Mental Health week

Over the last few years talking about mental health has been more prominent, which was quite helped by having major celebrities opening up about it. For instance I recommend James Arthur’s documentary on BBC – Out of our minds (you need tv license for this). I found it really relevant as it’s from a male’s perspective and unfortunately there is an internalized stigma in relation to talking about any mental health issues. Men don’t cry, men do men up but it’s a narrative that it’s been pretty harmful over the years.

Like we have physical health, mental health is even more important because if the mind is not in the right state it can trigger a series of physical issues later on for many reasons:

• If your mind is not in the right place you will start having unhealthy behaviours, like struggling to sleep, not eating well, not exercising
• Any increased stress will trigger your fight or flight response, which if sustained for longer periods of time – say over the years – it will start to impact your organs (good article here)
• It will lower your immune system given the above and make you more prone to catch any viral / bacterial infections that might be going around
• If anything happens to you, you will be weaker to fight back and raise back up

So overall, it’s a pretty good deal! It is important and there should be absolutely no shame in talking about it. As Brene Brown says, dare to lead from a place of vulnerability.

What it means from a leadership perspective?

I’m sorry but it’s far more than a few random yoga days in the office and the odd newsletter here and there. Without empathy you will loose your employees, or in a different way, if they don’t bring their best self to work because they are overworked and exhausted, I doubt they will be able to drive ROI to your shareholders. As it seems that all that matters these days is the return for the shareholders, well here’s one that is worth keeping an eye on.

If word comes out, it would become a reputational risk, both your clients, investors and future talent would avoid working with you and instead they will find a similar company where they know mental health is engrained in the culture and not just something which is “promoted” just to tick a box. Depending on the industry there could even be a regulatory board that could investigate you and fine you for it.

And don’t get me started on the “pizza rewards”. No, pizza won’t cut it for compensating employees for working many weekends in a row and crazy hours. If you want to reward your team, protect them and do all you can to avoid having people overworked.

Like any relationship, if they feel their leadership has their back and they can be their best self, they will do amazing & innovative things which will help you be at the front edge of innovation.

And keep an eye on this, new generations are seeing the impacts of workism on their parents and they realize that’s not what they want, so to retain the future talent you need to survive in the age of AI, you really have to rethink how you treat your employees. They are an asset not a liability. It’s all in your hands to turn around that balance sheet.

What can you do as a leader or line manager?

Every single person who is responsible for someone in the organization has a role to play. Even colleagues play a role here. Be humble and dare to be vulnerable. Here’s an example, during covid times there was a point where both my personal circunstances and work led me too close to burnout. I just didn’t had the energy to carry on as I was. So what did I do? I called my line manager and explained the situation, I told him I just needed a few days to reset and be back stronger. My line manager didn’t even blink, he had my back and I knew it was genuine.

What did I do next? I didn’t just setup the usual OOO, I spoke with my team. On our team meeting I told them I would be away because I wasn’t feeling well mentally and I really needed some time off to reset and breathe. It was important to me that my team saw my example (as their line manager) talking about it and saying it’s ok, it happens to all of us. It doesn’t make me any week, just makes me human. I asked them to look out after each other, if they see anyone too stressed out, to have their backs. To date, they are still an amazing team that support each other and feel happy to be there.

So a moment of vulnerability became a moment of strenght and a moment I am extremely proud of. Can you imagine how powerful this could be if every single person was brave enough to be vulnerable and say I don’t feel great (no need to disclose the why, it’s up to you) so I’m going to take care of myself. Especially if it’s someone above you. Until you walk the walk all you say is a bunch of empty words. If you really want to make a difference – and we all have the power to do so – dare to be humble, to listen, to be vulnerable.

On the other side of the coin, I had someone coming to me very close to burnout (similar situation as mine, where it was a time of too much work and problems at home). I did sit down with the person and asked him to take all the time he needed, that I would find someone to do the critical items he was doing so that he could focus on himself (it’s up to you as a line manager to ensure you have a contigency plan to cover if anyone in the team is sick or needs to take unexpected time off). Being prepared to listen and offer a plan that would help him made a difference. I couldn’t use a coach stance here (if you want to learn more about the coaching stances check here) and let him figure it out, because the most important thing was to be sure he knew I had his back and at least he wouldn’t need to worry about work.

What you can do as an employee

The most important point is awareness. You need to be aware of the state in your mind and recognize the early signs that you need to change direction. Don’t ignore them as it will be easier to recover the earlier you start (like any physical illness too). There are some expected signs – for instance check here but each person is different, so you need to be able to recognize what your ones are.

Prevention – You won’t be able to prevent everything, life is unexpected so even for those who are mentally fit, there could be a big rock on the road that makes us all stumble. However, what is in your control take care of yourself.

• Establish and protect your boundaries – I wrote about it in the power of saying no.
• Exercise – exercise has the obvious physical benefits but it’s also amazing for the mind and a great form of self care. A lot of people have an allergic reaction to the word exercise because we would typically link it with hitting the gymn for hours. It doesn’t have to. Just find your groove and get moving. From a mental health perspective, going for a walk in your favourite part can be more beneficial that spending 1h in a close gymn. Go for a dance with a friend, or a swim in the ocean. Find what works for you and keep it going.
• Food – Again another form of self care that also impacts your physical health. You don’t need to be a trained chef to prepare food which is good for you. Eat the rainbow, add some seasonal veggies with protein and keep it going. I would say the best way to ensure you eat well is to take the time to plan in advance and do the shopping in line with that plan. The worst is really on a busy mid-week day having to think what to eat, however if you already took the time to think about it beforehand it should be a lot easier. There are many youtubes and recipe websites which you can reach out for inspiration. Doesn’t have to be exotic. Go to your local shop (or online) and buy fresh / frozen raw ingredients and get going.
• Rest – So underrated, but rest is key. Find opportunities to rest on a day to day perspective. Some might want a power nap (I’m not good at those), a 20m reading a nice book by the window to decompress. Whatever it is, block in your calendar a moment to let your mind rest.
• Sleep – A good night sleep is a superpower, it’s the best medicine you can give your body and mind. Protect your sleep as if it’s sacred because it really is! If your kids wake up at 05 in the morning, then go to bed as early as you can. Maxime your changes for sleep, even if that means the kitchen is a mess or there are things that weren’t done, but don’t compromise on your sleep. Also try to make it as consistent as you can (wake up and sleep time) as that helps your internal clock to regulate. Avoid heavy meals, alchoohol and sugar which will impact the quality of your sleep. You could read Why we sleep by Matthew Walker for some inspiration.
• Talk about it – Finally, reach out to a close friend, your family, a work bestie or even a charity – like https://www.mind.org.uk/ . Don’t think you have to face it alone, so many others are struggling to. It’s ok not to feel ok, it’s ok and encouraged to reach out for help. Who knows, once you get back up in your feet you might be in a position to help others going through the same as you just did. The more people talk about it, the less lonely others will feel and that in itself is a great step towards better mental health.

Any other ideas you would like to share? Feel free to reach out 🙂

Lets talk micromanagement

I HATE IT!

Seriously, I hate micromanagement with all my heart. I hate micromanaging because I just hate for that to be done to me. Over the years I have been lucky to be trusted and not being micromanaged. If there’s a toxic trait that leads to burnout it has to be micromanagement. It’s even worse than a 5 year old asking when the snacks are coming every 1 second.

What is micromanagement?

Most of us will be familiar with it already and have faced it at some stage or another.

Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary defines micromanagement as “manage[ment] especially with excessive control or attention to details”.

In essence, you are being controlled all the time and have no space to even utilise your skills. Over time being micromanaged will lead to burnout. Even kids hate being micromanaged, why do you think they throw tantrums? When you feel you have no control over what you do, your brain just goes crazy and wants to throw everything on the floor and call it quits. Whereas as a kid you can do it, as a professional you end up bottling it up until you either quit or burnout.

Where does micromanagement come from?

It comes from lack of trust. You don’t trust your team so you are on them all the time. Mostly this comes to the fact that you don’t trust yourself, so you pass that mistrust onto others. In order to confirm you still have power, you need to FEEL in control and be on top of others all the time. It feels good for a micromanager to show that he/she has power.

Lets dig deeper:

• Impostor syndrome – If you don’t believe you deserve where you are, you will be more obsessed with control, hence you will try to control every step your team does leading to micromanagement.
• Seeking power – By controlling your team you are telling them you are the one in control, in power, and that feels good. If there are other situations in your life you don’t have control (e.g. your family situation for instance) it will feel like at least you can control something: your team.
• You don’t trust yourself – If deep inside you don’t trust yourself, how can you expect to trust others?
• Perfeccionists – These struggle to delegate, so you end up being on top of every task you delegated to your team.
• Fear of losing control – You want to be seen by those above you that you are in control, so you feel the need to control every move of your team and be in copy of every single email. Again here also comes from a trust perspective.
• You are being micromanaged yourself – Micromanagement promotes more micromanagement. If your own boss is being micromanagements, the odds are that “style” will be cascaded down.

Impact on the team

Micromanagement leads to a toxic environment where no one trusts one another. By just following orders the team will shut down their own thinking – there’s no incentive to be creative, to bring ideas to the table because they know they won’t be heard. Micromanagement promotes a culture of “shut-down”, you don’t want to be in the fire line and do just the bare minimum without ever suggesting anything different. You just do what you are told.

Eventually the environment will be so toxic that people will either burn out or leave.

Some people actually need “some” micromanagement

Something I can’t comprehend, but some people have been so  ingrained in being told what to do, they can’t cope with the freedom of articulating how to deliver a given piece of work and they expect all the tasks to be spoon fed. I have had people in the team that operate like that. It’s just very time consuming and not the way I like to operate.

What can you do instead?

If you are resorting to micromanagement to manage your team I would step back and try to assess where that is coming from. If you don’t trust them, then you shouldn’t work with them. If you don’t trust yourself then try to understand why and where is that coming from.

I know a lot of managers struggle with this, just because you have amazing productivity working by yourself, doesn’t mean you will have all the required skills to be a leader. Some people are just amazing SME’s or decision makers but not necessarily good at managing people – well I would go as far as they shouldn’t even be in a position where they have to manage people.

Let me tell you a secret: if your team shines, you shine stronger. Empower your team and they will raise you up too! (this is what micromanagers believe they are doing but end up getting the exact opposite).

In order to be a true leader you need to:

• Trust your team – If they are there it’s because they are meant to be experts in their areas. Listen to them, you might develop yourself. You don’t need to know every single step they are doing, this is why they are there. You just need to ensure they have the right guidance from you in terms of what the goals are and you help them remove any roadblocks they might face along the way.
• Empower them – Once you shared the goals with them, listen to what they have to say and their ideas to meet those goals or even augment them. If you give them the right tools you will be surprised on how far they go. Let them shine as you will shine brighter yourself too.
• Have their backs – And they will have yours. People will tend to go above and beyond when they feel they are protected and their manager is there for them. Don’t believe me? Give it and go and see for yourself.
• Guide them – Help them reach the answers they seek, propose other people they could go and speak to and in essence let them grow. How amazing is it to work for a team that looks up for you and wants to deliver the very best for you?

If there’s someone that despite all the above doesn’t work, then have the right discussions and either that person would be better off working on another team or just leaving altogether.

At the end of the day, whereas work is just work, having the right manager will be the one thing that makes or breaks. If you empower others, they will be the very best and trust you to share bad news because they know together you will find solutions and move on. Everyone will want to work with you and they will help you go where you want to go and that is where great work gets done.

The power of saying No

Ah No! That little word we learn around when we are 2 years old and are told by our parents that we are just a terrible 2.

Yet it’s such a powerful word despite having negative connotations and one we need to re-learn how to use all over again. Go in front of the mirror and practice with me: No. Not a but, not a maybe, just a No.

But why is it so hard to say no?

Let’s face it, we are people pleasers. We evolved by being next to others, having each others backs against predators or other enemies. Belonging to a community was part of our survival, it’s wired in our brains. So it’s not easy. Worst of them all is to say no when everyone around you says yes.

Say you get a request on a friday night to work over the weekend, if the first person of the team says yes, that’s it, the rest of you will feel cornered into pulling one for the team. You don’t want to be the one saying no, unless it’s something really major like a family funeral or your kids birthday. All of you will be upset about it, because who loves being called last minute to work when you were planning to rest? Even if you had no plans at all, well there’s one you didn’t had: work!

We avoid hard conversations – and that includes saying no – because we don’t like conflict. It’s not comfortable and we want to belong. Many of us all assume – with some evidence – that if you say no you are limiting yourself in your career growth. What if it’s not quite like that? What if you might end up being respected for it?

Establishing boundaries

The first step is to recognize what your boundaries are. What are your non compromisable slots / actions? Is it that you want to take the kids to school or want to start your day with some exercise? Or rather that after 17h30 you really need to spend time with your family, cook dinner and eventually unwind yourself? Just identify what those are and a) add them in your calendar and b) communicate to those that could impact them what they are.

The more specific you are the better, e.g. every weekday I want to run from 07h to 08h and that includes any prep time before / after running. Or maybe it’s not every day and just tuesdays and thursdays.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

Trust me, you cannot rely on common sense for people to know what your boundaries are. I guess whereas everyone can accept that being called at 03a.m, 07a.m might be ok for some but not for others. So the key here is to communicate. Be as clear and assertive as you can regarding your boundaries. This is valid with your family, friends and at work too.

Work wise, this would be a really good topic for your 1 on 1 with your line manager. If you don’t have them, then start to schedule them. If you receive requests which you don’t like, the fault is not only on the requestor but also on you for not making it clear what’s acceptable and what’s not. Most companies will have a code of conduct, and in some countries even specific laws (like in France, where it’s against the law to call employees after hours (here) – we seriously have a lot to learn from them). But as we are all unique, so our boundaries. So if you want to avoid disappointment and high levels of stress I would make them all clear.

I would go as far as also share them with your colleagues, in the coffee break you can say how taking your kids to school really makes you happy and it’s a non compromisable slot for you, or playing football with your friends thursday night. If you are willing to share them, you will find others will too, in turn making it easier for you guys to protect each other. Ah I won’t book that call with Steve as it’s thursday and he’s going to football, lets do friday morning instead.

Don’t be afraid to say No

For every yes you say, it’s a sequence of No’s you are saying. If you stay late in the office you will miss dinner with your family and your rest. Is it something you are willing to “sacrifice”? Yes it’s nice to say yes to people, it feels good as just discussed but how bad does it feel when you compromise your boundaries and over time, might end up with burnout due to saying yeses to everyone but to yourself?

So don’t be afraid to say no.

Say No is one of the best tools for self-care. Is it against one of your boundaries? Then say No. If you’ve invested the time in communicating what is not compromisable, then saying no should be a lot easier. Yes there might be the odd exception when you might end up saying yes, but it can’t be the rule.

Someone who has the courage to say no will be respected, because we ALL struggle with it after all. Your line manager has the same problem too, believe me. We all do. So if you say no and it’s clear you are doing so to protect your boundaries, you will be respected. If they still argue that you have to do x, y and z and don’t respect you, then it’s really time for you to find some other place. Most people though, would understand and be able to find a compromise somewhere.

I have to admit I’m really with Gen Z on this one. We just keep on saying yes again and again, and in turn we are boiling like our friend the frog in the pan. It’s hard, it’s itchy but if you don’t protect yourself no one will. There will always more work, more to do’s that demand your time and attention. How much are you willing to sacrifice from your mental health just so you don’t have to say no?

I do believe in the power of every single no. It will protect you and others will be encourage to do the same. Maybe it will shift organizations to understand that we are not robots and if they expect excellence and delivery they have to respect the employees too. If you are exhausted and in burnout you cannot give your best self nor resolve problems. You might break to the point of no return and might not even get a thank you back. So yes give your best, feel proud of your achievements every day but don’t forget to take care of yourself, even if that means using a good old fashioned: NO.

Great Expectations

How great expectations are leading to great disappointment and it’s all our fault.

Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with the book from Charles Dickens (or maybe it does).

Let’s face it, we live in a world with unprecedently great expectations. Everyone expects something out of you, you expect a great deal of those around you and on yourself as well. With all the technology around us, we just expect more more and more.

You are expected to be a great parent, the best employee your company can have, the best partner at home and be extremely fit – both physically and mentally. Although we always had expectations – it’s part of being human after all – the imbalance started to come when suddendly work expectations just kept on growing as if not even the sky is a limit.

In a post-covid world, companies got hooked to the long hours we were doing when working from home while at the same time they started to demand all employees to be back at the office, some the full 5 days others some kind of hybrid in between.

The concept is a lot older really, but did indeed accelerate with technology and the rise of the smart phones. You can have emails and internal messaging 24/7 so you are expected to pick up on those email and messages all the time. Bit by bit we started to do so. We wake up in the morning and check emails and work messages (not just instangrams and tik-toks). In the evening, while you are doing dinner, you end up checking emails too and after dinner might even be back to your desk – now that we all know we can work from home – and continue just to catch up on a few things.

Then weekend comes and because the week was so crazy we end up doing some work over the week too. What was meant to be just a quick scroll through the emails and to dos, easily becomes a few hours which are not eating from your personal and rest time. Little by little we do more and more.

This keeps getting encouraged when celebrating success at your organisation. How many individual or team awards will contain something in the lines of: “This team or individual worked weekends and really long hours to get this work done! Amazing, well done!”. I can’t but roll my eyes at this as I know it keeps on fueling the expectation that we need to carry on to do more.

If you see your whole team logging late and sending emails over the weekend you will end up – unconsciously – feeling guilty and also wanting to be there for the team. But the more everyone does, the more management expects you to do.

The reward for good work is always more work.

Now breaking news, it’s all our fault as well.

Gen Z has a point here (Good summary from Deloitte on Gen Z here). All other generations believe they are lazy, spoiled and don’t want to commit to anything. But what if they have a point? They want to do meaningful work and want to feel connected and don’t seem to be willing to accept workism. I say they do have a point and we should try to see the world from their point of view.

If we all continue to fueling the constant rising expectations how can we expect they will become realistic? It’s everyone’s role to bring them down to earth.

Protect your boundaries

We all have the same 24h, but if you want to avoid burnout or end up consumed by work (workism) then you have to protect your boundaries. Yes there will be cases where indeed you have to do more work. There are major milestones and it’s really critical you are there. But then you need to be able to step down when it’s no longer critical.

A lot of the work that comes late – including requests to work late evenings and weekends – comes down to bad planning. If we don’t challenge those asks, the people responsible for articulate the plans will never step back and revisit what they are doing, they will just continue to use your personal time (and all your team’s time) as contigency to get work done.

Always start by asking: is this really critical? Is someone dying? Will the organization go down or could this result in a major reputational risk? Or does it come down to someone doing bad planning and now you don’t want to say no to the leadership team? If it’s the latter, I’m afraid to say it, but step up to your mistakes. A lot comes due to missing communications between those responsible for planning and the team actually doing the work.

I would never expect someone to be able to plan everything in isolation, you need the experts to tell you how long it takes. With experience, the ones responsible for planning can judge if the estimates are being conservative or not, but that dialogue needs to exist. Just don’t come and ask for your team to work every weekend (or quite a big number of them).

Don’t be afraid to challenge the asks by having a constructive dialogue with your line manager, you might find both learn quite a lot along the way.

As for the organisation’s point of view – as I’ve written quite often – a well rested brain is more efficient at resolving difficult situations and bringing up creative to either resolve big problems or keep on adding more value to clients and stakeholders alike.

The age of burnout

“Burnout is what happens when you try to avoid being human for too long.” – Michael Gungor

Welcome to the age of burnout

Isn’t it funny that in the age of AI we totally forgot how to be human? Let’s go back to the basics and lets look at the pyramid of the human needs. If work is everything, we start to compromise even the most basic needs. Burnout is a way of your body to tell you to stop and to callibrate yourself before it’s too late.

What is burnout?

Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. Though it’s most often caused by problems at work, it can also appear in other areas of life, such as parenting, caretaking, or romantic relationships. From Psychology today

Why so many of us and at such young ages are getting burnt out?

1 – Social media and the age of “you can have it all”.

Spoiler alert: no you can’t! We all have 24h and as per the basic pyramid of needs, we need rest. The brain doesn’t function properly without proper rest. If you go to bed thinking about work and the kids and all the things you haven’t done, you are not allowing yourself to decompress and actually rest.

We see all this self-made millionaires in silicon valley who advocate just a few hours sleep if you want to be successful. Well, what does success mean to you? If it’s burn out, you are on the right path.

2 – High expectations

Expectations have never been higher than before, not just those from society on you, but those you hold on yourself (oh boy, am I guilty of this one!). You have to be the acing your career, you have to be the best husband / wife, the best parent and attend everything your kids do at school and volunteer at school and in your local community and and and.

I remember my parents going to work and never bringing any work home. They did what was in the contract, no more, no less. Then we were told if you go to university you will get a good job and feel something you feel proud of. We mold our identity on the job title we have. Our ego’s feel amazing about it. You continuously compare yourself to others and your expectations keep on going higher and higher.

3 – The biggest lie of the century: multi-tasking

We have devices all over, 24/7 notifications demanding our attention, at the same time as emails keep on coming at the speed of light, and meetings because we have teams around the globe, and the kids can’t open the cooking jar and your other half doesn’t know where the car keys are. Our brains are not geared for this. If you keep on jumping from one task to the next and back again you are just burning yourself. There is nothing more restorative than a few hours of mindful focus. Focus on 1 thing and get it done. Is this how we function? Hell no.

I could add so many other reasons, so many in fact I could write a whole book about it.

What can we do about it?

Spoiler: The below lines are just a bunch of common sense but I still feel like adding them to remind ourselves.

Just say no

Practice with me: No. Not maybe, No. If your kid wants the 10th chocolate what do you say? No. That’s the no I’m after. No

Say no to everything which is not priority for you. Say no to your boss, say no to your colleagues, say no to your partners, say no to your kids. Prioritize where you say yes. And the first yes you need to use is for yourself. Yes am I going to take care of myself. Yes my rest is priority and I’m going to drop everything else during this slot which is not rest. (I wrote quite a lot about this in the “frog & the pan“)

Let the small fires burn, someone else can deal with them or they will burn and not need any action on them. You might even be more respected for having said No.

If you burn out there is no going back to your old self. What will you get from work? A pat in your back? They will move on without you, but you ruined your life. These days there are some leaders who really believe that the work you do is the reward you seek, that you feel fulfilled in doing what you do. And a lot of us might actually believe it! Remember this, if you get seriously ill there will be no going back.

Find ways to decompress

We are not made to be sitting with our butts for 12h in a row. We need to keep active and in contact with nature. So get out there and go for a quick walk in your local park. Join a class, whatever rocks your boat and works for you! There is a point where the brain is not productive anymore, so you will just be spending more hours to do something you could do in less than 1h if you had a well-rested mind. Stress is also a killer of creativity, which all companies need anyway (I wrote about it here). Find a slot that works for you and use it to restore some energy back in your brain. Book a meeting with yourself and do what you need to do.

Connect with others

We evolved close to others, it’s core to our survival throughout history. So you need to prioritize meaningful connections, either with your family, your friends, or those that you relate to (e.g. common interests). Talk with someone on how you feel, this might help you gain the clarity of mind to understand how deep in a hole you actually are (others might see it more clearly than ourselves).

Be the example you seek

Well someone has to stop it, especially if you have at least 1 person you are responsible for in your job, be the example. Lead with empathy, encourage others to turn off and unplug when they need to unplug and have their back. Wouldn’t it be amazing if at least every 1 person looked after just another person in the company?

Further reading:

Burnout

https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/mental-health-issues/stress/

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/08/a-career-change-saved-my-life-the-people-who-built-better-lives-after-burnout

And before I end, a great video that sums it all.

Killing flexible working?

Swipe back or get fired

The fight has become real and it’s definitely not a stress free one. These are the news we have seen over the last few months

So it seems we have to surrender to the wishes of the big companies and all return to pre-pandemic and be back in the office.

But why are companies demanding employees to be back?

They mostly cite that in-person collaboration is invaluable and it fosters innovation. The reality is, there is probably a political aspect of local governments pushing bigger companies to bring their employees back as it hurts the economic centers and the businesses around them if people work from home.

In my mind there is an aspect of trust too. Let’s face it, for a lot of people they don’t trust what they don’t see and they believe if employees are home they are slacking and not being as productive, even though again and again there are studies that comfirm otherwise.

The impact for the employees

While there are indeed very good reasons to be in the office as a team, to brainstorm together and foster more personal relationships or welcome new joiners into the team, companies have failed to really articulate where it really improves performance.

Working from home ended up blurring the lines between rest and work with many employees struggling to switch off and working much longer hours. Yet it is interesting that despite all of this, the reality is they still prefer to maintain such arrangements. After all flexibility is the key. Being able to make a choice and adapt to the circumstances can be quite invaluable.

However, what they are being told is that if they don’t swipe your card they could be fired (said no motivational speed ever). This adds a lot of unwanted stress, unless you a) prefer to be in the office and b) you actually believe the reasons the company is sharing with you to return.

Sourced from: https://www.usemultiplier.com/blog/empower-employees-to-fight-return-to-office-stresses

The fight back

The reality if employees are not convinced of the ask so they are fighting back. A good summary can be found in this BBC article here

Not even the looming recession or mass layoffs which have been seen in the news the last few months are stopping “the fight”. If you know something works why would you give up on it?

The fight is not new, has just escalated since covid. For years many working parents have tried to get some flexibility to be able to support their families, but it was a long lost battle in which one of the couple (mostly the mum) would give up working to be able to support the kids while the other half would put on all the long hours in the office.

Will be interesting to see how the fight continues and to which extend employees will get united (beyond specific areas where union exists – anyone living in the UK will know of all the strikes we’ve had for more than 1 year). Will they go to the office as asked but then stop adding all those extra hours in the evenings and consequently reducing productivity? Or will they quit and search for places where the flexibility is being offered?

After all, right now we have globalization and the world can be your oyster.

Be careful with what you wish for

As we have seen in several studies, productivity had increased with flexible working and remote working. On average, companies have benefited from increased performance and productivity as the days have become a lot longer even if employees need to do breaks middle of the day (go to the doctor, get the kids from school).

If employees are doing something to tick a box, it won’t certainly make them any more collaborative or innovative, on the contrary. Instead, they will use their commute to search for companies which still offer the flexibility they value. And they will jump out when the opportunity comes.

The companies that will succeed long term, are those that are willing to embrace new ways of working, thinking and collaborating together and are not bound by the rules of the past. Adapt or die.

Further reading

• Time here
• Forbes here
• Multiplier here

Other articles I wrote on the topic

• Leaders of tomorrow
• The great resignation
• Return to the office
• You can’t have it both ways
• I don’t trust you therefore I need to see you
• The future of the office

The AI race – My take on AI

In our generation we had never so much disruption as now.

We had 2020 which no need to describe further, before that we had several economical crises along with global warming and now we have AI. Whereas AI is not new, the exponential growth right now is insane, to the point every single company out there is trying to find ways to incorporate it as part of their business model as it will be a way to deliver even more money to the shareholders.

Have we stopped to think about what it means for our society? No, why would we?

Unlike the nuclear war threat which was controlled within the governments, AI is a private arms race. It’s all about acing the market and making money as fast as possible. Who controls our destiny in this case?

If you know all your competitors are all trying to understand how to use AI to accelerate their business models why wouldn’t you? Of course you will.

The future? Unemployment on the rise

The reality is a lot of us will lose our jobs in a near future, probably faster than we were thinking. From a company private stand point yes it makes sense. Is it ethical? That’s the debate.

All of us will try to scratch our heads to stay afloat on the tip of the iceberg for as long as we can, but the reality is the apples will start to fall without the eco-social infrastructure to support that change.

Are governments ready to support a huge number of unemployment along with the cost of climate disasters? Nop

What it means for our future

When I saw the news that Elon Musk warning about AI (article here) my first reaction was, we’ve lost control clearly, because one thing is for sure, Elon Musk doesn’t care about the impacts to society, so if even he is raising alarm bells it’s because we clearly don’t know what we are doing anymore. For all I know, we are probably all F*.

We have ignored global warming and we are ignoring what this means for us. Could AI be used to improve our lives? Yes it could, but again, it’s more a race to try to make as much money to the individual without thinking about the consequences.

The whole problem comes down to lack of accountability. Who is accountable for when things go wrong? The AI? The people that developed the AI? The company using AI? The ones trying to use AI to exploit us? You can’t even trace it to anyone, so no one is accountable. If no one is accountable, you can do whatever you want without consequences. The incentive to do wrong is huge!

Human connection is gone

If you can’t trust what you see on the screen, is the painting real or not? If someone else can use your voice to their own benefits and purposes, if the person you are speaking over the phone might not be your kid or your mum who can you trust? Even video calls can’t be trusted as using AI you can really become anyone you want. Without trust what have we left in the human connection?

Democracy is dead

Can you imagine Cambridge Analytica powered by AI? Yap, we are f# because I’m sure someone will

We are stupid

We are the only species that will kill each other and our world because we are selfish. It’s very easy to exploit our little stupid brains to someone’s purpose (whoever is using AI to their own benefits). Everyone knows whoever controls AI controls everyone else and the worst is, we are so glued to our phones seeing “cat videos” we won’t even realize we are being controlled. We have been already.

Can we do something?

At the end of the day, AI (at least for now) is a tool that can do anything we ask for it to do, so yes it could do our the world better but that would require the whole world to align and realize we need to think about what we are doing before we kill each other.

Is there any hope that we’ll actually do it? Very little but we are still at the point we can do something about it. Now would really be the time to trigger the emergency button and stop everyone and think through what we want our future to be before we no longer have a say on it.

Also would really help to educate people – but this assumes people want to be educated to understand what it means for them. We can’t look into a specific action or feature, we need to be able to look into at macro level and understand what it really means for our future.

If you want to educate yourself, here’s 2 podcasts to watch

• The AI dilema – Here
• Mo Gawdat – Emergency Episode (here)

Finally, how do you know this post was not written by Chat GPT? Well, probably because an AI would write a lot better than I do. Soon enough human written posts will be a thing in the past. In fact I would say they are already.

You can’t have it both ways

It’s really interesting to realize that the “new world ” we were expecting – a world post covid – looks more and more like old world.

There is a major difference though…. we’ve seen how it could be!

Before covid

Most of us were in the office Mon – Friday with a clear separation of home and office modes. We would leave the office and call it a day.

Some of us had worked the odd Friday from home and it felt amazing, but it was more an exception rather than a rule.

You were expected to be in the office every working day no matter what and going to doctor was something you had to plan months in advance, it felt almost has hard as if you were asking if you could be naked in there.

We didn’t know any other reality

During covid

We suddenly had to work from home full time, from our kitchens, from our sofas, from our beds. We missed our daily commute where we could listen to podcasts, music, catch up with your favourite series or just sleep. It all blurred up.

The number of emails increased like a never ending tsunami.

New joiners would come and leave without meeting anyone in the flesh.

The instant chat was bipping like a disco.

Meetings became the modos operandis. If you need something, book a meeting.

As a consequence, most of us ended up working longer and longer hours. The time spent on cummuting went into working, with the flexibility to take / get the kids to school, take them to their after school clubs or even a change to say hi to the neighbours.

Post Covid Year 1

As covid rules started to ease, it was the age of hybrid working. At the beginning there was quite a lot of freedom. People were encouraged to try to return to the office and for many of us it was pleasent to return back a few days to interact with the colleagues. The coffee chit chat was back, it felt refreshing but also less productive.

Where we stand now

Bit by bit, we are being asked to be there full time. Why? I don’t quite know. The only thing I can think of is because the ones making the decisions don’t know any other way. I struggle to compreenhed why companies can’t embrace flexibility. It works both ways!

You can’t expect your workes to do the same hours they were doing from home AND return more often to the office.

An article from guardian (here) says that more than a third of the workers would quite if they were asked to return full time.

Give me an article that shows that being in the office increases productivity

Yeah I’m waiting…..

No?

Here’s some that shows remote working does:

• Business news daily https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html
• And another here

There’s really good reasons teams should get together in the office – at least once in a while:

• To establish relationships
• To welcome a new joiner – and here I would suggest different team members rotate the days so that the new joiners gets to interact with everyone in the team, get to ask questions and as a consequence learn from different people.
• As I wrote in the future of the office here the office should be it’s own experience, with a valid reason why it makes sense to go. Celebrate success together, team lunch, team brainstorming, you name it.
• I tell you what is not a good reason: To tick a box and because the ones on the top making a decision can’t embrace new ways of thinking.

Why are people reticent to embrace being back in the office more often:

• Because it’s expensive – yeah my friends, it’s expensive to go to work even if you bring your own breakfast, lunch and snacks
• Transport is totally unreliable – As I type, I just discovered there is another train strike next week in the UK with only 1 train an hour in my area. There is no way I would be able to drop / pick the kids from school.
• Because we don’t see the value in it. When I go to the office I want to chit chat to my colleagues, which is the point of going right? But this means I am less productive or sometimes I don’t even get the chance given I’m in the office while in back to back meetings with a remote team all over the world.
• It’s exhausting – the time spending in commuting is no small ask. On a good day it’s a good 2h20 per day lost, which I could have used to sleep and / or work a bit more while having the chance to be more present with my own family.
• No infrastructure – Where do we leave the kids? Let’s face it, costs are going up everywhere, we can’t just simple fund enough after care hours. It’s also not fair on the kids to leave them in after school care until 19h because the parents don’t have a choice. The way I see it, we should embrace decentralization and having smaller centers close to schools and embrace community life.

I’m pretty sure this list could be augumented a lot.

I am curious to see what will happen to the talent pool once they send more applications to companies offering flexibility. I do believe we have the power to strike back and change the paradigm of work. We can work differently, there are other ways, not just the old way.

We need to embrace the leadership skills of tomorrow and not be afraid to do different. We need different, we need better!

@champagnecruze

*Pulls up Linkedin – Which one are you? 😂 #generations #corporate #workhumor #workfromhome #relateable

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey

How to enter the corporate world

In the current competitive world, you can’t wait until you are out of uni or school to think about the labour market. The reality is you need to get in there before you consider applying for your first corporate job (I’m not even calling the 9h to 17h because I don’t think that even exists anymore).

Be ready to think outside the box and rethink how you see yourself and any role you might apply to.

Just having an education isn’t enough, not even if it’s the cream of the cream, the top of the top.

Enter the world of skills. Whereas most generations still perceive a role mostly as a title and experience that comes with it, think of it as the unique skillset you will be building up and that makes you, well you!

If you don’t have any corporate experience yet, how can you grow yourself? Think about any part time or summer jobs you could do. Embrace your inner barista or run the finances for your local football club.

Do you have any hobbie you could monetize? Then go for it.

By the time it comes to send your first cv you need to be able to tell the story of who you are and what you can offer. Think about all of the skillsets you can aquire and will make the difference in an infinite list of cvs.

Focus on the soft skills and adaptability. The skills needed today won’t be the skills needed tomorrow. AI could replace a lot of the known jobs today. The ability to reinvent yourself will bring you the competitive edge that could save your butt tomorrow.

Let’s break this down with some examples

Any public facing role – And I’ll continue using the example of the local barista

You will be learning customer service. Your are dealing with people and having to prioritize work & dealing with pressure: do you clean those dirty tables or do you deal with all the orders right now. Don’t underestimate the bliding need for a coffee on a Monday morning. You need to get as many coffees out as possible. For this to happen, you will have looked into the end to end process of making your favourite brew from order until it’s ready. What can you prepare in advance to ensure the flow goes as smooth as possible and with the less steps needed. This would be process optimization. Handling all the many requests: (1 flat white, 2 sugars, oat milk, followed by a cortado no sugar to a capuccino with steaming hot milk and a customer that is afraid to miss the train while keeping a smile on your face, is dealing with pressure and acing it.

These are skills you will need anywhere you go.

Organizing a local event

This could well be, organizing a celebration for your local club, getting the community together. You will be dealing with many suppliers, negotiating prices (most likely you will be cost sensitive), and ensuring all the different components of the event come together on the day of the event. Drinks are served, people attending are happy, you rented the place, positioned all the bins in place so rubbish collection end of the event is as smooth as it can be.

Running the finances for your local club

You can even do this in a basic spreedsheet, by keeping note of all money coming in and coming out. You will need to be organized and ensuring every cash flow is kept on record so you think ahead of what the club might need – more sponsors? more events so you get further revenue coming in?

Creating a website or a small plugin

Are you good with programing? You can create apps, plugins and websites for other people and already monetize your work. When it comes to sending cvs later you will be able to showcase your portfolio.

These are just a few examples, I’m sure you already have other skills you don’t even realize you can have. Don’t worry about not having done something in a specific role. You will be holding a skillset that is unique to you and could add value on any given role.

Which skills will be key? Well, this is my own view:

• Emotional inteligence – In a world where everything can be replaced, automatized emotional inteligence will continue to be one of the most important skills you can have. If you are able to maintain a cold head and think though any given problem without letting your monkey mind run wild and loose the plot, you will be a step further than most. This is not something – unfortunately – that schools even will teach out and most of the parents won’t be focusing on this either. They both focus on what they can measure, and that will be school grades. Emotional inteligence takes time and patience. It’s keeping those foundational rocks that will eventually become part of who you are. You also need to be aware of the emotions others around you are holding and how certain words could trigger a chain reaction to those around you. (You can read more about it here). It’s one of the core leadership skills for a reason and I would say one which most “leaders” lack.
• Organization – You would be amazed to know how so many people completely lack basic organizational skills. Be it in terms of organizing your own agenda, your shopping list, your life, your calendar, whatever it might be. If you are unable to keep a clear track of what you need to do and where to find what you might need for a given task, you will lose valuable time finding it later. Your mind needs to know where to go instantely for any topic. If you find you are lacking, invest time to get there. Be it organizing your own 1 per 1 lego pieces by colours – so you can find the colour you need when you need it – to keep a diary of the things you are doing and where you are spending your time. Organization has never been at the highest as in recent years. You will be surprised how even home organization is such a thing now with the rise of Marie Kondo.
• Empathy – I wrote about it so many times, so I will keep it short. Those who lack empathy and are unable to read other’s emotions won’t go far. Empathy and emotional inteligence go hand in hand and are really powerful tools. If you want to read what I wrote before check here.
• Ability to learn & focus – This might seem obvious, but you need to have the foundational skills on how to learn anything. Most of us have the attention span of a fish and can’t focus on more than a few seconds on any given task without being distracted (yeah blame it on tik tok). If you are able to focus on your mind on something new and allocate time to keep on getting better and better means you will be able to learn anything. And you really need the ability to repivot and learn anything as new skills will keep on coming all the time. If you want to continue to be relevant, you can’t just rely on the fact you might be really good and some given skills. I do recommend a digital detox once in a while and you will find that you have tons more time than you thought you had to allocate to learning something new. Whatever rocks your boat. The what is even less relevant than the how or the why.

So no matter your age and where you are with life, just focus on the skills of tomorrow and bagging as many relevant one as you can.

Quiet quitting

After the last 1 year ish of great resignation, we are reaching the phase of quiet quitting.

What is quiet quitting?

Well in few words is doing just the bare minimum expected of your role to keep afloat. No more chasing the carrot and no putting of extra hours.

sourced from: https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/slang/what-does-quiet-quitting-mean

Is quiet quitting good or bad?

Well, as everything in life depends on the perspective.

From the employee angle

Again depends on the perspective. What is the reason behind it? Is it to search a more balanced life and be able to focus on other important milestones outside work? I don’t think this would be a bad thing. In fact I do believe we should all search for a more balanced life. In the last few years most of us were unable to really turn off from work as work and home merged together as under the same roof. We tended to work much longer hours and reach a special burnout, where we felt overwhelmed by the whole circunstances, not knowing when it would be allowed or safe to have “normal life” again, plus ending up longer meetings, longer hours. Is it bad to reassess that maybe enough is enough and establish some boundaries? I personally don’t think so.

However, if this is coming from an angle of disappointment in one’s role or career, well not so good. The reality is we need motivation to pack those hours, even the expected 8h. For most of us, there is a really high insecurity about the next few years ahead and don’t even attempt to look into your energy bill. For those that didn’t took advantage of the great resignation now it’s starts to become too late. Too late to risk to go into a new role when security is all that matters: can I pay my mortagage? Can I afford to warm up my house? Can I buy the food we need for the family? In the balance of it all, people will be more willing to face another Monday (or dragging through it) than risk becoming unemployed.

From the companies point of view

Why is your team quiet quitting? Why don’t they feel energized to come to work? Are you giving them opportunities for development and growth? Do you actually care if they succeed? The reality is while there were a lot of people moving about, it’s quite expensive to train new people and get them up to speed. If your existing team on the ground is just ticking the boxes just to go by another day, you will soon enough face a loss in terms of creativity and new ideas which you will need to face upcoming times of uncertainty. The cost of not doing anything will be much higher than try to fix the problems at the source. You might not win the first battle, but you might be able to win the war.

Food for thought

Ultimately I’m a firm believes that most companies would benefit of a good “Marie Kondo” round of decluttering. There are processes and technologies which could be improved, meetings that could be cut. With people returning to the office – at least on a hybrid basis – there is also opportunity to foster those energizing opportunities and get them to think about ways to improve the team’s performance. Leave them room to think and raise their ideas.

Also revisit how accomplishments are being done at your company. Raise your hand if there’s always an element of: “these team was amazing because they worked every single weekend to get this done.”

Why did they had to work on the weekend to get it done? What’s failing? Those are the pressing questions to be asked. It should be: “this team did an amazing job and they managed to logoff at 17h00 to be with their families.”

Whereas some positive stress is needed I think we’ve passed beyond all of that. There is quite something quiet quitting is telling us, and that is perhaps is time to think once and for all how we work together. As leaders you are responsible to ensure you have a healthy team that feels energized to contribute their best ideas for the company to continue to develop. After all, companies are nothing more than a collective of employees, if all of them start to quiet quit there will be no bonus for anyone either. Long term we’re all dead.

Here’s a good article: https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/working-less-more-productive