Photo by Pedro Figueras.
“What’s Lyme disease?” our big kid asks from the backseat.
“Is this about Justin Bieber?” we ask from the front.
“Yes,” she says.
We talk about ticks and bullseye rashes. And how it’s not always easy to tell what’s going on. And why sometimes it takes a really long time to figure it out.
For those of you who missed the news, Justin Bieber recently shared that he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. And the thing that stands out in his Instagram post is not the news itself. It’s that he describes the last few years as really rough. Not months. Years.
Ok, so what does any of that have to do with work?
One of us (M) is about a month into what seems like incredible adherence to a new years resolution. No coffee, no booze, no spicy food, no dairy. It is a very, very bland existence. All because of a low-key stomach ache that just won’t entirely go away.
And there’s this massive pressure to say it’s fine. In part because it’s not that bad. In part because it’s aspirational. It’d be nice if it were true. And maybe in part because our own self worth is tied up in a work ethic that says we keep going.
But things aren’t always fine.
We work with a lot of leaders. And one of the things we talk with them about is that things aren’t always fine. They aren’t always fine for your people. They aren’t always fine for your boss. They aren’t always fine for you. Sometimes there are tears during this part of the program.
Sometimes someone close to you dies and your co-workers don’t know what to do. Sometimes something that should be a good thing turns into a bad thing. Sometimes you just need a fucking break, and have the bad luck to be working somewhere that won’t give you one.
Getting through the not-fine isn’t easy. And often it’s not work we can do for the people around us; they have to do it themselves. But we can hold space. We can build workplaces that support each other. There’s this line in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, by Kurt Vonnegut. It’s a speech the main character gives to his neighbour’s newborn twins. It goes,
Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.
— Melissa & Johnathan
What Melissa’s reading
The Humble Office ID Badge is About to be Unrecognizable
The Wall Street Journal is talking about replacing office ID badges with data rich biometric systems. They cover a range of options. Including things like gait analysis, typing habits, location-based apps, and microchipping employees like puppies.
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?
I am considering getting this as a (temporary) face tattoo. That way, all the tech people I encounter in the course of a day have a moment to pause and reflect on this question.
I would love if 2020 could be the year we resolve explore this question from all angles. What are some of the potential downsides of this glorious thing I’m building? How might a rogue regime or bad actor use this technology? How might it be weaponized?
The thing that pisses me off about the piece is that it is entirely unexamined. The researchers building the tech are taken at face value. The guy who wants to implant microchips into employees says he wants to collect health data on employee stress levels. He frames the rationale for this as an employee benefit. To help companies know whether an office environment is healthy. Can we truly think of NO OTHER OPTION for assessing this? Like, perhaps inspections, site visits, or a casual office survey? The best we can come up with is chipping people 🤔
And then we have the gait analysis guy. Here we have an academic researcher with a patent in search of a commercially viable product. Ok, gait guy. Let’s see what you’ve got. Tell me why assessing how people walk is better than a plastic badge.
Gait recognition could reveal how employees’ behavior and well-being change over time. If people appear distressed or more tired than usual around the time of a big corporate decision or change in working hours, that could help managers decide whether to change strategy, Mr. White says.
That could in there feels like a big maybe. But even if we take him at his word, the recommendation here is that managers should use changes in how people walk to determine business strategy.
BRB. I NEED TO GO SCREAM INTO A PILLOW FOR AWHILE.
Again, it’s framed as a user benefit. Give your employer access to data you don’t control. Where you can’t scrutinize how it might be used. Or whether it will show up in things like terminations or performance evaluations. And trust that the intention here is all about the company making a kinder and more humane workplace.
I’m sorry but on what fucking basis? This is the same employer that’s making mandatory surveillance a condition for my continued employment. What about that says kinder or more humane?
I guess you can chip your people if you need to. And set up cameras to watch how they walk into and out of the office. And set strategy based on trendlines in the pulses of your employees. But there’s another option on the table. And that is talking to your people – about their wellbeing, mental health, and workload – to see how they’re doing.
Oh, and if you worry that to do that last thing, your company would need skilled managers who would know how to navigate those conversations…yes. On that last point, we agree.
What Johnathan’s reading
Guess who’s back, back again?
Away C.E.O. Steph Korey Is Back, Just Weeks After Stepping Down
I don’t want to spend a lot more time on Away. I don’t want to spend 5 paragraphs on the way startups move titles around the senior teams. I don’t want to talk about the perils of Co-CEO arrangements. Or what it says to your team when you announce publicly that you’ll step back when you evidently have no intention to do so.
What I want to talk about is in the first paragraph of Sorkin’s piece:
“She apologized for her management style and stepped down as chief executive. Now, she says it was a mistake to fall on her sword and is taking her job back.”
Management style. I want to talk about that.
Management style is a real thing. Leading a group of people to great work is inherently stylistic. When do you pursue and build consensus, and when are you more directive? That’s stylistic. How much do you let your team see you get excited about wins, or try to stay stoic? How much time do you spend on the internal, operational bits of the business? Or do you prefer to lead from an outward-facing, strategic place? Those are styles of leadership, and you have your own. Part of the adventure of management is figuring out what yours is, and how to evolve it as you grow.
Steph Korey used public slack channels to call her employees “brain dead.” She spoke to them like they were children. Steve Jobs told a room full of employees, “You should hate each other for having let each other down.”
That’s not a management style. That’s someone not in control of their shit. That’s a grown adult lashing out abusively, in frustration.
And yes. Bossing is hard. It’s often a lot of hours spent on an emotional rollercoaster. And when it’s a business you’ve founded, it’s so hard to preserve any separation between that business and yourself. It can wear you out. And, depending on the people you have around you, it can be a lonely place, too. All of which takes a toll, and depletes your ability to control your shit. I understand it. But that’s an explanation, not an excuse.
It’s okay to need help learning to live in your feelings. Many of us are not taught how to process hard things in constructive, integrated ways. You think you know yourself until some catastrophe hits, and then suddenly you realize how much help you need. But when you need that kind of help, that’s a job for a therapist. Not your employees.
And if you skip the therapy, bring that damage to work, and punch down? That’s not a management style. That’s abuse. To reckon with that abuse, and find a path to meaningful restoration and growth, is hard work. It starts with staring it in the face for what it is, and acknowledging how harmful you’ve been.
The last paragraph of the NYTimes piece quotes Steph again,
“When I think back on ways I’ve phrased feedback, there have been times where the word choice isn’t as thoughtful as it should have been…”
You tell me if we’re there yet.
