Don’t Judge Too Quickly

Why do people judge too quickly before knowing them?

This is probably an artifact of the history of our species. It’s part of our hardwiring and a survival strategy. Our brains make snap judgments about people because it’s in our best interest to do so from a survival perspective. Not only does it help us eliminate or identify potential mates without wasting a lot of time, perhaps more importantly it helps us assess an individual’s threat level. When a stranger approaches you, you have but seconds to assess if the individual is a potential threat to your safety or health. Judge incorrectly and it could be game over for you.

Since humans have been tribal throughout most of our history, we have an unconscious tendency to divide people into two groups in our mind -- Us (people who exhibit many of the same characteristics that we ourselves do) and Them (people who don't exhibit all or most of the same characteristics that we ourselves do). The scarcity mentality which dominated our lives throughout most of our history unconsciously leads most people to favor others whom they perceive (rightly or wrongly) as like themselves because they identify these people as being part of their tribe — and by favoring these people, they help their tribe survive. By contrast, most people unconsciously tend to be less tolerant of people whom they perceive for whatever reason as different from them because they identify these people as not being part of their tribe — which makes them potential competitors for resources, implying that they might make it more difficult for the person's own tribe to survive.

It's human nature to go with a first impression. But intelligent people will hold back judgement until they get to know you.

But you do it yourself if you want to notice. If a big guy with tattoos and chains walks in you Will make an assumption. As opposed to a little guy with a nice suit on. And you will assume you are safer with the little guy. But you couldn't be more wrong.

We shouldn't judge too quickly because it often leads to misunderstandings and unfair assumptions. People's actions or situations are usually influenced by factors we can't immediately see, such as personal struggles, cultural differences, or unique perspectives.

The REST Strategy for Enhanced Well-Being

Have you noticed yourself often saying things in the heat of the moment that did not mean? Or perhaps you frequently make decisions that you later regret. Maybe sometimes your emotions overwhelm you like a tidal wave, and you feel helpless against them.

If any of the above resonated with you, perhaps it’s time to take a REST.  The REST strategy offers tips to improve your mental clarity and overall well-being. REST is an acronym that stands for Relax, Evaluate, Set an Intention, and Take Action. The basic principle behind REST is to try to take a brief break from whatever is in front of you and come back when your head is clearer. Here’s a little more about how to implement RESTing:

Step 1: Reflect on Your Feelings

1. Take a moment to pause and acknowledge your current emotional state.

2. Identify specific emotions you're experiencing, such as frustration, anxiety, or overwhelm.

3. Reflect on how these emotions are manifesting physically and mentally.

Step 2: Evaluate the Origins of Those Feelings

1. Consider if your feelings connect to any specific events, circumstances, or situations.

2. Determine if they stem from your job responsibilities, team or management dynamics, or the cultural or physical environment.

3. Think about how these workplace stressors impact your physical, social, psychological, financial, or community well-being.

Step 3: Shift Your Thinking

1. Acknowledge and interrupt negative thought patterns or assumptions contributing to your stress.

2. Visualize a desired outcome or scenario to reduce anxiety and shift your energy.

3. Try to understand the needs motivating the actions or behaviors in play.

Step 4: Take Action to Alleviate Pressure

1. Focus on what you can control and break down the issue into smaller, manageable tasks.

2. Seek support from colleagues or supervisors to delegate tasks or discuss concerns.

3. Engage in movement, breathing exercises, or journaling to reduce stress hormones and increase well-being.

The R.E.S.T. technique provides a practical way to manage stress and cultivate well-being by empowering you to take a brief break, clarify your thoughts, plan your response, and take action to move forward with greater ease and confidence. Regular practice of this skill can help you develop greater emotional resilience and maintain your overall well-being.

How to Make Employees Feel Respected

In the workplace, respect and appreciation aren’t just nice-to-haves; they are essential components of a healthy, productive, and loyal workforce. Numerous studies highlight how crucial these elements are to employee satisfaction and overall well-being. A study conducted by the HarvardBusiness School found that employees who feel respected by their leaders are 55% more engaged and 56% more likely to stay with their organization for an extended period. When employees feel respected and appreciated, they are more likely to stay longer, perform better, and exhibit loyalty to their employers.

Unfortunately, not every work environment provides the respect and appreciation that employees need. Here are some practical ways to foster a positive work environment among your peers:

1. Treat Colleagues with Respect: Leading by example is one of the most powerful tools you have. Treat your colleagues with respect, and they are likely to reciprocate. Be mindful of your words and actions, and avoid negative gossip or dismissive comments. When others feel respected by you, they are more likely to respect you in return.

2. Congratulate Them on Their Successes: People thrive on recognition, and you don’t need to be a manager to offer it. When a colleague achieves something noteworthy, make it a point to congratulate them. This can be as simple as sending a quick email or offering praise in a team meeting. Celebrating the successes of others builds rapport and goodwill.

3. Be a Friend: Research has shown that workplace friendships can increase job satisfaction and performance. By showing interest in your colleagues’ lives, listening actively, and offering support when needed, you can build strong, positive relationships. A friendly smile or taking the time to check in on how someone is doing can go a long way in creating a sense of camaraderie.

4. Show Genuine Caring: Acts of kindness, such as offering help when a colleague is swamped or simply lending a listening ear, can make a big difference. Being caring and compassionate helps you build trust and foster deeper connections with your peers. This can lead to a more supportive and positive workplace environment.

Respect must be cultivated intentionally and continuously through humble, two-way dialogue and ongoing feedback mechanisms that honor complexity and lift up overlooked voices. Leaders who make respect a daily priority through actions like unconscious bias training, inclusive policies and psychologically safe feedback cultures will see the dividends of higher employee engagement, well-being and performance across their organizations. Employees simply want to feel valued - that universal human need is well within leaders' power to nurture.

Lean Quote: Empathy Begins with Understanding Life

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Empathy begins with understanding life from another person's perspective. Nobody has an objective experience of reality. It's all through our own individual prisms."   —  Sterling K. Brown

Being able to show empathy is a key and important skill. Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is a crucial skill that enhances communication, builds stronger relationships, and fosters a sense of connection. It allows individuals to see situations from different perspectives, understand the needs of others, and respond with compassion.

Some leaders naturally show more empathy at work than others and will have an advantage over their peers who have difficulty expressing empathy. Most leaders fall in the middle and are sometimes or somewhat empathetic.

Fortunately, it’s not a fixed trait. Empathetic leadership can be learned. If given enough time and support, leaders can develop and enhance their empathy skills through coaching, training, or developmental opportunities and initiatives.

Here are 28 tips to help:

• Listen and don’t interrupt
• Focus 100% on the other person
• Be FULLY present (don’t have your phone nearby)
• Use people’s names
• Be nice and care
• Do not take it in turns to talk
• Put yourself in their shoes
• Don’t judge
• Acknowledge the person’s feelings
• Ask questions
• Don’t assume
• Ensure your body language is spot on
• Don’t finish off sentences
• Summarise your understanding
• Allow the person to rant
• Get to know others personally
• Make it about them and not you
• Smile
• Park your beliefs
• Say “Thank you”
• Accept feedback
• Accept disagreement
• Don’t give advice too soon
• Use “we” not “me”
• Look at it from different angles
• Don’t have all the answers
• Be open
• Ask how you can help

When managers hone their empathetic leadership skills, they improve their effectiveness and increase their chances of success in the job. Empathetic leaders are assets to organizations, in part because they are able to effectively build and maintain relationships and retain talent — a critical part of leading organizations anywhere in the world.

End the Blame Game

Workplaces that assign blame to individuals rather than looking at organizational issues create an environment where people are afraid to speak out, are defensive, and are unable to be creative. From healthcare and banking to technology and manufacturing, blame culture negatively impacts on employee engagement, productivity, and can result in lost chances for improvement.

The blame culture is woven into the fabric of many organizations. This phenomenon involves assigning fault to individuals when errors occur, rather than addressing systemic issues. It’s a culture where finger-pointing trumps collaborative problem-solving, and fear of retribution stifles voices that could propose innovative solutions.

The blame culture is a reflexive, defensive posture that can suffocate creativity and hinder progress. As you’ll see, the blame culture is antithetical to nurturing trust and fostering an environment conducive to experimentation and learning. Leaders must navigate this delicate balance between accountability and the detrimental effects of blame.

If a blame culture is a norm at your company, it’s time to make a change. Here are 5 tips to help you stop a blame culture and cultivate a healthier, more supportive work environment:

1.     Change Your Mindset

Blame is biological. It’s inherent in our DNA to want to shift blame onto others.

The good news is that you can reduce the frequency with which you blame others — and improve the culture at your work — by changing your mindset.

Don’t automatically look for someone to blame or ask who’s at fault when you have a poor outcome.

Instead, make a phrase like “We’re all learning” or “We’re all in this together” your mantra. Write it down and display it on your desk, so you don’t forget.

Shifting your mindset might seem impossible at first. With practice, though, it’ll soon become second nature.

2.     Lead by Example

To change the culture at your company, you must lead by example. You can’t create an environment where your employees feel comfortable taking responsibility for their mistakes if you never own up to yours.

Start by sharing your mistakes with your team. Talk about what you learned when you “messed up” and explain the steps you took to avoid messing up again in the future.

When you share your mistakes, you send a signal to your employees that it’s safe for them to share theirs. This approach creates a more psychologically safe workplace and contributes to a no-blame culture.

3.     Foster Transparency

When you share your mistakes, you contribute to a culture of openness and transparency at work.

Continue this trend by regularly inviting feedback from employees. Give them time during meetings to talk about their recent wins, the problems they’ve encountered, and the issues holding them back from progressing.

When you create a safe place for employees to talk about their problems and pain points, as well as the progress they’ve made, you foster a more transparent workplace and a more engaged team.

4.     Change the Way You Address Mistakes

Treat mistakes as learning opportunities. Rather than viewing them as setbacks, look for ways to turn them into lessons for your team and yourself.

It’s always better for your employees to come to you immediately when something goes wrong rather than wasting time and resources trying to cover up their mistakes.

Suppose an employee knows you won’t yell at them, threaten to fire them, or embarrass them for messing up. In that case, they’ll be more inclined to take responsibility.

Sharing their mistakes also allows them to fix and learn from the problem faster.

5.     Encourage Empathy

Empathy is at the core of a no-blame culture.

Remember that no-blame cultures are built around an understanding of human complexities and the complexities of their jobs. A no-blame culture acknowledges that mistakes can happen and views them as valuable data rather than moral failings.

If you want to eliminate a blame culture at work, start practicing and encouraging empathy. Put yourself in your employees’ shoes and invite them to do the same.

An essential aspect of empathy is active listening. Active listening goes beyond simply hearing what someone is saying and genuinely interpreting the meaning behind their words.

When you actively listen, it’s easier to understand why someone made a particular decision or handled an issue in a specific way. This understanding helps you see things from their perspective and become more empathetic.

If you really want a positive, productive workplace, then you’ve got to stop ‘blame culture’ in its tracks. It’s not going to happen overnight. You’ll need to be patient and persistent. You can do this by following the 5 tips you’ve just learned. Tackling blame culture leads to a happier, safer environment in your workplace.

Setting Clear Expectation for Employees

Unclear or misunderstood expectations can lead to a drop in performance, along with conflict between a manager and a team member. Although no one likes a micromanager, most employees appreciate knowing they are on the right track. Setting expectations and communicating employee responsibilities to each new hire can have a long-lasting effect on your business. However, a study by Gallup shows that nearly half of all U.S. employees don’t know what’s expected of them at work.

Here are some tips for setting expectations and finding meaning at work for new and existing employees:

1. Connect Individuals to the Big Picture

Numerous research studies indicate that employees are more likely to find meaning at work if their job helps them achieve some longer-term goals. Typically, this involves a leader understanding the far-reaching goals an employee wants to achieve and helping them see how their work is contributing to that.

It is important to articulate a common goal, not just to harness the collective energy but also to help people build a connection between their work and the organization’s highest aims. People need to know how their work connects to the organization’s vision and what’s in it for them.

This requires reconstructing day-to-day work to the organization’s objective, helping employees understand how a series of low level tasks are related to the bigger picture.

2. Identify Meaningful Progress

We need regular feedback to inform us how we are tracking to motivate us to stay the course. Many of us need to feel that we are making progress and that our work is contributing to something important. Measurement and feedback provide an important sense of momentum which is, critical to increasing performance and motivation.

At work, a lot of measurements can be meaningless for individuals. Help your employees measure what matters to them. Work with them to uncover what makes them feel successful at the end of the day or week. Communicate regularly to employees how far they are expected to go and keep them informed of progress along the way.

Research shows that when people know exactly how they were progressing they have the best performance and least stress.

3. Connect Your Team to the External Customer

Ultimately, organizations have to solve customer problems to stay in business. The reality is you can’t make good customer decisions if you are siloed. Yet, the customer can often get forgotten about as an organization becomes larger. It is important to help your people understand how their work benefits customers.

The best method to do that is for employees to hear firsthand from customers how the organization’s product or service improves their life.

It’s important to help your employees think about who would be worse off if they didn’t do their job.  Reframing for who your work matters can be a powerful motivator to improve our results.

Employees feel most appreciated when you help them feel connected: to purpose, accomplishment, and one another. Communicate their exact role in your organization’s greater purpose—how they make a difference and contribute. And how they fit into their teams and the broader organization. When employees connect to organizational purpose, great work, and their teammates, they feel a higher sense of belonging at work. Successful companies show employees how their efforts play a part in something much bigger than themselves, so they feel more valued by their leaders and by their organization.

Not All Judgement is Bad

The instinct to judge; it's a common reflex we all possess. We're hardwired to evaluate and assess the people and situations around us.

Judgement is a hard-wired mechanism for survival, a natural instinct, and a defense mechanism. Most of us partake in constant judgment of people’s clothing, judgement of people’s words, judgment of people’s actions. However, more often than not it consumes so much of our mental energy unnecessarily.

Judgement seems to be inherent to us humans… Judgement is not always bad, judging people can be a gift when it prompts self-reflection and growth. Constructive judgment can highlight areas for improvement, inspire empathy, and foster deeper understanding of ourselves and others. It serves as a tool for personal development and building healthier relationships, ultimately leading to greater self-awareness and fulfillment.

Here are some of the benefits that can come from our judgments of others…

Self Awareness

Our judgments offer valuable insights, revealing areas in ourselves where we can nurture love, acceptance, and reconciliation. They illuminate opportunities for personal growth, expansion, and release, paving the way for forgiveness and authentic confidence.

Constructive Feedback

When we are busy judging others and we don’t have to deal with ourselves. Feedback is a powerful tool for growth, both personally and as a leader. Invite others to share their thoughts and observations with you. Once you begin listening to learn about another, wonder focuses your attention, and you feel appreciation for another’s experience. You experience empathy; a state of understanding and respect. Put yourself in the shoes of those you lead and imagine how they might be experiencing the challenges they face. Instead of feeling defensive, let empathy stimulate how you respond and act. Remember, feedback is a precious gift that will propel you forward when you open and receive it fully.

Expanded Compassion

When we’re being judgmental, it can remind us about the importance of compassion – for ourselves and others. The things we judge in others (which are always things we judge in ourselves consciously or unconsciously) are simply things we don’t have much compassion for. We can use our judgments as opportunities to expand our capacity for compassion, one of the most powerful emotions we can express and experience in life.

There’s nothing wrong with us being judgmental, it’s a normal aspect of being human. And, while judgments can and do cause a great deal of difficulty and pain in our lives and relationships, especially if we stay unconscious about them, we can use our own judgmental tendency to actually create the kind of life and the kinds of relationships we truly want. There are advantages in our judgments, if we’re willing to do the work necessary and confront them and ourselves with ruthless compassion and vulnerable truth.