Oh My, I Hate My Job

Prevent Project Pain EARLY

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Frustration. I did it again. Eventually I’ll learn…

I got myself into a black hole project because I failed to ask the important questions. Now I’m stuck for the next few weeks on something that’s probably not going to go anywhere.

Here’s the information, if I would have pushed for it, would make these next few weeks more likely to be worthwhile.

Success or Exit Information

What information will tell you we’ve made it, you’re successful? How will you know you’re done?

What information will tell you you need to quit? This is rarely discussed, but it’s so important. Not every project is worth pursuing – most aren’t. Not every idea is worth pursuing, but you need to have an idea of when to kill it.

Path Information

What information tells you you’re on the right path? What will signal you’re going in the right direction? It makes sense. You’re going to slog away at this for a few weeks. If there’s a way to know you’re making progress, let’s have that way available.

What information tells you you’re going in the wrong direction? How will you know when you’re off the path? Better to know this quickly and adjust. Even better to know what to look for before it ever happens.

Viewpoint Information

What information would disprove the way you are looking at things? It’s natural that once you’ve made a commitment you hunker down and only look for ways that confirm and validate what you’re doing. That’s not always helpful – you’ve turned our brain into a “yes man.” You need to have an idea of what dis-confirming evidence will look like beforehand. You’ll be more balanced as you work and think about the project.

So to summarize, have questions on what stops the project. Have questions on how to know if it’s moving in the right direction. Have questions on whether the project inhabits reality.

Get this information. Nag. Explain why it’s important. Plead. For your sanity’s sake, do it!

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Increase your chances of surviving the job you hate…for the cost of a cup of coffee? Check out the $2.99 ebook Room 2 Maneuver HERE

Difficult Customer? Matcher vs Mismatcher

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It’s been said here before and I will repeat it continually.

Know your environment!

This doesn’t mean know where you are on the earth (if you’ve forgotten, knowing so may help) and it doesn’t just mean being able to label what’s happening where you are. It means have a good clue what’s going on rather than what you assume is going on.

Part of knowing your environment is knowing with whom you’re communicating. Knowing whether you are communicating with a five year old or Nobel laureate is helpful.

When dealing with a difficult customer, here’s something to look for to help you know who you are dealing with.

Are they are matcher or a mismatcher?

Do they tend to agree with what you say, as in do they tend to look for points of agreement, or do they tend to contend with what you say, do see the exceptions?

Pay attention to this because it can help you immensely when interacting with them.

How (not) to Hate Your Job: Outliers Drive Flow

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Or…Mihaly Daniel Malcolm.

We’re looking at three famous authors in the realm of motivation and behavior. Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi of Flow fame. Daniel Pink of Drive (he also wrote A Whole New Mind). And of course Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers (known best for his bestseller Blink!).

What we’re doing with them I think is called a mashup. It’s a social media term from a few years ago – wiki it.

The premise of Daniel Pink’s book is that what motivates people is autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Malcolm Gladwell quips in Outliers…

“Those three things – autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward — are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying.

Before we get to Mihaly’s Flow, let’s see the interaction between Pink and Gladwell.

Autonomy – well, both have that. Defining for yourself the how, the with whom, the when, the where, and the with what of your work.

Mastery – Complexity. Mastery is the getting better at an activity. Complexity is the surrounding context of mastery. The more complex something is, the more mastery becomes a factor. And perhaps, the more fulfilling mastery becomes.

Purpose – connection between effort and reward. These aren’t too far off. Pink’s purpose (what is Pink’s purpose, wait that’s the music biz, wrong tangent) is belonging to something bigger than oneself — this phrase is now becoming cliche, but it’s apropos here. When you look at purpose from a different perspective you see that what you want is for what you’re doing to mean something. So purpose is another way of saying you want a connection between what you do and the results you get…it’s just one tends to define results within a bigger “thing” than just your career…which would be selfish, and lacking the bigger purpose…tsk tsk.

From Flow (psychology) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Bold print is my additional commentary.

Csíkszentmihályi identifies the following ten factors as accompanying an experience of flow:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one’s skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high. Purpose

2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it). Mastery

3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness. Mastery

4. Distorted sense of time, one’s subjective experience of time is altered. Mastery.

5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed). Purpose, Mastery

6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult). Mastery.

7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity. Autonomy.

8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action. Mastery, Purpose.

9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it). Mastery, Purpose.

10. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging. Mastery

Can you find these things in your job? Can you carve out more autonomy? Can you discover means to mastery? Have you uncovered a greater purpose?

Must you have a boss or a business give it to you? That would be nice. It would make the workplace more productive, definitely. But if they’re not going to give you it…and you’re not going to go anywhere else to get it…then you’ll have to muddle your way into bringing it into your job.

Survive. Then thrive.

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Want to further improve your chances of survival for the cost of a cup of coffee? Check out the $2.99 ebook Room 2 Maneuver HERE

On the Job Motivation: The Push-Pull Factor

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Here’s a concept to add to your thoughts on motivation and moving toward your goals…like getting out of your job and doing your own thing…or just finding a healthy form of employment that won’t give you polyps through adverse stress.

Push

What’s probably the case with your job is it’s a push away from experience. You want to move away from the job you hate more than anything else you seem to be consciously aware. Maybe it’s the people, maybe it’s a certain task, maybe it’s a specific room, or maybe it’s all the above.

Either way you’ve got strong motivation to move away from it.

The good part about that motivation is that the closer you are to the job you hate, the more motivated you are.

The bad part is this…the more you move away from it, the less motivated you become.

Your Bad Boss – Be Your Own Boss Practice Dummy

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Alexandra Levit has the great idea for giving career tips to Generation Y. I may not be fully versed as to the differences between Gen Y and Gen X, but I get the impression both have a more entrepreneurial streak than their parents. There is a cry to “Be My Own Boss”. You know what, there’s nothing wrong with it. But…why not start on handling some of the more difficult things of being your own boss now?

Here’s a tip from Levit that applies…

* Make your boss look good. Go to lunch and discuss exactly what she needs from you. Determine how to surpass her expectations. Be self-sufficient and solution-oriented, respectful of her time, and accommodating.

via Alexandra Levit’s Water Cooler Wisdom: 5 Success Tips for Gen Y.

What? Are you serious?! My Boss is a class-A top tier biologically perfect jerk specimen!

That your boss may be, but you what…so might one of one clients when you’re your own boss.

Watch Out for Superficial Thinking

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I hate my boss because my boss thinks superficially.

You’re working on a complex project and things aren’t going as you’ve all anticipated. You have an all-hands meeting to discuss what’s causing the problem. You all bring up patterns you’ve seen, observations are made. Your boss mentally clamps onto one concept, you idea of what is causing all this. But it’s really not all that deep an explanation of what’s going on. It’s kind of like this situation below…

So, if we see something like laptop sells declining while iPads are selling like hotcakes, we often jump to the conclusion that people are buying iPads instead of laptops. The actual cause of declining laptop sells could be that the economy is keeping some people from buying them, others are pretty happy with their current laptops and feel no need to upgrade, some are increasingly using their smartphones for email and bill paying and no longer see the need for laptops, and, of course, some people may be buying iPads instead of laptops.

Hopefully I am not telling you something totally new. Rather, my intention is to remind you that it is so easy for us to jump to conclusions rather than really thinking things through. We can do it without ever realizing it. Again, we are wired to do this, because being quick at determining a cause often meant the difference between life and death to our ancestors.

via Watch Out for Superficial Thinking.

Conclusions and causations. Sometimes the obvious isn’t obvious at all.

Coincidences occur because there are always a lot of things occurring at any point of time.

There are a lot of things occurring at any given moment. Time is moment after moment. Therefore there are a lot of things occurring before other things occur. Just because there is an occurrence before an event does not mean the occurrence caused the event.

The fact that many events are happening all at the same time and events occur event after event leaves many wrong candidates for causation. It’s quite easy to find false attributions to causes.

What I’ve found really healthy is being quietly skeptical of any attribution to something causing something else.

Also, instead of seeing things causing things in a more or less one to one ratio, I try to remind myself to think, this may be a factor in that occurring.

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Want to further improve your chances of surviving your job…for the cost of a cup of coffee? Check out the $2.99 ebook Room 2 Maneuver HERE

Choose Your Battles…In the Office

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Perhaps I’m a little bit charged today. Perhaps I’m a tad bit annoyed at myself or others. Either way, I think the topic of choosing your battles is muy importante.

First, simple reasons to choose your battles. If you make this a fight…

Are you going to win anything worth winning?
Are you going to win something you don’t want?

Remember, on the downside of battling, fighting costs more than you realize: energy, attention, opportunity cost, reputation (others ideas about you).

On the upside, if you don’t speak up or persist the other person will have their way by default. Have you ever been mistaken? Perhaps they are. Perhaps there’s some more valuable synthesis that can result if you have a battle.

The last important thing about battles is learning to let go. If you really want to battle, but know it’s not worth it, and yet you cannot stop yourself…what’s the point of even being aware of all that stuff. You’ll just use it later on to beat yourself up. Learn to let go and save yourself some grief.

Okay, we’re all different and we rarely fit neatly into mentally constructed categories. Actually, I see myself below in each one of them. I do know I have strong tendencies though. And as I’ve gotten older I’m seen these tendencies change. Either way…

Which Type of Person Do You Tend to Be?

Aggressive

You tend to get yourself involved in too many battles. And as often as the case is the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of your headache and heartache comes from only 20% of your battles. What may really help you is the ability to stop a beat before you emotionally react. The feelings come welling up and WHAM you’ve already fired the first salvo or POW you’ve decided you’re going to die on this hill out of principle.

You’ll seriously get the most mileage and best results out of being able to just wait a moment before you emotionally respond. I’m not saying don’t respond. I’m just saying you may save yourself quite a bit if you stop for a second. How do you do this. Notice that you’re getting angry or feel hurt or feel afraid.

Now this is quite different than telling yourself you ARE angry, hurt or afraid. If you tell yourself you ARE something or say I AM hurt or angry, really, do you have any other recourse than to act that way? But if you give yourself a chance to slow it down just a second by noticing you are starting to feel a certain way, you’ve given yourself a chance at control.

Passive

You’re a doormat. You stuff your experiences. You might think you have no right to feel a certain way (you have any right to feel any way you do, that’s like saying it has no right to rain today…it’s raining, handle the situation as it is, eventually it will stop raining, weather always changes, same with your emotions).

You probably need to experience more confrontations, more battles. Battles are not always wasteful. Sometimes they cannot be avoided…or better stated, sometimes you don’t have the time, experience, or insight at a particular moment to avoid a battle – you’ll always find a way later to see how you could have, after hours of thought…of course you had only 5 seconds in the moment, but why would you give yourself such a break?

Recommendation? Battle more.

Not a lot more. If you don’t ever get into confrontations I wouldn’t recommend you start having one for every single thing. That’s childish. One significant difference between an adult and a child is the understanding that there are more things than the exact opposite. What do I mean. You don’t have to be pleasant to everyone all the time. Childish response: You mean I can be mean and nasty to everyone I come in contact with? Seriously? That’s the first thing that pops into your mind? Here’s a tip, there’s an entire continuum between those two points. Try something closer to where you currently are, get some experience and make adjusts, like the adult you are. You are an adult.

Passive Analytic

You may be a little like the passive type, but when you are absolutely sure you’re right, you battle really hard and never let go. You know what, you’re probably right 80% of the time…you think you’re right 100% of the time, you’ve developed a great mental defense mechanism of selective amnesia to when you were wrong.

So what’s the problem? The problem is you’re still battling the wrong battles. The right battles to fight are not the ones where you are 100% convinced you are right. You may be 100% convinced you are right on a component of the project, but if that component is minor and now you’ve ticked off your whole team, you, the project, your company and the clients you serve are all worse off simply because of minutae.

Know-It-All, the Aggressive Analytic

If you say, “Well actually…” or consistently make adjustments to what people say, you’re the aggressive analytic. You fight too many battles. You are literally killing yourself by way of a thousand paper cuts.

You’re effectively being an intellectual bully. Bullies tend to get their comeuppance, unless they grow up. And yes, I’m saying grow up. You know how you love that warm internal glow of being right and you despise and dread that cold falling feeling when you know or have been proven wrong? Well guess what? Other people do too. Yep, those smiling, frowning, talking, walking entities called human beings enjoy being right and dislike being wrong. They will avoid you more and more the more you focus on their being wrong.

It is childish. Why? Because adults have the ability to forgo instant gratification for greater rewards later. Adults can forgo the instant gratification of correcting a minor issue for a smoother relationship and a growing respect. Children can’t. Children won’t.

Now, again. Am I saying go to the opposite extreme? No, that, AGAIN, would be childish. Choose your battles. If acting on what the person said would be damaging to them, yourself, or the client, ask for clarification or state, “Wait, you said 14%, did you mean the 17% from column D?” If not, keep it to yourself. You know what, forget keep it to yourself, DROP IT, let it go, forget about it, think about something else, continue to pay attention to what the person is saying.

I Hate My Job and My Boss Because of Unintended Consequences

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We often look for the prime or root cause of things, but sometimes, perhaps most times it is a combination of factors that lead to a break down.

One key point to take into account are unintended consequences. Unintended Consequences or UCs are difficult to predict (they are…unintended), nay impossible to predict fully.

What can help mitigate the problems they pose is thinking through what the changes to the environment your actions are making.

Stress is an example. The stress response does not kill you. But, over time experiencing stress again and again your body (the environment of health) becomes less and less conducive for healthy function and more and more conducive for disease and damage. Then when an opportunistic virus or bacteria comes along, you get ill. Or when you suffer physical damage your body is incapable of fully repairing itself leaving you more and more at risk for other problems.

Being on time is an example. If you tell your boss you’ll be there at a certain time, but you’re late…again and again. Look at the effect on the environment of your work relationship. The UC may be you are passed over for a promotion. How? What if you’ve just created an environment where your boss looks for how you’ll let him or her down? Was that your intent, no of course not. But, perhaps burning them this particular way has oriented them to seeing you disappoint them. Unintentionally they’re NOT seeing the value you bring to the table. Therefore when the time comes for promotions you don’t come to mind. Maybe you talk later and you talk to them and get, “Hmm, you’re right, I didn’t think of that.” Inside you become volcanic, it’s OBVIOUS the value you brought. But unintentionally that value was missed because of a little effect you programmed into your work environment.

Bosses’ indecision can do the same thing. Especially if they are wafflers. Over time they lay down a pattern of changes to projects and workflows. The result is those who work for them put little effort into their work until the deadline is looming. They start working hard when it’s too late to make significant changes. Unfortunately what results is shoddy work and poorly thought through production. The bosses waffling unintentionally effected the work environment.

Know your environment! Be aware of how you’re effecting your environment!

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Want to further improve your chances of surviving your job…for the cost of a cup of coffee? Check out the $2.99 ebook Room 2 Maneuver HERE

Handling Political Discussions at Work II

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Charles Purdy graciously commented and makes another good point…

…it’s so important to know whom you’re talking to; a lot of times, a group of like-minded people will assume they all agree about a hot-button topic or a divisive political figure (because they’re all in a certain place or a certain industry that “tends toward liberalism” or “tends toward conservatism”).

Often times we can be “lazy” and shut our brains off to what’s going on around us.

Laziness = assuming. Because most people in our office, industry, group, etc… seems to lean one particular direction (or at least seems to voice such openly) we assume that the person in front of us thinks and feels the same way.

One thing I’ve found helpful when dealing with another person is seeing the common ground that’s there behind the surface. We are so focused on the differences that (seem) to make a difference between two stands on an issue that we don’t realize the sheer common depth of the ground beneath us both.

Take for example the liberal – conservative contention on social and economic issues.

American Liberalism tends to want more freedom in social issues and more control over economic issues.

American Conservatism wants more control over social issues and more freedom over economic issues.

But look deeper.

In liberalism more social freedom means more avenues, safety and freedom of expression and identity. One problem. These have significant economic repercussions. Any time there is change there is an economic consequence. A change in values means a change in industries, businesses, brands, capital flows, etc… Businesses on the margin will shut down. Businesses that more align with changing values grow, therfore taking customers, money, and the top people from businesses less aligned.

And the fact is the regulating body, the government, isn’t privvy to what’s going on. It’s outside the industry and the market, therefore it doesn’t have the information to make good timely decisions.

The result, you don’t have nearly as much economic control as you thought.

It’s the same with conservatism.

If you have more economic freedom then you give more freedom for differing voices, differing cultures, and differing values to express themselves. A 100 billion dollar economy may not be large enough to support an alternative lifestyle’s cultural expression. In a 10 trillion dollar economy that culture can have more than one cable network.

What does that mean? You have less control than you think.

The common ground both sides rest upon is they’re in a situation, in a world, with less control than we think they have.

If you can see that, or the myriad of other things that you have in common you can have a good civil conversation.

It reminds me of the admonition, “Don’t make mountains out of molehills.” Well, compared to what? Compared to the sheer size of the planet on which they both sit — there’s not too much of a difference at all between them.

Handling Political Discussions at Work

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Charles Purdy over on Monster’s blog makes some great points on how to have civil political discussions in the workplace. Here’s my two cents – tidbits from my experience effectively navigating political conversations.

First off, today is November 2nd, election day in the United States.

In the US there are two main sides in the political spectrum, at least these are the two sides that get the most play in the media. They are represented by two parties, the Democratic and the Republican. There are cross overs – rarely is anything in life stark – but for the most part they are defined as a tendency toward liberalism and a tendency toward conservatism. Words change meanings over time, so the words don’t quite fit what the two sides are after, but for you readers outside the US. Liberalism tends toward more social freedom and toward more regulation of the economy. Conservatism tends toward more regulation of social issues and more freedom of the economy.

Here’s how I’ve learned to interact with the two sides, fairly amicably.

Most people in the US are not too politically savvy. That’s not a value judgement. For the most part most Americans do not feel the need to be extremely concerned with what their local, state, or federal government is doing. Therefore they know politics through a little bit of reading, some TV snippets, and catch phrases cycling through the popular culture.

If you find you are dealing with someone who is more liberal. You must first establish that you care about other people. First. Then once that’s established you can have a discussion on ways in which this care can be accomplished.

I’ve found if you do this effectively you can actually talk about things from a conservative perspective without raising the other person’s cackles.

There is a caveat. Vocabulary. There are certain words and phrases that identify you as an adherent of liberalism. Likewise there are certain words and phraseology that identify you with conservatism.

Interestingly enough, often times these words and phrases are ambiguous enough that you can use them on either side of the issue depending on your context and how you phrase things.

The same is true for conservatives. When you speak to someone who’s a conservative you must first establish that you believe in principles and effectiveness. I know, I’m quite broad in my terminology, human interaction is more an art than a science (at least when you’re crafting a short article). After you’ve established yourself in the space of principles and effectiveness, then you can discuss how to care for people.

What often happens in less than civil discussions between two people on different sides of the issue is what is a signal for one to interact is the exact signal for the other to disengage.

You talk to a conservative and start off “touchy-feely” you’ve identified yourself as a liberal, are probably crazy, and therefore an opponent. If you talk to a liberal and start off on principle and effectiveness you’ve set yourself up as a evil conservative and are therefore an opponent.

This brings me to the second point of politics in the workplace. Identification.

People identify with their political party in the US. Even if they do not spend too much time contemplating it. There are die-hard sports fans for the local team know very little about their current team. It’s not a knock on them. They choose to spend their time and attention on other aspects of life, everyone makes those choices.

I think of identification like the mathematical term, identity. A = A. 5 = 5. One side is the same as the other side.

Democrat = Me. Republican = Me. Liberal = Me. Conservative = Me.

Based upon those equations, what happens when you denigrate a party? You’ve denigrated the person. The two are connected, because in the person’s mind the two are almost the same.

It’s the same phenomenon in sports.

What makes things more touchy, is when other things are glommed onto the identification. Say ethnicity, culture or sub-culture, economic or social class, cause, etc… Then things become somewhat of a minefield with the person you’re dealing with. People who tend to have a strong coupling to many of these tend to be quite politically involved. Discussions with them tend to flow toward one of their touch points.

So how do you navigate political discussion in the office?

KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT.

Which means know who you’re talking to. Understand that who you’re talking to brings their own internal environment to the conversation.

Know that people generally bring three types of attitudes to the conversation. They want to interact, they want to be left alone, or they want to fight.

You’ve interacted with adults before. You intuitively know the signals and signs of annoyance and burgeoning aggression.

Know your environment and you can have a pleasant conversation with a liberal, conservative, libertarian, or marxist.

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Want to further improve your chances of surviving your job…for the cost of a cup of coffee? Check out the $2.99 ebook Room 2 Maneuver HERE

Hate Your Job? Mentally and Emotionally Survive and Thrive in the Job You've Got

Prevent Project Pain EARLY

Success or Exit Information

Path Information

Viewpoint Information

Difficult Customer? Matcher vs Mismatcher

How (not) to Hate Your Job: Outliers Drive Flow

On the Job Motivation: The Push-Pull Factor

Push

Your Bad Boss – Be Your Own Boss Practice Dummy

Watch Out for Superficial Thinking

I hate my boss because my boss thinks superficially.

Choose Your Battles…In the Office

I Hate My Job and My Boss Because of Unintended Consequences

Handling Political Discussions at Work II

Handling Political Discussions at Work

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