Bringing our whole selves to work is about being authentic, utilizing the power of appreciation, focusing on emotional intelligence, embracing a growth mindset, and creating a championship team. These are the five principles we discussed in-depth in this book. In this final chapter, we’re going to take a look at how we bring all of this together and put it into action in our personal lives, at work, and with the people around us. In the pages that follow, we’ll briefly review the five principles and some key concepts and distinctions of each of them. We’ll also discuss specific ways you can put these principles into practice for yourself and your team. As you’ll notice, some of the action ideas mentioned in this chapter were discussed previously and some are new. This last chapter is designed as a recap and resource guide for you.
Principle #1: Be Authentic
Being authentic is the foundation of bringing our whole selves to work. It takes real courage to show up, interact, and communicate with authenticity, especially at work.
Authenticity Action Ideas:
Lower Your Waterline. Look for any opportunity to lower the waterline on your iceberg with the people around you—at work and at home. Be willing to admit your fears, doubts, insecurities, challenges, and whatever else is real for you. This can be done in simple day-to-day interactions. You can also lead and facilitate the “If You Really Knew Me” exercise, which can have a profound impact on the connection of your team members to one another, as well as enhance the empathy and psychological safety of the group. You can refer to pages 39–44 in Chapter 1 for the specific instructions on how to set up, facilitate, and debrief this powerful exercise.
Ask for Help. Most of us like helping others, but have a harder time asking for and receiving help. Asking for help shows vulnerability. Many of us fear that if we ask for help we will either get rejected or be judged. But if we have the courage to ask for help, a few important things can happen. First, we might actually get some help, which can lower the stress and pressure on us. Second, we might impact the culture by making it less taboo to ask for help. Third, we would give other people the opportunity to do something most of us love to do: help. If we think of asking for help as a courageous and generous act (which it is), we can have more freedom to ask for it, which will benefit us and everyone around us. It’s also important to remember that just because we ask doesn’t mean people have to help. We need to make it okay for people to decline. And if we practice asking for help in a gracious way, and we’re grateful when we get it, we can create a virtuous cycle of giving and receiving help on our team or in our work environment.
Check In with Others. It’s important to check in with the people around us, especially in the fast-paced world in which we live and work these days. We can ask “How are you?” and really mean it—not as just a social norm. By checking in with the people around us, we give them an opportunity to lower the waterline on their iceberg a bit and vice versa. Some of the best teams I work with have a simple check-in process they go through at the start of their meetings. It’s usually brief, but it allows people to be more present and share something about how they feel, where they’re at, and what’s going on, which connects the members of the team on a human level and sets the tone for the meeting. Some of the best managers I work with make sure they really check in with the people on their team when they have their one-on-ones—not just go through a list of tasks and goals. Checking in is a simple technique which is about connecting authentically with those around us, especially when we’re all busy or stressed out.
Admit When You Don’t Know Things or Make Mistakes. Although it can sometimes seem counterintuitive, one of the best things we can do to liberate ourselves and build trust and connection with those around us is to admit when we don’t know something or make a mistake. Many of us, myself included, have learned how to “save face.” This is a nice way of saying we know how to lie in the face of not knowing something or messing something up. While this might be a decent survival skill, especially in business, it creates unnecessary stress and can lead to mistrust in our relationships. The more comfortable we are admitting that we don’t know something or that we’ve made a mistake, the easier it will be for us to learn and make amends. Doing this also allows our co-workers to trust us more deeply, and it creates an environment where not knowing everything and messing things up from time to time is acceptable. This is about remembering that we’re human and imperfect, and being willing to model this courageously.
Address Conflicts Directly and Quickly. One of the biggest things that gets in the way of authenticity is our avoidance of conflict or potentially difficult conversations. We have a tendency to avoid conflict because it can be scary and uncomfortable. The more willing we are to lean into that discomfort and have those “ten minute, sweaty-palmed conversations,” the better our relationships and culture will be. Most real conflicts don’t just go away on their own. And they usually don’t improve with time if we avoid them. But if we can acknowledge and address them as they come up, we’re more likely to resolve them and not give away our power to the fear of conflict. Sometimes we may need some coaching or direct support in both addressing and resolving a particular conflict, which is okay. Dealing with conflict takes courage and is one of the most vulnerable aspects of being human and working in a team environment. And when we’re willing to address conflicts directly and quickly, it benefits us and everyone around us.
Principle #2: Utilize the Power of Appreciation
Utilizing the power of appreciation is fundamental to building strong relationships with the people around us and keeping things in a healthy and positive perspective. Bringing our whole selves to work is about being willing to show up fully and be seen, and also about being able to truly see and empower the people we work with. This is exactly what appreciation provides.
Key concepts:
Appreciation Action Ideas:
Appreciate People. As Oprah said, people want to be seen and heard, and to know that who they are matters. Appreciating people is about letting them know that we see them, hear them, and care about them. Look for things to appreciate about people—we almost always find what we look for in others. Create opportunities to express appreciation for the people around you in meetings, conversations, e-mails, and day-to-day interactions. A little bit of appreciation goes a long way, and when you make it part of how you interact and communicate, and how your team operates, it has a positive impact on everyone. You can also do the “Appreciation Seat” exercise with your team. It’s a powerful way to express appreciation specifically and to enhance your connection with each other. You can check out pages 62–67 where I walk through how to set up, facilitate, and debrief this activity.
Ask People What They’re Grateful For. The simple question “What are you grateful for?” is such a great conversation starter. As I mentioned in Chapter 2, I ask this question about once a week on social media and it’s on the outgoing message on the voicemail in my office. You could do one or both of these things yourself. It’s also a great question to ask in team meetings and one-on-ones, or in any conversation. Gratitude is a generating emotion—it makes us feel better physically, mentally, and emotionally when we think or talk about what we’re grateful for. Creating an “Attitude of Gratitude” for yourself and your team, like Cindy Elkins and her team did at Genentech, takes some thought, commitment, and follow-through, for sure. However, doing it can have an impact on both the culture and the performance of your team.
Write Heartfelt Handwritten Notes of Appreciation. Expressing appreciation of any kind and in any form can have a positive impact, as long as it’s done in a real way and with genuine intention. However, one of the most memorable and profound ways for us to express our appreciation for other people, especially these days, is to write a handwritten, heartfelt note of appreciation. Handwritten notes are becoming a bit of a lost art and practice in our digital world. And while this makes sense for a variety of reasons, when we do take the time to write someone a card in today’s environment, it really gets their attention. You could make it a practice to write at least one handwritten note of appreciation each week for someone you work with. Doing this is a simple act that can have a meaningful impact on the people around us.
Start Meetings with Good Stuff and End with Appreciations. Some of the best and most positive teams I work with start their meetings with good stuff and/or leave a little time at the end of meetings for some quick appreciations. Meetings can start late, run long, be boring, and not always be the most productive or inspiring use of our time. But taking just a few minutes at the start of the meeting to talk about some good stuff, as Erica Fox did with her remote team at Google, often sets a positive tone for the meeting and gets people more personally connected with one another. Leaving a little time at the end of the meeting for some appreciations—for each other, for what got accomplished, or for what’s going on with the team or in the company—is a nice way to wrap up and end on a positive note, especially if the meeting was in any way difficult or things are stressful in general. These are ongoing practices you can use to maintain and enhance the morale and culture of your team.
When Someone Compliments You, Just Say “Thank You.” You know what you’re supposed to say when someone compliments you? Thank you. Then, shut your mouth. If you listen to yourself and other people, what comes after the “thank you” (if that even gets said), is almost always weird and insincere. We often either give a compliment right back or we somehow discount or disagree with it. A compliment is a gift, and our job is to receive it as graciously and gratefully as we possibly can (whether or not we agree with it). We have to get past the social norms we’ve been taught about receiving compliments and appreciation from others, so that we can open up and really let it in. When we do this, not only are we more able to receive the appreciation, but we actually make it more likely that people will be comfortable giving us compliments more often. I’ve seen this one thing change the dynamic and culture of teams. It actually creates more psychological safety for the team when we know that we can express appreciation for one another and that it won’t turn into a joke or an awkward experience.
Principle #3: Focus on Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is one of the most important aspects of our ability to bring our whole selves to work, as well as to be successful both at what we do and in our relationships with others. Remember what Jeff Vijungco from Adobe said: “IQ often gets us our job, but EQ gets us promoted.”
Key concepts:
Emotional Intelligence Action Ideas:
Check In with Yourself. The first and most important aspect of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. If we aren’t aware of ourselves—what we’re thinking and how we’re feeling in the moment, and more generally our tendencies, trigger points, and motivations—we can’t focus on self-management, social awareness, or relationship management. It all starts with us. Being able to check in with ourselves in a healthy way, and on a regular basis, is essential to raising our EQ. It could be something as simple as taking a deep breath, noticing our posture, or asking ourselves “How am I feeling in this moment?” Checking in with ourselves is important for us to incorporate into how we move through our day so that we can be present and fully show up.
Create or Enhance Your Mindfulness Practices. Mindfulness practices are specific and habitual ways we can enhance our ability to be mindful and emotionally intelligent. If you don’t currently have any mindfulness practices, think of some things you can do that might work for your lifestyle and personality. There are so many tools and resources these days—books, videos, apps, and more—to both teach us and remind us about how we can slow down, meditate, and be more mindful in our lives. I shared some of my own mindfulness practices on pages 101–105; feel free to copy or modify any that resonate with you. And even if you already have a set of mindfulness practices, it’s always good to continue to check in with yourself to see if it might be time to change or enhance anything you’re doing to make sure it’s serving you most effectively in your life right now. It can also be fun and productive to talk about this at work, and even to look at ways you and your team can implement some mindfulness practices that can positively impact the energy and morale of the entire group.
Write in a Journal. This is a simple practice, and it’s one of the mindfulness practices I recommend, but its impact can be profound. As I mentioned, I’ve been writing in a journal since I was in college and these days I have two journals—a regular one and a gratitude/self-forgiveness one, both of which I carry around with me in my briefcase. If you already have a journaling practice, that’s great. It’s just important to remember to do it regularly. I notice a big difference in my life and my work when I’m journaling consistently and when I’m not. And, if this hasn’t been a practice for you, it can be fun and easy to pick up a nice journal, and to start sharing some of your thoughts and feelings in it on a regular basis. You can keep it by your bed, on your desk, and/or carry it around with you in your bag like I do. Journaling is a great mindfulness practice and a great way for us to check in with ourselves, be real about our thoughts and feelings, and to be able to share what’s going on inside of us in a way that’s safe and healthy. It’s also a great way to enhance our emotional intelligence.
Give People Your Undivided Attention When They’re Talking. As we discussed in this chapter on EQ, listening can be challenging, especially in today’s world with all our devices and distractions. The truth is, we can’t effectively listen to other people in a way that is both empowering to them and helpful to us, if we’re not paying attention. As hard as it can be at times, we have to put down our phone, turn away from our computer, and give the person we’re talking to our full and undivided attention. If we’re not able to do that, it’s both disrespectful to them and ineffective for us. If we can create a culture where we give each other our full attention or we’re willing to be honest about our inability to do so, it ends up benefitting everyone, as well as enhancing our communication and our relationships. Some of the best and most productive teams I work with have clear norms about phones and laptops at team meetings. While sometimes it might be necessary for these devices to be used in meetings, they usually aren’t needed, and just take everyone away from the conversation and from connecting with each other. It’s a good idea to discuss this dynamic with your team, and potentially come to some specific agreements about how devices should be used (or not) when you meet as a group.
Clean Out Your Filter. The filter we listen through determines the quality of our communication and has a big impact on what we hear and the nature of our relationships with others. If our filter gets clogged up, like the filter in the dryer, it’s important that we clean it out. There are really only two ways to do this: (1) address the issue or issues that are clogging up the filter directly with the person or people involved, and be willing to hang in there for as long as it takes until the issue is resolved; or (2), simply choose to let it go and change our perception. Both of these options can be challenging for different reasons. The first one usually involves some of those “sweaty-palmed conversations” that can be scary or uncomfortable. The second one involves us rising above our judgments and self-righteousness, which we often think are “true.” In either case, if we’re truly committed to resolving the issues and cleaning out the filter, we can do it, and it will benefit us, our communication, and the relationship we have with the other person or people involved.
Principle #4: Embrace a Growth Mindset
Growth mindset is a powerful perspective that we consciously choose. It’s a belief and understanding that we can improve if we’re willing to work hard, dedicate ourselves, and practice. Growth mindset is also about looking at everything that we experience as an opportunity to learn and develop, which is essential to bringing our whole selves to work.
Key concepts:
Growth-Mindset Action Ideas:
Get a Coach/Counselor. Having people in our lives like coaches, counselors, mentors, and others whom we explicitly empower to give us feedback and support us in our journey is a great way both to help us grow and to enhance our growth mindset. Growth is growth, but growth mindset is our attitude or perspective concerning growth. As I mentioned in the chapter on growth mindset, I’ve had many amazing people in my life who have helped me along the way. I currently have some wonderful coaches, counselors, and mentors who support me in my own growth, healing, and especially my work. If you already have someone (or more than one person) in your life like this, great. If not, finding one or more people to support you is a great way to accelerate your growth and to make sure you are operating with a growth mindset as much as possible.
Take Personal-Growth Workshops. Personal-growth workshops are a powerful way to make breakthrough changes in our lives. As I mentioned, I’ve been taking personal-growth workshops, seminars, and courses for the past 20 years, and I have learned, grown, and changed a great deal because of them. It’s also how I met Michelle. There are many good programs out there. I highly recommend the Hoffman Institute and Landmark Worldwide, two organizations that offer personal-growth courses. I also recommend retreat centers like Esalen, 1440 Multiversity, and the Omega Institute. These beautiful places have workshops and retreats every week and weekend throughout the year, all delivered by teachers, authors, and experts of all kinds. If you check out their websites, you’ll probably want to sign up for a dozen courses. Make taking personal-growth workshops a regular practice for you and the benefits will be enormous, both personally and professionally.
Make Commitments to Your Team. Commitment and accountability are essential to our growth and success. A great way to support your development and actively practice your growth mindset is to make commitments to your manager and/or your team. Let them know what you’re up to and working on. Creating a team environment in which we talk openly about our development plans, what we’re working on, and how we want to improve not only makes it more likely we will improve, but also brings the team closer together, creates more psychological safety, and fosters a team culture of learning and growth. The people on our team (and in our lives) can be great resources for us, as we can be for them. Making commitments to them, and allowing them to hold us accountable, is extremely important and beneficial.
Celebrate Failure. When Samantha, our older daughter, was learning to walk we would cheer for her when she tried to do it but fell down. It was a beautiful example of celebrating failure and knowing that doing so was supporting her ultimate success. At some point, fairly early in life, we tend to stop celebrating failure, and we often try to avoid it or cover it up when it happens, thinking that it’s “bad.” Failure is essential to learning and success. And embracing and celebrating failure is what growth mindset is all about. What can you do in your personal life, at work, and with your team to celebrate failure? The more willing we are to talk about and celebrate failure, the less power we give to it—and the more likely we are to take risks.
Use Start, Stop, Continue As a Practice. These three words—Start, Stop, Continue—denote powerful concepts to think about when making changes—in our personal lives, at work, or as a team. They’re also great words to use when we’re both giving and receiving feedback. As I talked about on pages 128–134, I use them (and you can too) with teams in two different ways: at the end of meetings or offsites as a way to focus on change, and to give feedback in a one-on-one meeting or even as a group. It takes courage, commitment, and a high level of maturity and emotional intelligence to use these practices, especially the group-feedback one. But embracing feedback and being willing to seek it out, ask for it, and consider it when it comes our way, is one of the best ways we can enhance our growth mindset. And when we’re willing to do this with our team, we can grow exponentially and do so together.
Principle #5: Create a Championship Team
Our ability to bring our whole selves to work is significantly impacted by the people we work with and our work environment. At the same time, when we show up fully we have the ability to impact and inspire those around us. Creating a championship team is both necessary for us to be able to bring all of who we are to the work that we do, and it’s often the natural response when we and the people around us fully engage in our work and with each other.
Key concepts:
Teamwork Action Ideas:
Focus on Your Job More Than Your Role. As we discussed, everyone on the team (and in the company) has the same job—to help the team win. However big or small our team or company may be, remembering that our job is ultimately to do whatever we can to fulfill the mission and accomplish the goals of the company makes things pretty clear. We all have a different role, which is what we as individuals do and focus on each day at work. The more we focus on our job (helping the team win) the more able we are to collaborate with others, let go of petty grievances, and keep things in perspective. Talking to the people on your team about this concept is a good place to start. When everyone gets on the same page about it, it makes it easier for us to support each other and not let our role get in the way of our job.
Create and Live by Team Values. Your company probably has stated core values. Your team may or may not have its own particular values. It’s important to do whatever you can to have the company’s values be alive and present for you and your team every day. It’s one of the things that can remind you and your colleagues to focus on your jobs more than your roles. And even if the company’s values are clear and present within your team, it’s often a good idea to have certain special team values that can help you all operate in the most positive, productive way. If your team already has such values, it’s important to make sure you’re living by and holding yourself to them. A simple way to create values for your team is to do a brainstorming exercise where you collectively write as many relevant values as possible on one big flip chart or whiteboard, and then have everyone on the team vote by placing colored dots next to the five they like best. Based on the voting and feedback, you can narrow the list down to three to five core values, and then, as a group, articulate what those words specifically mean to your team and how you want to embody them in the work you do together.
Elect Cultural Ambassadors. Following the advice Chip Conley shared with me, making someone on your team—maybe you—be accountable for the culture can be a great asset. On the best teams, of course, everyone takes ownership of the culture. But it’s incredibly important to have one or more people focused on culture and looking for new, fun, and creative ways to engage everyone and enhance the team chemistry. It’s nice when this responsibility gets shared over time as well. It’s important to do this in a creative and authentic way, especially based on the specific size, makeup, and dynamic of your team.
Talk about Your Team Dynamic. Since 80 percent of our team’s success is a psychological or “below the line” phenomenon, we have to spend more time thinking and talking about the team dynamic—how we get along, collaborate, communicate, and interact, and our overall morale. Building in time during the week, team meetings, and daily activities to focus on the health of the team is important. The challenge is that most of our daily activities are focused on mechanics—tasks, results, and so on. It takes commitment, planning, and courage to do this, but it’s very important. Setting up regular offsite meetings to discuss larger issues related to the company, the team, the team dynamic, and life in general is essential to the team’s culture and well-being. Getting off the treadmill of activity from time to time is necessary. And being willing to have those “sweaty-palmed conversations” about some of the challenging team-dynamic stuff that inevitably comes up, even with the best teams, is crucial to your success.
Do Fun Things Together. We spend so much of our time and our life at work that it’s important we find ways to have fun together. Doing simple things like going out to lunch together, sharing funny stories from our lives outside of work, and finding activities that we can do together that have nothing to do with work are all things that reduce our stress level, create connection, and make working together more enjoyable. It’s easier to win when we have fun working together. Ask the people on your team what would be fun for them, and see if you can set up some of these activities for all of you to do on a regular basis—both at work and when you gather together offsite. It doesn’t usually take a lot of money or time to have fun, but the impact and benefits of this on our morale, engagement, and productivity can be huge.
Most of these action ideas are pretty straightforward. Some are probably things you’re already doing or have done in the past. Some may be new ideas, or simply ones you haven’t tried to practice yourself or with others in the past. My suggestion is to pick a few of the things mentioned in this chapter (or things that were inspired by reading this chapter or any of the previous chapters in the book) and commit yourself to putting them into practice for yourself and to mentioning them to your team. And as you probably noticed while reading this chapter (and throughout the book), many of the things that apply to our work and to our team also apply to our personal lives, our families, and all the people and things outside of work.
There’s a Japanese proverb that I love: “Vison without action is a daydream. And action without vision is a nightmare.” How we create positive change for ourselves and the people around us is by taking our vision, our ideas, and our inspiration, and putting them together with some specific actions that we commit to and put into practice.
Keeping Things in Perspective
Arianna Huffington, the co-founder and former editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, spoke at a Wisdom 2.0 conference a few years ago. She asked us a simple but profound question: “Are you living your résumé or your eulogy?” When we go to a memorial service and listen to people get up and talk about the person who has died, we don’t usually hear about their job titles, promotions, awards, or accomplishments. We hear stories about who they were, how they lived, and the impact they had on the people around them. As I write this final section of this book, I’ll be heading later today to a memorial service for a 47-year-old friend of ours who passed away suddenly. As I shared in the Introduction, my sister Lori’s death, and some of the other significant losses I’ve experienced in my life, have been painful but important reminders of the impermanence of human life.
Bringing our whole selves to work is about having the courage to be authentic, caring enough to express our appreciation, being aware so that we can focus on our emotional intelligence, having the willingness to embrace a growth mindset, and making a commitment to creating a championship team around us. It’s really about choosing to work and live today the way we want people to talk about us in our eulogy, instead of just trying to make our résumé look good.
The concepts and distinctions we’ve discussed in this book are fairly straightforward, but practicing them isn’t always easy. They take courage, commitment, curiosity, openness, faith, and a willingness to be vulnerable, to fail, and to fully show up. This is what being human is all about, and this is what it takes for us not only to bring our whole selves to work, but to bring our whole selves to life!