Author: UnitedHR

How to Deal with a Colleague Who is Going Through Personal Turmoil

We all have days when we show up to work with big and small sorrows and inner turmoil.

The contemporary work culture with all its recognition for having a work-life balance comes with this catch: even in times of personal turmoil, the work life goes on.

Have we all not faced, some points in our lives, in varying intensities, situations like:  

  1. Things are not that great at home due to many complex reasons but you must continue to do your job and meet all the deadlines as if everything is alright.
  2. Your pet is unwell, and you must look after the pet’s health, take them to the veterinarian and make sure you finish the project you were tasked with.
  3. A loved one’s health is deteriorating but time is running out for that report you have to turn in.
  4. You are feeling out of sorts and in very low spirits but it’s not a good enough reason to skip work.

The list of big and small issues that disturb our mental peace and flow goes on.

There’s only so many leaves and breaks one can take. Big and small stresses of life come and go, but the work goes on. To work, we must go. We often seek out support from our colleagues during tough times, and sometimes we are the ones providing the support that is needed.

Generally, it is believed that people who have been through similar situations can relate to each other better. As a result, when we come to know that, say, a colleague has faced a problem like ours, we naturally go to them for some support. It is a fair rationale. After all it always helps to know that what we might be facing is not a problem unique to our own selves.

But is that always a good option? Recent research by Harvard Business Review says otherwise. Take this little scenario as an example:

Sona was going through a fall out with an old friend of hers. With this stressed out and emotional mindset, she had to go to the office. She didn’t want to use up her leaves, and didn’t want to make an issue out of her emotional state. She also felt that going to work will help her distract from her problems for a while and let her focus and recalibrate. A sensible approach, except this one thing she did: she came to know that a colleague had gone through a falling out like hers recently, and so Sona decided to have a talk with her, hoping to find an empathetic ear who would understand her mindset well.

After the talk, Sona felt even worse.

Why? Her colleague gave a natural empathetic response- generally, we bring up our own similar stories because we don’t want the other person to feel alone. The colleague kept bringing up her own story whenever Sona was telling hers. But did this approach work? Not for Sona.

Sona started to imagine scenarios based on the colleague’s own story, and now she was stressing over things that hadn’t even happened. She started to imagine problems which she hadn’t even thought of until her conversation with her colleague. She started to ruminate and felt even more down in the dumps through the day.

As professionals and colleagues trying to add some humanity in a workplace, what can we do better when a colleague approaches us with an intention to unburden themselves?

  • Listen: Listen and don’t bring up your own related or/and relatable experiences. It is a natural response but a person who wants to unburden their sorrows often just wants to be heard.
  1. Ask: When unsure how to respond, just ask. Ask your colleague if they want to just vent or are they looking for suggestions and advices or do they want a distraction. Respond accordingly.
  2. Do not judge: Validate their problems and don’t belittle their issues. You may have battled tougher problems and resolved heavier issues than what your colleague is telling you about. In such instances, gently encourage your colleague to rise above the sorrows and griefs, but do not question their sorrow and grief. Big or small, sorrows and griefs are psychological realities for those experiencing them.
  3. Just talk: Ask questions with an intention to make them talk and not with an intention to get to know more about the problem. The former approach of asking the right questions can help lighten the burden and the tension; the latter might make someone feel like they are being interrogated.

Navigating work while going through personal turmoil is difficult. As colleagues trying to humanise a work culture which demands everyone to put up a brave face and keep going, we can do our bit by reading the room, understanding the situation and the individuals we are dealing with, and do our best to lighten the numerous invisible burdens that we all carry within.

Easing into the Growth Mindset

Growth mindset enables us to make criticisms and feedback into sources of improvement, growth and learning.

As Sudeshna started her new job, the initial excitement started to fade.

Contrary to her expectations, she seemed to be receiving more feedback than she had anticipated.

Sure, any new endeavour means a new learning curve. But somehow, Sudeshna started to feel that everyone seemed to be saying nothing but criticising her.

Everywhere she turned, she got feedback feedback and more feedback, about what she can do better, what she can do differently.

Over time, the self-created monster of self-doubt started to creep in, and she began to wonder if she is even capable of her job and if she is even competent enough. She began to wonder if she can ever do anything right.

With a defeated expression, one fine evening at a work party, Sudeshna was standing in a corner quietly. One of her new colleagues, a senior HR manager Rachna noticed her gloomy demeanour and approached her.

‘Hi Sudeshna, may I join you? You seem very gloomy. Is everything okay?’

‘Hi Rachna. Yes, everything is fine, but I don’t know if I am in the right job…’

Somehow, Sudeshna found Rachna’s presence to be comforting, and she confided all the self-doubt, the impostor syndrome and the feelings of inadequacy she had been experiencing. To this Rachna responded,

‘I understand. New jobs can be tough to adapt to, plus so much feedback can make one feel like there’s nothing right that they are doing. I see it- you should have been given some encouragement and positive feedback as well. It is also true though, that receiving feedback is but another opportunity for growth. Have you heard about growth mindset?

Sudeshna nodded with some doubt. She had heard about it, but didn’t know about it in detail. Rachna continued her explanation,

‘Growth mindset is when you adopt a particular attitude. It is believing that your intelligence, aptitude and competence are forever works in progress, and every criticism, every feedback especially negative feedback is an opportunity to develop your intelligence, aptitude, capability and competence further.

‘Instead seeing criticisms and feedback as attacks on your capability and competence, they should be seen as instruments to grow them further. The feedback will only help you in succeeding in your role and doing a fabulous job with it eventually. That’s growth mindset.’

Sudeshna found her mood lighten and lift, as she realised how wonderful it was to receive so many opportunities to grow at her new job.

Growth mindset is thus all about:

  • Changing the way you view feedback: the feedback you are getting isn’t about pointing out your flaws—it’s about helping you improve and succeed in your role.
  • Feedback as a chance to learn and not something to be upset about.
  • Believing that your competence and capabilities are not static and fixed, and every feedback, every criticism is an opportunity to grow and evolve your competence and capabilities.
  • Understanding that most of the times when people criticise you, they are not trying to bring you down deliberately and it is actually a reflection of their belief in you that you are capable of doing better.

Doing everything right all the time is a myth. Instead of trying to put the pressure on ourselves to be perfect all the time, and in turn closing ourselves off to feedback or seeing feedback as an attack on our capabilities, growth mindset enables us to ease up a bit, allowing ourselves to learn and grow.

Trust and Leadership

Diya had recently been promoted. It was a major milestone for her- she had been entrusted with a leadership role, and it was a dream come true for her.

But as the reality set in, and the days when she would be given the charge of her new role came closer, she began to get the jitters. Or more specifically, she began to get flashbacks about the leaders she had worked under.

She remembered the manager she worked under during her very first job. At the first glance, the manager seemed like an ideal. The supervision was minimal, interference zero, and he was contrary to the micro-manager horror stories she had heard from her senior friends. Diya was given total autonomy, and she felt it was the ideal. But soon, Kenny started to feel the autonomy was a little too much. She wished her manager would give her some direction. She liked that the manager let her fly on her own, but she wished she had some sense of direction about where to fly. Often the manager would disappear for days, and she didn’t know who to ask, even what to ask in case of doubts.

She also remembered another manager she worked under during her later years. This was a manager who made sure she knew exactly what Diya was doing at all times during the assignment. A textbook helicopter boss, with this manager Diya felt constrained. The manager wanted things to be followed to the T. Exactly as was instructed. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing new. It was rigidity disguised as meticulousness.

Diya did not want to be either of these bosses. She called up her mother- after all, her mother was the best manager she knew.

Rightly so, her mother gave her the much-needed reality check. She said,

‘Diya, in all my years of managing, whether it is you kids, or people, or anyone or anything in general, one thing I have learned is this: you have to treat your team members like human beings who know what they are doing, in turn your team members are going to see you as someone who knows what she is doing. It is a simple but profound truth.

When you think people know what they are doing, you simply tell them what needs to be done, very clearly. You check on them from time to time, trusting that they will be doing the work responsibly. You don’t have to supervise them constantly.

When people see you as someone who knows what she is doing, they will expect you to point out to the mistakes they might be making, or tell them when an approach needs some tweaking.

A simple give and take of understanding. Keep this in mind, and you will be a great manager.’

After much deliberation, Diya understood the balance:  

  • Define the expectations clearly, meticulously, but let her team members figure out the implementation.
  • Define the shared goal clearly.
  • Give the team members autonomy, but supervise the autonomy.
  • Tell the team members that she is here for guidance, keep the communication lines open to solve doubts.
  • Tell the team members who to communicate with in case of her absence.
  • Realise that mapping out a plan doesn’t necessarily mean it will be implemented exactly in that manner: the map is not the territory.

The bottom line was once that trust was established between the team leader and the team members, that both parties knew what they were doing, a fine balance could be established between expectations and implementation. A trust in each other’s competence, a willingness to listen and learn and a common shared goal are the alphabets around which the language of team leadership and team work is built upon.

Resetting: Goal Thinking

The famous metaphor divides our goals into big and small rocks in a jar. But are goals as rigid as rocks?

There’s a famous metaphor suggesting how prioritising our goals, objectives and targets is about filling a glass jar with big rocks first, and then adding smaller rocks, that is, your smaller goals in the spaces that remain. Although a valuable lesson in prioritising, as an article by Harvard Business Review points out, it now calls for an upgrade.

Let us imagine a little scenario.

Vinita has her goals and objectives sorted and divided into big rocks and small rocks. Big rocks for her are: learning and developing her skill-set, gain some experience, work up her income and resume, and immigrate to a bigger city later for better opportunities. Her smaller rocks are: finding time to meditate at least a few minutes a day, finding a hobby that helps with her fitness and learning new strategies to keep her house tidier.

The metaphor of rocks gives us associations of robustness and stability. But they can also make us rigid and fixated on a goal in an unhealthy decontextualised manner. Let us take Vinita’s scenario again.

Vinita has made enough progress and she is ready to emigrate to a bigger city for better opportunities. But she gets a promotion at her current company. The pay is likely to rise exponentially, and what’s more, she might even be offered a house. What happens now to her big rock goal to immigrate to a bigger city?

If Vinita sees her goals as rocks, she is likely to go into a dilemma. An inner tug-of-war between these two opportunities is likely to cause much stress to her.

How about we upgrade the metaphor now?

Why don’t we see goals as moulds of clay instead of rocks? Little pieces which we can connect and bind together by adding water if needed, and shaping and re-shaping them as the situation changes?

The moulds of clay would be the goals. Changes in situation, and realising our core values would be the water we add and the reshaping we do.

Let us go back to Vinita with our clay metaphor. Her goals are now mouldable, re-shapable. The core remains the same – she wants a better opportunity, a better lifestyle. She would get all of this with the promotion. There’s no inner tug-of-war here because she was open to her goal(s) getting remoulded. Vinita also realises now, thanks to her flexible mentality, that what she actually valued as a big rock goal was the result of that goal, and not the goal in itself.

What’s more, rather than goals as single stones, through the re-shaping and moulding, Vinita may end up creating a beautiful sculpture out of the clay of that goal itself!

What we can understand from thinking about goals as mouldable clay is that they are a working ongoing reality. Our vision of how we want our life, and what we prioritise might change. What we thought was important to us might not remain so, or we may realise that what we valued was actually the result(s) that the goal was supposed to give us, and not the goal itself. Keeping a ‘rock solid’ rigid mindset with our goals is likely to blind us to possibilities and opportunities. Keeping our goals open to remoulding and reshaping depending on the changes in the situation and priorities is likely to free us up from the burden to hold onto an outdated vision of our life, and perhaps even surprise ourselves in a good way.

Is Everyone’s Dream-Job Your Dream Job as Well?

A particular job may be a dream of many, but is it your dream as well? The answer lies in understanding your sense of authenticity.

Shreya had just landed a dream job. At least what was supposed to be a dream job.

It was a high post with a prestigious multinational company. A job that attracted not just prestige and results but even considerable envy. But somehow as she started to work at the company, the initial excitement started to wear off. It’s not that the job hadn’t lived up to its expectations- it had given Shreya everything- her desired income, recognition and incentives. It had given her everything except one thing: the feeling that she was being herself.

As we hold this thought, let us take one more example of someone who landed their (supposed) dream job. Along with Shreya, Sumit joined the same company- the dream of many. But unlike Shreya, Sumit couldn’t get as much recognition for his work. He was well qualified, and he did the best according to his abilities, but somehow, things just didn’t feel aligned for Sumit.

Although the Sumit couldn’t perform well, and on the other hand Shreya did manage to get her due recognition, at the core, they both had the same issue- a prestigious company just didn’t make the job feel good, and one ended up feeling out of place and drained. Going to work every day and doing even the simplest of tasks became a struggle for Shreya and Sumit.

Fast forward to a year and Shreya had started her own company dealing with sustainable fashion. It was a small company, nowhere close to the prestigious multinational she was a part of earlier, but everyday Shreya looked forward to going to work. The awards she got for entrepreneurship felt meaningful to her. She found the challenging work of finding investors and increasing the reach of her new company mentally stimulating, and despite the hard work, she rarely felt drained.

Let us fast forward to Sumit and he had become the general manager at a small company. He had quit the multinational company and started a new job at this smaller company. From the start, unlike the multinational company, Sumit felt at ease, and found the work challenging in a good way. The company wasn’t too well-known when Sumit joined, but as Sumit found his path in the company, that started to change. Over time, the company became one of the most well-known companies in the field: the company and Sumit both had grown with and through each other. 

In both the examples above, is a golden lesson in authenticity. Rather than simply aiming for prestige and jobs that look great on paper, one can aim for a job that fits their own sense of authenticity. Prestige and recognition will follow as wonderful ‘side-effects.’

Shreya as a person was someone who believed in sustainability, loved fashion and loved challenges, and hence starting her own company didn’t feel like a big draining challenge as compared to the prestigious job at the big multinational even though on paper, objectively speaking, it was supposed to be the other way around. Sumit gained fame and fortune out of a supposed smaller company, and helped the company rise as well. Turns out, what is ‘on paper’ can change!

One may land a job that is a dream to many; one may even find great or some success in it. But is the job your dream? Is the success meaningful to you? These are the questions that matter in the long run. Perhaps the adage ‘work at the job you love and you won’t have to work a day’ finds a renewed meaning this way.