Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How Temperature Affects Workplace Productivity

One time last winter, the heat in my office wasn’t working.  I put on my hat, coat, and gloves, but I was still shivering.  I didn’t get much work done that day, and now I know why.

Men’s Health was kind enough to send me an article regarding a new research study on the relationship between office temperature and productivity. The research, from Northumbria University, analyzed 16 workplaces and the results of 400 employee questionnaires and found that cold office temperatures cause employee productivity to plummet – especially in the afternoon.

This finding is in agreement with another study released in 2004 by Cornell University, which discovered that office temperatures of 68 degrees or lower increased on-the-job error by a whopping 44 percent. Sixty-eight is that cold, huh?

Your Body’s Natural Response

I’ve talked about the post-lunch dip before.  Well, according to the Cornell folks, the dip rears its ugly head again with respect to temperature.  Unlike the early morning and early evening hours when body temperature and hormone levels are elevated, you experience a drop in both between 1PM and 4PM in the afternoon.  This is due to your body’s natural circadian rhythms.  And just as your body temperature drops at night when you’re asleep, the afternoon dip causes drowsiness that gets worse when your office is cold. I don’t know about that last part.  Maybe my office was too cold that day when the heat was out, but I was anything but drowsy.  If anything, I wanted to spring out of my chair and run a 5K so I could warm up.

For more, read the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Managing a High-Performing, High-Drama Employee

We received the following question over at the Fast Track blog:

One of my employees is great at her job. She has about 20 years of experience on me and is truly the rock star of our team.  However, with certain deadlines, she tends to put too much pressure on herself and gets frustrated. The level of emotion, I feel, makes it even harder for her to resolve what are already difficult problems.  And she tends to involve others in her stress, which sometimes brings the whole team down. 

In the end, she always meets the deadline and solves the problem.  And she usually comes to realize how futile all the “sturm und drang” was.  Yet, inevitably the cycle repeats itself every time a new problem comes along. However, I struggle to find ways to encourage her in the moment that is helpful but not patronizing. Any tips?

Here's my answer:

It sounds like your employee has a problem with anxiety and/or worry, which can wreck havoc on her motivation and your team’s as well. You can tell her to live in the moment, but for someone who is accustomed to allowing unproductive thoughts to take over, your words may go in one ear and out the other.

I used to be very similar to the person you’re describing. For example, one summer, I worried obsessively about landing an agent to represent my new novel. Every day as I drove home during my lunch break to check the mailbox for agent responses, my blood pressure zoomed into the stratosphere.

Several weeks later, I finally recognized that my worry was out of control, and I talked about it with my husband, who is also a psychologist. He said that I should consider the worst-case scenario and resign myself to accepting that outcome if necessary.

I took his advice and imagined that I couldn’t find an agent, and that my novel would never be published. I then brainstormed ways to improve the situation. This was a hard pill to swallow at first, but I actually felt better once my mind was purged of all the what-ifs? Free from worry, I was able to concentrate rationally on new strategies for obtaining an agent.

Just because you refuse to worry about a problem doesn’t mean you are denying its existence. However, if your employee could skip the part where she plays out a thousand variations of the same drama in her head, she and everyone around her would be a lot happier.

The next time a problem scenario comes up, work with the employee to consider the best way to approach the issue rationally. Help her make a careful decision based on facts, take action, and then move on right away without all that “sturm und drang.” It may take time for her emotions to truly catch up to the strategy, but in a year, she’ll be thanking you.

For advice from the other three experts, check out the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.

What is Your Definition of a Leader?

Wikipedia defines a leader as a person who can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. The leader may or may not have any formal authority. S/he is somebody whom people follow, who guides or directs others.

Your definition may well be different.

What does leadership mean to you?

In putting together an exciting research study on the future of Millennial leadership with Deloitte and Universum, I have come up against the challenge of defining a true leader several times.  Does our target leader have to manage others?  Does s/he have to have a certain level of education?  Are traits more important, or are skills?

For our purposes, we settled on defining a leader as someone who had been out of college at least three years, who currently works for an established organization, and who supervises direct reports.  However, this got me thinking.  There is so much talk about leadership today, and yet what leadership means to one person could mean nothing to another.

Lost in the weeds.

This is particularly dangerous when your organization wants to teach leadership as a value to upwardly mobile young professionals.  Without a concrete and mutually-agreed upon definition, how will talent know what to work towards, and how will your people be objectively evaluated on their readiness and performance?  It’s all fine and good to direct people to informative reading, but if those recommendations don’t match up to what’s sought-after in your organization, your people will be operating at cross purposes.

For more on what leadership means to different people, read on at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Gamify Your E-mail for Better Organization

Imagine a world in which cleaning your e-mail inbox felt like the first day you got your hands on that new Super Mario Brothers game for your Nintendo.

Okay, maybe Baydin’s E-mail Game isn’t that exciting, but it does provide some entertainment relief for professionals who spend their days slogging through hundreds of never-ending messages.  And at The Fast Track, we’re all about finding ways to keep e-mail (or anything else!) from killing your productivity.

A Simple Tutorial

Here’s how it works.  By hooking up your Gmail account to the E-mail Game, you get access to an alternate interface that launches a competition each time you open a new message.

For each e-mail message, you have to decide immediately what to do.   You can respond right away by replying or forwarding it, you can delete or archive it, you can boomerang it to return at a later time of your choosing, or you can skip it completely.  You just have to do something with the message by the time the clock runs out or you will lose points, and you get the most points for replying to a message within the allotted three minutes.

The idea is to accumulate points over time by keeping your inbox as close to empty as possible.  The E-mail Game tracks your progress and efficiency, and has nifty features like the ability to respond with canned text, and reply now but send the message later.  It has a “More Time” icon in case you have to respond to an e-mail like this.   And finally, you can add a signature line that says “excuse my brevity, but I’m trying to win the E-mail Game,” which may be clever or borderline inappropriate depending on your audience.

For more on what I thought about the E-mail Game, check out the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Building a Team Using Myers-Briggs

You’ve probably heard of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator even if you haven’t taken it yourself already.  According to the test’s website, the MBTI is one of the most widely-used psychological instruments for describing and measuring personality characteristics, and is used in more than 80 of the Fortune 100 companies.  Its goal is to encourage optimal communication and teamwork among different personalities, and the four main dimensions of characteristics within the MBTI are:

• Introversion OR Extroversion
• Sensing OR Intuition
• Thinking OR Feeling
• Judging OR Perceiving

A total of 16 personality types are possible.  The MBTI is not meant to label the entirety of one’s personality, but to identify the unique ways in which an individual interprets information, communicates, and views the world and others. The purpose of the MBTI is not to pigeonhole people, but simply to identify which extreme we tend to lean toward.

Administering the MBTI to employees gives you, the manager, the opportunity to better understand your employees’ strengths, as well as identify their communication and working styles.  It is also helpful in assisting both you and your employees in determining the “why” behind their behavior.

Benefits of the Myers-Briggs for Teams

One of my past employers had everyone post their Myers-Briggs type above their desks.  The idea was that if you understood where your teammates were coming from, you would be more tolerant of their differences and could resolve conflicts more easily.  It is known, for example, that introverted types who rely on data and facts to make decisions tend to butt heads with the extroverts, who view problems in the abstract and would rather seek the opinions of others.  If you know upfront that someone has a different style than you, you can adjust your expectations and be better prepared to compromise.

Understanding Myers-Briggs personality profiles also goes a long way in enhancing team communication skills.  The social extrovert and the more low key introvert must learn to meet in the middle in order to ensure that they can clearly express their own ideas.  By regularly interacting and working with other types, employees are also able to hone their persuasion abilities.

For more where this came from, have a look at the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Do Your Colleagues Think You're Obnoxious?

I recently received this question from a reader:

I really like my new company and my new boss, and at his urging I have been signing up for lots of extracurricular activities like volunteer events and the office sports teams.  But yesterday my sister called me a “joiner” and now I am worried that my new coworkers think I’m just trying to kiss up.  Is this the impression I’m giving, and if so, what can I do about it?

I personally love office extracurriculars.  They expose you to people in your organization you might not be in a position to meet otherwise (like executives), and they also provide a built-in outlet to do something other than work.  Sometimes it’s hard to get a life when you’re focusing all of your energy on launching a career in a new place.  Extracurriculars bridge the gap.

Is This Even Brown-Nosing?

I don’t necessarily think signing up for these makes you look like a brown-noser, even if your boss did suggest it.  What may make you look like a brown-noser is to always be the one who raises your hand for extra assignments or new responsibilities that will increase your contribution and/or enhance your skill set.  In this case, you shouldn’t care too much, because your boss will love you and having better career prospects overall is more important than trying to please everyone.

Cover Yourself with Enthusiasm

To mitigate the effect of potential brown-nosing, show genuine interest in what you’re signing up for.  Demonstrate to your colleagues that you are doing it because you’re intrigued, not just because the boss told you to.  Also, try for subtly.  Truly obnoxious brown-nosing usually involves non stop compliments in the boss’ direction, and/or trying to ingratiate yourself at every opportunity.  Perhaps needless to say, but don’t be so blatant.

For more, have a look at the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

How to Coach an Annoying Employee

Over at the Fast Track blog, we received this reader question:

How can I talk to my employee about her tendency to annoy people? She likes to work collaboratively to develop ideas, but it has begun to be burdensome for her colleagues. She seems to be high maintenance, mulling over minor little details and dragging things out unnecessarily. Is there a tactful way to tell her she needs to build a better rapport with her colleagues? They’ll all need to continue to work together.

Here's my answer:

I would use this situation as an opportunity to have (or initiate if you don’t have them already) a monthly sit-down with every member of your team. You can deliver constructive performance feedback and also broach interpersonal issues. If the employee in question understands that you are speaking to everyone as part of the team’s professional development, she will feel less threatened at the get-go. Hopefully, this will make it easier to be honest with her.

The caveat, however, is that you will still need to be tactful.  Do not use the words “annoying” or “high-maintenance” – this will come across mean and accusatory and she’ll be right to be turned off.  Focus less on her personality and more on things that can actually be improved, such as her communication techniques.  Suggest ways she might be more effective in gaining cooperation from and building rapport with her colleagues (understanding people style, proposing a win/win, etc.), and include some strategies that have worked for you in the past.

You might also wish to pre-empt future altercations by thinking through a process for completing projects that the entire team can adhere to, complete with milestones and deadlines. In explaining this process to her, emphasize the importance of sticking to the schedule and getting work product out the door. If she knows she will be evaluated on how efficiently a project is completed, perhaps she’ll think twice about dragging it out.

For answers from three other terrific experts, check out the full post at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

In-Office Workers Are Less Productive Than Telecommuters

Ever since Marissa Mayer made her announcement that there would be no more telecommuting at Yahoo!, some people have said that Yahoo! will be loads more productive because employees will no longer be able to skirt their responsibilities and waste time at home.

Now let’s have a look at what actually happens during a typical day at the office.  You arrive in the morning, spend a half hour getting your coffee and chit chatting with colleagues, an hour checking your e-mail and social media accounts, and an hour in an unnecessary meeting.  Then, bam, it’s lunchtime!  An hour of errands is followed by another hour of busywork and another hour of actual work.  Then more chit chatting, more coffee, and more online checking.  And at 5 or 6PM, you’re following everyone else into the elevator.

The Office’s Dirty Little Secret

This may be an exaggeration, but if you’ve seen the show The Office or worked in Corporate America for more than five minutes, you get my meaning.  Being in an office does not equal productivity.  If anything, many people are less productive because they confuse just showing up with getting results.  They figure if they spend eight hours in the building that day, then they’ve done their jobs.  Whether their time was spent usefully and whether the organization is better off because they were in-office is irrelevant.

The Miracle of Quiet

On the other hand, most telecommuters are masterful at time management.  They are accustomed to simultaneously balancing work responsibilities with everything else going on in their lives, and yet don’t have to contend with the endless distractions of an office or expend 2+ stress-filled hours on a commute.  And it’s quiet.  So, when they sit down to work, it’s with a laser focus.  Because they have to set their own deadlines and meet them without a boss’ supervision, their assignments are completed more efficiently.

For more where this came from, have a look at the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Our 2013 Most Desirable Company Is...Whirlpool!

A hearty congratulations to Whirlpool, which is Water Cooler Wisdom’s Most Desirable Company for 2013!  This award will now be given annually to one of my partner companies with the happiest employees and the most innovative strategies for transforming the world of work.

Whirlpool Corporation is the global leader of the $110 billion home appliance manufacturing industry. The company markets Whirlpool, Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana and other major brand names to consumers in nearly every country around the world.  Whirlpool, which is headquartered in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, Michigan, just recently celebrated a century of leadership and success. 

In part because of its leadership practices, community impact, business performance, and reputation, Whirlpool has been selected #9 globally among Fortune Magazine's Top Companies for Leaders, one of the world's Most Admired Companies, and Fast Company’s Top 50 Most Innovative Companies.  Among other strengths, these profiles noted Whirlpool’s commitment to open communication, flexible work, and competitive pay, benefits, and employee perks.

Whirlpool is host to numerous diversity groups, including a Young Professionals Network of more than 700 local members who are active in volunteering in corporate social responsibility commitments like Habitat for Humanity, Cook for the Cure, United Way, and the Boys and Girls Clubs. 

Whirlpool is thoroughly invested in the long-term training and development of its employees – its RealWhirled program, for instance, is an intense leadership initiative for recent college graduates. The mixed-gender group of twenty-somethings lives together for 10 weeks: cooking, cleaning, and entertaining customers and executives. The grads secret-shop at stores to see how salespeople peddle Whirlpool products and listen to the questions and complaints coming into the company’s call centers, and when the program is over, are recruited into national sales positions.

Whirlpool plays on the global stage as well, with 67 global manufacturing and technology centers around the world and regional headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Comerio, Italy, and Shanghai, China.  Want to learn more or potentially work at Whirlpool? Check out www.whirlpoolcareers.com.

5 Key Qualities of Real Ambition

In a wood-paneled, authentically British office in central London, I had the privilege of meeting Kevin Allen, one of the original advertising “Mad Men.”  Kevin led massive global teams during his multi-decade tenure at McCann-Erikson and Interpublic Group, including the one that came up with the famous Mastercard “priceless” campaign.

In his new book, The Hidden Agenda, Kevin talks about the fact that everyone has ambition.  Real ambition, he says, is the human desire to create something good where nothing existed before.  It is a measure of our individual worth, and that of our organization.  It has five key qualities.

Noble Intentions

Real ambition serves an overarching goodness and is of benefit to all constituencies.  It is the compass that guides all of our activities, and it appeals to the core in all of us that wants to be a part of creating something special.

Clear Intent

Real ambition is not a destination or a “hoped for” goal.  It is a steely confidence in what is to come.  It is a statement of unequivocal intention and certainty of purpose that makes it clear that “almost” is not good enough and half-measures are no measures at all.  Dreams are thoughts, but real ambition is action.

Difficult to Believe

Real ambition is not about increments or percentage points.  It’s about making the great leap to a completely new state of being.  It is the path that no one thinks is even possible.

For more from Kevin, check out the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog.