4 Ways to Deal With an Emotional Employee

Emotions are sometimes so vague that we barely understand our own. So, how can we pretend to understand our employees? And how can we deal with an emotional employee?

The last couple of years were more than challenging for employees. Working from home brought a lot of benefits—no morning drive to the office, for example.

But employees might also be affected by this condition’s disadvantages, such as inability to focus at home, loneliness, and more. Add to that the emotional effects of the pandemic—like anxiety and being paranoid—and you get an emotional crisis.

Managers these days already know that along with their team management job, they hold another position as a mentor and psychologist.

They have to understand their employees’ emotions better and find ways to help them cope with them, both for the sake of their well-being and the team’s productivity, which can be badly affected by the bad emotional state of team members.

Who Are Your Emotional Employees?

We all express emotions differently, so there is no single definition of an emotional employee.

Some would say that an “emotional employee” is this one who gets angry in a blink of an eye.

Others would claim that this is the employee who complains a lot. It can also be the one who never shares their feelings.

They are all correct because we all experience emotions during our days. Our emotions can have an impact in different ways on our behavior, ability to focus, and our and our team’s productivity.

How to Better Understand Your Employees’ Emotions?

Remember, your employees do not advertise their feelings well, not always. So how, then, are you supposed to know what they are feeling? And more importantly, how to help them cope with the emotions that harm them?

There are many ways to better understand your team members’ emotional state. But first, you must create a safe space and allow employees to share their emotions.

As some managers adore poker-faced employees, it is essential to enable this safe space, especially in times like this when employees need it the most.

Managers have a significant impact on the team’s emotional culture. Thus, to create a safe space, the managers have also to share their concerns and feelings, showing their employees that this is a legitimate thing to do. It helps build trust and encourages employees to open up and speak about their own emotions and struggles.

Show Employees That You Care

At Ubiquity Retirement + Savings, employees pass by an emotions registration screen when working from the office instead of clocking out at the end of the workday. Decision-makers in the company then process the information. It allows them to understand better what motivates their employees and what makes them feel a sense of belonging and excitement at work.

Take actions that will increase the well-being and improve the emotional state of the employees.^[1]

This is one way to use technology and data to help employees better understand their emotions. Other solutions can help employees motivate themselves and better understand their feelings.

Tools like Calm can help employees be more present and feel better about themselves. In Hour25.ai, we’re building a tool that improves emotional resilience and can significantly impact both employees’ emotional state and productivity level.

Talk to your employees. Nothing compares to a good and open talk with the manager or a colleague.

Let them know you care about their emotions, and you don’t have to wait until the monthly review.

Employees will appreciate you talking with them on non-job-related topics, even as a small talk before or after meetings. Show interest in their after-work life, encourage them to share their struggles, and try to find ways to help where you can.

Types of Emotional Employees

As written above, we are all emotional creatures. Still, some people express emotions more significantly, and those are the people that we’ll call ‘emotional employees’ in this article.

Usually, there are several types of emotional employees, and it is important to know them, as each type requires different care.

1. Insecure

Insecurity is tricky because while science has shown that insecure people tend to be more creative, insecure employees, when not treated well, can and probably will become a burden.

Unconfident employees will be less likely to spread wings and work independently on a task. They will seek approval from you and their colleagues, which can become time-consuming and annoying.

2. Angry

The angry employees tend to take things out of proportion. They will question every decision you make and resent you for days over the most minor things. An angry employee can harm your team’s morale, which will affect productivity.

3. Quiet

Although it seems harmless and very convenient, you should also pay attention to the more silent employees. When most of the attention is withdrawn by the insecure and the angry personas, quiet employees can feel neglected and develop their own bad feelings.

There are plenty more types of emotional employees. I will not be able to cover them all in this article. You just have to listen and observe, create a safe environment, and talk to your employees to find your emotional employees.

4 Ways to Deal With an Emotional Employee

There is no one magic solution, but by listening to your team members, exploring different approaches, and sticking to those that work, you can create more balance in your team.

Here are four ways to deal with an emotional employee:^[2]

1. Test the Employee’s Awareness

While the employee’s behavior may be clear to you, it is often not to them, as this is the norm for them.

Start by scheduling a one-on-one meeting with the employee. In the meeting, try to ask questions that will shed light on whether they are aware of their behavior’s impact on the team performance.

While preparing for this meeting, write examples and facts to back up your point. Remember, your feedback might catch the employee by surprise, so be conscious of that and explain that you are trying to help them and not harm them.

2. Be Honest and Direct

Set emotional boundaries. If, after your first conversation, the employee doesn’t show any signs of improvement, do not ignore it. It is essential to be consistent and show your employees that you care for them but are not willing to back down.

It is important to treat emotional employees as strong and not weak. Show them that you are here for them but also that you will not give up on changing the behavior that harms the team.

3. Create a Culture of Openness and Honesty

Creating a safe space is only the first step. Although it will help you identify your employees’ emotional state, it will not allow them to deal with bad emotions.

By creating a culture of openness, encouraging the team members to share their emotions with one another, and sharing respectful but professional feedback publicly on every team member (including the manager), you can kill the gossip culture and create a team that helps each other overcome emotional barriers together.

4. Use technology

There is no doubt that employees caring for each other is an excellent way to deal with emotional employees. But technology offers a wide range of solutions to better deal with emotions.

Try offering some of those tools to your employees, especially the emotional ones, and explore their impact.

Final Thoughts

Dealing with emotional employees is not easy, let alone when employees are physically far from their managers.

Video conferencing and phone calls do not allow all body language and emotional signs to go through. Thus, managers need to learn about their employees in any possible way, talk to them daily, help them find solutions to their problems. But they should also set boundaries and not let dealing with emotions become their primary job.

Featured photo credit: bruce mars via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Harvard Business Review: Manage Your Emotional Culture
[2]	^	Harvard Business Review: 4 Ways to Manage an Emotionally Needy Employee

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5 Ways to Manage Conflict in a Team Effectively

Conflicts are unavoidable when working as part of a team. We all have different points of view, opinions, and ways of doing things. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

Many times it can be beneficial and helps us broaden our points of view and ways of completing the same task or project. During the actual process of working together, though, sometimes our differences can lead to heated discussions, hurt feelings, roadblocks, and could even potentially jeopardize a project.

There’s a lot of ways you can choose to deal with conflict in a team setting. You can ignore it, be passive-aggressive about it, get angry and upset about it, etc. Maybe you like to point fingers and blame others. Perhaps you’re like me and have little patience in general and get easily frustrated at someone’s pace of work.

While there are many ways to handle conflict, some of them can help us resolve things quicker than others and lead to better outcomes. Let’s take a look at five ways to manage conflict in a team effectively.

1. Acknowledge and Accept the Conflict

Many people avoid conflict like the plague. They pretend it’s not happening. They ignore it and go on about their business. For a wide variety of reasons, many people are conditioned to believe that conflict is inherently bad and simply don’t know how to deal with it.

By taking the “ignore the problem and pretend it isn’t there” approach, the only thing that’s going to happen is that it will take longer to work out and probably get messier.

The first tip to manage conflict in a team effectively is to acknowledge the conflict. Don’t be shy about speaking out about it. Maybe something like: “Jim, it seems you don’t agree with the approach we’ve been talking about. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what we’ve discussed so far. I’m sure everyone agrees that having multiple points of view will help us see the issue from all angles.”

2. Don’t Jump In and Overreact

Here’s the one that speaks volumes to me. When you feel yourself getting upset while working in a team, make sure you don’t jump in and start talking without thinking it through.

This is what has happened to me on more than a few occasions. Every time I feel my blood pressure rising while listening to another team member talking or reading an email that I don’t generally agree with, I try to take a pause. I pause and take a few deep breaths and calm myself down. Believe me, there have been plenty of times when I simply reacted without thinking and each time, the result was not optimal.

When I take the time to let it digest and not react quickly, the situation always turns out better. Sometimes, it’s that I have given myself the time to simply calm down before I fire off that scathing email. Other times, I can see another point of view other than my own and am not as upset as I originally was.

In any event, it’s always better to not simply go with your gut reaction when you don’t agree with another team member. Slow down, and don’t overreact.

3. Ensure Everyone Gets Heard and Valued

As you work your way through the discussions to address the disagreement, it’s important that everyone is heard and feels that their opinion is valued.

Let’s not forget that feeling understood is one of the deepest needs we have as humans. When we feel understood, we feel valued and validated, which are critical to our happiness. Remembering this, ensure that everyone who was involved in the disagreement gets their chance to be both heard and understood.

It does not have to be something overly formal like ensuring that everyone gets their 10 minutes to talk. It’s more about making sure that those who are upset get the chance to have their voice be heard.

If I am part of a group that is comprised of a team of six but has no issues with the disagreement, it’s not a big deal for me to be heard. If I am one of the two people having a disagreement, you can bet it’s pretty important for me to be able to talk about my point of view.

4. Recap the Discussions

Now, it’s your turn to talk. Hopefully, by this point, all of the parties in disagreement have had the opportunity to speak and be heard. At this juncture, it’s on you to play back what you’ve heard from everyone to ensure you’ve gotten it right.

If someone tells you that you are incorrect on one point or another, adjust accordingly. The goal here is to ensure that not only have you heard and interpreted correctly but also that the team has as well. By the end of this stage, everyone should be on the same playing field and have a really good understanding of what everyone else thinks about the situation.

Recapping the discussions has an additional beneficial outcome as well. By recapping what everyone has heard, it gives the entire team a great overview of what everyone else is thinking and how they feel.

Oftentimes, what happens in this type of scenario is people begin to see other people’s points of view. It has a sort of softening effect where people can better understand others’ thoughts and how they feel about the situation. Many times, this helps propel things forward.

5. Get Everyone’s Buy-In

As a direct result of recapping the discussions, now is the perfect time to get everyone’s buy-in moving forward. Of course, many times it doesn’t immediately flow from recapping the discussions. But often, this is the point where people feel more comfortable offering solutions or being willing to compromise.

If someone insisted on A, B, and C happening before giving it the final okay, perhaps they are now comfortable with just A and B. The goal here is to work through the disagreement points to get to a place where everyone feels like they were heard, valued, and are good with moving forward as a team.

Sometimes, you have to remind people that you are all on the same team and working towards the same goal to get people to give a little.

As an example, I am a recruiter. It’s not uncommon for me to work on brand new positions that the company has not had before. In many cases, the hiring manager has built the perfect candidate in their mind without actually thinking through if someone with the experience they are looking for actually exists.

I can tell you from recent personal experience that I have worked on two such positions in which I asked the hiring manager to tell me the name of someone who could do this job. When I received the blank look back, it gave me the exact right opportunity to remind them that we are both on the same team, working towards the same goal, and what can we do together to reach our goal. Perhaps a bit of compromise would be beneficial?

Final Thoughts

Anytime we are working as a team on a project or to achieve a goal, there are bound to be differences of opinion that lead to conflict. This is the nature of being human. Remember that conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways, it’s healthy and can lead to bigger and better results when working as part of a team. The important thing is that there are healthy ways to resolve this conflict and get everyone on the same page.

The next time a conflict rears its head in a group, remember the five ways to manage conflict in a team effectively. Don’t be that person who is prone to reacting immediately with less than optimal results. Use these steps to learn to acknowledge the conflict, don’t jump in and overreact, make sure you listen to everyone, recap the discussions, and get everyone’s buy-in.

More Tips on How to Manage Conflict in a Team

• How To Handle Personality Conflicts At Work
• Conflict Management: How to Turn Any Conflicts into Opportunities
• Conflict Management Styles for Effective Communication at Work

Featured photo credit: TienDat Nguyen via unsplash.com

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7 Most Effective Methods of Time Management to Boost Productivity

One of the most effective ways to become more productive is to get control of your time. Unfortunately, time is something you cannot manage. Time is fixed. We all get twenty-four hours each day, and we cannot change that. You cannot borrow a couple of hours from tomorrow and use them today.

This means that rather than trying to manage time itself, we need to manage our activity. That’s the only thing we can manage. So, the question to ask is: what will you do in the twenty-four hours you have each day?

Starting from that place gives you a massive advantage because you put yourself in control. You control what you do in the time you have available. There are many ways you can manage your activity that focuses on what’s important.

Here are 7 methods of time management that will help you.

1. The Ivy Lee Method

This is possibly the most effective method of time management and productivity you could use. The Ivy Lee method was developed by Ivy Lee who, in 1918, was asked by Charles M. Schwab, Chairman and CEO of Bethlehem Steel, to create a way to improve the productivity of his senior managers.

Ivy Lee told each manager to write the six most important tasks they must do the next day in order of priority on a piece of paper and leave it on their desk ready for the following day. When they arrived the next morning, they began work on the first task and, once completed, crossed it off and started on the next one.^[1]

If you cannot complete all six, the tasks you do not complete should be carried forward to the next day, and you repeat the process with another set of six tasks. What the Ivy Lee Method does is make you focus on what’s important. With only six available tasks, you will not put low-value tasks on your list.

Today, with all the digital tools available, this is a simple way to stay focused on critical things. For example, you can use a calendar, a notes app, or a dedicated task manager to write out your list of six.

2. Time Blocking

Time blocking is a method of time management where you block out time on your calendar to do focused work. It is another very effective way of managing the activities you perform each day.

Let me give you an example from my system. I write a blog post, a podcast script, and plan, and record two to three YouTube videos each week. I can only make sure I have time for these tasks if I block time out on my calendar for doing them. So, I have a two-hour time block on my calendar for writing my blog post on a Monday morning. I also have a two-hour block on a Tuesday morning for writing my podcast script and a three-hour block on a Friday morning for recording my YouTube videos.

These time blocks are fixed, recurring events on my calendar. This way, if anyone tries to make an appointment with me at these times, they will see I am busy.

What time blocking does is show you exactly how much time you have available to do the work that matters. The only way you will be able to do the work that matters is if you have time to do it. That’s why it works so well.

To make sure time blocking works, you must treat each time block as a confirmed appointment. If you do not, then you will not respect the time you have set aside, and the process of blocking time out becomes meaningless.

3. Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique is where you set a timer for 25 minutes and work focused and undisturbed for those twenty-five minutes. Then, once the alarm goes off, you take a five-minute break and set your alarm for another twenty-five minutes of focused work.

The Pomodoro Technique is an excellent method for people who struggle to focus on one thing at a time and are easily distracted. At the end of twenty-five minutes, you know you can look at something else for five minutes, which gives you the motivation to push through until the end of the twenty-five minutes.

There is an array of applications for your mobile devices and desktop that will set the timers for you and help you stay focused on whatever it is you want to focus on.

4. 2+8 Prioritization Method

Similar to the Ivy Lee Method, the 2+8 Prioritization Method has you to select two must-do tasks and eight other tasks you would like to complete the next day. The two must-do tasks must be done no matter what. For the eight remaining tasks, you will do whatever you can to complete the tasks, but it would not be the end of the world if you cannot complete them.

The purpose of the 2+8 Prioritisation Method is to focus your attention on what is important. This is why you decide what needs to be added to your list the day before. This way, when you begin the day, you know exactly what needs doing, and you do not waste any time trying to decide what to do.

All you need is ten minutes before you close out the day to look at your list of things to do and choose your priorities for the next day based on what appointments you have and where you will be.

5. Eisenhower Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix has been associated with the former US president, Dwight D. Eisenhower. This method of time management is less about managing time and more about prioritizing your work.

The matrix is made up of four quadrants:

• Quadrant 1 – Important and urgent
• Quadrant 2 – Important and not urgent
• Quadrant 3 – Not important and urgent
• Quadrant 4 – Not important and not urgent

The idea is you keep away from Quadrants 3 and 4 as much as possible and try to spend as much time as you can in Quadrant 2. It is quadrant 2 that will help you manage your time better and reduce tasks falling into quadrant 1.

Quadrant 2 tasks are related to taking care of your health, anticipating future problems, and planning. Quadrant 1 tasks are the tasks that are happening right now and need your attention.

You cannot avoid tasks from all four quadrants. For instance, many things that will fall into quadrant 4 will be related to rest and relaxation time, but too much of that and you will not be moving anything important forward.

6. Pareto Principle

This is not so much a method of time management but more an observation that can help you to work on the things that give you the most significant positive results:

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”).^[2]

When applied to time management and productivity, this means you first identify which tasks will give you 80% of your results. For instance, if you are a writer, sitting down in front of your computer and spending time writing will proportionately contribute more to the finished article or book than researching writing applications and tools.

Similarly, in business, being in front of your customer (or prospect) will have a much bigger impact on your sales performance than planning out a sales strategy or creating lists of potential prospects.

While the tasks that contribute 20% of your outcomes have their place, they should not be allowed to become where you spend most of your time. Examples of this would be Salespeople in staff meetings, teachers writing attendance reports, and business owners doing basic administration.

The Pareto Principle is essentially what the 2+8 Prioritisation Method (see above) is built on.

7. NET (No Extra Time)

NET is a bit of a wild card. But Tony Robbins, one of the world’s top business coaches, advocates this.^[3] NET works because a lot of our time is wasted each day waiting in queues or for something to happen. It encourages you to take advantage of this time to do work.

For instance, if you are waiting for a meeting to start, you can respond to your email or process your inbox. You could reply to some of your Slack or Microsoft Teams messages or research ideas that need researching. Our mobile phones have given us the ability to do a lot of the work we previously needed to be in a fixed place to do.

I use NET when I am waiting for a Zoom call to start. I’m already at my computer, and as I wait for the meeting to begin, I will work on my emails or messages or basic admin that requires doing. It’s surprising how much of this work you can get done in a spare five minutes.

Final Thoughts

All of these methods are simple and easy to adopt. You don’t need any fancy software or tools. For example, your calendar or a notes app will work perfectly well. They are also tried and tested to work.

If you are looking for a simple way to boost your productivity and time management skills, then any of these seven methods of time management will give you tremendous results.

More Time Management Tips

• 10 Smart Time Management Techniques to End Busyness
• 5 Techniques to Tackle a Busy Schedule (And Create More Time)

Featured photo credit: Andrea Natali via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	INSIDER: A CEO and dad uses a 100-year-old strategy to get control of his schedule in just 15 minutes each night
[2]	^	Investopedia: Pareto Principle
[3]	^	Tony Robbins: STOP WASTING YOUR TIME!

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How to Manage a Failing Team (Or an Underperforming Team)

Are you struggling to manage a failing team or underperforming team?

No one likes to talk about failure. Talking about failure requires us to be open, honest, and vulnerable. The conversation demands us to reflect on our role in the failure. Deep emotions follow when we open up and begin to look at where we—and others—missed the mark. Once we start to look and see where things fell apart, we have to determine the actions needed to turn it around. We need to realize that when failure is left alone, it is the beginning stage of death for any organization or team.

Managing a failing team can be very difficult. How you manage it will determine if the team indeed is failing or not. If you manage your team correctly, you can take a bad situation and turn it around together.

So how to manage a failing team? You can’t do this alone. It takes one person to get into a problem, but it takes a team to get out.

Reasons Why Your Team May Be Failing

Failure will either fuel innovation or place you into a state of paralysis and inaction due to fear. As a leader, it is your responsibility to lead your team through their failures. Even if you are the reason your team is failing, it is the responsibility of the leader to recognize the challenges and then work with your team to overcome them. How you manage a failing team will determine whether your organization will continue to exist.

Here are 5 common reasons why your team may be failing:

1. There’s Improper Placement of Your Team Members

A team is like a car. When the car is well maintained, it runs beautifully. But when the car suffers from neglect or you use the wrong parts in the wrong places, it stops working correctly.

The same goes with your team. High-performing teams are teams where their members are appropriately positioned. They are operating in their strengths while relying on others to cover their weaknesses.

When managing a failing team, start seeing if your team members are positioned correctly within the team structure. The chances are high that your team may be experiencing failure due to improper placement.

2. They Lack the Skill to Do the Job

When managing a failing team, one of the first questions we ask is if the team can perform their required tasks. Due to its simplicity, the initial response to this question may be an eye roll or a deep sigh.

Over the last 20 years of working with leaders, I have discovered that inadequately performing the task is at the root of many failures and failing teams.

3. There’s a Lack of Continuing Personal Development

Lack of skill is one thing, but the lack of personal development is another problem altogether. The team can only perform to the level of their personal development.

If you find holes in the team’s skillset or leadership capacity, look to their personal and professional development level. The leadership capacity of you and your team is the lid on which the team can optimally operate. If you find your team is failing, take some time to evaluate whether or not you helped them lift their lid through focused personal development.

4. They Are Facing Personal Issues

When we talk about managing a failing team, the conversation about facing personal issues often goes missing. In the world of organizational leadership, management, and business owning, the focus has always been on productivity and completing assigned tasks.

The typical mindset is that we should leave our personal lives out of our professional ones. Yet, most people refuse to see that we cannot divorce our private lives from our public ones. If your team is failing, you will want to evaluate the team’s current mental and emotional health level.

Many business owners, leaders, and managers will take the position that emotional and mental health has no business within the business. Yet, since your team is made up of people and people are led by their emotions, there is a high probability that if your team is failing, it is due to personal issues affecting their health.

5. There Is Declining Morale

Another indicator of a failing team is declining morale.

When I served in the military, I noticed a trend. Productivity and success were directly related to the level of the crew’s morale. When the crew’s morale was high, productivity was high. When the crew’s morale was low, productivity was low. I watched this cycle over and over again.

If you are managing a failing team, it is time to discover the morale level within your team environment.

How to Manage a Failing Team

As leaders, the primary thing that we have to take seriously is that dysfunctional teams are underperforming and unproductive. The reality is that a dysfunctional team is a failing team. With that said, if our team is going to be successful, we have to shift from a reactive stance to a proactive one. We have to start asking the tough questions.

As leaders desiring to create a turnaround team, we must ask how to manage a failing team. In this one question, the focus isn’t on failing but on how we can take a failing team and turn it around to be successful.

Here are the 7 strategies to help you manage a failing team: (Note: There is no order to this list. Apply whatever one(s) that fit your needs)

1. Define Success

A football play scores a when they cross into the endzone. At the end of the game, the winner with the most points on the board. If the endzone wasn’t clearly defined, there would be no way to know if the player scored. If the player can’t score, the team can’t win.

The travesty of most teams is that they are aiming for an undefined goal. The team is failing because it doesn’t know where to aim. If the team doesn’t know where to aim, then there is no hope for them to understand how to win.

If you want to manage a failing team and turn them into winners, the leader must define what a win looks like and how the team can score.

2. Coaching and Mentoring

The most significant difference between coaching and mentoring is the level of relationship. Both require a level of relationship, but I am convinced that mentoring demands a deeper level of connection. To put it simply, the coaching model relies more upon the Socratic method to guide their interactions.

Mentoring calls for developing a relationship that allows for truthful interchanges that push one to grow quickly. As a leader, it is imperative that we both coach and mentor our team. If you want to manage a failing team and turn them towards success, spend time coaching and mentoring them.

3. Be a Problem Solver, Not a Problem Finder

It is so easy to find problems. Something inside us can instantly pick up on what is wrong with a thing. Maybe it is some repressed trauma or a poor mindset.

Many leaders and managers will immediately complain about the situation when they perceive a problem. That is why most teams fail. They cannot change their focus from finding problems to finding solutions.

If you want to manage a failing team successfully, then change your perspective. Create a solutions-based culture. For example, If someone comes to you with a problem, they also have to offer you a few suggestions on fixing the problem. When you train your team to be solution-based thinkers, you are teaching the team to see every problem as an opportunity for innovation.

4. Become a Conductor

I remember the first time I co-conducted a spring concert at my high school. The perspective shift was intense. As a trumpet player, I was one of many. My whole job was to play the part I was given. When I took the conductor baton, I stood out and became the one many looked to for direction and guidance.

As the conductor, my job was to ensure that every person played their part. Another level of my job was to ensure that every part went together in harmony. It was a massive undertaking for someone so young, but I was up for the task.

If managers thought and acted more like music conductors, the failing team would turn around. As the manager of a failing team, you would look at each person, their assigned roles, and how each role should work together.

From this perspective, you should start to see patterns emerge. Your goal is to manage the failing team by assisting them in creating success. As these patterns begin to appear, you quickly assess whether or not that particular pattern is helping or hurting the team.

As the conductor, you change unhealthy patterns and reinforce healthy ones. Success is the music of the business world. When the manager can lead a failing team towards success by putting all the pieces together in the right way, it is a win for everyone on the team.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Some Hard Decisions

As I mentioned earlier, managing a failing team can be difficult. One of the most challenging tasks that the manager will have to navigate is knowing when to let a team member go.

Cognitively, we convince ourselves of how easy it will be to tell a team member that they are no longer suitable for the team. Logically, that is an easy thing to do. Removing the person (or persons) who are dragging the team down is the right call to make. Emotionally, it isn’t straightforward.

Things are not always so black and white when people are involved. People get hurt, and the organization suffers. That is why most leaders and managers try to avoid making the hard calls. They do not want conflict, nor do they want to wrestle with the guilt of having to terminate someone. If you’re going to manage a failing team, you will have to make some hard calls.

Let’s say you were diagnosed with cancer. Your doctor told you that you only had two months to live unless you changed your diet, worked out, and started being treated with chemo. What would you do?

Well, if you are anything like me, you know full well that you would do exactly what the doctor recommended. You would do everything in your ability to remove what was killing you so that you could live a long and healthy life.

Now, apply that to your team. If a member(s) was the reason your team was failing, wouldn’t you want to do everything possible to transition that team from failing to success? Have the courage to make the tough calls so that your team can move from a place of failure to a place of victory. Make the tough call, even if it causes you to have to move aside and allow another to lead.

6 . Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

There is no such thing as over-communicating, especially when you realize that people rarely pay attention. With the rise of TikTok, Youtube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and now Facebook (Meta) Reels, it is no wonder that most of the population’s attention span is shrinking.

When people live life in 30-second increments, keeping their attention becomes exceedingly more difficult. With that said, it is imperative that the level of communication increases. Not only does communication need to improve, but we must also become more creative in the mediums we use to communicate the message.

A mentor of mine once said, “When people get sick of hearing the message is when you know that they will start remembering it.” Is your team sick of hearing the expectations? Are they tired of hearing you talk about how you define a win? Do they get frustrated when they listen to what they need to do to succeed?

If your answer is yes, then keep on communicating it! If your answer is no, it is time to step up your game.

7. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

As a child, I remember seeing a series of commercials around forest fires. The star of the commercial was Smokey The Bear. His famous words were, “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

Smokey The Bear has been around since 1944. His message has always been the same: Be proactive, so you don’t have to be reactive.

The meaning is that it is easier to prevent a fire than it is to put one out. Yet, we see managers of these failing teams continually fighting fires instead of learning to avoid them. Leaders were never meant to be firefighters. Do they put out fires? Yes! Should that be their primary focus? No!

A reactive leader is a leader who lives in the emotion of the moment. They are continually in crisis mode. Growth cannot occur, and teams will not turn around as long as the leader manages their team from a place of crisis. A shift must happen if you hope to manage a failing team properly.

Instead of constantly living in crisis mode, start creating systems that will help you avoid the crisis. Build a structure and culture around progress and prevention instead of reaction and emotion. The quicker you shift from a reactive to a proactive stance, the greater your chance to effectively manage your failing team and turn them around towards success.

Final Thoughts

If you are managing a failing team, there is hope. Your team doesn’t need to continue down the path towards failure. As the leader, the responsibility of turning the team around falls upon you.

Be a leader worth following. Take the time to assess your situation, create processes that change your direction, and lead your people from surviving to thriving.

More Tips on Team Management

• 10 Ways to Improve Team Management Skills and Boost Performance
• How to Master Your Management Skills and Build a Strong Team
• 10 Challenges Leaders Always Face And How To Deal With Them

Featured photo credit: Andreea Avramescu via unsplash.com

The post How to Manage a Failing Team (Or an Underperforming Team) appeared first on Lifehack.

7 Reasons Why Team Management Is Important

When we lived as hunter-gatherers, we always sought two basic social needs. The first is belonging, which led us to the group and, eventually, to live in cities and countries. The second is management. Communities were dependent on the leader (or leaders) to steer them and create a system that helps the community flourish. Today, we still seek those needs in our communities and our teams. So, why is team management critical?

Team Management Then And Now

Back in the day, that was easy. Having a good manager (chief, for example) meant that you would feed your family and keep them safe. But these days, when Alexa takes care of our food and we are relatively safe, good management is measured differently.

In our workplaces, team management can determine whether a team or company will reach its goals and KPIs, how processes and culture are forged, how employees are treated and retained, and more.

In recent years, since the outbreak of Covid-19, the team manager’s job has changed. Three years ago, managers were selected or promoted based on the ability to lead processes, evaluate the success of their team members, and reach KPIs. Today, it is more common for HR people to look for managers who can serve as mentors, coaches, and teachers for their employees.

Gartner’s analysis shows that 46% of the workforce is projected to be working hybrid soon, which forces managers to rethink culture. Gartner also estimates that 70% of the manager-employee interactions are remote today.^[1] It means that, in most cases, team managers do not have control over their employees’ schedules, work environment, task management, emotional state, and more. This affects the managers’ ability to forge a strong culture.

That said, managers must understand the importance of team management, and more importantly, they must learn how to do it right both for themselves and the managers below them.

Why Team Management Is Important

For that purpose, here are 7 reasons why team management is essential and tips on how to implement them in your teams.

1. Hiring

When choosing the next people to join the team, it is crucial to select those who relate to the company’s higher purpose. It is also recommended to hire a diverse group that will include people from different backgrounds and brings fresh and innovative ideas to the team.

2. Employee Engagement

As the saying goes,^[2]

“The longest journey that people must take is the eighteen inches between their heads and their hearts.”—John Mackey

It is well known that the more the employees are engaged with the team’s and the company’s purpose, the harder they will work for it. How to do that? Here are a few ways:^[3]

Purpose

One of the most efficient ways to improve employees’ engagement is by connecting them to the company’s higher purpose. To do so, encourage your team managers to talk about it occasionally, and let the employees know how each task contributes to it.

Numbers

Most companies do not share their actual numbers with their employees, and even if they do so in a newsletter or a widespread email, most employees do not pay attention to it.

Employees want to feel that their job is important and that they are a big part of the company’s movement (as they are). Thus, it is recommended to share with your employees some numbers that indicate progress. To make it even more engaging, share the numbers with your team management and encourage them to share them with their teams.

Milestones

While milestones are sometimes perceived as an issue of higher management, it is important to celebrate hitting them with the whole company.

When hitting a milestone, let your employees know. Share it with your team managers, appreciate the people who made this happen together, and share the next milestones to achieve.

3. Culture

Tony Hsieh, the late founder of Zappos.com, wrote in his book, Delivering Happiness:

“What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.”

One of the most powerful ways to create a team that delivers on time and in high quality is to build a strong culture where employees are engaged and connected to the company’s core purpose.

This is exactly when you step in as manager. Training managers in building a remote culture that serves both your organization’s purpose and your employees is important.

There is no one rule of thumb for it, as this is a complicated topic. But here are some ideas:

Make Face-to-Face Meetings Count

It’s sometimes nice to see your teams working in the office’s open space when Covid allows, but now it is rare (and in-person meetings are even more infrequent). When they do happen, make them count.

Encourage your team managers to take their teams to lunch outside the office. Plan hackathons and team activities. Those meetings will help create some of the human bonds that your employees and managers desire.

Have Daily Calls With the Team Members

Having a daily call with the team members helps managers understand the difficulties their employees are experiencing and how they can assist in dealing with them. Complications can vary from not having a comfortable workplace at home to professional challenges. Managers should have a wide range of solutions for those issues. But the only way for the managers to be aware of those issues is by talking to the employees daily.

Use Technology to Focus on the Important Stuff

Think of all the repetitive tasks your managers do—scheduling meetings, tasks division, tracking progress, etc. Frankly, some of these tasks need automation. A study made by HBR found that “more than one in four companies have invested in new technology to monitor their remote employees during the pandemic.” They also estimate that by 2024, more than 60% of the managers’ tasks will be replaced with technology.^[4]

Does it mean that team management is no longer necessary? The answer is no. It means that now, managers are left with more time to invest in building culture, planning the future of the team and team members, serving more as a coach and mentor, and less like traffic policing.

Encourage your managers to use new technologies and truly understand how to make the most out of them.

4. Productivity

Jim Collins, an American author, wrote: “If you have more than 3 priorities, then you don’t have any.”^[5]

We, as managers, are used to being productive, staying focused, and keeping ourselves on track towards our personal and professional goals. We are familiar with all sorts of systems for productivity, such as time blocking, Inbox Zero, and GTD. But how can we help our teams to be more productive, too?

Well, productivity is a huge deal at first. You can improve so many areas—meetings, time management, communication, technology, culture, decision making, processes, and so much more. So, what is the key to success here? You guessed that right: focus.

Along with your team management, build a productivity improvement plan, and start with the three most important areas. Then, set the goals for that project, and the team managers will communicate that and the management’s expectations to their teams.

Make sure you and your team management set a good example. Be there on time (or join the video meeting one minute before), set your goals, and be productive.

5. Developing Team Members (Including the Managers)

You spotted a leadership seed in your employee and decided to promote them for a manager role. You choose your managers carefully and, hopefully, train them well for the job. Now, it’s in their hands to spot the potential in their employees and help them evolve and grow within the organization.

Career pathing and being transparent about your plans for the employee are crucial in maintaining and engaging employees. And It’s your team management’s job to do that. How?

First, the manager needs to step out from the employee position and stop doing their jobs for them. That will allow the manager to observe the team members’ progress and focus on managing instead of executing.

Then, the manager would need to encourage the employees to talk about their aspirations and set goals together. In their monthly 1:1 meetings, the manager and the employee would check what progress they have made in the passing month towards those goals and what they should do in the next month.

6. Innovation

Building an innovative team is important and challenging. When aiming for innovation, you will need to prepare yourself for failures (not that this should be a problem for entrepreneurs) from team members and for outcomes that you would never expect (good or bad), which is not an easy task.

Although it is hard, building an innovative team is not “mission impossible.” With a combination of hard work and some tricks, you should get there.

We already covered some things like engaging your employees and building a strong culture, and it’s time for one more important topic: creating a safe space for ideas.

Ray Dalio, the founder and CEO of Bridgewater hedge fund, called it in his TED talk, “creating a place where the best ideas win. “ Dalio talked about creating a space where every employee has the same chance to share their ideas and get honest feedback from everyone involved, no matter their seniority level.

Another tip for creating a safe space is to conduct a “dumb brainstorming” where every participant must share their dumbest ideas on how to solve a problem. This way, you can tear down the walls of shame people carry to regular brainstorming meetings and declare that no idea is dumb to you.

7. It Creates Magic

Some teams perform on average, and some perform better. This team always performs way better and, sometimes, you don’t even know why. For some reason, this team manages to outperform the others by a lot. They work faster, deliver better, and bring innovative solutions.

They have some kind of magic. Well, as far as science knows, magic does not exist in real life. So how, then, do they manage to do so well? This well-balanced combination of all of the above makes the best teams best.

So, how can you provide this magic to your team management?

Share your thought about this and similar articles with them, let them know how much you think team management is important. Tell them that you believe that with your help, they can create magic in their teams.

Final Thoughts

Why is team management so important? There could be a million answers. But when thinking about it, this is all about people and how they interact with each other. Thus, team managers have a huge power to affect both the employees’ lives and the whole company’s performance.

In these complicated days, the manager’s job has changed. They must understand that and think of how they can integrate better into their employees’ lives, help them deal with the toughness of working remotely, be more conscious of their employees’ needs, and motivate and improve them both personally and professionally.

More Tips for Team Management

• The Importance of Delegating Leadership (And How to Do It)
• How To Lead And Manage a Remote Team

Featured photo credit: Jason Goodman via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Harvard Business Review: What Does It Mean to Be a Manager Today?
[2]	^	Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business
[3]	^	Harvard Business Review: The Three Rules of Employee Engagement
[4]	^	Harvard Business Review: What Does It Mean to Be a Manager Today?
[5]	^	Inc.: Jim Collins: Good to Great in 10 Steps

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How to Manage a Team Effectively as a New Manager

Whether you are new as a manager or entering a new role and inheriting a team, you want to strategize your plan for success. Learning how to manage a team effectively as a new manager isn’t about jumping in and hoping you get the same luck as before. This is a new group of people with new expectations and work styles. Therefore, you’ll need to adapt to flourish as a new manager. This isn’t difficult if you’re willing to do a little pre-planning before your first day.

While there is a breadth of knowledge, skillsets, and expectations required for all successful managers, don’t get overwhelmed or let your inner critic get in your way. Remember, you were selected for this role because others have faith in you. Now, you need to show how you can manage a team effectively as a new leader. Take a deep breath and start with the basics then build from there. In time, your expertise and achievements will grow exponentially.

To help you get started, here are a few tips on how you can manage a team effectively as a new manager.

1. Know the Distinctions

Management and leadership are two different roles. Simply put, a manager oversees operations, projects, and people while a leader drives a vision. Many times, people in a supervisory capacity confuse the terms and focus on the areas where they are most comfortable. Unfortunately, this can lead to disengagement and frustration within your team.

Having a very task-oriented manager is ideal for driving teams toward goals and keeping processes and projects moving forward. But leadership involves a deeply human element, understanding how your team members work best, and creating a culture and environment that invites them to achieve great results.

So, should you focus on management or leadership? Honestly, you should strive to be successful at both—and you can. Learning how to manage a team effectively as a new manager requires your setting them up for success as well as inspiring them to follow your lead.

2. Set Yourself Up for Success

Prior to adopting a new team, you want to set yourself up for success. Create a plan for sharing and demonstrating your leadership style, team expectations, and work approach. While your leadership style needs to adapt to circumstances and team interactions, you’ll want to be consistent with your natural style so team members can adapt accordingly.

Additionally, you’ll want to make clear from the very beginning your expectations and work style. How often will you hold meetings? Do you have an open-door policy, preferred frequency, and channels of communication, the cadence of reports, and one-on-ones? These important elements of expectations and work styles should be established from the get-go.

Getting organized and sharing how you all can work best together not only sets you up for success but also creates transparency, which is required for team members to feel at ease with you as their manager. And laying out your success plan—with the shared expectation that you may need to pivot—increases trust and productivity.

3. Provide Your Team With a Vision

If you don’t know where you are heading, it’s difficult to get on board that train. Having a vision is the key to productivity and consensus. You’ll need a north star to direct how your team’s efforts contribute to the overall goal of the organization and positively impact the bottom line. While you have governance of your vision, a team that’s contributed to designing a collective north star has more skin in the game.

Start off on the right foot by hosting a collaborative brainstorming session to crystalize your vision. It’s a wonderful way to get everyone involved from the start and give you a chance to see their personalities and preferences in action. Once a vision has been realized, agree that it will be used to align direction and measure productivity and performance.

When team members have a say in the vision and how it needs to be realized, they are more likely to accept responsibility and take constructive feedback. Remember, they’re now vested in both your success and theirs. So, by being involved in designing the vision, they have also outlined the standards against which they will be measured. This makes things a lot easier for decision-making, budgeting, and evaluations.

4. Don’t Be Afraid of Making Difficult Decisions

The team that you inherit may not be working or a good fit for your management style. This may require you to make difficult decisions, like demotions, transfers, or terminations of team members. But before you do, spend time getting to know them, understanding their strengths, and reviewing their performance to date. It’s only fair that you give them a chance to adjust to you as their manager and prove their ability to step up and contribute. If they can’t, you may need to put them on a PIP (performance improvement plan) or let them go.

One thing you should never do is avoid having difficult conversations. If you know someone isn’t going to be a good fit or their performance or behavioral style is disrupting productivity, let them know. Making a difficult decision early on will not only reinforce your intent to prioritize productivity but will also improve the well-being and productivity of your team.

5. Leverage Everyone’s Strengths

Once you get to know your team or have built one to your satisfaction, leverage their strengths to the fullest. Knowing how to manage a team effectively as a new manager requires getting them engaged and enthused about their work. And when they can contribute and use their strengths daily, you’re setting everyone up for success.

Conversely, forcing people to turn weaknesses into strengths is a huge mistake and waste of time. It will ultimately lead to frustration, disengagement, and most likely attrition. But when you tap into their innate abilities, you’ll see them shine. Their employed talent will translate into amazing results for everyone involved.

While you don’t have the luxury of doing everything that you love all day long, you should find most of your day spent leveraging your strengths. The same should be true for your team.

6. Be Available to Listen

I once worked for a manager who was always available to spend time with me when I’d asked. The problem was, she never listened. So, even the time we had together—which I hoped would be incredibly valuable—was time wasted. She had an agenda, and I could always tell that she was consumed with thinking about her plans versus my words.

Remember, it’s not always easy to come to one’s supervisor with a problem and ask for advice. For many, this is a sign of weakness. But the truth is, it’s a sign of strength. So, applaud their courage and be truly present to listen to their opinions, ideas, and concerns.

If your team member comes to you with a problem, keep an open mind. Yes, you have a plan and an agenda of where you are going as a unit, but their concerns and ideas are incredibly valuable and may be the linchpin in changing outcomes and directions for the better.

7. Build Trust Through Open Communication

When you first meet your team, share your enthusiasm and your background. Give each member a chance to share theirs in kind. Building trust is critical to evolving your team into a cohesive unite that works well together and respects one another.

In the process of changing management, success requires trust, transparency, and communication to adapt and thrive. Put yourself into their shoes, and consider how this change is affecting them. What can you do to make this process smoother and build their trust? How to manage a team effectively as a new manager? How can you bring out their best?

Sometimes, asking these questions can get you the answers you need for success.

8. Develop Your Management Skills

Coordinating, organizing, planning, prioritizing, and delegating are just a few ways how you can manage a team effectively as a new manager.^[1] But these are concrete easy-to-measure skills that are also fairly easy to learn and implement. The best managers know that developing and honing their interpersonal and behavioral skills enables long-lasting success in themselves and their team, especially when modeled appropriately, and helps your team members with their professional development.

Talking openly about what is expected when it comes to emotional and cultural intelligence and learning how to proactively handle conflict and crisis is a great place to start. But you must also walk the walk. Help your team see that you prioritize personal and professional development by setting the bar high for yourself.

Final Thoughts

Knowing how you can manage a team effectively as a new manager is somewhat subjective, but it isn’t rocket science. Still, your role as a manager needs to be taken seriously.

Too many managers rest on their laurels, ignore warning signs, resent transparency, and avoid leadership altogether. Don’t fall into that trap. Instead, commit to action, and commit to your personal success. You will be effective and successful if you start with a plan and include your team in developing a vision and shared expectations.

Once you have established these, you can then go about the process of designing your blueprint for reaching that vision, assigning goals to those with related strengths, and developing and implementing a strategy for ongoing personal and professional development. Great managers know the importance of honing their managerial skillset while simultaneously developing their leadership presence.

More Tips for Managers

• How to Be a Good Manager and Effective Leader
• 4 Types of Management Styles to Master to Become a Strong Leader
• Leadership vs Management: Is One Better Than the Other?

Featured photo credit: Mimi Thian via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]

^

SHRM: Managers Must Delegate Effectively to Develop Employees

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Short on Time? 4 Time Hacks to Get Your Schedule Under Control

I’ve found that, over the years, traditional work schedules have gone by the wayside. Things like weekends off and nine-to-five workdays are a thing of the past. There are times that this flexibility is a blessing, but it does mean that I have to stay on top of both my work and personal schedule. Which is why I’ve started to incorporate more time hacks into my life.

Start introducing time hacks into your own life by first taking a closer look at your daily activities to determine how your time is spent. Consider using a daily activity log to evaluate your current schedule. With a few “off the beaten path” changes I’ve discovered, you too can get that stuffed schedule under control again.

Listed below are a series of time hacks I took to better organize my schedule. You may embrace them all or pick out a couple that resonate with you. Either way, you’ll gain more time in your schedule by incorporating a few of these time hacks into your daily routine.

1. Keep Up That Pandemic Simplicity

Let’s start with something that is easy to overlook: the pandemic brought a certain sense of simplicity to our lives. Don’t get me wrong. The event itself was a horrible thing. But as far as scheduling goes, for a lot of us, life got a bit cleaner.

Social activity was at a minimum, and even things like shopping were done via drop-offs or curbside pickups. Over the course of life in quarantine, I’ve found that, whenever things lighten up, my reaction is to revert to old habits like in-person shopping and relentless social schedules. It’s a tendency that I’m resisting now.

See, it turns out that the simplicity induced by the pandemic is helpful for normal life, too. Work schedules are easier to manage without an added hour or two for commuting. Grocery shopping is a breeze with curbside pick up. I can even “eat out” at a moment’s notice by having Grubhub deliver my food or if I do not want to risk my health by going to a pharmacy and waiting for prescriptions, I can get my medication delivered to my doorstep with ^[1] same-day delivery via a company like Medly’s digital pharmacy.

I shared this tip with my grandparents, who are constantly refilling their prescriptions, so that they could stay safe as well. Pandemic or not, maintain those simple lifelines where you can. The time that they save is significant.

2. Create a Master Calendar

Calendars are awesome. They help me keep track of my daily schedule. I remember events that absolutely would have slipped off of my radar if they weren’t there, ensconced on my little calendar app. You can even set up calendar alerts or reminders to help keep you on schedule.

I’ve gone with the mainstream option by utilizing Google’s popular multi-platform calendar. It integrates into so many devices and gadgets. But in reality, any calendar app can do. The point is, if you want your schedule to make any sense, you need a calendar.

But that’s not really a “time hack,” is it? If you want to take your act to the next level, you should go beyond a personal calendar. You need to integrate a “master calendar”^[2] for your tribe. Whether that’s a spouse, children, or friends, if you cohabitate with others, get a calendar set up for you all to share. That way, you can include events that impact everyone involved in a central location for all to see.

3. Embrace the Rule of One

Multitasking feels great. But I have some tough love to share with you: that productive feeling is a fallacy. It’s actually more of a time suck rather than a time hack. In fact, one of the best ways to reduce your productivity is to take on too many things at once.

Enter the “Rule of One.”

This is the uncomplicated idea that, in order to remain productive over the long term, you should plan to only accomplish one substantive thing each day. Start the day by picking a single significant thing that you want to check off your list by the end of the day.

By focusing on a single thing for each 24-hour period, you can maintain forward momentum. You can also embrace a genuine sense of productivity as you complete real-world items on a daily basis.

4. Review Your Entertainment …Regularly

When things are crazy, it’s easy to slide into unhealthy entertainment habits. When I finish a long day, all I want to do is binge on a comedy like “The Office” or “Modern Family.” These are great shows with real entertainment value, but when I mindlessly consume them as a bottomless escape from my reality, it doesn’t help matters much.

On the contrary, binging television, gaming at all hours of the night, going out to clubs, eating junk food, or any other entertainment activity can be destructive. The problem isn’t what you’re doing so much as why you’re doing it.

If you want to restore your schedule, consider what you’re getting out of each entertainment activity. Use the Japanese model of simplicity and minimalism as an inspiration to remove time-sucking activities from your life — even technically “fun” ones.

If you’re like me, you’ll find that the entertainment you do continue to engage in has a new level of satisfaction. Oh, and you’ll free up more of your schedule, too.

Letting Go to Regain Control

If there’s one thing that I’ve discovered about scheduling over the years, it’s that a firmer grip never wins out. In fact, getting more intense about a crazy schedule tends to play out a bit like squeezing a bar of soap.

Instead, I’ve learned to look for subtle yet effective ways to make a difference. Incorporating things like simplicity, master calendars, and the Rule of One can have a huge impact on your schedule. It did for me.

Featured photo credit: De an Sun via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Medly Pharmacy: 5 Reasons Prescription Delivery is the Future of Healthcare
[2]	^	Care.com: The 8 Best Calendar and Organizer Apps for Families

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How to Manage Time Efficiently And Make the Best of Your Time

Time management happens to be one of the most important skills in everyone’s life. If you don’t know how to manage your time, you probably can’t achieve much!

In this episode of the Lifehack Show, I’ll show you what you can do to manage your time efficiently and make the best out of your time. Learn how to stop juggling all of your responsibilities at once, and start living a more productive and less stressful life.

The post How to Manage Time Efficiently And Make the Best of Your Time appeared first on Lifehack.

How To Become More Efficient in Life

Be it in your personal life or professional life, efficiency is crucial. It is a measure of how dedicated you are in terms of work or other things as well.

In this episode of the Lifehack Show, I’m showing you how to spend less time doing unimportant stuff so that you have more time for things that really matter to you.

The post How To Become More Efficient in Life appeared first on Lifehack.

Are You Addicted to Productivity?

“It’s great to be productive. It really is. But sometimes, we chase productivity so much that it makes us, well, unproductive. It’s easy to read a lot about how to be more productive , but don’t forget that you have to make that time up.”

Matt Cutts wrote that back in 2013,^[1]

“Today, search for ‘productivity’ and Google will come back with about 663,000,000 results. If you decide to go down this rabbit hole, you’ll be bombarded by a seemingly endless amount of content. I’m talking about books, blogs, videos, apps, podcasts, scientific studies, and subreddits all dedicated to productivity.”

Like so many other people, I’ve also fallen into this trap. For years I’ve been on the lookout for trends and hacks that will help me work faster and more efficiently — and also trends that help me help others to be faster. I’ve experimented with various strategies and tools . And, while some of these strategies and solutions have been extremely useful — without parsing out what you need quickly — it’s counterproductive.

Sometimes you end up spending more time focusing on how to be productive instead of actually being productive.

“The most productive people I know don’t read these books, they don’t watch these videos, they don’t try a new app every month,” James Bedell wrote in a Medium post.^[2] “They are far too busy getting things done to read about Getting Things Done.”

This is my mantra:

I proudly say, “I am addicted to productivity — I want to be addicted to productivity — productivity is my life and my mission — and I also want to find the best way to lead others through productivity to their best selves.

But most of the time productivity means putting your head down and working until the job’s done.” –John Rampton

Addiction to Productivity is Real

Dr. Sandra Chapman, director of the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth points out that the brain can get addicted to productivity just as it can to more common sources of addiction, such as drugs, gambling, eating, and shopping.

“A person might crave the recognition their work gives them or the salary increases they get,” Chapman told the BBC.^[3] “The problem is that just like all addictions, over time, a person needs more and more to be satisfied, and then it starts to work against you. Withdrawal symptoms include increased anxiety, depression, and fear.”

Despite the harmful consequences, addiction is considered by some experts as a brain disease that affects the brain’s reward system and ends in compulsive behavior. Regardless, society tends to reward productivity — or at least to treat it positively. As a result, this makes the problem even worse.

“It’s seen like a good thing: the more you work, the better,” adds Chapman. “Many people don’t realize the harm it causes until a divorce occurs and a family is broken apart, or the toll it takes on mental health.”

Because of the occasional negative issues with productivity, it’s no surprise that it is considered a “mixed-blessing addiction.”

“A workaholic might be earning a lot of money, just as an exercise addict is very fit,” explains Dr. Mark Griffiths, distinguished professor of behavioral addiction at Nottingham Trent University. “But the thing about any addiction is that in the long run, the detrimental effects outweigh any short-term benefits.”

“There may be an initial period where the individual who is developing a work addiction is more productive than someone who isn’t addicted to work, but it will get to a point when they are no longer productive, and their health and relationships are affected,” Griffiths writes in Psychology Today.^[4] “It could be after one year or more, but if the individual doesn’t do anything about it, they could end up having serious health consequences.”

“For instance, I speculated that the consequences of work addiction may be reclassified as something else: If someone ends up dying of a work-related heart attack, it isn’t necessarily seen as having anything to do with an addiction per se – it might be attributed to something like burnout,” he adds.

There Are Three “Distinct Extreme Productivity Types

Cyril Peupion, a Sydney-based productivity expert, has observed extreme productivity among clients at both large and medium-sized companies. “Most people who come to me are high performers and very successful. But often, the word they use to describe their work style is ‘unsustainable,’ and they need help getting it back on track.”

By changing their work habits, Peupion assists teams and individuals improve their performance and ensure that their efforts are aligned with the overarching strategy of the business, rather than focusing on work as a means to an end. He has distinguished three types of extreme productivity in his classification: efficiency obsessive, selfishly productive, and quantity-obsessed.

Efficiency obsessive. “Their desks are super tidy and their pens are probably color-coded. They are the master of ‘inbox zero.’ But they have lost sight of the big picture, and don’t know the difference between efficiency and effectiveness.”

Selfishly productive. “They are so focused on their own world that if they are asked to do something outside of it, they aren’t interested. They do have the big picture in mind, but the picture is too much about them.”

Quantity-obsessed. “They think; ‘The more emails I respond to, the more meetings I attend, the more tasks I do, the higher my performance.’ As a result, they face a real risk of burnout.”

Peupion believes that “quantity obsessed” individuals are the most common type “because there is a pervasive belief that ‘more’ means ‘better’ at work.”

The Warning Signs of Productivity Addiction

Here are a few questions you should ask yourself if you think you may be succumbing to productivity addiction. After all, most of us aren’t aware of this until it’s too late.

• Can you tell when you’re “wasting” time? If so, have you ever felt guilty about it?
• Does technology play a big part in optimizing your time management?
• Do you talk about how busy you are most of the time? In your opinion, is hustling better than doing less?
• What is your relationship with your email inbox? Are you constantly checking it or experience phantom notifications?
• When you only check one item off your list, do you feel guilty?
• Does stress from work interfere with your sleep?
• Have you been putting things off, like a vacation or side project, because you’re “too swamped?

The first step toward turning around your productivity obsession is to recognize it. If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, then it’s time to make a plan to overcome your addiction to productivity.

Overcoming Your Productivity Addiction

Thankfully, there are ways to curb your productivity addiction. And, here are 9 such ways to achieve that goal.

1. Set Limits

Just because you’re hooked on productivity doesn’t mean you have to completely abstain from it. Instead, you need to establish boundaries.

For example, there are a lot of amazing productivity podcasts out there. But, that doesn’t mean you have to listen to them all in the course of a day. Instead, you could listen to one or two podcasts, like The Productivity Podcast or Before Breakfast, during your commute. And, that would be your only time of the day to get your productivity fix.

2. Create a Not-to-Do List

Essentially, the idea of a not-to-do list is to eliminate the need to practice self-discipline. Getting rid of low-value tasks and bad habits will allow you to focus on what you really want to do as opposed to weighing the pros and cons or declining time requests. More importantly, this prevents you from feeling guilty about not crossing everything off an unrealistic to-do list.

3. Be Vulnerable

By this, I mean admitting where you could improve. For example, if you’re new to remote work and are struggling with thi s, you would only focus on topics in this area. Suggestions would be how to create a workspace at home, not getting distracted when the kids aren’t in school, or improving remote communication and collaboration with others.

4. Understand Why You Procrastinate

Often, we procrastinate to minimize negative emotions like boredom or stress. Other times it could be because it’s a learned trait, underestimating how long it takes you to complete something or having a bias towards a task.

Regardless of the exact reason, we end up doing busy work, scrolling social media, or just watching one more episode of our favorite TV series. And, even though we know that it’s not for the best, we do things that make us feel better than the work we should do to restore our mood.^[5]

There are a lot of ways to overcome procrastination. But, the first step is to be aware of it so that you can take action. For example, if you’re dreading a difficult task, don’t just watch Netflix. Instead, procrastinate more efficiently,y like returning a phone call or working on a client pitch.

5. Don’t Be a Copycat

Let’s keep this short and sweet. When you find a productivity app or technique that works for you, stick with it.

That’s not to say that you can’t make adjustments along the way or try new tools or hacks. However, the main takeaway should be that just because someone swears by the Pomodoro Technique doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for you.

6. Say Yes to Less

Across the board, your philosophy should be less is more.

That means only download the apps you actually use and want to keep (after you try them out) and uninstall the ones you don’t use. For example, are you currently reading a book on productivity? Don’t buy your next book until you’ve finished the one you’re currently reading (or permit yourself to toss a book that isn’t doing you any good). — and if you really want to finish a book more quickly, listen to the book on your way to work and back.

Already have plans this weekend? Don’t commit to a birthday party. And, if you’re day is booked, decline that last-minute meeting request.

7. Stop Focusing on What’s Next

“In the age when purchasing a thing from overseas is just one click and talking to another person is one swipe right, acquiring new objects or experiences can be addictive like anything else,” writes Patrick Banks for Lifehack .

“That doesn’t need to be you,” he adds. “You can stop your addition to ‘the next thing’ starting today.” After all, “there will always be this next thing if you don’t make a conscious decision to get your life back together and be the one in charge.”

• Think about your current lifestyle and the person you’re at this stage to help you identify what you aren’t satisfied with.
• By setting clear goals for yourself in the future, you will be able to overcome your addiction.
• Establish realistic goals.
• To combat addiction, you must be aware of what is going on around you, as well as inside your head, at any given time.
• Don’t spend time with people who have unhealthy behaviors.
• Hold yourself accountable.
• Keep a journal and write out what you want to overcome.
• Appreciate no longer being addicted to what’s next.

8. Simplify

Each day, pick one priority task. That’s it. As long as you concentrate on one task at a time, you will be less likely to get distracted or overwhelmed by an endless list of tasks. A simple mantra to live by is: work smarter, not harder.

The same is also accurate with productivity hacks and tools. Bullet journaling is a great example. Unfortunately, for many, a bullet journal is way more time-consuming and overwhelming than a traditional planner.

9. Learn How to Relax

“Sure, we need to produce sometimes, especially if we have to pay the bills, but, banning obsession with productivity is unhealthy,” writes Leo Babauta. “When you can’t get yourself to be productive, relax.” Don’t worry about being hyper-efficient. And, don’t beat yourself up about having fun.

“But what if you can’t motivate yourself … ever?” he asks. “Sure, that can be a problem. But if you relax and enjoy yourself, you’ll be happier.”

“And if you work when you get excited, on things you’re excited about, and create amazing things, that’s motivation,” Leo states. “Not forcing yourself to work when you don’t want to, on things you don’t want to work on — motivation is doing things you love when you get excited.”

But, how exactly can you relax? Here are some tips from Leo;

• Spend 5 minutes walking outside and breathe in the fresh air.
• Give yourself more time to accomplish things. Less rushing means less stress.
• If you can, get outside after work to enjoy nature.
• Play like a child. Even better? Play with your kids. And, have fun at work — maybe give gamification a try .
• Take the day off, rest, and do something non-work-related.
• Allow yourself an hour of time off. Try not to be productive during that time. Just relax.
• You should work with someone who is exciting. Make your project exciting.
• Don’t work in the evenings. Seriously.
• Visit a massage therapist.
• Just breathe.

“Step by step, learn to relax,” he suggests. “Learn that productivity isn’t everything.” For that statement, sorry Leo, I say productivity isn’t everything — it’s the only thing.” However, if you can’t cut loose, relax, do fun things, and do the living part of your life — you’ll crack in a big way — you really will.

It’s great to create and push forward — just remember it doesn’t mean that every minute must be spent working or obsessing over productivity issues. Instead, invest your time in meaningful, high-impact work, get into it, focus, put in big time and then relax.

Are You Addicted to Productivity? was originally published on Calendar by John Rampton.

Featured photo credit: Christina @ wocintechchat.com via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Matt Cuts: The dangers of productivity porn
[2]	^	James Bedell: The Trap of Productivity Porn
[3]	^	BBC: When productivity becomes an addiction
[4]	^	Psychology Today: Productivity Addiction
[5]	^	The Wall Street Journal: To Stop Procrastinating, Look to Science of Mood Repair

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