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Superhumans have feelings too

Photo credit: Claus Fisker/Ritzau Scanpix

It can be very hard to keep a straight face, also for a top professional. Were you also moved by Viktor Axelsen’s tears?

He talked about friendships: how important they are and how to be a good buddy. Just returned home, with the gold medal around his neck in his hometown Odense. Surrounded by family and an entire happy city cheering for him. That’s when the watery glasses came on.

We are humans. Not above nature, and not separate, completely different, existences, depending on whether we are at the job or not. We always carry our nervous system with us, appropriately designed and refined through millions of years, to signal with emotions.

Emotional outbursts are powerful, and can be a scary experience. That does not change the fact that they occur, we just do everything we can, to feel something different if the emotion does not appear “appropriate”. We learned this growing up, how many has not heard eg “That’s nothing to feel sorry for” – ??

Forcing your body to feel something different is almost impossible, and far more difficult than just letting the emotion pass.

An emotion erupts, flows through the body and wears off quite quickly. It is a rather non-specific and coarse signal. Emotions are physical, something we feel in the body. The same sense of unease occurs when you experience fear of heights, falling in love and giving/receiving negative feedback.

Emotional outbursts can also be extremely effective, in a second creating a close connection between people. That happened in Axelsen’s case: a superhuman’s authentic vulnerability. I loved every second.  

Crying on the job is recommendable in very special situations only, like this one. Normally, values are a better guide – check this post for more.

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Considering a new job?

Not everyone reflects regularly. It usually takes a break from the everyday life, or an external event: seasons changing, events among friends or family, children being born – or other reminders that time is passing.

For most people, summer vacation is the longest break from work during the year. A whole week of vacation can pass before it is really felt: peace of mind

Jobindex posts that most people change job in August. As many as one in five employees wants a new job after having reflected over it during summer vacation, more than a tripling of the baseline number. The pattern repeats itself to a slightly less extent around New Year. Maybe not surprising.

When we are at ease, we have skills that are suppressed when we are “at unease” (just to stay clear of the term stress! I do NOT mean stress, just the workload removing us from being vacation-style relaxed). At ease we become more social and loving, and we are able to see the nuances of things. We are better at remembering everything we’ve learned. Good preconditions for personal reflection: things come to the surface and can be seen in their ambiguity.

The last vacation time, maybe as much as the whole last week, can see the return of “unease”:

“I wish I didn’t have to go back. My boss does not appreciate me. My salary is not good and workloads are too high and too unpredictable. The office is in a sad location, and not very pleasant at all. I just can’t see my future in this job.”

All these statements could be called “AWAY FROM”.

Of course it’s better if you can land a job where “TOWARDS” arguments are in place: the workplace and your role in it aligns with your values. Your mastery of the tasks is perfect and you will be appreciated accordingly. Workload and salary is agreed in a fair and open dialogue. You will be proud of this new job, and the change will add meaning to your work life.

But – it can be very difficult to express what you want and am good at. Which values are the most important. What characterizes the good boss, and the good colleagues.

And then you can be tempted by “honeypots”. You may have specific skills that makes you feed wooed, and it can be very tempting to accept the works from the headhunter / the new workplace / the person in your network: “This job is SO MUCH YOU”

Maybe it’s time for a change, maybe there are more opportunities in staying where you are. In any case, I encourage you to study in detail what is important to you.

If you’re experiencing that it’s hard to have a conversation about this – that you’re being interrupted too quickly with suggestions – then consider sparring. You will have the time you need to talk things though, and we’ll focus on your perspective.

Photo by Saulo Mohana on Unsplash

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Leader: show your values, not your emotions

Being vulnerable and bringing your whole personality to work is a development goal for many leaders. We want workplaces with a strong psychological safety: everyone should feel free to speak their mind. Otherwise the workplace loses its ability improve and innovate.

We need leaders that are human beings! As a leader you may therefore try to show your emotions more.

I believe that to be a misunderstanding

What you feel, is not just a reaction to the situation you are in here and now. Your emotional reactions are grounded far earlier, not just by everything you experience during your upbringing. We’ll have to go thousands of years back through evolution of the human race!

I’m a huge fan of getting to know your emotions. Getting really sharp at recognizing them when they wash over you, categorizing them and maybe even reflecting on their origin and functionality. The total number of emotions is debatable, but there are more than the 3 people usually mention first: angry, sad, happy.

As an example, there is difference between doubt and anxiety, Doubt arises when we are unsure of something new. We focus our attention on our preparations. Our breath is slow and shallow, and we hesitate. Anxiety is the conviction that something can hurt us. Anxiety arises in new as well as familiar circumstances, our breath is quick and shallow and we feel a clenching of the belly, shoulders and neck.

Recognizing and separating between own emotions is like knowing the names of the trees on a walk in the forest: a better experience. This does not necessarily mean acting upon the; they can be part of a survival pattern only relevant thousands of years ago.

That the leader also has feelings will come as no surprise (not to anyone, not to the staff). But emotion-laden reactions, however well-meant, can be perceived as self-centered and cringe, and can hereby increase the distance we wanted to reduce!

What makes sense is to act on your personal values. Values are a set of reflected guidelines, the essence of YOU. Don’t you know them very well, or not well enough to be able to use them actively? Spend some time with me and we’ll clarify them together.

From a former client: “Lone helped me define my personal life values – something I didn’t even realise was so important, but which now forever will define me and my actions. It gives me a sense of direction in life, and it gives me strength to be ME and be mindful of when my borders are crossed”.

Sessions are taking place in Østerbro or Inner City. Contact me om hej@lonealler if you’re curious.

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To “belong” or “fit in”

Some teams are developing “house rules” or team charters, to set out to desired tone and behaviors. A great, easy-to-implement process, where unspoken expectations and reservations can be brought to the surface.

Businesses develop company values, where employees’ feeling of being valued and welcome will frequently feature centrally. Sometimes, the employees are even mentioned as the most important thing for the company and encouraged to bring their “true self” to work.

Truly belonging to a team, rather than just fitting in, means being accepted and valued – even if you’re different. Having your special skills and capabilities appreciated, and your background, boundaries and priorities respected.

This first day of the Ramadan is a good occasion to think about operationalizing your team or company value of belonging – or encouraging your employees to bring their “true self to work”. For Ramadan participants, the daily routine changes radically, almost to an extent where day becomes night and vice versa. Some businesses respect that, allowing their employees to start and leave earlier in the day (this is the case at global service giant ISS) or to have shorter working hours.

Team or company values are void of meaning and credibility if they are not expressed as behaviors. As desired behaviors, values become actionable guideposts, not just posters in the reception area.

For team members to “belong” rather than ”fit in” you’ll need to look at how you address sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, etc. The potential discomfort from having such discussions in your team will be totally worthwhile.

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Keep cool

Left to its own devices, the human brain will find negative uncertainty as stressful as actual negative outcomes. Although the statistical probability of falling prey to the Covid-19 pandemic may be a low number, this will not be enough for an individual person to feel safe. The normal access to social support (for most, an effective stress relief) is currently limited by Social Distancing, adding to the problem.

Assuming that everyone is just a bit more worried than normally, and with days in our own company at hand, now is a good time to train how to get rid of worries and keep calm. The skills are always, and they will remain useful when we return to the anthill of modern working life; to overcome challenges more easily and learn more from them; to collaborate more effectively with people we don’t like; to stay cool in the face of provocations; in sum, to not get bogged down by the unexpected crisis, mistake or unwelcome surprise.

In general, humans have a great ability to adjust to new circumstances and become happy (again). This, too, shall pass – but for those able to mobilize their brain’s “discovery” state, the bouncing back will happen with less effort.

Our brains are constantly scanning the environment for threats and rewards – to avoid/defend against or seek out/discover, respectively. Defensive state is comparable to the knee-jerk reaction causing you to respond to emails (too) quickly or sneer at the colleague cutting the line at the coffee machine. It is also keeping you safe in traffic and around predators. The neurological basis is the familiar fight-or-flight response, automated and very fast but also inflexible and not always useful. Thinking back through the thousands of email responses I have seen; I can’t think of a single one that couldn’t wait 10 minutes. The colleague skipping the line could be someone you’d like to have a favorable impression of you.

Discovery state is engaging your deliberate self, noticing what is going on and letting you connect with your best behaviors, goals and intellect. This engine is slower but more advanced, stimulated by feelings of pleasure and reward. Research shows how we’re able to solve more complex issues (most social issues are complex btw) and make more advanced analysis in discovery state, with our minds not being cluttered by the panicky fight-or-flight neurotransmitters.

Defend or discover? As with most functions of the brain, it’s not an either-or; it’s not even a sliding scale from defend to discover or vice versa. It’s two completely different and separate reaction patterns, present at the same time to deal with different types of situations, but with shifting command over your attention. You may open a call prepared and with all the best intentions, but a comment challenging your professional capability instantly activates a defensive reaction pattern.

Defensive state is not good for business, ever! No sneering at the coffee machine, no snappy email responses (no matter how fast), no surly skype comments, etc etc. Letting off steam should only happen in 100% friendly environments, and only upon prior explicit agreement with everyone involved. Not very likely to be part of anyone’s working environment.

So, back to the training of coolness skills. Evidence-based interventions you can rehearse on your own come in different varieties, and can help you improve how to manage your reaction to a sudden unwelcome surprise, to move on from unpleasant feelings that have been nagging you for a while, and improve your ability to manage uncertainty.

  • Affect labeling is where you label your emotions, call them out clearly by their official name. Clearly articulating the fact that there is a problem will cause the brain to silence its alarm bells. Mind you, this is the exact opposite of “sucking it up”: suppressing negative emotions will cause your physiological stress response to increase. Affect labelling is not pondering endlessly about your negative emotions – this could lead to draining rumination and sleepless nights. It’s merely to acknowledge how you feel, before you start working out what to do next, in writing or verbally with someone you trust.
  • Distancing; here, it’s not about social distance – it’s about making a distance to your own perspective, trying to see your situation from the outside.  You can trick your brain by simply talking to yourself, addressing yourself in second person – in stead of saying “I’m really worried about this meeting tomorrow”, say “You’re really worried about this meeting tomorrow”. Or imagine you’ll be advising a friend about a similar situation.
  • Mobilize your Discovery state by asking yourself reward questions (no, not bonus. You’re looking for reward which materializes much faster, plus it needs to be totally within your own control). Examples are “How have I managed to overcome difficulties like these in the past?”. “What capabilities helped me last time?”. “What can I learn from this?”.  A strong sense of purpose is super-rewarding and will always help mobilize the discovery state, however it can be tricky to process when you’re in a negative state of mind – a reduced version will be to focus on “What’s the most important now?”.
  • Breathe, with your belly! Diaphragmatic breathing – deep, slow breathing for 90 seconds – will instantly reduce your level of stress hormones. And no one will notice (not even when we get back into the office!).

Some of these tactics require a bit of time and thinking, which is why I am suggesting you practice them now, in the safe harbor of your home office. Others, like the breathing exercise, is a response that will help instantly and only requires you to remember that you have it at your disposal. This is harder than it sounds, and requires willpower (which can also be trained, check out this previous post for more about how to do that).

Wishing everyone less worries and more discovery.

Findings in this post are sourced from the brilliant book “How to have a good day” by economist and former McKinsey Partner Caroline Webb.

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Online with a human touch

Many of us are working from home for at least a few weeks, spending hours every day in isolation.

Modern life on a “normal day” is filled with social distractions from the buzz of co-workers in large office spaces. We are social beings with a constant impulse to connect – but for a while, the social buzz will be silenced, and we’re having to seek social interaction online.

Online meetings are safe and hygienic replacements for real human interaction. However, it takes focus to bring out the human qualities of communication in the somewhat unidimensional web meeting. But with effort and planning, maintaining your social exchange creates a feeling of security and normality (and is also an effective way to reduce anxiety and stress).

Advice is everywhere on how to run productive online meetings – how to plan agendas, which tools to use for whiteboarding etc. Allow me therefore to only make a few suggestions on how to make online meetings more human, helping to maintain the friendships at work that are so critical to our engagement:

  • Make it a deliberate priority in your team to have human online meetings, at least for as long as the current isolation is in force.
  • Take turns to do the thoughtful planning of this, eg to formulate a non-work question for all participants to answer at the start of the meeting. Make sure everyone gets time before the meeting to prepare.
  • Turn on the video. This improves the focus from all participants and introduces the option to have a bit of fun. Why not show your co-workers around the house? Compare coffee machines? Introduce family pets?
  • Make sure your voice is clearly associated with your full name, and that both are known to all participants. “Ghosts” in the call will prohibit everyone else from being open. It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of proper introduction in online meetings.
  • For corporate video content, organize Movie Nights (or rather, afternoons) to view them together instead of streaming individually.
  • Finish your agenda 5-8 minutes before the meeting ends, to have time for “watercooler talk”. The kind of informal evaluation that would normally happen in the corridors after a face-to-face meeting. This can be solicited with a question: “Does anyone disagree with the conclusions we just made?”.

Would you consider using any of these ideas? If yes how did it go? As you can imagine I’m isolated and hungry for comments.

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Come off autopilot – press “pause”

I was recently reminded by a colleague, of Daniel Kahneman’s classic – the amazing: Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011), summarizing research conducted over decades; cognitive biases, happiness and prospect theory among other things. Daniel Kahneman is recognized globally as a true leader in the field of psychology, and the list of honors bestowed upon him is long and glorious, with the Nobel Prize in Economics (the only non-Economist ever to receive this) sitting prominently in 2002.

A favorite, inspirational for a lot of people including me, recognized for his ability to transcend his own field of research and for his determination to make the science of psychology relevant and useful to everyone.

Kahneman talks about our thinking to occur in two brain systems: the deliberate, sophisticated handling of self-control, forward thinking, abstractions, anything unfamiliar. This system is brilliant and creative, but slow; and it has a bottleneck: working memory, consuming loads and loads of energy and getting worn-out and tired through use.

And then the automatic, short-cutting, spam-filtering fast processing system, relieving the slow deliberate system of its hard work but inevitably, also leaving you with blind spots: it needs to base its processing on what is known as heuristics, mental shortcuts or rules-of-thumb.

Heuristics will be individual and learned over time. Your personal autopilot, driving you safely to work following a complex route which you don’t have to even think about. Helping you get on and off the escalator without falling over, without pausing to look for the steps. Opening doors with your primary hand. This is true for all human beings; we are all experiencing the world through the lens of our learned heuristics, nobody is “filter-free”. Reality is subjective, and the good news is that no matter how hard a situation seems, there is always a different perspective.

We learn through the “Slow” system, spending all the time and effort, and once the learning becomes automated, it is managed and perpetually reinforced by the “Fast” system. Very efficient!

But, be aware of the impact of this design on decision-making; in the eyes of the Fast system, the most obvious option is always the best option. And the most obvious option may be a behavioral feature of yourself you’d like to change: a bad habit you’d like to stop, a new behavior you’d like to learn.

To change – whether it’s something you will, you won’t, or you want – means disrupting your heuristics and slowing down the fast system. Otherwise it will drag you around, like the tail wagging the dog. Choosing which kind of restaurant, you want to go to for lunch may be ok to automate; choosing which country to expand your business into may not. Your brain will want to automate both (“Italy!”), since it’s really more convenient.

The very simple, fail-safe method to intervene in your brain’s auto-piloting is: to pause.

A pause, if only for a second or one breath, will bring you off autopilot and mobilize your slow, deliberate brain. You will be able to think, to remember your goals and positive motivation. If pausing is a challenge in itself (and it is, for everyone, don’t be shy), this is a skill in its own right, meaning it can be trained.

Try the following simple “power-pausing workout”: for the rest of today, open all doors with your left hand. (or, right hand if you are left-handed like me). This tiny little change will stop your fast system in its tracks, forcing you to think about why you’re doing this.

Exercise every day for a week, and your ability to pause will have improved massively, to be leveraged across any autopilot function you’d like to disrupt. Pressing send on emails too quickly? Forgetting to say “please” to the staff at the canteen? Having a second glass of wine for dinner? Wanting to be more intentional about meeting planning?

There is no limit, really, so don’t be perfectionist about it. Smaller objectives are always better; it’s the way we learn.

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Feeling stress in a meaningful life

This post is not to deny the massive surge of stress as a cause of real and serious illness, or to make people go and look for more stress. But below findings are also real. The way we think and talk about stress should not ignore its upsides. There is a very strong link between feeling stressed and having a meaningful life. Not the link you may expect – would an absence of stress create the mental space to pursue meaning?

In fact, it’s the other way around: high levels of stress are associated with good public health, national happiness and good economy. Gallup World Poll researchers are keeping an eye on the global levels of happiness in their Global Emotions Report. In a 2005-6 survey of 125.000 people residing in 121 countries, they asked this question: Did you feel a great deal of stress yesterday? The worldwide average was 35% – with values from 67% to 5%. How well did this national variance correspond with other indexes of well-being? The higher a nation’s stress-index, the higher its wellbeing, life expectancy and GDP. With high levels of stress, more people are more satisfied with their life, health, work, standard of living.

Diving deeper into this surprising finding, the researchers discovered a “timing” factor: on the very day a person had felt stressed, that person was also more likely to have felt sad, worried, angry or depressed (like you would expect, right?). But these same people would report overall higher levels of joy, love and laughter on a previous day. So, stress is associated with distress (and a host of other problems) but also with well-being. A happy life is not stress-free, and a stress-free life is no guarantee for happiness. Nations reporting very low stress-levels, also reported high levels of shame and anger, and low levels of joy.

Clearly a controversial and surprising finding, the Stress Paradox: high levels of stress are associated with distress as well as well-being. To understand the underlying links between these seemingly contradictory findings, look to the concept of meaning. Among the best predictors of a meaningful life, stress ranks highly. People with a high number of stressful experiences in their past, will consider their life more meaningful. Time spent worrying about the future is considered meaningful. People with very meaningful lives will worry more and have more stress. Stress seems to be an inevitable consequence of committing yourself to goals and roles that will feed your sense of purpose.

Stress is a by-product of pursuing important and difficult objectives.

The way we talk about stress is not supporting our well-being. We talk about our struggles but not so much about what we learn from them. We reinforce the illusion of a stress-free life, but this would indeed come at a high cost. Avoiding stress can be isolating and a reduced sense of concentration and physical energy. Indeed, avoiding stress can be creating more sources of stress while drying up the resources that should be supporting you. Avoidant coping strategies, to keep yourself away from stressful situations or escape your own feelings, is likely to drive you towards a life without depth, meaning and community.

Understanding what gives meaning to your life will help you live with the unpleasantness of this “by-product”. People who see themselves as someone who overcomes difficulties, will be better able to cope with everyday stress. When you reflect on your values, the mindset you have about stress shifts and you see yourself as someone strong, able to grow from adversity. You’ll be more likely to seek challenges than to avoid them, and to see the meaning in difficult circumstances.

In some situations, avoiding the stress isn’t possible and denying its existence isn’t helpful. Remembering your values can transform your experience – from something happening to you against your will, to something that is a result of your priorities. Feeling stressed can feel like a sign you are inadequate. If you were strong enough, smart enough, you wouldn’t be stressed? Try to think like this instead: stress is not a sign of failure but evidence you are human. You can learn from it. Even in moments of frustration, stress and meaning are connected in the bigger picture of your life.

Findings quoted in this post are from Kelly McGonigal, 2015: “The Upside of Stress”

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Who’s the boss?

Work has two faces: 1: it is a means for living, enabling us to pay the bills and 2: it gives identity and a sense of purpose. As a mental model the “two faces of work” remind us that it’s more than mechanics of effort-reward. Work is also a social experience and a lifelong education process.

Traditionally, getting work assignments was largely depending on the line manager; a patriarch (M/F) assuming fatherly responsibility for everyone’s tasks and workload, as well as personal growth, promotions (or not!), quality assurance processes, annual appraisals etc etc. This is changing, middle managers are becoming feeding-and-watering stations people turn to infrequently and for formal alignment, eg for changes to employment contract.

The day-to-day work experience is happening in teams for most people. Teams are becoming the core social structure of working life; the point of delivery for many corporations; the most important “work home”. The team is where the rubber meets the road, the engine room. To thrive and grow in teamwork and to get the great assignments, you need to know what you’re good at, your values, wants and needs.

Don’t expect any of this to come from “above”, this is about your identity and purpose. Jobs are becoming roles; roles are becoming essential, with clearly articulated value-adds and accountability. The workforce (an antiquated term), especially the younger generations, are confidently embracing the new world order, looking for impact and meaning.

Building a team is to match carefully branded individuals with optimized team structures, and teams only existing for the duration of their useful life, ie as long as they deliver against defined objectives (developing a new product, winning a deal, etc). Teams are great, accelerating skills utilization, productivity and opportunity for the individual.

When the job is done, each person is evaluated and returned to the feeding-and-watering station until next project. The “Gig economy” exists as an employment arrangement, but also as an internal assignment principle: this is a highly dynamic and competitive exercise, a reflection of the speed and agility with which people and companies are aligning with market changes.

Back in the day, line managers would have laid out a plan for each person; some employers still provide their employees with some form of guidance, now typically automated as portal-based career roadmaps. Even with the supplement of internal career advisory service or counseling, this will typically lack everyday proximity to each person’s achievements, strengths and development potential. The need for a personal brand, once a thing for executive leadership profiles, is spreading to all team workers.

Reflecting on these matters is worth the effort. You’re unique, and only your own clarity will get you where you want to be. So be your own boss when it comes to your development and career. Whether you’re out to secure the next steady job, a pay raise, or to change your behavioral patterns or assignments towards better alignment with your personal values, there’s no avoiding the facts: don’t sit around waiting for direction – you own this! You also own the feedback you get along the way. It’s not the responsibility of your team leader (plus, he/she is likely very busy). Your line manager probably won’t know you very well. Team workers, take charge and lead: set goals for yourself, clarify your values and strengths, learn new skills, build your brand.