PERSONAL SPECIAL ....3 Calming Questions to Ask Yourself When You're Feeling Worried or Anxious

3 Calming Questions to Ask Yourself When You're Feeling Worried or Anxious

Worry suddenly washes over me sometimes, and I find it hard to explain to other people. I worry about my mum getting sick. I worry that I’m spending too much. I worry that I’ve hurt someone’s feelings or that I’ve done something wrong if a friend doesn’t text me back.

My friend Charlotte told me that she worries that whenever her husband is late—coming home from the gym, for example—that he’s been in an accident (this happens to me on occasion too). My former boss Liz told me she pretends she’s sick to avoid public speaking because she’s lost her breath on stage before and loses sleep if she has to talk in front of a group.

So when worry and anxiety bubble up in your chest, first, know that you’re not alone. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that 18 percent of Americans are affected by anxiety. That’s almost in 1 in 5! It’s way more common than you think.

And although anxiety comes in many forms (from incessant worrying to more severe panic attacks), when I experience it personally, I’ve learned that asking myself certain questions can help calm me down.

They’re not a perfect solution, and they come from my personal experience only. But in times of worry, this inner probing has helped my clients and me a little. And oftentimes, even just a little relief from panic feels good. (Please note: These suggestions are more for those with fleeting worries as opposed to true anxiety disorders. If you're experiencing the latter, you should speak with a medical professional.)

Here goes:

1. Is this really a threat?

In life, accidents do happen, yes. But most of the time, we worry about things that are very unlikely to go wrong. What is it that is making you worried? How possible is it really? Truly think about that for a second. Allow the practical nature of your question to help ground you.

Here are some of the most absurd worries I’ve had:

• My dog would get harmed from all of the jumping around caused by owning a Nintendo Wii (I promptly donated it.)
• The Wonder Wheel would break when we were on it (So our consolation prize was a corndog at Coney Island.)
• Someone would put drugs in our suitcase and we’d go to jail (I only carry on now – it’s more safe and efficient.)

My friend Louise once thought a staph infection on her thumb (a common outcome from a shoddy manicure we’ve since learned) was serious. There was a whole essay-length text chain about it (with photos)! She went to a doctor who gave her antibiotics and said, “If this happens again, you don’t need to come back. Your body will heal itself in days.”

Our overactive minds can make common situations seem far worse than they actually are.

2. Have I done all I can to be prepared?

This is where the portion of your life that you can control comes in. If you’re riding a bike, wear a helmet! Check that your fire alarm works. Make sure your insurance is up to date. Go for your annual checkup.

My sister always worries that she has left something on and checks all of the electrical outlets in her home before leaving. If that helps, great! What can you do to feel/be best prepared for what concerns you?

It may sound somber, but having a will or your paperwork in order, whatever it is that you can control, all ticked off, you might start to feel lighter. There's a big difference between planning and worrying—planning makes you feel empowered, calm, and clearer. In what area of your life can you replace stressing out with just getting stuff organized?

3. Is my mind just going into overdrive (like in the middle of the night)?

There’s nothing like a restless mind in the middle of the night to make us feel helpless, crazed, and desperate. It's almost like the nonstop stock news ticker at the bottom of a TV screen. And if your feels of panic pop up at 2:43 a.m., you have nothing like work, other people, or anything else to distract you.

But you can shift your thought loop with deep breaths or by throwing on a YouTube sleep meditation. Remind yourself that dead-of-night worrying is often completely eradicated by the imminent light of day.

Most importantly, I’ve come to understand that worrying itself is the thing to fear. Seth Godin says, "Worry is useful when it changes our behavior in productive ways. The rest of the time, it's a negative form of distraction, an entertainment designed to keep us from doing our work and living our lives."

So next time panicked thoughts arise, ask: Is this really threatening? Have I done all I can to keep myself safe? Could this be a case of mental overdrive, which is going to pass (like it probably normally does)? If so, breathe into it. Take what’s useful from your fears and act. Control what you can. And remember that worry doesn’t make life any more predictable.

We may think we feel safer when we’re anxious, but it’s just an illusion. Focusing on worst-case scenarios will not keep bad things from happening. It’ll only keep you from making the most of all the good stuff that you have in the present.

https://greatist.com/live/questions-to-ask-yourself-when-anxious?utm_source=CM&utm_medium=email&utm_content=story1_cta&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter_2018-01-15_testB_20160817

BOOK SUMMARY 426 5 Conversations

BOOK SUMMARY 426

5 Conversations

·         Summary written by: Peter Taylor

“The quality of conversation we engage in could not be more important in the modern age.”

- 5 Conversations, page 26

Employee engagement is now recognized as critical to business success. 5 Conversations by Nick Crowley and Nigel Purse addresses leadership through the power of developing meaningful conversations, and offers powerful and practical tools to encourage employee engagement. True engagement is highly dependent on the quality of the relationships developed at work. Each conversation has to be authentic with the intention of appreciation, understanding, and trust, while also showing genuine care and compassion. The book discusses five key conversations which are essential to achieving success:

1. Establishing a trusting relationship

2. Agreeing on mutual expectations

3. Showing genuine appreciation

4. Challenging unhelpful  behavior

5. Building for the future

The Big Idea

FIVEC

"So the problem is that our brains don’t recognize the difference between a difficult conversation and a sabre-toothed tiger1!"- 5 Conversations, page 54

Recent research has shown that various factors in a relationship can help to build trust. When more of these factors are present, the more likely you are to receive a positive response and build a trusting relationship. Conversely, when these factors aren’t present, the opposite will occur and relationships may sour. These factors are described in the mnemonic FIVEC which are critical components of the five conversations concept.

Familiarity: The concept of familiarity within the workplace has often being considered dangerous and undesirable. The modern concept is that by becoming more in tune with your team and being prepared to divulge more of your own needs and values with your co-workers, you can encourage mutual trust and respect to develop.  This results in a more open and healthy discussion around critical issues at work.

Influence: Influence can extend to social and interpersonal relationships, resource control, technical expertise and perceived status. Influence may be perceived as either a threat or an advantage, so it is important to be deliberate about how you use your influence.

Value: This one is obvious. People want to feel valued and the easiest way to do that is to tell them, take the time to outline the contribution the employee is giving and authentically tell them how much they are appreciated.

Empowerment: Empowerment refers to the degree of freedom to act that the employee has within the organizational structure. Freedom of expression generally allows engagement to develop within the confines both individual personalities and their experience. A new employee will most likely want some hand holding and a longer term employee may resent micromanagement. It is important to establish boundaries around what level of support employees want.

Clarity: Lack of clarity about the future is often perceived as a threat. As a leader it is important to remember that people need and value clarity around the future, and to provide as much information as possible.

Insight #1

Showing Genuine Appreciation

"This conversation is also about showing that you care about not just the performance of your people but also about their emotional well being."- 5 Conversations, page 117

The traditional approach is focussed on problem solving and questions that tend to be based around “what’s wrong or what needs to be fixed?” The alternative approach portrayed in this book is built around the premise that everyone in the organization has positive aspects that need to be built upon. Switching these questions to something like, “what’s working well and what’s good about what you are currently doing?” allows a more positive framework to build upon. This concept is borrowed from some old research around “appreciative enquiry” which posits the belief that concentrating on problems tends to reduce the vision of opportunities in business.

The authors discuss the concept of appreciative enquiry in the context of a more personal interaction or more precisely, the second conversation, “showing genuine appreciation.” This conversation is based around the mindset of genuine curiosity about the employee’s success. It is recommended to have this conversation with every employee several times a year, and it can be either planned or spontaneous. Broadly the conversation should first understand and appreciate the individual’s contribution, and then explore options around future opportunities, and consolidate action plans and learning points.

The five conversations give all employees an experience of positive feedback and appreciation, but also gives you an understanding of everyone’s unique strengths and talents that they bring to the table. A win-win.

Potential questions include: “What’s been your biggest success in the last few weeks and how does that make you feel? How can we play to your strengths?”

Insight #2

Non-violent Tough Questions

"This conversation is about having the courage, insights and resources to face up to another person's unhelpful behavior in such a way that you achieve a positive outcome for everyone involved."- 5 Conversations, page 113

Dealing with unhelpful  behaviors or having difficult conversations are always considered some of the more challenging aspects of leadership and management. The conversations are about respect, primarily for your team members who have been impacted by the unhelpful behavior, and should also be respectful of your team member showing this unhelpful behavior. This can be achieved by showing that you genuinely want to help them to be successful, but to do so requires some changes to their behavior.

The structure of the conversation is based on nonviolent or compassionate communication, which has three underlying principles;

·         Acknowledgement of your own inner feelings about the unhelpful behavior and accepting your reaction to it.

·         Listening to your team member with the intention of supporting them and accepting that there are real reasons for the behavior which are not necessarily malicious.

·         Being prepared to express your own feelings and needs.

With these underlying principles the process of discussing unhelpful behaviors has four stages.

1. Observations. This stage is talking about facts and observations of the non helpful  behaviors in a non-threatening, non judgemental way and inviting a response. An example could be “John, I would like to discus the way you spoke to Sarah in surgery yesterday?” Follow up with “what was your recollection?”

2. Feelings. This stage is about addressing the feelings the behavior has caused in you or others, and inviting a response. Acknowledging that these feelings are authentic is important as people can not challenge feelings. “Sarah was hurt by your comments, especially because there were many people present” and then revisit with “how were you feeling at the time?”

3. Needs. Move the discussion onto the needs you need as a leader so they can understand where the disparities have occurred. “Sarah has a need to be treated with respect by you and her contributions should be recognized. What needs do you have?” It is important to invite a response from your team member about how they were feeling and how they are feeling now.

4. Requests. Make a clear request of your team member. “My request of you is that you don’t make personal negative comments about colleagues during work, will you be able do this and what needs do you have?”

I believe we have lost the true art of authentic one to one conversations. This book will give you powerful and practical tools to overcome this deficiency. Many people take a confrontational approach to conversations—especially when they need to give feedback or correct behavior. This framework will help you overcome this urge, approach conversations with an open mind, and create trusting relationships.

GADGET SPECIAL.... New wireless-audio products that are pushing the limits

New wireless-audio products that are pushing the limits

Aside from interesting designs, these upcoming earbuds and headphones flaunt new features

JVC’s sports earbuds can adjust to the shape of your ear

JVC’s HA-ET90BT wireless sports earbuds are water resistant and come with a charging case, which provides two full

charges of power. The headphones offer three hours of battery life from a single charge. They will be available in March for $149.95. JVC also announced the JVC XX HA-ET103BT headphones, which feature deep-bass playback and impressive noisecancellation.

House of Marley’s Uprise wireless headphones make use of simple recyclables

House of Marley is known for having an eco-friendly spin on

its products. Its latest Uprise wireless headphones are waterresistant and made of recycled silicone and wood. They will be available to consumers in June for $99.99.

Yevo 1 wireless headphones are made of recycled illegal firearms

The Swedish company YEVO Labs’s wireless earbuds are made of metal recycled from illegal firearms used in wartorn and high-violence countries. The earbuds will be available in early 2018, selling for $499. Half of sales proceeds will go toward providing aid to countries affected by gun violence.

Monster’s AirLinks Elements earbuds will release after a year of their unveiling

Monster’s AirLinks Elements earbuds were unveiled a year ago, but the company announced that its earbuds will be available to consumers starting in February ($250). The earbuds are designed to resemble precious gemstones and also include an AI assistant called Melody, which can pull music and content from streaming services and news briefs.

Moshi’s Avanti Air headphones include a quick charge feature

Avanti headphones were popular in 2017, but the company updated them in 2018 to be wireless. The new Avanti Air headphones feature the same stylish design and high-resolution audio drivers, they also offer up to 27 hours of battery life and a quick-charging feature. The headphones are available for $299.99.

B &O Play’s H9i headphones include a number of powersaving features

The B&O Play H9i headphones include gesture features aimed at conserving battery power. The transparency mode allows users to gesture to pause music or multimedia if they need to pay closer attention to something else. The proximity sensor causes music to pause when a user takes the headphones off. The headphones will be available January 25 for $499.

Libratone’s Track+ headphones have adjustable noise-cancellation levels

The Libratone Track+ headphones are interesting. They have an active noise cancelling feature that allows users to choose the level they desire. There are four levels of noise cancellation as well as a ‘hush mode’ that does not block any outside noise while the headphones are in use. The headphones are water-resistant and geared toward active users and commuters. The Libratone Track+ headphones will sell for $199.

Anker’s Zolo Liberty+ earbuds are among the first to introduce Bluetooth 5

The Anker Zolo Liberty+ earbuds will support Bluetooth 5 when they release later this month for $149.99. The updated Bluetooth standard allows data to transfer at twice the speed of Bluetooth 4.2. The Zolo Liberty+ charging case packs up to 48 hours of battery life, but the earbuds last for about 3.5 hours.

businessinsider.in

DIGITAL SPECIAL..... Scanning and Responding to Digital Change

Scanning and Responding to Digital Change

Digitisation requires organisations to keep a keen eye on the horizon and respond by bending their processes.

Most forms of disruption today are about digitisation. Netflix has revolutionised the way people experience videos, providing non-linear viewing (unchaining us from TV guides) and easy access (no DVD rentals). But there are a multitude of ways digital products, data and processes can be used to create novelty and value without necessarily “disrupting”.

It’s worthwhile distinguishing digitisation from “disruption”— the latter is more about radical upending of business models, often by people or companies well outside of the targeted industry. However, digitisation includes how incumbent companies alter and expand their value propositions by harnessing digital means.

Companies can become more digital without necessarily overturning their business models. But because digitisation can lead to disruptive movements, companies have to be good at scanning the landscape for developments, absorbing them and exploiting the opportunities.

Earlier, we looked at the mindset needed for digitisation and the sort of people organisations need for the journey. Based on insights we gleaned from interviews with executives and managers at the forefront of digitisation, we now turn to how organisations can track disruptive threats and respond to them.

Tracking storms

Our interviewees said that it is important to scan the environment both to understand what is happening and to determine what is possible and most likely to occur. In other words, scanning should involve present-and-future threat combinations.

One respondent told us, “We have a special team, called the ‘FinTech team’. They are a small team but they are just scanning all over the world for developments. They go to conferences, they go to Silicon Valley. They really look at the disrupters that could potentially threaten us.”

The same interviewee also explained that their company had a strategy review process at the level of the CEO’s office. Its purpose is to constantly re-examine the strategy, what is changing, what is working and what the firm has to adopt, prioritising the biggest threats. The lesson here is that the scanning needs to be linked up to strategic planning and senior decision makers.

Ideation routines

Staying current and attuned to the outside world is important, providing digitising companies with a window into inspiration and potential threats. But perhaps the core of digitisation is what happens next, which is ideation—the creative process of moving from inspiration to innovation. This is because there is no single blueprint for monetisation of digital opportunities—that is, no “winning strategy” for all—but rather it is vital that companies construct creative and collaborative processes to search these new spaces, recombine existing resources and define their own digital path.

Rather than a “lone genius” model where one “guru” comes up with the design of all things digital, the required logic that emerged from organisations we interviewed was recombinant thinking, or a creative collaboration of multiple people or groups.

One interviewee told us, “You don’t work that much anymore in a very hierarchical manner. You’ve got your boss, you’re part of the team, but it’s more like an agile organisation,” where people are part of project groups and they’re measured on the success of those projects. But it doesn’t stop with brainstorming.

The ideation processes we came across were not like traditional R&D, which typically focus on narrow exploration, as opposed to exploitation. Organisations we spoke to combined exploration and exploitation, in other words raw creativity, prototyping and testing. They were, nonetheless, systematic and disciplined. Several insights emerged.

1. Speedboats
Organisations, especially large ones, are often akin to supertankers. Steering them in a new direction can be laborious and time consuming. The emphasis here was on being nimble.

“You have a traditional organisation where other values, other goals are [living]. Then you need to be successful in the digital world, so instead of trying to steer the tanker, you try to build a speedboat on the
side and have some impact on the core business as well…” said one interviewee.

The respondent emphasised that the speedboat was not autonomous. It was clear that its job was to race around the ocean to explore opportunities while staying in communication with the tanker.

2. Requisite variety
Small is beautiful but speedboats lack heft, i.e. resources and viewpoints. One manager we spoke to works on creating a mix of skills in innovation teams. He said that getting the right mix is essential. “We created a new advertising platform. We brought together seven or eight different departments over two to three months. It was a perfect example of how much power and intelligence you have when you create the right combination of people.”

3. Customers first pass: channeling customer insights
Design thinking is emerging as one of the popular innovation paradigms of our time, the cornerstone of which is taking the user’s point of view. It was no surprise, then, to find respondents emphasising the importance of really understanding the target audience for their products or services. “The reason [we do the investigative work] is to generate insights about customer needs and pain points in the certain market segment. The reason is also that we make sure that team members really understand with whom they are dealing, who is the customer.”

4. Customers second pass: fast experiments
But to avoid getting caught up in guessing exactly what the customer wants and trying to merge many insights together, releasing a prototype (if possible) helps organisations to test their ideas quickly in the marketplace.

“Analysing in advance doesn’t work anymore,” said one respondent. “We take a rapid-prototyping ‘agile’ approach: Test with the consumer, or test with all the methods that there are.”

To sum up, decision makers need to consider whether—given their product, market and context—to invest in a heavier front-end process (taking more time to understand what the user really wants) or heavier back-end process (prototyping, experimenting and testing). One size is unlikely to fit all.

5. Funnelling ideas
Ideation systems, however, need to also have some internal mechanisms for funnelling ideas, which means starting wide and narrowing down ideas gradually through a critical process. One method we came across was particularly creative.

In one company, brainstorming involved 90 staff, split into three groups of 30. The first group was called the “dreamers”. They came up with everything they felt was interesting in digital and diversification. The second group was the “realistic” one, typically comprised of those who preferred “grounded” ideas. They picked up ideas from the dreamers and considered how realistic they were. The third group was the “pessimistic” one. After the realistic group reduced the number of ideas to around ten, the pessimists examined all of the downsides and further narrowed the ideas down to three. “Thanks to this new move…I'm getting more and more support from all the different stakeholders within the company”, said one interviewee.

What all of these insights have in common is that they involved many more people than is typically the case in core innovation work. It brings us back to a theme we have already mentioned and into which we will delve deeper at a later stage: A collaborative workplace and strategy is an important part of going digital. It has the added advantage of bringing more of the organisation on board the digitisation initiatives.

Nonetheless, organisations often face inner resistance to change. In our next article in this series, we will explore how organisations at the vanguard of digitisation tackle resistance within their ranks.

Charles Galunic, INSEAD Professor of Organisational Behaviour | September 22, 2017

Read more at https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/scanning-and-responding-to-digital-change-7226#26RJBX73KOuIHciZ.99

TRAVEL SPECIAL ......Challenge your inner spirit

Challenge your inner spirit

Nature’s bounty can be witnessed when you overcome the biggest hurdles in a sporty fun way

WALK ON FROZEN ZANSKAR

Soft adventure activities are a big hit with families who like to go on active vacations with their kids. With homestay options on the rise along with camping opportunities in pristine locations, embarking on a tailormade adventure trip in the beautiful countryside in India can turn out to be great fun. As luck would have it, upcoming long weekend of Republic Day (Jan 26) falls on a Friday. With many such options upcoming the entire year, visit wildlife sanctuaries, go trekking at hill stations, try surfing at the lovely beaches and try farm stays near green villages. Urban lifestyle can be made healthier with quick breaks that get you on your feet amidst nature. So, let you kids choose the destination activity this time. Ready?

TREKKING ON FROZEN RIVER THIS SEASON

Region: Zanskar (J&K)

Suggested Days for trip: 7-8 days Itinerary

Destinations: Take a flight from your city to Leh. After a day’s acclimatisation, drive to Tilad Do via Chilling. Walk from Tilad Do to Shingra Koma. Trek from Shingra Koma to Tibb Cave. Trek from Tibb Cave to Naerak camp. Naerak to Tibb Cave. Tibb Cave to Shingra Koma. Shingra Koma to Tilad Do and drive to Leh and onward to your city.

The Zanskar River ‘Chadar Trek’ is often on the bucketlist of many keen trekkers who wish to challenge their limits. The months of January and February are considered apt for the trek. The reason being that the winter temperature freezes the Zanskar River water into a white sheet (chadar in Hindi) and makes it easy to walk on it. Enrol if you are keen to tick this trek off your list.

RARE BIRD SPOTTING

SPOT RARE BIRDS IN A FOREST

Region: Chilka Lake Bird Sanctuary, Odisha Nal Sarovar Bird Sanctuary, Gujarat Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, Kerala Eaglenest Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary, Karnataka

Things to carry: Wear comfortable clothing that are not too brightly coloured so that you look one amongst nature. Binoculars, hat, a notepad and a bird book to refer to.

Bird watching is a soft adventure that you can do with your kids and family members at a leisurely pace. What works for this activity is that you venture into lush forests, breathe in fresh air, you let go of your gadgets and concentrate on nature’s beautiful avians amidst tall flora.

A hobby like this can bring your kids closer to you as it binds in a common interest to enjoy green environs and gain insights.

RIVER RAFTING

OFF-ROADING ON BIKES AND CARS

Region: Mumbai to Lonavala-Khandala Bengaluru to Udupi Chennai to Ooty Delhi to Jaipur

It is perhaps the zeal to face the crisp breeze as you rule the roads. In terrains that are off-beat and lead to picturesque spots,‘Offroading’ is a trend that has caught up with bike riders and four wheeler driving enthusiasts. Men and women both love it and big motor companies are extending goup activities in fun locations. The biking groups often result in lasting bonds and such groups are on the rise in India. Leh-Ladakh and Spiti Valley have picked up much tourism thanks to riders. Riding merchandise can also make for a slick fashion statement.

LET’S SURF & SAIL

BEST SPOTS FOR SURFING

Region: Dwarka, Goa, Gokarna, Murdeswara, Kapu, Maravanthe, Varkala, Kovalam, Rameswaram, Auroville, Mahabalipuram, Visakhapatnam and Puri

Surfing is one of the oldest practiced sports on the planet and is essentially all about the art of wave riding. Experts claim that if an individual can blend athleticism and the comprehension of the power of the blue seas, surfing can be a good bet for him or her. History has it that the act of riding waves with a wooden board first originated in Western Polynesia more than three thousand years ago. Quite naturally, the first surfers were fishermen who discovered riding waves as an efficient manner to reach the shore with their catch. Today, surfing championships in India draws many enthusiasts and the adventure sport is fast catching up.

CAMPING WITH KID

FOREST HIKES & CAMPING BY THE LAKE

Region: Pavana River (Lonavla), Damdama Lake (outskirts of Delhi), Himachal Pradesh

The outskirts of your city are often a good bet to drive out on weekends. A trend nowadays is to camp along the river or lake and professional camping agencies are busy adding kid-centric activities such as river swimming, star-gazing and barbecue sessions as part of this fun outing. Kids take to the natural surroundings well as the drive is not long, they can make new friends and camping tents can give them a smart way to connect with nature. De-stress by joining in the fun!

Compiled By Nimisha Tiwari
Nimisha.Tiwari@timesgroup.com

ETTR 18JAN18 

MANAGEMENT SPECIAL.... Starting a Transformation? Don’t Change Everything!

Starting a Transformation? Don’t Change Everything!

Some time ago, I was consulting a senior director of a government agency who was two years into transforming his organization to be more customer- and results-focused. He had restructured his 200-person team, launched a few key initiatives, coached his staff on changing mind-sets, and made some difficult personnel decisions. Then, just as these investments were beginning to show results, a new governor was elected. His mission? To transform my client’s organization to be more customer- and results-focused! What could the senior director say? “We’re already doing that” would have come across as resistant or worse. He simply sat quietly as his new boss laid out his plans for shaking things up.

As organizations of all types — in both the public and private sectors — strive to be more agile, they reorganize more often. Executives are asked to take on new teams, merge related teams, or pivot to a new set of priorities. Such challenges can be exciting: As a leader, your mind may be buzzing with ideas, questions, and possible solutions. The pressure is on, and you are eager to put “points on the board.”

Yet, for your team, a reorganization may involve a reset as much as a new direction. When things are in flux, people naturally tend to slow down on special initiatives — they don’t want to risk marching in the wrong direction. As new players are assigned, processes can easily become muddled, handoffs dropped, and best practices forgotten. Individuals are not yet familiar with one another’s quirks and talents, and may be feeling the loss of their former teammates.

Moreover, even after you set the direction and clarify roles, your team may still hesitate until they trust that new commitments will persist over time. In a 2014 study of a Fortune 300 company, published by Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Kellogg School of Management professor Maryam Kouchaki and I found that employees lost confidence in all major corporate commitments when there was a significant leadership change. Of course, you cannot afford to have your team stuck in a holding pattern. How do you get them mobilized and into action as quickly as possible?

The trick is to recognize that your team is already in motion. In one form or another, initiatives are under way, ideas are being discussed, processes are in place, and relationships have developed. Even if your charter is to radically change course, chances are there is much that you can repurpose or redirect. By taking the time to uncover what is happening on the ground now and affirming explicitly what you want to continue, stop, or start anew, you can dramatically reduce the reset effect. To put this in practice, consider holding three types of conversation early on in your tenure with a new team.

1. The “team story line” conversation. 

Although it is very tempting to focus only on the future, take some time to learn about your new team’s journey. Ask them: What have been your priorities and goals over the past year? What have you accomplished? What have been the biggest breakthroughs? Where are you focused now? Try drawing the journey of each of your inherited teams or team members on flip charts on a wall. As you listen, you will hear best practices and breakthroughs you can leverage, and you will gain insight into how the team thinks and interacts. In one company in which my colleagues and I ran a two-hour session like this, the new leader reported that it was more valuable than 30 days of orientation.

2. The “new challenge” conversation. 

This is where you share the larger opportunity or need the team is being asked to address. Get creative, and try to bring this new challenge to life as vividly and concretely as possible, building on what your team already knows and understands. Do they recognize that service needs to improve, but don’t realize by how much? Bring in customers to talk about their experiences. Share benchmark data or go on a field trip or two. Because you know how your team is already thinking, you can focus these experiences on exactly where you want to expand their view and spark new ideas. By starting with the story line above, you can activate your team’s confidence while still being clear about what needs to change. 

3. The “realign the work” conversation. 

Now, with shared understanding of direction, you and your new team can outline what you need to change in practice. Review your goals, roles, processes, team commitments, and the dashboard of measurements you use to track progress. Then, determine together what you need to continue, stop, or start to deliver. To show you are serious about follow-through and to provide time for people to internalize the change of direction, I suggest having a team off-site followed by a series of weekly working sessions. The working sessions should be long enough to make progress on realigning the work, while allowing time for big-picture questions and getting to know one another. (In general, two to four hours per week for six to eight weeks will work, after which you can shorten the meetings to a one-hour check-in.) Be sure to make time for regular one-on-one meetings so you can get to know each individual and address concerns privately.

As satisfying as it is to generate your own ideas, you and your team will get to results most quickly by tapping into efforts already under way wherever possible. You may be surprised by how flexible your team is if the new focus is clearly articulated in ways that directly relate to their prior goals. For their part, team members can help new leaders by highlighting work they can leverage. For example, the senior director above eventually invited the new governor to review the current initiatives and the impact they were having, then asked his input on how he would like them to be more customer- and results-focused. The new leader was pleased to see so much had already been done, and — rather than reinvent the wheel — could focus his attention on a few clear directives to help the team accelerate progress.

Elizabeth Doty

https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Starting-a-Transformation-Dont-Change-Everything?gko=302aa&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20180118&utm_campaign=resp

EMAIL SPECIAL ....Four Slack And Email Mistakes To Avoid In Your First Month On The Job

Four Slack And Email Mistakes To Avoid In Your First Month On The Job

You’re new. You don’t really know anyone other than your boss, a coworker or two, and the HR person who guided you through the hiring process.

Not only will you need some time to suss out the overall work culture, but the finer points of digital communication can be especially tricky to master. Here are a few Slack and email missteps to watch out for in those early days as you settle in.

1. FORGETTING THE “GOLDILOCKS” EMAIL RULE

There came a point sometime in my first few weeks in my first-ever job when my boss had to gently ask me to please try and write shorter emails. Apparently a coworker had received a Tess of the D’Urbervilles–length email from me and wasn’t interested in savoring my prose style.

When you’re new and want to show that you can be helpful and proactive (“Look! I already thought of that, let me tell you about it!”), there’s a risk of getting long-winded and wasting your coworkers’ time. But too quick or casual can be the wrong move, too.

“I had to learn to stop doing subject line–only emails after I left the New York Daily News,” Fast Company’s Digital Editor Anjali Khosla told me. At a city paper, she said, “People don’t mind that. But at a monthly mag, it was considered quite rude. Especially six years ago.”

One way to hit that “just right” sweet spot between verbose and curt? “Lead with the ask,” counsels Jocelyn K. Glei, author of Unsubscribe: How to Kill Email Anxiety, Avoid Distractions, and Get Real Work Done. “The goal is to get the reader’s attention and have them understand the action that’s being requested immediately,” she writes. As soon as the email you’re drafting accomplishes that, hit send.

2. PLAYING ROULETTE WITH SLACK’S GIPHY INTEGRATION

One of the most perilous Slack faux pas seems to lie in the group chat platform’s GIF-embedding feature, courtesy of Giphy. The consequences can be pretty cringeworthy:

These days Slack mercifully lets you preview the GIFs that your keyword coughs up, and “shuffle” through as many as you like before deciding which one to send. But it wasn’t always so.

Kevin Chan, associate creative director at Barbarian, remembers when the integration “would randomly choose the GIF for you based on your keyword, [which] led to some awesomely awkward moments on the #general channel for those who didn’t know better. Lucky for them,” he adds, “that made it a little more blameless.”

When in doubt, skip the GIF and just send an emoji.

3. TRYING TO BE FUNNY

“At one of my jobs, whenever anyone new joined a team, their manager sent around a welcome/question email like, ‘Everyone say hi to Hannah, and everyone share your favorite movie scene from this year,'” says freelance consultant and writer Kate Anderson, “and all the current employees would respond, usually with GIFs.”

“As a fairly new employee myself, I mostly would opt out of the ‘game’ part of it and just say hello, but at one point I decided to go for it and sent around a funny Magic Mike GIF (think: shirtless-and-in-jeans group walk). A few hours later, my manager reamed me out (on Slack, at 10 p.m., on a Friday) for being totally inappropriate because I’d sent something depicting strippers,” Anderson says. “Nobody had complained, but he thought it was bad enough that he made me write a follow-up apology email and send it to the whole office.”

The takeaway here isn’t just (as above) to GIF at your own risk; it’s to steer clear of all but the most innocuous humor while you’re the newbie. Anderson felt her boss overreacted, considering that, in her view, “It wasn’t that different from things other people had sent (our CEO sent a woman in a bikini for a “celebrity crush” round!) and we hadn’t had any harassment or workplace training/guidelines in this vein, but I guess Channing Tatum’s imaginary job was just too much to handle.”

Still, Anderson learned her lesson: “Suffice to say that was the first and last ‘welcome thread’ I contributed to.”

4. FOLLOWING UP TOO FAST

Yes, you got hired because you’re a go-getter, and you want your coworkers to notice that you can get stuff done. But timing is just as crucial as length on email: Too slow to reply and people will start wondering what the hold-up is, yet too speedy and you’ll get on everyone’s nerves. As my colleague (and productivity whiz) Anisa Purbasari Horton pointed out in a Fast Company article recently, “There’s nothing wrong with following up, but there is something wrong with following up too soon.”

It can be tricky to figure out which tasks are urgent when you’re new, and you may feel anxious to tackle everything you possibly can as quickly as you possibly can. This can backfire, especially over email. Keep in mind that the email you’re sending is only a vehicle for the actual work you and your fellow team members are trying to accomplish.

“Leave a little bit of a window for the recipient to get back to you,” Purbasari Horton suggests, “and understand that they, too, have other priorities that are probably more important to them than your email.” In fact, there you have it: the first thing you’ve got in common with your new coworkers!

BY RICH BELLIS

https://www.fastcompany.com/40515903/four-slack-and-email-mistakes-to-avoid-in-your-first-month-on-the-job?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=3&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=01162018