Could You Have Your Dream Job Now? It’s Easier Than You Might Think

Sadly, most of us are not satisfied with our jobs. According to a recent study by the Conference Board, only 45% of us like our jobs, down from 60% in 1987. There’s a popular theory that dream jobs require discovery; if you’re lucky you find the job that makes your heart sing. Most people, however, don’t manage this feat.

For the rest of you, consider the work of Amy Wrzesniewski, a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Yale School of Management at Yale University. She’s studied what does or does not make people feel fulfilled at work and argues that most of us can engage in what she calls “job crafting”, the ability to tailor our job so that it creates more satisfaction – with or without the organization’s support.

She studied a hospital cleaning staff, for example, and found that both their level of satisfaction and how they defined their roles varied wildly. Some staff defined themselves as “cleaners” while others considered themselves “ambassadors”, or even “healers.”

What Should You Do?

If you want to change how you or your staff feels about work, Wrzesniewski suggests the following:

Think about what part of your work you enjoy and how it contributes to the world. What tasks give you the most satisfaction? How does any of your work contribute? The cleaners in her study, for example, went above and beyond their job descriptions by interacting with patients and their families, noticing if someone seemed sad or had no visitors, and reporting those findings to nurses or doctors.

Redefine your relationship with others. Work relationships can be the source of our greatest joy or the most frustration. Almost everyone, however, can find a way to improve relationships at work, spend less time with those they loathe or forge new friendships with people who seem interesting or fun. The most fulfilled cleaning staff, for example, loved being a part of a team and developed deep relationships with doctors and nurses.

Reframe the way you think about your job description. Cleaners who saw themselves as “healers” found the most satisfaction in their work.

The Best Four Steps to Reduce Your Own Anger

What if you’re angry? I’ve written before about dealing with angry, bullying or condescending people, but what if you’re the one who’s angry at work?

Accept that difficult people work everywhere: Even on a good day, I’m sure you can name at least one difficult person at work. On a bad day you can probably rattle off four or five without even pausing. Be they slackers, sneaks, liars, tyrants, boors, bullies, wimps, whiners, workaholics, or everyday incompetents, you’ve got your hands full with people who are making it difficult for you to do your job well and stay sane. How do you move from pissed off to powerful?

What Should You Do?

Accept that suppression usually doesn’t work. My favorite Emerson quote is: “who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you’re saying.” People may not know you’re angry but you will feel worse and hurt the relationship. Unless you’re Meryl Streep, your staff or co-workers will know SOMETHING is wrong.

Don’t vent. Communication is good, but research has shown that venting just increases anger. Find a way to distract yourself instead. Listen to your favorite song, solve a crossword puzzle, take a walk and smell the flowers.

Understand that reappraisal does work. What’s reappraisal? Psychologists may call it reframing. Basically, reappraisal involves telling yourself a different story about the situation and giving what happened a different meaning.

If a new staff member missed a deadline, for example, tell yourself that they must have had a good excuse this time and that they will do better in the future as they understand your rules. Tons of research has shown that reappraisal will make you less angry.

For example, in the Handbook of Emotion Regulation:

Experimental studies have shown that reappraisal leads to decreased levels of negative emotion experience and increased positive emotion experience (Gross, 1998a; Feinberg, Willer, Antonenko, & John, 2012; Lieberman, Inagaki, Tabibnia, & Crockett, 2011; Ray, McRae, Ochsner, & Gross, 2010; Szasz, Szentagotai, & Hofmann, 2011; Wolgast, Lundh, & Viborg, 2011), has no impact on or even decreases sympathetic nervous system responses (Gross, 1998a; Kim & Hamann, 2012; Stemmler, 1997; Shiota & Levenson, 2012; Wolgast et al., 2011), and leads to lesser activation in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala (Goldin et al., 2008; Kanske, Heissler, Schonfelder, Bongers, & Wessa, 2011; Ochsner & Gross, 2008; Ochsner et al., 2004) and ventral striatum (Staudinger, Erk, Abler, & Walter, 2009).

4. Try forgiveness. Whether you rely on a religious framework or science, forgiveness can make you happier and less angry.

But don’t accept abuse or poor performance! Of course, none of this means that you should accept poor performance, mistreatment, bullying, discrimination or harassment at work. If you’re involved in any of these situations, you may need to manage someone’s performance, file a complaint or even leave the organization. Yet it’s easy to make the wrong decision about what you should do in a bad situation when you’re angry. Use the steps above to calm down and then decide on the best course of action.

Lean Back? Are Most Male Managers Now Afraid to Mentor Women?

Good News/Bad News: The good news is that most companies are now taking sexual harassment and discrimination more seriously. The bad news is that “60 percent of male managers say they are uncomfortable mentoring, socializing or having one-on-one chats with women. That number is 14 points higher than last year,” according to a recent survey by LeanIn.org and Survey Monkey.

The Paranoia Problem: Since most leaders are still men, this kind of paranoia severely limits the advancement of women. Mentoring is the way that people learn what I call “unwritten rules”. If men are afraid to mentor women — most likely out of the backlash from #METOO — women won’t know what those rules might be. All organizations have unwritten rules. They couldn’t write everything down or the rule book would be 1,000 pages long. If you walk into a conference room, for example, and don’t know that a certain chair belongs to the leader, sitting in that chair could be a huge faux pas. A small example, of course, but these kinds of “insider rules” add up if you don’t know about them.

Not harassing is not enough. We need men to support women’s careers. That’s how we’ll achieve a workplace that is truly equal for all.

– Sheryl Sandberg, COO, Facebook and LeanIn.org founder
– Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Proctor & Gamble

The Discrimination Claim: I’ve found that many leaders in our sessions or executive coaching don’t understand that if they conduct informal mentoring meetings for men, they’re engaging in discrimination if they ignore those sessions for women. In addition, if there’s been a previous claim of discrimination, backing away from women could result in retaliation claims.

What Should You Do?
EDUCATE LEADERS:  Make sure that they understand that treating men and women differently because of their own fear is discrimination and potentially, retaliation.

CHANGE TRAINING AND EXECUTIVE COACHING SESSIONS:
When you conduct workshops or executive coaching on sexual harassment and discrimination, make sure that you include how appropriate mentoring should work with both men and women.

MAKE MENTORING A PART OF PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS FOR MANAGERS:  Many leaders have advanced because of technical skills, not their ability to mentor and coach their staff. Include evaluations concerning these skills. Make even-handed mentoring matter.

Why Make Sure Your People Are Happy at Work?

Worthy Work:  I attended the memorial service for a good friend’s father recently and was moved by the recitation of his significant life. He was a force in the drive for African independence, an author of numerous books, a respected professor and tireless advocate for civil rights. Clearly, he lived a worthwhile life and worked with purpose and engagement.

Most Workers Are Disengaged:  Sadly, most of us are not so lucky. Gallup studies consistently show that only 30% of workers report being engaged with their work, while one in five are actively disengaged, practicing backstabbing and sabotage.

Why Happiness Matters:  Studies consistently show that happier workers are more productive, interact more effectively with customers and stay with one employer longer.

What Should You Do?
Research shows that three things lead to greater happiness at work.

How Should Leaders View the Stewards’ Tough Call at the Kentucky Derby? 

The generally backfield sports’ world of horse racing grabbed the headlines on Saturday when the racing stewards disqualified Maximum Security. The “baby” horse (as his jockey Luis Saez described him), crossed the finish line first but after reviewing the tapes for twenty minutes, the stewards ruled that he jumped a puddle on the rain-soaked track. Maximum Security blocked his rival, War of Will, and the technical winner finished one and three-quarters of a length in front of the long-shot, Country House, (65-1 odds), who the stewards bravely called the winner.

Not a popular decision since the Derby — running since 1875 — has only disqualified one horse in 1968 for a banned substance in the horse’s blood.  Here’s what I wondered. Did gender play a role in the decision making?

 WHO IS BARBARA BORDEN?

The chief steward, Barbara Borden, was a no-nonsense racing veteran who worked her way up after laboring as a groom, exercise rider and pony person. She then served for seven years completing charts for the Form and then worked at the licensing department as a sample technician and assistant horse identifier. In Borden’s current position, she beat out 20 applicants, to become one of the rare women to serve as a steward.

ARE WOMEN MORE LIKELY TO BE WHISTLEBLOWERS?

Some experts certainly think so.  Consider, for example, the Enron, Kerr-McGee and Citigroup whistleblowers, all of whom were women. The argument is that women see the downside of risk, while men see the upside. In addition, some experts suggest, women have the “motherhood gene” and are prone to protect the powerless. (Not that I would necessarily agree with this gender stereotype!) And, let’s face it, while we’ve made progress in promoting women to top positions in corporate America, women are still outsiders, and research shows that outliers are the ones more likely to raise red flags.

What Should You Do?

• Training After Complaints:  In most cases, you do need to conduct new training after a complaint. Even if you believe that you’ve offered these sessions before, reviews never hurt.
• Address Rumors:  Either during or after the session, you need to make sure that you surface any pending rumors and provide a sanitized version of the facts. Confidentiality and defamation should also be explained to squash gossip.
• Be Prepared for New Complaints:  In the session, make sure that attendees know your complaint procedure and that they have multiple sources they can access for complaints. You may have a slight blip after the training, but these will decrease after a time and the complaint trends will move downward.

What Do You Think? 

What’s your experience conducting or assessing workplace investigations? Call or write us at: 303-216-1020 or Lynne@workplacesthatwork.com

Do You Know What the Mueller Report Has to do With You? What Are Investigations Supposed to Accomplish? 

Not to put too lawyerly a point on the issue, but in most situations, investigations are only supposed to find the facts.

When I’m tasked with conducting workplace investigations, for example, I’m usually asked to try to find out what happened: who, what, where and when, as opposed to recommending any action. In a few situations, I’ve been asked what I would recommend that the client do to rectify what’s happened. But most of the time, I’m simply sent into a situation to dig into the client’s conundrum.

“I’m usually asked to try to find out what happened:
who, what, where and when, as opposed to recommending any action.”

WHAT WAS MUELLER ASKED TO DO?  While reasonable minds could differ about the scope of his assignment, most would agree that his purpose was to find out what happened with the alleged Russian interference with our 2016 presidential election. While we all may disagree with his methods or results, Mueller has provided over 400 pages that detail his findings and attempt to resolve that mystery.

WHAT’S NOT MY JOB?  Investigations should be thorough, neutral, fair, and respectful to everyone involved. A good investigator does not start out to prove a specific finding, but to solve a puzzle, to the best of their ability. Of course, investigators are human and may make mistakes, but we should do everything possible to avoid the appearance of bias.

I was involved in one workplace investigation, for example, where the alleged wrongdoer objected to my conducting a second interview with them. I frequently need to do so because I have conflicting statements from other witnesses and want to be fair to the person against whom claims have been filed and want to give them a chance to respond to new allegations. Generally, they appreciate the opportunity. In this situation, however, the alleged wrongdoer was incensed, attacking me as biased and stating that: “You’re doing everything you can to get me fired!” I responded that was not my job and that I simply was trying to ferret out the facts to give everyone an opportunity to explain their version of what occurred.

Do You Know How Leaders Should Lead Through Biden, the #MeToo Movement and all the Rest of the Noise?

It’s been a year, hasn’t it? Most of the leaders we work with find their heads swimming these days trying to lead through the current upset over what’s in the news, #MeToo-type allegations, and daily concerns popping up from their own staff.

If there is one thing I have realized, however, from working with this subject for many years, it’s that leaders need to LEAD on issues of respect and civility, not just delegate the issue to someone in HR. One of the reasons we are still trying to manage these kinds of allegations is because we have lacked commitment from the top to move people to do the right thing.

Of course, there is much ado about whether things have gone too far, especially with the media abuzz over recent allegations against Biden. Is sniffing someone’s hair harassment? Touching someone on the shoulder? Do you and your staff know how to answer these questions?

Yet when we work with all kinds of groups – from factory workers to executives – everyone agrees that they want to be respected and that civility makes work more pleasant. There may be some grousing about laws and policies governing respect and civility taking all the fun out of the workplace, but when we point out that there are still countless things to make jokes about – just not those concerning race, gender, sexual orientation and so on – few continue to argue.

Do You Know Why Micromanagement is Bad for You as Well as Your Staff?

I have written about micromanagement before and how crazy-making it can be for employees in my Monday Memo entitled: How to Manage a Micromanager: What NOT to Do. 

What’s the Best Way to Open a Retreat or Team Building? Use My “Highs” & “Lows” Exercise