Appreciation and Why it Matters So Much

I’ve just returned from an offsite with our team at The Energy Project. As we concluded, I asked each person to take a few moments to say what he or she felt most proud of accomplishing over the past year.

After each of their brief recountings, I added some observations about what I appreciated in that person. Before long, others were chiming in. The positive energy was contagious, but it’s not something we can ever take for granted.

Whatever else each of us derives from our work, there may be nothing more precious than the feeling that we truly matter — that we contribute unique value to the whole, and that we’re recognized for it.

The single highest driver of engagement, according to a worldwide study conducted by Towers Watson, is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their wellbeing. Less than 40 percent of workers felt so engaged.

Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up. At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It’s also energizing. When our value feels at risk, as it so often does, that worry becomes preoccupying, which drains and diverts our energy from creating value.

So why is it that openly praising or expressing appreciation to other people at work can so easily seem awkward, contrived, mawkish and even disingenuous?

The obvious answer is that we’re not fluent in the language of positive emotions in the workplace. We’re so unaccustomed to sharing them that we don’t feel comfortable doing so. Heartfelt appreciation is a muscle we’ve not spent much time building, or felt encouraged to build.

Oddly, we’re often more experienced at expressing negative emotions — reactively and defensively, and often without recognizing their corrosive impact on others until much later, if we do at all.

That’s unfortunate. The impact of negative emotions — and more specifically the feeling of being devalued — is incredibly toxic. As Daniel Goleman has written, “Threats to our standing in the eyes of others are almost as powerful as those to our very survival.”

In one well-known study, workers who felt unfairly criticized by a boss or felt they had a boss who didn’t listen to their concerns had a 30 percent higher rate of coronary disease than those who felt treated fairly and with care.

In the workplace itself, researcher Marcial Losada has found that among high-performing teams, the expression of positive feedback outweighs that of negative feedback by a ratio of 5.6 to 1. By contrast, low-performing teams have a ratio of .36 to 1.

So what are the practical steps you can take, especially as a manager, to use appreciation in the service of building a higher-performing (and more sustainable) team?

1. As the Hippocratic oath prescribes to physicians, “Above all else, do no harm.” Or perhaps more accurately, do less harm, since it’s unrealistic to do none. The costs of devaluing others are so great that we need to spend far more time thinking than we do now about how to hold people’s value, even in situations where they’ve fallen short and our goal is get them to change their behavior for the better.

2. Practice appreciation by starting with yourself. If you have difficulty openly appreciating others, it’s likely you also find it difficult to appreciate yourself. Take a few moments at the end of the day to ask yourself this simple question: “What can I rightly feel proud of today?” If you are committed to constant self-improvement, you can also ask yourself, “What could I do better tomorrow?” Both questions hold your value.

3. Make it a priority to notice what others are doing right. The more you work at it, the better you’ll get at it, and the more natural it will become for you. For example, start by thinking about what positive qualities, behaviors and contributions you currently take for granted among the members of your team. Then ask yourself, what is it that each of them uniquely brings to the table?

4. Be appreciative. The more specific you can be about what you value — and the more you notice what’s most meaningful to that person — the more positive your impact on that person is likely to be. A handwritten note makes a bigger impression than an email or a passing comment, but better any one of them than nothing at all.

We’re all more vulnerable and needy than we like to imagine. Authentically appreciating others will make you feel better about yourself, and it will also increase the likelihood they’ll invest more in their work, and in you. The human instinct for reciprocity runs deep.

Prioritizing When Everything Is Important

You know that sinking feeling you have when there's too much on your plate? When you try to tackle your tasks by priority, but it feels like everything's important? Don't get overwhelmed—it's a problem that everyone faces at some point or another, and while it's difficult to skillfully juggle multiple priorities and competing responsibilities, it's not impossible. Here's how.

It just so happens that there's a career that focuses specifically on juggling competing tasks and priorities: These people are called project managers. And as luck would have it, I was a full time PM for many years, PMP-certified and everything. In that time, I learned a number of helpful tricks that can help you manage your workload at the office as well as your ever-growing list of to-dos at home, with your family, or with your friends. Here's how you can apply some of those techniques to your everyday life.

First, Answer the Question: Is Everything Really Important?

Even if everything on your plate is supposed to be equally important, you still need a way to break down which ones you spend your time on, and how you slice up your time. The first question you have to get past is whether or not everything really is of equal importance. Here are a couple of tips to help you cut through the fog and get a feel for how important your responsibilities and projects really are.

Ø  Grill the boss. At work, you have a manager. At home, you're your own boss. One of the primary responsibilities of any manager is to help you understand what's important, what's not, and what you should be working on. You may have a manager at the office who does this (or needs your help doing it well), but everywhere else, you're in charge of your own work, and no one's going to tell you that backing up your data is more important right now than painting the house. It's easy to give up and think "it's all important," but at work, you can lean in and tell your boss that you really need their help. At home, sometimes you just have to pick something from your to-do list and get started to build some momentum.

Ø  Ask around. If you're prioritizing tasks that involve other people, like your family, friends, and coworkers, talk to them. Find out from them when they need your help, how much work is backed up behind the things you're working with them on, and if they can lend a hand. If they don't need you for another week and someone else needs you tomorrow, or if they aren't as busy as you are, you know what to do.

Ø  Work backwards. We'll get into this a little more later, but you probably have an idea of when each of your tasks are due—or at least when you'd like them done by—and how much time is required to work on each item. Start with the due dates, take into account how much effort you need to put into each one and how much input you need from others, and work backwards to find out what you should be working on right now (or what you should have already started, in some cases).

Ø  Cover Your A**. Finally, once you've taken some time to determine what's really important and arranged them based on what you think you should tackle first, it's time to put it in writing and share it with everyone involved. Set expectations with others for when you'll get your work done for them, and set expectations with yourself for when you'll have time to work on your own projects. This is more important in a work setting, but involving others in your non-work to-dos can also keep you—and others—accountable.

Get Organized

In order for your priorities to even matter, you need to have some sort of a personal productivity system in place to which you hold yourself accountable—and in which your priorities will actually matter. If you've got a tried and true system, great.

The goal of your system, whichever you select, is to take away the need for you to waste time deciding what to work on next, even when you have a lot on your plate. I've found that David Allen's GTD framework is one of the most effective methods for me, mostly because it focuses on what you should do now and what your next actions should be, and it emphasizes getting your to-dos out of your head and into some system that will help you work. I've mentioned before that I manage my to-dos in ReQall, but there are plenty of other options, like previously mentioned Wunderlist, or if you work on a team, Asana, a collaborative tool we adore.

Whichever tool and productivity method you choose, dump your to-dos and projects into it as quickly as possible. Make sure it's something you'll actually return to and use frequently, and something that's easy to fit into your workflow, and you'll be successful. In the end, you want something easy to refer to, easy to enter tasks into, and that gives you a great view of all of the balls you have in the air at any time.

 

Behold, The Trinity: Cost, Scope, and Time

When I was a project manager, one of the first things I learned to help me judge which projects were most important or needed the most attention is the "triple constraint," or a triangle with three equilateral sides. Each side represents the cost of the project, the scope of the project, and the time required to complete the project. None of the sides can be adjusted without making changes to the other two sides. The sides you're weakest in help determine the projects that need special attention. This holds true for all things, not just projects and project managers: If someone heaps more work onto you (scope), but insists that you finish in the same amount of time (time), you'll need more resources (cost) to get the job done.

For example, if you want to paint the spare room in time for out-of-town guests to stay over, you can't change the size of the job (scope), but you can control whether you buckle down and do it yourself overnight (time), or get someone else to do it for you while you do something else (cost). Here's how you can use these three principles to organize your everyday to-dos.

Ø  Time: Work Backwards From Your Deadlines. Time is usually the one variable most of us can't change. Deadlines are deadlines, and often we're not the ones who set them. This is where working backwards from due dates is crucial. Start a spreadsheet, and mark down when each project or task on your plate needs to be finished. Then work backwards to the present day, taking into account everything each specific to-do that needs to be done to get from here to there, and how long it takes to complete. When you're finished, you'll likely see a bunch of tasks that should have started already and others that hopefully won't start for a while if you're going to make the deadline. That list, by itself, is a good indicator of what your priorities are, what you should be working on right now, what you should work on next, and perhaps most importantly, what you should get help with—especially if they're tasks that should have started a week ago.

Ø  Cost: Get Help from Family, Friends, and Coworkers. Cost means more than just dollars. It also means people who can help you, or services you can call to give you a hand or take the load off. Could you finish faster if someone else worked on it for you? What if a teammate could take part of the job off your hands and you could pick it up later? Perhaps there's a program or application that can automate the process for you, and it's pretty cheap. It may be worth spending money or dragging in friends to help you finish renovating the kitchen before you run out of vacation days, or calling someone to install your new washing machine so you don't have to take time off to do it.

Ø  Scope: Don't Be Afraid to Make Compromises. If your to-dos have to be done by a certain time and you can't get help, it's time to sit down with the people waiting on you and start making some deals. Let them know what you can deliver by when, and then go on to explain what you can give them later. This is important, because it sends the message that you're not trying to avoid the work you have to do, but you're trying to give them something now that they can use while you keep working in the background to get them everything else on their wish list. The sooner you stop thinking of your to-dos in terms of all-or-nothing, the sooner you'll have the flexibility to say "I'll give you this tomorrow if you give me a week to give you the rest."

Delegate, Delegate, Delegate

It's easy for us to toil away in obscurity, quietly hating our lives and our jobs and growing more frustrated with every passing minute. All the while, there may be a friend who's willing to help if we had only asked, or a boss who would be willing to help you out if you asked the right questions or gave them the right information.

We've talked about how difficult it can be to delegate, and how to delegate effectively in the past, but however you go about it, it's important to remember that you need to be assertive, not aggressive when asking for help, and you need to make your case with all of the data you have available. By now, you should have your priorities laid out and you have a good idea what you need. Use that information to ask for help and prove you need it, and remember, don't be upset if your friends, boss, or coworkers say no.

Buckle Up, It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride

Using this method to set your own priorities and keep track of your own responsibilities isn't just something you should do when you're starting to feel overwhelmed. If the walls are closing in on you, yes, it's definitely time to take a good, hard look at what's on your plate, what can come off, and what has to give, but waiting until you're already busy and stressed out will make it especially difficult to make the changes you need to get your head above water. Even so, it's essential, and once you do it you'll never look back. Hopefully, you can apply these tricks to your work, at home, and in your day-to-day life. Once you really understand what you have to work on and how long it takes, you'll be able to make smart decisions about whether you can take on that big new project at work, or help your best friend plan their bachelor party.

Conflict Resolution with Colleagues

One of the most stressful situations to face in the workplace is a conflict with a co-worker. Whether it’s a long-standing feud that you can’t even recall how it began or a recent spat that has made work tense and miserable for you, not getting along in a civil manner with colleagues is often painful.

You may wrestle with how to resolve the conflict. Or, maybe you consider not doing a thing – it wasn’t your fault, after all! The other person needs to apologize, you think.

But while you wage an internal debate about what to do, the situation may only get worse. Your conflict may make other colleagues feel as if they’re being forced to choose sides, or your boss may become irritated you can’t get along with others. The result is that an unresolved conflict can hurt your career, not to mention the tension that can bring on physical ailments such as headaches and sleepless nights.

Steps to Resolve Conflict with a Colleague

There are several steps you can take to try and resolve the conflict or at least keep it from wrecking your career. Consider:

Ø  Communicating like a grown up. No hiding behind email or texts. Emails and texts can be misinterpreted and certainly don’t convey sincerity or instill trust. Meet with the person privately in a face-to-face conversation.

Ø  Not expecting miracles.  Even if you get some issues out in the open, your negative feelings aren’t going to disappear overnight and that may be true for the other person as well. The old adage about time healing all wounds should be heeded – give yourself time to get past the experience.

Ø  Finding the value. You may believe the only thing you have gotten from the experience is an annoying eye tick, but conflict can help you grow. Take the time to consider what led to the conflict and the role you played. Is this kind of conflict something that has happened more than once? Could you take some steps to avoid it in the future by changing your behavior or strategy?

Ø  Keeping your perspective. From the time you were a child, conflict has been a part of your life whether you were fighting over a toy with a sibling or arguing with a parent about curfew. Any conflict at work is just that – another conflict. Don’t let it overwhelm your life so that you carry it with you and start arguing with family or friends.

Ø  Forgiving yourself. Sometimes you can’t let go of a conflict because you keep replaying it over and over in your mind, thinking of all the things you should have said or done. But you cannot change the past, so learn to forgive yourself and let go.

How to Stay Upbeat After a Conflict

Once you have gotten past the conflict, you may still find yourself struggling to remain upbeat or not be sucked back into another bad situation. If you’re looking to stay out of such struggles, try:

Ø  Avoiding the Debbie Downers. There are sometimes certain colleagues who are forever in a dismal place, and want others to join them. Limit your interactions with such people because their negativity can be just as contagious as the flu.

Ø  Starting a new pattern. Recent political ads often were negative, and you may have learned to avoid the candidate robo-calls or the hateful television ads. You can do the same now by avoiding the negative messages that others still like to spew. Try to get a daily dose of stories about people doing good works to help keep your view more positive.

Ø  Stepping carefully into social media conversations. It can be fun to connect with friends via Twitter or Facebook, but avoid snarky interactions with strangers. It can only make you feel isolated and negative when you engage in a tit-for-tat conversation about the breakup of Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber, for example.

Ø  Taking down time. Know your limits and when you need to turn off your cellphone or computer. Don’t push yourself so much that you’re headed for burnout. Instead, find something fun that you enjoy and consider that as important in your health routine as eating well and exercising.

Creating a team identity

Creating a team identity is a great way to improve employee performance and help your business thrive.  Many business owners learn this the hard way; some never learn it at all!

If your team doesn’t naturally gel then it’s up to you to make it happen.

If you’ve ever worked in a project team there will almost certainly been a common goal – the project.  Forming a business team (especially in a small business) is much harder as the goal (shared vision) isn’t always clear.

Companies with a shared vision always seem to do well – think Google, Amazon, Apple).  It encourages people to overcome problems they may encounter along the way.

The following tips can help clarify your business/teams purpose, so use them to encourage team members to support each other and join forces to achieve the goal.

1. What’s the vision? 

Work with your team to set the destination.  This will get everyone looking in the right direction. Those members can understand and support.

2. Understand the working relationships

Who does what in the team (job descriptions) and understand each other’s work styles.

3. Agree the ground rules

You should develop its own work procedures.  Don’t let people slip into a thermal way of working as it not be right for the team.

4. Clarify each person’s authority

Clarify who has authority over what and how independent they can be.

5. Help people get along

It probably won’t just happen on its own. Your team members need to establish norms that they feel comfortable with and you will need to be mindful enough to anticipate issues.

6. Whose in control? 

Most teams have to have someone in control. If it’s your business then it should probably be you but keep an open mind.  This person is the organiser who keeps everyone focused on the destination.

Obviously this six point guide isn’t going to give you everything you need to know about creating a team but it will get you started!

10 Ways to get your colleagues to work with you better

One of the most important hiring criteria for many companies is the ability to work as a team player—yet, so many of us have colleagues who don’t play well with others.

“If you have one bad apple in the bunch, it can really hurt the morale and enthusiasm of an entire department,” says Andy Teach, a corporate veteran and author of From Graduation to Corporation: The Practical Guide to Climbing the Corporate Ladder One Rung at a Time.

“A department, or company, that works well together, has the most success together. When you enjoy working with your colleagues and look forward to interacting with them, everyone benefits.”

Working with other team members whom you have a great work relationship with can actually make work fun, he says. “Morale is high, which leads to better productivity, which leads to better results.”

Skip Weisman, a leadership and workplace communication expert, agrees. “A high-morale work environment will always produce more than a low-morale work environment.”

When people care about the people they work with, things get done faster, he says.

“People will go the extra mile; they will take ownership of a job, a decision or problem and work through it without feeling like they have to go up the chain to get things done.”

Another benefit of colleagues working well together: Information flows more freely, says David Parnell, a legal consultant, communication coach and author.

“In addition, the group’s well being and success become more of a priority;  patience, generosity and a gravitation toward interaction grows; and good moods and dynamic information beget better moods and even more dynamic information,” he says.

“All of this conspires to create a more balanced, functional, aggressive and successful company.”

So, what happens when colleagues don’t work well together?

Parnell says time and cognitive bandwidth is wasted “exercising restraint, measuring words and otherwise forcing hands to play nicely in the sandbox.”

The outcome is shoddy workmanship, pushed or missed deadlines and severe lacerations to the company culture or your group’s sub-culture.

“If you don’t look forward to working with a particular colleague or colleagues, guess what? Your enthusiasm suffers, your morale suffers, and ultimately, productivity suffers,” Teach adds.

Deborah Shane, a career author, featured writer, speaker, and media and marketing consultant, adds that a bad workplace relationship creates negative energy, which can affect everyone on the team, as well as customers or clients.

It can also cause employee turnover, which “interrupts building and creating a strong, unified team.” Finally, she says, “conflict fosters cliques and factions within a team that always works against it.”

If you want to get your colleagues to work with you better, here’s what you can do:

1 Make teamwork a priority by making it part of the performance management system. 

This begins with performance expectations when someone joins the organization, Weisman says.  

“I was speaking with a prospective client last summer who was complaining about this very thing–that their people were not working well together–so I asked her, ‘Well, do you assess their contribution to teamwork as part of your annual performance review process?’

She looked at me like a deer in headlights and responded as if it was a master stroke of genius.” If you don’t measure it and give people the expectation at the very beginning of their role with the organization, it will not be seen as priority.

2 Pinpoint the issue. 

“Explore your feelings and behavior toward your colleagues,” says Parnell. “Social and professional relationships are inextricably symbiotic and interactive, and much of the communication that occurs is both subconscious and reactive.”

If your colleagues seem to be difficult, they may actually be reacting to the signals you are giving off – whether consciously or unconsciously.

While this might be a bitter pill to swallow, you may be the very root of the problem and the first step toward recovery is discovering this.

3 Do not complain to management. 

“Mommy, mommy! Jimmy isn’t being nice!” isn’t going to cut it here. In fact, it will just make things worse. “Going over someone’s head to leverage them with authority is the best way to gain faux cooperation that is backed by insidious, Machiavellian game play,” Parnell says.

“Take whatever steps are necessary to remedy your situation first, and only turn to management as the last resort.”

4 Ask for advice. 

Again, you don’t want to go to your boss or upper management to complain about a co-worker, but you can ask your supervisor for advice on how to improve your work relationships.

“They will certainly appreciate the fact that you came to them first because you want to improve the team dynamic,” Teach says. “This will help your supervisor see that you are truly a team player.”

5 Communicate directly with them.

“I think that this is perhaps the most important factor when it comes to improving a work relationship,” Teach says. “It’s totally understandable why you and a co-worker don’t work well together but the onus is on you to improve the situation.”

If you complain to your boss, he or she will most likely just ask you to speak directly with your co-worker to try to improve the situation. So instead, ask your co-worker if they have some time to speak with you, maybe at the end of the day once all of your projects are completed.

Just state your feelings in a non-accusatory way, tell your co-worker that you’d really like it if you can help each other in the future and work better together, and ask them what you can do to make this happen.

“It’s possible that they are not even aware of their shortcomings or perhaps they don’t realize that there is a problem between the two of you so hopefully they will appreciate the fact that you are bringing this to their attention,” Teach says.

Parnell agrees. “I know this may be a cliché, but you should address the problem head on. If someone seems to be abrasive or even combative, relay your concerns to them and ask if there is something you can do to help.”

It is uncomfortable, potentially embarrassing, and certainly not the easiest route; it is, however, the most effective, he says.

6 Engage the law of reciprocity. 

“If you happily help people first, others automatically will feel a sense of obligation to return the favor,” Weisman says.

When you have an extra free minute or two ask your co-workers if they need help with anything, or engage in another act of kindness. Maybe your colleagues will reciprocate, and thus improve the way you work together.

7 Give your co-worker an incentive. 

You may present your case to a colleague as to why they need to work better with you–but without an incentive, they may not be accommodating, Teach says.

Explain to them that by improving the work relationship between both of you, they will have more support from you, they will enjoy their work more, and they will get better results. 

Tell them that this can potentially lead to more appreciation and recognition from upper management, which hopefully will lead to a promotion and raise down the line—and that by not working well together, this scenario will be more difficult to achieve.

8 Celebrate and reward great teamwork. 

Unfortunately, most employees won’t go out of their way to work well with others, unless there’s something in it for them, Weisman says.

If you’ve already explained to your co-worker how they can benefit from working with you better, and he or she still isn’t doing it, talk to your boss about implementing some type of rewards or recognition program.

Shane believes employers should acknowledge workers regularly for their team efforts and loyalty, both in private and to the entire team.

“Set up a ‘Team Player of the Month Award’ that the team votes on and reward that person with a dinner out, gift certificate or cash,” she suggests.

This should help motivate your colleagues to be better team players.

9 Go out to lunch or for a drink. 

When colleagues don’t get along or don’t work well together, it simply might be that they don’t really know each other, Teach explains. The best way to get to know a co-worker better is to spend some time with them away from the office.

“Offer to take them out to lunch and just chat with them as an equal,” he says. You can also ask to meet them after work for a drink, when he or she might be more relaxed and perhaps not as cautious when it comes to discussing your relationship.

Use the time to find out what you have in common outside of work.

“Of course, use your social barometer to monitor the depth of your plumb, but dig deeper and add some foundation to your relationship,” Parnell adds.

10 Find out their challenges and obstacles. 

Don’t always assume that the reason why a co-worker doesn’t work well with you is because it’s personal, Teach says. It may be that they don’t have the aptitude for the job or don’t have the training necessary to do a great job.

“If this is the case, offer to train them or to help them in any way. They will see you in a new light; as an asset and not a liability.”