part series on improving your productivity.  Photo provided by Heather Elizabeth Studios

Related Research:  Seo E.H., (2009) The Relationship of Procrastination with a Mastery Goal Versus An Avoidance Goal.  Social Behavior and Personality. 37 (7), 911-920.

Well I have some news for you, the solution might be easier than you think, and it may have nothing to do with improving your organizational skills, time management abilities, or even professional talent.  Instead it might just depend on what you do on your way to work.

Research has started to show that those fleeting emotions we feel (like when someone cuts us off in traffic) can influence our decisions well after the event is forgotten.

In a famous research study male students were asked to cross one of two bridges.  One bridge was dangerous looking; the other bridge was completely safe.  Half way across the bridge, the students encounter an attractive “research assistant.”  She offers to talk to them about the results of the study later on if they will call her.

As it turns out, the students on the “dangerous” bridge were much more likely to call.  Well after they had forgotten the “fear” of the bridge.

Except that’s not entirely true.  The students didn’t forget their emotions.  They just carried them over.  (In this case the students confused “fear” with “attraction”, and remembered the “research assistant” in those terms.)

Our emotions impact how we choose to act.

What does this have to do with productivity at work?  Well think about your morning routine.  How does it start?  Do you stand around and gossip or complain?  Did you feel road rage?  Are you angry that you have to be awake and haven’t had a good cup of coffee yet?

All of those emotions, while fleeting, may have an impact on how productive you’ll feel for the day.  So maybe the solution to becoming more productive is to simply avoid the gossip, complaints, and general negativity of the morning.

Cut back on those negative interactions.  Or better yet, find a morning routine that has more positive emotions.  Whether it’s a goodbye kiss to your spouse, or listening to songs that inspire you, or starting your day reading part of a good book.

You may just be surprised what happens.

related research:

Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4), 510–517.

Andrade, Eduardo, Ariely, Dan. (2009). The enduring impact of transient emotions on decision making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109 (1), 1-8.

photo provided by flickr user dbking

Would you believe me?

In an experiment done by Ariely, Loewenstein, and Prelec (2003), that’s exactly what they found.  Our past choices influence our choices in the future.  They showed this by giving people a list of products they could “buy.”  The list was made up of things like a bottle of wine, a book, etc…  The catch was, what you could “pay” was based on the last two digits of your social security number.  So if your social security number ends in “68” you would pay $68.

Once people decided if they’d buy a bottle of wine (or a book) for $68, they later had a chance to actually bid on those same products.

What Ariely, Loewenstein, and Prelec found was that people’s bids were determined almost completely by their social security numbers. People with higher social security numbers routinely bid more on the exact same product than someone with a lower social security number.  In other words, simply making an arbitrary decision in the past (how much would you pay based on social security number) can make someone stick with the same arbitrary reasoning in the future.

What’s even more interesting is that people could still tell the difference between nice wine and cheap wine.  Yet they would still anchor their bid to their social security number.

So much for being in control of our choices.

Now there’s two lessons here.  First, don’t look at your social security number if you’re going to buy something.  Second, and more importantly, once we make one decision, we often feel compelled to stick with that decision, even if it makes no sense.  This has very practical implications for our careers.

Perhaps the reason you’re still in the same dead-end job isn’t really the economy, or family, or education.  Perhaps it’s because long ago you decided that you should stay there.  And every choice you’ve made since then has been anchored to that first decision.

So next time you’re about to make a decision, don’t just look at your current choice, look back on your past choices too.  You may be surprised what you see.

Ariely,  D.,  Loewenstein,  G.,  &  Prelec,  D.  (2003).  Coherent  arbitrariness:  Stable demand  curves  without  stable  preferences.  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics, 18(1), 73–105.

photo provided by flickr user Hans van de Bruggen

Let me explain…

In Cincinnati a group of people who don’t believe that a god exists have placed a billboard reading, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone.”

Don’t panic.  This isn’t a post about whether you should believe in a god or not.  That’s your choice.  What this is though, is a conversation about being dissatisfied and alone.  Two things that we, as a society, seem to really reinforce.  Every day I see an academic article, a book, a TV show or a radio program talking about how “we are the minority, and we are being oppressed.”

It seems to not matter if you really are the minority.  What seems to matter is whether people agree with your opinion.  If they do, then you aren’t being oppressed.  If they don’t, then you are being oppressed.  Seems like a flimsy definition of oppression to me.  But lets look at this billboard issue some more.

The group responsible for the billboard, the United Coalition of Reason, had this to say, “Nontheists sometimes don’t realize there’s a community out there for them because they’re inundated with religious messages at every turn … we hope this will serve as a beacon and let them know they aren’t alone.”

I’m pretty sure if you talked to a Christian he or she would tell you the world is filled with “nontheist messages at every turn.”  Isn’t this the argument often cited against Hollywood?  That Hollywood does not embrace “family values” and is “pushing an agenda”?  How do you think Muslims feel today?  They certainly are under the public microscope.  Especially following the massacre at Fort Hood.  And we haven’t even discussed Hindus, Wiccans etc…

It seems to me that everyone is desperate to claim “despised and alone” status.

Of course this isn’t limited to religion or politics.  We’ve all worked with someone who is convinced that “the man” is out to get them.  Someone who is always playing the “poor me” card.  It’s never their fault, because someone else messed up, dropped the ball, or didn’t tell them something important.

Research tells us that some people are going to be naturally negative.  Their personalities will always be pessimistic.  They will always feel more negative emotions about situations.  In short, no matter the situation, they will complain.

But our culture also plays a role.  Because news stories tend to emphasize the “dissatisfied people of America” front, that message of dissatisfaction is reinforced.  This is why it is so important to bring meaning with you.  Because when you bring meaning to work, it doesn’t matter what others say.  It doesn’t matter if  you are alone or only alone in your imagination.  Because your meaning doesn’t come from the task.  It doesn’t come from being negative or isolated.  It comes from following through on your mission.

If you want your life to change, you can not play the “woe is me” card.  You are not alone and isolated.  The reality is that there are millions of people just like you.  I once heard someone say humorously, if you are one in a million, then in China there are a 1300 of you.

photo provided by flickr

As anyone who’s lead volunteers knows, one of the hardest things to do is keep them motivated and committed.  Part of this challenge comes from the volunteers themselves.  They lead busy, hectic lives with wives, boyfriends, kids, friends, work etc….  Sometimes the last thing they can fit into their schedule is volunteering.

But lets face it, it’s not always the volunteer’s problem, is it?  Sometimes we promise volunteers amazing experiences, life changing encounters, and even high levels of recognition.  What do you think happens when we don’t deliver on those promises?

They leave or become disillusioned.  What was once an awesome volunteer suddenly becomes someone who doesn’t show up when promised.

One way of fixing this is through the use of Realistic Job Previews.  Obviously the volunteer position isn’t a formal job.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t apply some of those same principles we would in a business-setting.  In fact, because it’s an informal position we need to make sure we do everything we can to make it easy on our volunteers.  Some volunteers put in as much time as a staff member.  We owe it to them to give a realistic view as to what’s going to happen.

So here are a few steps you can take to use Realistic Job Previews with volunteer positions:

1. Identify what tasks and skills are needed for a position. Do they need to be able to write?  To speak?  To make phone calls?
2. Be honest about what is most important in the job. You need to identify the critical skills for the position.  This needs to be done for their sake, as well as yours.
3. Have a conversation with them. Don’t send a form letter.  Realistic Job Previews don’t have to be fancy and formal.  Just talk to them.
4. When you ask them to join in the volunteer effort, make sure they understand what they are signing on for. Give them the good and bad again.
5. Talk about other possible opportunities. Will this lead to a job?  Will you be able to do other volunteer projects?  Will you get to meet someone famous, interesting, or important?  Will you receive public recognition?

Most volunteers are there because they are committed to the same ideas you are.  They want to help you succeed.  And they want to help you do it for free!  The very least we can do is give them a clear view of what their role will be.

photo provided by flickr

Research has said for years that the best way to conduct interviews is through a “structured interview.”  A structured interview is simply one that asks the same questions to every applicant, has standardized scoring, and has questions that are job-relevant.  Unfortunately most organizations hire through unstructured interviews, falsely believing that they can “tell” which employees are the best.

Research has identified 6 steps for conducting interviews.

1. Build rapport with the candidate – let the candidate calm down and settle into the environment.  Don’t lead off with questions first.
2. Explain the process – despite most people’s experience with interviews, very few have gone through a structured interview.  Plus, psychology tells us that people will view the situation more favorably if they know what’s about to happen.
3. Ask the questions – It’s only in step 3 that you ask the questions.  If you jump the gun too soon you’re going to get less valid results.
4. Provide job information – once the candidates have answered the questions you’ve asked, give them some information about the position, the company, the salary, etc…
5. Answer their questions – by this point, most candidates will have questions.  Some will relate to the job, some to the company.  Take time to answer their questions.
6. Conclude on a positive note – if you end on a positive note, even something as simple as, “it was a pleasure to meet you” candidates will view the process more favorable.

Have you noticed the theme that runs through all of these steps?  There is a thread of concern for the applicants perceptions.  Not only is caring for a person’s emotions the moral thing to do, it is also the smart business thing to do.  If someone feels like you mistreated them in the interview process (but you still hire them) they may work for you for a time, but they will not be satisfied.

In the past I’ve interviewed for jobs that have violated these steps.  And when that’s happened I’ve gone from having neutral opinions of companies, to having negative opinions of them.  One company in particular, the interviewing process was handled so poorly that I have no desire to ever work for that company or to do business with them.  Do they care about my reaction to their organization?  Probably not.  But based on the size of the company I’m not the only person they interview like this.  At some point, that turns into negative customer satisfaction.

It’s easy to focus on the immediate goals – I need to hire someone for position X.  But we need to always keep in mind the larger picture – what kind of message are we sending to the community.  Because at some point every company needs to hire new employees.  And at some point every company needs to have a positive brand image.

Treating people with respect is good for people and it’s good for the bottom line.

photo provided by flickr

Realistic Job Previews

And that’s really the goal.  Realistic Job Previews want to “weed out” applicants who aren’t a good fit for the position.  It doesn’t do anyone any good to find out after 6 weeks that the position isn’t right.  The company loses money on hiring costs, training, and lost productivity.  While the employee spends 6 weeks in a position that they despise.

Sometimes though, we look at Realistic Job Previews as being “negative”.  That somehow we are scaring away our best candidates by being honest about the work.  But that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happening.  Employees are only “the best” if they fit with the job.  Someone who is destined to be a rocket scientist would never be happy cleaning bathrooms.  While someone who loved the idea of working on a predictable assembly line would not enjoy the chaos of being an Emergency Room doctor.

To be great employees our passions need to line up with the job.

This is why here, at Meaning To Work, we stress the importance of  identify the meaning in our lives before we come to a job.  As I’ve said before, no job brings meaning to someone.  They can only bring meaning to their work.  And if you have someone who despises sales calls, they will never be a great salesperson.

With that said, there are three things you can do to improve the results of Realistic Job Previews within your company.

1. Give your Realistic Job Preview orally - spoken RJP’s work more effectively than written ones
2. Give your Realistic Job Preview at the time of the offer – if you wait until after they accept it’s too late (the expectations for the job have already been set).  If you do it too soon, people may make up their minds before they have all the information.
3. Include the possibilities of career advancement – if there isn’t advancement let them know.  If there is, people want to know that as well.

Realistic Job Previews can make a difference in your organization.  After all, do you want to simply have a body in the job?  Or do you want to have a motivated employee contributing to the company?

photo provided by flickr

related information: a TSA video designed to be shown to potential candidates