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Helping Employees Get the Most out of Meetings

The larger the group, the less responsibility each individual group member may feel for contributing to the efforts and overall success of the group.  In essence, the more people present in the room or in the meeting, the easier it is for each individual person to feel less motivated and more distracted, and to essentially disappear into the crowd and assume others will do the work.

This phenomenon, sometimes called “social loafing”, also shows up in virtual meetings and conference calls.  Researchers debate the ideal group size for collaboration and problem-solving in meetings ranging from roughly 6 – 16 participants depending on the task at hand, the time frame for decisions and the makeup of the group.  However, there is overall agreement that the higher you go above the ideal group size of about 6 – 8 core members, the more likely it is for those group members to become distracted (Zoom fatigue, anyone?!) and many leave meetings feeling unsatisfied and uninspired.

As leaders and trainers, it is our job to be thoughtful about the strategies we use to:  help people engage most effectively in meetings, inspire innovation and engage creative problem-solving, build-in time for mental breaks , and modify our processes to adapt to new virtual spaces (click here to learn more about running great virtual meetings).

For our employees and teams, it’s also helpful to provide guidance to them on how they can effectively listen and engage in remote meetings to get the most out of their participation.

Learn more here about five strategies to help you and your employees get the most out of participating in your next virtual meeting.

Tara B Taylor, MPA
Managing Director

4 Rules for Icebreakers with Purpose

The purpose of a good icebreaker is to help the people attending a meeting or training to connect, get to know one another, build rapport, and break down barriers to communication.  These four easy-to-follow rules will help you transform the beginning of your next meeting or training session into a productive and collaborative learning journey for every participant.

Rule #1:  Connect it to the work.  Time is a priceless resource, and your team might not appreciate having to play to Two Truths and Lie first thing on a busy Monday morning, especially if it’s followed by a heavier conversation about something like budget cuts.  Effective icebreakers engage your participants while still keeping a connection to the work at hand, the theme of the meeting, or the focus of the agenda.

• “One silver lining of budget cuts will be…”
• “Other than my own program, the area of our work that I am most interested in is…”
• “One way my team has been impacted by the staffing shortage is…”
• “One thing that’s demanding my attention this week is…”

Just because it’s connected to work, doesn’t mean it has to be boring!  If you do want to insert some fun and lightheartedness into your meeting, and you have time to explore topics that go beyond the workplace, here is a great list to spark your creativity.

Rule #2:  Get vulnerable, not personal.  To build trust as a team, everyone needs to get vulnerable from time to time.  Vulnerability requires openness, honesty, and authenticity.  What is not necessary is overly personal confessionals.  Avoid asking your team to get too personal, like asking everyone to share their most embarrassing moment from childhood, and instead ask them to be vulnerable about something that relates to work.

• “I’m proud to be a part of this team because…”
• “One way I would like others to support me is…”
• “Something our team could be better at is…”
• “Something I’m working to improve is…”

Rule #3:  Keep it quick.  The icebreaker is the appetizer, not the entrée.  Start the icebreaker with “One thing…” or similar language to ensure that as each person shares, they don’t launch into lengthy descriptions or retelling their whole life story!  Another option is to offer a time limit for sharing such as, “Let’s each take 30 seconds to answer this question” or “Today’s opener is a flash round so let’s each take just 1 minute to share…”.

• “One thing I’d like to get out of this meeting today is…”
• “One of our team’s biggest strengths is…”
• “Something we should do more often is…”

Rule #4:  Inspire, don’t demand.  First, if you create the icebreaker, you should be the first one to demonstrate it.  It’s your meeting, and you’re the leader, so be sure to set a good example by modeling how you’d like others to participate.  Second, create openings for humorous insight and playfulness, but don’t force people to do or say something that only you think is funny.  Making goofy faces at each other might make you laugh, but for others, simply showing up to the meeting is as much of a performer as they ever want to be.  Use the icebreaker to inspire humor, creative thinking, and even wry insights.

• “One thing I’d rather be doing than participating in this meeting is…”
• “One barrier that I am so sick and tired of running into is…”
• “One goal I’d love to be able to accomplish this month is…”
• “If our team could ditch one of our responsibilities, I’d choose to ditch…”

Follow these rules to make icebreakers more engaging, more productive, and more creative.  The examples here will get your team talking about the things that truly matter and build deeper connection for everyone.

Rick Buccheri
Director of Programs

Bringing a Co-Elevation Mindset to Your Organization

How can leaders ensure employees are productive, accountable and still engaged after weeks and weeks of uncertainty and stress?  The answer is – they can’t. Even prior to the current pandemic, when workplaces were considered relatively “normal”, leaders couldn’t just magically make those things happen. Even the best leaders can’t MAKE employees productive, they can’t FORCE accountability and they certainly can’t MANDATE engagement. What they can do is help to foster a positive organizational culture and empower teams to be productive, accountable to one another, and engaged with their work and with their colleagues. Collaboration and partnershipping (yes, I just created that word!) is the new frontier for leadership. If we’ve learned nothing else from our current COVID-19 social distancing; reignited focus on systemic racism, violence and injustice; and work-from-home-if-you-can world – it’s that we need one another now more than ever.

If fact, Keith Ferrazi, global thought leader on relationships and New York Times best-selling author of Who’s Got Your Back and Never Eat Alone, may have said it best in a recent Forbes article interview,

“Your job as a leader is not to lead as an individual, but to foster the environment of co-elevation amongst your team. That’s the key, because your team needs to become co-elevators of each other.”

I love this concept of “co-elevation”.  There’s no ego involved, there’s no hint of competition, there’s no highlighted hierarchy, and there’s no attitude of “to be the best I’ve got to be better than you”.  Ferrazi goes on in the interview to say co-elevation, “…is a key foundational behavior that we can all use to lead, connect, and elevate ourselves and others powerfully and effectively, even without pre-established authority.”  So much of leadership, whether you have the official managerial title or not in your organization, is about recognizing the strengths and contributions of others and empowering them to rise higher than they ever thought they could. Leadership is also about recognizing those who have been historically marginalized and de-humanized in our communities and in our workplaces, and intentionally working to elevate and acknowledge those voices.

After 20+ years of working in the conflict resolution field, I’ve seen many dysfunctional behaviors of individual employees lead to highly dysfunctional teams. Yet, the high-performing teams often have something in common – they know how to build each other up when things need to get done and they know how to support one another when times get tough.  In essence, they know how to co-elevate.

So, if you’re looking to build your worth, improve your organization’s productivity, support your colleagues and be part of a winning team, here are some tips to bring a co-elevation mindset to your workplace.

Amplify the voices of others in your organization. We’ve all worked in an environment where the loudest voice gets the most attention. And by loud, I don’t mean volume.  I mean the person who talks the most, interrupts others, uses their power and privilege to take credit for work or ideas that are not their own, or knows how to manipulate the system to influence decisions and discussions without making space for others to contribute. In fact, research tells us that the voices who get drowned out in workplaces are most often those of women and people of color. So, one way to push back against this tendency in your workplace, is to set a personal goal to amplify and elevate the voices of others.  You can do this in many specific and intentional ways.

Support other’s opinions or ideas by referencing or crediting them directly and by name.  For example, try saying something like, “I really loved Jasmine’s earlier idea for cutting the 4^th quarter budget.  Jasmine, can you say more about what you were thinking?”

Properly credit original ideas and correct misattributions in the moment.  For example, try saying something like, “I think that idea originally came from Dinesh, maybe he could tell us a bit more about how he envisioned this project developing?” or “Great thoughts Maria, I remember that idea was initially offered by Zoe in our last meeting.”

Make time and space for everyone’s voice to be heard. For example, in meetings or other situations, try saying, “Before we wrap up this discussion, I noticed that we haven’t heard from everyone. Brandon and Leah, what do you both think?” or “Who else should we include in this discussion to make sure we’ve considered all the information we need to make the best decision?”

Share and recommend the work of others. For example, share the work of your colleagues and employees with others, compliment their accomplishments in front of other leaders, bring them to executive meetings with you, mentor them, follow their social media pages, and share their research, their writing and their blogs. Make it a habit to be the leader that promotes and celebrates others.

Show thanks and appreciation. As I tell my kids, saying thank you doesn’t cost you anything, but it can mean everything to someone else.  Take the time to personally thank those you work with and those who work for you.  Yes, it’s their job and yes, they are getting paid, but the difference between someone who simply does their job vs. the person who goes above and beyond for you, is really what turns average teams into high-performing teams. In fact, employees who feel appreciated and who know their manager has their back are more likely to perform better, have increased productivity and engagement, and report being more satisfied with their job. Showing gratitude also has benefits for you by building better relationships with those around you, improving your overall mental health and helping you deal with conflict when it arises.

Leaders are being tested right now. The challenges to navigate uncertainty, crisis, historical injustices, new workplace norms while keeping employees feeling valued and connected to one another can seem impossible to overcome – but only if you attempt to do it alone.  My hope is that we all take the time right now to recognize that strength is a shared value. Only when we learn to lift each other – to intentionally co-elevate – can we truly see how high we can all rise.

Tara B Taylor, MPA
Managing Director

Happiness at Work – an Oxymoron?

I’ll bet when I say the phrase “work meeting”, the first word that jumps to your mind isn’t “happiness.” In fact, after weeks of one virtual meeting after another, your reaction may be the exact opposite of happiness and include an extreme eye roll while you think to yourself, “not another one!”  But hang in there with me because I’m about to make the argument that even now, leaders truly can impact individual employee happiness and in turn, overall organizational productivity, in a few small and simple ways.

Numerous studies have shown that happy employees are more productive, more engaged, more innovative, and more collaborative with their colleagues and within teams.  Yet, being happy right now might seem like a selfish luxury as we watch the number of COVID diagnoses continue to rise in many cities, healthcare workers struggle to keep up, and the economy is sagging under the weight of decline. Many of us are living with high levels of uncertainty, fear and anxiety over our current situation and whatever might be coming next.

When anxiety levels are high your amygdala, the part of your brain that activates when trying to process a potential threat or respond to conflict, shifts into high gear.  When your amygdala takes over it steals resources from your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for effective problem-solving and executive functioning.  Essentially the likelihood of you staying cool, calm, and collected goes way down while the likelihood goes up for temper flare-ups, mood swings and fatigue.  The longer your brain stays in high-stress mode deciding whether you should fight, fight or flee what’s going on around you, the less effective you become at processing new information, engaging in effective problem-solving and making good decisions.  Hence, why it’s been named “the amygdala hijack” and why it’s crucial for leaders to figure out the best ways to help employees reduce anxiety with compassion, creativity and deeper engagement.

It doesn’t have to come in big, grand gestures. In fact, it’s the small everyday things that, done consistently and done well over time, can really make a difference for employees.  Here are a few of my favorite tips for helping you, your team, your colleagues, or your employees better manage what’s going on around you and find a little more happiness at work.

Tip #1:  Check in and listen.  Working remotely can be isolating and even in a typical office setting, people can forget to genuinely connect with one another.  Try sending a quick text, email, or Slack message when you first log on each morning to say hello or to let a co-worker know you are thinking of them.  Find out what you don’t know about your co-workers and employees by asking how their family is handling the current situation, what activity or practice has offered a welcome distraction lately, or what resource they need now that they are getting more acclimated to working from home.  It’s still okay to use the old standby of “How are you?” for checking in but, make it a team norm that you can’t just answer with “fine” or “I’m ok”.  Instead, you might encourage employees to share a specific word or phrase to communicate how they are feeling that day and then make a plan for checking in more deeply later with those who you sense need greater support.

Anytime you facilitate a team meeting, it can be incredibly helpful to carve out the first few minutes for a meaningful check in.  For smaller teams who may have a bit more time, you could do a virtual round-robin by going around and asking each person to share one thing they are struggling with and one thing they are feeling good about this week.  You could also take turns having different team members kick off meetings with their own creative “get to know you” question to pose to the whole group.  Last week, our team here at ADR Vantage asked each person to share their favorite quarantine snack (maybe you can even have a favorite snack shipped to your team members as a surprise treat!).  Even when stay-at-home orders are lifted and employees begin to return to offices, these check-in practices are worth the time.  When done with a genuine interest in hearing from your employees and colleagues, meeting check-ins communicate that you value others and that you care about them as individuals.  When employees feel heard and valued they often go above and beyond for their employers and isn’t that the type of employee we all want working for us?

Tip #2:  Bring Back the Joy.  Right now, the news cycle is hard to listen to, social media is filled with stories of fear and heartache, and families are still juggling the competing demands of work and family in the same space.  We want to take things seriously and we want to recognize grief…and we want to remember what joy feels like.  One simple way to bring a little joy back in to the workplace is to ask about it.

Try kicking off or closing out an online meeting by asking everyone to share one example of something that has brought them joy that week.  I recently participated in a virtual meeting “show and tell” where each attendee was asked ahead of time to plan to share an item from their remote office space that makes them smile so they could show it and share with the group what makes that item special to them.  I’ve also seen meetings where participants are asked to share a picture from their phone’s camera roll that brings them happiness or reminds them of something positive.  Research shows that recalling positive memories, like the ones you’ve saved in your phone’s camera, can boost positive emotions.  When in doubt, you could try telling a good joke or sharing a funny meme.  Research also shows that there is a connection between what our body does and how we feel.  In other words, laughter can actually help make you feel happier!

Tip # 3:  Recognize & Celebrate the Positives – even the small ones.  Who among us isn’t having to pivot the way we do business right now?  Some organizations are cancelling big conferences and in-person trainings.  Others are trying to hold on to current clients and figure out how to market to new ones.  Many are dealing with dwindling income, layoffs and the prospect of long-term closures or planning for the uncertainly that may come in the Fall with a COVID resurgence.  It’s hard to see through all the negatives to find the light, but as leaders it’s our job to remind our employees that hope is on the horizon.

Lastly, happy people tend to hang out with other happy people and feelings are contagious.  So, yes, if you keep your spirits up it’s more likely that those around you will too.  Make it a point in meetings to share successes with your team, recognize and publicly thank a co-worker who’s helped you out recently, and give kudos to those who are going the extra mile or simply doing a great job at handling this “new normal.”  The other day, my boss took time before the end of a call to tell me that she is in awe of how I’m juggling being a great worker and being a great mom right now.  Hearing someone say out loud that they think I’m doing a great job was just the boost I needed to brighten my day!

Managers manage the people who do the work but, leaders set the tone for how people feel while they are doing the work.  So, take moment to think about how you can bring a little more happiness into your workplace.  Your employees will benefit and so will the health of your organization.

Tara B Taylor, MPA
Managing Director

Dreams are Free

After switching jobs just a few short months ago, I was fortunate to become part of my first women’s Mastermind group.  If you aren’t familiar with Mastermind groups, there are lots of varieties out there but basically, it’s a peer-to-peer mentoring group where members offer support, feedback, ideas and advice to help one another address and resolve personal and/or professional challenges.  Some groups gather informally, but most are a bit more structured to offer strategic support and specific resources to each member of the group as they manage major life and work decisions that impact their professional lives.  I was invited to join a group that had already been meeting regularly for a few years and was looking to add new members.  At first, I was hesitant to join, wondering if I’d be accepted into this group whose members already knew each other so well and if I really had the time and energy to attend monthly in-person sessions and offer meaningful support to people I didn’t even know.  I mean, I was already feeling overwhelmed and less than adequate at providing enough connection and support to my family, friends and colleagues whom I know and love!

Fast forward to COVID-19 and this new-found group of amazing women (all masterminds in their own right!) has given me a lifeline in an otherwise sleepless, over-worked, anxiety-filled world!  Our monthly meetings are now held virtually and due to the nature of a crisis, we’ve all bonded rather quickly even though we aren’t actually meeting in person for the foreseeable future.  Every meeting brings me new insights and a truly authentic sense of support knowing that this circle of women has my back as I confront learning how to home-school my children in a home office setting, take care of my older parents from afar, and still juggle a ton of new workplace challenges.

In our last session, the group members were discussing our jobs and whether it was better to stay focused on keeping our businesses afloat by limiting spending, taking care of current clients and just getting through the day or if it was more helpful to expand beyond the current crisis and start thinking bigger about our next new project idea, how to grow our business or how to take our work to the next level.  First instinct might be to hunker down, narrow focus and just stay the course.  And, that’s not a bad idea.  In fact, lots of advice out there right now will tell you to control what you can and not worry about what you can’t because many of us are in basic survival mode at this point.  So, it’s not a bad idea…but is it the best idea right now?

Survival mode is certainly where I’ve been parked for these past several weeks – just trying to get through each day and hope that things return to “normal” soon.  But one of the fabulous women in my Mastermind group said something that really changed my perspective in our session that day.  She was imagining what she might do if we weren’t in the middle of the current pandemic and she listed something on her bucket list that she’s always wanted to do to shift her career in another direction.  When she was done telling us, with a slow smile on her face, she said, “Dreams are free so why shouldn’t I say my idea out loud to you all?”  I’d never really heard anyone use that phrase before – “Dreams are free.”  And she’s right.  Dreams don’t cost anything.  You don’t have to consider the budget restrictions.  You don’t have to find the time.  You don’t need to do the data analysis.  You don’t have to get anyone’s approval.  You certainly don’t need to check with procurement, or Human Resources or the Board.  Yup – your dreams are free.  They are free for you to imagine what could be, what might be, what would bring you true joy, comfort, and happiness.

So, I’m asking all of us to take a moment to forget the limitations we have right now, to set aside your fears for tomorrow, if only for a moment, and dream.  Dream big!  This is especially true for leaders in any organization who are trying to keep their businesses afloat, keep their customers happy and keep putting one foot in front of the other.  In times of uncertainty and change, leaders are always balancing managing their response vs. leading through crisis.  In my case, remembering that “dreams are free” is about letting my mind imagine the best version of my business, envisioning the projects that would really motivate and inspire me, and dreaming of what’s possible, not just what’s doable right now.  If we don’t let ourselves imagine the best possible future – what we want to manifest coming out of the current crisis – then how can we expect anything better for ourselves and our employees?

Tara B Taylor, MPA
Managing Director

Purpose Driven Communication

A friend of mine recently told me that after the last several weeks of COVID-19 related stress and anxiety, she started using a new model to help her navigate her weekly goals and her daily attitude.  At the start of each week she now spends a few minutes dot journaling what she wants to minimize and what she wants to maximize that week.  Essentially, asking herself what do I want more of and what do I want less of?  Seems simple right?  Well, it is…but it isn’t.

Lately, it’s been especially hard for many of us to set aside our uncertainties and anxieties and meet the shifting challenges of remote work, home schooling, family responsibilities, and a lack of our traditional social and/or emotional connections.  Even if you are a leader in your organization, some days it can be tough to get up and get dressed (I mean, we’re all wearing more yoga pants nowadays, anyway!) much less think about how to best support your employees, teams and colleagues in the workplace.  However, NOW is exactly the right time to put some thought into the best ways to support and engage your workforce.  As much as any time in recent history, NOW is the time to minimize the unnecessary and maximize what’s truly necessary.

As I work more and more with remote teams and conduct virtual training sessions, I’m reminded of the trap we can fall into – believing that communication is a one size fits all tool.  Communication, when it’s done well and with intention, can save us loads of wasted time and energy.  When it’s done poorly, with no clear purpose or understanding of those we are communicating with, it can cause more conflict and confusion than we ever bargained for!

If you are in the midst of adapting to your own new remote work environment, helping shift your team to a virtual workplace, or even pivoting your business plans for what the future will hold in this brave new  world, consider some of these best practice tips to ensure that you are using clear, purpose-driven communication to minimize what’s not needed and maximize what is.

• Remember different strokes for different folks. Face-to-face and virtual communication is often best for building connection and rapport among co-workers and teams but, the benefits start to diminish the higher the number of participants goes.  Virtual team meetings can be great but, don’t forget that many employees need a one-on-one conversation to feel valued, to feel heard and to have a chance to share what they may not be comfortable sharing aloud in an online all-hands staff meeting.  Whenever possible, take the time each week to check in individually with your team members and you may be surprised how much it matters to them and how much you learn!

• Be transparent. Share whatever information you can and share it early and often. Even if everyone on the team is comfortable with their new remote set-up, it can be hard to know who is getting what information and when.  The last thing you want is for your team to start wondering why certain people aren’t getting the same access to information as others.  This is also a great time to check in with your own biases.  Are you communicating clearly with everyone on the team?  Are you favoring certain voices over others in virtual meetings?  Does everyone know about and have the same opportunity to be heard?  Does everyone know how to ask for help and do they feel they can ask without fear of reprisal?  One simple way to counteract the perception of bias (or actual bias) is to make sure to share the “why” behind decisions that are being made.  Helping people understand why something is being done or being changed can limit the chance that they will jump to their own incorrect assumptions about your motivations.

• Visual feedback is more compelling. Whenever possible, offer visual feedback to your team.  Some examples might include:  Showing data in a chart or graph, allowing employees to make comments during meetings using the “chat” function on your virtual platform, asking team members to share pictures of something in their home office that makes them smile, offering pictures of what kind of attire is required or expected for work-from-home remote meetings so everyone can prepare and know what is appropriate for your organization.  *Special note – be sure everyone in the meeting has the ability to view the visual content that is shared.  You can ask you attendees ahead of time if they have any visual accommodation requests to ensure that you prepare and provide your attendees appropriate access to information in the format that best suits them.

• According to a Harvard Business Review research article, Energy, Engagement & Exploration are the three key elements of effective team communication. Think about who brings the energy to your team.  This person, or these people, are your allies!  Cultivate that talent and ask for their input.  You could invite them to kick off your weekly meetings or close the meetings out with an energetic positive message for the whole team.  You might ask them to help you create a Slack or Teams channel specifically for sharing positive messages and kudos for team members throughout the week.  Whatever you do – let that person or group of people know that they are important to the success of the team and empower them to keep the energy up for all of you!

Engagement is all about how the energy is distributed among your team members and how they connect with one another.  If just a few people are talking and connecting, then your team won’t be nearly as effective as it would be if all members’ talents are engaged and valued.  Find ways to encourage employees to connect individually across departments and/or outside of normal meeting times; enlist team members to take turns facilitating meetings or planning virtual events; and remember to switch up who you call on to answer questions or share ideas.  Lastly, high performing teams encourage exploration outside their own group.  They intentionally seek out voices and opinions from other divisions, other offices, and other leaders to explore new and creative ways to tackle today’s problems. Think about how you can support these external connections for your employees or who you might want to invite in to share their insights with your team.

Regardless of how many more weeks or months we continue to social distance (and disinfect our groceries and packages), “normal” work life will be forever changed from this global experience.  My hope is that we take the time now to practice minimizing our disconnection and disengagement from one another and find new and exciting ways to maximize purposeful communication and connection. Here’s to returning to even better workplaces for all of us!

Tara B Taylor, MPA
Managing Director

Short-term Coaching

“In a crisis, we need short-term goals that are meaningful and motivating and appropriate for the situation at hand.”

Whether you want to improve your leadership or management skills, your performance, or your relationships with co-workers or friends, coaching has become more prevalent in recent years and may have been something you considered. Often a coaching relationship extends over months, especially if you want to gain and sustain new skills or behaviors, but short-term coaching has a more immediate pay-off and helps you to tackle immediate challenges – ones that are a result of events or circumstances that you didn’t even see coming.

What do I mean by short term coaching? Well it’s not really about the number of sessions, though they would likely be fewer and shorter than for other types of coaching (maybe even as few as one 30-minute session), but they will all be laser focused on what you need now. For example, you can:

• Clear away confusion or uncertainty and set your sights on the future;
• Sort out what is most relevant to focus on right now; and
• Design a course of action that will guide you through the chaos and toward your future goals.

According to researchers in positive psychology, goal setting, planning and support while you put new things into place, increases the hopeful belief that you can adapt to the changes you’re facing and move forward with confidence.

For tips on navigating the unexpected, take a look at this blog on psychological capital – https://instituteofcoaching.org/resources/what-you-need-crisis-psychological-capital.

Dianne Lipsey
President

Emotions at Work

The article, “The Fear of Feelings at Work” originally published in The Atlantic, highlights why it is important to acknowledge the existence of emotions in the workplace.  Now, in 2020, amidst a global pandemic that suddenly and unexpectedly changed our lives and workplaces forever, it is even more critical that we understand the power of our emotions and how they show up at work.

Emotions are often misunderstood and ignored, inspired by two common myths.  The first myth is that some people do not have emotions.  A perfect example of how this myth shows up was voiced by one of our leadership development training participants, who declared in a session, “My husband is a Marine. He doesn’t have emotions.”  The truth is that everyone has emotions, including Marines. The observable difference is in the way we each express our emotions.  The second myth is that emotions can be turned off and on like a light switch, and therefore cast aside once work begins.  This is simply not true.  Emotions are part of each of us and go wherever we go. You are always under the influence of your emotions whether at home or at work, and the myth is even less accurate now since, for many employees, their homes are also their place of work.

Susan David, Harvard psychologist and author of Emotional Agility, suggests that workplaces often require the suppression of emotions with harmful results.  Suppression is a form of emotional labor, or the act of regulating and managing the expression of emotions to comply with organizational or social norms.  Some examples are an employee working in customer service who displays a happy persona even when they feel annoyed or disrespected by a customer.  Or an employee who goes along with a decision to show support for their team even though the decision makes them personally uncomfortable. Emotional labor creates dissonance between employees’ feelings and behavior.  They feel one way yet act another.  Over time, this dissonance can create a psychological toll, leaving employees burned out, and possibly lead to more severe effects, like depression.

As we all find ourselves traversing a new reality brought on by COVID-19, it is important to recognize that employees are now performing even more emotional labor than before.  Employees might be showing up to a virtual meeting with a smile while simultaneously experiencing a mix of uncertainty about their job security and financial stability, concern for the health and safety of themselves and others, awkwardness and disorientation as they attempt to adapt to new technology and ways of working, exhaustion by the blurring of work and home life, boredom from the lack of stimulating activity, disconnection from friends and family, and pressure to maintain productivity while simultaneously fulfilling their duties as employee, spouse, partner, parent, neighbor, and/or teacher.

Effectively integrating emotions into the workplace is not simply a matter of mitigating risk to personal well-being.  Emotions are amazingly useful because they give you critical information about what is important to you.  If your manager interrupts you in a meeting and you genuinely do not care, you will not have a strong emotional response.  But if you do experience a strong emotional response, then it suggests that the interaction held significant meaning for you. Perhaps your emotional response is a signal that your relationship with your manager is not as strong as you would like it to be.

In her book How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett describes “emotional granularity”, the ability to precisely categorize the range of emotions experienced in any given situation.  Being interrupted by your manager during a meeting might make you feel annoyed, but if you dig a little deeper you may also recognize feeling undermined, disrespected, or embarrassed.  On the flip side, maybe you do not like being the center of attention and instead feel relieved that your manager shifted attention away from you.

If you can identify your own emotions at a more granular level, you will be presented with more behavioral choices.  When your manager cuts you off, you can sulk because you are annoyed, or you can remain silent because you are grateful to no longer be in the spotlight. This expansion of choice is why it is important to encourage employees to explore the complexity of their emotional landscapes.  If an employee decides to leave a virtual meeting by announcing that they feel depleted rather than simply leaving the session with no explanation, the team can decide how to best support that employee so they can show up to the next meeting rejuvenated.  Otherwise, if the emotion goes unobserved and unexpressed, the team might continue to pile work on without any awareness of the impact of that decision.

Organization and team leaders can expand behavioral choice for their employees by simply providing them an opportunity to name their emotions.  A one or two-word check-in asking employees how they feel can be a useful way to start or end a meeting, or test how employees are processing a difficult change or decision.  Leaders can, and should, model this by naming and sharing their own emotions.  When leaders share their own emotions, it encourages others to do the same, and demonstrates to employees that it is acceptable for them to do so as well.

Another way to encourage employees to share their emotions and show support for their emotional experience is to name the emotions you observe employees expressing.  Avoid relying on generalities by saying something like, “You’re all probably going through a lot right now.”  Instead say something specific that demonstrates your genuine attempt to understand your employees’ emotional experience, such as, “I can see that everyone is feeling overwhelmed by the workload,” or “I’m sensing that some people are feeling uncomfortable with this decision.”  You can take it one step further to demonstrate that you care about your employees by doing something to shift their emotional experience.  If they feel overwhelmed by the workload, do something to ease the workload and/or ask how you can provide support.  If they feel uncomfortable about a decision, take the time to listen to their concerns and use their feedback to guide future decisions.

In a few short weeks, COVID-19 transformed how work gets done.  While we all try to adapt, make sure to create space to explore emotions.  Try to identify a wide range of emotions that are showing up in your work and let the discovery of more nuanced emotions create new options for moving forward.

Rick Buccheri
Director of Programs

In-person to Virtual Training: A Case Study at TSA

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, our team at ADR Vantage was regularly traveling across the country to support teams, facilitate dialogues, resolve conflict, and provide training. As self-quarantining was just beginning, two members of our team, Tara Taylor and Rick Buccheri were preparing to deliver training for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) at airports in Florida and New Mexico. By the time stay-in-place orders were enacted, all travel had been halted, leaving everyone unsure of how to continue to support employees from afar. To their credit, TSA immediately shifted to working with us to provide this training in a virtual environment.

This month, Tara and Rick, with the support of TSA’s Communications Solutions Specialists and local airport leaders, delivered several interactive training sessions to help supervisors effectively provide performance feedback and navigate difficult conversations with their employees. TSA did an amazing job by preparing employees prior to each session, developing printable instructions and handouts, and building in additional time to help employees log in and navigate the virtual environment. Tara and Rick kept the session lively and created multiple activities for the employees to engage with the training content and with each other. Employees asked questions in real-time, practiced with role-play scenarios, and participated in facilitated discussions. TSA leadership was extremely pleased with the training saying, “making classroom content engaging and relevant in a virtual environment is a huge accomplishment.”

Being able to quickly adapt training that was originally designed for in-person delivery to a virtual platform is crucial for many organizations right now. Although stay-in-place orders will eventually be lifted, virtual training is likely to be used more than ever when we return to whatever the “new normal” is. Virtual trainings help employees stay connected while learning critical new skills that they need on the job whether they are stationed at an airport, at an office, or at home.

Contact ADR Vantage today to learn more about how to convert your in-person training catalog into a suite of virtual learning programs.

Virtual Mediation Resources Library

Here at ADR Vantage, we are compiling resources that we have found helpful for customizing our approach to conducting effective virtual mediations.  Please find links below. We will be updating this periodically.

1. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/insight-effective-virtual-mediation-during-the-coronavirus-crisis.  Written primarily for attorneys about preparing and supporting their clients in mediation with some useful points for mediators to consider in planning for or coordinating with the representatives.
2. https://edwardsmediationacademy.com/virtual-mediation/.  A thoughtful article that discusses the preparations and considerations one might adopt at every stage in mediation.
3. https://www.mediate.com/articles/online-mediating-zoom.cfm.  An accessible breakdown of how to prepare for and use the video-conferencing platforms, may be especially valuable for people new to video conferencing.
4. http://www.vacourts.gov/courtadmin/aoc/djs/programs/drs/mediation/resources/mediating_online.pdf  Mediating online tips and tricks flyer created by Dispute Resolution Services for ADR practitioners. Copyright DRS-OES Supreme Court of Virginia.