-
ORDER OUR BOOK TODAY
Now available in paperback.
Increase your productivity at work by letting go of negative mental clutter
My alma mater is currently ranked number one in all of the college men’s basketball rankings. They’ve been in the top spot for 11 of the 14 weeks of the polls, and were number one in the preseason. There are five games left in the regular season, and all of the teams Kansas has left to play would love to see the Jayhawks lose.
Colorado, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and Missouri fans aren’t the only ones who want to see Kansas mess up their record in the last five games. Fans of the other ranked teams would be happy to see Kansas take a tumble, and, after watching some of the games this year, I’m pretty certain there are a few referees that would be glad to see Kansas lose, too.
In competitive sports like basketball, a game has to end with a winner and a loser. If you’re on top, it’s because you beat other teams to get there. You make enemies quickly when success after success stacks up beneath you. Other people don’t like to see you succeed when it was at their expense. In fact, other teams and fans watch you in hopes of experiencing schadenfreude.
In our work lives, however, very few things are like competitive sports. If someone does well, it’s usually not at the expense of someone else. Many people can do well at a time. Everyone on a project can be successful. Just because someone receives a promotion today doesn’t mean you won’t ever be promoted. Even though this is the fact, it is easy to lose sight of it. We quickly clutter up our minds with jealousy, envy, and hope for some schadenfreude in our immediate lives.
If you want to be productive and manage your time well at work, you need to let go of the belief that your workplace is a zero-sum game. If a colleague is praised for his or her work — even if you feel it is unwarranted — be genuinely happy for that person and then immediately return to your tasks. Getting caught up in office politics, sabotaging your colleagues, and focusing on anything other than your work is a waste of your time. Engaging in such negative behaviors causes people to believe you can’t be trusted, you’re a bad team member, and you’re only out for yourself. Even if you aren’t outwardly expressing your frustrations, obsessive negative thoughts can decrease your productivity. Believing that someone else’s win is your loss is clutter, it keeps you from being productive, and only damages you professionally in the long-run.
24 comments posted
Posted by Erin - 02/17/2010
Schadenfreude is such a perfect word for what can happen in bad work environments. I once worked in an inpatient pediatric psychiatric ward. I assumed it would be a depressing place to work and thus everyone would be miserable. Instead it was a highly collaborative and supportive environment with very little turn over. They really made it a fun and pleasurable place to work. Though I think it is excellent advice to not clutter our minds at work with jealousy and the like, often times offices have a culture and competitiveness is bred or discouraged. I’d urge people to leave toxic environments, but that isn’t very realistic in today’s job market.
Posted by Mike - 02/17/2010
A good reminder for anyone in the blogging or entrepreneur world too. Just because there are other people out there doing what you want to do doesn’t mean you should shy away from going after your passion.
Plenty of space for success in just about every field.
Posted by Sage Norbury - 02/17/2010
ROCK CHALK JAYHAWKS! KKKKKKUUUUUU!
Posted by squandra - 02/17/2010
Nice! I didn’t know you were a fellow Jayhawk!
Posted by megan - 02/17/2010
I don’t want to talk about basketball. As a season ticket holder to Nebraska…
Posted by HappyHazelnut - 02/17/2010
Working Kansas basketball into a uncluttering post. Genius!! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
Posted by JHAWK in DC - 02/17/2010
ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU!!!!!!!
My wife reads your blog…..she just emailed me telling me she just found out ur a Jayhawk….
I just had to post a comment! =)
Posted by Karyn - 02/17/2010
Erin (blogger), excellent post. Can’t say anything about the Jayhawks, good or bad, mostly indifferent, but I’m totally on your team with regard to creating a collaborative and cooperative, rather than competitive, environment in the workplace. Radical that I am, I’d go so far as to say that the collaborative win-win approach should be applied to the economy as a whole: Focus not on “competing with” and “shutting out” other businesses, but on finding YOUR market and the people who need YOUR goods and service, and on how YOU can meet their needs.
When we remember that the purpose of business is to meet human need, everyone goes home happy.
@ Erin (commenter) – “I’d urge people to leave toxic environments, but that isn’t very realistic in today’s job market.”
“Realistic” or not, sometimes it’s still the best thing to do. I left a highly toxic work environment, in which various people would get a “turn” at being the latest target for bombarding with constant criticism, negative reviews, and all around mind-”fork.”
When it happened to me, as soon as I became aware that this was a pattern, an intentionally crafted and targeted pattern, not just a “communication misunderstanding,” I gave my notice and got the heck out of there, not knowing where I would end up next.
I ended up taking a cashiering job at a local grocery store, originally thinking it would be a “stopgap” job. Seven and a half years later, I’m still there, as a customer service manager.
My “dream” job? Making good use of my degree? Maybe not, but I enjoy the work and any attempt at mind games is shot down pretty quickly, because the management we have right now has zero tolerance for that crap.
And of course I have a life outside of my job–and even on the job, I figure an education is never wasted.
Point being, regardless of the economy, it’s never worth it to let your physical and mental health be destroyed by the job that’s supposed to be supporting it!
Posted by Anita - 02/17/2010
Good reminder! I’m tempted to send this around to my coworkers next time anyone ‘jokingly’ says anything along the lines of “don’t work too hard, you’ll make the rest of us look bad”. I do my work, and it so happens that I do it well. How that makes YOU look is not my concern.
Posted by Ronique Gibson - 02/17/2010
I whole heartedly agree with the cluttering work place mentality that plagues many of us. I work in a male dominated field, and we’ll leave it at that. What happens is the mindset that if a co-worker does anything different, faster, more effieciently, or has a more organized solution to a problem – there has to be a hidden motive. Either you’re trying to pass them for a promotion, you are secretly trying to brown nose, or you just plain don’t want to be a ‘team player’. This makes the office toxic. Don’t we have work to do people, instead of playing these mind games? Great post.
Posted by Roland - 02/17/2010
@Erin, the opposite of “Schadenfreude” would probably be “mudita” — a Buddhist mindset where you rejoice in the success and happiness of others, even if (and especially if) it has no bearing on your own welfare.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudita]
I wonder what kind of world it would be if there were more of that around…
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/17/2010
@Roland — Great word! I can envision writing an entire post on mudita at some point in the future.
Posted by Beverly D - 02/17/2010
Erinj, since you brought up basketball, you reminded me of the greatest coach ever, Dean Smith, who brought UNC to I forget how many NCAA final games not to mention multiple championships. With the exception of Michael Jordan, who was in a class by himself, Smith created teams, not stars, all of whom had to work together on the court in order to win the game. Teams lose games because they compete with EACH OTHER for stats, for playing time, for glory. We take the same mindset into the work place, competing with one another instead of understanding that we all win when everyone does. Great post. Still a Carolina fan.
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/17/2010
@Beverly D — Dean Smith went to the same high school I did, and played basketball for Kansas. So, if you’re a fan of Dean Smith, you’re a fan of Kansas basketball
Posted by Mike - 02/17/2010
A positive mind-set is a powerful thing. And I don’t mean in a stupid-mystical-The_Secret-bullcrap sense, but in a real, measurable, scientifically-sound manner: A person whose mind is set on achieving results is consequently more alert, more focused, and more attentive toward minutiae that could confer an advantage.
Accordingly, unless a co-worker’s success actually directly impedes me from completing my work, I can’t see any justification for harboring a negative attitude about it. Such negativity only serves to distract focus, reduce attentiveness, etc, and harms my efforts toward the project that’s right in front of me.
Posted by Mletta - 02/17/2010
Unfortunately, some of us have worked in workplaces where, in fact, one person succeeds at the expense of others. That’s not the same as celebrating someone’s success. I’m all for that for the professionals who deserve it, but not those who do not.
Where one person gets the “goodies” and the raise and the promotion due to the work of a team of people who are never acknowledged, or rewarded. That is not healthy or positive for the team.
Those types of places are NOT healthy or positive work environments. So regardless of your own personal headset, and whether you keep your thoughts to yourself, it’s a negative situation.
The folks who keep spouting “positive” stuff in those environments? They simply enable the unprofessional behavior and make it easier for others to capitalize on the work and professionalism of others. Basically, in most workplaces, they don’t want people to speak up about stuff. They don’t even want solutions. They just want to pretend: It’s perfect. No problems. That’s just stupid, but when it affects the actual product or service being delivered, it’s way beyond being unprofessional. Sometimes it’s downright illegal. Should we all just be positive and OK with that?
A workplace is only as good as its leadership. And if that stinks, it doesn’t matter if the staff complains or keeps their mouth shut.
Being positive and optimistic does NOT change that kind of environment. And guess what, even those positive folks get crushed and kicked to the ground!
I get tired of posts about being positive at work, especially when so much of work is run by people who are horrific and really disrespectful of staff and co-workers.
Let’s talk about being professional and focusing on the job. But that doesn’t work in companies where it’s all about results (don’t care how you get them or who you mess with…that’s the attitude of most companies) and where in fact management may even support the bullies, the idea thieves and the tyrants because they manage the TEAMS and others who actually do the work.
In the real world, being a professional, focusing on the job, in the wrong work environment, sometimes makes you the most vulnerable and puts you at risk. Cause for a lot of people, it’s never about the work. It’s only about them and getting theirs. Today’s work environment is even worse for this because people are desperate to hang on to jobs that they are now doing all kinds of stuff (including sabotaging projects, co-workers and bosses).
I worked with a guy with a positive mindset, who was also professional and who never wanted to deal with/accept that politics were in play and that people were getting messed with right and left. It took him years to realize that DUH…if everybody else is treated badly, eventually YOU will be the next in line to get S D. And yea, he was. A guy who never said a negative thing and to the dismay of HIS team, never dealt with or acknowledged how destructive the workplace was–or did a thing to help improve it.
So a positive mindset without constructive criticism and workable solutions for issues is worth NADA.
Just one person’s opinion. Based on the experience of watching “positive” people be the ones (in management) who denied any issues, pretended all was fine when it wasn’t and who messed with people. And the positive underlings? The puppets of those same bosses.
Being positive for the sake of being positive changes nothing. Same with whining. Whining to whine changes nothing.
Posted by Stormbringer - 02/17/2010
Mletta is right, I work in a similar environment. They want us to “build winning teams”, but it is very difficult to do when you feel that you have to watch your back. Plus, there are managers who know nothing about the work itself. Lots of managers, but very few LEADERS.
So, many of us have to keep a low profile, watch out what we say and to whom we say it, do the best we can and get out. I do not get fulfillment at work (psychologists will tell you that men usually do get that fulfillment from the workplace), I get mine from writing or other activities away from The Company.
It would be nice if things were like a sports competition, all on the same team, celebrating each others’ successes. Less mental clutter that way.
Posted by Karyn - 02/17/2010
@Mletta and Stormbringer – As I understood it, Erin was advocating creating a positive workplace, not glossing over a negative one. What you’re describing is exactly what would be a “don’t do it like this”–and if you don’t have the power to change it, it might be time to consider looking for a healthier workplace. They do exist!
Yeah, we have to be realistic about dysfunction in the workplace, but we don’t have to contribute to the dysfunction. I’ve found that in a reasonably healthy environment, standing up against dysfunctional behavior does make a difference in shaping the environment. And frankly, I’m at a point where I’d rather panhandle, if it came to it, than put up with abusive, dysfunctional crap. Fortunately, it has not come to that.
And I hope it isn’t that stark a choice for either of you, either.
Posted by Jeannine Billings - 02/17/2010
I knew there was a reason I loved your blog! I am surprised and happy to find out that you are a fellow KU alum and Jayhawk fan! Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!!!!
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/18/2010
@Mletta and @Stormbringer — Being toxic toward a toxic person won’t change her into a good person — all it will do is turn you into a toxic person, too.
Posted by Stormbringer - 02/18/2010
To clarify, I was not advocating being toxic towards anyone. In some companies, it is a toxic environment and you have to keep your head down, be pleasant and let others play their games.
Posted by Erin Doland - 02/18/2010
@Stormbringer — Your plan sounds like a good one for keeping sane
Posted by Anelly - 02/19/2010
It’s very important in a company to know your role and to avoid being a bad coworker. The company’s future depends very much on employees attitude and implication. A person cannot be perfect but a team can be.
Posted by Mili - 02/27/2010
Thanks for a good post and a timely reminder, Erin. Lately, I’ve had to bat negative thoughts away continually, like swatting flies. My job transferred me to a distant location, with gas expenses quadrupling and no reimbursement. It would have been all too easy to harbor hostility toward the managers who made the decision (all members of a wealthy family). I’ve found that taking the resentful thoughts and locking them in their own “room” away from other things is the best strategy. Even when I hear other people grumbling, it’s much easier now NOT to get sucked into that line of discussion. Just get the work done, do your best, and be on the lookout for better opportunities.
Comments are closed for this entry.