Testimonials

How To Avoid Workplace Gossip

Posted by: Dawn Klingensmith
Date: February 20, 2015

Has your water cooler talk taken a turn toward the nasty? Uncharacteristic gossip at work could be a sign of burnout.

Gossip is one of the “five telltale signs” of job burnout along with frequent complaints, chronic tardiness, exhaustion and lowered standards, according to Landmark, a personal and professional development firm based in San Francisco.

People experiencing job burnout often resort to acts of sabotage, using gossip as a destructive force, says Aimee Cohen, author of “Woman Up! Overcome the 7 Deadly Sins that Sabotage Your Success” (Morgan James Publishing, 2014).

Sometimes, gossip is merely a “diversion from what they’re supposed to be doing,” Cohen says. But at other times it serves as a cover-up. Feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated, burnout sufferers may become unreliable. They blow deadlines, come unprepared to meetings and fail to meet their usual high standards. As these sorts of self-sabotaging behaviors ramp up, they may speak poorly of others to make themselves look better, Cohen explains.

Those who experience what Cohen calls “burnout with bitterness” are looking to sabotage others. “When that happens, typically you’re looking to take someone down with you,” usually because your target has imposed unrealistic expectations on you or subjected you to harsh working conditions, she says. Gossip then becomes a way to discredit the perceived tormentor.

When gossip stems from a legitimate complaint, Landmark trainer David Cunningham calls it “gripe gossip.” It builds a narrative around the complaint in which the teller is “the put-upon good guy and someone else is the bad guy,” he explains.

But gripe gossip seldom if ever improves things for the good guy. Others may agree with the gossiper that things are bad and shouldn’t be that way, but a misdirected complaint never gets resolved.

“Turn the complaint into a request and take it to the right person,” says Landmark trainer Josselynne Herman-Saccio. “Ongoing complaining and whining saps what little energy you have left, but requests produce results.”

Ask yourself first what the complaint is underneath the gossip. Has the boss assigned more work than you can handle? Are coworkers not doing their share and expecting you to pick up the slack?

“If you’ve got more on your plate than you can handle, instead of complaining to coworkers, ask your boss to sit down and prioritize what you’ll do now, what you’ll put off and what can be done by someone else,” Cunningham advises. Often, this process eliminates things from the to-do list altogether, he adds.

Don’t be surprised if the source of your troubles turns out to be you. “Your problems could be self-imposed. I call it the competency curse ¬– always wanting to say yes, to lend a helping hand. Men as well as women, we tend to overextend ourselves,” Cohen says.

You may need to follow a series of red flags back to your underlying complaint, and even to the realization that what you’re experiencing is burnout. “No one likes to admit they’re burned out because we all want to be the superhero with endless capacity and drive,” Cohen says.

Gossip or any other behaviors that are out of character are red flags, including a short temper, trouble remembering names, misplacing things and sleeping through the alarm. “Everyone has a finite bandwidth, and these are all signs that we’ve exceeded it,” Cohen says.

When the red flags point to self-imposed burnout, recovery starts with clarifying your career goals. Once those goals are clear, it is easier to turn down work that does not bring you closer to achieving them, Cohen says.

To regain control and credibility, list all your unfinished work and missed deadlines, and schedule time for each to-do item. “Get it down on paper. It’s too overwhelming if it’s just in your head,” Herman-Saccio says.

Experiencing burnout does not necessarily mean it’s time to change jobs, but if expressing your concerns to the right person doesn’t improve your situation, it may be best to explore other options.

A4_Coaching

The moment you step into a room, people are immediately forming some sort of impression of you. They’re making snap judgments about what type of person you are — trustworthy, sincere, capable. And a lot of this is based on how you carry yourself.

If you appear genuinely confident, people will be more inclined to give you the attention and respect that you deserve. If you appear uncomfortable and insecure, on the other hand, people may be quick to dismiss or discredit you. Because body language is an integral part of communication, and the way you carry yourself may be communicating more than you know to the outside world.

Did you know that non-verbal cues represent 55% of our communication? Vocal inflection is just 38%, while our words constitute only 7% of our communication. No wonder why we say that actions speak louder than words.  Because the most subtle physical cues — from how you have your hands placed to how you set your shoulders — set a tone.

So how do you set a positive tone that reinforces your intelligence and capability? By carrying yourself with confidence. Unfortunately, many struggle with self-doubt. Many also believe that if you aren’t born with confidence then you are out of luck. But that’s far from the truth. Self-confidence is a skill. It is something that you can learn how to exude, even by making simple changes to your physical movements.

To learn more about being self-assured and having confidence, arrange a free introduction call today.

The Evening Event will now take place on Wednesday 15th July at the ODI Leeds, Munro House, Duke St, Leeds, West Yorkshire LS9 8AG. Doors open at 6.00pm, coffee and tea available, starts at 6.30pm, finishing approximately 9:30pm . As I mentioned, it is an opportunity for you to find out what coaching is, what its benefits are for you. Some of the reasons people take coaching are:

• Being a leader and making a difference
• Finding a new job or career
• Being a powerful leader
• Achieving greater career success/satisfaction
• Exploring what really matters in life – restructuring priorities
• Dealing with stress and anxiety
• Finding work-life balance
• Increasing self esteem, confidence and motivation
• Releasing true potential – discovering skills, talents and dreams
• Dealing with difficult or challenging people
• Finding a new relationship or resolving problems in an existing one

Please bring along any family, friends, work colleagues or anyone you know who coaching may benefit or who may have an interest in personal development.

Numbers are restricted, so please register your interest at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/introduction-to-coaching-evening-tickets-17245284109

The evening will last approximately three hours, during which, you will learn how coaching works, the principles it’s based on, what it costs, and the benefits it offers. You will also have an opportunity to ask questions and hear from people who have experienced coaching and see for yourselves how it has improved lives.

Stress and burnout coaching can help you cope

No one ever said that this journey through life has to be done alone. Many times people are too proud to admit when a challenge is more than they can handle. For loved ones to witness this struggle, they will want to do whatever they can to help the person cope and get through the challenges they face. Stress and burnout coaching has evolved and was developed specifically to assist those individuals, many of whom are executives in high-pressure positions, deal with the everyday and the not-so-everyday battles within their lives.

Many people take their stresses home

Stress in the workplace is a challenge to physical and mental health. But it also often affects other aspects of a person’s life, such as their family. When most people go home from their nine-to-five jobs, whether they are working in the construction field or are assistants in an office somewhere, more often than not their work stays behind; they don’t bring their work home with them. However, for executives and those professionals whose careers are on the line every day, they tend to bring the pressure of work home with them.

This can lead to a number of problems within their family life as well. Using stress and burnout coaching to help cope with the struggles and the strife of modern life is one of the most efficient ways to manage all of the stress that career and family can throw at us.

Executive coaching is hot. What was stigma (“You’re so broken you need a coach?”) has become status symbol (“You’re so valuable you get a coach?”). Tiger Woods and Michael Phelps have coaches. Even President Barack Obama has a coach, if you count David Axelrod. Microsoft ‘s young high-potential leaders get coaches. If elite athletes and organisations think they need coaches, shouldn’t you have one too? Shouldn’t we all?
No. Executive coaching–personal training in leadership from someone who provides it for a living–should be used like a powerful prescription drug that works best under certain conditions. When employed as a cure-all, it is less effective, too expensive and has negative side effects.

Executive coaching is not aspirin. It’s interferon. So when should it be prescribed for an executive? When should it be avoided?

Based on the latest research and 25 years I’ve spent coaching senior executives and high-potential young leaders, here are five diagnostic questions you should ask before making the decision to hire a coach.

1. How valuable is this person’s performance and potential to your organization?

When done right, executive coaching is expensive and time-consuming. It should be reserved for people who are critical to your organization’s success, or will be in the future. In general, this includes everyone at C-level, heads of major business units or functions, technical or functional wizards, and your bench of high-potential young leaders.

Just how expensive and time-consuming is executive coaching? Although there is tremendous variation in fees and arrangements among coaches, be prepared to pay a C-level coach what you pay your top attorney. If this seems excessive, consider that a coach must have the experience and expertise to quickly grasp a leader’s situation, challenge assumptions and choices, and bring credible, fresh ideas to the table. Doing this with your best and brightest is not easy. And given the influence a coach can have on an executive’s decisions and actions over the course of a typical six-to-12-month engagement involving bimonthly meetings, regular phone calls and e-mail check-ins, a bargain coach whose sophistication does not match the client’s is a big mistake.

2. What is the challenge the person is facing right now?

People, relationships, organizations and behavioral change are what executive coaches know best. When an executive is struggling to learn how to best manage herself and engage others, you’ve found the sweet spot for executive coaching.

He might be a chief executive officer trying to figure out how to work with his board chair. Or a regional vice president scaling up to global responsibility, learning how to lead her former peers. Or a technical wizard who destroys teams with his resistance to all ideas but his own.

But be warned: An executive coach is not a consultant. He may have technical or functional expertise. But he should not be used as an answer person, an extra pair of hands or a bolster for a weak leader. He helps executives think through and tackle their own problems. Self-reliance, not dependency, is the goal.

3. How willing and able will the executive be to work with a coach?

The client has got to want to change. A bright, motivated coaching client can step up to most challenges. A bright, unmotivated one will waste everyone’s time and money. Working with an executive who has been pressured into coaching by his boss or human resources department is an uphill battle, though it’s not impossible.

Coachability is important. Look for a track record of unusual growth under the guidance of teachers and mentors. Coachable executives readily share their experience. They are realistic about their strengths and weaknesses. They learn from others but do it their own way, taking responsibility for whatever happens. They know how to leverage a coach.

4. What alternatives to coaching are available?

There are many ways to help executives grow as leaders. High-level training, mentoring, reading, job rotation and special assignments are just a few. The most overlooked alternative is attention from the individual’s own manager. As coaching has become more fashionable, I’ve seen too many managers abdicate their own coaching responsibilities, turning a struggling executive over to a professional. Sometimes the problem is beyond what the manager can handle. But often managers hand off executives because they’d rather not deal with messy people stuff.

The manager is already being paid to coach. Don’t incur an executive coaching expense if the problem is within that manager’s capabilities.

5. Are key people in the organization ready to support this person’s efforts to grow and change?

Changing the way you think and act is tough even when you have support from others. But when key leaders above or beside you are indifferent, skeptical or hostile to changes you’re trying to make, things get exponentially more difficult. Coaching works best when key people in the executive’s world stand solidly behind her. They need to provide tailwinds, not headwinds. Coaching relationships in a vacuum of support fall apart before any goals are achieved.

When conditions are right, executive coaching can be one of the best people investments you’ll ever make. But it is not a panacea for every executive development problem. Answer these five questions, and you’ll make better decisions about who is likely to benefit from coaching. And who isn’t.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), an interesting article about how CBT can help wit depression and stress.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20625639

Self-Improvement is a common-place term you likely hear on a daily basis. Walk into any bookstore and you will most likely find a substantial section entitled “Self-Help” that provides you with information on topics ranging from how to improve your relationship, manage your mood, communicate more effectively, lose weight, feel happier, reach your goals, eat healthier, improve your self-esteem, find love, and change bad habits (to name a few!). We are also bombarded with media that provide endless tips about how to fix every possible problem of being human – physical, emotional, mental, and social.

Our culture is full of messages that tell us we can be better and do better as human beings.  An underlying assumption in this is that we are inherently flawed or under-developed as beings and that we need to strive for constant self-improvement, self-growth, or evolvement. It involves an assumption that we are not good enough or adequate as we are, and that we should constantly be “working on ourselves” to be better people.  No pressure, right?

And what does “better” even mean? What exactly is that perfect ideal that we should all be working towards? Should there be an ideal? Or is it different for every individual? How exactly do we measure self-improvement?

As a life coach, these questions are particularly interesting to me. Often within the coaching, the primary focus is change. Changing how one feels, how one thinks, or how one behaves. It could also include resolving a problem that causes discomfort or distress. However, some other important goals of coaching could also include self-growth and development, increasing self-awareness, or improving self-understanding. This could involve simply (or not-so-simply) clarifying one’s feelings, thoughts, or behavior without the goal of modifying, altering, or making these “better” in some way. Gaining self-awareness and clarity are themselves processes of change.

This is an interesting concept – being aware of oneself without trying to change or be different from who you already are. Developing an awareness of your current experience as it is, your thoughts and feelings as they currently are, and observing your own choices and behavior.  Self-awareness can be the goal itself (versus self-improvement). Above, I spoke of the inherent assumptions embedded in the notion of “self-improvement”.  Primarily that we are not good enough as we are, and that we should strive to be better in some way.  Alternatively, self-awareness does not share these assumptions. In fact, there is no judgment about what is good or bad, what needs fixing or what doesn’t, what is flawed and what isn’t. It is about recognition and acknowledgement of oneself.

Now, I want to clarify – I am not saying that self-improvement is a bad concept. Practicing habits that improve your mental and physical health are important. Taking action to promote your sense of well-being is also important. It is logical to make choices such as eating nutritious food, getting sleep and rest, being physically active, or socially connecting with others. It is also logical that if you have a medical condition that requires ongoing management through healthy lifestyle, that you would take the steps required. All of these things promote health and well-being. I am not suggesting that, for example, simply being aware that you have diabetes but not taking steps to manage this through diet and exercise is the best option.  Rather, when it comes to the psychological aspects of ourselves, I am suggesting to take a moment and reflect on what you feel needs improving and why. What is the need behind the desire to improve yourself in some aspect or another.  Does it come from feelings of inadequacy, self-criticism, perfectionism, shame, or guilt? Or from a desire to be strong, healthy, and well-balanced? And what impact does this have on your self-concept (ie. how you view yourself as a person)?  How you perceive yourself, understand yourself, and relate to yourself is key to your psychological functioning. Your relationship with yourself is the most important and long-lasting relationship in your life.

Becoming aware of one’s own inner world (thoughts and emotions), and recognising one’s own behavior without trying to change anything, encompasses a degree of acceptance. It is not always easy to accept things which we perceive to be undesirable or uncomfortable, including aspects of ourselves that we may not like so much. But think for a moment about how life might be different if you were to befriend yourself exactly where you’re at right now, as an alternative to striving for improvement? If you were to accept all aspects of yourself, including what you judge to be negative or unwanted. If you were to experience self-appreciation before trying to change into a new, improved version of your being. How would this change your relationship with yourself? And how would that change the way you experience life?

My hope is that this article does not leave you with the impression that self-improvement is a negative notion. My intention is to encourage reflective thought about self-improvement as a current movement in our society, and where its place is in our lives. I encourage you to set personal goals from a place of self-acceptance, appreciation, and respect. Before joining in this culture of self-improvement, reflect on your motivations for doing so.