Fowl (Vol. 2)
Okey dokey. I’m back to the chicken coop!
Writing the word “chicken” makes me think of the Chicken Dance. You know it and you likely hate it. Here are the lyrics:
[repeat thrice]
Da na na na na na na (move your hands like a bird mouth)
Da na na na na na na (flap your arms like chicken wings)
Da da da da (continue flapping your chicken arms, waddle down and then up)
Clap, clap, clap (self explanatory)
[interlude]
Da na na naaa na na na na (link arms with closest person to you and walk in a circle in one direction)
Da na naa na na naa na (now link the other arms and turn in the other direction)
[continue to speed up the pace until someone gets a cramp, the majority of the children are crying, or people lose interest]
I have a soft spot for the Chicken Dance. My Grandma loved the Chicken Dance. I can remember doing it with her at weddings and the annual Croatian Fraternal Union Christmas party. It is a core memory of my childhood. Once at an Octoberfest there was a band playing it and I told Leo it was “the dance of his people.”*
But this post isn’t about my second favorite dance from when I was a kid (the first obviously being the Hammer Dance**). It’s about chicken-based children’s stories that I see playing out in the real world. Today it’s Henny Penny (aka Chicken Little or Chicken Licken). I grew up with it being called Henny Penny and this fable was all about the impacts of overreacting and turning the smallest issue into a major catastrophe (making a mountain from a molehill). As the story goes, Henny Penny is just living her chicken life, picking up a little corn snack from the ground when WHACK an acorn hits her on the head. Henny Penny isn’t one to investigate. She’s more of a jump to conclusions sort of lady so obviously, she decides that the sky is falling. With this information she believes she must tell the king and off she goes. Along the way she meets several animals who believe what she says: Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey, and Turkey-lurkey (my personal favorite) and they decide to accompany her on her trek to tell the king. Then, they all meet Foxy-loxy and tell him their plan. He is exceptionally helpful because he points out that they are going in the wrong direction but he knows the way and will help direct them there. So helpful! They all walked and walked until they got to a dark and narrow hole. When they said this didn’t seem like the right place…
Apparently there are two completely different endings to this story! I had no idea!
Version 1: Foxy-loxy assured them it was a shortcut to the palace. It was not. It was his burrow. He told all the (sucker) animals he would go first and they should follow one at a time. So in goes Foxy-loxy and Turkey-lurkey follows. Then, Foxy-loxy snapped off Turkey-lurkey's head and threw his body over his left shoulder. Damn! It went really dark really quickly and the carnage continues because it would appear each animal goes in, one after the other, to be dismembered by Foxy-loxy. Prior to his murder, Cocky-lockey let out a “cock-a-do” (he didn’t finish because he was eaten). Waiting for her turn, Henny Penny heard Cocky-locky crow. She assumed that meant it was dawn and time to lay her egg so she left to head back to her nest.
Version 2: Foxy-loxy admitted it was his burrow but that he wanted to have them over for dinner before they met the king. Chicken-licken took a look around and noticed a lot of questionable decorations (i.e. bones and feathers) because Foxy-loxy was a messy bastard who didn’t clean up after himself. When she saw him put on a big-ass pot of water, and set only one place setting at the table, she realized they were going to be dinner. She came up with a plan. She took out her dust cloth from her apron (so prepared) and told Foxy-loxy he should just relax and that she would tidy up the house while the water heated. He thought that sounded amazing and settled in for a nap. Once he was snoring the animals snuck out of there and back to the farm and ate corn cake at Henny Penny’s. When they were finished they went outside and an acorn fell on Henny-Penny’s head. Once again she made the wrong assumption and freaked out. Her friends showed her that it was an acorn and called her a dumbass. She laughed at her silliness.
THE END
Please don’t think I am just randomly retelling fables here. I see a variety of connections between this story and certain workplace behavior:
Catastrophizing: I talked about this a bit in another blog. It’s when people tend to mentally jump to the worst case scenario. They make a very big deal out of (usually) nothing. Henny Penny turns something that is truly a non-issue into a problem worthy of the king. This is, unfortunately, familiar to many of us. We all work with someone whose default is assuming the worst. Their tendency to go Defcon 1 (Maximum readiness!!! War is imminent!!!!) in the most trivial situations is exhausting and if the catastrophizer *is a manager they end up dragging other people into the situation (Cocky-locky, Ducky-daddles, Goosey-poosey, and Turkey-lurkey) and putting them through a lot of unnecessary trauma and work.
Crying wolf: Similar to catastrophizing, it makes everything seem like an emergency and this behavior has impacts. First, people start to ignore your distress cries. Things marked “urgent” or the seven emails in a row are now normal and tabled for later. There is a limit on declaring urgent, drop everything kind of situations; especially when you work in a field where actual emergencies are few and far between. Once you reach your limit of catastrophes, you are the little boy in the village. When the wolf shows up (an actual problem!) no one will believe you. Second, working with someone who is constantly crying wolf impacts other people. When people are forced to feel like everything is high priority/emergency status their health is impacted. They have headaches, their cortisol levels are raised, and they have trouble sleeping. Employees who are feeling like this are not going to be able to perform their best. Crying Wolf has impacts beyond the person yelling.
Naysaying: A delightful offshoot of catastrophizing is often naysaying. Naysayers never met an idea (from you especially!) that they like. Rather than trying to come up with a solution they tell you why things will never work. Trying to improve a process or make something more logical? Not if a naysayer can help it! They will point out every place this change could be problematic. They will drone on about the potential backlash. They make it so annoying that you want to bash your head on the conference table. They cling to their belief that whatever you think will work (no matter how much time you've spent planning) will not. They are the Debbie Downers of the business world.
The need to always be right: There is no debating that the sky is falling because the Henny Penny’s you work with believe the sky is falling. They are right because they are always right. If you think it’s an acorn and they don’t? Sorry, not an acorn and here is a slow and patronizing explanation of why you are wrong. Unfortunately, believing something is true does not make it true. I know people say we live in a post-truth world but I think the truth is out there. This approach at work is bad for so many reasons. It’s annoying. Humans are fallible and being right all the time is simply not possible. It’s really annoying. It’s much easier to work with or train someone who wants to learn from their mistakes rather than someone who can’t acknowledge them. Holy moly so annoying! It alienates others. Being consistently corrected or “informed of” things gets old. Quickly.
A desire to overcomplicate things: Why solve a problem quickly when you could overcomplicate it and make the solution ridiculous and exceptionally time consuming?! People prone to complexity bias take any request, task, or question and then get to work on a convoluted “solution.” Working with people who have this tendency when you are much more of an Occam’s Razor (#parsimony) kind of person is maddening. Not only are they wasting their time they are often wasting your time as well.
Lack of research into the problem: Did all of the other animals have to follow her? Of course not! Her panic was convincing and the evidence (to her) was that acorn. But the other animals?! They just assumed it was true and followed her (to their deaths in Version 1!). This is no way to operate. Doing this at work is a great way to get fired. Not everyone has your best interests in mind (sorry). You have to ensure that you have all of the pertinent information before acting. A solid CYA is always recommended. Trust but verify.
Believing women are too emotional: Henny Penny is giving us ladies a bad name! There was no due diligence, just her flying off the handle and embarking on a lengthy journey void of critical thinking. This reflects poorly on us all because people already belive that women are more emotional than men. This idea is so common it is classified as a “master stereotype.” People of different ages, cultural backgrounds, and even women believe that this is fact. IT. IS. NOT. TRUE. Research shows that women’s emotional reactions are seen as who they are while men’s emotional reactions are due to external circumstances. As in, “oh she is just an angry person” or “she is not capable of controlling herself.” Our emotions are seen as inextricable to us but men get to blame pretty much anything else. That means that men’s emotional reactions can be written off as not actually their own. In the words of my Grandma Flo, “it’s a crock of shit.”
What I think is crazy is that in both endings, Henny Penny escapes unscathed. What the hell? She created this mess and doesn't seem to learn a damn thing.
Not me! After thinking about all the parallels between this story and real life I wanted some solutions. What I found was a reminder that we can only control our own responses and not how others behave (therapy 🌈 ). That can really be a challenge at work but the first suggestion I found is to take a beat before responding to the “emergency” of the moment. Ground yourself and then respond. I think part of crying wolf is the response the person gets. If everyone jumps into action then the person crying wolf feels important and powerful. Perhaps less reaction from us will lead to less crying wolf? We can hope! What about the people who are always right and revel in correcting everyone? I think we can all agree they are insufferable but the one thing I came across that really struck me was the idea of not trying to prove your case. I think for many of us when someone is wrong and acting like a jerk we want to show them how and why they are wrong. Turns out that’s pointless and will just lead to (more) conflict. You and your evidence isn’t going to sway them because they are right and you are wrong. So the best thing is to ignore them like the cacti I buy every summer and plant in my atrium. The hope is that the behavior will eventually (maybe?) start to die off; like my cacti. Finally, the naysayer. I love the idea that as soon as they start to rain on your parade you ask them what could be done to make it work. You cut off the negativity before it starts. Also, managers need to set some rules to manage these behaviors. Rather than letting the toxic naysayer shoot down everyone’s ideas, create inclusive and respectful parameters for meetings (in particular) and beyond.
The stories of these two little nuggets (see what I did there?) have a lot to teach us and I think each of the animals in these stories have pros and cons.
The Little Red Hen: Very responsible/prone to burn out. Finds scream therapy an effective way to alleviate stress.
The farm animals: Clear boundary setters/unwilling to help a friend. Would not call 911 if their phone was out of reach.
Henny Penny: Strong convictions/not great at confirming via data. Likely a climate change denier.
Cocky-locky, etc.: Very supportive friends/not the smartest. Will cut off your mimosas before you drunk text your ex.
Foxy-loxy: Talks a great game/murderer. Still quotes the Wolf of Wall Street incessantly.
It may seem like Little Red Hen comes out as the best example to follow. She is responsible. She knows how to do a bunch of cool stuff and she bakes bread. That sounds great. But her story isn’t all good because the animals she surrounds herself with suck. We can blame them for not helping her (even when she asked, which is hard!) but now that she knows how they operate it’s important she not continue to do everything alone. That approach will only sow (farming pun) bitterness and resentment. She needs to find new friends (colleagues) who will support her when she needs it and who understand the importance of contributing. It’s inevitable that we all take on the good and the bad of each of these roles every once in a while. Some days we are a lazy farm animal. Some days we overreact like Henny Penny. Some days we are an evil genius like Foxy-loxy. The important thing to remember is to not let any of these roles define or consume you. Be your own animal. A cool one if possible, maybe a liger.
*About ⅓ of his people. He is also ½ Mexican so La Chona is the other dance of his people. The remaining portion is a real mezcla: Polish, German, Irish, Swiss, Dutch. All these pasty countries in his DNA means that he has amazing blonde highlights that look like what some people (me) pay to have put in their hair.
**I dare you to go listen to that song and not want to dance. In 8th grade my best friend and I broke her VCR because we had recorded the video and kept stopping and rewinding it to ensure we had all of the moves down. I also had a pair of Hammer pants. If you are a young person with naturally dewy skin, please do not look at these pants and laugh thinking how ridiculous we were. Hammer pants still exist, you have just renamed them harem pants (don’t like that name one bit) and drop crotch pants. Do I still do the Hammer dance? Yes. Does my husband cover his hands with embarrassment every single time? Correct. Do I care? I do not because I have a mind to rhyme and two hype feet. #schoolsinsuckers
Danger Brain
I am currently staying at a hotel in San Diego.* I do this from time to time to crank out a lot of writing. Over the years I have learned that I am most productive between about 4pm and 1am. This is not an optimal schedule for my life. At 4pm I usually get Leo. Then we do the nightly grind. Dinner, shower, reading, begging that the random shit he leaves all over the house gets picked up, book, bed. The usual. He is settled in his bed by about 7.45/8 these days which would make it seem like I now have hours of uninterrupted time to work. Incorrect. Those after school hours of Momming tend to break my brain (and sometimes my spirit!). If you have a kid you know what I mean. Right after pick up is usually fine. Leo is still abuzz with the day and excited to be home and see the dogs. Dinner is usually pretty ok too as long as it is pasta, pizza, or mac and cheese (which is NOT pasta in case you thought it was). Don’t worry he eats veggies on the side. When we head into shower time things can start to get dicey and somewhere around 6.30 or 7.00 things just tend to break down. Kind requests are met with fiery responses and simple chores become impossible. This is also the time when Leo has the fiercest of criticisms of my parenting. My amazing friend Richard Rathburn calls this danger brain and we have stolen the term. In our house, danger brain is described as your body and your brain not listening to each other.
This is a real thing and it doesn’t just happen to kids. If you think about a typical day, how many decisions do you think you make? The most common estimate I’ve seen is 35,000. That is not a typo but I also can’t find a clear citation to back it up. There is, however, specific research from Cornell that says we make over 200 decisions just linked to food in a day. So we are making somewhere between 200 and 35,000 decisions per day and the quality of those decisions erodes as the day wears on. This is due to a very real phenomenon called ego depletion or decision fatigue.**
Each decision we make takes a toll on our brains. Things like what mug to use for your coffee takes far less of a toll than deciding if you want to accept a promotion but it all adds up. This means that by the end of the day we are depleted mentally and emotionally. This is when our patience and will-power are at their lowest. It’s the time when you are trying exceptionally hard to be kind and understanding but end up yelling and then feel terrible about it. Decision fatigue isn’t limited to the end of the day at home. It also pops up in work situations, especially when individuals may face a variety of tricky choices throughout the day. The daily stresses of working during the pandemic have only exacerbated the prevalence of decision fatigue.
Since I have been living this and it can sometimes make for a really crappy evening I wanted to see if there are ways to help our danger brains and their decision fatigue. It turns out there are some fairly practical things we can do and most of them can be applied to home or work. One of them is attempting to reduce the number of decisions you have to make in a day. That may sound impossible but it’s why some people opt for the same outfit every day, meal prep, make lists, or get everything together for the next day the night before; it saves them a little bit of thinking time. Some recommend establishing a routine for certain tasks to diminish the decision making around them. I started to do this by planning out my workouts the week before so they are on my calendar and booked and I don’t have to think about it and it definitely helps. Another common suggestion is to make big/important decisions in the morning, but after coffee I assume. Makes sense. Your brain is fresh and ready for a new day. I also appreciate the idea of “batching” your decision making. I started (trying) to do this recently and when you commit it really works because you are focusing on one thing for a limited amount of time. These suggestions aren’t going to eliminate danger brain. Overwhelm is bound to happen. It is possible though that they may help you avoid eating the remaining macaroni and cheese out of the pot on the stove while drinking a massive glass of wine and crying at 7.15 pm on a Tuesday even though you swore to yourself that you were only going to drink on the weekends and know gluten will wreck your stomach. Maybe.
*Fun fact. I thought the hotel was booked for 2 nights but it was only booked for one. When the hotel called my husband to say I had not checked out but that all of my things were still in the room he momentarily thought I had been murdered/kidnapped. I was just on my way to yoga.
**Most researchers use these terms interchangeably but some argue that ego depletion as a higher-order construct.
Please don’t
Everyone, I have a question for you. Who goes on Netflix and picks the “surprise me/play something” option? I need to know. I want to meet these people and ask them a lot of questions because I don’t understand how they live their lives. When I sit down to watch Netflix I have an idea of what I am in the mood to watch. I don’t go in there all willy-nilly. I have some sort of direction for goodness sake!! Perhaps I need to soothe my soul with British Baking or I want to laugh or watch trash. But, according to the existence of this button, some people just roll the dice and watch whatever Netflix gives them. Absolute mayhem. It’s possible that I can’t comprehend this because being surprised isn’t really my thing. In THEORY it totally is. A surprise? What fun! In reality? No thank you (unless it’s unannounced visits from a very specific group of people/my husband proposing). When I say surprise I’m not talking about a little treat or note or something. Show up for no reason with an iced coffee or a little snacky? Yes, please! But plan something big that takes time to do? Nope.
I find it odd that Netflix is the reason I am doing some serious introspection about this but here we are. I think there is one very large reason why I don’t like surprises: anxiety. In an earlier blog I mentioned how beneficial it is that we are having a more open dialogue about mental health both in and out of the workplace. Because of this, I think many people are starting to understand themselves a little better, me included. In the past I not understand anxiety or how it showed up in my life and other people didn't either. This meant that the only explanation for why I operated the way I did was because I was a “control freak.” The description isn’t incorrect. I like things a certain way (mine). I am not a neat freak who follows everyone around with a Swiffer. That’s my husband and it’s with the Roomba. He will gladly attest to the fact that I can be messy, though I contend that mess is mostly contained to the laundry chair. My need for control comes out in specific ways (usually planning related) because when I am not in control of what is happening I am uncomfortable. It turns out this is a hallmark of anxiety and fairly common. I never realized it was actually discomfort because it always felt like annoyance. Likely because emotions are complicated and intertwined. I distinctly remember writing that we “never have just one emotion” in my dissertation and it’s true. Are we ever just mad? No. We are disappointed, and sad, and angry, and maybe hungry. We also have problems naming our feelings and we don’t want to think about what is underlying them because that may be icky. Basically, we are bad at emotions. Maybe not everyone but definitely me.
When I entrust someone else with a task I assume they will complete it like I would (they aren’t me so it’s not possible) but the final result is out of my hands and that’s what drives the discomfort. I constantly worry: What if it isn’t as good? What if they don’t finish it on time? What if their work reflects poorly on me? This means that I often do things myself, don’t ask for help, and add more to my plate than necessary. I make lists, check everything off, and never drop the ball. It’s fucking exhausting. I want to be chill and spontaneous but it’s not easy. I get why now and I am trying to do better. Yay therapy!
Here’s a little flip side to all of this that I really need to examine: I LOVE to surprise other people!* There is nothing I love more than seeing the look of surprise on the face of someone I care about. No, I am not constantly planning surprise parties (though I have thrown several very fun ones!). It’s more about knowing what I did will make them happy. If you are familiar with the idea that people can have one of five different Love Languages, I am all about the Acts of Service/Gift Giving. I show people I care by surprising them because, to me, that shows that I know them and listen to what they talk about. I truly appreciate when people do that for me so I try to give that back. What’s crazy is that I’ve surprised people with trips out of town and nights out to undisclosed locations. Yet if the tables were turned I would hate that so much! Holy moly! Have I inflicted surprises on people that they hated? Is it because of my need for control?! This is spiraling so I will just have to hope that my surprises are all good enough to not make people upset.
One place where I do know surprises make people upset is at work. Employees in traditional organizations want consistency and transparency.** But surprises happen all the time. That’s why corporate culture is so important. Corporate culture creates the vibe of the company. Good corporate cultures create environments where employees feel heard, informed, and are treated well; they help organizations weather surprises. But what makes a corporate culture good?
Turns out to answer that all we have to do is think about what makes one bad. Sadly, we probably all have examples from places we have worked (hopefully are not still working) with terrible cultures. Take a second and think about previous jobs. What made you leave them? I bet at least part of your reason stemmed from a problematic corporate culture. Cultures will change organically over time. With new leadership, employee generations, and technology the organization shifts. It has to. Good corporate culture is dynamic and adaptable and sometimes that change doesn’t happen as quickly as leaders would like because culture shift is a process. Leaders can’t just decide to change the culture. They can have ideas of the directions they want to go but it takes months and sometimes years to create discernible cultural change. Unless you go in and fire pretty much everyone and start all over. That speeds it up but is not the recommended approach. If you are lucky enough to be in a position to create and drive culture change in your organization you have an amazing opportunity. The pandemic was terrible but it has made companies think more about taking care of their employees, which is one of the (many) components of a good corporate culture. There is more of a discussion about what employees actually need and want and how companies can provide it. Small culture shifts can create really big changes for an organization. I’m working on my own personal culture shifts. I’m stepping back, letting others do what they say they will (that doesn’t always play out well), and trying to relax more. Sometimes that involves Netflix, but it will never involve that button.
Do the people who use this option also click the “I’m feeling lucky” button on Google?
*Please note I initially wrote: There is nothing I love more than PLANNING A SURPRISE. Yikes.
** If you’re in a startup this does not apply. Surprises are your breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Tina
The summer of my freshman year of college I went to France and I bought a poster.* There was just something about it that I loved. It “spoke to me” as the people say. It hung in dorm rooms and apartments and somewhere along the way it disappeared (perhaps into the void that is my Mother’s basement?). I totally forgot it existed until I was going through some old pictures (below). Seeing that poster made me think, “Yep. That checks out.”
The poster is a photograph taken by a French photographer named Bernard Matussière in either 1984 or 1990 and from what I can tell the photo is titled, TINA. I don’t know Tina, and I don’t know why her name is in all capitals, but I love her. That complete and utter “fuck you” that she is giving that shadowy guy. Fantastic.
How great is that shirt? I no longer have it and looked it up online. Want to know how it was described? VINTAGE. Devastating. Please enjoy the cordless phone in the background sitting on my 6-disk CD player.
It checks out because even 26 years ago (how is that possible?!) I had a particular attitude that Tina embodied. She seemed completely no nonsense and willing to tell people to “fuck right off.” Additionally, she is rocking the hell out of a pencil skirt and that is a look I love. So Tina is my attitudinal muse. In the last blog post I was talking about how you can change your behavior which got me thinking about the parts of us that don’t change and it turns out attitudes (usually) fall into that category. Theoretically I think we all know what an attitude is but if we are going to get all social psychology up in here the official definition according to the American Psychological Association is that an attitude is:
A relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive. Attitudes provide summary evaluations of target objects and are often assumed to be derived from specific beliefs, emotions, and past behaviors associated with those objects.
My attitude about how life should work and how I should be treated has not drastically changed since then. Fundamentally I am the same. Psychologists wanted to understand why attitudes don’t really change and they came up with the Tripartite Classification of Attitudes. They found that attitudes actually have three components and other researchers started describing this as the ABC Model. It explains that attitudes are created by a combination of these three components (in any order) directed at a certain “target.” The target can be a person, idea, place, object; we can form an attitude about anything. Once the attitude is formed our behavior aligns with it.
A = AFFECTIVE (feelings/emotions): I love sourdough bread. It makes me feel happy.
B = BEHAVIOR (actions): I eat sourdough bread any time the opportunity arises.
C = COGNITIVE (thoughts/knowledge): I like sourdough bread because it is delicious and doesn’t make my tummy hurt.
This relationship between attitude and behavior can be stronger in some cases than others, but generally speaking there is a great deal of consistency between our attitudes and what we do. When I was looking around for some examples that related to work one really struck me. The U.S. Department of Labor had an article about how attitudes impact the ability for people with disabilities to obtain jobs.** They discussed that attitudes from three groups (job seekers with disabilities, employers/co-workers, service providers) need to change in order to increase the job opportunities for people with disabilities. But how? If attitudes are fairly consistent this seems really challenging. The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) approached this by creating informational campaigns. You might be thinking: WTF is that going to do? Well, if attitudes are based partially on our cognition, starting there makes sense. Perhaps people have negative attitudes about employing people with disabilities because they have the wrong information. The ODEP is combating that with useful information and facts to change cognition. They also created a video series. This gets at the feelings part of the equation. It’s possible that many people with these negative attitudes simply have not interacted with someone who has a disability. Seeing individuals tell their stories is likely to impact their feelings. Combine those two things and changing the behavior should follow. It’s not guaranteed but their approach is great and something I think companies could consider. An informational campaign to combat current (incorrect) cognitions may kick-start affective change. Worth a try!
If you have an attitude you want to change there is a specific thing you can do. You can change your behavior! Our brains like consistency. When you are doing something that is no longer in line with what you want to be doing you experience cognitive dissonance and that’s no fun. For example, your (original) attitude is that eating healthy is a waste of time but you realize that you haven’t been feeling great lately. You decide to start buying healthy snacks and stocking your fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables consistently (behavior). After a few weeks, you start to feel better. Your skin is glowing, you aren’t tired and the only change you made was the kind of food you were eating. You read some articles about the impacts of healthy diet changes (cognition). You eventually decide that eating healthy might not be a waste of time after all (new attitude). Added bonus: you feel happy (affect). I realize this is a simplistic example but it makes the point. If you can get yourself to change the behavior the attitude will likely follow. In no way am I saying this is an easy process but I think it is worthwhile. There are definitely attitudes I am working on changing at the moment but my Tina-ness is not one of them. In fact, to remind me of this I have a small framed copy of her next to my desk at home and at work. I’m glad she came back into my life. If you ever see the poster please buy it for me! I will Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal you!
*I did more than buy a poster. I went to Manchester and Paris and met friends and then spent several days in London alone. It was when I discovered just how awesome alone time can be. If Leo tried to fly to Europe alone at 18 I would lose my mind.
**Please note the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990 and this is still an issue. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. We need to do better.
Innie or outie?
The other day I had this conversation with my son:
Leo: Mama are you an innie or an outie?
Me: Well, I have an innie belly button but when I was pregnant with you it was sort of an outie.
Leo (looking at me like I have lost my mind): I meant do you like it better when you are inside or outside.
Me: Ohhhhhhh.
Turns out that sometimes kids ask questions that mean one thing to them and something entirely different to you. His innie or outie question led to a conversation about people who like to stay at home and people who like to be outside. I said some people feel good and recharge their bodies and brains by having quiet time alone (introverts) and others can do that by being around other people (extroverts/extraverts, either spelling works). He asked if you could be both and I said, “you bet!” because I sure am. The idea of people being introverts or extroverts is something that has become part of regular discussion and I think that’s pretty cool (because I am decidedly not cool). I love seeing posts on Instagram* about introverts socializing for an evening and needing days to recover. I get that. I also get being outgoing and I never shut the hell up and those are decidedly extroverted characteristics. Introversion and extroversion are part of the Big 5 dimensions of personality, also known as the five factor model. Researchers way back to the 1930s wanted to understand our differences so they started with lists of thousands of adjectives to describe personality traits. Over time they began to see where traits overlapped and in 1990 a formative study that thoroughly vetted and validated the Big 5 was published. This helped the Big 5 test gain traction with researchers and the business community. If you’re wondering why these five in particular, it’s because they accounted for the most robust representation of our personalities. In other words, these five personality traits pretty much contain everything in terms of how we operate and see the world. Each of the five personality dimensions can be thought of as ends of a spectrum. Most of us fall somewhere in between the extremes of these traits, but we all know people who definitely do not (I’m looking at you extroverted extroverts!). Here is a useful breakdown of the dimensions:
To measure our traits, The Big Five test presents fifty statements that you rate on a scale of very inaccurate to very accurate when describing yourself. Some items include: have a vivid imagination, make friends easily, and complete tasks successfully. The results present the degree to which you exhibit these characteristics.** You can be high in some categories and low in others. For example, you might find that you rate high in openness. This doesn't mean that you are never spontaneous or curious, just that it isn’t your default setting. If you are interested in finding out more about your own Big 5 here is a free version of the test. Like any psychological measurement, it isn’t foolproof and your results depend on how truthfully you answer the questions.
Some companies use the Big 5 (or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the Wonderlic) as a way to understand a candidate's strengths and weaknesses but, like any psychological measurement, it isn’t foolproof and your results depend on how truthfully you answer the questions. Even so, I think there is value in tests like these because they offer us insight into ourselves and an opportunity to to be introspective. Taking time to just sit with yourself (flaws and all) and consider why you do the things you do may feel indulgent at the moment but I think it’s a good use of your time. Understanding how your personality drives your decisions and behavior can help shed light on things you may want to change. Of course you can’t just decide to be a completely different person (certain “celebrities” aside), but you can take steps to change the parts of your personality that no longer serve you. I think it’s all about balance and no matter what, I like you exactly how you are. Innie, outie, or somewhere in between.
*I know these also exist on TikTok but I am not on TikTok because I fear I will never do anything else ever again if I download the app.
** In news that is not at all shocking I am exceptionally high in neuroticism and conscientiousness.
Here’s to your guts!
I have started using evenings in my quiet office to get a lot of work done. Sometimes I’m the only one around. The other night I walked out to refill my water bottle and there was a guy I never saw in the hallway. My gut reaction was fear. Why? This man did not jump out at me, he did not yell, he was wearing khakis and a button down chatting on his cell. He was likely a graduate student and the scariest thing about him was probably the student debt he is incurring.
This got me thinking about gut feelings. We all know what gut feelings are because we have all experienced them. They are that pit in your stomach, getting the butterflies, or just knowing that a situation is not quite right. Some think of these as our intuition, but whatever you call them I thought a lot about them in grad school.
My dissertation was about gut feelings and moral emotions. Specifically, guilt, contempt, sympathy, and inspiration. I wanted to know if the organizational context in which we work impacts how we react to these emotions.
For example, if you work in a place that encourages competition, loves to use sports metaphors, and feels like a locker room, are you more likely or less likely to listen to your gut instincts and moral emotions?
In this case I found you were less likely to listen to your gut. My hypothesis was that the (dude-centric) context sent signals that emotions aren’t a thing we do around here. You punt those someplace out and focus on results!
I thought it was a cool idea, it went through three rounds of revision at a great journal and was then rejected. Academia is super fun. Anyhow…
Since I finished my PhD, a lot of new research has come out about what is being called the gut brain connection and it is cool! Turns out our brains have a direct link to our stomachs, and intestines via the vagus nerve and vice versa. Because of this two-way street, when your gut is a mess so is your brain. Some research is positing that better gut health can lead to less anxiety, depression, fatigue, and chronic pain. That has yet to be totally confirmed but it’s promising but how do we make sure our guts are good? Do we just eat a shit-ton of yogurt and call it a day? Sadly, no. Turns out you have to eat healthy (preferably filled with fiber and non-meaty) food, take a probiotic, exercise, and try to limit your stress among other things. So, next time we hang out let's eat some sauerkraut and go for a walk. That way we get our probiotics in and our farts out.
Don’t be a bitch
It is exceptionally easy to be labeled a bitch at work. All you need to do is be assertive or have your own ambitions and BOOM #uabitch. You may not care if people think you’re a bitch but unfortunately, once you get the label it’s much easier for colleagues to ostracize you and devalue your work. If you don’t want to be the office bitch the logical fix is to go in the other direction. Act really nice (even if you’re not) and then people will like and respect you. But guess what? That won’t work either because then you run the risk of being too nice. And when you are too nice, and do things to help everyone around you suddenly you are the office Mom, a particularly interesting trope. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people we work with had a Mom or some sort of Mother-figure at some point, yet it would seem they don’t respect her enough to want to work with (some version) of her.
What’s crazy to me is that this was first noted in 1977. Dr. Rosabeth Moss Cantor wrote that women are seen as the default housewives and mothers of the corporate world. Gross. But fast-forward to today and not much has changed. Women still do the majority of the office “housework. ” This includes any person-oriented task that isn’t directly related to your actual job. There are the more obvious things like buying presents on behalf of everyone else, picking up/making coffee, bringing in treats, or cleaning up the communal space. But there are other tasks like taking notes, scheduling meetings, filling out forms, or mentoring that aren’t a function of your job and happen to fall to you because you are “so organized” which is just code for “a woman.” One of the reasons this is especially frustrating is that many of us either don’t mind doing these things or take on the task because we want to make sure that box is checked. A lot of this is incredibly subtle and it’s really difficult to recognize as problematic particularly when we’ve learned to accept it in basically every arena of our lives. Additionally, women (generally speaking) have the instinct to “tend and befriend” and this plays out at work in a variety of ways. Much like fight or flight, tending and befriending is a response to stress.
Tending involves nurturant activities designed to protect the self and offspring that promote safety and reduce distress; befriending is the creation and maintenance of social networks that may aid in this process. [The biobehavioral mechanism that underlies the tend and befriend pattern appears to draw heavily on the attachment/caregiving system, and considerable neuroendocrine evidence from animal and human studies suggests that oxytocin, in conjunction with female reproductive hormones and endogenous opioid peptide mechanisms, may be at its core].
When we spend our time doing these things we do not get credit for them because our altruistic behavior is (thought to be) just part of what women do. That makes it seem inconsequential, gets us nowhere and our male counterparts actually reap the benefits of our work. And speaking of the men, when they do these types of tasks they are rewarded and praised because office housework is clearly beyond their job descriptions. A smart lady might think to herself, “Noted, I will not be the Office Mom.” Turns out that is also problematic. When women don’t pitch in to help with tasks thought of as “office housework” we are seen to be violating those pesky gender roles. I believe that is called a lose/lose. We are literally wired to engage in these behaviors but when we follow these instincts we are punished and deemed to be “too helpful” to be taken seriously. YIKES!
So what the hell do we* do? The most obvious option is to just say no. Unfortunately, we all know that is easier said than done so it’s something we end up tightroping. There are small things we can try to start. Instead of agreeing to take the meeting notes, say that you would prefer to be active in the discussion (or something like that) and then (helpfully!) suggest someone else in your place. Don’t bring in treats or make the coffee or offer to get that condolence card. Basically, ask yourself: would [insert name of any guy from your office] do this? And if the answer is no: then move along, pretty lady! If you just absolutely can’t say no to these tasks for whatever reason, keep track of the time you spend doing them and include that in your annual review discussion. That way you have a record of all the time you spent doing shit that wasn’t your job!
Don’t be the office Mom, and don’t just be a bitch. Be the HBIC 👑
*I hate that we have to help solve this problem that we didn’t create