Are we gonna talk about that asterisk?

Photo by Rodion Kutsaev.

We talk with people about work. That's our life. Sometimes with founders, executive directors, and CEOs. Sometimes with mid-career leaders, or new managers coming up. And sometimes with folks who are early in their careers and trying to figure it all out for the first time.

A surprising thing is that a lot of those conversations sound the same. Regardless of seniority, almost everyone wonders if they're making the right calls for their career. Almost everyone wants to know how they can build better balance in their work life. Almost everyone worries that they don't know what they don't know.

But on certain topics, at certain times, the conversations diverge. The CEOs say one thing. And their investors, and executives, and co-founders agree. But the rest of the staff say something very different.

We are in one of those divergent times.

Here's roughly how it goes. We ask the CEOs, the founders, the exec directors how things are going and they say, "Great. We pivoted the whole business to remote and online within the first week of lock downs. There's been no dip in productivity, and frankly, we're not sure we're ever going back to the way things were before."

The first time we heard it, we assumed it was ego. Who are these people who feel like the adjustments to their business that happened in mid-March were a mild refactoring? Well it turns out there are a LOT of them. You can't swing a stick right now without hitting a CEO thought-leadering about the end of offices.

So then we talk to the non-founder, non-C-suite bosses and employees. How are you?, we ask. How are things going? And what comes back is this.

I'm good.*

I'm fine.*

We're doing ok.*

We're all healthy.*

You see it? That asterisk*? You can hear it in their voices. You might be able to hear it in your own. As more of us are joining town hall meetings from in front of our shower curtains, the asterisk is a way to reclaim some space between us and our work. And you know that if you pick at that scab, you better be braced. Because honestly, any number of things can happen next.

Fuel light

When we talk to bosses about performance plans, we warn them about the boom/bust pattern. That often, putting an employee on a performance plan generates a rush of output, a huge lift in productivity. And as a boss it feels so good to imagine that things are turning around. There's such a hopefulness to it. But what you can't see is that the employee suddenly putting up big numbers is doing things they can't sustain. They are burning themselves red hot to reach your notion of "acceptable." And at some point they run out of fuel.

That asterisk is a fuel light. That's people running out of gas. It's being so worn that you're just smiling politely and hoping no one asks a follow up question. Because you do not have the energy for a follow up question.

To the CEOs and founders who are merrily assuming the complete overhaul of the modern workforce went by unremarked by their staff? Careful. You can fall so in love with the story you're telling and the route you're driving that you miss the fuel light.

One possibility is that your story is true, sure. But another possibility is that your people are broken and tired and depleted. So much so that they lack the words to even articulate it. Or the time to fully grok their relative level of exhaustion. We ran a session with a group of leaders last week where we asked them how they were actually doing. Some of them said, "I haven't really let myself answer that for three months."

What comes next

There's a bunch of research about belonging at work. And the idea that how connected we feel to our colleagues and our own boss has a profound impact on how we show up in the role. We can all call up anecdotes in our own work when we felt that connection, or missed it. But it's nice to see those anecdotes mapped to the collective. It's not just you. It's ALL of us. 3 months ago, our sense of belonging at work was disrupted on a global scale.

As we start to look toward what happens next, we're thinking a lot about the asterisk. And what it means that the people in charge think everything is fine. While the people doing the work are breaking down at night and putting on a brave face for Zoom calls in the morning.

For the bosses telling us that everything's great, the answer is pretty easy. They're in for some surprises. Expect siloing and conflict and misunderstandings. Expect a lot of delayed-onset turnover. People who are burning out might still need this job. But if your organization isn't creating a climate for them to recover, expect them to leave once they're able. That's when you'll see your productivity hit.

For the folks who haven't had space in the past couple months to think past the asterisk: we get it. We don't pretend that it's easy to throw yourself fearlessly into self-examination. It makes us tired just writing it. But it's worth carving out some time. A natural response to crisis is to compartmentalize and constrict. To close ourselves up, even to ourselves. Maybe you still need to be in that place, to protect yourself and what little fuel you have left. That's okay.

We don't know what the next phase of work will feel like. But we do know that whatever comes next, it's on the other side of that asterisk. Rebuilding a global workforce's sense of belonging is gonna take time. But it starts with being able to genuinely answer the question "How are you?" At least for yourself.

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*Our amazing friend Saadia Muzaffar was the first person we heard put a name to "the asterisk" that people are using as punctuation these days. We reference it here, with permission and gratitude. 💜

- Melissa and Johnathan