Whether you are a CEO, frontline manager, or individual contributor, what people will remember most about working with you is how you made them feel.
The strongest feelings I have towards people I’ve worked with come from tough times we faced together where their true character was fully tested and exposed. Those who demonstrated care for others and acted in service of the team rather than themselves made the most positive difference to me.
When confronted with the initial impact of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, no one had any idea how things would pan out. At Xero, in the face of uncertainty, we needed to significantly reduce our planned expenditure. I was fortunate to have a team around me that put the business first and collaborated to make the cuts that no one individually was keen to make but did so in service of the team.
Demonstrating the characteristics of care and service are reflected by doing the following three things that can create a more positive work environment.
Take time to observe yourself in action
In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Joe Dispenza points out that brain scans show we operate in a conscious state only 5% of the time, and that 95% of the time we operate from the subconscious.
Acting from this subconscious state in challenging situations can allow our ego and insecurities to cause us to respond in a way that is less than our best.
To overcome this natural human condition, the ability to think about how you think can be a great skill or practice to help reduce the chance of coming across as a “know it all,” not listening to others, or sounding like a victim when things don’t go your way.
Finding ways to be conscious of the effect we have on others requires us to observe ourselves in meetings in the same way we would observe an actor in a play. For example, while you are speaking, ask yourself: “Am I talking too much? Is the person I am speaking to really engaged?”
Being the best version of yourself requires the self-awareness that taking a breath or finding your way to slow things down allows you to observe yourself in action. This mindfulness can make a big difference in how the people you work with feel about you and create a more positive work environment.
Take action to improve how your team functions
Great work experience and well-being are a function of clarity and alignment. Are we clear about what we are trying to do? Do we have the right support and resources to do it?
A lack of clarity of purpose or priorities can have a big impact on working relationships. Similarly, a lack of alignment between the expectation of outcomes and the way resources are allocated can cause the work environment to become fractious and uncomfortable for all concerned.
Here is a nonthreatening way to get the right conversation and action happening in your team: Ask the members of your team to rate out of 10 (1 = Low, 10 = High) the performance of the team relative to what is possible (its potential) with the resources available. Once the scores are in, the conversation can move to identifying and acting on the most important thing team members believe can improve performance. In my experience, these things are largely about how the team is working together rather than the nature of the work being done.
Where you recognize lack of clarity, misalignment, or anything that reflects weakness in how work is being done, take action to address the issue. This will create a very positive work environment for your colleagues.
Encourage a difficult conversation you or others may be avoiding
Words are all we have to share our intentions, express what we are doing, and assess how we are performing. The speed and quality of our conversations define the speed and quality of our work efforts and our capacity to change things for the better.
Too often we are reluctant to speak up and confront the difficult conversations we know are needed. Being someone prepared to do so can make a positive difference to you and the team you work with.
When there is a difficult conversation to be had, make sure the context is clear for the conversation by asking all the questions needed to understand the situation before you make any big statements. Show care for the people involved so that your intentions in having the conversation are understood and stated most constructively.
Finally, have courage and just do it, because each time will help make the next time a bit easier (not easy), and the benefits of confronting the difficult conversation will be clear.
As a way to practice having difficult conversations, ask the people you work with to give you feedback on how you are working together. Ask them for the most positive aspect and the one thing you could change to improve your working relationship.
To make a difference and create a positive work environment for others every day, be the best version of yourself. Observe yourself in action, do what you can to improve how your team works, and step up to have that difficult conversation.
