Who Should You Give Up On?

My 200-word blog posts are back for 2020!

Recently, the CLOC team at UMD* was brainstorming how to work with a challenging participant in an ongoing workshop. We were batting around several ideas, most of which had already been tried, when one of my colleagues contributed, "It sounds like you’ve been very supportive and creative in trying to address this disruptive participant. And, at some point, you can't care more for them than they do for themselves." Such remarkable advice! I pressed her for more and she said, “Sometimes, I find myself caring more about the client's success than they do. In both consulting and in coaching, it's not a great place for the practitioner to be. Our job is always to support, but it's easy to veer from the ‘gently guiding’ space into the ‘I’m steering the whole ship!’ space. It's not productive for either party.” On whose ship have you taken over the helm – in your work or personal life? Whose success matters more to you than it does to them? Except where a person is in imminent danger, is there any one you need to give up on? What gifts might come from not caring more for them than they do for themselves?

* CLOC is the Center for Leadership and Organizational Change at the University of Maryland

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Supporting Your Essential Workers

NOTE: I'm abandoning my commitment to posts of 200 words or fewer for this particular post in order to help expose these ideas I first shared on LinkedIn to a broader audience. 

A CNN headline last month read, “The world’s biggest work-from-home experiment has been triggered by coronavirus.” News outlets are helping the vast number of employees working remotely with tips like how to home school while trying to get work done. Articles and webinars for those managing a remote workforce are plentiful, as more and more organizations are asking their employees to work from home during this pandemic.

But what about supporting the people who are still required to report to work in these uncertain times - the essential employees, like those in dining services, facilities, public safety, grocery stores, etc? How can supervisors support these individuals whose jobs don’t lend themselves to working from home?

My colleagues from the Center for Leadership and Organizational Change at the University of Maryland and I have compiled this list for those managers.

• Ensure their safety. The most critical way that you can support these employees is by taking precautions so that coming into work does not put these employees or others at potential risk. A consistently reported concern of healthcare workers during a crisis is fear for the safety of themselves and their loved ones. Make sure that you are limiting employees’ exposure to Covid-19 by following the advice of health officials. Additionally, allowing employees to communicate with loved ones during their shifts could assuage family safety concerns and motivate staff to carry on with their professional duties.
• Provide resources. Another way to support and care for employees who are showing up in times of crisis – and all employees – is by connecting them to your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or to other available resources, like governmental and philanthropic organizations providing food and rental assistance, or utility companies providing relief and payment deferment.
• Address your own needs. It’s a classic maxim that you can’t pour from an empty pot; you can’t take care of others if your own needs are not being met. Be kind to yourself. Utilize whatever techniques bring you calm so that you can create calm for others.
• Check in on them. Those reporting to work “as usual” have all of the same worries and fears as those who are at home. Ask how they are doing. Check in regularly on their emotional state and how their loved ones are holding up in these uncertain times. Don’t shy away from these conversations because of fears that they will raise concerns that you cannot help them with. Your job is not to provide the answers, but to listen, and possibly to ask questions that can help them to find their own answers.
• Overcommunicate. Provide information about how your organization is responding as it is available. Even when you don’t have information to share, let staff know that the organization is still thinking about its response and that, when thinking about responses, they are thinking about the impact on essential employees. Ensure that you meet more often with everyone on your team, if only to share kudos and "what we know right now."
• Praise more. Show your appreciation for them being there, continuing to do the essential work they are doing. It matters now more than ever.
• Send an email or jot a quick note. Little things do matter, like a quick handwritten note or an email to your team – or an individual team member - after a stressful day. Just a few sentences about why you value them will go a long way. 
• Create meaning. A common theme in the literature about motivating essential employees is the importance of their understanding the significance of their role in responding to an emergency event. The literature indicates that if essential employees feel their jobs are instrumental in dealing with a disaster, they are more willing to report for work. Make sure employees connect the work they do on a daily basis with the larger organizational and societal good they are doing.  
• Lower your expectations. During times of stress, we are less capable of creative, innovative or collaborative work. Also, we may be bringing a lot of our home life with us to work. As a result, we need to remember that no one is capable of working at full capacity. We need to allow for additional breaks, support, time and adjustment of work schedules, wherever possible. We need to be more accepting of mistakes and let go of perfectionism.
• Continue to manage performance. At the same time, we can’t excuse egregious employee behaviors just because we need people to show up to work. Managing performance is still important in times of crisis. During difficult periods, you should work together to address performance issues, asking how ‘we’ can support ‘you.’ The employee may have an idea for a temporary arrangement — some time off, handing off a project to a colleague, or a more flexible schedule for a few weeks — that is amenable to you. 
• Ask what they need. Even though we’re all dealing with the same pandemic, we will all have different reactions and need different things. The best way to support your individual employee may not be on this list. Ask them what it is.

Connect before content

My 200-word blog posts are back for 2020!

The best advice I ever got was also the most embarrassing feedback I’ve ever gotten - when a boss told me that, while my colleagues thought I did great work, they also thought I wasn’t having enough “water cooler” talk; that I wasn’t building relationships. I was devastated. I was a coach and a learning professional; I was all about relationships and helping others. But, she was right – I was more about putting my head down and getting my work done - and her suggestion to me that day was life changing.  She told me to “connect before content”; to ask, “How was your weekend?” “How was that movie?” or “Is your partner feeling better?” before getting down to the business at hand, before asking for what I needed. Doing so has helped me to slow down and to be present with people, and has made my interactions – in person, by email, in classrooms – richer and more rewarding. I tell this story when I’m talking about the power of check-ins at the start of meetings, or of feedback, or of courageous conversations, or, when I have an opportunity like this one, when sharing one of my most important life lessons.  

Sophie Oberstein is an author, consultant, coach, and adjunct faculty member, with two books slated for publication in 2020 – the second edition of 10 Steps to Successful Coaching (April) and Troubleshooting for Trainers (October). Her website is sophieoberstein.com. 

Collateral Beauty

The best thing about the film, Collateral Beauty, is the concept that is also its title. In my own words, it’s the generous, kind, and beautiful things that happen on the periphery of what’s tragic or evil. We’ve seen it this past year, for instance when Trevor Noah suggested that if a Muslim registry is created, we will all register. We see it when we appreciate the sunset on a day that was full of hurt.

It reminds me of a quote from Mister (Fred) Rogers that I’ve used to help my kids understand bad things that happen in the world: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."”

Collateral beauty is also tied, for me, to gratitude; to continuing to notice and appreciate what works, what’s lovely, what blessings surround us. If there is a coaching exercise for this post, it is to show gratitude in whatever format works for you – a journal, a pay-it-forward activity, or some sort of statement.  

There will be plenty of damage in the year(s) ahead of us; My hope comes from the idea that there will be an equal or greater amount of collateral beauty.

Hold Fast to Dreams

If you’ve ever felt like giving up on your dreams, you may already be familiar with these stories that are circulated on the Internet as encouragement to stick with them:

• After Fred Astaire's first screen test in 1933, a memo from MGM’s testing director read, "Can't act. Can't sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."
• Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn't hire him. 
• Disney himself went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.
• As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison is reported to have replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” 
• Edmond Newton auditioned for Project Runway every year since the show started – 20 times – before being selected and getting all the way to the finale, where he showed his line at New York Fashion Week (and, in my opinion, was robbed of the win).

And while I wouldn’t put myself in the league of any of these luminaries, I’m happy to report that, after four years of not even being invited for interviews for jobs that I was eminently qualified for, and of at least eight heart-breaking rejections, I am going to work in August for Blue Engine as a teaching assistant in a New York City public school. I’m “over-the-moon” excited to be returning to the classroom after a very long hiatus, and to be embarking on work that can make a positive difference in the world. So, I’m using this post in the same way those other Internet sites have – to encourage you not to give up on your goals and dreams either; to see your latest rejection as just another step in your successful light bulb experiment. In the words of Ella Fitzgerald, “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” 

Responses to Hardship

Recently, I had a serious let-down and called a friend in tears. Elise (whose name has been changed and who has “approved this message”) is a lovely person and, I know, was intending to help when she gave a response along the lines of, “Is that all? You can easily rebound from that. I thought this was something serious, like you were getting a divorce!” Despite having a healthy and happy marriage, I was still upset about my other set-back and was reminded of a terrific TED Talk* by Ash Beckham about how no one’s pain is greater than anyone else’s. Beckham’s experience of being discriminated against might be as significant to her as someone else’s experience of losing a loved one. My son’s experience of getting a bad grade in school may be just as devastating to him as not getting a job was to another of my friends, or as finding out that the boy she liked liked someone else was for a student I was working with. Beckham advises we not judge one another’s pain; that we show compassion and empathy. Let’s just treat each person’s hardships as hard and be there for them as fully as we know how.

* "We're All Hiding Something, Let's Find the Courage to Open Up," September 2013.

So tired... tired of waiting... tired of waiting for you

I just tried out a new exercise with a coaching client who was obsessing (as she described it) about the fact that one of her clients hadn’t yet responded to her email requesting more money for an upcoming job. I had her write down every possible reason that she might not have heard back. Her list looked something like this:

• She is busy

• She is away

• She is considering this and doesn’t want to write back until she’s had a chance to get budget approval

• She is so angry about my request that she no longer wants to do business with me

• She has found someone else to do the job for less

• She is sick / some personal issue has come up

• She doesn’t care / this job really doesn’t matter much to her

I then asked my client to consider how likely each of these explanations was.

When she was able to, first, see how many perfectly reasonable explanations there were, and second, to see how unlikely the 4^th reason listed was, she was able to relax a bit and be more patient.

What response are you still waiting for? Let me know if this exercise helps you.