Blog
3 Tips for Recovering Micromanagers
Being able to let go is critical to becoming a good leader.
This post was originally featured on Thrive Global
You hover. You can’t help it — when you delegate a project, you need to make sure that it’s completed to your standard. You step in with corrections when you see your employee begin to veer from your preferred procedures. When you spot mistakes in their work, you decide to reclaim the task you assigned to them, rationalizing that fixing the project yourself would take less time than coaching them through any necessary revisions.
You have the very best of intentions — but you are a terrible manager.
“Micromanaging is one of the most damaging habits an executive can have,” one representative for the Forbes Coaches Council wrote in a post on the problem. “Teams get bogged down going through laborious procedures, and worse is the environment it generates: Groups that adapt to a micromanagement style are either quietly rebellious or hapless, unable to make any independent decisions.”
The damage caused by leaders’ well-meant but overly-controlling interventions can be severe. Micromanagers erode team morale, create anxiety and mistrust, and, worst of all — foster disengagement. Research indicates that micromanagement can ultimately result in lowered staff morale, creativity, and productivity, as well as an increase in staff turnover.
In 2017, NPR’s Yuki Noguchi sought to explore the human impact of intrusive leadership practices and found a pervasive pattern of anxiety, disillusionment, and poor morale. One interviewee, a marketing professional who worked for an insurance firm, described a panopticon-like office experience where lunch breaks were discouraged, tattling was rewarded, and two-minute bathroom breaks incited supervisor ire. The unnecessary oversight had consequences, as you might expect.
“I did the absolute bare minimum to get my paycheck,” the beleaguered ex-employee shared. “It did not make me want to help the company in any way.”
It is worth noting, too, that low individual morale can pose a significant organizational toll. According to Zenefits, less-engaged teams tend to be less productive, less customer-focused, and — ironically, given a micromanager’s concern for achievement — provide lower-quality work.
Because employees with low morale don’t feel valued by their managers, they often don’t care about assigned projects and aren’t interested in innovating outside their designated to-do lists. Turnover expenses are similarly expensive; according to estimates from Deloitte’s Josh Bersin, losing an employee can cost a business up to twice their annual salary.
The harm that micromanaging causes to team members is evident. But what about the damage to you, their manager?
Micromanaging can be just as stunting to leaders’ development as it is to their employees’.
“[Micromanaging] hampers your ability to focus on what’s really important,” journalist and management expert Karen Dillon noted for the Harvard Business Review. “If your mind is filled with the micro-level details of a number of jobs, there’s no room for big picture thoughts.”
By focusing on the minutiae of day-to-day work, micromanagers hobble themselves from accomplishing their primary directive: to lead. As a result, they are never able to evolve or inspire their employees to innovate or think outside of tried, tested, and manager-approved protocols. Controlling leadership practices are harmful to employees, leaders, and organizations alike — so why is micromanaging still one of the most common complaints that dissatisfied employees air?
The answer appears to be fear. As Ron Ashenkas, a leadership expert and author, explained for HBR, “As managers rise through the ranks, they often become concerned that they’ve lost touch with the actual work of the organization.”
Leaders often seek to alleviate their worries of being out of the loop by mandating extra reports, meetings, and conversations. Their hovering soothes their anxieties at the cost of exacerbating their employees’. That said, a lack of knowledge isn’t the only driver behind micromanagement. Ashenkas further notes that new leaders might — consciously or not — fear their new roles as leaders and visionaries, and try to return to the familiarity of day-to-day operations by controlling their subordinates’ actions.
“Managers have to trust their people to manage day-to-day operations and coach them as needed, rather than trying to do it for them,” Ashenkas concludes.
Do you micromanage? If so, don’t worry — there are ways to break your adverse habits and inspire new positivity and productivity in your team.
Accept Imperfections
Micromanagers are often perfectionists at heart. They have high, inflexible standards and hold themselves — and everyone else — to them with zeal. At a glance, this trait might seem like a good one, a characteristic that promotes high-quality work and effort. But in truth, it’s the opposite, because perfectionism fosters resentment, insecurity, and disengagement.
“Nobody is as good as they are,” Forbes Council Coach Gaurav Bhalla writes of perfectionist leaders. “Consequently, they don’t believe anyone can do the job as well as they can.”
According to Bhalla, the solution is the 95-95 rule: if leaders can accept 95 percent of work as perfect, 95 percent of the time, they will micromanage 95 percent less.
Being able to let go is critical to becoming a good leader. Mistakes will almost certainly be made as your team members start working independently. But in the end, it will be to a net positive effect; your employees will perform better, be more accountable, and be more engaged than they were under micromanagement.
Consider Your Role
Put aside your overstuffed daily to-do list for a moment. When you look beyond the day-to-day minutiae and pressing projects, how do you define your role? What were you hired to do; what is your most important function within your organization?
Taking a moment now and again to reflect on how you can best contribute to your team and business is crucial, especially if you struggle with micromanagement tendencies. You may find that the tasks you deemed necessary — say, setting up endless meetings or providing constant feedback — aren’t as important as furthering your big-picture responsibilities.
Concentrate on Results and Trust
Trust is paramount in every workplace. Your employees trust you to set a direction; you should trust them to follow it. Focus on coaching your team, rather than dictating to them — if you feel the need to hover, limit yourself to once-weekly check-ins. These meetings will allow you to stay in the loop without alienating your employee.
Always remember that trust isn’t just a fundamental part of workplace happiness. It empowers employees to feel safe enough to innovate and share their ideas (and concerns) with their leaders.
As one writer for Forbes puts the matter, “When an employee holds back information out of fear of losing their job, their reputation or a beneficial relationship, that tension doesn’t go away on its own. If a manager neglects to engage employees in positive, non-judgmental ways, the tension inevitably escapes elsewhere, usually in the form of gossip, sabotage, emotional withdrawal, or, worse, anger.”
Micromanagement is toxic — so evolve beyond it! Good, talented people are at the heart of every thriving organization. If you support your employees and they trust you in turn, your business will see the benefits.
Resolving Conflict Over Zoom Is Easier Than You Think
A thousand faulty assumptions can be made on the back of a too-brusque text or unanswered Slack message.
This post was originally featured on ThriveGlobal
It’s usually pretty easy to tell when an employee reaches a boiling point. The warning signs are subtle but clear; as you discuss a contentious policy change or challenging assignment, you can see them start to shift in their seat and glance away. Their expression hardens, arms cross, and tension knots their shoulders. Even before you finish talking, you know that you’ll need to clear the air before either of you return to your daily work.
Contentious conversations in the workplace are often stressful, difficult, and entirely necessary. Chats like these allow leaders to resolve conflicts before they derail productivity or poison office morale.
They also don’t translate well to a virtual environment; a thousand faulty assumptions can be made on the back of a too-brusque text or unanswered Slack message. When you lead remotely, you may not even realize that conflict lurks in the unspoken subtext of a quick email or call.
Let’s recontextualize the above conversation into a virtual format. Rather than sitting across a table, you and your direct report are discussing that same contentious policy change over Skype. You deliver your speech in a block of text; after a few minutes, you see them begin to type, stop, and type again. After a solid two minutes of this staccato typing, you see three words appear: Okay, got it.
You’re torn. Should you take the employee’s statement at face value? Are they upset by the policy change, but don’t know how to articulate their concerns via text? Will that resentment simmer and build into a problem down the road? It feels awkward to follow up on such a conclusive statement. Uncertain, you click out of the chat — and just as you feared, frustration begins to percolate on your team.
The challenges that arise when leaders don’t take the time and effort to adapt their conflict resolution strategies to a fully-remote environment are evident — and, given the current need for social distancing, likely to become more common.
According to a recent joint research survey conducted by CNBC and Change Research, roughly 42 percent of surveyed Americans are currently working from home. The pandemic-prompted, mass migration towards remote work has sparked a wave of conversation around what leaders can do to maintain team morale and productivity across digital channels.
But relatively few people talk about what leaders should do when low morale and resentment are already through the (digital) door. While it’s always good to strive for high morale, moments of communication breakdown and conflict are inevitable. This fact was established by CPP Global, the company that created the Myers-Briggs personality test, as early as 2008.
According to a CPP report released that year on workplace conflict, 85 percent of surveyed employees say that they need to deal with conflict to some degree, and 29 percent claim that they need to do so frequently. Poorly-managed quarrels have consequences; researchers note that 25 percent of employees have seen conflict result in sickness or absence, while 9 percent cited it as the cause of a project failure.
Leaders must address conflict immediately and capably before it results in a larger problem. Unfortunately, this does not always occur. The report found that while over half (54 percent) of surveyed employees think that managers could manage disputes better if they dealt with underlying tensions early, only 44 percent of all managers polled said that they had received training in how to navigate workplace conflict.
Given this data, it seems reasonable to assume that even fewer know how to conduct conflict resolution over digital channels. To risk stating the obvious: virtual and in-person communication are dramatically different. Face-to-face meetings provide a wealth of subtextual information conveyed by tone, body language, and subtle cues; thus, it’s relatively easy to identify and address tensions when they arise. With virtual communication, however, that is not the case.
“With so many employees now ‘out of sight,’ there is a real risk that conflict goes unnoticed or is avoided until it grows to an unmanageable level,” HR expert Anna Shields recently wrote for Personnel Today.
Paul Axtell, a corporate trainer and author, put the matter another way when providing comments to the Washington Post: “In-person meetings provide a sense of intimacy, connection, and empathy that is difficult to replicate via video. It’s much easier to ask for attentive listening and presence, which creates the psychological safety that people need to sense in order to engage and participate fully.”
But even as the difficulties have grown, so too has the need for conflict resolution. Research has demonstrated that working remotely can prompt employees to work longer hours and blur the lines between their personal and working lives. As one writer for Fortune concluded on our mass remote working reality, “Add new concerns over COVID-19, a struggling economy, homeschooling children, and shaky job security, and remote workers may find themselves mired in fear and anxiety, creating fertile ground for conflict.”
Businesses need to train their team leaders to resolve conflict over digital channels now. Otherwise, they could face a dangerous decline in morale and a massive loss of productivity as COVID-19 stress combines with preexisting workplace tensions.
But how, exactly, should they go about doing so? While each leader will likely have their own approach, the core of their strategy should boil down to overcommunication.
“It’s better to add more context and be more careful with language than you might ordinarily be,” mediation expert Gina M. Weatherup explains in an article for Fortune. “Instead of diving right in, use salutations in email and texts. Even if you’re not a fan of emojis, or think they’re silly, they can be useful and effective in adding tone and context […] Discuss the reasoning behind such recaps, and what could seem condescending becomes a stopgap.”
Leaders should set a standard of overcommunication that eliminates resentment-causing uncertainty and supersedes awkwardness. Rather than clicking out of a chat when a direct report replies with a clipped message, leaders should send a follow-up message — or, for maximum relatability, set up a videoconference — to ensure that the employee has the opportunity to air their unspoken concerns and receive support.
Team managers should set up training sessions to establish expectations for workplace communications. They should also provide specific notes on the importance of adding context, demonstrating texting “tone,” and being aware of how certain wording choices may come off to others. Holding virtual workshops on active listening and thoughtful communication practices may also be worth considering.
At the end of the day, though, the specific strategies you deploy don’t matter as much as the effort you make to ensure that every employee feels heard and valued. Don’t get complacent and assume that your communications are going smoothly — if you do, you may inadvertently allow hidden tensions to derail otherwise-promising projects.
How Misguided Sympathy is Alienating Women in the Workplace
This post was originally featured on ScoreNYC
The best leaders are perceptive, straightforward, and empathetic. Rather than dictating orders, they provide thoughtful support and take the time to listen whenever their employees approach with ideas and concerns. Their ability to process the nuances of an employee’s perspective is an invaluable skill that encourages clear communication and ultimately improves the health of a business.
Too often, however, well-meaning leaders fall into baseless, damaging platitudes. You’ve probably heard — or even used! — a few such phrases.
“I can relate.”
“I completely understand where you’re coming from.”
“I’ve been there, believe me.”
All three of these reassurances seem benign enough at first listen. They strive to connect managers and employees through shared experience and attempt to reassure the employee that they are seen and understood.
But here’s the problem — every one of those seemingly empathetic statements shuts down conversations faster than outright dismissal.
In a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, management researcher Kathryn Heath outlined the damage that baseless sympathy can do, noting that relating to a subordinate’s experience can become a dangerous “trap.”
“Though well-intentioned,” Heath writes, “such remarks can be offensive to the other party. Our research shows that many managers often miss the mark entirely.”
In her article, Heath outlines a hypothetical situation in which a white male manager in his fifties tells a young, female Hispanic employee who feels ostracized by her white male colleagues that he understands what she’s going through — even though their differing life experiences make such a statement improbable.
“In your effort to relate, it is possible (and likely) to make false assumptions and tread into areas you know nothing about,” Heath cautions. “Remember, empathy is learning to understand what someone is feeling despite having never felt it before. It is not making up a story in your head about what you think the other person is going through based on your personal experience.”
In offering baseless reassurance, managers simultaneously shut down any further explanation by implying that they don’t care to hear more about the employee’s individual experience. In turn, the employee feels more ostracized, hurt, and unwilling to come forward with concerns in the future. Ironically, leaders tend to leave such discussions thinking themselves supportive and kind — never realizing that their sympathy only exacerbated existing frustrations.
This issue is particularly problematic for mid-level or high-ranking women, who tend to have male supervisors. According to statistics compiled by the Center for American Progress, American women “lag substantially behind men in terms of their representation in leadership positions” despite the fact that they hold nearly 52 percent of all management and professional-level jobs.
Take gender representation in the financial services sector as an example. While women in the industry make up 61 percent of accountants, 53 percent of financial managers, and 37 percent of analysts, only 12.5 percent of Fortune-500 CFOs are female. The unbalanced gender distribution within the highest leadership levels means that women are more likely to have male managers who don’t have a clear understanding of their professional experiences, perspectives, and challenges — and feel shut down by misguided sympathy.
When employees are rebuffed in well-meaning conversations, they may feel alienated and unable to connect with their team. This lack of inclusion effectively nullifies the benefits that the organization might have otherwise gained from its diversity, leading to productivity and performance losses.
If organizations want to make the most of their diverse teams, they should proactively strive to teach managers how to deploy empathy as a tool for encouraging discussion, rather than shutting down complaints.
All company leaders should be trained in active listening. This instruction will empower managers to set aside their assumptions, formulate their responses according to their employees’ verbal and nonverbal cues, and acknowledge team members’ feelings without shutting down their concerns. Only once they achieve these skills can a manager achieve their leadership potential and guide their team with a deft, empathetic hand.
So, the next time that you feel tempted to sympathize — pause. Consider whether you can genuinely understand your employee’s perspective, or if your need to relate is a reflexive way for you to prevent an awkward conversation. You may just find that taking the time to truly understand your team’s diverse perspectives makes you a better leader.
Negotiating Over Zoom: A Few Tips to Tip the Scales
This post was originally featured on ScoreNYC
Negotiations demand subtlety. Whether you’re an employee arguing for a pay bump, a consumer haggling over product prices, or a CEO setting terms for a potential merger, understanding when to press your point, compromise, or walk away entirely is the key to holding productive discussions.
As a negotiator, you need to pick up on countless subtle clues — body language, voice tone, bluffs — to know when talks are (and aren’t) going your way. It’s a delicate art at the best of times, one that all but requires careful observation during in-person conversations.
Now, COVID-19 has tossed all of our expectations for productive negotiations into the air. Suddenly, the conversations that we otherwise would have had in person are taking place over the phone, via email, and on video conference platforms — and all of the unspoken information we might have readily picked up in person must sieve through digital channels.
We lose our interpersonal insights to weak Internet connections, grainy video feeds, background noise, and narrow camera angles. It’s all but impossible to read another person’s facial expression or pick up on a gesture that occurs off-screen.
Even establishing meaningful eye contact is difficult. As one communications expert recently shared for Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation, video-conversationalists almost always appear to be looking down because their webcams sit at the top of their screens. This disconnect, the expert explained, can prevent negotiators from building the trust and rapport that they would have otherwise achieved in a face-to-face discussion.
Given all of this, should we resign ourselves to the prospect of subpar negotiations during COVID-19? Would it be better to give up on negotiating altogether, or wait until after the pandemic has passed to revisit essential discussions?
Maybe. But by writing off virtual negotiations entirely, you might be setting yourself up for significant losses. These conversations happen for a reason; if we don’t argue for our interests, we naturally end up with deals that aren’t as beneficial. Over time, these subpar deals could lead to lower earnings, less-lucrative business contracts, and even lesser business achievement.
Take salary discussions as an example. In 2007, social science researcher Linda Babcock conducted a study on pay negotiations and found that while 57 percent of men attempted to negotiate their first salary, only seven percent of women did the same. Those who argued their points, however, were able to boost their pay by seven percent. This increase might seem small at first glance, but consider how the difference stacks over time. As one negotiation professor for Stanford explained for the Muse, “If you get a $100,000 salary and your co-worker negotiates up to $107,000, assuming you’re treated identically from then on, with the same raises and promotions, you’d have to work eight years longer to be as wealthy as them at retirement.”
The potential benefits are enormous. Are we really going to give them up because digital negotiations seem challenging? Of course not! Here’s what you can do to hold productive, virtual conversations during COVID-19.
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare
Regardless of whether you’re negotiating virtually or in-person, most of your work will be done before you ever step through a conference room door or hit a virtual “join” button. If you want to hold productive discussions, you need to develop a clear understanding of what everyone in the room wants out of the conversation. If you go into negotiations only considering your interests, your self-absorption might cause the other party to become frustrated and disengage.
Think long- and short-term. What do those on the other side of the table want? How can you align your interests with theirs? Can you craft an argument that takes their interests into account and provides a solution that appeals to all parties? Develop a thoughtful case, and you may find that you’ll obtain more than you would have from being self-centered.
Optimize Your Approach for Digital Mediums
Virtual platforms are not perfect. It can be challenging to discern facial expressions, note gestures, or pick up cues over video — so it is critical to compensate for those lapses as much as possible. Negotiation guru Noam Ebner recently provided a few strategies via a blog post for Harvard’s Program on Negotiation; these included keeping hand gestures within the camera’s view, minimizing sound and visual distractions, and closing out of all programs other than what is required for the conference at hand.
Take steps to ensure the best technical experience possible, too. Check your Internet and connection beforehand to identify and solve potential glitches before they derail your conversation. Tailor your appearance for the camera; make sure that your background is plain and professional, and that your workstation is ideally oriented for videoconferencing.
As journalist Becca Farsace wrote in an article for the Verge at the start of the pandemic, “There is one, and only one, acceptable camera angle: head-on and at eye level. Your table is almost certainly going to be lower than your face, and that means people are going to get an unflattering look up at you.” Farsace provides a few recommendations for solving this issue, including using a set of books to lift the camera to an acceptable height, and orienting the camera so that your brightest light source is no more than 45 degrees removed from your face.
Watch Your Wording
This is an unprecedented time — so, recognize it! Put extra emphasis on empathy and connection as you navigate your negotiations. To borrow a quote from Refinery29’s Marshall Bright, “You may be stressed and overworked, but chances are your boss feels that way too. Starting with an empathetic statement makes the other person feel understood and acknowledged.”
Once you’ve established an empathetic bond, you can begin sharing the case you developed during your pre-negotiation brainstorm while highlighting how your interests align with your conversational partner. If you find that the other party isn’t willing to budge due to our current uncertain circumstances, take a step back and offer to defer the conversation.
True, you might not get what you want when you want it — but by rescheduling your negotiations, you demonstrate your understanding while still leaving the door open to future gains. Make sure to choose a specific date if you decide to defer; otherwise, you might find that you never revisit the conversation.
Negotiation is vital in business. Don’t let COVID-19 take away opportunities and gains that could be yours with a little preparation and strategy.
How to Keep Leaning In During Social Distancing
This post was originally featured on ScoreNYC
Since the onset of COVID-19, networking opportunities have all but dried up and disappeared. Most people are stuck at home, limiting their contact with others to video chats, text messages, and social media. Even if you’re living with family or roommates, the experience can be a lonely one — but for female entrepreneurs on the cusp of their career break, the isolation can feel particularly frustrating.
Regardless of the particulars of their industry or skillset, women need to network to advance their careers. As one researcher explained for the Harvard Business Review last year, “Because women seeking positions of executive leadership often face cultural and political hurdles that men typically do not, they benefit from an inner circle of close female contacts that can share private information about things like an organization’s attitudes toward female leaders, which helps strengthen women’s job search, interviewing, and negotiation strategies.”
Networking is particularly crucial for women with entrepreneurial aspirations, given that they are less likely than their male peers to have personal connections to established entrepreneurs. By proactively forging links to entrepreneurs, talented businesswomen can gain better access to the resources, information, and capital they need to kickstart their ventures.
Research has long supported the value that networking and peer support holds for women entrepreneurs. In 2013, a study conducted by EY found that female respondents who regularly participated in entrepreneurial workshops and support meetings tended to enjoy better access to growth and expansion capital than those who were less active in their professional networks. Researchers further noted that 27 percent of female entrepreneurs who participated in team or mentoring programs reported having “easy” access to funding — a significant step above the 19 percent for female entrepreneurs overall.
In more typical times, a professional woman might develop her network by attending conferences, alumni programs, chamber of commerce events, or even by spending time at women-attended coworking spaces. By participating in career-centric social activities, female entrepreneurs have the opportunity to gain visibility, showcase their skills, and form the connections and friendships that will help propel them to succeed in business.
For now, though, we’re living through a pandemic. The usual venues that professional women turn to for networking have mostly been rescheduled or canceled altogether — an understandably frustrating turn of events for hardworking entrepreneurs. But female entrepreneurship networks shouldn’t need to disconnect just because our usual social calendars have paused!
“Networking remotely isn’t difficult at all,” Women Unlimited CEO Rosina Racioppi told reporters for Fortune. “The only obstacle to building a great network virtually is that so many people working at home, especially for the first time, forget to do it.”
She’s right. Let’s talk through a few pointers.
Understand Your Current Network
While few entrepreneurs enjoy being forced to stay in place, the pause does offer an opportunity to take account of the resources we already have.
“Whether or not you realize it, you already have connections,” Stephanie K. Eberle, executive director and assistant dean of Stanford University’s BioSci Careers community, wrote for InsideHigherEd. “Your mentors, advisers, roommates, friends, parents, classmates, Zumba instructor — they all could have connections who may help you find your next position.”
If female entrepreneurs feel frustrated by the lack of immediately available events, they can review their networks, strengthen existing connections, and do career research that they didn’t have the time for before from the comfort of their couch. Take the time to schedule informational interviews and casual Skype chats; write a few thoughtful messages to rekindle communication with those you’ve fallen out of touch with. Who knows, the conversation could be as beneficial for them as it is for you!
Focus on (Virtual) Network Expansion
Who says that in-person conversations are necessary for networking? These days, there are more venues available for digital connection than ever before. Communication software like Zoom and Skype allows for easy video conferencing, while social media platforms provide a means for female entrepreneurs to locate and connect with other entrepreneurs.
If you want to connect with someone but haven’t had the opportunity to speak in person, try sending them a personable message on Linkedin! People are often more willing to provide advice than you might think. A thoughtful, brief note asking for insight on a specific problem could be the key to starting a longstanding and useful professional connection.
Attend Digital Events
If you planned to attend an industry conference before COVID-19, there’s a chance that it shifted to an online venue. Geekwire recently reported that interest in digital conference spaces has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic, and that full-scale virtual events have become the norm. The days of impersonal messaging and laggy videos are long past; today, virtual gatherings offer opportunities for engaging conversations and quality networking.
“Face to face is such a big thing,” Jordan Schwartz, CEO of the conference-centric mobile app producer Pathable, told the tech magazine. “Being able to look in somebody’s eyes when they’re talking to you and see the expression on their face, that’s a big deal. So we came up with this idea of these ‘birds-of-a-feather’ meeting rooms. It’s a Zoom meeting room with multi-way video, everyone jumps on. It’s a replacement for those topical lunch tables that a lot of conferences do.”
True, you may not be able to shake hands or exchange physical business cards with the people you meet — but opportunities to expand your entrepreneurial network are just as available as they were before the pandemic. Even during social isolation, female entrepreneurs don’t have to feel alone.
How to Keep Leaning In During Social Distancing
This article was originally published on ScoreNYC
Since the onset of COVID-19, networking opportunities have all but dried up and disappeared. Most people are stuck at home, limiting their contact with others to video chats, text messages, and social media. Even if you’re living with family or roommates, the experience can be a lonely one — but for female entrepreneurs on the cusp of their career break, the isolation can feel particularly frustrating.
Regardless of the particulars of their industry or skillset, women need to network to advance their careers. As one researcher explained for the Harvard Business Review last year, “Because women seeking positions of executive leadership often face cultural and political hurdles that men typically do not, they benefit from an inner circle of close female contacts that can share private information about things like an organization’s attitudes toward female leaders, which helps strengthen women’s job search, interviewing, and negotiation strategies.”
Networking is particularly crucial for women with entrepreneurial aspirations, given that they are less likely than their male peers to have personal connections to established entrepreneurs. By proactively forging links to entrepreneurs, talented businesswomen can gain better access to the resources, information, and capital they need to kickstart their ventures.
Research has long supported the value that networking and peer support holds for women entrepreneurs. In 2013, a study conducted by EY found that female respondents who regularly participated in entrepreneurial workshops and support meetings tended to enjoy better access to growth and expansion capital than those who were less active in their professional networks. Researchers further noted that 27 percent of female entrepreneurs who participated in team or mentoring programs reported having “easy” access to funding — a significant step above the 19 percent for female entrepreneurs overall.
In more typical times, a professional woman might develop her network by attending conferences, alumni programs, chamber of commerce events, or even by spending time at women-attended coworking spaces. By participating in career-centric social activities, female entrepreneurs have the opportunity to gain visibility, showcase their skills, and form the connections and friendships that will help propel them to succeed in business.
For now, though, we’re living through a pandemic. The usual venues that professional women turn to for networking have mostly been rescheduled or canceled altogether — an understandably frustrating turn of events for hardworking entrepreneurs. But female entrepreneurship networks shouldn’t need to disconnect just because our usual social calendars have paused!
“Networking remotely isn’t difficult at all,” Women Unlimited CEO Rosina Racioppi told reporters for Fortune. “The only obstacle to building a great network virtually is that so many people working at home, especially for the first time, forget to do it.”
She’s right. Let’s talk through a few pointers.
Understand Your Current Network
While few entrepreneurs enjoy being forced to stay in place, the pause does offer an opportunity to take account of the resources we already have.
“Whether or not you realize it, you already have connections,” Stephanie K. Eberle, executive director and assistant dean of Stanford University’s BioSci Careers community, wrote for InsideHigherEd. “Your mentors, advisers, roommates, friends, parents, classmates, Zumba instructor — they all could have connections who may help you find your next position.”
If female entrepreneurs feel frustrated by the lack of immediately available events, they can review their networks, strengthen existing connections, and do career research that they didn’t have the time for before from the comfort of their couch. Take the time to schedule informational interviews and casual Skype chats; write a few thoughtful messages to rekindle communication with those you’ve fallen out of touch with. Who knows, the conversation could be as beneficial for them as it is for you!
Focus on (Virtual) Network Expansion
Who says that in-person conversations are necessary for networking? These days, there are more venues available for digital connection than ever before. Communication software like Zoom and Skype allows for easy video conferencing, while social media platforms provide a means for female entrepreneurs to locate and connect with other entrepreneurs.
If you want to connect with someone but haven’t had the opportunity to speak in person, try sending them a personable message on Linkedin! People are often more willing to provide advice than you might think. A thoughtful, brief note asking for insight on a specific problem could be the key to starting a longstanding and useful professional connection.
Attend Digital Events
If you planned to attend an industry conference before COVID-19, there’s a chance that it shifted to an online venue. Geekwire recently reported that interest in digital conference spaces has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic, and that full-scale virtual events have become the norm. The days of impersonal messaging and laggy videos are long past; today, virtual gatherings offer opportunities for engaging conversations and quality networking.
“Face to face is such a big thing,” Jordan Schwartz, CEO of the conference-centric mobile app producer Pathable, told the tech magazine. “Being able to look in somebody’s eyes when they’re talking to you and see the expression on their face, that’s a big deal. So we came up with this idea of these ‘birds-of-a-feather’ meeting rooms. It’s a Zoom meeting room with multi-way video, everyone jumps on. It’s a replacement for those topical lunch tables that a lot of conferences do.”
True, you may not be able to shake hands or exchange physical business cards with the people you meet — but opportunities to expand your entrepreneurial network are just as available as they were before the pandemic. Even during social isolation, female entrepreneurs don’t have to feel alone.
Mentorship is Key to Fighting Professional Loneliness in COVID-19
Mentorship has never been more important than it is right now.
This article was originally published on ThriveGlobal
The role of a mentor is simple at its foundations. We draw on our years of experience to provide support, encouragement, and guidance to our younger peers. When our proteges feel uncertain or alone, we’re poised to offer a push in the right direction or a supportive word; when they accomplish their professional goals, we cheer beside them to celebrate the win. In turn, mentees challenge us to look outside the bounds of our experience to explore new possibilities and ideas. It’s a useful connection for seasoned and rising professionals alike during normal times — but now, faced as we are with a COVID-19 loneliness epidemic, mentorship has become nothing short of invaluable.
By now, we’re all too familiar with the term. Social distancing — isolating ourselves to prevent the spread of infection — is a necessary safety measure, but it comes with side effects. Sequestered within our own four walls, we’re distanced from our professional connections and disconnected from our support networks. When left unmaintained, mentorship bonds can fray or dissolve, leaving mentees without the ready support they relied on previously.
This is a major problem. Even before the novel coronavirus began prompting shutdowns, feelings of disconnection poised a significant threat to younger workers’ development and performance. According to a 2019 poll conducted by the London-based research and analytics firm YouGov, Millennials are the loneliest generation of workers, with three out of 10 younger workers reporting that they “always or often feel lonely.”
In COVID-19, the issue has — as you might expect — been exacerbated. Earlier this year, SocialPro surveyed 1,228 people between the ages of 18 and 75 and found that over 20 percent of respondents from every age group claimed that they felt “lonelier than usual” because of the coronavirus. Researchers found that millennial workers have had a particularly difficult time during the pandemic, with 34 percent of those surveyed noting that they were “always or often” lonelier because of COVID-19.
These findings are clearly problematic from a social perspective, but they also have significant implications for workers, employers, and the economy as a whole. Multiple studies have found a connection between feelings of disconnection and reduced work output; in 2011, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and California Sacramento University reported that increased loneliness often led to poorer task and team performance, as well as lesser commitment.
Similarly, a study published in the Harvard Business Review in 2018 found that “lonelier workers reported lower job satisfaction, fewer promotions, more frequent job switching, and a higher likelihood of quitting their current job in the next six months. Feeling a lack of workplace social support was associated with similar negative business outcomes.”
“The economic impact of loneliness is indeed staggering,” the study’s writers conclude. They aren’t wrong to use the term; in 2017, New Economics reported that lonelier workers cost employers more than £2.5 billion annually — that’s $3.5 billion in U.S. currency — in the United Kingdom alone.
Interpersonal connection is vital at work. As one writer for SHRM puts the matter, “Personal connection isn’t just good for engagement and happiness at work, it’s what makes us human. It’s part of our genetic makeup. This deeply ingrained evolutionary legacy goes back to the days when our survival depended on safety in numbers. Today, work is where we often find our tribe.”
But in a time when teleworking is necessary and regular in-person interactions are nearly impossible, finding that sense of connection in daily work is challenging. Younger workers need support and encouragement now more than ever before — and mentorship may provide them with the reinforcement they need to stay engaged and optimistic about their lives at work.
“Mentorship is the trifecta for employee morale,” Janice Omadeke, CEO of The Mentor Method, commented in a recent article for Forbes. “You’re providing a safe space for [young workers] to discuss their feelings, you’re connecting your talent to resources that build resiliency, and you’re showing an investment in their development, which can offer peace of mind, personally and professionally. That emotional support is vital as organizations do their best to navigate the pandemic.”
We cannot allow mentorship relationships to fall by the wayside when younger professionals need them the most. But how can we accomplish this in a time when maintaining those bonds is logistically challenging at best? Let’s discuss.
Be Proactive in Your Communication
Given how stressful life during the pandemic can be, mentees may feel uncomfortable reaching out to their mentors to ask for support. Mentors need to reaffirm their professional relationship by periodically reaching out to their proteges. These messages don’t need to be long, formal, or even have a specific task in mind — a simple offer to chat is enough.
If you do end up scheduling a conversation, revise your expectations to suit the situation. Given current circumstances, your mentee may not be able to achieve in-office standards of professionalism. They may be looking after children or dealing with additional responsibilities at home, and do not have the chance to dress in business attire or answer your call in an office-quiet room. They may not even have time to talk — and that’s fine, too! Everyone’s situation is different; sometimes, just knowing that someone cares and is there to listen can be enough for stressed mentees.
Provide Direction — Or Don’t.
While some mentees will want to move forward on projects during the pandemic, others may not have the time — or energy — to push forward professionally. As I’ve noted before, it’s crucial to be compassionate and take time for yourself if you need it. The same holds in mentorship; don’t criticize your mentee if they haven’t made the progress they were hoping to make before COVID-19 began. Instead, try to listen.
As career columnist Ruth Gotian recently wrote for Nature Magazine, “None of us has faced a situation like this before, and most of us just need to talk things out to feel a little better. While your protégé may have a lot of questions, she probably knows that you don’t have many (or any) answers. But, it can be useful for a protégé to vent emotions and give voice to anxiety. Your focus as a mentor should be on listening and empathizing.”
This advice comes with a caveat. Mentors, too, face stress during this time. If you can’t take on additional emotional weight from your mentee, don’t. Be compassionate to yourself, as well as to others.
Prioritize Video Chat Over Text Messaging
Not all forms of online communication are created equal. While it might be easier to dash off an email between projects or have a quick chat over Slack or Skype, these text conversations will not have the same connective effect as those held over video chat platforms.
“During this time, the more we can replicate real-life interactions, the better,” psychologist Deborah Roth Ledley told reporters for Healthline. “We must be mindful of ways to stay socially connected even when we aren’t seeing people face-to-face.”
Set aside a half-hour to have a real conversation with your mentee. While it might not be quite the same as a face-to-face meeting, you may find the interaction to be more meaningful and connective than any halfhearted text message.
Mentorship is more vital than it has ever been. Faced with the prospect of pandemic and isolation, America’s youngest professionals are struggling to stay engaged at work. Mentors who have the time and energy to do so should step up and provide the support their mentees need to remain hopeful. We are all in this together.
Keeping a Team Motivated Remotely Isn’t Easy — But It Is Possible
This article was originally published on ceoworld.biz
During ordinary times, you don’t think all that much of the tiny interpersonal exchanges that underpin office morale. On a typical day, you might pause by a teammate’s desk to strike up a conversation before launching into work for the day. The acquaintances and friendships you build in those moments keep teams close-knit and establish a sense of purposeful togetherness.
But when everyone works remotely, morale drops. Suddenly, the conversations that teammates once had so naturally feel stilted and awkward. Idle chatter about office life or what someone did over the weekend through Skype or Zoom feels unnecessary, even forced — and not in the least because, with everything shut down, there’s little to recap. As a leader, you can feel the once-close-knit team ties unfurling into disparate threads.
Now, this sudden drop in morale might seem odd at first; after all, people did work from home before COVID-19. The differentiating factor is intensity — before social distancing restrictions, relatively few employees worked remotely all day, every day. While roughly 43 percent of American workers work at home some of the time, only 3.6 percent work remotely half-time or more.
Today, significantly more people are at home full-time. In a survey of 800 global human resources executives, researchers for Gartner reported that 88 percent of organizations nationwide have either encouraged or required their employees to work from home as a result of COVID-19.
Being at home round-the-clock without the opportunity to connect with team members in person can strain once-easy camaraderie and dim morale. One study conducted in partnership with the travel agency Ctrip and Stanford University assessed how round-the-clock remote work impacted staffers’ motivation and job satisfaction over nine months. Of the 1,000 employees offered the opportunity to work from home full-time, only half accepted. By the end of the nine months, only a quarter asked to continue working remotely. Why?
“The answer is social company,” lead researcher Nicholas Bloom summarized for Stanford News. “[Employees] reported feeling isolated, lonely, and depressed at home. So, I fear an extended period of working from home will not only kill office productivity but is building a mental health crisis.”
Other investigations corroborate and complement Bloom’s conclusions. In 2006, research published in the National Social Science Journal reported a “direct relationship between job performance and morale. When morale is low, productivity is low, and in turn, profits may be affected.”
All of this demonstrates that it is critical, imperative even, to address declining morale before it starts negatively impacting job performance and profits. True, social distancing restrictions may prevent team members from having the spontaneous interactions that fuel office camaraderie — but leaders can still take steps to encourage connection and boost team spirit.
Maintain Communication
One of the greatest threats to morale is uncertainty. Since COVID-19 began, sequestered employees can’t casually drop by a manager’s office and ask questions. Rather than occurring organically or spontaneously, communication needs to happen via written message or pre-scheduled video call. If leaders don’t make a concerted effort to reach out to employees and inform them of changes or updates, employees may inadvertently be kept out of the loop. This lack of knowledge can lead to uncertainty, worry, and even disengagement — all of which can, in turn, negatively impact morale and productivity.
Leaders need to take a proactive approach to communication. Host a semi-regular all-hands meeting to keep team members apprised of COVID-19-related developments and updates. Schedule virtual happy hours; set aside 30 minutes on a Friday to play a remote game. Offer your team the time and reason they need to socialize and reconnect with their team members.
Prioritize Video Calls
Never underestimate the connective power of a video call. While audio-only communications are quick and convenient, they often don’t have the connective ability that a video transmission offers. It’s easy for someone on a voice call to lose focus or check out altogether.
A video chat reminds us that we’re connecting with people and not faceless digital avatars. When we can see others’ faces, we can better gauge facial reactions for subtext and meaning — even if we aren’t in the same room.
Be Patient and Empathetic
In 2017, Robert Kelly, an associate professor of political science at Pusan National University in South Korea, achieved viral fame when his two children burst into his home office during the middle of an interview with BBC. During the ensuing chaos, Kelly struggled to keep his composure and continue speaking as his wife scrambled to herd the children back outside.
Now, all working parents are in Kelly’s shoes. Even during the workday, some employees will need to take time away to deal with bored toddlers and home-school older children. Barking dogs and noisy neighbors may interrupt conference calls; other responsibilities may take precedence over the usual to-do lists. As leaders, we need to be patient, understanding, and flexible in organizing an employee’s work around their responsibilities as caregivers. If team members feel heard and supported, they may be happier and more dedicated to their work.
One point is clear. Business leaders need to figure out how to maintain employee morale over distances, and they need to do so now — because the trend towards remote work won’t disappear when COVID-19 does. In fact, recent research conducted by Global Workplace Analytics indicates that remote work adoption rates will remain high even after social distancing measures relax. As researchers write, “Our best estimate is that we will see 25-30% of the workforce working at home on a multiple-days-a-week basis by the end of 2021.”
Leaders need to know how to motivate a remote workforce, not just during COVID-19, but for the future. Why not start practicing now?
3 Ways To Reinforce Your Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Efforts During A Crisis
Times of crisis test your commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
This article was originally published on ConsciousCompanyMedia.com
Fear is inevitable during a crisis. It brings out the worst in people, fanning the flames of discrimination and exclusion, and creating conflict in communities that are already tense and afraid. In a time when we should be working together to fight the spread of disease and return to normalcy, misinformed suspicions are driving us apart.
In hotspots across the country, those suspicions are flaring up into outright exclusion. Politicians and notable public figures have taken to calling the coronavirus “the Chinese virus” in opposition to the World Health Organization’s naming conventions and inadvertently causing problems in our communities. Some businesses have suffered as a result; in San Francisco, roughly 70% of Chinese restaurants have seen a dramatic decline in traffic. In my home of New York, the city’s largest and oldest Chinese restaurant, Jing Fong, was forced to close down after experiencing an “unsustainable loss of business.”
The spread of misinformation and misplaced fear is incredibly damaging — not only for restaurants but for all businesses. If that fearful mindset seeps into our business cultures, we could see bias and distrust grow like mold across our organizations, slowly breaking down the communication and achievement gains that true diversity brings to a business.
As Forbes writer, Sonia Thompson put the matter, “As the world battles…COVID-19, we have to be vigilant when it comes to fighting for inclusivity and making others feel like they belong. Now, it is more important than ever to hold true, reiterate, and reinforce your values in this regard as a brand and a company. Otherwise, we risk damaging or unraveling progress that’s been made in the important work of bringing people with different backgrounds and experiences together.”
The coronavirus pandemic is a challenge to diversity, but it also stands as an opportunity for businesses to reinforce their dedication to the cause and expand their diversity efforts even further. Below, I’ve included a few suggestions on how leaders can not only survive, but thrive, in these trying times.
Restate Your Values and Reassure Your Employees
Your first strategy should be to reassert the values and priorities that you already hold. Develop a company-wide document that reiterates your organization’s values and the steps that you are actively taking to ensure a smooth and safe transition to remote work. Several colleges have put together such documents for their campuses that outline policies around exclusive speech, what to do when remedying unequal access to technology, tactics for completing responsibilities remotely, and communication best practices.
The University of California has a particularly well-developed protocol, which can be found here. These examples almost certainly won’t apply word-for-word to business needs, but they can provide inspiration and direction for creating business documentation.
It may also be beneficial to provide employees with the resources they need to understand the COVID-19 crisis and avoid any problematic misunderstandings. Direct employees towards factual reports about the crisis and encourage open dialogue between team members and management to remove any lingering, anxiety-inducing uncertainty.
Consider the Diversity Benefits of Expanding Remote Work
Now more than ever, we have an opportunity to trial the expansion of our remote work policies. Faced with the office-closing prospect of COVID-19, businesses that had previously dragged their feet on exploring remote options are now forced to adopt them temporarily. The question is — will they retain an openness to remote work when the crisis ends?
Remote work is an invaluable lever for boosting diversity. It opens up opportunities to talented professionals who have disabilities that make leaving the house difficult; it makes balancing career and family responsibilities far easier for working parents. Significantly, remote work also allows employers to access talent from all over the world and removes the limits posed by geographical boundaries and relocation costs.
As a journalist for NPR explains, “Many of the most successful and desirable employers are based in expensive cities on the coasts. Not everyone wants to move to those cities, nor can many people afford to. More and more, smart, dedicated people are choosing to stay close to their families. Some have sick or elderly relatives to care for. Others simply prefer the towns and cities where they grew up.”
To be fair, remote work makes more sense in some industries and businesses than others. But if you can effectively incorporate remote work options into your business, you have an opportunity to expand your access to top talent, improve company diversity, and provide flexibility to employees.
Check-in With Your Team to Provide Support
As teams shift towards remote work, pre-existing tensions will naturally become more pronounced and problematic. Ample research demonstrates that women, for example, are often interrupted and feel as though their voices are less valued in conversations than those of their male (majority) peers. One study published by Pew Research found that 25 percent of surveyed women felt as though they had to continually “prove themselves” to maintain their colleagues’ respect. In a physical office, managers can counteract these skewed conversations by moderating meetings and making a point to welcome all perspectives.
In a digital setting, offering that support can be somewhat more challenging. Business leaders will need to direct managers to be even more proactive in encouraging fair online discussion and providing support to team members who might feel stifled.
A crisis is a challenge, yes — but it also stands as a period of opportunity. With a little effort, businesses can emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with stronger values, improved diversity, and increased team unity.
How to Keep Centered When Home Becomes Your (Quarantined) Office
Is it possible to maintain a work-life balance when the usual boundaries between the two are suddenly and indefinitely removed?
This article was originally published on ThriveGlobal.com
In an America under quarantine, millions of people have found themselves forced to renegotiate the delicate equilibrium between their professional responsibilities and home lives.
In recent weeks, the United States has become a global epicenter for the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting more cases than similar hotspots in China and Italy. The wildfire spread of the virus has prompted extreme public safety measures across the country. Over 160 million people nationwide have been ordered to stay home so far. In my home city of New York, schools have been closed, restaurants and entertainment venues shuttered, and all non-essential business offices firmly locked shut.
By necessity, businesses have needed to follow workers into isolation. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just under a third of Americans can take their work home with them. Rather than face furloughs or layoffs, these fortunate, tech-connected workers have the privilege to keep earning a living from the quarantined safety of their home offices. In these trying times, having the ability to work remotely is a gift — but it does come with its share of challenges.
When we work in isolation, we no longer have the physical boundaries or routines that separate our working lives from our at-home environment. While we once might have prepared for work by picking up a cup of coffee on the way into the office, we now can roll out of bed and over to our desk in seconds. We can’t leave work stresses at the office because our home has become the office. One study published in a 2015 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest found that these blurred boundaries can, over time, create greater stress, overwork, loneliness, and family strife.
That said, remote working isn’t always detrimental for employees; in fact, many prefer it! According to a survey from FlexJobs, 65 percent of surveyed workers say that they are more productive working from home, noting that they enjoy fewer interruptions, limited office politics, and reduced stress from commuting. These statistics show that it is possible to have a positive remote working experience — but you need to find a balance between your professional responsibilities and at-home life. Below, I’ve listed a few tips on how to renegotiate your home-work equilibrium.
Create Artificial Boundaries
It might be tempting to stay under the covers and work from the comfort of your bed in the morning — but you would be better off avoiding the urge. To borrow a quote from the Harvard Business Review’s Guide to Being More Productive, “Unless you are careful to maintain boundaries, you may start to feel like you’re always at work and losing a place to come home to.”
Having a threshold — a visible line that cordons your working space off from your relaxed, non-work environment — is a necessary part of maintaining a balance while working remotely. What that threshold might look like will depend on your home situation. If you live in a studio apartment in New York, you might not have a spare bedroom or home office to use as a designated work zone. However, you can strategically rearrange furniture or use a folding screen to separate one room into distinct zones.
Self-isolation protocols may prevent you from leaving work behind by physically exiting an office building, but you still have the ability to shut a door or step away from your working space in a tangible way.
Don’t Slouch into Bad Habits
When you work at home, adhering to corporate dress codes is optional. If you want to roll out of bed and trudge to your home office in pajamas, you can — but that doesn’t mean that you should. Getting dressed and following a regular morning routine empowers you to better oscillate between a professional and a relaxed mindset. Some research indicates that adhering to a daily routine could help fend off the depression and loneliness associated with extended periods of isolation.
“Now that our interactions with the outer world seem poised to be put on hold, getting dressed takes on a kind of necessary transformative power,” journalist Rachel Tashjian wrote in a recent article for GQ. She has a point; in a time when every aspect of your life must take place in a single environment, having some way to distinguish them is a necessity. Sure, that distinguishing act might only be putting on business-casual attire during the day and switching back to sweatpants at 5:01 PM — but it still helps.
Establish Clear Lines of Communication — At Work, and at Home
Make no mistake about it: working at home requires a different set of expectations. If you’re working from home while looking after children or a sick family member, you need to proactively tell your boss what you can and cannot get done during a remote workday.
Similarly, you may need to have a discussion with your family and explain that you will need space and quiet during your working hours. In my home of New York City, children have been asked to attend school remotely. For those suddenly being asked to look after their children at home while simultaneously sticking to work responsibilities, it’s important to create a new daily schedule that lays out expectations for the family’s morning routine, daily tasks, and post-work family time.
The coronavirus has thrown all of us off-balance. With quarantine in effect, we lack our comfortable routines and easy office-home separation — but that doesn’t mean that we can’t renegotiate a new work-life balance. With a little work and thought, we can bring some level of normalcy and equilibrium back into our daily lives.
Debrah Charatan’s blog
- As Facts Remain Under Attack, Holocaust Education is Perhaps More Important Than Ever
- On SelfHelp’s 85th Anniversary, a Look Back
- What Will a Safe Reopen Look Like for USHMM?
- Social Media Platforms Need to Stand Up Against Holocaust Denialism
- COVID-19 Won’t Stop the School of Interactive Arts from Playing for Keeps