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.

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

The frog and the pan

If you’ve read my original posts on this space you know I have a good friend, the frog. So this is the story about the frog in the pan and how it has followed me all my working life.

Like the frog, if we are thrown into a pan of boiling water we would jump straight out. We know it’s too much, we know it will kill us immediately.

But, if every day we warm up the pan a little bit, almost unnoticeable, then the frog starts to cook slowly but doesn’t realise as he adapts to the new temperature. The frog will end up cooked but won’t even realise it was time to jump a while back.

We are intelligent people, we think, there’s no way I would allow myself to “cook” (aka burn out). Let me bring you some stats: 79% of the UK workers will end up facing burn out (article here) especially if we consider the environment for more than 2 years. Personal life and office life become blurred and like the frog in the pan we are starting to boil without noticing. Though I do believe we actually notice but we end up without knowing what to do. It’s not so simple to jump out (even though we are in the midst of the great resignation).

Don’t be fooled, change in itself also adds to stress. Will you like your new job? Will you be able to adapt quickly? Will you like your new colleagues? Is it the company for you? What about your boss? Of course all of that would be thought through before you actually say yes but there’s nothing like being there to truly find out what it means for you. Many of us end up preferring to stay “with the evil you know” than jump into the unknown. So you stay.

You try to think about ways you can make the solution better, but before you realise your normal routines kick in and you’re not really changing until you really boil. 

Also there is something else that plays quite a big factor here. In some cases yes you are in the wrong company and your values don’t align with the company, your team could be the worst out there or your boss could be an ass. In those cases, by all means, face the jump and get out.

But… hands up if you believe the enemy is actually yourself. You can keep on changing companies but a few months on and you realise you are exactly following the same patterns of your old company. We are our worst enemy. Having the right boss – and I prefer to say line manager – will keep you grounded and challenge you to think about your ways of working so you can indeed make changes that help you long term. But mostly it’s actually self-inflicted.

• We like to be busy – or put another way – no one likes to say I have a lot of free time. It feels you are doing something wrong, that you are not making enough, that mind you, that you’re not cool because everyone else around you is super busy. It’s addictive. Yes, yes it is.
• Ego – I wrote a few times already but ego plays a big unconscious role. You compare yourself, you want to come out on top even if that means working until you boil.
• We don’t have enough examples when we start that show us there is another way. That if you work just smarter and focus on your priorities – without jeopardising your health and your valued relationships that you can still be successful. That feels unachievable, so you follow all the examples you see. 

The scary part is, all of what’s driving you to boil – or most of it – is unconscious. It’s routine, it’s in your working DNA.

It will require a lot of strength to break the cycle and implement incremental changes that will lower the temperature of your pan.

Before I dive into what can be done. I will quote something my husband keeps on repeating to me as a mantra:

“My boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, this is why I poop on company time.”

Maybe it’s a bit extreme, but there’s something to think about for sure.

At the end of the day, work is just work. It’s in your hands to make it more enjoyable and bearable. 

So what can you do?

• Learn to say no. Not just to others, but to yourself too. Every yes you say, it’s a lot of no’s you are also saying. If I accept this, it means I can’t have dinner with my family. It means I won’t have time to exercise. You get the picture. Saying no is hard. It is (unless your kids are asking you for the 1000th snack in the last 5 minutes). It requires practice. You can start with small steps. Say no to peers who ask your help and when you believe that will jeopardise your goals for the day. Then start by accessing your “yeses” and thinking about what you will lose in that time slot. Can you really fit it in your day? 
• Start your day by writing down your priorities. That’s to write, your top 3 things you really need to achieve that day which can be both work or personal. You need to have something measurable at the end of the day.
• Protect your calendar – I wrote at length here (show your calendar who’s the boss) but now you know what are your priorities you need to find slots for them. Ideally they would be done in the morning when your brain is fueled by coffee (unless you’re a tea drinker). Are there meetings in the middle that would get in the way of having a good 2h slot of uninterrupted work? Can you move them or even better do you really really need to go? Cancel them. Have a go, cancel them. See if anyone dies.
• At the end of the day assess what you’ve accomplished. I find myself always doing a stretch of work at the end of the day because I feel I achieved nothing during the day (just meetings). It’s a trap I keep on falling into. Probably if I had the time to retrospect about my day I would find I had already achieved more than I can think of by the end of the day. Really take a few minutes to think of what you’ve achieved and what you can do next day to achieve your top priorities. What failed? What was in the way? Did you need more uninterrupted time to get them done? With this in mind prepare your next day. 
• Think about your boundaries. What can you compromise and what can you not? As an example, except if I have to go to the office – I need to either drop my daughter at school or pick her up. It’s really important for her that I’m present and it’s important for me too. I get to chit chat with the other parents and establish relationships which help her as well make friends. I need to show my face. So if any meetings fall on those slots I say no to them. No matter who the requester is, senior or not. Same is valid with the bedtime routine. The answer is no. I’m not willing to compromise that. Maybe for you it’s a slot for daily exercise. Whatever it is and it can be multiple things. Think about them as they will act as your compass as to when you are taking too much.
• Once in a while (monthly, quarterly, even daily) assess how it’s going. How do you feel? How many days of utter stress and feeling out of control did you have? What are the things you can do to help you out? Do you need a day off away from work and family to think about what you can do to feel more grounded and healthier? Then take it! It might feel like 1 day’s loss and you’ll be even more behind where you wanted to be, but you’ll gain so much more. Maybe you’ve reverted back to saying too many “yeses”. Maybe you are not delegating enough. 
• Setting time aside for the things you really enjoy. We all have hobbies and things we really enjoy doing. Whatever those are, save time to do them. Ideally you would have time for them even during the week too. Even if it’s 15m, it can be totally refreshing for your mind. Sometimes I get 15m aside to read during my quick lunch break and those 15m give me a lot of energy to face the rest of the afternoon, not to mention they lift my mood (I obviously don’t read the news).
• Work out what works for you. There’s no one rule that fits all. You need to find what are the things you can do to help you live a more balanced life. Can well be asking for help – either for home commitments or work. We are not machines and it’s ok to slow down. If you are not boiling down you will be more productive at work and home. One single fresh idea is worth many tired ones. Try one of your ideas and see how it works. If it doesn’t work, go back to the drawing board and think of what could work. Finding what doesn’t work in itself is quite powerful too.

Agile continues

The previous post was agile on it’s own. It was too big so had to split into smaller pieces.

Today we continue around the overal “cerimonies”.

Like all good stories, it always starts with planning. If you have a big list of wishlist items – which you’ve already agreed with your PO that they form part of the MVP. The first step is to have a backlog meeting.

Backlog meeting

Consider this as the house cleaning. You need to clean on a regular basis to ensure there’s no weird dust that went below the carpet. The backlog meeting aims to check what’s on the list, check what needs to be done in 1 or 2 sprints ahead and be sure all the depencies are understood. It aims to ensure you know what the team will be doing next and ensure by the time the new sprint starts you have enough stories “ready” to keep the team going and not loose momentum. Ideally the backlog meeting should happen mid sprint so there’s enough time to clear any dependencies and even for the team members to try to quantity how big the next stories will be and break them down further.

Sprint planning

This is where you look into what you’ve agreed to do and then ensure all the tasks are added so each team member knows what their priorities are. This is an opportunity to look into the work for that given sprint and measure criticality of stories between one and the other. Are there any high value quick wins (big points and low effort)? Then do those first. They will bost the moralle of the troops. It’s about every day improving 1%.

Daily scrum

I wrote about it in the previous post and this is where the magic happens. The daily scrum should happen with or without the scrum master there (at least in my view), it’s about team members to align and discuss any dependencies or blockers among them which can then be raised to the scrum master. If there are multiple scrums / workstreams, then you might need a Scrum of Scrums, so any resource dependencies between workstreams can be discussed and overall priorities assessed.

I really love love love this episode. It explains it a lot better than I did 😀

Retrospective

I know in a lot of places this is about getting the metrics. And yes indeed they are quite important, but even more so it’s to get the team together and look into what went well, discuss if the sprint goal was achieved, what didn’t went so well and what’s the one improvement everyone commits to implement. It doesn’t matter how small it is. Could be as simple as no mettings without an agenda, or that an additional SME is needed for the next few scrums. Whatever the team agrees.

What agile is not

No, it’s not a means of cutting documentation or cutting corners. The shift changes from the PM telling people what to work on or spending a lifetime writing the perfect documentation – be it a requirements document or a design document – to start by doing. Applying marginal gains and moving one step forward and documenting. It’s about a continuous assessment of what’s working well and what’s not and allow the experts in the team to propose where things can improve. As the functionality / product is build so is the documentation (incrementally).

Agile is not about cutting planning, in fact it’s about a new way of planning. One that relies on working closely with the product owner and the team members.

It’s not unstructured. It’s structured diferently around smaller workstreams with a brand new framework.

For further reading check here

Sourced from: https://wiki.cantara.no/display/dev/About+failing+agile+projects

What’s in it for me?

But aren’t you a convert already?

It doesn’t even matter if your team does any software development or not. It’s the whole mindset of breaking something bigger into smaller achievable pieces. It’s about having the priorities clear and cutting the crap. It’s about empowering the team to make decisions around the how to deliver something based on their expertise as well as to measure how big a piece of work is. It’s about understanding any dependencies upfront before commiting to something.

It changes the shift from spending months or years doing something that went presented back to the “requestors” – be it another team in the organisation or your clients – is miles away from what’s needed or you’ve spent so long in development the product / service is no longer relevant.

It’s about spending the minimum time possible from prototype to output and figure out (fast) if something could work or not. Put it up there, in front of a small user base to smash it to pieces and confirm it you are going in the right direction or you need to go back to the drawing board.

Don’t believe this can work for you and your team? Then try it and let me know!

For the agile manifesto check here

Sourced from here: https://sander-dur.medium.com/10-agile-memes-to-lighten-up-your-day-7f577ffbfe89

Return to the office – An update

I guess I wrote back about the return to the office last year before everything went pear shape again with Omicron. So here’s an updated view after returning on a weekly basis.

Disclaimer: I am fortunate enough that I can return at a more smoother pace (e.g. once a week) and don’t have a rule (yet!) that I need to be there X number of days like other areas of the business.

So here’s how a day looks like

Wake up at 05h30 – not used to that anymore. I struggle to open my eyes and comprehend which planet I’m on. I realize it must be Monday and indeed I have to get up (a good 5 or 10m later).

Leave the house at 06h20 for a 20m walk to the station. Fortunately the sunrise is earlier and I feel less afraid to walk in the dark so early in the morning. I rarely see a soul.

The train commute is pretty nice. I manage to read on the train – a part I quite miss from the old days.

I reach the office at around 07h20 (1h after I left home). It is very quiet and I really enjoy that. I have time to eat my breakfast at my desk, reply to a few emails and prepare my day ahead before I go into meetings and more meetings.

At 08h30 I call home so I can speak to my daughter. I feel sad I can’t take her to school. This was quite a big change for all of us, where I can now be part of the daily routines around my daughter and take her or get her from school. I rarely had the chance to do that before given the commute times to / from home.

From 09h onwards it’s meeting crazy but I can say it felt so nice to have the team meetings in person. We were just so happy to see each other in person or having a quick lunch together. We are social “animals” after all. We develop in a pack, by working together. This is at the source of our evolution, so even the most introverts will miss some sort of face to face interactions.

We’ve all agreed that if we could teleport to the office we would go more often.

One item I find myself doing quite badly in the office, is barely drinking any water as the ladies room is too far from my desk and not something you can go quickly and come back while in a meeting. So it’s not uncommon to leave with headache.

At 16h00 I shut down everything to catch the train home so at around 17h10 I’m back home for any final meetings and close any outstanding work. In the past I would leave at 17h30 and that was it, no more working after, but I struggle with that. Also I guess I’m not mentally ready to commute into rush hour. Not yet.

By 21h00 I don’t know again which planet I’m on and I struggle to stay awake.

Future of working

I wrote about it a few times and I will say I have not changed my point of view at all. The future needs to be flexible. I don’t believe there is one size that fits all. We all have our own needs and we all achieve efficiency and productivity in different ways. Some people say they are more efficient in the office because they get less distractions (e.g. chores to do or kids), I am less efficient in the office because I find myself wanting to interact to people and loose more time move round and about plus the commuting back.

The technology is out there, the whole covid situation has shown to the most sceptical of the leaders that teams can work remotely. Yes there is a lot you develop while working physically together. Going to the office needs to be an experience on its own that helps to drive a very specific purpose than the nature of the work done at home.

I do believe that companies that do not embrace flexible working – and come on, flexible working is not the odd day working from home – will fail to attract the best talent or retain those that they have.

Companies that offer flexibility will get flexibility in return and an increase in productivity. Also if people work from different environments, that will encourage diverse ways of tackling new situations and challenges.

So cheers to flexibility, we all need it. If you don’t trust your employees, look yourself in the mirror.

1 step backwards 2 steps forward

It is no surprise that careers today are no longer linear, nor the climbing ladder that they used to be. In the past you would expect that after a certain number of years you would go up and level and so on until you would eventually retire. It was an expected pattern.

Nowadays if we know anything it is not to expect anything at all.

Careers go all over the place, sometimes up, other times you move horizontally and even backwards to then continue ahead again.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/life-never-linear-my-career-visualized-neil-patwardhan/

Why is that?

• The nature of the job has changed in itself. Even from the moment you accept a new role and it’s job description, by the time you leave the role itself would have changed. You have the freedom – to a certain extent – to change and control what you do, to explore the boundaries and interact with different stakeholders, assume more functions, etc. In fact this is totally expected out of you. You need to be adaptable and flex to the business needs. If you don’t adapt you are simply obsolete and soon enough you will be left in a corner. This is valid for people and organisations alike. The next new thing might be outdated by the time it gets out to the market. Adaptability is key.
• The new generations need meaning and fulfilling roles. It’s not enough to have a title, it’s not enough to have a job description, they expect continuous learning and to feel part of “something” that links with their values. They need to feel energised and they welcome change. We could even say change is their middle name. Don’t forget they (we!) grew up without any certainties. We never know when the new crisis will strike us or war. We know we can’t feel secure anywhere so there is a huge focus on building our skill set so it’s as fungible as possible. We take Darwin to a whole new level. You can never feel comfortable in your seat. Most of us will be itching to find what’s next.

What’s the impact for the organisation?

In a short and sweet version, I would say it’s amazing.

• If the very fabric of the organisation is embedded in the fact it will continue to change, it will be a lot easier to adapt to the next big thing, either business disruption, covid, whatever it is. You need all employees to be ready to change what they do and be ready to drop a few activities in prol of learn new things or do more of something the next day. I find a job description almost irrelevant these days. The moment you start it’s no longer relevant. I would say as opposed to a job description I would include an expected skill set and level of expertise within that skillset.

• If your employees are more demanding, you need to ensure every single voice can be heard within their own groups. It’s up to each leader in the organisation to ensure the whole team / department is learning and feel they can contribute to the company’s growth. Let’s face it, we’ll have to work until we die. It’s a lot more for us than just a 9 to 5 job to pay the bills. It’s part of our identity. If we don’t feel connected to the company mission, if we don’t understand it we might leave to a company where we feel more connected. Don’t be single minded in thinking that all that moves us is money. Yes, money is a big motivational factor, but it’s not the only thing.

• If we are to work 10, 12h a day we need to feel connected, we need to feel our work is valued and we are contributing. We need to “click” with our colleagues and especially with our line manager. If we feel we need to keep silent and just follow orders like dogmas that you must accept and just do without understanding the why, people will just leave. Especially now that the workforce is going more global and it’s a lot easier to work from anywhere in the world. There will be a point where even the whole taxing system will align to this new reality and not only will it become more common to have people all over the world but it will be the new norm. Oh brave new world. I’m really looking forward to seeing it.

And what’s in it for the employee?

Well you need to be comfortable so that you will be uncomfortable. And that feeling (a little bit) uncomfortable about doing something means you are facing something challenging, something that will lead you to growth. The more you are willing to drop the hierarchy and focus on what you can learn and in return contribute to where you’re working, the more in demand your skillset will be. Accept that everything is changing all the time and we all have something to learn every day, including from people who are fresh out of uni. You can also be sure there’s no 2 days the same and hence you will never find yourself bored. If you are, well, then it’s time for a change.

Are you still relevant tomorrow?

When we were growing up, most of us wanted to have known jobs like doctor, lawyer, fireman, vet, you name it. But then as we grew up and started to work (and pay taxes), quite a lot of us found it difficult to explain to our parents what we do. I can’t explain to the kids nor my parents what I do. I think my daughter would define it as “my mum works on her computer.”

Even from when I started working until now there’s a lot of new roles that have popped up, namely in AI, data scientists, etc. I even have a friend who works with drones, not for playing (and those are fun too), but that’s his job and a few others that do “social media content”.

This week my husband called the insurance company and it took them a while to figure out which of the options allowed would describe his job.

The roles are moving faster than we do, we might need things we didn’t even know we needed – mobile phone and Alexa I’m looking at you – but now we can’t live without them.

So how do you stay relevant?

• Always learning – There’s no way around it, you have to keep an open mind and continuous learning. If in the past it was all about continuous improvement (and that remains relevant), continuous learning is even more relevant. You need to think not just on the skills required for your role and how to develop in your role, but any skills you might need tomorrow. How to find what’s relevant for you? Well look around to the new hires, which skills are they bringing? What do you think it’s missing in your company, in your industry? Allow time to dedicate to learning and it can be anything from getting a certification from just reading a book or shadowing a colleague that does a different role than yours
• Skills, Skills, Skills – As I wrote here in this space, it’s all about skills. Forget job titles and see yourself as a walking basket of skills. Some you already have and might be an expert at it, others you need to improve (part of the learning bucket), others you might want to drop because they might not be as relevant anymore or you simply might not like them at all. You need to continuously assess what’s relevant for you and which skills you should develop. With the relevant skills you can flex around what’s next for you role wise. The more skills you have, the more flexible you can be. It will always be a dancing game of being an expert at something – which in some specific areas you really need to be – versus being very flexible.

• Be open minded – I have worked with people in the past that believe just because they have more experience they know it all. If you are not willing to listen to those around you and accept new ideas, no matter how radical they seem – you won’t evolve and stay relevant. A new grad will give you a brand new perspective on the world, same as someone from a completely different industry than yours. Be open to different views.
• Surround yourself with people that inspire you – Most people think that they have to search for really senior people because they will help them grow in their careers. Whereas that might indeed work, I would say it’s even more relevant to surround yourself of people that inspire you for whatever reason, could be the receptionist that is an amazing painter in her free time, to someone who is really good at seeing patterns in data, anything that pushes your boundaries and inspires you to think differently and improve yourself. Diversity is the key to it all. If you only mingle with those that think the same way you do, you will never learn anything new.
• Be authentic – In a world full of automation and where most people end up trying to be the same as someone who is successful, are to be authentic and bring your true self in everything that you do.

Some relevant articles

• Careers of the future
• Cool future jobs
• Jobs on the rise
• Forbes: How automation will impact future job markets

The Great Resignation

Historians will be pretty busy trying to understand what exactly happened in 2020 and 2021. 2020 was THE year the whole world stopped thanks to the pandemic, and then 2021 continued with lockdowns. When people spend more time at home and not being able to hide behind their all mighty business, they had time to do something they weren’t doing much: to think. (We are all guilty here)

To think about the priorities, to think about what they really wanted to do in life in general, especially as everything could just vanish pretty quickly. Who are the friends you would see yourself going in lockdown with? Whom did you contact? And on the professional side: Am I doing the job I enjoy doing?

For many the answer was NO! And enter the great resignation. And no, this is not just something that happened in the states, where everything is big and GREAT. No, really, it was all over the world.

Disclaimer: To be able to resign without thinking of the financial implications is quite a privilege. Still some people concluded they would rather downsize their lives and enjoy more what they had.

Anyway, back to the great resignation (and by the way I do believe this is a trend that will continue throughout 2022), the same way Londoners realized they wanted more space rather than being in the city center in a shoe box, there was also a big rethink about what people really wanted to be doing.

Flexibility

Throughout lockdown – where possible – everyone had to work from home. Companies had to make a huge shift to web based technologies to ensure everyone was online and getting the job done. Meeting room meetings moved to video calls. The office suit was replaced by a presentable shirt and comfy trousers (and slippers). And then as the world started to open up, companies started to ask everyone to be back in the office. A good example of that was JP Morgan (Forbes article here). Then you had companies like Deloitte that said employees didn’t had to work from the office (CityAM article here) – as if consultants worked from the official office anyway…. so I actually took this one with a pinch of salt.

Anyway, people realized they could work from home and enjoying flexibility such as having time to exercise, take the kids to school, sort out the laundry, while at the same time maintaining the productivity (or increasing it) and loosing that didn’t felt right.

If you have 2 good equal companies and one of them allows you flexibility and the other doesn’t, which one would you choose? It’s a no brainer really.

Flexibility is a sword that cuts both ways. If you want flexibility from your employees you have to give flexibility back. If you want to retain your key people, well I would suggest burying old fashion ways of “controlling” employees by seeing them (I wrote about it here). Also, some empathy would be good. Just because you enjoy being in the office, being in your suit doesn’t mean everyone enjoys the same, or even if some enjoy, maybe they can’t afford it (enter the world of childcare or carers in general).

There’s a life outside

For a lot of people it was also about: do I even enjoy my job at all? A lot of people developed hobbies – or enhanced them – and realized they could try to make a living out of it. Even if that meant less money, it meant being in control of when to work and where to work from. (And here’s me wishing I had hobbies that made any money!)

Then for sure, the family side. For a lot of people I know, it was really important to finally be able to take the kids to school / or collect them. To have lunch at the table in your kitchen. To be able to stop working and enjoy family time or even to have time to finally exercise on a daily basis (which for me was only achieved during Lockdown 1.0). Before Covid, I rarely managed to take my daughter to / from the nursery, but now I am doing it on a daily basis. It means the world to me and her. Without working from home and with the long commute would be next to impossible to do the same.

Whatever rocks your boat, I’m pretty sure you’ve found something you enjoy that you could do more of.

So what does it mean for companies?

For companies in the long term, will be quite binary: do they offer flexible working? Yes or No:

• If you want to retain your employees as opposed to having to hire more expensive ones without the same knowledge, offer flexibility (in its true form)
• If you want to attract the highest talent (e.g. new grads or experience hires alike), you have to office flexibility. If you don’t, I’m pretty sure your competitors will. There’s more to life than just the income.

What does flexible working even mean?

• Flexibility of hours – In its highest form it means employees should be working towards goals they need to meet. It’s up to them how they meet them. In a lighter version just means there’s some flexibility of when to start the work, when to stop and which breaks can be done in between.
• Flexibility of location – (this discounts any tax implications of working outside of the country). If there are critical meetings which demand an in person meeting, by all means get together in the office, but for everything else it’s up to the employee of where he’ll get the job done. From the comfort of his bed, to a hipster coffee shop, take your pick (note, certain roles might now allow for coffee shop meetings due to the confidentiality of the information being shared in conference calls). It still looks nice to work from a coffee shop though, although expensive in the long run.
• Flexibility of roles – here I should say, embracing a skill based approach – in essence it means allowing employees to move horizontally and take on completely different roles where they could still use the same core skillset. (I wrote about the importance of skills from an employee point of view here). How is this even related to the mass resignation? Well it is. Many employees might feel they are not developing or are not given opportunities for development. Allowing (and even encouraging) changing roles would benefit one’s development as well as the company itself by utilizing diversity across departments (even if they seem unrelated). An HR guy, an IT guy and a procurement guy walk into a bar…. this could be a good conversation by the way.

What are the benefits for the company to embrace flexibility

As we have seen with the pandemic, people are working more from home, not less. If you give flexibility, you get flexibility back.

One thing that always puzzled me, was why companies never consider existing clients? Yap, I mean clients, like they always have massive discounts for new clients and totally forget the existing clients? This encourages clients to shift to also benefit from a new client discount. Same is valid regarding employees. Companies don’t always make the effort to keep the best people. They think just some random salary increases will do the trick and given the employees are there they will always stay or if they leave it’s because they are not worthy. No joke, I felt this in the past myself and this was also the view of the CEO of a company I worked for many moons ago.

What is the cost of recruiting? I have also been in companies that would give me a fee for bringing candidates from my network of contacts (as it’s cheaper than paying a recruiting agency). So how about companies make the effort of keeping what they already have?

And the cost of training someone new? I don’t enjoy spending time doing KT. Nop, not a bit. The existing team rarely has the time to properly train new hires, which means eventually some of the valuable information just vanishes. Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to allow people to move roles within the existing organization or allow them some flexibility? You might not even have to spend a penny on it!

Don’t let your job define you

Let’s face it, we’ll spend most of our lives working. The way things are going, it’s quite likely we’ll have to work until we die. And then quite a another big portion was spent studying so you had the required qualifications to work. So yeah, it’s a lot. It’s then no wonder that our job becomes part of your identify.

Think how you would present yourself to a new person: My name is X and I’m Y (nurse, doctor, civil engineer, IT project manager… etc) – this excludes if you are presenting yourself to another parent, then your reduced to kid x mum or dad.

What we do day in day out on the clock becomes part of our we identify ourselves. Quite a lot of us will feel proud that’s your job (probably others no so much or they will have to use fancier words so you can feel a bit prouder). The job we have and the titles we hold end up being quite important for our ego.

Not even that long ago, your own surname would define a generation of people doing the same job and passing the knowledge from family member to another. I’m so happy that I was born in modern days so I had the freedom of choice.

But actually if you think about it, this is a big dangerous.

Unconsciously you will be tying your self-worth to your job. If you don’t get that promotion how do you think you’ll feel?

Also, what happens if you loose your job? In these turbulent times you could loose your job not because you’re not good at it, but because the company needs to downsize to keep afloat.

A lot of people will feel absolutely depressed, not just because of the financial aspect, but I would say mainly because they feel part of their identify is gone and they have to reinvent themselves. After years holding your job as you hold your name, that change can feel very daunting. It is!

Some people hate their names, so they wouldn’t mind a change, but assuming you like your name and what you do, that you felt proud about it, having to reinvent yourself or figure out how to find a similar job someplace else it’s a huge blow.

But here’s an idea, how about we start to leave the job title behind and focus on the skills?

A certain skillset can be adapted to many different jobs.

Here’s my own example:

• I’m really good at getting shit done – yap, I am (except household chores, not so good at those and I will procrastinate until I have no choice but get it done).

This can be applied to anything really, from a demanding a COO, to work in the next door bakery.

Another example

• I’m really good at thinking of creative solutions to address complex problems.

Wherever you go there will be problems that demand solutions.

So how about you take a few minutes to think about what you’re really good at, it can be something you’ve been doing a lot, and hence you have a lot of experience or it can be something you know you are good and with a bit of learning you can get even better.

Thinking of how to utilize your skillset will allow you to adapt even where you are, in your company. You can try other roles and leveraging what you already know, and if your dear company pulls the carpet beneath your feet you’ll be able to reinvent yourself more easily too.

Good article about it here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210409-why-we-define-ourselves-by-our-jobs

Book about change:

This book seems to be so popular I have 2 of them, gifted by different companies

I went back to the office and here’s what I found

Yap, after 19 months I went back to the office. Luckily for me it was my choice to actually return as opposed of being imposed to be back 2 or 3 days a week (or even the full week!).

Here’s what I found:

1 – I did enjoy my morning commute despite an uber early start. I left the house at 06h15 and walked the 20m to the station and even managed to arrive 10m before the train. It was busier than I was expecting for a 06h40 train, but still quite manageable. I didn’t read much like I used to as I just wanted to watch through the windows.

2 – The best part of the day was actually the experience of being in the office (despite me battling the whole day to try to connect to the headset as no one could hear me in the meetings – seems sound quality is better at home). In my “section” I was the only one, the only people passing by was the cleaning staff or the coffee staff. I managed to get a desk with window view and could watch people passing by downstairs as if it was a normal day. I even had my first face to face meeting! I think quite a lot of people are really missing those face to face interactions, even the introvers like myself. I almost went lunch outside with another colleague but given the business of meetings just managed a panini at my desk. (Did anyone notice the prices going up by quite a lot or was I the only one???)

3 – On the way back home though was a different story. It really felt almost proper rush hour. The trains were quite busy, you had people running to the door and that’s when I’ve realized that actually I’m not ready to be back on a regular basis. Yes I’m craving after work pub as much as everyone else, but am I really ready? Don’t think I am. If I bring the virus home and my daughter is off-school I would really struggle to work big time. If I will be back? Probably, but not regularly – not while I can avoid it.

Which now brings me to the point of: why are people being forced to be back?

And I’m referring to groups of people that can do their work remotely (and are not mandated by any regulator to physically be in the office) – for a lot of people work from home is definitely not a choice. But for those that is….

Why?

Why can’t leaders recognize that if you want flexibility you have to give flexibility back. The employees with a good transfereable (and sellable) skillset will jump to whichever company allows them flexibility. Do you really want to loose your best resources because you can’t trust them to work from home? Were they actually rolling their fingers for the last 18 months or were people in general working a lot more? (I wrote about it here on “I don’t trust you therefore I need to see you“)

Is it because leaders tend to be extroverts and therefore do not recognize there are a lot of introverts out there that feel a lot better and more productive being at home without all the social exposure in the office? (good article about it here)

Seriously it should be a choice and leaders should have try to find the best solution for their team, not just what’s better for them as individuals!

I find that it’s up to us the younger generations to show there are so many other alternatives that work for the company. Going to the office should be an experience by itself, for team bonding and for specific reasons like a dynamic workshop and removing people from the day to day activities and discuss specific topics together (my views on the new office here).

Just because it’s the way things were done before it doesn’t mean they need to go back exactly as they were!