S1E7 The Trouble With Normal

Season 1 | Episode 7

Episode Description

Welcome to Everything Is A People Problem; a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people-centric solution with host Dia Zafer-Joyce.

In this episode, Dia applies Emotional Intelligence to neurodivergent and introverted individuals, elevating the importance of leadership diversity for both problem solving and visibility.

Episode Transcript

Hi there. Welcome to Everything is a People Problem, a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people centric solution. I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce. Let's talk about people.

Hi, I'm Dia, and welcome back to Everything is a People Problem. Change is one of the very few things that are constant in the world, which, if everything around us is changing, then naturally we should change as well. One of the things I said early in the podcast was that I was hoping to watch myself, my opinions, change as I did this experiment and this project, and this is one of those moments.

I used to make fun of my husband because he uses Marco Polo. And when he uses Marco Polo, he will listen back to his own Polos, so he might've recorded something for his family and then he'll immediately listen to it again, and I thought maybe that was just the actor in him because he spent 10 years of his career as an actor and director and teacher, and I realized that I kind of do the same thing. As soon as my episode drops, I will listen to it on the way to work, mostly because, as musician, I learned that you should listen to your recordings in many different environments; through a speaker, through your headphones, through your car radio, you should use all of these tools and mechanisms so that that way you get a very well rounded view on how you're performing. So, I was listening to my last episode, which was around emotional intelligence, understanding your own emotional well being as well as those around you. And I realized that my research and the observations and suggestions I shared were largely focused on individuals who are comfortable with active listening in these social skills as it is.

But what about neurodiverse leaders? What about introverted leaders? We need leadership diversity in order to have diverse thought and solutioning. So what do we do about Emotional Intelligence and diverse individuals in leadership positions? I want to quickly refresh us on the importance of Emotional Intelligence, not because I want us all to become the same type of leader, but I want us to acknowledge that the attributes of someone with a high EQ or emotional quotient has a benefit to the business and will help make businesses successful.

In a comparison study between Emotional Quotient, EQ, and Intelligence Quotient, IQ, psychologist Daniel Goleman found that while we are born with both EQ and IQ, that the Emotional Quotient may play a more important role in determining someone's success. Emotional Intelligence accounts for about 90 percent of attributes that set high performers apart from their peers who have similar technical skills and knowledge, but EQ, similarly to emotional intelligence, can be broken down into four categories: self awareness, self regulation, social awareness, and relationship management. And where EQ really comes into play is in conflict management, and conflict is unavoidable in the workplace.

Let's talk about conflict. Across the globe, employees spend 2. 1 hours per week resolving disagreements. In the United States, that actually rises to 2. 8 hours per week, and managers spend six hours per week, so about 15 percent of their time, resolving work conflicts. So with all these disagreements, how do we have a good outcome? Well, 90 percent of a conflict’s resolution is determined by the message delivery or the tone of voice. So, those four components of EQ are all leveraged when it comes to minimizing the impact of a conflict. So emotional intelligence does play a very strong part in effective management.

So the common denominator to effective leadership is Emotional Intelligence. Let's talk about diversity in the leaders themselves, and that's going to focus on both neurodiverse leaders and introverts. In the 1990s, sociologist Judy Singer coined the term “neurodivergence.” She actually created this as self advocacy. She was teased as a child because she had a different way of interpreting her environment, and she went on to study and identify that no brain is the same, and everyone has a unique combination of abilities and needs. She identified that neurodiversity itself provides an opportunity for society to learn more about people and about how the brain operates differently than what is considered typical or normal, because really, what is normal anyways?

Neurodiversity, according to Harvard Health, is the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. There's no one, “right” way of thinking, learning, and behaving. If you walk away with nothing else about neurodiversity, remember this: It's based on the framework that different is not the same as deficient. Being neurodivergent is like having a superpower. There are so many incredible strengths when you think differently. Neurodivergent people tend to be more honest and straightforward. They're very observant and detail oriented. When they're given a goal, they focus. And, I say all of these strengths not as someone who is on that spectrum, but as somebody who does a lot of research to try to understand what I don't naturally know, and I've managed many people that have fallen into this spectrum, and that is a challenge. It is a good thing to do because it gives me opportunities to learn humbly as a leader, but at the same time, it gives me a chance to elevate these individuals to show how there is strength in diversity.

If the key output of Emotional Intelligence is conflict management or conflict resolution, then any leader, any individual, needs to practice the skills that will allow them to be successful in generating a positive and productive outcome. Before we start solving all the world's problems and providing suggestions on how to overcome and subvert societal expectations on leaders, we probably won't get to all that in this episode, but maybe someday, I do want to talk about introversion.

Introverts as compared to extroverts, get their energy from their own company, by recharging by themselves. Someone who is introverted may be perceived as withdrawn or shy, but, in fact, they process differently. Again, not deficiently, differently. Introverts tend to concentrate on a single activity, very similar to neurodiversity. They also analyze situations carefully and maybe think before they speak. Extroversion gets paired up often and incorrectly with effective leaders. Just because someone can function well in a social situation doesn't mean that they should be put in a leadership position. That is a very deep topic that we could rabbit hole into on people who are incorrectly placed in leadership just because of how they present. But extroverts can be impulsive. They can make quick decisions and not process in the way that an introvert does. There's an incredible book by Susan Cain. It's called “Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking,” and there's a quote that I love from her, which says, “Extroverts are more likely to focus on what's happening around them. It's as if extroverts are seeing ‘what is’ while their introverted peers are asking ‘what if.’”

In 2013, there was an interesting study done on social conformity and it found extroverts are more willing to go along with majority opinion even if it's wrong. Extroverts were found to be more likely to succumb to social pressure as compared to introverts and the research concluded with the higher the pressure, the more extroverts that conformed their responses to one another. In comparison, introverts showed no difference in response conformity, regardless of it being a high or low pressure situation.

As a matter of fact, I am an introvert. I am sure that can be surprising, and I have had some people revolt on me and absolutely disagree, but I get tired. I love leading my people. I love working with people and collaborating with people because of the outcome, not the process. I need my alone time. I love the podcast because I'm sitting here doing it by myself. I don't have to do it with anybody else, but I enjoy this space where I can recover so that I can dive back into the work that creates meaning in my life. Talking to people, leading people, negotiating with people is a learned skill for me. I was not always good at it. Which brings me back to emotional intelligence being a learned skill. It is not something someone is naturally born with, but we work at it to become better at it. And we can do that in ways that don't glorify extroversion or make emotional intelligence and emotional quotients be synonymous with high socially functioning individuals.

How do we do this? Number one, we need to self assess. There are Emotional Intelligence tests out there that you can take to be able to identify personal areas for improvement. And when you take this test, it can acknowledge both your strengths and weaknesses, so you can identify where are you already successful? What are elements of Emotional Intelligence that you embody today so you can elevate those? And then, where do you need to work so you can put some intentional, conscious effort into those opportunities?

The next thing we do is we pause. That might be pausing before responding in a conversation, maybe pausing after taking an emotional intelligence test to do some reflection, but pausing allows you to acknowledge your feelings, pay attention to those around you, and allow your brain to interpret and respond mindfully. It's a good reminder to just take a moment and breathe and it's incredibly important If the conversation is charged or maybe not going in the direction that you're hoping for it to go.

And finally, we practice. There are 1, 000 different ways where we either are failing or excelling in Emotional Intelligence, and that's going to look different no matter your individual makeup. What we commit to is improving ourselves as people and as leaders, and most importantly as people leaders.

I want to finish with, it's not a story, I guess it's more of an anecdote, but I've had the absolute joy in my career to coach individuals into managers, and one such individual was talking to me about early days in their career when they considered leadership, but were told that in order to be a manager, they needed to talk more. Basically, they needed to get in a room and flex their opinions, whether it was necessary to be speaking or not. Just in case you're wondering, that's bad feedback. That was bad advice, because that is quantity over quality, and as a leader, you should know when to speak, when to ask questions, because when you do that with intention, then your voice becomes louder than if you're just talking all the time. So, diversity in leadership is so important, not just so that we have different leaders in the room, but also so that we can see different leaders lead and have examples for our future leaders who don't fall into a neurotypical or traditional view of successful management.

You've just finished the latest installment of everything is A People Problem. You can find episode transcripts with work cited on diazaferjoyce.com/podcast. Find me on Instagram @EverythingIsAPeopleProblem, and tell me what you thought of the episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe so that you're notified when new weekly episodes become available. Once again, I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce, thanks for joining me and see you next week.

Today’s episode was written and produced by Dia Zafer-Joyce. It featured insights and statistics from Audit Board, CEO Today, CNBC, Forbes, Forbes Health, Gitnux, Simply Psychology, and Very Well Health, and Royalty-free music provided by Sarah, the Instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound. 

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References

Corbett, Holly. “3 Ways to Manage Conflict in the Workplace.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 30 Apr. 2023, www.forbes.com/sites/hollycorbett/2023/04/30/3-ways-to-manage-conflict-in-the-workplace/?sh=6c6ce50d3223.

Fabritius, Friederike. “A Neuroscientist Shares the 4 ‘highly Coveted’ Skills That Set Introverts Apart: ‘Their Brains Work Differently.’” CNBC, CNBC, 7 Feb. 2023, www.cnbc.com/2023/02/07/neuroscientist-shares-coveted-skills-that-set-introverts-apart-their-brains-work-differently.html.

Gregory, Erin, and Deborah Courtney. “What Does It Mean to Be Neurodivergent?” Forbes Health, Forbes Magazine, 20 Feb. 2024, www.forbes.com/health/mind/what-is-neurodivergent/.

Griffiths, Chris. “10 Highly Successful People You Didn’t Know Were Neurodivergent.” CEO Today, 29 June 2022, www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2022/06/10-highly-successful-people-you-didnt-know-were-neurodivergent/#:~:text=Yet%20stigmas%20around%20neurodiversity%20remain,they%20are%20given%20the%20opportunity.

Guy-Evans, Olivia. “Introvert vs. Extrovert Personality: What’s the Difference?” Edited by Saul Mcleod, Simply Psychology, 29 Jan. 2024, www.simplypsychology.org/introvert-extrovert.html.

Lindner, Jannik. “Must-Know Workplace Conflict Statistics [Current Data].” GITNUX, 23 Dec. 2023, gitnux.org/workplace-conflict-statistics/#:~:text=Workplace%20Conflict%3A%20The%20Most%20Important%20Statistics,-Globally%2C%20the%20average&text=In%20the%20US%2C%20it%20rises,their%20time)%20solving%20work%20conflicts.

Rudy, Lisa Jo. “Are You Neurotypical or Neurodiverse?” Verywell Health, Verywell Health, 8 Aug. 2023, www.verywellhealth.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-neurotypical-260047.

Yuen, Nancy. “The Neurodiverse Leader: The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Leadership.” AuditBoard, 6 June 2023, www.auditboard.com/blog/the-neurodiverse-leader-the-power-of-emotional-intelligence-in-leadership/.

S1E6 Let’s Get Emotional, Emotional

Season 1 | Episode 6

Episode Description

Welcome to Everything Is A People Problem; a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people-centric solution with host Dia Zafer-Joyce.

In this episode, Dia shares the fundamentals of Emotional Intelligence and what it takes to be a leader in a post-COVID business landscape.

Episode Transcript

Hi there. Welcome to Everything is a People Problem, a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people centric solution. I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce. Let's talk about people.

Hi there. I'm Dia, and I'm your host for Everything is a People Problem. I'm so glad to be back after my trip to India, although it was a fantastic and productive trip. I don't know if you missed me but I definitely missed you. Before I get started with today's episode about Emotional Intelligence and the post COVID manager, I want to say thank you to a couple of folks.

Number one, my beautiful and brilliant friend, Mary Sheehan. She's a leader in product marketing and author of the bestselling book, “The Pocket Guide to Product Launches: Get Confident, Go to Market, and Win.” She recently posted a short list of her favorite women hosted podcasts and mine was one of them, and that's definitely an honor since she herself is the host of the podcast, “Women in Product Marketing.” So thank you, Mary, for posting about me on LinkedIn. I also want to say thank you to Grace Windsor, who I've never met in my life, but who also made a post on LinkedIn about two weeks ago about my last episode, “It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint,” where I talked about the 85 percent capacity rule. I loved her vulnerability; she shared how she herself has an opportunity to pace better and presented her top three takeaways from the podcast. So thank you so much, Grace, for taking the time to listen to the episode!

If you're listening along to the podcast and you have thoughts or questions on some of the topics I've been covering, I've decided to make the final episode of this season a call-in. So pretty soon on my website, I'll open up an opportunity for you to submit questions or voice recordings if you want to be on the air, so stay tuned.

Does anyone remember what it was like to manage before the pandemic? So much has changed in such a short period of time and I think mostly for the better. Our focus on people and their wellness has amplified compared to where we were before we had to work from home and grapple with balancing home and work life in such an extreme manner. When I think back to those first couple of weeks managing my team remotely in March of 2020, that was terrifying. There were some elements of being a manager that were completely untested for many of us, and they were psychological, they were emotional, because we all had two priorities: one, our people, making sure they felt safe and supported, and number two, our work, our products, and ensuring that we delivered on what we committed to from a product perspective.

Balancing the needs of your team alongside the needs of the business can be wrapped up in the term Emotional Intelligence. Now, terms like that become popular and maybe are thrown around a bit without understanding its origins or definition, so let me give you a quick rundown on what Emotional Intelligence is before I go much further.

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your personal emotions, as well as the emotions of others. This is a crucial element of effective leadership. Leaders need to manage their own emotions while simultaneously empathizing with those of their team. The pandemic truly put this to the test. Now, the term of Emotional Intelligence or social intelligence has been percolating since the early 1900s, but it was in 1990 that John Mayer, the professor from the University of New Hampshire, not the music artist, and Peter Salovey from Yale, first published a serious academic inquiry of the term Emotional Intelligence, and this is in the journal “Imagination, Cognition, and Personality.” What a great journal. In their article, they magnified a set of abilities over traits that made someone emotionally intelligent. About five years later, the New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman wrote and published his first of two books on the topic, and this first book was called “Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.”

And this leveraged Mayer and Salovey's work to build a four component framework to follow when building Emotional Intelligence. Those four components were one, self awareness, two, self management, three, social awareness, and four, relationship management. So self awareness and self regulation are really interesting because there's an element of psychological revelation that you need as an individual in order to be aware of how you feel and to control those feelings. Not everyone, manager or not, has that ability and that takes some practice to get there. But being a manager today calls for a high level of Emotional Intelligence, so that also means that there's a call to action here for us as managers to invest in our own self identification and exploration in order to be better managers.

That might be uncomfortable. That might be difficult for managers to do if that's not something that you've explored before, but we need to do that not only for ourselves, but for our people. Let's talk about why and the business relevance to self awareness. In an article from Forbes, employees who recognized that their individuality, well being, and mental health are supported by their manager tend to have higher job satisfaction, which in turn increased retention. This came from managers themselves being open and honest about their own feelings and challenges, so this created a relationship and this sharing culture between manager and employee. The American Psychological Association corroborated this experience by sharing that 89 percent of workers at companies that support well being initiatives are more likely to recommend their company as a good place to work, further reducing the potential of turnover.

And turnover is expensive. In a work human study from March of 2023, an engaged workforce in a 10,000 person organization, for example, can save a company up to 16. 1 million dollars annually due to reduced employee turnover. Those savings are nice, but on the flip side, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that turnover costs can represent more than 12 percent of pre tax income for the average company. And for those who have higher than average turnover, costs can be nearly 40 percent of earnings.

I'm pausing for a moment for a friendly PSA to all of my fellow managers out there because self awareness and self exploration, like we said earlier, can be really uncomfortable. Vulnerability can be very scary. Take advantage of the same wellness programs that we offer to our employees for yourself. And I'm going to say something that you might not want to hear: if this is too uncomfortable for you, if you're leveraging these wellness resources and having a conversation with a therapist and working on your ability to be vulnerable and it is not how you want to be in the workplace, maybe people leadership in a post COVID world isn't for you.

Vulnerability is not telling everyone everything about you. Vulnerability is strategic. It's telling very targeted and specific truths that will help further understanding, comprehension, and collaboration. So don't be fearful of vulnerability but, like I said, explore how to be vulnerable within your comfort zone.

Let me come back to those four capabilities, because we've covered the first two, but the second two are really about others instead of self. There's social awareness, so understanding the emotions and needs of others, along with empathizing with diverse perspectives, and relationship management, so building strong relationships, communicating effectively, and managing conflicts. When looking at relationships and the power of relationships in the workplace, there's a fantastic article by Rob Cross in the journal “Organizational Dynamics,” where he shares a technique called Organizational Network Analysis, and it's used to study how a network of employee relationships inside an organization impacts retention. This is done by conducting social network surveys to employees at large and then asking each employee to identify colleagues in their organization with whom they work closely. This data is compared with attrition and revenue metrics and bada bing, bada boom, relationships at work are demystified and quantified.

So what did Rob find when doing this organizational network analysis? He found that bigger networks were not better networks. Isn't that interesting? Large networks were actually correlated with high turnover and the leaders that were leveraging their emotionally intelligent social skills to evolve their networks over time ended up keeping employees and themselves engaged, motivated, and committed. So it wasn't a benefit to just know everyone as a leader and to make relationships with everyone. It was beneficial to make strategic ones and leverage those as appropriate within the business.

Now, just a short while ago, I did say that if you are uncomfortable with the idea of being vulnerable, that you should reconsider being a manager. Please don't go out and quit your job, at least not yet, and instead, let's talk about how you can build the skills of an emotionally intelligent leader and then you can consider quitting your job.

So first up, self awareness. How do we build that? You start by taking time to reflect on your emotions and try to identify behavioral patterns. You can do this through keeping a journal or using a mindfulness app, basically anything that will help you become more aware of your personal thoughts and feelings will then help improve your ability to be self aware.

Next, empathy. You develop empathy by actively listening to other people. Make eye contact. Don't prepare the next thing you're going to say when someone else is talking. Truly listen and try to see things from their perspective. Practice empathy by putting yourself in someone else's shoes. Imagine how they might be feeling in the same situation that you're in.

Emotional regulation is a tough one because that's your ability to control your own emotions and respond to situations in a calm and rational manner. In order to develop this skill, you need to learn techniques for managing stress and anxiety like mindfulness meditation, deep breathing, or even exercise. Ultimately, practicing a delayed response, finding something else to do in the moment that takes you away from the situation will allow you to process your emotions and respond in a much more intentional and thoughtful way so to build emotional regulation means to create space and boundaries before participating in what could be an emotional situation.

These keep getting spicier because the next one is social skills. This one revolves around networking. Building your network is how you exercise your social skills. J. Kelly Hoey, she's an excellent author and speaker. She has a great book called “Build Your Dream Network,” and I loved hearing her talk in person at Grace Hopper in 2019 about networking because she said, asking somebody how they're doing in the hallway is networking. Chatting with someone while you're getting a coffee in the break room is networking. Networking does not have to be a dirty word or something that takes a lot of energy. It's purely connecting with people. Networking is building relationships with people from diverse backgrounds. That way you can develop a broader perspective and in turn, grow your empathy for other people who are unlike yourself.

I'd like to bring us home with a pop culture reference. Pop culture always helps us conceptualize big topics, like Emotional Intelligence and, clearly, I'm deriving many of my business learnings from The Godfather because you're about to have my second reference in this podcast series, in season one alone, to The Godfather. A couple of years ago, I wrote an article on LinkedIn exploring whether or not Don Corleone was a good people leader. Spoilers: I said he was, but you can go on LinkedIn and read it for yourself. I would like to talk about that opening scene, though, because Don Corleone is leveraging Emotional Intelligence in his leadership. And at the beginning of the movie, Bonasera is coming to him in a transactional way. He seeks justice for his daughter's disfiguration and the Don responds by communicating the importance of maintaining genuine relationships. He gives Bonasera in the moment feedback, sharing that he's not aligned with the Don's business mission, which ultimately focuses on negotiation or discussion before taking any kind of adverse action.

Don Corleone has an immutable set of people centric values that are built on mutual respect and collaborative goal achievement and that's Emotional Intelligence. He's self aware. He's empathetic. And he's building relationships and leveraging those strategically for his team. So, I guess be like the Don? Maybe that's not the best way to end this, but take inspiration from Don Corleone. Leverage Emotional Intelligence to further whatever business industry that you're managing people in today.

You've just finished the latest installment of everything is A People Problem. You can find episode transcripts with work cited on diazaferjoyce.com/podcast. Find me on Instagram @EverythingIsAPeopleProblem, and tell me what you thought of the episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe so that you're notified when new weekly episodes become available. Once again, I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce, thanks for joining me and see you next week.

Today’s episode was written and produced by Dia Zafer-Joyce. It featured insights and statistics from the American Psychological Association, Forbes, Indeed.com, Mental Health America, Science Direct, Semaphore, Socialigence, and Workhuman, and Royalty-free music provided by Sarah, the Instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound.

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References

Arruda, William. “Why Self Awareness Is the Most Important Skill for Hybrid Leadership.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 10 Jan. 2023, www.forbes.com/sites/williamarruda/2023/01/10/why-self-awareness-is-the-most-important-skill-for-hybrid-leadership/?sh=545a783f654f.

Atre, Sandeep. “A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence.” A Brief History of Emotional Intelligence, Socialigence, 2015, www.socialigence.net/blog/a-brief-history-of-emotional-intelligence/.

Cross, Rob, et al. “Connect and ADAPT: How Network Development and Transformation Improve Retention and Engagement in Employees’ First Five Years.” Organizational Dynamics, Pergamon, 2018, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0090261617300761.

“From Praise to Profits: The Business Case for Recognition at Work.” Workhuman.Com, 28 Mar. 2023, www.workhuman.com/resources/reports-guides/from-praise-to-profits-workhuman-gallup-report/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=2160936&utm_content=6nArIXb2TiTa2FBEkHobig&utm_term=2024_wh_sem_nb_awareness_secondary_na_phr_pros~staff_turnover&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI8rOM64bIhAMVtzOtBh0UZQfvEAAYASAAEgJ_jfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds.

“Handling Post Pandemic Employee Turnover.” Indeed.Com, Indeed, 2022, www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/post-pandemic-employee-turnover.

Jain, Vipin. “The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Effective Leadership.” Edited by Dan Ackerson, Semaphore, 5 July 2023, semaphoreci.com/blog/emotional-intelligence-leadership#:~:text=Emotional%20intelligence%20is%20the%20ability,emotions%20of%20their%20team%20members.

“What Is Emotional Intelligence and How Does It Apply to the Workplace?” Mental Health America, Mental Health America, 2024, mhanational.org/what-emotional-intelligence-and-how-does-it-apply-workplace#:~:text=Emotional%20Intelligence%20(EI)%20is%20the,%2C%20empathy%2C%20and%20social%20skills.

“Workplace Well-Being Linked to Senior Leadership Support, New Survey Finds.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 2016, www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2016/06/workplace-well-being.

S1E5 It’s A Marathon, Not a Sprint

Season 1 | Episode 5

Episode Description

Welcome to Everything Is A People Problem; a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people-centric solution with host Dia Zafer-Joyce.

In this episode, Dia introduces the 85% rule and how it scales the energy of your workforce, combating workplace stress and, hopefully, avoiding burnout.

Episode Transcript

Hi there. Welcome to Everything is a People Problem, a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people centric solution. I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce. Let's talk about people.

Hi there, welcome back. I'm Dia, and I'm your host for Everything is a People Problem. To introduce today's topic, I would like to tell you the story about how I tried to run the Chicago Marathon in 2008 with nearly no training at all. In college, I was a springboard and platform diver. I was recruited to Clemson for diving, so as a diver, you don't really run that much. In fact, I actually realized I had asthma because I was trying to work out and do drills in a natatorium and I was wheezing like nobody's business and I didn't know why. Surprise, it's asthma.

During my first finals season, I would drink too much coffee and be up late at night because I was studying and I didn't know how to burn off some steam. And so at 12 a. m., 1 a. m., I would actually go out and run across campus. And it was dark and cold and it felt so good on my lungs. And so I finally realized I enjoyed running. It just turns out I enjoyed doing it in the middle of the night and in colder weather. Eventually, I started to do it in the daytime and there was a 5k and it was the race to the rock.

At Clemson the rock, Howard's Rock, is a big deal and it's in the stadium and it came from Death Valley. So we had a 5k race where you ended at the rock and I really wanted to do this race. And so I signed up, and I ran, I ran the whole time, I got a really cool shirt, I still have it to this day. It is ratty as anything, but I'm so proud of it because it was my very first 5K. So that 5k led to the turkey trot in Chicago over Thanksgiving, which was another 5k. And then that turkey trot led to another turkey trot, which was a 10k. And then after that, I was graduating, and then naturally, I thought the next step would be to sign up for the Chicago Marathon, which is 26. 2 miles.It's a lot of k's.

And at that time, in 2008, the Chicago Marathon didn't have a lottery system, so people could willingly without any reservation enroll themselves in this experience because they had decided like me that they wanted to. So my training plan was non existent. I did look one up to be fair, but I certainly didn't follow it. My longest run was six miles I remember that run to this day in my mind and then I kind of phoned it in and then my running buddy and I just get on this course and shockingly we made it to mile 16. We were not in great shape, but we did it. We made it to mile 16 and that's when we called it. We took a bus to come back. Lots of people on this bus were hurting a lot more than we were, but I think our pride was hurt more than our bodies The worst part about this is not that we didn't finish the race, is that my mom, who I love and who is the ever optimist, bought us finisher's gear because she of course assumed that we would finish, and we had to ask her to return it because it just felt so disingenuous to wear it and we hadn't actually finished the race.

So, how did I make it so far on such little training? Runner's World talked to Dr. Steven Sieler. He's from the University of Agder in Norway, and he's one of the world's foremost exercise physiologists. And he said that elite athletes train about 80 percent of the time at low intensity, and only spend about 20 percent of their time training hard. That's called the 80 percent capacity method. He goes on to say that many recreational runners feel like they have to go hard every time. They end up doing a lot more than 20 percent of workouts that are difficult or challenging. And initially, they improve. But then over time, they start to stagnate. And the problem is that they've become too fatigued to do high intensity sessions, and ultimately, their performance tanks.

A runner who just doesn't know better believes that maximum effort is going to equal maximum results, and that's just not true. Okay, why am I talking about running so much on a business podcast? It's because the 80 percent capacity method absolutely applies to business. It's called the 85 percent rule, and the 85 percent rule suggests that in order to reach your maximum output as an employee, you need to refrain from giving maximum effort.

If you're operating at 100 percent all the time, that's going to result in burnout and ultimately give less favorable results. When employees work past exertion and they go into overexertion, it results in what's called effortless action. Basically, past a certain point, more effort does not produce better performance. In fact, it sabotages performance and results in a diminished output. As a manager, honoring the 85 percent rule is critical. This is a people problem because if you don't, it causes burnout. Zippia and Jack Flynn of Zippia. com did an incredible study in 2023 about burnout and the statistics around stress and lack of motivation in the workplace, and they found 89 percent of workers have experienced burnout within the last year. In fact, between 2021 and 2022, the burnout rate had increased by 13. 5%. So in 2022 alone, We were at 60 percent burnout rate. And then in 2023 jumped to nearly 90 percent burnout rate. So it's only going up.

The old management mindset is very similar to that recreational runner where they believe maximum effort equals maximum results. Many companies, especially in Silicon Valley, still operate under this model. These companies, and all companies, have to be really careful if they follow up this demanding work schedule with things like wellness apps or budgets to be able to provide wellness materials for you. That's a great benefit, and I deeply appreciate it. But when you also are expecting people to work 80 plus hours a week in addition to offering free yoga classes or free therapy sessions. The hard part is that creates what's called a toxic contradiction. It's a lose lose situation where you're providing a respite for employees, but you're not actually backing that up with a healthy work environment.

In my very first episode, we were talking about how disengaged employees cost a business money. Well, workplace stress costs the U. S. economy, on average, 300 billion dollars per year. And a lot of these costs are a result of absenteeism, diminished productivity, and accidents because people are tired. And those accidents contribute to annual health care costs of 190 billion dollars. Isn't that bonkers?

This is a really tough topic because you think about the complexity of burnout and how much that is controlled by the company itself and upper leadership. So as a manager, you could hear all of this and say, “But what could I possibly do to make an impact on my employees lives?” I am so glad you asked that question, because I'm going to share a few things that I've found in articles and in my own practice that combat workplace stress as much as we can and is within our control. Remember, control what you can, influence what you can't. So what can you control?

Well number one, you can ask for less than maximum capacity. People often mistake the perception of maximum effort with what actually produces maximum results because truly highest effort does not always equal highest performance. So as a manager, We need to start asking better questions. Like, “What does it feel like to be at 100 percent intensity?” And then follow that with, “How can you keep this closer to the 85 percent level?” This is perceived level of exertion. It's also used in physical rehabilitation, when someone has had surgery or an injury, and it prevents latent or hidden fatigue. But managers can use this to find that sweet spot for employees so that that way they don't creep past the point where they should rest and then extend into overexertion.

This leads us to the second thing you can do, which is encourage 85 percent-right decisions. So when you're making choices as a team, don't push to be a hundred percent perfect, make 85 percent-right, acceptable. There are two types of perfectionists. The first one is called “excellence seeking.” They're the ones that hold high standards for themselves and for other people. The second is called “failure avoiding.” These are the people who are constantly anxious that their work is not sufficient or enough, and they fear losing credibility and reputation if they don't attain perfection. When you as a manager ask for 85 percent-right decisions, this removes unnecessary pressure from your highest performing employees, the ones that might even fall into one of those perfectionist camps, and it keeps your team moving forward rather than waiting for that exact 100 percent perfect answer before taking action.

The third thing is gonna hurt you a little bit. And as I say it, I recognize that I am also guilty of this. So, I'm saying what we all should be doing, which is, number three, set our own intensity as managers to 85%. If we don't set the example, then our employees are not going to follow suit. If we say to stop sending emails on nights and weekends, but then we send an email at 2 a. m. on a Sunday, our actions are going to speak louder than our words. That does not mean write the email at 2 a. m., but program the email to send at 9 a. m. on Monday. I don't want you to hear that and take that away from this conversation. If you as the manager are working past 85%, if you are pushing yourself to 100 percent and plus, you are going to become that burnout statistic. You will burn out and you cannot take the weight of your entire team on your shoulders alone. Set the example. Work at 85 percent ask yourself that question, “What is 100 percent intensity look like for me?” and then follow it up with, “What would it feel like if I toned that down to 85%?”

I love my books and there's a book that I am thinking about constantly in the course of this conversation. It's by Liz Wiseman and called “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.” The goal is to multiply your workforce, to get more work out of the same amount of people. That sounds very contradictory to the things we've been talking about, but wait. The way you do that is by identifying each of your employees’ Native Genius. What is Native Genius? It is that activity, that task, that thing that they do effortlessly, without being asked and without being paid. That is a skill set, something that they inherently do so easily that if you attune their skills to that Native Genius, they will do more work with less effort. If I've piqued your interest, please check it out. If you don't even know where to start to get your team at 85 percent as opposed to 100 percent this is absolutely the way to go. You will be focusing on your team's strengths and then creating assignments or giving them assignments based on those strengths which will inherently make their work easier. So start here if you really want to try exercising the 85 percent rule.

Before I go, I want to come back to the marathon. Clearly in 2008, it didn't work out, but I had my sight set on that finish line. So in 2016, I applied for the lottery, got in, and I trained. And when I did my training, which I followed religiously, I went up to 20 miles. The race is 26. 2, but my longest run was 20 miles, and in my mind I thought, “I have not actually run this distance. I am not going to make it.” Lo and behold, on race day, I made it. And not only did I make it, I felt abnormally great. I don't know how it happened, but I was heading home from the marathon and I was signing up for the Napa marathon, which is going to happen in six months. And that didn't go that great, but for different reasons. Regardless, we need to learn from these other spaces that have successful mechanisms because we should not believe we have it all figured out just because we're in the field of business. Let's take these concepts and apply them so that we can make the most out of our team and give them a healthy environment to not just survive but thrive.

Quick announcement: we're on episode 5, so exciting, but I'm about to take a trip for work to India for the next two weeks. So instead of pushing out a couple of mediocre episodes just so that you have them, I'm gonna take a pause so that that way I can come back and resume with the same level of research and dedication as I've given you so far in episodes one through five.

See? I can do 85 percent too!

You've just finished the latest installment of everything is A People Problem. You can find episode transcripts with work cited on diazaferjoyce.com/podcast. Find me on Instagram @EverythingIsAPeopleProblem, and tell me what you thought of the episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe so that you're notified when new weekly episodes become available. Once again, I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce.

Today's episode was written and produced by Dia Zafer-Joyce. It featured insights and statistics from Harvard Business Review, Runner’s World, TheWisemanGroup.com, and Zippia.com, and royalty free music provided by Sarah, the instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound.

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References

Flynn, Jack. “20+ Alarming Burnout Statistics [2023]: Stress and Lack of Motivation in the Workplace.” Zippia, 30 Mar. 2023, www.zippia.com/advice/burnout-statistics/.

McKeown, Greg. “To Build a Top Performing Team, Ask for 85% Effort.” Harvard Business Review, 8 June 2023, hbr.org/2023/06/to-build-a-top-performing-team-ask-for-85-effort.

“Multipliers.” Wiseman Group, 10 Jan. 2024, thewisemangroup.com/books/multipliers/.

Witts, James, and Jennifer Bozon. “What Is 80/20 Training?” Runner’s World, 22 Mar. 2023, www.runnersworld.com/uk/training/motivation/a27718661/what-is-80-20-running/.

S1E4 Yakety Yak, Do Talk Back pt. 2

Season 1 | Episode 4

Episode Description

Welcome to Everything Is A People Problem; a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people-centric solution with host Dia Zafer-Joyce.

In this episode, Dia continues the discussion on feedback by addressing cultural, gender, and generation delivery considerations. Leaders must accommodate employee diversity without enabling dependency or destructive patterns of behavior.

Episode Transcript

Hi there. Welcome to Everything is a People Problem, a podcast that explores the connections between business, culture, and community, uncovering how every business problem has a people centric solution. I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce. Let's talk about people.

Why, hello! I'm Dia, and I'm your host for Everything is a People Problem. Thank you for coming on back for part two of feedback. Last week, we talked about the what, why, and how of feedback; what it is and what it's not, why we care, and how we actually execute it. Today, we're going to explore how to adapt feedback throughout cultures, genders, and generations. Before we dive in, I want to share a funny feedback story with you.

So at my current role, my team had shared that they hadn't had a lot of instruction or training on feedback, both delivery of and receiving. So I put together a curriculum that was based on my expertise and things that I expect out of my team as well, from a feedback perspective, and they really enjoyed the content. They said it was really helpful and things they hadn't had a chance to practice or learn in the past. In my very next one on one with one of my employees at the end of our time, he said, “Dia, is this a good time to give you feedback?” and I said, “Yes, of course! Please, what feedback do you have for me?” And he said, “I've noticed that you're not wearing as interesting of earrings lately, and your earring game is really slipping.” During the pandemic, since all we had was a little square of video, I started to improve the quality of my earring game. I realized that that little virtual picture was all that we had to live for and so I wanted to make it interesting. And rightly so, since we'd started to come back into the office a bit and are more of a hybrid situation, I had really dropped the ball on choosing interesting earrings. And so I said, “You know what? You are absolutely right. Thank you so much for giving me this feedback.” He said, “The impact of you not wearing interesting earrings is that I don't have something to look forward to in our one on ones.” And I said, “That is a tragedy. I deeply apologize and thank you for bringing this to my attention. I truly value your candor.” And yeah, that is a funny example, but it also shows how you can practice getting comfortable delivering feedback. It doesn't have to be in dire situations where it's critical to get a message across. Tell somebody how you really miss their cool earrings and put it into your feedback format so you can practice.

In an earlier episode, we talked about how it is a leader's responsibility to invite diversity and different perspectives into your team. We need to seek that out. When we do that, and we do that successfully, that means that our team has different cultural norms, different societal norms, especially if they aren't based in the same country that you are. So you as a leader need to understand not only their background, but how to effectively communicate, especially if you want your feedback to land.

That being said, I want to take a moment to define two terms, because as we discuss bespoke feedback delivery, I think we could confuse accommodating with enabling. Accommodating is making a modification or a choice that will be beneficial for a person, a group, or a type of individual. Accommodation is a mindful act. It shows purposeful respect. Enabling, on the other hand, is over-functioning to compensate. So really you're creating a dependency or even increasing one that already existed by overcompensating for faults that emerge through a behavioral pattern. This is a fine manager line we're walking between these words, because when we accommodate, we actually, as leaders, need to make reasonable accommodations. That has existed before the pandemic, but especially since, we are called to a higher level of emotional intelligence and understanding for our team in order to ensure that they can balance work and life reasonably and thoughtfully. Now, when those accommodations result in a pattern of behavior that is destructive either to the individual or to the work, then you've crossed over into enabling because now as a leader you've created a dependency. You might wonder, “Well, how do I know when I get close to that line of enablement?” You won't, unless you start to recognize and observe the behaviors with a negative impact. That's why feedback is critical; as soon as you see it, it's timely. You need to be able to deliver that feedback and the impact of the behavior in order to curb it and to go back to creating reasonable accommodations versus enabling an individual.

Now, to be clear, enabling or enablement is not inherently negative. For the sake of our conversation, I am using negative connotations of enablement in order to contrast with accommodations or accommodating or supporting your employees. Enablement can mean enabling someone to do their job by providing training or education, but this conversation focuses on how enablement is destructive versus empowering.

The things I'm sharing sound more like coaching than feedback and the truth is that there's a pretty blurry line between those two things. With feedback, that is an observation on a behavior and its impact, and that kind of conversation can be given to anyone, from anyone, irregardless of role or responsibility. Coaching is not done on a peer level because it has ramifications to someone's career development, growth, performance, or potentially rewards and earnings. So this is a manager duty to deliver coaching, but it's done within the format and structure of feedback.

Okay, the setup for this conversation is finally finished. Now, let's talk about delivering feedback that is thoughtful and intentional per culture, gender, and generation. I'm going to be drawing a lot of inspiration from a Harvard Business Review article called When Diversity Meets Feedback by Erin Meyer mostly because I didn't even think about this until I did this research for myself. I had a pretty standardized way that I would deliver feedback and of course would be thoughtful about the individual, but Erin really pushed me to think deeper about my global teams and understand where they come from more before I dive into a feedback structure that is comfortable for me.

Diversity in the workplace is critical to great work being done. But of course, with every positive thing, there is a risk associated. And the risk to diversity is that it increases the likelihood that people will interpret feedback as an act of hostility. Americans, typically, culturally, are seen as exceedingly direct. They place a high value on clear and simple communication, and often recap key points and decisions in writing. That is not typical across all cultures. Unfortunately, Americans also are known, especially with negative feedback, to deliver what's called a “feedback sandwich” You're wrapping negative feedback with positives. And they may use overarching generalities, like, “Overall, it was effective,” or “For the most part, it was a good presentation.” This communication style is just confusing for people in countries where managers are going to tell it like it is, whether there's a positive or negative impact. Countries like the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Israel… these are a few locations where if you communicate as an American in that style, that is not going to be effective for your work. In less direct cultures, an American approach to feedback may be perceived as inappropriately blunt, or it can even be seen as bullying. So, we need to be thoughtful about delivery.

Action time: what do we do? We listen. When providing criticism, direct cultures tend to use what's called “upgraders” that make the feedback feel stronger, and those are words like absolutely, totally, or completely. Whereas indirect cultures use “downgraders” like kind of, a little, or maybe. So listen, notice the words that are used by your peers who don't live or work in your geographical location and emulate that behavior. Use those cues when you deliver feedback so that it can be more appropriate for their culture and their cultural norms. This sounds like extra work, but remember, this is beneficial for you, and this will help you get work done better. So take the time to listen and to adjust how you communicate.

We covered culture, let's talk about gender. Stanford University did a great study in 2020 on gendered language and performance assessment, and they found that women are expected to be warm and nice, as well as competent and tough. In case you were wondering, that same study found that men were not being held to that same standard. And despite men and women having the same technical communication skills, men are described as assertive and women are identified as aggressive. Now, I learned a new term in this research called manvising. You always hear mansplaining, but not manvising, which relates to advice or advising. So many men don't believe that they're guilty of manvising. But over 90 percent of women reported that they have recently received unsolicited advice from their male colleagues. When we're talking about gender, advice and advising is coming up a lot because often When feedback is provided with a genuine desire to help, it can give the person who's dispensing it emotional power over the person receiving that feedback. There's a recent study that was conducted by the, get this, the Neuro Leadership Institute. What a cool group. They found that when people get spontaneous feedback, their heart rate jumps to a level that indicates moderate or extreme duress. So when someone says, “Hey, I have feedback to give you,” then imagine somebody's heart rate jumping through the roof because of the fear and anxiety of the unknown conversation about to hit them.

So what do we do? We ask before we give feedback. We position what we want to give and ask if this is the right time to give it. Think back to the structure we talked about last week. It's critical to ask if it's a good time to give feedback because you want to make sure as the person delivering it that you are setting the person up who's receiving it for success. Does that mean that we only ask permission for feedback delivery in gender diverse situations? No, we always ask if it's the right time to deliver feedback. What we are doing here as emotionally intelligent, thoughtful leaders who are trying to be better than those that came before us is that we're acknowledging there has been a behavior pattern between traditional male and female employees in the workplace. There has been a pattern that feedback delivered by male peers and leaders veers into advice over actionable impact. So let's pause for a minute, accept the historical relevance of having a conversation about the difference in gender and gendered communication, and vow to do better for all of our employees.

And finally, generations. Each generation has its own expectations of the praise to criticism ratio, along with who's expected or has the right to deliver feedback in the workplace. Fun fact: did you know that Baby Boomers, typically those in the U. S. born between 1946 and 1964, introduced the annual performance review? They believed that feedback should be formal and documented between a boss and their subordinate. Gen Xers, who followed Boomers, born between 1965 and 1980, didn't want to wait all year for feedback, or to know how they were doing, so they were the first generation to deliver feedback up the chain to their bosses. And Millennials, who have the most convoluted and made up reputation, were found in 2019 in a study to be less sensitive to critical feedback as compared to their older colleagues, who often stereotype this generation as in need of constant praise and avocado toast. It's very annoying.

So how do we accommodate generational differences when delivering feedback? As leaders, you set the expectation of what feedback is and is not for your team and and hold to that standard consistently. Of course, have personal conversations, get to know the individuals and how people prefer to both deliver and receive feedback, but the culture of feedback is up to you. And in order to set that in motion, you need to communicate your expectations clearly to your entire team and hold them to that.

Let's recap. So we discussed how to deliver feedback with accommodations for culture, gender, and generational differences. And remember, I said accommodating, not enabling, because we are making a conscious choice to modify how we may be approaching a feedback conversation so that we can be inclusive of these differences on our team. For cultural, we want to listen. Listen to how people that are not in our geography are talking to each other. For gender, we want to ask. We want to ask if it's the right time to give feedback, and we don't want to advise. And finally, for generation, we want to set an expectation. Communicate feedback team culture clearly so that everybody understands what feedback looks like on your team.

Two episodes is a lot of episodes on feedback, and I really appreciate you coming along with me on this journey and this topic. If nothing else, since there is an enormous amount of nuance with everything that we talk about, I really want you to take away from this that communication and creating a culture of open communication is a number one priority for you as a leader.

You've just finished the latest installment of everything is A People Problem. You can find episode transcripts with work cited on diazaferjoyce.com/podcast. Find me on Instagram @EverythingIsAPeopleProblem, and tell me what you thought of the episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe so that you're notified when new weekly episodes become available. Once again, I'm your host, Dia Zafer-Joyce, thanks for joining me and see you next week.

Today's episode was written and produced by Dia Zafer-Joyce. It featured insights and statistics from the Harvard Business Review, the Neuro Leadership Institute, Psych Central, Stanford University, and Strategy-Business. com, and royalty free music provided by Sarah, the instrumentalist from Epidemic Sound.

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References

Correll, Shelley J, et al. “Inside the Black Box of Organizational Life: The Gendered Language of Performance Assessment.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, 1 Dec. 2020, www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/inside-black-box-organizational-life-gendered-language-performance.

Meyer, Erin. “When Diversity Meets Feedback.” Harvard Business Review, 2023, hbr.org/2023/09/when-diversity-meets-feedback.

Pugle, Michelle. “Helping vs. Enabling: What’s the Difference?” Psych Central, Psych Central, 27 Mar. 2023, psychcentral.com/health/what-is-the-difference-between-supporting-and-enabling.

Rock, David, et al. “Using Neuroscience to Make Feedback Work and Feel Better.” Strategy+Business, 27 Aug. 2018, www.strategy-business.com/article/Using-Neuroscience-to-Make-Feedback-Work-and-Feel-Better.

West, Tessa, et al. “Asked for vs. Unasked for Feedback: An Experimental Study.” NeroLeadership Institute, 25 Apr. 2021, membership.neuroleadership.com/material/asked-for-vs-unasked-for-feedback-an-experimental-study/.