Decide Your Limits – Then Communicate Those Limits

You receive a meeting request for August 5th.  Your calendar is open, so you accept the request. You get asked to visit an out-of-state client on August 12^th. Your calendar is open, so you say yes. You’re asked to make a presentation in place of a team member who is out of town, on August 14^th. You want to be a team player, so you say yes. And soon what was a relatively slow month is booked with meetings, travel, and other commitments. Mid-month you’re tired, over-extended, and resentful. You want to be a good team member and a responsive professional. How do you do both without feeling tired and resentful?

One of the best pieces of advice I heard many years ago was to decide how to handle something before the situation presents itself. For example, if you’re trying to lose weight and you’re going to an event that will have an amazing buffet, decide what you will and won’t eat before you arrive. Choosing not to eat the desserts will be much easier if you’ve made that decision before the event rather than when you’re standing in front of temptation. Managing commitments and schedules can work the same way.

Before having a child, I worked 80 hours a week and traveled up to six days a week. And I loved every second of it. After having my son, I realized that I didn’t want to keep that kind of schedule anymore. I needed to cut back. So, I created clear and specific boundaries for myself. I decided how many days a month I would travel, by what time I needed to arrive home from each trip so I could see my son before he went to sleep, and how many speaking engagements I would commit to each month. When I receive speaking requests, I honor my pre-established boundaries. If I am already on the road the maximum number of days I told myself I would travel, I ask if the client can do a different month or if I can speak virtually. If the answer is no, I turn the work down.

I rarely deviate from my established boundaries. And when speaking requests come in, the decision-making isn’t a struggle. I don’t have to decide if accepting a request will be too much. I’ve already made the hard decisions about the schedule I will keep. So, each incoming request either fits into my already-decided-schedule or it doesn’t.

I work for myself. I have latitude to make decisions about my schedule that I might not if I still had a regular, corporate job. So how do you make and share decisions when you’re not your own boss?

Decide what you want your schedule to look like. How many hours do you want to work a week? What time would you like to start and stop working on most days? How much travel are you willing and able to do? How many meetings can you attend a day and still get your work done, so you’re not working each evening or weekend?

Then communicate your desired schedule to the person you work for. Tell your manager how much travel you would like to do and the hours you would like to work. Then negotiate. You may not be able to maintain the schedule you want all the time, but you certainly won’t if you don’t make your desires known.

The time to tell your manager that you want to reduce your travel is before you’re asked to take a trip, not after. But it’s never too late. If you find yourself too busy or on the road too much, you can always have a conversation and renegotiate.

6 Steps to Advance Your Career with Communication and Courage

Companies want people who make things happen, and to make things happen, you have to speak up. Anticipating the train wreck and commenting after the train goes off the tracks, doesn’t count.

What if you said what you thought, in a way other people could hear you, when you had the right to do so? Meaning, you have the relationship with the other person to tell the truth and you’ve asked permission to be candid?

6 Courageous Steps to Advance Your Career:

1. Look for opportunities to make things better.
2. Ask for permission to take the ball and run with it.
3. Build relationships with other people who are making things happen.
4. Don’t say yes, when you mean no.
5. Find a way to say no, while engaging the other person in a conversation so a new approach is generated.
6. Be willing to go out on a limb, work hard, and fail.

Here’s how to speak up for change without being labeled as the problem person who finds flaws in everything:

1. Look for and present solutions, not just problems.
2. Offer to do the work to move towards a better way of doing things. Don’t drop problems at other people’s doors.
3. Ask questions versus overtly say that something is wrong. That could sound something like, “I’d love to help. Tell me more about how this works. Maybe we can insert a step to make the process better. What do you think of trying ________?” No one likes to be told they’re wrong. Asking questions elicits participation more than overtly saying, “This is broken. We need to fix it.”

Many people are afraid to speak up at work and believe that people who speak up get fired. I haven’t found this to be the case. People who work hard and produce results are typically the last people to be let go.

Say what you think in a way that is not critical. Offer solutions, not just problems. Be a force for good and take an active role in making things better, and my hunch is your career will accelerate faster than you ever thought possible.

Reduce Work Overload – Ask for Help

It’s not easy to admit when we’re overwhelmed and need help. In fact, it’s such a hard thing to say that instead of asking for help, most of us either work harder or longer or job hunt. Admitting work overload isn’t a weakness and it isn’t bad. It’s all in how you handle it.

If you find yourself with work overload and you aren’t sure what to do, consider taking these four steps.

Eliminate work overload step one: Every time you find yourself doing something that someone else could and should do, write it down, including how much time the task took. Doing this will create awareness of how much time you spend doing things that may not be the best use of your skills and experience. Then work with whomever you need to in your organization to align that work where it belongs. This practice isn’t to make you sound like an entitled prima donna. It’s an entrepreneurial way to approach your work.

The business owner’s mantra is, “If I can pay someone less than I get paid to do something, I should do that.” Consider how you can apply that practice to your workplace, without appearing to be someone who won’t ‘wash windows.’ Meaning, you don’t want to be or appear to be someone who isn’t willing to do grunt work. Every job has it. But those tasks shouldn’t be where you spend most of your time unless your job description and annual goals say so.

Eliminate work overload step two: Watch out for and eliminate time suckers. This includes people, problems, and processes. If you find yourself in meetings all day long, consider which meetings you don’t really need to attend or send someone else on your team. If someone in your organization calls you daily to have personal conversations, tell the person, “I’d love to talk with you and I’m working under a deadline. Can we catch up later?”

Eliminate work overload step three: Sometimes doing 110% percent isn’t important. Notice when you’re doing more than you need to and when that additional work doesn’t add significant value. I.e., you put together an elaborate PowerPoint presentation and then spent five more hours printing and stuffing folders to mail to coworkers’ homes. Next time, focus on the content and worry less about the aesthetics.

Eliminate work overload step four: Lastly, know when and how to ask for help. The last organization where I worked, before starting Candid Culture, was very fast-paced and lean. I worked all the time and consistently felt overwhelmed. I eventually went to my boss to ask for help. I made a list of everything I was working on and asked him to rate each item based on how important he saw the project/task. He put an “A” next to the things that needed to get done first, a “B” next to the things that came next, and a “C” next to the things that were the least important. He told me to do the A’s first, then the B’s, and if I got to the C’s, great, if not, no problem.

The meeting was eye-opening for me. I assumed he thought everything on my list was an “A” and that left me stressed with an inability to prioritize. Hearing how he perceived my workload reduced my anxiety and gave me permission to ease up on projects I’d previously considered timely.

Don’t suffer in silence. But do approach reducing work overload in a positive way. Rather than whining to your boss and coworkers, end conversations that you know are a time drain, limit work that doesn’t add significant value, and ask for help prioritizing when you can’t do it for yourself.

Your First Impression May Not Be Correct

You’ve undoubtedly heard that it takes fewer than 30 seconds to form a first impression. The question is how frequently is your first impression wrong?

If the person sitting next to you on a plane doesn’t speak to you during the entire flight, you may initially think they are unfriendly, only to strike up a conversation as the plane is landing and find out that’s not the case. If a job candidate is outgoing, you may decide the person has good people skills, only to experience contrary behavior when they start the job. If someone is late to arrive for an initial meeting, you may decide they have an issue with time management, versus they were just running late that day.

Your first impression may be right, and it may be wrong, but it takes more than 30 seconds to be sure.

If you’ve participated in job interview training, you were probably trained to look for contrary evidence when forming an opinion about a candidate. Looking for contrary evidence is an attempt to disprove your first impression. If you quickly dismiss a candidate for lacking knowledge of your industry, you should ask interview questions to disprove your opinion before making a final decision.

Why not follow this practice in all settings? If you initially decide someone is trustworthy and reliable, spend more time with that person to be sure. If you quickly decide someone is unhelpful and uncommitted, give the person additional opportunities to behave differently before making a final judgment.

Snap judgments eliminate lots of great people and experiences from our lives.

Unfortunately, just as we prematurely exclude potential employees, friends, and life partners without having enough information, people do this to us as well, which is why it’s important to know the first impression you, your department, and your company make. If you don’t know the first impression you create, there’s nothing you can do to shift behaviors that may be costing you friends and customers.

When I was new to a job, early in my career, I asked my new coworkers to give me feedback if they saw me do anything that got in the way of my being successful at work. They agreed. But when they had negative feedback, they didn’t give it to me, they told my boss instead. That’s when I got the hard and painful lesson that people have a tendency to talk about us, not to us. It’s also when I began asking the people closest to me, who I know love me and care enough to tell me the truth, the first impression I create.

Opinions are formed quickly and they’re hard to break. Give people more than one chance and see how they show up. And know that many people will eliminate you, your department, and your company after just one interaction. So, find out the impression you create, giving you the power to do something about that impression.

Download some of the questions I ask to learn my reputation.

Be More Productive – Do One Thing at A Time

Much of what comes through our phones is not important – emails we don’t really want to read, advertisements for things we won’t buy, and social media updates we don’t care about. And yet those little devices are so seductive. It’s hard not to check your email, texts, and social media updates constantly. Being so connected electronically and thus so continuously distracted has its benefits but it also has real costs.

Most of you know I have a small child and I’m committed to being a present and involved mom. I spend a lot of time with my son. But the best times are when I leave my phone behind. Without my phone I’m fully present with him, in the moment, enjoying him. When I have my phone, I’m distracted, often stressed, and typically torn. Can’t I read this email and reply quickly? What’s the harm? It will only take a second.

And each time I take a minute to read my email, I’m gone. I’m focused on my phone. And then I feel guilty and sad for not being as engaged as I want to be. Then I recommit to being fully present. And then read my email again. It’s a vicious cycle.

There is a huge cost to being distracted most of the time. Our relationships suffer. Car fatalities have increased tenfold. People are consistently tired.

Every productivity expert will tell you to check your messages three times a day, respond, and to not be constantly reading email. It’s fantastic advice. And I suspect no one, including productivity experts, follows it. It’s just too hard. We’re lured by our phones, tablets and laptops. Not checking them regularly makes us antsy, uncomfortable, and nervous.

What would happen if we set defined periods of time for each thing we did?  I.e., Spend from 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm working on a project. At 4:00 p.m., check your phone. Take the weekend off and check your messages at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday. I suspect we’d get way more done and feel less stressed. But we have to give ourselves permission to put the phone away.

Here are three ways to be more focused and productive, and hopefully, happy:

1. Schedule work and personal activities for realistic, defined periods of time, and stick to them.

2. Agree on no cell phones or other electronics during personal meals and outings. I like the game people are playing in restaurants by putting cell phones face down in a pile on the table. The first person who touches their cell phone pays the entire bill.

3. Agree on no cell phones during group or one-on-one meetings. Your meetings will be shorter, easier to manage, and more productive. Meeting attendees want to tell their peers to put away their phones but feel like they can’t. Strong meeting facilitators who set and hold to this expectation earn others’ respect and run productive meetings.

In a nutshell, give yourself permission to focus. Do one thing at a time for a short period of time. Allow similar chunks of time to read and reply to messages and read Facebook updates you don’t care about. Then put the phone down and walk away. Your family and friends miss you.

Resolving Conflict in the Workplace – It’s Not Too Late

Chances are, at some point in your career, you’ve worked with someone you wished would go away. Maybe the person repeatedly threw you under the bus, took credit for your work, or didn’t keep their commitments. And at some point, you wrote the person off, and have been merely tolerating them ever since.

Damaged relationships can be repaired, if you’re willing to do some work.

The first step in repairing a damaged relationship is to decide that you really want to do so. Managing conflict in the workplace isn’t easy. It will take effort and will likely be uncomfortable, so before you take action, decide if you really want to work on the relationship.

How to know if you should try resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask yourself how much you need the relationship. This probably sounds political, and it is. If you work on projects together, need to give or receive information, or have to work together regularly, then it’s likely worth working on the relationship. If you don’t need to work together regularly, then perhaps don’t work on the relationship.

If you decide to attempt to strengthen a relationship, plan what you’re going to say. Never trust the first thing that comes out of your mouth during a difficult conversation.

Step one for resolving conflict in the workplace: Like any feedback conversation, start with the end in mind. Consider what you want to have happen as a result of the conversation.

Step two for resolving conflict in the workplace: Plan what you’re going to say by taking notes and practicing out loud. What you say in your head is usually not what comes out of your mouth.

Step three for resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask the person for time on their calendar. People don’t like surprises. You’ll have a better outcome if the person has blocked time to talk with you. Have the conversation in-person whenever possible. If you can’t speak in-person, talk on the phone. Do not attempt to fix your relationship via email. 1. Email is wimpy. 2. It will not work.

Tell the person, “Our relationship is strained. I don’t think I’m saying anything we’re not both aware of. I’d really like a good working relationship. Would you be willing to have coffee or lunch with me, and we can talk about what has happened and perhaps start in a new way?”

Step four for resolving conflict in the workplace: Ask for a meeting to work on the relationship up to three times. If, after the third time, the person hasn’t made time, stop asking. You can’t work with someone who won’t work with you. If the person doesn’t make time to meet, be polite, professional, and inclusive, but stop trying to nurture the relationship. Inclusive means: cc’ing them on necessary emails, inviting them to appropriate meetings, and providing necessary data.

Step five for resolving conflict in the workplace: If the person makes time to meet, speak candidly, be yourself, and be vulnerable. I don’t mean be a doormat. I do mean be authentic.

How to Manage Difficult Conversations:

1. Tell the person what you want.
2. Ask for feedback about how you’ve damaged the relationship.
3. Listen to what you hear, and resist the urge to defend yourself.
4. Ask for permission to tell him how he’s damaged the relationship.
5. Give small amounts of feedback, with a few specific examples.
6. Make agreements of what each of you will do differently in the future.
7. Thank the person for the conversation and schedule another meeting.

Step six for resolving conflict in the workplace: Build in follow-up. Most people have one conversation and expect things to be fixed forever. Relationships don’t work that way. Agree to meet monthly, for the first few months, until you’ve rebuilt trust and learned how to communicate and work together. During the monthly meetings, give each other permission to give candid feedback about how you’re working together. I call these Relationship Inventory Meetings.

During monthly Relationship Inventory Meetings ask:

• What’s working about how we work together?
• What’s not working?

• What working agreements did we keep?
• What working agreements did we break?

• Which working agreements are helpful?
• What working agreements need to change?

You might be thinking, “I don’t like this person. I don’t want to work with them. And I definitely don’t want to have these uncomfortable conversations.”

1. If the nature of your relationship is impacting your ability to do your job, your professional reputation, or your happiness, all of those consequences are far worse and more long-lasting than any conversation will be.

2. The conversations won’t be as bad as you think. No one will tell you anything you can’t handle, because for the most part, they’re afraid of your reaction and they know they’ll be next.

Conflict in the workplace and damaged relationships keep people up at night, reduce job satisfaction, and often motivate people to leave jobs. If you’re experiencing any of these things, all of them are worse than any conversation will be. The anticipation of the conversation is far worse than the conversation itself.

1. Decide if you want to strengthen the relationship.
2. Plan the conversation.
3. Ask for time to meet.
4. Have the conversation. Speak honestly, but responsibly.
5. Plan to have another conversation before ending this conversation.
6. Congratulate yourself for being courageous and picking happiness over anxiety and frustration.

How to Ask for A Raise – Make a Plan

The best way to get your next job is to be great at your current job and ask for more. And the same goes for asking for a raise. Do a great job, make your contributions known, and work with your boss to create a plan to help you get to the salary you want.

Saying or acting as if you’ve been treated unfairly and that your talents aren’t being recognized may be true, but it may also get you the reputation as a negative whiner. People want to work with positive and appreciative people. Demonstrate both when asking for more.

Below are eight steps for asking for a raise:

How to ask for a raise step one: Write down the accomplishments you’re proud of since your last significant pay increase.

How to ask for a raise step two: Find out what your job pays on the open market. Jobs are assigned a value and a pay zone that is often transferable across industries. For example, if an entry level accountant at a big four accounting firm is earning $60,000, the pay zone is likely $50,000 – $70,000. If said employee asks for $64,000, that’s realistic. If they ask for $85,000, they’ll be seen as out to lunch. If an employee wants to earn $85,000, with their current level of education and experience, they’ll have to switch careers.

How to ask for a raise step three:  Learn your company’s philosophy on compensation. Companies often deliberately decide to pay in the top, middle, or lower part of pay zones. For example, if an industry like sports or entertainment is glamorous and lots of people want to work in that industry, jobs are likely to pay less. Perhaps a company has great perks and benefits, and in exchange, pays less. Alternatively, some companies want to be known as providing the highest compensation and will pay for it. Knowing where your company falls on the compensation spectrum will help you determine a realistic number to ask for. Your Human Resources representative can answer these questions.

How to ask for a raise step four: Be prepared to present and talk about the impact you’ve made on your organization. Focus on accomplishments and how you’ve changed the business, not on how hard you’ve worked. Results get rewarded.

How to ask for a raise step five: Don’t give an ultimatum, unless you’ve already discussed a pay increase a few times, nothing has changed, and you’re ready to leave. Instead, work with your manager to create a realistic plan to get you to an agreed-upon pay rate. Put the plan, with specific milestones you need to hit, in writing and agree to discuss results quarterly. Managers may be hesitant to promise a future pay increase, but will support written work-related goals, which will help you make the case for a pay increase.

How to ask for a raise step six:  Don’t be afraid to ask for a raise. You may not get the raise you want, but nothing bad will happen for asking, providing you do so appropriately. The initial conversation could sound something like, “I love working here and am really enjoying my job. Because of my contributions to our organization, I feel I’m worthy of a pay increase. Can we schedule a time to talk about what might make sense? And with your permission, I’d like to send a list of my most recent accomplishments. Would that be ok?”

How to ask for a raise step seven:  Discover who needs to support your pay increase. Your boss may not have the ability or authority to give you an increase. Subtly ask what they can do. That could sound something like, “Who needs to participate in the decision to grant me a pay increase? Is there anything I can do to assist with sharing my accomplishments or making the case for an increase?”

How to ask for a raise step eight: Once you know what your job pays across industries and your company’s philosophy on compensation, ask for a realistic number that will make you happy. If you’re asking for large increase, consider incremental raises over a period of months.  Ask for something that’s easy to say yes to.

If you think you deserve a pay increase, don’t be afraid to ask. Ask in a positive way, focusing on the value you’re adding to the business. Be patient and work with your boss to create a plan to get where you want to be. The worse you’ll hear is “no.” And if the answer is no, you’ve planted a seed and opened the door to the next conversation.

Surviving a Matrix Management Structure

Be Easy to Work With – Manage Your Career

I recently realized that when I recommend someone for a job, first I mention the person’s competence, second I mention how easy they are to work with.

I want smart, competent, and committed people on my team. I also want people who are easy to work with. People who take everything personally, get defensive when receiving even the slightest amount of feedback, and accuse first and ask questions later, are difficult to work with. These behaviors are exhausting. Working in our current environment is hard enough, working with people who make work harder because they’re difficult to work with is unnecessary and avoidable.

There are a few behaviors that make people difficult to work with. Avoid these blunders and accelerate your career.

Five tips to be easy to work with:

How to be easy to work with tip 1: Don’t take things personally. Human beings are wired for survival. Most people are so worried about themselves – looking good and doing well – they’re not all that worried about you. When you get overlooked for a project or a meeting, rather than feeling slighted, ask what happened that you weren’t included. Or just be grateful you have one fewer meeting to attend.

How to be easy to work with tip 2: Give other people the benefit of the doubt. Most people are genuinely trying to do the right thing. If you question someone’s motives or actions, ask a question before making a decision about that person.

I like the question, “Help me understand…?” It’s neutral and invites the other person to speak. If you choose to ask this question, watch your tone of voice. If you can safely add the words “you dummy” to a question, you have a tone issue.

How to be easy to work with tip 3: Don’t hold a grudge. When an event is over, it’s over. Set expectations for how you want people to interact next time and then let your upset go. Let people recover from mistakes and miscommunication.

How to be easy to work with tip 4: Temper your emotions at work. You’re human and human beings have feelings. But sometimes our feelings can be off putting to others. Most people are uncomfortable when managers and coworkers yell, cry, or give the silent treatment. Wait to have conversations until you’re not upset. And if you can’t manage your emotions during a conversation, excuse yourself until you can.

How to be easy to work with tip 5: Be introspective and self-aware. The better you know yourself and how you impact others, the more you can work with others how they like to work. Periodically ask people you trust for feedback on the impression you make and what you’re like to work with. Listen to their feedback and adjust your communication habits to be easier to work with.

The bottom line – positive work performance isn’t just about producing results, it’s also how we get those results. Are we easy to work with or do we make work harder than it has to be? I want to be someone and want to work with people who make work easier, not harder.

Your Boss is Not Your Friend – Manage Perceptions

Your boss’s job is to help you eliminate obstacles, ensure you have the resources you need to be successful, and to be a coach. A manager’s job is also to evaluate you.

Managers only have so many points of reference to evaluate their employees’ performance. If you tend to vent with your boss how your internal customers are difficult to work with, your boss doesn’t know that you don’t do this with everyone. It’s a point of reference that makes an impression. How do I know this? I learned it the hard way.

My last boss, before I started Candid Culture, was the best boss I ever had. He always had my back. He was knowledgeable about the business and happy to share his knowledge. He trusted me and gave me a lot of latitude. And I confused that positive relationship with that of a confidante.

I felt comfortable with my boss, so I complained about my internal customers to him. I thought he was a safe person to do that with. I was wrong. He eventually told me he had no way to determine that I didn’t vent with everyone. My naïve decision to vent to my boss was a point of reference about my professionalism and not a good one.

It would have been fine to tell my boss I was struggling to work with an internal customer and to ask for suggestions for how to work better with the person. It would have been fine to say that I was frustrated or discouraged and was in need of support. It’s ok to share problems and breakdowns and leverage your boss to find solutions and to get help. Asking your boss to help you solve a problem you haven’t been able to solve yourself is expected. Using your boss as a therapist is not.

I don’t want you to be paranoid, to feel that you have to watch every word that comes out of your mouth, and that you always have to be on your guard. Just know the role people in organizations play. Leaders and managers have to determine who is successful in their current role and who is a good fit for future roles. So be mindful of how you show up and to whom.

We all know impressions are formed quickly and are hard to change. If someone sees you once a week, one a month, once a quarter, what are they seeing? People only know what we show them and what others tell them.

I know this post is political. I’m almost hesitant to write it. But I don’t want you labeled as someone with poor judgment or someone who can’t manage their emotions. Remember, let your boss see the poised professional you are. Let your friends and family see the rest.