New Work Normal- Awkwardness and Middle School Dances (6-30-21)

Last week was about embracing inclusion in hybrid work environments. This week is about middle school and embracing awkwardness.

I don’t know about you, but some of the most awkward moments of my life were middle school dances. Let me set the scene. There I am as an 8^th grader with my retainer and bowl cut. I’m standing in a cafeteria turned into a dance floor with a bunch of other people I go to school with. There is music blasting. No one there really knows who they are. No one there really knows what to do. So we all awkwardly stand around in circles in our friend groups too scared to violate any invisible social norm that somehow might make us less cool. At least that was MY middle school dance experience. What was yours like? Anyway, I wish that we would have all been brave enough to admit how awkward and silly this entire thing was. If we could have put the issue out on the table it would have broken the ice, and we all would have had a better time.

So what does this have to do with going back to work? I don’t know about you, I’m a little anxious about navigating all of the social situations when we get back to the office. I’m a strange cat on a good day. Then, you throw in rejoining society after a pandemic and being around a large group of people when I haven’t seen them in 1.5 years, and it’s going to be all kinds of awkward. I’M SO EXCITED to see people. At the same time, I know things will be weird. When we see each other do we shake hands? Do we hug? Do we elbow bump? Do I lead with the fist bump and hope people don’t reject or ignore it? Is it weird to open a conversation with, “What have you done with the past 1.5 years of your life?” Will people be annoyed if I come up to their desk to say hi after having 1.5 years of not being interrupted in that way, or will they be happy to be around other humans? So many questions, so much potential for awkwardness.

Similar to the awkwardness of middle school dances, I hope that we can just all be honest that things are going to be a little weird for a while. If we can all admit this, then that will likely be the ice breaking we need to make everyone a little more comfortable. The challenge: Will you be brave enough to claim and embrace the awkwardness?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Intentional Inclusion in Hybrid Work Environments (6-23-21)

Last week was about empathy. This week is about intentional inclusion in hybrid environments. We’ll look at this idea by exploring a different situation where I had to adjust my behaviors to be more inclusive of workstyles to help bring out the best in everyone.

When it comes to participating in meetings there tends to be two types of people, talkers and processors. Talkers jump right in to verbally talk through problems, while processors prefer to take their time to think through things before speaking. I’m a talker and tend to expect people to just jump in and start talking through ideas just like me. One day I realized that the way I was running meetings led to the talkers drowning out the processors. This meant we couldn’t capitalize on the great ideas that the processors had. Now I could have just asked the processors to change, but it’s NOT on them. It’s on ME as a leader to create the inclusive environment to bring out the best in folks. I needed to change. I became more disciplined about sharing meeting agendas and discussion questions ahead of time to give everyone time to think through and form their ideas. I focused on facilitating the conversation in a way to have more thoughtful conversation from everyone vs. telling people to just jump in. As a result, we had better discussions and outputs.

What does this have to do with the new working situation? In the above example, I had to be aware that my actions weren’t creating an environment to get the most out of everyone. From there, it was on me to take the right ACTION to create a more inclusive environment that could give people what they needed to feel safe and be better able to contribute. In a similar way, once we get back to the office in this hybrid format, we ALL will need to take new action to include everyone (live and remote). Ultimately, we will need to be more INTENTIONAL about how we build teams, structure meetings, and get work done to create an environment that is inclusive and brings out the best in EVERYONE whether they are live or remote. The challenge: How will you be more inclusive in our new “work normal”?

Bonus blunt challenge: You might have noticed I didn’t mention technology in how we need to adapt. Having the right technology that works is incredibly important. However, having the right technology does NOT matter, if we don’t have the right inclusive mindset and aren’t changing the way we lead and do things. Having the right technology without a change in behavior just means we will have a fancier and more technologically advanced way of NOT creating inclusive cultures that bring out the best in us. How can we ensure we are upgrading our leadership behaviors while we upgrade our technology?

Side note/pet peeve- Talkers tend to be extroverts and processors tend to be introverts. We always tell introverts to jump in and talk more. Why don’t we ever ask the extroverts to quiet down and create space for others to talk? Things that make you go hmmmm…

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

New Work Normal- Cruises, Individual Experiences, and Empathy (6-15-21)

Last week was about reimaging our “new normal” at work. This week is about cruises and being empathetic about how people might experience this “new normal” differently.

Recently a friend told my wife she was going on vacation. The friend mentioned she was being “forced” into a cruise. My wife chuckled, because she loves cruises. She then turned to the friend and said, “Forced, huh? Sounds horrible!” in a joking manner. The friend responded and said she actually doesn’t like cruises. Cruises make them feel like they are trapped, because they don’t have control over the boat. My wife would have never imagined this, since she enjoys cruises.

What does this have to do with anything? In the above story my wife and her friend were talking about the same event, going on a cruise. However, they have radically different experiences going through the same thing. In a similar manner, as we transition to our “new normal” at work, we will all be going through the same event, but that doesn’t mean we will all be having the same experience. Some people are really excited to go back and see folks in person again. Some people now have to navigate running a family while returning to the office. Their lives are about to become more hectic, so they are anxious. Some people found that working from home gave them more energy, because days of face to face meetings are draining. They might feel intimidated to go back. Some people moved away from the corporate headquarters and back to their hometowns to be closer to family. They now have to make the difficult choice of whether they move back to headquarters or work more remotely, and contemplate what that means for their career.

There are a wide variety of ways people might feel about returning to work. We will all go back to our “new normal,” but we won’t all have the same experience. We need to extend grace and empathy to better understand each other and what we might be going through. Then, once we have that understanding, we need to figure out how to support each other based on that person’s needs.

The challenge: How will you show grace and empathy during this time? How will you support others?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Legos and Rebuilding vs. Reimagining our “New Normal” (6-9-21)

We will be returning to work in our “new normal” in about a month, so for the next few weeks the blog will explore this topic from different angles. The hope See the source image is that if we can do some of this thinking now, we can set ourselves up for more success once we are in the thick of things. Today, we will focus on Legos and rebuilding vs. reimagining.

My daughters sometimes play with Legos outside in the garage. Recently, we cleaned the garage and all the Legos that were out. Violet was upset about this and said things like, “Do you know how long that took me to build? Do you know how long it will take me to rebuild?” After calming her down, we talked to her about how this is a fresh start, and that she doesn’t have to rebuild the same things. Instead, she can reimagine, building something completely new. This is exactly what she did. She redesigned and built entirely new structures, even better and more creative than before.

What does this have to do with anything? I feel like so much of the conversation about moving forward is focused on getting back to normal. It’s about finding ways to rebuild what we had, reinstating our old lives brick by brick. Instead, I wish we spend more time reimagining what life could be. Let’s be honest with ourselves. There were a lot of things that weren’t serving us in the world before COVID. If anything, this pandemic has exposed some of these flaws across all aspects of our life (personal, social, mental, emotional, spiritual, political, and work). Now that we see those shortcomings, we can do something about them. Similar to the story about Legos, we don’t have to rebuild brick by brick. We can reimagine our live instead. We can take inventory of our lives now and decide what we want to keep and what we want to leave behind. We can design a new life that is better for all of us as individuals and for all of us as a whole. We can also redesign the way we work to make it better for everyone.

The challenge: How will you reimagine your career and your life as things get back to “normal”?

Extra thoughts: As I’m reimagining work I’m noodling on some of the following topics: How can I continue to keep/restructure my time to practice self-care? How do I ensure I don’t lose some of my physical fitness routines as I go back to work? How do I reimagine what I expect from bosses, teammates, and the company as I go back? How do I reimagine and reinforce my boundaries? How do I rethink what success looks like at work and in life? How can I be purposeful about engineering new habits that will serve me positively instead of falling into old habits that might make me comfortable while not necessarily helping me? What relationships do I want to invest in and which ones do I want to let go of?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Boxing, Emotions, and our Source of Power (6-2-21)

This is in the last of our series about emotions. This week is about boxing and how emotions can be a source of power.

The other morning I was doing a boxing workout. I’m throwing jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts, while the sweat is flying off my bald head (you’re welcome for the visual😉). I’m new to boxing, so I’m focused on how my arms are moving. That’s when I hear the instructor say that the power in these punches isn’t from the arms. This is counterintuitive for me, because boxing is all about strong arms and quick strikes. The trainer goes on to explain that the power comes from your hips. More specifically, the power comes from the combination of rotating your hips as you move your arms in synch to unleash all that pent up potential energy.

What does this have to do with anything? Over the past few weeks we’ve explored how important it is to experience and process the emotions we feel. We did this because we live in a world that often encourages us to separate our emotions from the rational side of our brains. We are asked to leave the emotions at the door as we go into work, and told to use our logical thinking to engage with tools, frameworks, and strategies.

We should be thinking about how to use our emotions AND rational side together. In our boxing analogy, I’d argue that the rational brain is our arms and fists. Our rational brain does a lot of the work, but that’s not where the power comes from. The power comes from our heart, from allowing ourselves to truly feel and experience ALL emotions. More specifically, the power comes from those emotions and connecting them with our mind in beautiful harmony. For example, it’s feeling the wide range of emotions while empathizing with everything customers experience, and then combining this with rational tools to create strategies to help. It’s the love you feel for your teammates that propels your mind to use the right frameworks and tools to build an inclusive culture to bring out the best in us. It’s the hope you feel when all is lost that engages your mind to think of a way to solve the problem. Without the power of emotions, our minds can only take us so far.

The challenge: How are you embracing and harnessing your emotions to enhance your power to make a difference?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Emotions, Compartmentalizing, and Dragging Suitcases (5-26-21)

Happy Wednesday,

Last week was about leaving emotional baggage behind. We are going to stay in that same space, and look at it from a different perspective by looking at emotions, compartmentalizing, and dragging around suitcases.

Imagine for a moment that you have a suitcase that you roll with you everywhere. As you go along your travels you put things in your suitcase like clothing, food, and personal items. Eventually, you have too much stuff. Instead of letting go of any of the stuff, you get another suitcase. You are now pulling two suitcases around with you. When the second one fills up, you get another suitcase. Now you are dragging three suitcases with you. At this point, you’re still able to walk and move forward, but you’re hindered by having so many suitcases that you are constantly carrying around with you.

Now you might see where this is going. We live in a world where we don’t always feel comfortable experiencing and expressing our emotions. As a result, we often compartmentalize things. We take emotions and stuff them into a box. Do you ever do this? I know that I do. For the longest time when I compartmentalized something, I thought I was shoving the box on a shelf somewhere. I also thought this was okay, because if the box was on a shelf then I’d never feel its weight. I now realize that I never put the boxes on the shelf. Instead, I put the boxes in a suitcase and carried them with me wherever I went. No matter what I did, eventually carrying that extra weight from all of the emotions stuffed in boxes would catch up with me. Sometimes, the impact was as simple as feeling tired. Sometimes, the impact was more complicated and would result in me sabotaging myself and/or my relationships with others.

With all this in mind, there are a few main takeaways. First, all of this doesn’t mean that compartmentalizing is always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s necessary to compartmentalize to move forward through things It’s just important to understand that even if you put something in a box that box doesn’t disappear. You keep carrying it with you. Second, sooner or later we have to deal with our emotions. We either deal with them by working through them or carrying around the boxes. Last but not least, you never know how much emotional weight people are carrying, so when in doubt be kind.

The challenge: Will you realize what emotional weight you’re carrying with you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Training with Ankle Weights and Emotional Baggage (5-19-21)

Happy Wednesday,

Last week was about taking the time to process emotions. This week is about training with ankle weights and putting down emotional baggage.

Let’s pretend for a moment that you were training for a race and you decided to wear ankle weights. The idea is that training with this additional weight will make you stronger. When race day finally comes, you take off the ankle weights, because you know that carrying around that extra weight will hinder your performance in the competition. Without the ankle weights, you feel lighter and you are able to take advantage of your newfound strength and speed you gained from training with that extra weight.

What does this analogy have to do with anything? The analogy is about using the extra ankle weights to gain strength, and then leaving that weight behind as you move forward stronger than before. What if we did the same thing with the emotional weight we carry? I don’t know about you, but I sometimes find myself getting overly attached to emotional baggage. I’ll take strong feelings like anger, sadness, and bitterness and get trapped in loops where the situation and the emotions play in my head over and over and over again. I’ll become fixated and trapped in this vicious cycle. I’ll carry this emotional weight with me, day in and day out, never putting it down. Eventually, this extra emotional weight takes a toll on me, sapping my emotional, mental, and physical strength.

We don’t have to constantly carry this emotional weight. We can choose to put this weight down. On my best days, I feel the emotions from whatever I’m going through, process them, and then take my learnings from them. After I’ve gained learnings and strength from them, I set the emotional baggage down. I release the loop, so it stops playing. I step out of the trapped vicious cycle. With the weight released, I take the learnings from that experience and move forward stronger than ever. This all sounds great, but this isn’t easy. I struggle with this a lot, and every time I struggle with this is another good reminder I’m human. If you struggle with putting down your emotional baggage you are not alone.

The challenge- How can you take the strength from your emotions with you, while leaving the baggage behind?

In case you’re curious, here are the things I’ve found that help me put down the emotional baggage the best.

Writing- There is something about getting the thoughts down on paper that helps release them. It doesn’t matter if it’s a poem, story, or simply listing feelings. I’ve found that writing with a pen works better than typing on a keyboard. There’s something about my thoughts flowing better through ink. Blogging is part of this too. There’s something about releasing thoughts to the universe. There’s also something when someone says, “Oh, yeah I feel that.” Baggage doesn’t seem so heavy if it’s not only you carrying something like it.
Doing something physical- Lifting, running, and walking. I’ve also found that mowing helps me find peace, maybe it’s the white noise from the push mower. I’ve listened to podcasts lately that talk about physical activity being a key to complete emotional cycle. Plus there are all the other benefits of exercise.
Grounding myself in the present to let go of the past- Just taking the time to stop and pay attention to what is around me sometimes is enough to snap me out of a repetitive loop.

I stand in solidarity against injustice and in support of humanity.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Puzzles and Taking Time to Process Emotions (5-12-21)

Last week, we looked at what emotions communicate to us. This week we will look at puzzles and taking time to process emotions.

Imagine for a moment that I dumped a 1000 piece puzzle on a table in front of you, and told you this was something you needed to complete in 5 minutes. You couldn’t do it. Putting together a puzzle like that requires time and patience. In 5 minutes you’d barely be able to identify all the edge pieces in that time. Maybe you’d get lucky and a couple of pieces would connect together, but you wouldn’t make substantial progress. The puzzle would be left unfinished.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything. Emotions are a lot like a 1000 piece puzzle. Working through them requires time and patience. The challenge is that we live in a world that directly and indirectly tells us that we need to speed through our emotions. We need to get through them as quickly as possible so we can get back to being productive and efficient again. As a result, sometimes I rush through my emotions without truly feeling them, understanding what they are telling me, or how they are impacting my outlook on things. Do you ever do this?

When I don’t take the time to process my emotions that it becomes like an unfinished puzzle. The only difference is that not finishing an emotional puzzle ends up having negative consequences. I’ve found that if I don’t take the time to work through tough emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger then I suffer negative consequences like not taking great care of myself and lashing out toward others I have relationships with (I become sharp like a thornbush). Have you ever experienced negative effects from not processing what you’re going through?

The challenge: Will you take the time to work through your emotions, even when the world is telling you that you are too busy to do so?

Bonus insight into my brain: Originally, instead of using puzzles as a metaphor I was going to use a difficult math problem. The idea would still be the same. You can solve the math problem, it just might take you time. Then, I realized that emotions are not a problem to be solved. They are part of something that helps you see the full picture of what you are experiencing

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Spidey-Sense and How Emotions Communicate with Us (5-5-21)

Last week was about candy and toxic positivity. This week is about Spider-man’s Spidey-sense and what emotions communicate to us.

Spider-man is one of my favorite superheroes. On top of his super strength, amazing agility, web swinging, and wall climbing, he also has his Spidey-sense. His Spidey-sense is his body communicating with him that something isn’t quite right, so he can take action. Maybe, it’s a warning of a sneak attack that is going to happen. He feels his Spidey-sense, understands the meaning, and then he dodges the sneak attack. Maybe, it’s a warning that he’s being deceived. He feels his Spidey-sense, understands the meaning, and then keeps his eyes open for deception. Whatever the situation, by listening to his Spidey-sense he is better prepared to face whatever is happening.

What does Spider-man’s Spidey-sense have to do with emotions? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I treat emotions as something that I just need to get through. This is particularly true for emotions we consider to be negative. When I experience those, I want to just get them out of my system as soon as possible so I can go back to feeling happy again. Do you ever feel this way? (#toxicpositivity)

What if emotions are our own Spidey-sense? How would things change if we treated emotions as sensations that were trying to communicate something to us? I know that whenever I take time to truly sit with my emotions and listen to them, I learn more about myself. As a human, I may not always know what I want/need out of life, but love or sadness or anger or joy can be key to helping me discover these things. I only need to be willing to listen.

The challenge: Are you listening to what your emotions are telling you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Emotions, Candy, and Toxic Positivity (4-28-21)

This week we are going to kick off a new series inspired by emotions. We will start looking at toxic positivity. In case you’re not familiar with the concept, here is a definition. “Toxic positivity is an obsession with positive thinking. It is the belief that people should put a positive spin on all experiences, even those that are profoundly tragic.” (Toxic positivity: Definition, risks, how to avoid, and more (medicalnewstoday.com) Now let’s reflect on how candy and toxic positivity are connected.

Imagine for a moment that every meal you had moving forward was candy. At first it might be kind of good. The food would be sweet and delicious. However, over time there would start to be negative effects. You might have cavities. Your blood sugar would go through the roof, and you would start feeling horrible because you weren’t gaining the nutrients you needed to be healthy. What started out as something sweet would essentially poison your body.

How does this connect with toxic positivity? When bad things happen, often the first instinct is to try to ignore the pain and encourage others to find the positive in the situation. We say things like, “You just need to stay positive.” “Find the silver lining.” “Everything happens for a reason.” “Be thankful it’s not worse.” “Don’t feel sad, you’ll be fine.” I know I’ve said all these things to people. Have you?

Similar to candy, at first these words appear to be sweet. They appear to be encouraging. It feels like the right thing to do. However, like a diet consisting only of candy, this could be unhealthy. If all we ever consume are thoughts encouraging us to be positive, it starts to veer into the territory of toxic positivity. The problem is that the focus on positivity gets in the way of dealing with emotions we deem unpleasant. To move forward, we have to grapple with tough emotions and their meaning. Instead of jumping straight to positivity we have to be comfortable sitting and sifting through the sucky situation and feelings, so we can understand what those emotions are trying to tell us. Only relying on positivity robs of this process and the progress it can bring.

The challenge: How will you embrace ALL emotions and not just the “positive” ones? How will you minimize toxic positivity?

Bonus 1: Here’s a link of a podcast I listened to recently about toxic positivity. It is Brene Brown with Dr. Susan David.

Bonus 2 Real Example- I remember that I got some bad news once, and immediately the person started telling me, “Keep your chin up. There are so many positives you’ll take from this.” They meant well, and they unintentionally completely overlooked the difficulty of the situation. I responded to them by saying, “One day I will probably find learnings from all this. Right now it sucks, and I’m going to take a few days and just sit in the suckiness.” I spent the time sitting in the suckiness, reflecting, and working through things, until I came out a different me on the other side. That wouldn’t have happened if I would have just skipped to positive thoughts.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry