BusinessDay 21 Aug 2018

18 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556 Tuesday 21 August 2018
Harvard
Business
Review
Tips
&
Talking Points
TALKING POINTS
Shopping Spree
$20 billion: In the past year, China’s
retail giant Alibaba and internet giant
Tencent have invested more than a
combined $20 billion to change the
country’s consumer shopping habits.
+
A Digital Transformation
Two-thirds: Nearly a decade ago,
Xerox had begun heavily investing
in new products and services for
the digital age. By the end of 2011,
two-thirds of the company’s revenues
came from recent innovations.
+
Personal Development
$11 billion: The thriving U.S. self-help
industry is valued at an estimated
$11 billion.
+
Women’s Worth
$1.6 trillion: A study conducted by
S&P Global reported that the American
economy would be $1.6 trillion
larger than it is today if female participation
in the workforce had grown
at the same pace as other advanced
countries like Norway.
+
Looking Inward
10%: Although 95% of people consider
themselves self-aware, only 10%
to 15% actually are, according to
research from author Tasha Eurich.
Does your team’s work style inconvenience remote employees?
Life on a global team isn’t necessarily equitable.
Employees far from headquarters
often have less access to the team leader,
and have to deal with regular inconveniences
such as late night calls because they’re in a different
time zone. As a manager, it’s your job to
ensure that remote employees aren’t carrying
an extra burden. Consider rotating the time of
weekly team calls so that everyone takes a turn at
having the meeting during regular business hours
(or at the very least, find the least inconvenient
time for your remote employees to participate.)
Even small courtesies can help distant team members
feel noticed, such as translating meeting times into all
the time zones that your people work in. And schedule
periodic off-sites for the whole team to get together and
connect. If your budget allows, you can even hold these
meetings in different locations around the globe.
(Adapted from “How to Keep a Global Team Engaged,”
by Andy Molinksy.)
Solve Complex
Problems by
Expanding Your
Thinking
Too many leaders approach
complex problems with eitheror
thinking: The answer is right
or wrong, good or bad, win or lose.
To cultivate a nuanced perspective,
challenge your understanding of the
problem. Ask yourself, “What am I not
seeing here?” and “What else might
be true?” Don’t seek out answers that
just confirm what you already know.
It’s also helpful to tackle this kind of
challenge first thing in the morning,
when your mind is fresh. Spend at
least an hour on it without interruption.
The dedicated time ensures that
you give a complex issue the attention
it needs — attention that might
otherwise be consumed by less intellectually
demanding tasks. And as
you work, pay attention to how you’re
feeling. Embracing complexity is an
emotional challenge in addition to a
cognitive one. You’ll need to manage
tough emotions like fear and anger
and get yourself out of flight-or-fight
mode so that you can think more
expansively.
(Adapted from “What It Takes to
Think Deeply About Complex Problems,”
by Tony Schwartz.)
Set boundaries when collaborating with a perfectionist Read the room before your next meeting Instead of complaining about a colleague, talk to them
It can be exhausting
to work with
perfectionists.
Their unrelenting
standards can lead
to unnecessary
stress, conflict and
missed deadlines.
So how do you collaborate
productively
with them? To start,
don’t internalize their expectations.
Perfectionists
tend to equate time with
quality, so when you think
a project is good enough to
be considered done, you’ll
need to be thoughtful and
diplomatic in explaining
why. Talk about the
benefits of spending time
on other tasks instead of
getting every detail right
on this one. You should
also set boundaries so that
your colleague’s nitpicking
doesn’t interfere with your
progress. For example, if
the person sends you a lot
of emails, each with a different
question or suggestion,
you might decide to
respond once per day, but
that’s it. And finally, focus
on building your working
relationship. Having
a strong relationship will
assuage your colleague’s
anxiety, which is often the
root cause of perfectionism.
(Adapted from “How to Collaborate
With a Perfectionist,”
by Alice Boyes.)
c
In every conversation
at work,
there’s the explicit
discussion (the
words being spoken
out loud) and the
tacit one — the
things being communicated
subtly.
It’s important to know
how to read a room so
that you can understand
what’s not being said.
The best way to do this
is to pay attention to the
people in it. Note who’s
next to whom, who’s relaxed,
who’s not, who’s
standing and who’s sitting.
Look at their facial
expressions, posture and
body language. Does the
mood in the room feel
tense or relaxed? Then
think about possible reasons
for your colleagues’
emotional states. What’s
happening in their lives and
jobs? This can be tricky if
you don’t know the people
in the room, but you can still
come up with hypotheses.
Then check those hypotheses
by talking to colleagues in
private. You might say something
like, “In the meeting I
saw you furrow your brow
when discussion turned to
the big project. How do you
feel about it?”
(Adapted from “Tips for
Reading the Room Before a
Meeting or Presentation,” by
Rebecca Knight.)
Let’s be honest:
Sometimes
complaining
about a
co-worker feels
good. But although
it helps you release
pent-up emotions,
venting is a sideways
move. In
other words, we
usually complain
to a friend or col-
league — and we rarely confront the
person we’re complaining about. So
the next time you want to complain,
try taking it to the source of the
problem. For example, let’s say a
co-worker yells in a meeting. Your
first instinct might be to complain to
another colleague about their brash
behavior. Instead, take some time
to calm down. Think about exactly
what bothered you and what you
want to complain about (it’s not
OK to yell and disrespect others in
2017 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate
a meeting). Decide what you can
do to shift the person’s behavior
or improve the situation (perhaps
saying, “Please don’t shout in meetings
— let’s respect each other in our
conversations”). And then follow
through by speaking to the person
directly.
(Adapted from “The Next Time You
Want to Complain at Work, Do This
Instead,” by Peter Bregman.)
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