Tag Archive for: productivity

Building a Learning Culture Within Organizations

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Hi, and a warm welcome to The Human Side of Business Podcast. I’m your host Ange MacCabe. I am pleased to introduce you to Ellen Bailey, VP of Diversity and Culture at Harvard Business Publishing.

In this episode, Ellen dives into the strategies behind establishing a learning culture within leadership and organizations and provides insight into how HBP champions this mindset change for their culture and people.

What Is a Learning Organization?

Ellen Bailey: Organizations, including our own, need to shift how we think about a learning organization. Let’s shift from having a checklist to having guidelines; let’s shift to being more transparent with our employees, so they know the thoughts behind our decision-making process and strategic goals. So that enables them to make smart decisions, and it allows them to take risks and innovate and change how we work and think beyond the moment in a way that supports our goals and strategy.

Building Trust Into Workplace Culture

Ellen Bailey: There’s a little bit of learning and development that goes into enabling an organization to be a trusting organization because you have to change some processes to allow people to do that. It’s not just about folks’ good intent. And we can do training and development and learning to help with behaviours, but you also have to have the processes in the mechanisms that support that.

Leaders Don’t Have to Have All The Answers

Ellen Bailey: We fear that if we don’t have the answers, people will question our ability. We are not comfortable with demonstrating authenticity and vulnerability due to that. And so, back to the Fearless Organization article. I will quote Amy Edmondson one more time when she says that in situations we haven’t faced before, it is simply not possible to have all the answers. And so that’s what I continue to express to our team. So we continue to grow and innovate and go and go beyond where we have been. So what got us here will not get us there. And so as we continue to try to advance the thought leadership to impact the world globally, to improve the practice of management, then we aren’t going to have all those answers. And so we need to demonstrate that vulnerability internally, especially with our teams.

Leaders Should Facilitate Individual and Team Elevation

Ellen Bailey: We all have opportunities to facilitate someone’s best, especially as leaders. And so, how do we do that so they can continue to excel? I find so many gaps in that because leaders often feel they need all the answers. We have leaders that are afraid people will run past them, and it’s like, no, no, everybody wins when you facilitate your team best, and you can identify with them on a human level to help them be most productive. It’s fun and awesome to see people you work with continue to excel and do great things.

For more leadership insights check out my blog: 3 Ways to Develop an Intentional Approach to Leadership

Link to full podcast episode

Navigating Our New Normal

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As we navigate COVID-19 and what our new ‘normal’ will be, there are a few things that come top of mind. Part one of this two blog post series is about our ‘new normal’. Our primary focus is: self-kindness and self-awareness are the roots of managing stressors with positivity.

How we act in response to where we are at with self-kindness and self-awareness can determine our results and outcomes with both professional and personal relationships.

We Are Out of Our Element: Self-Kindness is Key

For some of us, work has stopped completely, or maybe slowed to a ‘work what you can’ from home schedule, to working in a totally changed environment that can be downright scary to some.

Sidebar, thank you to all front line professionals: we see you, we love you, we are grateful for what you are doing for everyone.

In some situations, it is not top of mind that living in this industrial world has conditioned us to have, generally speaking ‘high’ expectations of outcomes and productivity regardless of our environment.

Self-kindness is key more so now than ever before. Self-kindness can take many forms but what I’m talking about is self-kindness first to ourselves. How can we give to our teams, our spouses or our children if we are spinning ourselves?

Now, we must let go of any predetermined notion of what we anticipated accomplishing in the next month, three months, six months and maybe even a year. I am not saying give up on our goals but immediate results and response is the adjustment needed. It’s tough and we are all living it, but just think about how much space and energy we free up for ourselves if we let go of previous expectations of outcomes and all that self-pressure.

These question may be of value in assessing whether realignment with self-kindness is needed:

  • How are my current self-expectations impacting me?
  • Do I have current beliefs of outcomes that are holding me back?
  • What am I doing, right now, to ensure I am kind to myself?

Figuring out how much is in our way or weighing us down is a powerful form of self-kindness and discovery. Minimally, ensuring that we are taken care of through self-care (exercise, sleep, nutritious food and anything else that is a positive change) can allow us to have space for those important things like pivoting, realigning and innovating.

Now is the Time to Elevate our Self-Awareness

Did you know that Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a leading indicator of whether you are a successful leader? Studies have shown that over 87% of leaders who engage with and look to positively impact their teams (servant leaders) have higher levels of EQ and most importantly self-awareness.

So what is self-awareness? In short, self-awareness is the ability to understand in the moment how situations trigger and impact you along with your external responses and how to align your actions with your values. Although many leaders (and individuals) believe they are self-aware only 10-15% studied have been deemed self-aware. Self-awareness is a small proponent but largely important in the grand scheme of emotional intelligence.

Unlike Intelligence Quotient (IQ), EQ can be strengthened, just like focusing on a core group of muscles for strength and endurance.

So how do you start? By doing an EQ assessment(s) for your baseline and looking for candid and honest feedback from individuals you trust. Then you can understand your blind spots and where you want to focus for growth. It is only upon repetition that we can shift our habits and actions.

These questions may be of value:

  • What would you want to discover more about your emotional quotient (EQ)?
  • If you were to discover your EQ how do you think it would impact your professional/personal life?
  • What areas of EQ do you want to learn more about to elevate your professional/personal growth?

The Power Of Downtime: Achieving Greater Results

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In a culture that celebrates 80-hour workweeks, sleepless nights and busy work – it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

Inspirational quotes and influencers expressing your need to work harder, celebrating the daily grind, only contribute to an increasing pressure to perform.

Now, working at home with less structure then before it’s become even easier to get caught in the rat race. With your office steps away from the bedroom, I’ve had clients recount answering emails from the time they get up to the time they go to bed.

Yet in my experience, the harder I worked the less I felt I was progressing. Because sometimes the most productive thing you can do is take a break.

But what about the power of downtime?

The Power Of Downtime

For the sake of this post, downtime is the time in-between tasks, meetings or mandates.

If you’re like most, you’ve tried to determine ways to be more productive at work.

Creating habits around how you organize your inbox, set meetings or prioritize your tasks.

But have you ever thought about being productive with your downtime?

Now it may sound counter-intuitive at first. Isn’t that the time I can finally rest and reset? Well yes, mostly… but you can learn how to use your downtime effectively.

Rather than feeling guilty about stepping away, using it to benefit your productivity and increase your performance.

For me a 5-minute walk outdoors at lunch made me feel more refreshed than ever! Where scrolling through 100 Instagram stories took less effort, but left me feeling more exhausted.

Mindless distractions serve to pass the time, but also deplete your energy.

Where productive downtime recharges and restores.

No matter how hard you try, unlike the Energizer Bunny, we can’t keep going and going and going…

The Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is a productivity hack, which has easily doubled my productivity and focus. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel that revealed to me the power of downtime.

The brain can only function for about 90 minutes at a time before needing a break. The Pomodoro Technique promotes working in highly focused, short sprints with micro-breaks in between.

With the goal to maintain hyper-focus during “working time” and allow your mind to reset in-between sprints. Here is what it looks like:

Working time: 25 minutes

Distraction free focused on one single task (no multitasking) striving for a measurable objective (ex: finish report).

Rest: 3-5 minutes

No emails, social media, phone calls, meetings, etc. Safeguard this time to relax and let go of wherever your mind may be racing.

And repeat.

After 4-5 Pomodoro’s (25m sprints), you’ll begin to feel tired due to the hyper-focused nature of the activity and may need an extended break (15 minutes).

Over time you’ll learn what works best for you and can adjust the sprint and break time as you go.

As a high achiever, you’ll want to start with long sprints. I recommend going against your nature and beginning with short 25 minutes sprints before ramping up.

Where studies show that unplanned interruptions increase stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure, the power of downtime can alleviate these stressors.

The challenge is staying focused on one task for the entire 25 minutes, undisturbed.

Habit Challenge

As we’ve seen the power of downtime depends on how you spend it. By using your time wisely to re-energize will allow you to come back to work with a new perspective.

Here are 5 ways you can be productive with your downtime:

  1. Movement: Will increase energy levels and release endorphins in the body leading to a more positive mood. A 5-minute walk, stretching or a few push-ups can have a lasting impact.
  2. Nature: Click the link to discover how 40 seconds of connecting with nature can impact your productivity.
  3. Breathing: Meditating or focusing on your breath can help release stress and regain focus.
  4. Gratitude: Put pen to paper and write a few things you’re grateful for and it can help bring back perspective to what’s important to you.
  5. Know Your Why: I re-read my purpose and goals as a daily reminder of what I am working towards and helps when facing difficult challenges.

The power of downtime is necessary to improve productivity and focus. Trying to work straight through your day only leads to diminishing returns on your energy and focus.

Take the time to recharge and allow yourself time to reflect on what you may be stuck on. Begin by incorporating short breaks into your day by using the Pomodoro Technique.

A Habit for Mindless Distractions

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I’m in the middle of creating a PowerPoint for an upcoming presentation and my younger sister calls.

I pull myself away to answer the phone, but that only lasts momentarily, before I begin checking my emails. Splitting my attention, between our conversation and emails without even noticing.

I close my emails and pull myself back into the conversation. Although again only minutes later I find myself browsing the web!! Has this ever happened to you? Engaging in mindless distractions when you should be focused on one? Multitasking, while on the phone.

Scrolling through Instagram, during a webinar. Answering a text, while mid-conversation with someone. That last one really ticks me off. But it’s no better than checking my emails while on the phone with my sister. And it’s not that our conversation wasn’t interesting. But these days I’ve noticed myself dividing my focus between activities.

Why has it become so difficult to stay concentrated on one thing at a time?

Mindless Distractions

As great as it’s been growing up in the digital age, it does have its drawbacks. Technology has created expectations to respond at all times of the day and made it easy to let small things pass us by.

The era of sharing everything has connected the world like never before through Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. But living in a fast-paced online environment, we’re continually trying to catch up, because it keeps evolving.

The devices in our pockets have provided a network for relentless distraction and stimulation. Forming larger barriers to social interaction, than the connections they were created to make.

The exponential growth of technology has made us less social than more, no matter how many Facebook friends you might have.

These pressures have had adverse consequences on our health. With only so many big milestones to celebrate, what happens when you forget to relish the small wins?

Millennials, in particular, are suffering from depression and anxiety at a greater ratio than any other generation due to perfectionist pressures. Always striving to become better has made burnout and stress-related issues a norm.

When your automatic choices begin to be detrimental to your health and happiness, you can longer rely on them. Isolated and alone, it’s easier to resort to mindless distractions than look around and engage in a conversation with a stranger.

Developing a habit of spending unconscious time on mindless distractions has created a need for more conscious living.

Ah!! But what can we do?

In a connected society, we have to be intentional with the time we spend on distractions. Learning to become present with what we’re doing in the moment. Technology is not a bad thing when used properly. Avoiding splitting your attention by focusing on one thing.

For example,

Paying attention and contributing to the online meeting you’re in. Actively listening to the conversation you’re having – in person or on the phone. Working on one task at a time and completing it, before moving onto the next. Become self-aware when you engage in mindless distractions and look towards dedicating conscious time to what you’re doing.

Self-Awareness Strategies

Here are 4 techniques that you can implement to practice avoiding mindless distractions:

  1. Meditate: Learn to let your thoughts come and go rather than suffocate your mind. Begin with something as short as a couple minutes of deep breathing.
  2. Pomodoro Technique: Use this productivity hack to increase your focus on a task. Blocking outside distractions will raise your awareness and productivity drastically.
  3. Practice Gratitude: Place a journal or piece of paper next to your bed and write down 3 things you’re grateful for each day. Use it as a reminder to stop and enjoy the small joys in your day.
  4. High-Intensity Exercise: When your heart rate is beating at 80% capacity; it’s difficult to focus on anything but the exercise you are doing.

Habit Challenge

Do you find yourself engaging in mindless distractions out of habit, rather than a conscious choice?

If you always reach for your phone when you stand in line, what would happen if you stopped yourself and just stood in line?

Try and leave your phone in a drawer, when you’re working on a task. Close down your computer when talking on the phone. Eat lunch away from your desk and socialize with others in your household/office.

Or use one of the 4 strategies above to create more self-awareness.

Whatever you choose, the goal is to develop greater awareness around the habit for mindless distractions. Don’t look to change anything at first but rather discover how frequently it occurs and go from there.

Becoming The Master Of Your Inner Voice

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How often does that inner voice pop into your head?

You know the one. It’s always there to provide you with an excuse, self-doubt or anxiety. It shows up when you need it least. Well, I’d like you to meet Barry, my inner voice.

He comes alive when I’m in bed and the alarm goes off. Telling me, I NEED 5 more minutes – like its life and death. He is there when I push my comfort zone. Reminding me of the worst possible outcome, assuring me that it will occur. Nagging me to choose mindless distractions over what I need to do.

Barry can also be encouraging – but only when it comes to working on what’s easy over what’s hard.

That inner voice serves a great purpose, to protect and make us aware of immediate dangers. Although this worked well while living in the wild, the only hazard I’m facing now is when I forget to pick up oat milk for my wife’s morning coffee!

In the world we live in today, that inner voice may be holding you back from reaching your full potential.

Taking the first step

Taking the first step can be difficult, or it can be easy. It’s easy to procrastinate, but hard to get started.

It’s easy to press snooze, but hard to get up and go to the gym. The first step determines which direction you’ll go in – productive or distracted. Fulfilling your goals or procrastinating on them. But there is a way to take back control — a way to override the inner voice that is holding you back from achieving something great.

5 seconds to succeed

You see, Barry is quick to jump to a conclusion, but he’s slow to react. There is a small window of opportunity where I don’t have to negotiate with him. Author Mel Robbins calls this, The 5 Second Rule. In those first 5 seconds, Barry is still hibernating and doesn’t realize what we’re about to do.

Counting down 5… 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 Springing out of bed at the sound of your alarm. Starting that report you know is due tomorrow. Making that sales call you’ve been dreading all week.

Taking action before the inner voice realizes what’s going on. Beating it to the punch before it can make a list of excuses, causing inaction.

Two minutes to greatness

Another technique written about by James Clear is called the two-minute rule. If you’re looking for a boost of motivation for taking on a looming task or project, this is the technique for you. The idea is to focus on the first 2 minutes of any project. Your only goal is to achieve those first two minutes. Anything that happens after is inconsequential. Get a coffee or tea and begin to write an outline.

Pack your gym bag and get in the car. Sit down and begin meditating. The sole purpose is to focus on completing the first two minutes of any task. Who can’t get motivated to complete two-minutes of an activity? I can even convince Barry quite easily to commit to this one.

Once the two-minutes are up, you can stop what you’re doing guilt-free. But by focusing on getting started, you’re more likely to continue. Use the two-minute rule as a source of motivation to overcome your inner voice and take on dreaded tasks or challenges you can’t seem to get started on.

Habit Challenge

It might sound odd, naming your inner voice. But when you own it, you become more aware of it. And through greater awareness, you can begin to slowly change its narrative. Who’s that inner voice that is holding you back? What if you didn’t have to listen to it anymore? What could you accomplish? We’ve seen that the first step is the most difficult, yet the most important. How you decide to act in the face of resistance will influence the steps that follow. Put into practice the

5-second rule and try it out for yourself.

Tomorrow morning as the sound of the alarm count down 5… 4 … 3 … 2 … 1 and jump out of bed without a second thought. Or focus on the first two minutes of any task and hold yourself accountable to only completing those first 120 seconds. You might fail at first, but that’s ok. The key is to focus on progress over perfection and keep practicing until it becomes a habit.

Becoming the master of your inner voice.

How Daily Tracking Can Help You Reach Your Goals

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If you begin tracking your daily routines or habits, you’ll begin to find some flaws in your memory. You might not be eating as healthy, burning as many calories on your runs or being as productive with your time at work as you think you are.

Our brains aren’t developed to store information, but rather be inventive and creative. That’s why tracking is more reliable, but you may be surprised at what you will find.

Why Should You Think About Daily Tracking?

Effective tracking can provide a better success rate in creating new habits, increase your productivity and hold you accountable. Tracking your actions will provide clear performance results. It will keep you honest by increasing your self-awareness and provide motivation through a chain of successful days, weeks or even months.

In the past, meditation was always a difficult habit for me to develop. Every time I’d start I would do well at first, and then my practice would fall apart. I had my excuses; not enough time, I forgot, or I thought I was meditating more often than I was – until my Insight Timer app would display a “two-day streak.” I struggled to make meditation a daily practice.

I only became successful after I started tracking my results and tying meditation to an existing habit. After my morning shower, I’d take 10 minutes to meditate and then check it off my list. I tracked every day I meditated, and the odd days I missed. After I had completed a week in a row, I became more motivated to keep the practice going. Every day, I’d take my morning shower and then head to the same spot in my condo, sit down and meditate. Through tracking and attaching it to one of my daily habits, it was easier to make meditating a regular practice.

The Dark Side of Tracking

Tracking can have a positive effect in achieving your goals, although negative consequences can occur– when tracking becomes too much.

Recently, a friend showed me his habit tracker and all of the activities he regularly completes – getting up early, stretching, doing push-ups/plank every morning. He proudly revealed his meditation app indicating 107 days in a row! I was impressed.

He went on to tell me a story about how on Day 79, after meditating on the plane, his streak reset to zero due to a time zone change. Understandably, he became upset and ended up contacting the app to update his streak.

This is where I realized the negative side effects of tracking. When crossing off your task becomes more important than the benefits of the activity, you might want to stop and re-evaluate.

If you find yourself falling down this path, miss a day on purpose.

The point of creating a habit isn’t to create the winning streak of the century! It’s to benefit from creating a long-term habit by using tracking to assist you. Be aware if your competitive nature might be getting the best of you.

There are many more apps you can use, find one that works best for you. Or you can play it old school and keep track of your activities via pen & paper or on a calendar. However, an app provides better accessibility, and you can even set daily reminders!

Habit Challenge

If you have doubts about tracking, just try it – what do you have to lose?

Identify a few specific habits, that contribute to your performance at work and well-being. Spend a week tracking how many times you go to the gym, what you eat or how often you perform a bad or good habit. If you forget or miss a day, let it go, and pick it up the next day. Create consistency and avoid missing twice in a row.

If you take on too much it’ll be difficult to do it over the long term, so start slow.

Determine your WHY by asking yourself what is motivating you to improve this area of your life? Use this as a reminder during times of struggle or distress. Understanding why you are doing something will help you stay motivated to make the activity a habit.

Take action today and pick one specific habit or daily action that you already do or want to start and begin tracking it regularly. Post your commitment in the comments below and I’ll follow up to hold you accountable 🙂

How To Design Your Environment For Success

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I’m beginning to realize the lack of control I have over my actions. When I’m with certain friends, I act differently than I would with others. Where I go, will determine what I wear. How I’m feeling, will impact my decision-making. Even the time of day can have an effect on my patience. We have so much less control over our decisions than we think we do. Our behavior is largely influenced by our environment.

If I get a compliment on a new shirt, I’ll be more likely to wear it again. But if I feel out of place, I’ll think twice before putting it on. But that makes sense, right? Past experiences help form future behaviors through trial and error.

When I get a positive reaction, it reinforces behavior and a negative one will deter me from it.

What makes up your environment?

Our environment can be broken down into 5 categories, which influence behavior.

Environment / Example /  Behavior

  • 1. Location / At work / Dress appropriately
  • 2. Time of Day / 9:00 / Drink coffee
  • 3. After event / After eating / Rinse dishes in the sink
  • 4. Social Influence/ With athletic friends/ Eat healthy food
  • 5. Emotional State/ Stressed out/ Eat comfort food

However, our environment is subjective and can trigger a different response for you than it would for me. In the morning, you might drink coffee and I may drink tea. After eating, you might clean your dishes and I’ll leave them on the counter. When stressed, I might binge and you might exercise.

Your environment is the first step in The Habit Loop, which sparks a craving, behavior and then reward. But let’s focus on how you can design your environment to create good habits.

Why is your environment important?

It plays a role not only in your behavior but also on your mood.

Have you ever cleaned your desk and felt a weight lift off your shoulders?

I recently gave away a bunch of stuff in my office and felt more focused. While an otherwise messy desk causes me to feel overwhelmed.

This created a positive association between a clean environment and increased focus. The next time I feel my concentration declining, I might look to clean my environment.

Even better, I may even be proactive in keeping a clean desk to avoid losing focus. And that’s the type of habits we’re looking to create.

How does environment influence behavior?

Your brain is always looking for shortcuts to making decisions. Habits are a great way to make decisions automatic.

Therefore, you can design your environment to cue positive behaviors by reinforcing associations.

For example, how I associate a clean desk with feeling focused. Or when I get into the shower, my brain is cued to wash, and when I take a bath, it’s cued to read and relax.

Over time your mind prepares itself for a specific action primed by a particular environmental cue. However, if you do something different than what was expected, your mind will take notice.

If one day I decide to wash in the bath and read in the shower, my mind will say; “WTF Scott, this isn’t the association we developed!” That’s an extreme example. But the same thing occurs when you take a drink of Coke but find Sprite in your cup instead.

Design your environment for success

You can design your environment to establish certain behaviors. However, it will take time to create new associations. As described, start by creating positive associations within your environment.

This can be as simple as dedicating each location for specific actions – by giving every behavior a home.

  • My computer is for work.
  • Tablet for play.
  • Dinner table for eating.
  • Couch for watching tv or playing video games.

By devoting specific spaces to new habits will help in making them stick. The more environmental cues you use, the stronger the association becomes.

I meditate on the same chair (location), at the same time (time of day), after I shower (after event).

Combining environmental cues helps to make my meditation practice habitual. However, when I used to travel for work, changes in my environment made my habit more difficult. Another example is if you watch TV in bed; you’re creating multiple associations for your bed.

Watch TV and sleep, which can be confusing. Every time you climb into bed you’re brain may be primed for sleep or TV – which are 2 very different associations.

Try and use location cues for similar activities to avoid discrepancies. However, you can also design your environment through other cues.

  • Time – Around 9 am each morning, I drink a cup of coffee.
    After Event – After making a protein shake, I wash my blender right away.
  • Social Influence – When I eat out with healthy friends, I’m more conscious of what I eat.
  • Emotional State – When I feel stressed, I pause and take a few deep breaths to relax.

Habit Challenge

For this week’s habit challenge, design your environment according to the associations you wish to create.

  • 1. Make a list of locations
  • 2. Determine relevant associations for each location (+/-)
  • 3. Design your environment to reinforce positive actions

Here are a few examples of how I’ve re-designed my environment to reinforce good habits.

I keep a water jug in plain sight to encourage drinking.

A book beside my bed as a reminder to read.

Sweets are hidden away in the pantry or fridge and healthy food in front.

I’ve even designated one side of the couch for reading and the other for watching TV!

The goal is to design your environment to make bad habits difficult and good habits easy.

Exhibiting Leadership within a Hybrid Workplace

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Over the past year, one big question has been on everyone’s mind. What does the future of work look like? If the answer is slowly starting to take shape for many organizations, one thing is clear: the future of work will involve a mix of in-person and remote working arrangements. Managers exhibiting exceptional leadership skills will be the most successful at manoeuvring within a hybrid workplace.

A New Reality Requiring Adaptation

The winning formula may look different for every business but a recent McKinsey survey showed that 9 out of 10 organizations intend on combining remote and on-site work in the near future. Motivations include staff well-being, safety and security, real estate costs, increased productivity and greater access to talent.

This may come as good news but management can expect a whole set of new challenges to arise.

Let’s not forget that aside from freelancers, remote work has only gained traction over the past few years and that to this day, most people have acquired professional experience in physical work environments in which people meet face-to-face and work hand-in-hand.

We may be used to technology but managing a team partially or entirely made up of remote workers is a different story and requires time, effort, adaptability and commitment from leadership.

Showing Up as a Strong Leader

In a virtual world, a lot of the usual cues are gone, making leadership skills even more important.

Zoom meetings don’t provide the same level of information as physical interactions, nor do they significantly contribute to create culture – unless handled with that goal in mind.

Surprisingly, a hybrid model combining entirely remote workers and others working from the office at least part-time can prove to be as or even more challenging than a 100% remote team, the risk being of generating two separate cultures.

As a leader, you act as the captain that steers the boat in the right direction. It is imperative that you communicate with confidence and ensure your people have the tools and resources to perform to the best of their ability and feel comfortable in doing so. Don’t pretend to have all the answers. Be open to change and suggestions while realizing that how you show up will impact how they react.

The devil is in the detail and it is by observing people’s reactions, witnessing their behaviors, and testing different approaches that you will know how best to handle the situation and exhibit leadership in doing so.

However, a leader can do so much in brushing up on its leadership skills. Training and coaching therefore becomes an interesting avenue to gain more perspective on oneself and access tools and techniques to elevate interpersonal capabilities.

Getting Started in Leading a Hybrid Workforce

1. Assess your own personal readiness as a leader

  • How do you feel about the changes you are faced with?
  • What biases or concerns do you have?
  • What can you do about them?
  • How might they impact your team?

Make sure to look at the big picture. Identifying how hybrid work can positively impact yourself, staff and the organization may help put things into perspective. As a leader, you are required to do what is best for the organization while taking into consideration the people you are responsible for.

In any case, finding this out will allow you to explore your solutions and make intentional decisions for all moving forward.

2. Assess your team’s readiness

Two-thirds of American workers have reported feeling anxious about returning to work.

Gauge where your employees stand.

  • Are they happy about the situation?
  • If not, what is preventing them from committing?
  • Are there simple measures or accommodations that can be put in place to help?

Taking note of this and addressing it early on will help overall productivity and performance.

3. Seek feedback

When making decisions about organizational policies and processes to facilitate a hybrid workplace, don’t let chance be your guide.

Ask other members of the leadership team for input and advice. What are their strategies to help them lead their teams with more confidence in this evolving workplace?

A leader is also a good listener so don’t be afraid to ask staff for their input as well. Without promising anything, ask them what they think would be useful tools, processes and practices to make their work easier and improve team dynamics. Present it so that everyone understands they have a role to play.

After seeking input, create a clear, consistent policy and process to clearly outline your working expectations.

The next step will be to communicate your plan – clearly and confidently.

In our next post, we’ll discuss how critical efficient communication is in workplace, and how taking into account different types of personalities and communication styles can help bring your team together.

Through workplace training, coaching and human resource solutions, Intuity Performance applies a Whole Person Performance approach to cultivate an environment for growth within organizations.

Contact us to find out how we can elevate your leadership skills.

Leadership Burnout: Common Symptoms and How to Turn it Around

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What is burnout?

We’ve all been there, feeling mentally or physically exhausted, but what is burnout really? Most of the time, burnout comes from taking on too much at once, like an overwhelming workload. But it can also come from neglecting your self-care (i.e. how much sleep did you get last night?) and being isolated from friends, family and colleagues (remember early pandemic days). Burnout can be tough whether you’re a leader, manager or individual contributor.

If you’re starting to feel run down in life and at work, it’s time for some self-reflection. Slowing down and thinking about what’s bogging you down is the first step toward feeling better. If you aren’t sure if you are experiencing burnout, here are some common symptoms that arise:

Symptoms of Burnout

  • Detachment from colleagues, company engagement opportunities, friends and family
  • Not communicating feelings of failure and self-doubt
  • Loss of motivation leads to increased procrastination and absenteeism.
  • Exhibiting anger or lack of patience towards employees, friends, or family.
  • Showing signs of reduced efficiency.

Life is busy, and it can be so easy to get wrapped up in our daily responsibilities, but I’m sure we have all heard the saying, “You can’t pour from an empty cup’ – this statement couldn’t be more accurate. If you’re feeling burnt out, it can be hard to take action because it can feel like ANOTHER thing to think about on top of your already huge pile, but it’s better to face burnout head-on to find your way back to your best self.

Here are some things to consider when trying to overcome burnout:

How to Overcome Burnout

Practice self-awareness – becoming aware of your thoughts, feelings, and environment and understanding how you react to things can help you step back and allow for space to make more precise, better-informed decisions.

Find your purpose – leaning into what lights you up can lend to your well-being; when we feel like what we do matters, it helps us focus and fulfill objectives.

Practice well-being – most people focus a lot on their careers, but the truth is there is a lot that goes into ensuring we as people are functioning in our optimal state. It’s essential to take the time to get movement into your day, eat nutritious food and get optimal sleep. We can’t expect to show up as our best selves at work if we aren’t taking care of ourselves in the other areas of our lives.

Learn to Prioritize – there isn’t a person on earth who knows and can do everything, so practicing resilience is essential.

  • Break large tasks down into smaller, more manageable parts and assess if items can be delegate
  • Learn to prioritize tasks in order of importance or impact
  • Aim for consistent, not perfect
  • Focus on personal development, and learn new skills that foster growth and improve work-flow.

As individuals, we all experience natural ups and downs in our energy levels. However, incorporating conscious choices into your daily routine can significantly impact your motivation, engagement, creativity, and productivity. By proactively managing your physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual well-being, you can create a healthy balance that allows you to perform at your best.

By exhibiting a healthy work-life balance as a leader, you can foster a workplace culture prioritizing mental health and well-being, leading to increased engagement, better productivity, and higher job satisfaction

Take a step back and prioritize your well-being so that you can lead your team to do the same.