[2022-10-26] Take care of yourself and others

I delivered a speech today to a group of leaders in the communications branch of Public Services and Procurement Canada. In most of my recent addresses, I've told my story of being diagnosed with, treated for and living beyond ovarian cancer. But today I focused on the challenges my audience was facing and used my story and experience as supporting actors in their narrative.

That narrative includes challenges that many leaders in the Public Service are facing right now:

Managing teams of tired individuals, whose mental health may have suffered because of the unparalleled level of pressure of the past 2½ years.
Dealing with extraordinary change in the way employees work—hybrid models, return to office, shared office space.
Having to build relationships with employees, clients and other teams without the benefit of regular, face-to-face contact.
Being asked to deliver ambitious new projects.
Perhaps finding that systems that worked in the past aren't working now and need to be rethought.
And likely coping with their own fatigue.

That's a lot.

I remember those pressures well: working 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for months; sitting through back-to-back meetings every day; standing up new functions in one or two days that would have previously taken months; trying to deliver on the normal business of Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada even as the pandemic was rapidly expanding the demands associated with that file. The pressure was relentless.

What I held onto in the early days of the pandemic was the professionalism of my staff and my colleagues in communications—both in my organization and across the Government—as well as the one thing I could control: how I treated others. I often said to my employees: "We can't always control how we're being treated, but we can control how we treat each other." I shared a pertinent quote from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, whose book Man's Search for Meaning I listened to while going through cancer treatment. He said: "everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." In choosing my own way, I didn't always succeed in keeping my negative emotions in check. But I tried really hard. And I was effusive in my praise for my staff, who sacrificed so much as we endeavoured to help Canadians navigate a crisis that none of us had ever experienced before.

Even as the pressure on the Public Service starts to ease (I hope), there's still a lot to deal with, including the fallout from working at a pace that is not sustainable. In my speech today, I shared three actions that leaders can take to take care of themselves because, without that, they won't be able to take care of their employees. Then I offered six suggestions for things leaders can do to help their employees.

TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF

Express Gratitude

The first thing you can do to take care of yourself is to express gratitude—focusing on what is good in your life as opposed to what isn't. On the second day of my health leave—nine days after I had learned that I had ovarian cancer—I shared in my Jenesis blog something that Jennifer Lopez had written in social media:

In this time, when it’s so easy to get down and think of all the things going wrong and what we don’t have and don’t know the answers to... I make it a habit to say three things I’m grateful for as soon as I open my eyes and then at night when I’m lying in bed I list three good things out loud that happened that day.

Lopez's practice is backed by research, as I recently shared in referencing the terrific TED Talk of Harvard researcher Shawn Achor. In his TED Talk, Achor states that only 10% of our happiness is dependent on our external world. The other 90% is based on the way our brains process the world. For example, our success at work is three times as likely to be predicted by our level of optimism, our social support and our ability to see stress as a challenge than by our IQ. Achor says that when we're feeling positive, we perform significantly better than when we're feeling neutral, negative or stressed. We're more intelligent, creative and energetic. We're faster, more productive, and more accurate. He suggests five activities which—when performed every day for 21 days—can help us rewire our brains to make us more positive:

Three gratitudes - Writing down three new things for which we're grateful will encourage us to start scanning the world for the positive rather than the negative.
Journaling - Writing down a positive experience we've had in the past 24 hours will allow us to relive it.
Exercise - Exercise teaches our brain that our behaviour matters.
Meditation - Meditation allows our brain to focus on the task at hand. (And if you're not a sit-on-the-floor-cross-legged kind of person, walking in a nature is a great form of moving meditation.)
Acts of kindness - Performing acts of kindness—such as writing a complimentary email or letter to someone—makes us feel more positive.

Engage in Self-Care

My second tip is to engage in self-care. What does that look like? Of course, it includes exercise, eating well and getting enough sleep. But self-care also includes things like creating a no list. We all have long to-do lists, but how many of us have to-don't lists? When I was the Assistant Deputy Minister of Communications—long before the pandemic hit—my Chief of Staff and I came up with Jen's to-don't list (largely things that I would no longer review and approve). Having a life-threatening disease also made me rethink where I was spending my time. In November 2020, halfway through my course of chemotherapy, I created a personal to-don't list of things I would no longer do (or try to limit), including:

Associating with people who are negative or selfish.
Doing optional things out of a sense of obligation.
Consuming news stories that are depressing or disturbing.

Other self-care activities include relaxation or pleasure—doing something that slows you down, such as walking in nature or petting a dog. In April 2020, on my first day off after working 7 days a week for months in the early days of the pandemic, all I could do—the entire day—was a puzzle. I just needed to focus on something other than work.

Another extremely important element of self-care is seeking medical attention. Let my story be a cautionary tale. On July 29, 2020, I went to the emergency department at the Queensway Carleton Hospital because of a pain in my abdomen. My guess was that I was having an issue with my gallbladder (a condition that runs in my family). All day, in between chats with nurses and doctors and various diagnostic tests, I continued to work. I had brought my cell phone, my tablet and my chargers. I even did a meeting via Zoom from the hospital. But at the end of the day, after having had an ultrasound, the ER doctor called me into a small room and told me, "I have good news and bad news: the good news is that you don't have gallstones; the bad news is that you have ovarian cancer." I was floored. I felt perfectly fine, save for my gallbladder issue. Hearing him tell me that I had ovarian cancer was the last thing I expected him to say. I would later learn that ovarian cancer is called the whispering cancer because the symptoms are so quiet and so easily mistaken for innocuous things.

I like to say that you can outsource many tasks: processing your income tax return, cleaning your house, walking your dog. But one task you can't outsource is taking care of your health. Only you can attend your doctor's appointments, go to the lab for blood work, undergo tests, and follow through with treatment. As they say, if you don't make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness. I would probably not be alive today if I had ignored the pain I experienced on that day back in July 2020.

Prevent or Treat Burnout

The third action you can take for yourself is to prevent or treat burnout. One of my most meaningful posts (Burnout: helping yourself and others) was on this subject, written at the request of a former colleague who was seeing it among her colleagues. I shared some key points from the post.

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. As the stress continues, you begin to lose the interest and motivation that led you to take on a certain role in the first place. Burnout is a gradual process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can creep up on you. Work-related burnout can occur when you feel like you have little or no control over your work, when you experience a lack of recognition or reward for good work, when job expectations are unclear or overly demanding, or when the environment in which you work is chaotic or high-pressure.

You can apply the 3R approach to burnout:

Recognize. Watch for the warning signs of burnout.
Reverse. Undo the damage by seeking support and managing stress.
Resilience. Build your resilience to stress by taking care of your physical and emotional health.

Here are five things you can do when you feel burnt out or at risk of burning out:

Turn to other people. "Social contact is nature’s antidote to stress and talking face to face with a good listener is one of the fastest ways to calm your nervous system and relieve stress." Choose someone who can listen without becoming distracted or passing judgement. Try to make the time spent with friends and family positive and enjoyable. Avoid negative people. Connect with a cause or community that is meaningful to you; helping others can bring immense pleasure and help reduce stress.
Reframe the way you look at work. Try to find value in your current job by, for example, focusing on the help you provide to others or the aspects of your job you enjoy.
Reevaluate your priorities. "Burnout is an undeniable sign that something important in your life is not working." Rediscover what makes you happy. If saying no doesn't come naturally, set boundaries. One of the boundaries I set (admittedly, I had very few in the first few months of the pandemic) was to put on my out-of-office notification on the Sundays when I was "off" work. As you're re-evaluating your boundaries, try to take a break from technology every day—a set time when you disconnect from electronic devices, email and social media. This doesn't mean you're not reachable (as I know that's important in communications); it just means that colleagues will have to call you if their issue is truly urgent. Nine times out of 10, no one will call you.
Make exercise a priority. Like creativity, "exercise is a powerful antidote to stress and burnout." Try to exercise for 30 minutes each day or 10 minutes three times a day. "A 10-minute walk can improve your mood for two hours." Exercise that requires you to move both your arms and legs can lift your mood, increase your energy level, enhance your ability to focus, and relax your mind and body.
Support your mood and energy levels with a healthy diet. "What you put in your body can have a huge impact on your mood and energy levels throughout the day."

Burnout: helping yourself and others includes additional information on how to help someone else who is burnt out.

ENGAGING EMPLOYEES

Help employees do what they’re good at and what they love

In 2013, Gallup surveyed 24 million people around the world to determine the level of workplace engagement. What they found is this:

3 out of 10 employees are engaged—they're committed to the organization, productive and loyal.
5 out of 10 may be productive, but they lack commitment to the organization and are more likely to leave and to be absent than their engaged counterparts.
2 out of 10 are physically present but psychologically absent; they are unhappy with their work situation and share this unhappiness with coworkers.

It's like being the coxswain in a boat. You have 10 rowers:

3 are busting their butts.
5 are looking at the scenery.
2 are trying to sink the boat.

The challenge—or the opportunity, depending on your perspective—is to move more and more people into the engaged category. Organizations with high engagement have less absenteeism and turnover and more productivity and profitability than organizations with low engagement. That’s in part because engaged employees give more discretionary effort. This doesn’t necessarily mean working harder or longer; it can be as simple as recommending the organization as a good place to work and sharing ideas.

So how do you move people from the disengaged or not engaged categories to the engaged category? What Gallup found is that when employees strongly agree with one of two statements—"I like what I do each day" and "I do what I'm best at every day"—they are 4½ times more likely to be thriving in life than those who don't. That’s not just thriving in their career, but thriving in life. That’s because career well-being is the greatest determinant of a good life—more than social, financial, physical or community well-being.

So what contributes to career well-being? It comes from having interesting and meaningful work, using our strengths, achieving goals and having a leader who motivates us. It also comes from having a manager who focuses on what’s strong, not what’s wrong. You have tremendous influence over your employees' performance. In his paper Maximizing Employee Engagement, Craig Dowden, a Canadian psychologist, cited Gallup research that found that 70% of the variations in employee engagement are attributable to the direct supervisor. Dowden wrote: "of all of the possible influencers on engagement, the manager is the key to achieving peak performance."

Help your employees make progress on work that matters

In his paper, Dowden talked about five things managers can do to help employees feel engaged:

Give your staff as much autonomy as possible over how they do their work. Think of it as the opposite of micromanagement.
Focus on employees' strengths and assigning work based on strengths.
Help employees find meaning and purpose in their work, eliminate meaningless tasks, and link their work to the big picture.
Be a trustworthy leader. Live up to your commitments. Communicate frequently. Listen to employees’ ideas. Connect with employees on a personal level. Be civil and expect civility in your team.
Remove obstacles that interfere with your employees' ability to get their work done.

On the final point, Dowden points to research out of Harvard called the "progress principle." This is the notion that employees are motivated when making progress on their projects and demotivated when spinning their wheels. What can managers do to help?

Avoid changing goals. When goals change or are inconsistent, employees may feel that their work was a waste of time or that they need to start all over again.
Provide feedback on your employees’ work quickly. Dowden says: "Each day employees wait for direction the benefits of the progress principle slip away." This one can be hard. When I became ADM, I tried to provide comments to staff on work they submitted to me within 24 hours. (If I didn't, the pile would have just gotten bigger and bigger.) When I knew that wasn't possible, I would try to let them know—within that 24 hours—when I would be providing feedback.
View setbacks as a learning opportunity. When mistakes occur, "Looking to blame leads to a culture of fear within teams." This may, in turn, make team members reluctant to admit mistakes or even discuss their work for fear of how their boss may react. Instead, managers should look for the opportunity to learn from failure.
Celebrate small wins. Taking the time to acknowledge small gains as well as major accomplishments keeps the progress principle alive. For large projects, breaking them down into smaller parts can help everyone maintain a sense of progress.
Ask employees what obstacles they face and work with them to eliminate red tape. Obstacles could include developing reports that are no longer read or used.

Remember that character is how you act when everything is falling apart

How we respond when things go wrong can have huge impacts on ourselves and others. After one particularly trying day at the office, I shared this quote with my management team:

Character isn't how you act when life is going the way you want it to. That's easy. Character is how you act when everything around you is falling apart. Character is how you act when you are scared and angry and tired and frustrated. That's when people watch you and decide whether they will trust you.

As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem If—

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,...

You'll be a great leader.

(OK, Kipling didn't end his poem by saying, "You'll be a great leader." He wrote: "you'll be a Man, my son!" But I think my ending captures the spirit of the poem.

Learn to manage your own stress

As I've shared before, I once had a conversation with an employee about the anxiety that some bosses create in their employees by not managing their own stress. He told me the story of having worked with two ex-military men who were always very calm, no matter the circumstances. He asked them how that could be, and one of them said: "Officers don’t run; it makes the troops nervous."

Remember that when it comes to civility and respect in the workplace, the seemingly inconsequential makes a huge difference

In his Civility Matters! paper, Craig Dowden defined incivility as "rude, insensitive, disrespectful, and thoughtless behavior" that is directed at individuals. But he also noted that incivility is "seemingly inconsequential." That’s what makes it difficult to identify incivility. He gives these examples:

Paying little or no attention to an expressed opinion, such as a comment in a meeting
Not listening during a meeting or conversation
Checking email or texting messages during a meeting
Using email to send a difficult message to avoid facing the individual, especially if that email is sent after hours
Not saying "please" or "thank you"
Talking over or down to someone
Not saying good morning

Showing respect is not about grand gestures. It’s about the seemingly inconsequential.

Leave people feeling better about themselves than when you found them

I think of this one as the Boy Scout rule. Just as the Boy Scouts follow the maxim "Try to leave this world a little better than when you found it," ask yourself, after a conversation, whether the person you were talking to walked away feeling better or worse. Employees who leave conversations feeling better than when they arrived often pay it forward, passing on those good emotions to others. They'll remember it tomorrow when you ask them to go above and beyond, and next week when you solicit their ideas, and next month when something goes wrong. It’s like what Maya Angelou said: "people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

I closed my speech today by recognizing the tough job Public Service managers have: leading staff, collaborating with colleagues, keeping senior managers and clients happy and informed, delivering on their own responsibilities, and managing a tremendous amount of change. But I also reminded them that they have a personal life, involving family, friends and community. My final words were these: Remember to take care of yourself while you're taking care of others.