WorkPuzzle

Recruiting and the Dignity of Work

While watching my favorite news show, 60 Minutes, last Sunday, tears came to my eyes as I witnessed a remarkable story, detailing the importance of work to our fellow humans.  

It was a story of a non-profit organization's attempt to help those who have been unemployed for more than two years, build tangible hope in finding a job, and ultimately place them with great success.  I won't go into the details of the program, but the primary take-away was the remarkable importance work plays in the general dignity of people. 

The carnage of emotional devastation discussed among the initial meetings held by a new class of the unemployed became even more profound when, as a viewer, you were led on their journey through training, internship, and finally productive work.  

The graduates of the program literally cried at the awareness of how “wonderful” it was to hear their alarm clock go off, announcing that it was their time to prepare to go to work.  

At the heels of watching this dramatic story, a friend of mine told me of his story of having just visited Madagascar as a part of an organization restoring the mangrove trees along the barren coast of their waterways (to restore the animal life), by employing villagers to replant and protect their growth.  As a result of these endeavors, the villagers are now able to buy supplies for fishing, pay off their debts, and make a living.  

One villager, who invited my friend into his hut (containing six family members) for dinner, boasted with pride that, because of his newfound “success,” he has “enough rice to last one dry season.”  He went on to say that, as a result, he is “truly content.”  

There are several lessons here with regard to recruiting, not to mention our general work life, in both of these stories.  For one, you should never fail to remember that those you interview might be carrying a great deal of emotional baggage (loss of dignity), if they’re coming to you from the pool of unemployed.  Whatever your decision regarding their suitability for your company, be mindful to treat them with respect, and not further demoralize them or treat them with contempt.  (Although...I’m sure that there are some among these ranks who don't want to do any work, and want it to just come to them—That’s a separate subject for another blog.) 

The other lesson is very clear:  We must actively look for ways to challenge those around us to never lose sight of the privilege of work.  Not everyone gets to do it.  And yet, it is an essential piece of the very fabric from which we are made.  God says that we are made in his Image.  This is the same God that created and sustains this incredible Universe.  It’s no wonder that tears come to our eyes regarding these stories of productivity.  The meaning and purpose run incredibly deep.  

How often do we become ungrateful for our work?  What impact does this tendency have on our company’s culture, or on our company’s reputation, or on our productivity?  Is there a way to keep our pulse on our team members' enjoyment and appreciation of work?     

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Secret To Getting Things Done

Have you ever had an idea to change something about your routine, your family life, or your organization, but never seem to find the time to get around to it?  We all do it...and probably way too often.  Why do we do it? 

Humans are creatures of habit and routine.  We typically resist change, and as a result, end up delaying action.  By the way, we are not born this way.  Kids love change; They change daily.  But for adults, all kinds of intricate central nervous system stuff (like the fight or flight reaction) start to fire when we begin to think about change, much less actually do something differently.  Add negative self talk to this, like...“It's probably a stupid idea anyway,” and it's no wonder only a very small percentage of people become innovators and culture changers. 

There are a multitude of reasons for our preference for routine and ritual over the possibility of constant change and impulsive decisions, and although this preference can be beneficial in a myriad of ways, it can also stymie our development and growth, especially in business and management.

We’ve written several articles about the Growth Mindset and Resiliency that touch on this very important topic (WorkPuzzle 1, 2, 3, 4).  Research confirms repeatedly, that physically taking action will move the ball down the field, either through discovering something new, ruling out a plan, or innovating something that builds upon something else...that eventually becomes a key difference maker. 

Here is a very short list of why we need to build in room for innovation, experimentation, and change:

1. Stagnant companies die
2. Team members are best engaged in their work somewhere between boredom and anxiety -- Managers must find the balance
3. Experimentation precedes innovation
4. Doing something may lead to mistakes, but we also learn a great deal through our mistakes. 

I’ll leave you today with this list of quotes on preferring “action” that I found on the Tom Peters blog: 

• "We have a 'strategic plan.' It's called doing things."  —Herb Kelleher

• "This is so simple it sounds stupid, but it is amazing how few oil people really understand that you only find oil if you drill wells.  You may think you're finding it when you're drawing maps and studying logs, but you have to drill."  —John Masters, Canadian oil and gas wildcatter, The Hunters

• "Can do!"  —Motto, U.S. Navy Seabees (U.S. Naval Mobile Construction Battalions)

• "Execution is the job of the business leader."   —Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

• "Ready. FIRE! Aim."  —H. Ross Perot (versus the far more common "Aim! Aim! Aim! ...")

• "BLAME NO ONE. EXPECT NOTHING. DO SOMETHING."  —Locker room sign
posted by NFL football coach Bill Parcells

• "Thinking is the enemy of creativity.  It's self-conscious and anything self-conscious is lousy.  You simply must ... Do things."  —Ray Bradbury

• "To Be somebody or to Do something."  —John Boyd

• "Fall seven times, stand up eight."  —Japanese proverb

• "You miss 100% of the shots you never take."  —Wayne Gretzky  

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Why Money Isn't The Right Incentive

Our most committed readers know that we have summarized the research on "carrot and stick" management and why it doesn't work.  You've read why offering more money actually decreases innovation and motivation.  If you need a refresher on the subject, feel free to check our past articles on the subject (WorkPuzzle 1, 2, 3, 4).

Before I share additional angles on this subject, I want you to know that I don't dislike money.  In fact, I like it very much!  But obsession with money, or using it as a primary motivator has been shown to have unintended consequences that negatively impact our ability to flourish.

In an interesting research paper, Jia Liu, Dirk Smeesters and Kathleen D. Vohs illuminate another interesting fact about money.  Apparently, just introducing the idea of money can have a negative influence on cooperation.

Here is Daniel Pinks description of the research:

"The researchers carried out a sneaky experiment that had two components.  First, they asked their participants to fill out a questionnaire on a computer.  The questionnaire itself wasn’t important.  What was important was the desktop wallpaper.  For half the participants, the wallpaper showed a pattern of shells; for the other half, it showed a pattern of Euro notes and coins.  (In the parlance of social psychology, that second group was 'primed' with money.)

Next, they took the participants and another person of the same gender into a room and gave them a beverage to taste.  This is a new sports drink called Vigor, they told their subjects, and we want your opinion of it for a marketing study.

A minute later, the other person — who was actually the experimenters’ confederate — got up to leave the room, mentioning that he or she had already tasted the drink.  Some of the confederates added, 'This drink tastes really good. I just love it.'  Some said, 'This drink tastes really bad.  I just hate it.'  Some said nothing.

Then came the test:  Did the money prime make any difference in the participants’ opinions about the beverage?

Ample research, especially the extraordinary work of Robert Cialdini, has shown we’re quite susceptible to social influence.  When we hear that other folks like something, we tend to like it, too.  And that pattern held — at least for the people who saw shells in their computer background.  These folks liked the beverage more when the confederate said he or she liked it, and less when the confederate said he or she didn’t like it.

But for the subjects primed with money — again, just some background images of Euros — the response was the exact opposite.  As the researchers write:

'The confederate’s passing comments exerted a backfiring effect on evaluations of the drink among participants for whom the idea of money had been activated.  They liked it more when the confederate said that the drink was bad, and less when the confederate said the drink was good.'

What’s going on?

Liu, Smeesters, and Vohs say that money cues can operate as threats and 'produce contrarian reactions that are the opposite of the source’s intent.'  Other research has shown that being reminded of money can make people more single-minded and more apt to work harder — but also less social, less cooperative, and less likely to help others."

The authors summarize their findings with the following:

"Money has bigger effects on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior than simply what it can do as an exchange medium or store of value.  People could behave toward money as if it is the ultimate tool, the quintessential vehicle to get what they want and need.  Yet, often people behave toward money as if it is a drug that possesses an abundance of motivational and reward properties...Mere reminders of it are enough to drastically change people’s preferences for work, play, and interpersonal relationships.”

As a manager, what impact does this information have on your philosophy of where fee splits should enter the conversation?  Yes, it's important to be fair and offer a decent reward for a job well done, but it shouldn't take center stage.  If it does, it will likely produce the opposite result from what you desire.

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Towards Creativity: Why Brainstorming doesn't work and what does.

I don't normally read The New Yorker magazine, but the title of an article, "Group Think: The Brainstorming Myth," caught my attention.  I've been under, what turns out to be, the false assumption that the tenants of brainstorming for creativity and ideas were supported by research...you know, the idea that your team must meet and encourage a plethora of free flowing ideas, absent any criticism or challenge?  This common belief is based on the idea that if members of the group are scared of critique, they will prematurely inhibit themselves from sharing ideas that just might have merit.  This idea, which has been accepted as truth for several decades, turns out to have no research to back it up.

The first study of the techniques of brainstorming, performed at Yale in 1958, refuted it completely, and yet nobody paid attention.  People kept using the practice of brainstorming as if it were truth.  Most of us have been following a principle that was cooked up by Alex Osborn, a partner of the advertising agency B.B.D.O., who simply thought it was a good idea.  

The good news is that perhaps the recommendation of brainstorming and other group process recommendations has worked to increase the way companies view creativity as part of a group process.  Ben Jones, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, has quantified a trend toward viewing creativity as occurring through group process.  

There are two pieces of his conclusion that I find pretty exciting:  One, that creativity occurs within community.  There is something about developing a community of people around a central goal that cultivates and initiates creativity.

The second principle is equally compelling:  Jones discusses the work of Charlan Nemeth, "...whose studies suggest that the ineffectiveness of brainstorming stems from the very thing that Osborn thought was most important.  Debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition.”

Did you get that?  We need to debate and critique ideas to develop them well.

This idea immediately resonated with me.  As recently as last week, I presented an idea to an individual I respected.  He challenged me on one aspect of the problem, we argued our sides, and we both went away significantly altering our view of the bigger picture.  Here's another example of healthy criticism at work...I have read that members of Led Zeppelin were legendary debaters of ideas and direction, but generally, in the end, worked through their differences to create their own brand of very popular music.  

Most banter about work-related ideas, it's been found, doesn't occur in the conference room.  Rather, the best and most innovative ideas result from casual conversations occurring between team members toward a better idea, product, or service, around the water cooler, or over coffee. 

So what does this mean for you? 

First of all, don't get complacent about change.  History is filled with extinct businesses that resisted change.  They believed that they had right answers when they probably weren't even asking the right questions.  Does anyone remember when Yahoo and MySpace were the big internet players?  And to change well, you need a deliberate culture of healthy banter about ideas with an openness to disagree and critique ideas.  Smart people will invite this, and most importantly, thrive as a result.

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

How Close Are You?

I’m currently on the road visiting clients, and just happened upon a cable TV program, chronicling the evolution of the principles of Facebook.  Although there's been a lot out there on this topic, I was struck by something that I had never heard before.  One of the Senior VP’s said that there had been massive competition at the very beginning.  She said that several colleges had groups of tech geeks stumbling upon similar social technology and developing it quickly, at that same moment in history. 

I don’t know why this surprised me, as this is exactly how almost all great inventions have occurred throughout history.  There comes a time when hundreds of people with similar interests and near equal drive converge with the development of some sort of service or tool that then generates a race, with stiff competition, to the finish line.  

So the question is:

• Why did Zuckerberg beat others to Facebook? 
• Why did Gates beat others to software? 
• Why did the Wright Brothers beat Dr. Samuel Langley to flight? 
• Why did Roger Banister beat other runners to the four minute mile? 
• Why does this matter to you? 

Well, although an extremely small percentage of individuals and companies will achieve these grandiose goals, what makes these people tick could be applied to us normal folk, and help us work with more hope, develop better dreams, and execute better than we do currently.

I recently read an article highlighting the significant difference between water heated to 211 degrees, and water heated to 212 degrees.  Although the difference is only one degree, a very small margin, that degree makes a huge impact....It is the difference between very hot water, of very little value (211 degrees)...and boiling water that produces steam which can power a locomotive (212 degrees).  

It leaves me wondering how small the margin of error is that may mean the difference between extreme success at providing an excellent product, service, or innovation to the world, versus just getting by... 

How close are you and those you coach to crossing over this margin and achieving tremendous success?  Don't get complacent...it may be just around the corner...

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Stress, RESILIENCE, Hope, and Meaning

Many of you have experienced continuous, intense, and unrelenting stress over the past few years.  I have been spending more and more time thinking through the ramifications of stress, resilience and its long-term lessons for anyone who works. 

Dr. Salvatore Maddi, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California says:

“People who are high in hardiness enjoy ongoing changes and difficulties.  They find themselves more involved in their work when it gets tougher and more complicated.  They tend to think of stress as a normal part of life, rather than as something that's unfair.'' 

I wouldn’t say that I “enjoy” ongoing challenges.  Do any of you?  I believe Maddi might be exaggerating a bit to get our attention. 

However, there has been a great deal of research on the topic of resilience--This research has provided us clear characteristics, helping us differentiate people who thrive under stress, from those who become less healthy and tend to languish.  

Researchers have identified the traits of commitment, control, and challenge as the “transformational coping skills” shared by those who become stronger during stressful times.

More specifically, studies have shown that people who possess these coping skills are able to:

• Find the personal meaning in a challenge, rather than detaching and giving up;
• Plan out sound problem-solving strategies;
• Facilitate an atmosphere of support and encouragement among co-workers; and
• Help those around them build the traits of commitment, control, and challenge (they decrease the isolation, powerlessness, and fear that others feel).

I see in these findings something deeper that has certainly helped me thrive in stressful times, and I urge each of you to analyze yourselves...  At the core of the findings resides the affirmation of the values of community and meaning as essential ingredients in dealing with stress. 

How can we think about meaning and work?  The answer, I believe, can be found in whether an individual can articulate and truly believe the WHY of their work. 

Many, I find, can only articulate the HOW and the WHAT of what they do on a daily basis. 

These are the people who are the consumers of the world; They go to work to extract meaning from their work, rather than add value and meaning to every part of their jobs, and within the community they find themselves.  Don’t get me wrong, we are all guilty of doing this part of the time, but many people live there permanently.  

Then there are the gems...the people who can tell you the WHY of what they do.  With these individuals, there is a constant, unseen background of meaning and purpose that goes beyond bringing home a paycheck, motivating them to find meaning and hope behind every endeavor. 

These are the people we are drawn to...the people we find ourselves running to as a refuge in the storm.  What can you do to become one?  Figure out the WHY of your work...

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

3 Resolutions For Making 2012 Practically Radical

In the midst of writing my own material for a New Year's blog, I came across some valuable insight on Daniel Pink's site, written by his friend, Fast Company co-founder, Bill Taylor.  The principles outlined in the article (below) were written last January, but are timeless lessons that will never age.  The suggestions are from Bill's book Practically Radical: Not-so-crazy ways to transform your company, shake up your industry, and challenge yourself.    

1. "I resolve to help my organization (and me personally) become “the most of something” in my field.  It’s not good enough to be “pretty good” at everything.  The most successful organizations (and people) are the most of something—the most elite, the most affordable, the most elaborate, the most approachable.  For so long, companies were content operating in the middle of the road.  Today, with so much change, so much pressure, so many new ways to do everything, the middle of the road has become the road to nowhere.  What are you the most of?
2. I resolve to embrace a sense of vuja dé.  We’ve all experienced déjà vu—looking at an unfamiliar situation and feeling like you’ve seen it before.  Vuja dé is the flip side of that—looking at a familiar situation (an industry you’ve worked in for decades, problems you’ve worked on for years) as if you’ve never seen it before, and, with that fresh line of sight, developing a distinctive point of view on the future.  The challenge for all of us is that too often, we let what we know limit what we can imagine.  This is the year to face that challenge head-on.
3. I resolve to look for new ideas in new places.  The more I study innovation, the less enamored I become of “benchmarking” the competition.  What good is it to compare yourself against “best practice” in your field, especially if “best practice” isn’t that great to begin with?  The most creative leaders aspire to learn from people and organizations far outside their field as a way to shake things up and make real change.  Strategies and practices that are routine in one industry can be revolutionary when they migrate to another field.  Do you have new ideas about where to look for new ideas?”

It's my belief that there are only two reasons we would resist adhering to Bill's resolutions above:  One would be complacency or laziness.  People who constantly grow, are people who consistently review their lives through some variant of the above.  Sure it takes time, reflection, stretching and focus, but it's usually well worth the effort.  Remember that others are drawn to people who live in this growth vector of change, even if it's small and incremental.  

The second reason some of us resist the above is fear.  Most of us fear change, and yet secretly hope for more.  These opposing factors are constantly at war within.  And yet for those who do risk the change, there is something divine in creating something new, seeing something differently, assessing one's blind spots and sometimes radical transformation.

On behalf of everyone at Tidemark, we wish you all a successful New Year.

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Top 10 Business Resolutions For 2012

I first have to apologize for misrepresenting the content of this blog, and starting off the new year making up for having missed my chance to pull one over on you last April 1st! However, I knew that getting you to read anything between Christmas and New years was not going to be easy, so in order to get your attention I used the gimmick of "Top 10" because it usually gets readers to tune in.

Instead of 10 items, however, I have just one meandering thought that I'd like to share with you today. It's something that I've observed in many people who aspire to success but never quite make it...and then wonder why. I was going to title this blog "The Number One Reason Most People Fail," but it sounded like such a downer. I'm hoping, instead, that it will have the opposite effect, and will help you conjure up a newfound commitment moving into 2012. I trust, at the very least, it will help you think through your own blind spots and/or help those you coach do the same in the coming year...

In any particular profession, there are always those people who have established themselves as beacons of success, and who everyone else aspires to emulate. From the perspective of everyone around them, it appears that everything they touch turns to gold. Others, especially anyone new to the industry, fantasize about becoming like these individuals...successful, confident, respected, able to make the right connections, and effective at influencing others.

And while there are a few people who will eventually achieve the success that they've aspired to achieve, most will not. Why? What is the difference between those who do and those who don't reach the pinnacle of success in their industry? The number one difference is the huge gap that exists between what the successful person is willing to do, day in and day out, to earn success, and what most people are unwilling to do.

For those who are really serious about actually making it in their industry, rather than merely dreaming about it, there are two ingredients that must be in the mix:

1. Interview the successful: Most people never approach these very successful people and ask in minute detail, what activities were required daily to reach their success. Only through understanding the accountability to daily tasks, moving into situations that reek of uncertainty, and moving past failures and doing the right thing every day for years, can a person get a glimpse of what it will take for them to acquire what they aspire to. The trick here is to ask questions that the successful person might have forgotten about. Most successful people build a certain amount of amnesia around the vast number of tasks that they initially undertook to get to where they are now. You have to prime the pump for this information. Don't be afraid to ask, down to the detail, what they did every day to get where they are.
2. Implement the plan: Here's where the rubber meets the road. Successful people do the hard, boring stuff, without fail, every day. You have to ask yourself if you're the kind of person who can do this...or are you the type who has to be told what daily tasks to perform in order to follow through. Can you take ownership enough to work when nobody is patting you on the back, or giving you constant direction, and when you don't know what the near term benefit will be, when you are bored and there are "better things" you could be doing? The answer to these questions determines a lot.

If you can discipline yourself and keep yourself accountable, good things will happen. If you cannot do this, no amount of dreaming will make 2012 any better than past years. So, partner with some people who get things done, make a plan, break it into daily chunks, keep each other accountable, and aim for something big!

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Predicting success with Early Ownership

One of our readers, Jim Dickinson of Stark Homes, Madison Wisconsin, recently sent us an article that got our attention.  We'd like to pass it on to our readers. 

But first a few words to set up the context...

Attracting and hiring the right people (the best people) has never been more important, both for you and for the candidate.  Nobody is in the mood, has the time, or is in the financial position to make the wrong decision when it comes to their future.  We've improved the odds of making good hiring decisions with the Top Performer profile, but in the current environment, many of our clients are having to talk to as many candidates that come through the funnel as they possibly can in order to hire the numbers needed to expand market share.  Under these conditions, all of us can benefit from improving our ability to spot what we are looking for in candidates, so that we can pursue them with a tenacity that leaves them believing that they can succeed.  You can accomplish this by being dedicated to understanding people, keeping up with the latest research, and being purposely reflective about what you are seeing.

You might remember the name Daniel Coyle of The Talent Code, as we have written in WorkPuzzle (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about his somewhat counterintuitive findings in the past.  In a recent blog entry, he takes another shot at trying to decipher what might help differentiate those who will be successful, from those who won't be.

"A lot of smart people have been thinking about this, and what they’ve decided is this: the problem is not that the measures are wrong.  The problem is --measuring performance the wrong way to approach the question.

According to much of this new work, what matters is not current performance, but rather growth potential – what you might call the G-Factor — the complex, multi-faceted qualities that help someone learn and keep on learning, to work past inevitable plateaus; to adapt and be resourceful and keep improving.

Thing is, G-Factor can’t be measured with a stopwatch or a tape measure.  It’s more subtle and complex.  Which means that instead of looking at performance, you look for signs, subtle indicators — what a poker player might call tells.  In other words, to locate the G-Factor you have to close your eyes, ignore the dazzle of current performance and instead try to detect the presence of a few key characteristics... Sort of like Moneyball, with character traits."

Coyle describes two "tells" of the G-Factor: one is Grit, something I have written about before (WorkPuzzle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...).  The other is "early ownership:"

"Early Ownership:  As Marjie Elferink-Gemser’s work shows, one pattern of successful athletes happens when they’re 13 or so, when they develop a sense of ownership of their training.  For the ones who succeed, this age is when they decide that it’s not enough to simply be an obedient cog in the development machine — they begin to go farther, reaching beyond the program, deciding for themselves what their workouts will be, augmenting and customizing and addressing their weaknesses on their own."

How can you use this information in your interviews?  Perhaps your interviews need to include questions to reveal past examples of early ownership.  How can this knowledge help with training, observing, and mentoring agents in the first months of performance?  

If you're going to hire better, it's imperative to take some time away from the busyness of executing tasks and dedicate ample time to reflect on this kind of innovative information that demands experimentation.  Tailor your process to assimilate what science has discovered about people... 

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

How to deal with Boredom or Anxiety at Work

Like it or not, we all occasionally get into ruts. We can’t seem to find a way to bring maximum enjoyment to our work, so eventually we get bored. One of the differences between very successful people and the rest of us, is that successful people tend to intuitively follow the rules I’m about to show you, to prevent them from experiencing too much boredom, or too much anxiety.

For decades, despite hundreds of studies on boredom, not a lot was known about this elusive experience. Then, in the 1960’s and 70’s, a Russian born University of Chicago psychologist stumbled on the answers while studying the internal experiences of successful workers, artists, and climbers.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi found that for optimal engagement to be experienced, people must find a balance between their level of competence or skill and their level of challenge. If your level of skill is great and your level of challenge is low, you will most certainly experience boredom (see diagram).

Conversely, if your levels of skill and competence are low relative to the height of the challenge, then anxiety will kick in, and you could buckle under the pressure.

Where “optimum engagement” takes place is in the sweet spot between your level of challenge and your skill level. What this means is that we all need to pay close attention to balance between the two, looking for ways that we can increase our challenges as we increase our competence.

So how can we do this? This is much easier to answer when it comes to anxiety than when it comes to boredom. With anxiety, you can adjust in either direction....you can focus your energy on decreasing the level of challenge, or find mentors or training to increase your level of competence...or both.

With boredom, you can only adjust in one direction. Since it's impossible to decrease the skill level, you are left with having to find ways to increase the level of challenge.

Please send in your ideas about how this important balance can be accomplished in a practical manner for realtors or with those who manage them. If I get some concrete tips, I’ll pass them on...

---

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.