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    Linked: These 7 productivity “rules” are harmful, anti-scientific myths

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    But notice what is missing from all of this advice? Any actual science. Or, for that matter, any interviews with the thousands of people who actually do the same thing, and aren’t nearly as successful. Sure, maybe Jeff Bezos gets up every day at 5 AM, goes for a run, then schedules some deep-think time, all before he even checks email. Do you really think it you or I did that, that would make us as successful as Jeff Bezos? I guarantee you, his sleep schedule and morning routine is similar to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people around the world, who do not have lives that we would want to emulate. But we don’t read those stories, because no one cares.

    On the other hand, in order for a lot of these productivity hacks to have ant scientific fact behind them, we would have to look at those people and see how maybe it’s not the morning routine that makes Bezos worth a gazillion dollars, it was something else entirely.

    But then, those articles are much harder to write and would involve a lot more work, and even admit that you can’t hack your way to a billion dollars in success. We wouldn’t want to do anything like that, would we?

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    Linked: Should employers provide mental health training for management?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The one that gives me pause is the last bullet, but not because leaders shouldn’t have that knowledge, but more because human nature tells me that is the one most likely to be misused and create really uncomfortable situations. There’s a very fine line between being aware of signs of someone struggling and diagnosis. I absolutely do not want anyone in the workplace diagnosing people. Watch out for signs of stress and ways you can support the folks who work for you proactively? Sure. Decide for yourself that they have depression, or should be referred to an Employee Assistance Program? Not so much.

    But, here’s the thing I will fully admit when saying this. Avoiding this type of behavior is absolutely something that solid mental health training should be a part of. I’ve heard far too many instances lately where organizations are reading a lot about mental health, and burnout, in the workplace and then dispatch their managers to have conversations with their teams about it, and zero training.

    Those conversations are dangerous. You have to enable your leaders to go into those conversations with some education and expertise on the subject Just telling them to go and have the conversations without getting them up to speed on how to do so, creates a situation that is likely to end up with some very alienated employees.

  • Quick Thought – Meeting Free Days Also Say Something About Your Workplace Culture

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Yes, I am on record as saying that the most important thing in a remote workplace is communication, in fact, I’m a fan of over-communicating. That doesn’t have to mean more meetings though. It can, honestly, just mean making use of all of the communication tools we have, especially when the discussion does not need to be had in real-time. 

    If you make Monday “meeting-free” but cram five days’ worth of meetings into the other four days of the week, you’re not helping the situation. You’re just rearranging deck chairs. The real change comes in figuring out how to make do with less meeting time, by taking advantage of alternatives when that makes sense, and by learning how to have more efficient meetings. (Start by not scheduling every meeting for 1 hour, for example. A 10-minute conversation can be a 10-minute meeting. There is no law that says all meetings must be divisible into 30-minute increments just because your Outlook calendar defaults to that.)

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    Linked: Intentional connection in the digital office

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 3 minutes

    The only thing preventing most offices from being fully remote is simply a lack of know-how, or an unwillingness to commit to that change and design the workplace around it. Once you do that, what you’ll find is that rather than hoping for some magic collaboration, you decide who to invite to the table, and ask for their input, on purpose. Intentionally.

  • Quick Thought – What Does It Say That You Need To Shutdown Your Business for People to get a Break?

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 4 minutes

    If the issue is that people are getting burned out because they are either not taking time off, are continuing to work during their time off to avoid being overwhelmed with work that piled up, or are actually being contacted by their team members during their time off, how about we figure out how to create a culture that allows people to disconnect during their time off, instead of literally just closing up shop for a week? 

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    Linked: The shortage of tech workers is about to become an even bigger problem for everyone

    ByMike McBride Reading Time: 1 minute

    The shift in tech skills is one of the contributing factors, but it’s not that technology has been changing, because that ALWAYS happens. It’s the insistence that employers can find people with a skill that didn’t even exist 2-3 years ago instead of actually developing the people they already have, or hiring people who can continue to adjust and learn these skills.

    How many jobs are going unfilled because you’re looking for someone with expertise in a technology that has only been around for the last 1-2 years? How do you expect there to be a bunch of experts on this technology? How do you expect recent graduates to be familiar with the technology that their college curriculum hasn’t even caught up to yet?

    It’s not possible. So you might want to start adjusting your hiring, recruitment, and staff development processes, because that’s how you shrink the talent gap, by creating the talent yourself.