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Today's Workday

Today's workdays have plenty of chaos—and not the fun kind. Our different organizations have different varieties of challenge and messiness: From having 24/7 workflow when not really necessary to a lack of basic planning, coordination, and communication. Most people come to work to earn an income with the desire to be productive, engaged, and satisfied, and to go home feeling good about the day. However, that is easier said than done.

I want to tell you about the day before Thanksgiving last year. I met three strangers in Charlottesville, Virginia, where I went to visit family. I met three happylooking, engaged, working people.

At a small kitchen china housewares specialty shop, it was a cashier's first day, as she explained; she was a retired nurse starting on a new adventure. At a beauty supply chain, a young woman told me this was her first retail job and that she hoped she would be ready for Black Friday; she was upbeat. And at a large grocery store chain, the cashier volunteered this was her first day on the job after staying home as a mom and how happy she was in spite of long lines.

Wow. Here were three people happy to have their workday. Thanksgiving cooking, tourists, and holiday shoppers: These are not easy jobs. Yet, they were engaged, productive, and more than satisfied; they were glad to be working. Being optimistic, I got the feeling they would sustain it or at least try to. It was easy to talk with them, and they looked energized when I became chatty too and wished them well.

It struck me that these three people looked like they were in the honeymoon phase of their work relationship. This thought led me to compare the work relationship to personal relationships with family and friends: We hope for a honeymoon phase that will help to sustain us when the reality sets in and we really get to know each other. Some days will be better than others, change and compromise are required, and maybe this relationship is not meant to last forever!

These three people will face threats to their engagement soon enough. I am basing my concern on some current workplace research that does not look hopeful and wondering about those of us who started out loving our jobs and those of us who are in jobs that we never wanted in the first place. Simon Sinek touches on this in his book Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.

Studies show that 80 percent of Americans do not have their dream job. If we knew how to build organizations that inspire, we could live in a world in which that statistic was the reverse—a world in which over 80 percent of people loved their jobs. People who love going to work are more productive and creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues, clients, and customers better.¹

Are you part of the 20 percent who have their dream job?

I included some generic job descriptions and requirements in each chapter since a lot is required to have good workdays and to stay engaged. An article entitled “Employees Are Responsible for Their Engagement Too” says, “Engaged employees begin the day with a sense of purpose and finish it with a sense of achievement.”² Would you call yourself an engaged employee with a positive start and finish to each day?

Also, aren't our leaders, managers, and supervisors supposed to be there to help engage us? The article also points out that “though managers have the biggest impact on their team members' engagement, many managers are unwilling, unable or unprepared to motivate and engage their employees.”³ Are you one of the fortunate people with an effective leader and manager who creates a work culture that is engaging, satisfying, interesting, and oriented toward problem-solving?

The statistics that I just listed really worry me because in the Introduction I encouraged you to get your hopes up about workday opportunity. People spend a good chunk of time working, whether it is commuting to a workplace, traveling as part of our work, or working virtually from home. Each workday presents us with choices for how to spend our time, energy, ideas, and efforts, and brings us opportunities, difficulties, frustrations, inherited or self-created chaos, connections, or disconnections. Some of the choices we make will determine whether we leave work feeling good, bad, indifferent, or discontent enough to start looking for a new job. Once each workday is done, that chunk of time cannot be redone or recaptured as a “do over.”

The next day will present more of the above and even more surprises and changes, and our mindset and resources will be tested again. That is the way it works. Additionally, if you are a leader who is reading this, you know that negativity can be spread just as easily as the positive spirit and results of teams making the most of their workdays.

Waiting for someone else to help us make the most of each workday is a passive approach that puts people in a dependent position. Those who work for and with a skilled leader and manager are very lucky, but a talented leader will not take the place of your own outlook, talents, and resilience. Besides, for many organizations, their own data indicates a serious need for effective leaders/managers and positive, accountable, and caring work cultures. I have worked for and with leaders who are effective, inspirational, unskilled, clueless, absent, and control freaks. I am sad to say that the effective and inspirational leaders stand out to me because I can count them on one hand.

Of course, there are many things at work that people cannot directly control. This book offers strategies and tools to help individuals make the most of their workday with the things that are in their Circle of Influence. Stephen Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, describes the Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.

The problems we face fall in one of three areas: direct control (problems involving our own behavior); indirect control (problems involving other people's behavior); or no control (problems we can do nothing about, such as our past or situational realities). The proactive approach puts the first step in the solution of all three kinds of problems within our present Circle of Influence.⁴

According to Covey, we have choices: “Whether a problem is direct, indirect, or no control, we have in our hands the first step to the solution. Changing our habits, changing our methods of influence, and changing the way we see our no control problems are all within our Circle of Influence.”⁵ We can get our hopes up because we have some key options:

• Survive the workday, wishing and hoping it gets better.
• Act to make some changes to improve the current workday.
• Move toward long-term goals and greater fulfillment, maybe that dream job.

Please note that even dream jobs have tough workdays as some of you who may be in your dream job already know.

The following is the first of several application tools throughout the book. This first one will help you develop your own “Before” profile.

Application Tool: Your Current Workday

Rate yourself on the following areas using a scale of 1 to 5 (with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest).

• How do you rate your own engagement at work?
• How do you rate your work satisfaction?
• How do you rate your productivity?
• How much unproductive chaos do you face at work every day?

Workday Challenges

Keep your current workday assessment in mind as you review several major categories of workday challenges. All of these situations can have a negative impact:

• Too much negative drama.
• Lack of focus and planning.
• Ignoring the need to replenish physical and mental energy.
• Lack of effective leadership.
• Overload of time, energy, and technology.
• Strained relationships or lack of positive relationships.
• The unexpected as the new normal.
• Keeping ourselves calm.

These situations are all interconnected with one leading to the others, as you will read in the four workday scenarios that follow. They are intended to capture typical challenges that many people face and are created from fictional composites from workplace experiences, employee engagement comments, and from participants in the author's workshops and training classes. The scenarios are intended to help you reflect on your own workday experiences and to start you thinking about something better. Do any of these examples remind you of your own workdays?

You will notice that the scenario challenges fall into one or more of these categories:

• Organization level: culture, change, strategy, structure, systems, and leadership.
• Department, group, and team level: interpersonal, collaboration, planning, and process.
• Individual level: self-management, interpersonal skills, and problem-solving skills.

The workday can be an active battleground with unproductive chaos and changes resulting in stress, confusion, and useless conflict. Let's start by talking about workplace drama. Drama is a natural part of working with other people in the midst of everyday work, changes, and emergencies. Sometimes drama is even fun or a welcome relief from boredom or stress. The main person in Scenario 1 allowed herself to remain in the drama longer than was good for her and her work. Even in literature, the story typically has an arc, a building up to a climax and then a webbing away and resolution. A natural resolution does not always come quickly or even at all, as you will read in Scenario 1. Sometimes, we have to create our own resolution.

Scenario 1: Drama, Change, and the Unexpected!

Nicole comes to work at a support department within a large organization ready to start the day. She is working steadily on a large-scale project with major deadlines looming. Her team finally has a leader they really like and have confidence in after a series of micromanagers and managers that were more involved in turf wars with peers than anything else. A text comes in from a coworker before she gets to the office telling her about the sudden and immediate promotion of her boss to another division. The manager is already gone, and the team is left in limbo and advised just to keep on with their current work. Before she sets down her things at her desk, another colleague pops his head in with “Have you heard?” Now, Nicole is not new to the workplace and has seen people come and go, but this one is like a sudden punch. She knows that the priorities for the day have not changed, but her focus is in danger. She has been to courses and knows she needs to make the most of her “best time,” which is the morning. But this unexpected wave catches her and she goes with it.

Her own shock mixes with her pop-in colleagues' shock and then explodes into questions and conjecture. By the time her next-door office neighbor comes in, Nicole's emotions are kicking in, and shock turns to worry about what this all means for her and the project due in four weeks. The emotions of people vary from tears, anger, and of course, the ever powerful and understandable anxiety about what is going to happen next. Reactions vary from amateur detectives who use their networks to find out what happened to amateur therapists who act as sounding boards for others, and lastly, to amateur talk show hosts analyzing and expounding on their theories about the events. Then the rumors start to circulate about Lucy, the most tenured team member, making it known that she will apply for the manager job. Lucy's organization skills are valued, but her tendency to micromanage is a red flag. At least two department members make it known they may also apply for the manager job, and that leads to more emotions, including jealousy and fear.

On the organizational level, information is not readily available, but rumor has it that “they” want someone from the outside; on the individual level, there is the need to react, process, and vent about the loss of their manager before moving forward. Each day for two weeks, Nicole comes into her workday knowing that she has to get back on track, but there are more and more people coming in to talk, vent, and wonder. She too wants any information available, even the rumors and latest conjecture. Nicole is not interested in the manager job, but now feels pressure to protect herself and maybe go for it too.

She is not an unassertive person, but she is caught up on this wave and goes with the flow—or the undertow; she gets headaches that are not typical for her even on tough days. Nicole does most of her own venting to family and friends.

What about the project, you ask? Nicole did dash off an abrupt email to team members reminding them of their deadlines on her project. Nicole ignores her own milestones and goes home dissatisfied, depleted of her energy, and uneasy. She does miss her “real” work and the comfort and security that she had with her former manager.

Another major category for chaos at work is the lack of planning and collaboration, which leads to something similar to planting our feet in fresh cement. Silos often create overload, drama, and negative outcomes that spill over to a group of people, the ripple effect in action.

Scenario 2: Please Do Not Call Us a Team!

Take eight people in two different locations and expect teamwork and collaboration—I don't think so. Two members of this team, Jim and Carla, are opposites in communication and work styles, generation, needs, and experience, but need to work together without role clarity or authority. Their situation was bound to blow up for them and others around them. Jim has learned good workday survival skills from working with two different managers every six months: “Stay in your lane,” give the loudest internal customers what they want and expect, and keep a tight boundary around your time and attention. Jim is extraverted, energetic, friendly, and well liked on the team. To be fair, the other team members pretty much operate the same way: If they feel like it and the task interests them, they will help each other. Being in separate work locations helps to support this solo mentality. Jim and Carla work from the same location so they cannot escape seeing each other.

Carla needs Jim's help on the large project she is leading, which was not staffed correctly in its initial project launch. Carla is frustrated and annoyed and feels like she is the only one asking for help with her project. Her style is intense and communication becomes aggressive when she thinks her project is in jeopardy and she feels threatened. She feels like she is tiptoeing around and meets various and understandable reactions to her requests for help:

• “Your project is not my number-one priority.”
• “If you had spent more time organizing and had milestones, you wouldn't need help.”
• “You were selected as the project lead, not me.”
• “I might be able to help you next month.”

Jim would actually like to help Carla but is hesitant to commit to taking on specific tasks; after all, these are not his priority. Besides, he has his own challenging internal customers. Jim doesn't feel good about not helping Carla and is actually interested in learning aspects of Carla's project that differ from his own; nevertheless, he continues to ignore her edgy requests for as long as he can. He knows that an explosive conflict with Carla is coming and would like to avoid that confrontation and explosion. He has seen Carla get aggressive with other people at meetings, and everyone ends up being uncomfortable. He nervously thinks it is better for him to stay in his lane.

They both go to the rest of the team and complain about each other. Sympathy abounds for Jim, who is seen as the innocent victim, while Carla is seen as the aggressor to Jim. Jim steps up his campaign and goes to their manager who advises him to work out things themselves since he is too busy to get involved with this nonsense.

The team members thought that finally having a manager would make things different and that the confusion, animosity, and errors would be reduced or eliminated. In the meantime, Carla grows more annoyed, overwhelmed, and disheartened; Jim and the other team members avoid her as much as possible.

Some of their work-related clashes were verbal and in public, especially when Carla found out that Jim went to the manager. She does the same and lists her complaints against him and demands action. A lot of time and energy is being spent on this; other team members and department people are listening, giving advice, and taking sides. Sadly, it is now personal between these two team members and spreading to others. Carla and Jim don't speak to each other anymore.

In this scenario, the people think that a leader will make a difference. As you read Scenario 3, you will see that the label “leader” does not necessarily bring focus, planning, and/or people development. Leaders are also caught up in their own workday challenges and have the additional responsibility of helping others be productive, engaged, and satisfied, sometimes in the midst of chaos. Everyone needs to manage their own priorities, time, and technology, and their own mindsets about their work.

Scenario 3: Where Are the Leaders?

Josh had his own big visions for his department, which is understaffed, but he plowed through on sheer will alone trying to move ahead with his priorities (innovation and new revenue ideas) along with volunteering every time his boss has a request. Josh has a team of twenty people who vary in generation, experience, personality, and career goals. Josh never challenges or questions new priorities from upper leadership, though he knows his team is stretched and working in a nearly 24/7 reality with the workday, including every evening and weekends; there is no line between nonwork and work. Josh decides to take a chance and assigns a large and complex project to Lucas, the most junior person on the team, who is highly ambitious but lacking the knowledge and experience for the assignment. However, Josh knew that the team member more suited to lead the project had made it known that she would not welcome the assignment and was at her breaking point. Josh was afraid this senior person might quit so he left her alone. Josh thought Lucas would jump at the chance to prove himself. Josh did not really want to hear his questions and concerns as Lucas got to know the scope and demands of the project. Josh tried to use compliments and his “I know you can do it” pep talks, which were not enough.

Flattery was what Josh thought Lucas needed: “You are the only one who can pull this off; the rest of the team will be envious. You will certainly be in the spotlight along with me when this work is completed and shared with the executives. I am giving you a great opportunity, and this is for your development!”

Deep down this leader knew that long hours and research could not substitute for real knowledge, experience, and expertise with this initiative and that the workload was uneven. He thought that if he could get more staff, he could spread out assignments more fairly. Also, he thought that these other members would aggressively object to helping each other. Josh knew Lucas was not the right choice, but he went ahead with the assignment and pep talks anyway.

Josh was already feeling like things were out of control; he never caught up on emails from months ago and tried all kinds of methods to get control of things. He abandoned the weekly meetings and happy hours the team used to like and instead ran around between management meetings trying to touch base with his team individually. He had good intentions of helping his team with ongoing development discussions, but discontinued these meetings for lack of time. Josh even tried a five-hour monthly meeting, but that exhausted everyone and didn't improve things. He didn't even have enough time to attend the new time-management webinar that was getting good reviews. He signed up for an online class, but ended up annoyed that the instructor expected attendees to refrain from multitasking and to participate. He thought that this facilitator had no idea of what it was like in the workplace; imagine, expecting managers to manage interruptions and problems and to be able to focus in the class. The lack of time and his incompetent team were his problems.

Was it time to look for another job?

Lucas, who had actively sought out the position in this group, started to realize that enthusiasm and drive alone would not be enough for quality results on this project. His work hours and frustrations increased and his family was growing unhappy. He finally had to admit that he didn't know how long he could or wanted to work like this even if it meant a quick promotion. It might be time to consider another path, team, or organization. He gave up trying to talk with Josh after Josh reacted as if he were complaining and being negative.

Josh also goes home late each evening and is exhausted and dissatisfied, wondering if it is time for him to look for another position. He came into this promotion with such high hopes and plans for innovation and revenue generation, but the organization did not give him enough of the right people.

In the next scenario, the relationship between manager and employee may at first appear to be positive and helpful. You may recognize yourself in the characters; there is even a higher senior manager who believes he is delegating when he is really dumping and is frustrated that people don't understand him. In this case, two leaders are creating some of the chaos for themselves while at the same time not developing their employees.

Scenario 4: What's Wrong With Wanting to Take Care of People?

Donna, a new enthusiastic manager, liked to be helpful and to take care of her team. She sincerely empathized with their tough roles in front-line customer service. Her team's workloads were heavy with mostly emotionally draining customer calls. Her caring side was a big part of her personality, and people gravitated to her with their problems, both work and nonwork related. For instance, Tom hated the new software and came to Donna with problems over and over again; Donna was very sensitive to Tom's dislike of the new technology. Team members knew that Donna would stop what she was working on to answer questions or chat, and they began following Tom's lead. The lines of people outside Donna's office were getting longer.

Donna's own focus and work suffered as she would stop what she was doing each time Tom or other team members appeared for help, encouragement, or just plain stress relief. She ended up staying later at work and reluctantly taking work home, but would not turn anyone away. She usually went home feeling uneasy about the work she didn't get to do, irritated with herself and annoyed with Tom and the others for not learning the software by now; however, she was determined to not turn people away as their previous supervisor had done. Donna was determined not to be that kind of manager.

Donna's manager, Jeff, coached her about managing her time and delegating more to her team. Jeff was delegating more and more to Donna and knew both their workloads would increase rather than decrease over the next year. Jeff would surely get an award for calling it “delegating” while it felt more like dumping for those to whom he delegated. However, instead of following his advice, Donna is questioning whether or not management is for her and is considering stepping down as a manager.

Meeting the Challenges

We will take a practical approach to examining and improving the workday. This book is intended to help you to get the most from your workday regardless of the type of position or role you are committed to right now. Chapters are organized around the major challenges illustrated in the scenarios: change, people drama, leadership, work priorities, time and energy, communication, and managing the unexpected. The scenarios showcase these challenges in various types of roles and situations. Each chapter that follows will present a “Before” and “After” profile or makeover opportunity for the characters to use to improve their workdays. These stories are all linked together by multiple challenges and solutions, and all show a need and a critical opportunity for both formal and informal leadership in the workplace.

A workday needs a leader and that is you. To go home feeling satisfied, engaged, and productive, your approach needs to be proactive rather than constantly reactive or passive. Did you notice that several of the scenario people were passively waiting for something to change or for someone else to make things better? Don't wait for things to change or for someone else to do something with the things that are in your Circle of Influence. Some considerations within your Circle of Influence are:

• Self-awareness and self-talk.
• Personal and family goals.
• Attitude, mindset, and interests.
• The ability to prioritize, reprioritize, and negotiate.
• Planning time and energy around priorities.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills.
• Response to change and the unexpected.

Here is your roadmap, a system of interrelated strategies, skills, and tools to help you manage and make the most of your workdays.

• Manage yourself.
• Focus on priorities.
• Value time and energy.
• Communicate effectively.
• Confront, challenge, and conquor chaos.
• Choosing change.

Summary

The roadmap will help to connect the dots between some common workday needs listed on the next page to the areas that are in our control, listed above. I have experienced for myself the workplaces and the workdays getting tougher over three decades and heard from hundreds of customers about their frustrations, anger, and unhappiness at work. This includes people working in local and federal government, nonprofit organizations, and diverse industries, differing also in size, cultures, and values. There are some common themes around what most people need (and what is often missing) to have good workdays:

• Wanting to have some control over their work and the workday.
• Needing clear and achievable work expectations.
• Having good professional relationships with the people with whom they work.
• Having some downtime to refocus, re-energize, and renew.
• Feeling connected and not being alone with problems.
• Being somewhere between boredom and unhealthy stress at work.
• Being treated fairly and contributing honest results to the organization.

You might look at this list of common needs and ask how we can fulfill these needs in today's workplace, especially the first one about control. And it is very true that there are many aspects of the workplaces and workday that we cannot control. In addition, outside of work we listen daily to and live through so many events beyond our control. We are in the midst of industry, organization, and culture change; competitive, technological, economic, and political challenges; efforts to employ, retain, develop, and engage people. So, it is critical to remember that we do have several important areas that we can control, and that is the focus of this book. As I mentioned earlier in the chapter, we can choose to:

1. Survive the workday, wishing and hoping it gets better.
2. Act to make some changes to improve the current workday.
3. Move toward long-term goals and greater fulfillment, maybe even that dream job.

We will focus on all three of these ideas. Sometimes surviving the workday is the best strategy, for example, “Let me just survive this shift.” However, since constant survival mode takes a serious toll on people, the central focus of this book is on the second idea in the list. These same strategies and tools plus your own insights and realizations can also help you make peace with your current work situation and use your energy to make a plan for finding work and a role more aligned with your interests, needs, and happiness. Whatever you choose, it is important that you use each workday to be as happy as you can be, managing yourself through great challenges.

Let me share a very useful personal belief that has helped me to improve my workdays and to also change careers several times—the belief that it is up to me to go get what I wanted from all the jobs, roles, and career paths. I didn't think that anyone else was responsible for my ultimate satisfaction or happiness. I always believed there was something I could do even if that meant the difficult personal change, such as go back to school or train to learn a new skill, search for a new job, learn how to speak up, or stop working every Sunday to get a clean inbox when the nature of my billing job meant that that was never going to happen. (I wish I had learned that sooner and spent those Sundays having fun.) So let's roll up our sleeves and work our way through the roadmap.

Reflection and Action

Each chapter will end with a “Reflection and Action” section. To get the most from each chapter, reflect and assess your typical workday by answering the following questions and recording your responses in your best place for keeping notes (smart phone, notebook, tablet).

Take some time now and note the scenario and characters that resonate with you, reminding you of yourself, your coworkers, your boss, and/or your situations. Then reflect on the following questions and complete the actions.

Reflection

• What does it take for you to have a good workday?
• How often do you have these good workdays?
• How do you feel at the end of these good workdays?

Action

Make a list of your current challenges that prevent you from having a good workday most of the time. Keep your list to refer to as you read ahead.