Motivational Mastery

If you’ve followed this blog at all, you know I love to share the remarkable work from Wharton and their “Nano-Tools”. This series of tools is available for those in leadership as brain hacks that can be used in minutes. Each is targeted at a different aspect of leadership. Their newest tool; motivating your team.

As anyone in leadership or management knows, not all team members are motivated in the same fashion. It takes time to get to know team members, to learn what motivates each individual. Wharton’s new nano-tool uses psychologist David McClelland’s motivational theory, which identifies three main motivating factors: achievement, power, and affiliation. These three factors can be motivational in many areas of life, but especially at work. Just like love languages, one of these factors is usually a dominant force.

Check out the new article and see how you can harness these tools to pinpoint your team members’ most powerful motivators.

Procrastinator-In-Chief

Many of us have experienced at least one bout of nagging procrastination in our lives. Luckily, most are successful in spite of this trait. Some, however, are what we call ‘serial procrastinators’. No matter how hard they try, it seems that some things just keep getting pushed further down the to-do list. So the question remains: why? Why do procrastinators keep putting things off? After a lifetime of work, why does this behavior keep repeating?

HBR’s new article from clinical psychologist Alice Boyes examines not just the whys, but exactly how to adjust this habit. She posits that once we understand the root causes of this behavior, it’s possible to change our behavior. If we can rearrange our priorities, we can achieve our goals while staying sensitive to our own emotional needs. Read the full article, or give a listen to the half-hour interview with Ms. Boyes here.

The Psychology of Resiliency

“Psychologically, we all have long COVID by this point,” says Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, an assistant professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School in her new research. Although some of us may not have been directly affected by the virus itself, not a single person has been able to escape the long term psychological stress. So how do we thrive - and work - through these times?

We would all like to think that we are learning and improving through our (many) failures over the past few years, but Ms. Eskreis-Winkler’s research says otherwise. Because failures, especially repeated failures, threaten our egos, “People often choose to disengage. They choose not to attend to their failures, and as a result, they learn very little.”

Many of us are experiencing these setbacks on an almost daily basis. This kind of experience does not lead to the resiliency we all need right now. The good news is, leadership can take steps to create a work culture that embodies a ‘growth mindset’, and lives up to the resiliency goals we all aspire to. Check out Kellogg’s new article featuring this new research, and what leadership can do to help change the perspective.

A Psychologically Safe Workplace

“Safe space” has been a buzzword for quite a few years now, and with good reason. In a volatile and divided political climate, with the lines between social lives and work lives blurring more than ever, employees are looking to work with organizations whose values align with their own. Part of aligning values (even if there is a great diversity in opinion), is to create an environment where employees are encouraged to discuss controversial topics in a supportive setting. The more opportunities employees have to understand each others’ points of views, the more open and accepting the workplace will be.

A recent article from Tom Barry in Chief Executive Magazine outlines the whys and hows of employees’ desires to work in a safe environment. In addition, he goes on to list the simple steps one can take to get any organization on the right track. Take five minutes to check out the article, and see how well an open dialogue can help foster a culture of trust and acceptance.

3 Tools to Help Your Team During a Transition

We all have to navigate times of uncertainty and change at some point in our lives. Whether these changes are professional, personal, or societal, they can be eased by using what developmental psychologist D. W. Winnicott termed “transitional objects”. This could be something physical (such as a literal security blanket), or something more abstract (an idea, a routine, or agreement). These things can help someone feel grounded when the world around them is spinning. Research shows that not only can these transitional objects help employees during times of upheaval, but there are things that leaders can do to ease the process. Specifically, those in leadership need to consider three important attributes that help people process transitions:

• choice,

• a connection to a purpose,

• and using something new as a bridge toward the new goal or situation.

Now that more and more of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID and companies are able to return to work in various capacities, we are once again in a transitional period. As we make our way back into physical office space, resume travel, and are otherwise becoming used to the “new normal”, take a look at HBR’s article on how leaders are best able to help their teams through this next period of change.

Impostor Syndrome

Maya Angelou, one of the 20th Century’s most resonant figures, wrote poems that were adored by millions. Even so, she often felt like an imposter. “I have written 11 books but each time I think ‘Uh-oh, they’re going to find out now,” she once said. “I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”

The term “imposter syndrome” was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. They wrote that it’s a feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.”  These people are motivated to achieve, but they’re worried that they’ll be discovered as frauds.

Imposter syndrome is stunningly common — 70 percent of people will experience these feelings at some point in their lives, research suggests.

Imposter syndrome has no bias for job, seniority, race, or gender. But it can be especially tough for new CEOs, who have put in years of work and now sit at the top, which can be a very lonely place indeed.

Luckily, there are ways for CEOs to realize the truth: They are not imposters.