It's About Leadership: March 2023

Friday, March 10, 2023

The Addictive Power of Work

For much of my leadership career (1986 to 2012), I devoted a significant amount of time, energy, and effort to being a good leader and on trying to go from being a good leader to a great leader. The consequence of that commitment was there were far too many work days that started early and ended late, and far too many weekends where downtime equated to a bit of sleeping in (potentially) before getting back to work at home. If I am honest with myself, the real consequences of that work addiction were poor physical and mental health along with not insignificant damage done to family's well-being.

Why start to discuss this concept of work addiction when so much of the public discourse has been on quiet quitting and the great resignation? I do believe, in fact, that these polar opposite responses stem from a similar desire to achieve some form of meaning in our lives. Some people double down on work at the expense of all else, believing it will help them attain their brass ring. Others choose a different path and a complete reset of life's priorities. More recently, what brought this topic back to my attention was the news story of the Twitter executive (Esther Crawford) who was previously seen in a viral photo sleeping on the floor at headquarters as Elon Musk took over the company. Ultimately, that commitment and loyalty (delusion?) was not enough to maintain her status in the company. She was recently fired.

Interestingly enough, Crawford's take on her termination wasn't cause for regret or immediate self-reflection on what had been sacrificed for this total commitment to career. Rather she took to social media days after her termination to do battle with critics who had noted that she got the axe despite her loyalty to her boss and her job. "The worst take you could have from watching me go all-in on Twitter 2.0 is that my optimism or hard work was a mistake," Crawford tweeted. "Those who jeer & mock are necessarily on the sidelines and not in the arena," she said, referencing a famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt.

Time will tell whether Crawford has any change of heart. She might not. She could soon jump into the next business or entrepreneurial venture that feeds her. For as many people that are looking for work-life balance, we still have a significant number that drive themselves forward relentlessly in business or career. I'm coaching some of those people now! People who don't believe that "no" or "not now" is an appropriate answer. People who believe that the current situation of overwork is temporary and with one more push, the work boulder can be pushed over the hill. People who look around them and believe leadership and business success equals more time and more time and more time invested at the coal face of work (even at the expense of self and family).

What I have also observed over the past few years as well - not incidentally related to our COVID-19 reality and the hybrid work environment - is technology (Zoom-based meetings, office technology readily available in the home) has significantly blurred the lines between work and private life. We get up and we can immediately start work. No need to commute. We can "manage" back-to-back meetings without having to worry about walking from office space to meeting room. We can extend our hours deep into the evenings... well... just because we can.

However, what my clients are discovering, much like I discovered many years ago, is work is a relentless machine. It will take all you give to it and it will still leave you feeling like there is so much more yet to be done. You are never finished and never can finish.

But there are many like Esther Crawford who will not or cannot slow the pace. They may actually be suffering from an addiction to work. Workaholics is a term that has been around forever, but in days past we might not even have called it that. Excess work was just seen as the normal part of career advancement. But what drives this behavior? What makes this type of pace an addiction? I offer a few thoughts below.

Expectations of Self/Others. Some of us are very goal driven. I include myself in this category. Whether as part of our upbringing or based on our earliest experiences of work, we have developed an expectation of self that success requires drive and sacrifice to get ahead. We have a goal in mind, an end to be achieved. We also often wrap up achievement of career or business goals with our worth or value as a human being. How joyous and rewarding to call myself CEO, or COO or VP. We crave to introduce ourselves to others with these titles. I know I took great pride in those titles. In some cases this drive for self-worth is wrapped up in what we see others achieving, assessing ourselves against them (e.g., "hey at age 35 they are here, I'm falling behind, better get moving"), and looking to catch up or speed ahead. We strive on the competition and the win.

Don't Let the Team Down. In other cases, and certainly something I have heard recently from more than one of my coaching clients, is an intense desire to not let one's team down. This can operate when an individual is a member of a team or as a team lead. My clients often express a desire to protect their teams from overwork, they look to shelter them from challenging situations, and so forth. But this all comes at a personal cost. The spirit of altruism results in the individual team member or leader carrying a load that is not sustainable long term.

I've Got Something to Prove! At first blush this might seem to be directly related back to the expectations noted up above. And to some extent it is. However, whereas the former examples are driven a bit more from a positive intent (e.g., I believe I can make it if I work hard enough), what I am talking about here is a drive to diminish or eliminate any sense of inadequacy one might feel about work or leadership capabilities. This is the chip on the shoulder mentality. If you believe others have counted you out or have considered you unworthy, your work drive is intended - come hell or high water - to prove the bastards wrong! I too have had some of this as my motivating force for overwork.

Being Part of the Inner Circle. What could be more enticing than to "arrive" and get an opportunity to socialize and partner with a variety of other prestigious leaders and business people! Each of us, in our own way, wants to be part of a tribe, and wouldn't it be great to be in the biggest and best tribe in whatever way we define it. We can then further justify our work addiction, attendance at more functions, attendance at more meetings and networking functions from a standpoint that networks build career and business opportunities, advance the interests of our teams, and help build up prestige for our organization. We are altruistic leaders, working on behalf of the masses, coupled with a healthy (or unhealthy?) dose of self-advancement.

Pure Adrenaline. The final thought I will put to this is work addiction is like any other addiction. Tolerance is a reality. When our careers first start, we have youthful energy and enthusiasm. We are learning the ropes. We take on more responsibility and workload. And if you do well at your tasks, your reward is to typically get more responsibility and more workload. And the cycle continues. Over time, like a drug addiction, our brain and body grow accustomed to a certain level of stimulation and we find we can do more and - more importantly - we need more of that stimulation to remain engaged and alive. The biggest flag in this regard is we have a hard time disconnecting from work. We feel much guilt if we knock off from work at a normal time or feel more than a bit twitchy when going on vacation.

How do you know if you have a work addiction? You could look at some of the notes above to conduct some form of self-diagnosis. Am I actually working more than a regular workday/week on a regular basis? Am I often doing work or responding to emails at all hours of the day or evening? Do I believe that one more hour, or one more day, or one more week at a relentless pace will get me over the hump - only to see the next mountain rise up before me?

More recently I discovered an interesting assessment tool that directly focuses on work addiction. The Bergen Work Addiction Scale uses seven basic criteria to identify work addiction, where all items are scored on the following scale: (1) Never, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Often, (5) Always:

You think of how you can free up more time to work
You spend much more time working than initially intended
You work in order reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness or depression
You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them
You become stressed if you are prohibited from working
You place less emphasis or priority on hobbies, leisure activities, exercise and family/relationships because of your work
You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.

Scoring "often" or "always" on at least four of the seven items may suggest you have a work addiction. The additional trick as it relates to the self-assessment is the degree of honesty you can muster to complete the evaluation. You might also find it interesting to compare and contrast your self-assessment results with others as part of a 360 process.

A weighty topic to be sure and likely not one with any easy answers for many of us. We can choose different paths. We can be different leaders. I just ask you to choose wisely and consciously. Every path has risks and rewards. It's all about leadership! And it might also be about your personal well-being.

_______________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

3rd Generation Canadian Ukrainian

gregh@breakpoint.solutions

www.breakpoint.solutions

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Monday, March 6, 2023

The Power of Appreciation

In the past several years, as COVID-19 has cut its swath through our lives, as technological advances have made jobs and tasks redundant, and as expectations for performance have increased (in terms of expectations from customers and employers), the phenomena of quiet quitting and the great resignation have gained momentum. In many ways, however, the challenge of building up, maintaining, and sustaining employee commitment and engagement has been with us since well before 2020. Individuals like Simon Sinek have made their mark for over 10 years talking about leadership and how to engage followers. The concept of employee engagement is now big business, but it has been so for many years, if not decades. Companies like Gallup charge big fees for helping organizations evaluate employee engagement. Ideally, these same companies help translate this data into strategies to change the lived experience of staff.

Why, with all this background, knowledge, and effort, are we still failing so miserably, in not only growing engagement with our people but, in very many circumstances, continuing to lose ground on employee loyalty and commitment? Why do we continue to see so much movement and searching on the part of employees for something more and better? What are people looking for?

Let's start by looking at the Gallup 12 questions that form the heart of their engagement assessment. A variety of other tools and questions could serve just as well as a starting point, but the Gallup questions have some degree of familiarity in the marketplace and are simple to understand and apply:

Do you know what is expected of you at work?
Do you have the materials and equipment to do your work right?
At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
At work, do your opinions seem to count?
Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
Do you have a best friend at work?
In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
In the last year, have you had opportunities to learn and grow?

I have purposely highlighted a few of the questions, particularly since they have resonance with my work and how I have been impacted by the power of appreciation. Most relevant in this case are questions 4, 5 and 7. Now, certainly the type of work I do - executive coach and management consultant - is very different than working within an intact team or large organization. Often, by the very nature of the work, I am a team of one acting both as boss and staff. But in other ways, as I seek to bring value to those I work with, I often develop a level of attachment and commitment to their goals that starts to mimic being a member of a team.

In the past few weeks, several events had significant - and unexpected - impact on me to the extent that I had strong, and sometimes an uncontrollable, emotional response.

Situation 1: As I was facilitating a workshop on governance, one of the participants marveled at my "...phenomenal ability to synthesize diverse perspectives and set foundations for teams to deliver maximum impact." This was from a very accomplished and experienced leader in their own right who I had essentially just met. They had no reason to artificially inflate my ego. They had seen good and bad consultants and facilitators throughout their careers.

Situation 2: In this very same session, and out of the blue, one of my consultant colleagues texted me this simple message, "Have a good day. Thank you for all your support and guidance." This was a message that came early on a Saturday morning, without context and completely unsolicited.

Situation 3: Over the past number of weeks I have been acting as practicum lead coach to a team of five coaches as they explored the concept of team coaching. At the end of each learning session, individual team members had a chance to lead a team coaching scenario. My role was to support them in their learning and give them feedback in the moment and post-session. At the end of the last session, the team engaged in an appreciation shower (as they called it). Again, not something I was expecting but what I heard moved me to tears - generous, no-nonsense, highly observant, role model, brought ease to the work, constructive not critical. There was even reflection back to one individual's experience with me from my leadership career which ended in February 2012!

Why do I highlight these experiences? Because it had powerful impact. It highlighted how important non-monetary factors were in encouraging ongoing effort, loyalty and commitment. Would I come back and work with these people again? Most assuredly.

What made these comments so impactful? What can we glean from my experience that you might copy in your leadership roles? How could you practice effective appreciation, reward and recognition to promote employee retention? Here is what I think mattered to me and might matter to others.

Don't script your appreciation. Don't look to fulfill a quota of thank yous, appreciation or reward, and recognition. Don't make appreciation a check-box exercise. Without a doubt, the appreciation and validation shown to me from the examples above was made more powerful because it was so unexpected.

Make it genuine and authentic. As I alluded to above, all of the comments and praise given to me came across as highly genuine and authentic. I can't capture the tone of what I heard from people through their verbalization of what it was like to work with me. All I can say was the appreciation for the work I had done with them oozed throughout the conversation.

Make it specific. The comments and feedback given to me were very specific. There were no generalized thank yous. There were no clichéd statements you might typically get in other circumstances. The comments received were very specific and directly related to the work I was doing.

Make it timely. The compliments I received were very immediate. In my role as coach for several organizations, I may not get feedback on my coaching engagements until months after a coaching engagement has concluded. In the consulting world, some of the only ways you know you have hit the mark is if a client organization decides to invite you back for a repeat performance - but that may only come several months later.

Understand your recipient. This is probably a harder one to capture and translate into other circumstances. What I can say is the comments from my clients and colleagues left me feeling validated and that my opinions, perspectives and guidance were valued. What I was trying to do with my clients was actually seen in action by my clients and valued! They saw me and they appreciated me.

Those are my takeaways for how you might approach employee reward and recognition efforts in your leadership and in your organization. None of what I note above is about compensation. In fact, in two of the three examples, there was little to no compensation involved. The third circumstance was from work with a not-for profit entity (so no private jets, concierge service, or purple M&M's for my turn down service).

I hope you will find value from these personal insights and reflections and I hope you can tailor your future work with your staff guided by some of these perspectives. Without a team there is no leadership and part of leadership has to be about genuine appreciation and recognition.