Gossip in the Workplace – A Secret is A Secret When the Other Person You Told is Dead

Even after working in the corporate arena for 18 years, I am amazed at how much people talk about other people. I’m a little embarrassed that gossip in the workplace still catches me off guard. I used to live in New York City. How can I be this naïve?

Last week I talked with a friend I used to work with. She still works for the company where we worked together. She told me that Michael, one of our old coworkers, was job hunting. “How do you know that?” I asked. She said Bob the IT manager had told her, and Lisa the marketing director had told Bob. Lisa is friends with Michael. Michael must have confided in Lisa, who told Bob, who told my friend, who told me.  I have, by the way, changed everyone’s names, so as not to tell the rest of the world that Michael is job hunting. But in the event that you have an open job that would be a good fit for Michael, perhaps I should put his real name and email address here.

Michael trusts Lisa. But Lisa clearly isn’t trustworthy. I’m sure she thinks she is, but clearly, she can’t keep information to herself. Lisa trusts Bob to keep a secret, but clearly Bob can’t and neither can my friend.

So what does this say? Everyone is a liar and no one keeps confidences? No, I’m actually saying neither of these things.

I really believe that people think they keep a confidence when they share information like this. We rationalize telling ourselves, “I only told one person, and Bob won’t say anything. I trust him. And Michael wouldn’t mind if I told Bob. They’re friends. And even if he did mind, Bob needs to know because if Michael leaves it will impact IT.” And so it goes.

I’m not telling you this to make you paranoid. I’m saying it to make you careful.

I have started to assume that whatever I tell someone will be told to someone else. And it makes me more careful about what I say and write, especially what I write. Don’t put anything in an email you wouldn’t be comfortable being forwarded to someone else.

You may be wondering how this is possible. There is no one who keeps a confidence? How can you run a business like that? Anything I tell someone will be told to someone else? Not if you’re talking to an outside consultant, a business coach, your attorney or accountant, but inside your organization, yes. People have a tendency to share gossip in the workplace with their inner circle –the people in the organization they’re close to. So be careful. Watch what you say and to whom. And assume that whatever you tell someone may go elsewhere. Consider the upside –you can use your coworkers to share news that you don’t have time to broadcast yourself.

Are You Annoying People at Work?

Unfortunately people taking phone calls via speaker phone, listening to music without headphones, and entertaining a posse’ of visitors in his/her cube is not limited to the movie Office Space, which should be required viewing for anyone who works with other people.

Cubeland can be loud. And most people are hesitant to ask our coworkers to quiet down. We’re afraid of the conflict. We don’t want our coworkers to dislike us, talk poorly about us when we’re not there, or kill us off. So we suffer in silence, hoping the person will get a clue that he’s making us crazy. He won’t. If he knew the phone calls bugged you, he would have already stopped making them.

You may find it incredulous that your coworkers don’t know how annoying noise in cubeland is. It’s an obvious, no brainer. How could they not know?

Much of Candid Culture’s work is dedicated to people feeling more comfortable telling the truth at work. But even with books, and training on how to establish candid relationships and tell the truth, speaking up is often challenging. So know that if you are doing annoying people at work, they are not likely to tell you.

Here’s what you can do: Avoid annoying people at work.  For your convenience, I’ve made a short list.

1. Conversations, music, and phone calls taken on speaker phone in cubicles. Take the meeting or conversation to an empty office or conference room.
2. People who are late for meetings and text or email throughout meetings.
3. People who start most sentences with, “No we can’t do that, and here’s why.”
4. People who say they’ll do something and miss the deadline every time.
5. People who borrow your stuff and don’t return it.

Look at how much stress I’ve saved you. Now you don’t need to give the people you work with feedback, you can just forward them this blog, which is a passive aggressive form of feedback. But it beats throwing their phone out the window or hiding out in an empty office so you can actually get some work done.

If you choose candor instead (which I, of course, prefer) simply say, “It’s hard to work when music is playing, or when you’re on your speaker phone, or you’ve got visitors in your cube. I know space is at a premium. But if you’d be willing to take the conversations elsewhere, I’d really appreciate it.” Done in twenty seconds or fewer. And no one died. You can do it. And if you can’t, call me, and I’ll do it. It’s always easier to have these conversations when they’re not your own. But it will cost you a bag of chocolate chip cookies or perhaps a Candor Bar.

Constantly Checking Email – Your Email is Not That Urgent

Most professionals spend their work day constantly checking email. An email comes in, and we feel compelled to reply. We put aside the project we were working on and promise ourselves we’ll get right back to it. But then we receive five more emails, and so most days go. As a result, many people start doing their actual jobs at 5:00 p.m.

When was the last time you did an hour and a half of actual work without being drawn into your inbox? My hunch is, not in years.

Email has become a noose and an albatross.

I too have fallen into the constantly checking email, time-sucking trap. Every email must be returned immediately. Or worse, I open emails, read them and say I will reply later, but never do. I promise myself I’ll go back to the old, unanswered messages only to get distracted by the many more emails that have piled on top of the existing emails. Older messages get buried, never to be returned. And I, in turn, become a seemingly unresponsive flake.

The days that I discipline myself to read my email only after working on a project for a good chunk of time, are the days I get the most done and feel the most in control of my day. We have all started our work day with a well-intentioned list of things to do, only to find that at the end of the day we did none of them. This lack of control feels terrible and is unbelievably stressful.

Most time management books and training programs recommend checking email at certain intervals during the day –once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once at the end of the day. Read an email once and resolve it. Reply, delete, or forward the message to a more appropriate person. But this is hard to do. What happens if we don’t reply immediately? Will we look bad? What will we miss?

One of the keys to having a balanced life and true down time is to be disciplined about how you spend your working hours.

What if we made July, check-your-email-every-three-hours month? How much more would we get done? How much more relaxed and free would we feel?

I’m going to try it, and I’m expecting you to keep me true to my word. If you send me an email and I reply immediately, you’ll know I have failed and have been sucked into the Outlook vortex of lost time. But if you read my reply, I’ll know you’ve been sucked in too.

Are You in or Out? Manage the Impressions You Create

I admit it, it’s one of my pet peeves –calling someone and getting a voicemail message that says the person is traveling and will return to the office on May 24^th, when it’s July 1^st. I don’t know why this bugs me, it just does. It creates the impression that the person is a little out of it.

While we’re on voicemail pet peeves, why not list a few more:

• voicemail messages that sound like the message was recorded from a busy, street corner
• a voicemail message that promises to return your call as soon as possible, when this person never returns calls
• people who leave LONG messages with a phone number that is said so quickly that even after listening to the message four times, you can’t make out the number
• emails that say the person is out of the office, but don’t say when she is returning

Be careful and aware of the impression you’re creating.

Are your voicemails and emails consistent with how you want to be perceived by others? Do you even know? Call your phone and listen to how your voicemail message sounds. And if you don’t think others will like what they hear, change the message.

Just Say No to Saying Nothing – Speaking Up at Work

Unless I’m out of town or steeped in laziness, I go to a yoga class most Monday nights. There is another class in the same studio right after the class I attend. During the last few minutes of this week’s class, people attending the next class began to congregate outside the studio and were talking loudly enough that our class could hear them. The teacher walked outside and asked them to be quiet. Then she walked back into the room and told our class that she just did something she doesn’t typically do–speak up. When the class was over she went back outside and apologized to the people she’d asked to be quiet.

Why!? Why!? Why!?

What is the big deal with giving feedback and asking people to do something differently?

Unless you live in a cave, this happens to you too. People talk near your office or cubicle and it’s distracting, but you don’t feel you can say anything. Someone in your office cc’s your boss every time he wants something from you. It annoys you and makes you distrust the person, but you don’t feel you can say anything. The people sitting in front of you at a movie theater talk throughout a movie, it’s annoying, but you’re hesitant to say anything.

Again, why, why, why!?

I already know what you’re going to say. People will be angry at you for speaking up at work and will kill you off.

That may be true, but what the heck?! That’s crazy. We do stuff. It annoys other people. They tell us.  BIG DEAL!  No one died.

My entire business, Candid Culture, is focused on helping people feel they can be more candid at work. Speaking up at work is a struggle in every organization. People are afraid to give feedback. They fear retribution –real or imagined.

Make a pact with each other that it’s ok to tell the truth. And that people will take the feedback in the spirit it was intended –to make something better, not to be critical. Give each other permission to be candid without consequence.

The more often you find yourself speaking up at work and giving feedback, the easier it will be.

How to Become a Leader – Moving from a Doer to a Leader

There are things in our lives that bug us, but we put up with them.  They’re often little things like a burned out light bulb or a messy drawer in which we dump stuff that doesn’t have a real home. Maybe the bulb has been out or the drawer has been a mess for so long that we no longer even notice it.

Our workplace isn’t any different. There are things in your organization you’re tolerating. Perhaps a process or software is inefficient, but you don’t say anything to the people in your organization who can do something about it. Or maybe you said something a few times, but you didn’t feel anyone listened and you gave up.

Organizations are comprised of doers and leaders.  And organizations need both. If everyone wants to lead, you’ll have trouble. If no one leads, you’ll have even more trouble. Doers keep things going from day-to-day.  Leaders create opportunities, fix problems, and upgrade existing conditions.

I’m often asked to coach managers in organizations. The coachees’ boss tells me, “He’s a great employee.  But if he wants to move up in this organization, he needs to be a leader.”  And more often than not, the employee is confused by what the manager wants. Coachees say things like, “I give my opinion in meetings.  I volunteer for stuff. What else does my boss want?”

I tell my coachees the most straightforward thing I know to transition from a doer to a leader –improve processes and look for opportunities to fix things that are broken.

Want to know how to become a leader in an organization? Ask these questions regularly:

• What in the organization frustrates people? What could we do differently to ease people’s frustration?
• Where do we have mediocre results? What’s the breakdown?
• Where are we wasting money? Where are our costs too high? Where are we losing revenue?
• What processes take longer than they need to? Or where is there a lack of process?
• Where do we have inefficiencies and redundancies?
• What practices work in one department that could work in another?

Leaders in organizations are always looking for ways to make things better. They look for opportunities and (picking their battles) pursue solutions. Pursuing a potential change does not mean asking your boss or department leader once or twice.  It means telling someone in a position of formal authority about a missed opportunity, asking permission to make a change, and then doing the work required to make it happen. Leaders do not tell their boss about a problem and walk away. Leaders suggest and implement a solution.

Self Esteem At Work – Your Self Esteem is Impacting This Relationship.

Your self esteem is impacting this relationship.

This is a line I’ve always wanted to use. But I won’t. Because although I think it’s true, saying it would be unhelpful.  And unhelpful critique is just mean.

People who think highly of themselves are easier to work with than people who don’t. They are more confident and self assured. They don’t need a lot of reinforcement. People who have a high self esteem at work know they’re good. They may appreciate it if you tell them, but they don’t need you to tell them.

People who don’t think highly of themselves need an endless amount of reassurance. No matter how much reinforcement you provide, you will never fill the need. You can’t fill it.  No one can make someone else feel good about him or herself. No amount of reassurance or accolades replaces a lack of belief in oneself. That belief must come from within.

People who don’t have high self esteem at work come off as arrogant.  They’re the people who tell you how great they are, rather than letting their results speak for themselves. They’re slow to partner and quick to point fingers. They’re often the bully of the organization. They make others’ lives’ hard and take the credit for others’ work. They are the people employees get warned about when they join a new company.

You might be wondering when I became an arm chair psychologist. I didn’t. But I work with a lot of organizations and a lot of people. And the more organizations and people I work with, the more I see how similar people and organizations are.

Every organization has power struggles, egos, and similar communication challenges. I’ll tell you what I tell the organizations who tell me that their companies are worse at feedback and open communication than other companies. You’re special, but you’re not different.

The best thing you can do for your organization is to hire smart, driven, emotionally healthy people. As most of us know, that’s easier said than done. How do you identify emotionally healthy?

I ask these questions of EVERY person I interview both for my company and when I interview candidates for my clients.  And a candidate’s answer is often a deal breaker that ends the interview process.

• What’s some negative feedback you’ve gotten in the past?
• What did you learn?
• What did you do with the information?

I will only hire people who are self aware. People who are self aware know where they’re strong and they know where they need to develop. There is no one who has gotten to adulthood without receiving some negative feedback. And if a candidate can’t muster up an example of this, then they’re not open to feedback. And people who are not open to feedback aren’t coachable.  People who aren’t coachable are very difficult to work with.

You need coachable, introspective people in your organization. And not having those traits should be a deal breaker in your hiring process.

I would put $1000 on the table and say comfortably that the people in your organization who are difficult to work with are not self aware nor open to feedback.

Add assessing self awareness to your hiring process. Don’t hire people who don’t know themselves and aren’t open to feedback, and your organization culture and performance will improve. I guarantee it.

You can access the rest of our interview questions for hiring managers here and candidates here.

The Story of Candid Culture: You Can Have Whatever You’re Willing to Work For

Five years ago today, I left my secure, corporate job to start Candid Culture, an international training and consulting firm, bringing candor back to the workplace, making it safe to tell the truth at work. Leaving the security of a regular paycheck was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, so scary that I talked about it for 12 years before finally taking action. After talking with friends and family about starting this business for so long, that they cut me off, on May 14^th, 2007 I quit my job and left for Singapore to speak at my first international conference.

I wasn’t ready. I had no prospects and no plan. I didn’t think I’d be successful. In fact, I was reasonably convinced I’d fail. I was consumed with fear. But for the first time, my desire had become greater than my fear.

Two things moved me out of vacillation and into action.

Catalyst #1:  For the first time in my career, I had a job I didn’t like. Before my last job, I would have done every career-related (a.k.a. real) job I’d had for free. In my last job I made a lot of money but was unhappy. I swore I’d never be someone who kept a job for the money.

Catalyst #2:  I didn’t want to look back at the end of my career and wonder, what if?  When I was in high school I was captivated by the Henry David Thoreau quote, “I want to live deep and suck the marrow out of life.” I made a decision then that I would not live my life controlled by fear.

So I quit.

My definition of success was low. All I wanted was to be able to pay my mortgage and not live under a bridge or with my parents. Given how low I set the bar, it’s amazing my first year in business with Candid Culture was as good as it was.

The past five years have been the most fun, rewarding time in my life. I’ve had the privilege to speak in seven countries and on three continents, in 23 states, and with organizations of all types and sizes.

Our work is different. It is edgy and direct and rarely what people are expecting.  I cherish the feedback from conference attendees and clients, “You are a breadth of fresh air.” I can’t imagine being told anything better. Fresh implies different. And different can be scary.

We help organizations shift from cultures of silence and fear to a climates of candor and trust. Creating a more candid culture takes courage.

Thank you for your courage and your trust, and for believing that your organization can be a place people want to work and where they do their best work. I look forward to the next five years.

Ask for What You Want – Set Expectations

Think about all the people in your life who frustrate you. The employees who turn in work without checking for errors. The person who offices next to you and takes phone calls via speaker phone. The person who is always late for meetings and then proceeds to text under the table, like no one can see him. And in personal relationships, our friends who come late, cancel, or just aren’t in touch as often as we’d like.

These situations annoy us, but we often don’t say anything because giving feedback is simply too hard. Why risk the person’s defensiveness? Or we don’t think addressing the situation will make a difference.

Giving feedback can be hard. Asking for what you want is easier, but most of us don’t do it.

The question is why? If making a request is easier than correcting someone’s behavior, why not ask for what you want upfront? Why wait until expectations are violated to make a request?  The answer is simple.

We don’t think we should have to make requests. We assume our employees, coworkers, and friends will do things as we do.

We would never turn in work without checking it for accuracy or come to a meeting late. So we assume others won’t either. And when they do, it feels too hard to speak up, so we don’t.

I’m going to suggest you approach relationships differently –more proactively.

Ask for what you want at the beginning of a relationship, project, meeting – anything new. Set clear expectations. If you want to start and end meetings on time, tell people that during your first meeting.  And if you have an existing behavior you want to shift, simply say, “I realized I didn’t tell you that starting and ending meetings on time is really important to me. Going forward, we’re going to start and end all meetings on time. So please be ready for that.”  If you need a quiet work environment, when you get assigned a new desk or seat mate, tell your coworkers that you are easily distracted by noise and ask them to take all calls via a hand or head set and to limit posses of visitors. If it bugs you when people wear shoes in your house, tell them when they arrive. Don’t expect people to guess you’re frustrated  and alter their behavior without you making a request. It’s not going to happen.

Consider all the things that annoy you. Then consider what you did or didn’t ask for. If you haven’t made your expectations clear, it’s not too late. Asking for what you want is easier than you think.

Spell Check is Your Friend – Career Management

I’m reasonably sure I got fired from my college teaching job. Two students went to the Dean to complain about me, and Deans generally don’t like dealing with annoyed students.

What did I do to incense my students to the point of complaint?  I gave them a grammar lesson.

I was teaching a graduate level leadership class. While reading my students’ first papers, I found myself correcting their grammar – for an hour, per paper. I found the papers too hard to read without fixing the grammar.

When I handed the papers back I told my students, “You want to be leaders. Not being able to write will hold your career back more than your leadership abilities. So we’re going to work on writing today.”  Then I reviewed some basic grammar rules. The students who complained said that they weren’t paying to learn how to write. They were paying to learn how to be leaders.

They missed the lesson.

When I screen resumes, I eliminate candidates whose resumes have typos and spelling errors. And many other managers do as well.  A resume is like a first date. You’re working to impress. And as my dad says, it doesn’t get any better than it is at the beginning. If your date behaves badly early on, it will only get worse. If candidates don’t pay attention to their own marketing tool, why would they pay attention to yours?

Some people say that the prevalence of texting and Instant Messenger has changed the standards of what type of writing is acceptable at work.  I disagree.

When clients receive proposals with errors, do they want to hire you? When you send an email or report with grammar errors or typos to the people in your office who can impact your career, do they dismiss the errors or make a mental note that you’re careless? I suspect the latter.

Being successful at work is hard enough. Don’t give people a reason to discredit you.

• Spell check your work
• Be succinct. If you can say it in 10 words, eliminate the extra 20 you’ve written.
• If you are struggling with writing, take a class.

Little things matter.