This connection was recognized by the entrepreneur and communications expert Morra Aarons-Mele and she explores it in her hit podcast, The Anxious Achiever. 

Anxiety’s Upside 

She has now written a book of that name, subtitled “Turn Your Biggest Fears Into Your Leadership Superpower.” When I spoke to Aarons-Mele for our latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, she explained how anxiety can be a double-edged sword. 

Here's an excerpt. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)

For the anxious among us, it’s nice to know there can be an upside to the uncomfortable symptoms we often feel: racing heart, churning stomach, aching brain.  

The trick is to “look our anxiety in the face and work with it,” Aarons-Mele says. Then we can harness the powerful drivers of those symptoms to produce our best work and reduce our discomfort. 

Freeing Yourself From Thought Traps

In her book, she shines a light on what causes anxiety in conscientious people, including negative self-talk, all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing, and overthinking. In each case, she offers tips for escaping those thought traps. 

For example, if you can recognize that you’re catastrophizing, you can actively try to interrupt those thoughts with more rational ones.  

“I can literally try to replace the instantaneous thought of, ‘It’s all your fault. You suck. You’re getting fired,’ with, ‘Okay, maybe this wasn’t your best month. Let’s look at the data. Let’s try to just bring some more neutral information in. Let’s try to breathe. Even if you did get fired, let’s play out the worst-case scenario and see what would happen’,” she says. “That kind of interruption for me – and it’s evidence based – is really powerful.” 

Perfectionism Is Anxiety 

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I was interested that Aarons-Mele devotes a whole chapter to perfectionism. 

When I asked her why, she said that perfectionism is a common problem for anxious achievers, and it’s often misunderstood.  

“Perfectionism, I learned in my study, is not always being amazing and giving everything you’ve got and creating the most incredible product ever made. Perfectionism’s anxiety: it’s a sense that, ‘If I am not perfect, I’m not worth it’,” she told me. 

The Terrifying Typo 

On the face of it, the job of a writer and editor aligns positively with perfectionism. Being exceptionally careful about facts, grammar usage and spelling is the sweet spot of editorial work. In fact, the more perfectionist an editor is, the better – or so it always seemed to me. 

When I was editor-in-chief of a small weekly newspaper, I wore my perfectionism like a badge of honor. I invented processes for myself that demanded a lot of time and high levels of concentration. If I was editing an article, I’d never read it fewer than three times, proudly announcing to whoever would listen that I’d found something new to correct every time.  

But this extreme attention to detail wasn’t always helpful. I remember finding a typo in the small print of an advertising supplement freshly delivered from the printer. I was horrified. I picked up a pair of scissors and scratched at the misplaced letter until it was obliterated in a scruff of newsprint. Sleepless nights followed, punctuated by harebrained “solutions” like pulping the lot and reprinting a new, perfect batch of magazines.  

Remembering this incident now, I still feel mortified about the error, even though my rational mind reminds me that, as far as I know, no one noticed it. If they did, it had no consequences, which is more or less the same as no one noticing. 

Having heard Aarons-Mele’s take on this particular thought trap, I can see that my response to the typo was multifaceted. It was about producing the best product I could, but it was also about proving my own worth, to myself and other people. My motivation got tangled up, so that when I saw that tiny mistake in print, it registered with me as a total personal fail.  

Let’s Be Excellent 

Perfectionists need to stand back and give themselves an easier time of it, Aarons-Mele believes. We control the urge to be perfect, not the other way around. 

“If we can moderate [perfectionism] and get it out of our way, as one of my favorite interviews in the book – Dr Thomas Greenspan – says, ‘We’ll still be excellent, just without all the attending anxiety’,” she reflects.  

But anxious achievers, don’t worry! This isn’t about lowering our standards. It’s about accepting that life happens and mistakes can slip through. And that “excellent” is – truly – as worthy an outcome as “perfect.” 

Listen to the Full Story

You can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Morra Aarons-Mele if you're a Mind Tools member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.

If you're not already a member, join Mind Tools now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.

Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up free to the Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.

The post Aim for Excellent, Not Perfect: My Expert Interview With Morra Aarons-Mele  appeared first on Mind Tools.

Author Amy Gallo has assessed this issue over many years and has published her findings and insights in a new book, “Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People).” 

It’s packed with tips for dealing with specific types of difficult personality. But it also takes a bird's-eye view of the complexity of workplace relationships, and the importance of looking after your own mental health as you navigate them. 

Hang On to Your Integrity

I spoke to Gallo for our Mind Tools Expert Interview, and she spoke about staying true to yourself as you deal with difficult people. 

Here's an excerpt. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)

Gallo’s book examines eight archetypes of difficult people: the insecure boss, the pessimist, the victim, the passive aggressive peer, the know-it-all, the tormentor, the biased co-worker, and the political operator.  

Most people will have worked with one or more of these archetypes. I certainly have. And after talking to Gallo, I realize that I could have handled those situations better. 

From Pessimist to "Disagreer-in-Chief"

For instance, I remember one pessimist I worked alongside in a busy radio newsroom, who became a figure of fun for the rest of us. We laughed at her constant whining, usually behind her back, and never took the time to listen properly to her concerns.  

If we had, we might have learned something. And she’d have felt like a valued member of the team and better able to do her best work. She might even have complained less. 

Gallo points out that if you’re able to look beyond their difficult behavior, pessimists can serve a useful purpose, because they may flag up serious problems that the rest of us can’t see.  

“You do want to hear those contrarian perspectives. You do want to hear someone who’s pointing out potential roadblocks or obstacles and what [might] happen,” she says.  

“We don’t want to let it dampen the mood of the team or the motivation of the team. We don’t want them to have more power than anyone else on the team. But, if we can sort of right-size their role and hear their perspective, I think it benefits everyone.” 

Gallo suggests that in some cases, pessimists could be given the role of “Disagreer-in-Chief,” charged with looking for the holes in plans or possible pitfalls ahead. That can lead to crucial conversations about mitigating the risks that they highlight. 

From Victim to Validation

As well as pessimists, I’ve worked with my share of victims, who can be a tiresome suck on energy. Unlike the complaints of the doom-monger pessimist, the victim’s moaning is always just about them, and of very little use to others. 

One “victim” writer I worked with – Kate – was convinced that her editor didn’t take her experience seriously. She acted like every edit was a personal slight, and went into an obvious sulk if major rewrites were requested. 

Part of Gallo’s advice for working well with victims is to encourage them to take responsibility for whatever is upsetting them. Ask them directly why they believe they’re not to blame – and importantly, listen to the answer. 

Kate left her job after a few painful months. If I reflect on that situation now, I can see that she may have had a point. She didn’t get on with the capricious editor-in-chief, who – yes, in retrospect – didn’t value Kate’s eclectic experience. He probably did give her a harder time than other writers on the team.  

If someone had listened at the time, Kate could have been assigned to a different editor. The rewrite requests might have continued, but coming from someone else, they might have felt like valuable feedback, rather than a personal insult. This small change would have saved a lot of time and hassle recruiting her replacement. 

Understanding Others' Perspectives

Dealing with other people is complicated. Emotions flare up, positions get entrenched. But it always helps to remember that the person with the difficult behavior might be right. And we might be wrong.  

Gallo says we should beware of “naïve realism”: when we think we’re seeing the truth, clear as day, but what we’re actually seeing is our own point of view. 

“There are many other ways to view the situation,” Gallo says. “There’s the way your colleague sees it. There’s the way people outside the dynamic see it, your boss sees it. And those will all be different perspectives and that’s okay.”  

After all, we don’t all need to agree on everything to get along. We just need to agree to get along.  

Listen to the Full Story

You can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Amy Gallo if you're a Mind Tools member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.

If you're not already a member, join Mind Tools now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.

Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up free to the Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.

The post Collaborating With Challenging Colleagues: My Expert Interview With Amy Gallo appeared first on Mind Tools.

This is all about when you do your work, rather than where you do it. And it’s usually remote, but not always.

With a traditional synchronous model, you and your team will keep similar hours, meeting and working together in real time – maybe online, maybe face to face. With asynchronous work, people do their part whenever they want or need to. And rather than talking to colleagues, they find out what to do by tapping into systems and databases.

Does that sound appealing to you, or a little bit isolating? Well, according to Martin, it depends on how it’s done.

The Asynchronous Mindset

Martin recently shared his experiences and tips in a new book, co-written with his business partner Rob Rawson, called “Running Remote: Master the Lessons From the World’s Most Successful Remote-Work Pioneers.” And it's a Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly Bestseller.

When I talked to him for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, Martin explained the “asynch mindset,” based on “deliberate over-communication, democratized workflow, and detailed metrics."

Here's an excerpt. (You can stream the audio clip below or read a transcript here.)

My Experience of Asynchronous Working

As an independent journalist, I’ve spent many years working remotely and asynchronously, with mixed results.

When I was doing a master’s degree in the U.K., asynchronous work offered a financial lifeline. I was an associate editor for a New York-based magazine, and I edited articles while my editor slept, sending completed work in time for when he switched on in the morning. This situation suited all of us.

Earlier in my career, I was the Mexico correspondent of an American business magazine. Based in Mexico City, I worked alone, day after day, keeping in touch with my editor in Houston via email and occasionally text and phone.

I thrived on the autonomy this gave me, and loved coming up with new ideas for the magazine that I could run with, without anyone else weighing in. This kind of grassroots decision making is one of the positive features of asynchronous working, according to Martin.

But on the downside, it was sometimes difficult to motivate myself, and the days could drag. And if I needed a quick answer to something specific and unusual, which wasn’t in any policy or guidance document, well, “quick” was rarely an option. I had to wait until my editor came back online.

In-Person Communication Wins

Looking back on these experiences, I find the faces of my editors swimming into focus. Because we did meet up occasionally, and it is those face-to-face interactions that stand out most vividly when I think of those jobs.

Although a passionate advocate of asynchronous working, Martin agrees that synchronous communication remains an important piece of the remote-working puzzle. In fact, in his own hierarchy of communication, “in-person” comes top, and every year, his own company holds a face-to-face retreat for all its employees.

“We’ve recognized that synchronous time is so important to be able to, number one, build rapport between all of our different team members and trust, but also allow us to be able to really close the chapter on one year of the business and open up another chapter in the business,” he explains.

There are two reasons why they don’t do it more often: cost and efficiency. It’s expensive to get everyone in the same place, and it takes much longer to disseminate information in real time, rather than via a prepared document. Plus, with written information, you know that every recipient gets exactly the same message, and people can refer to it as often as they like.

Martin’s hierarchy of communication continues with voice and video calls, instant messaging, and finally email, as the foundation holding up the pyramid.

Be in Tune if Not in Synch

But however you communicate in asynchronous teams, perhaps what matters most is the attitude of team members.

I once worked with a graphic designer whose location changed from week to week. Over the course of one project, he moved from Spain to Mexico to Colombia.

The time zone changed, but his efficiency and excellent communication didn’t. The project ran smoothly, with great results. But I know that if he’d dropped the ball, even for one day, I would have railed against his digital nomad lifestyle!

Liam Martin’s model of remote asynchronous work relies on every member of the team being a hardworking self-starter, who will always read attachments to emails, no matter how long and dense they look, and will never feel sub-par or distracted or lonely.

If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that working in isolation doesn’t suit everyone. So I can understand why managers continue with the synchronous model, despite the allure of its opposite. It may be slower and more costly, but it fits how humans behave. And while it’s still humans doing much of the work, that makes a lot of sense.

Listen to the Full Story

You can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Liam Martin if you're a Mind Tools Club member or if your employer is a Mind Tools for Business licensee.

Martin and Rawson's book carries a prominent endorsement by Cal Newport, another expert we've already featured on Mind Tools. Search his name at the top of this page, and you'll find our in-depth review of his book "Deep Work" and our exclusive Expert Interview with him.

If you're not already a member, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.

Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching our Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up free to the Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.

The post "If you trust your employees..." Liam Martin on Asynchronous Work appeared first on Mind Tools.

Only the other day I was on a busy train, with very few spare seats. One couple had a surprising amount of space, occupying a table for four, with their bags spread around them. I watched as passenger after passenger walked past that table, their eyes flicking away, rather than asking the pair to move their things.

And, this time, I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that the man had dwarfism. Could this really be why no one sat with them?

Disability in an Ableist World

Some ableism is systemic, like a lack of accessible infrastructure in schools, offices and transportation hubs. It can also be internalized.

We may talk over a neurodivergent colleague, mistaking a pause for the end of her point. Or avoid someone who looks different on a train, as I witnessed.

According to Ladau, this is about our perception of disability and disabled people – sometimes as superhuman, more commonly as subhuman. But we can change that.

Here’s what she told me, in our interview. (You can stream the audio clip below or download a transcript here.)

To explore these ideas, I’d recommend reading Emily Ladau’s book, "Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally." It’s a clear, nonjudgmental guide to helping make the world a more accessible and inclusive place.

The idea of "allyship" is central to this goal, but what does that really mean?

How (Not) to Be a Disability Ally

"We can very easily fall into the trap of looking at it as a title that we give ourselves," Ladau notes. "But… it’s really about taking meaningful action."

In fact, she suggests that we think of the word "ally" as a verb, not a noun, because it’s about doing things, not just talking about it. We should actively educate ourselves, with an open mind, and learn about experiences beyond our own.

Part of that is recognizing that every disabled person is an individual, with a host of different characteristics and support needs. Or, in Ladau’s words, "If you’ve met one disabled person, you’ve met one disabled person."

It's Not About You

If we don’t focus on the individual, we can make all sorts of wrong assumptions that can end up causing problems. We might think we’re being an ally by steering a blind person across a road, or pushing someone’s wheelchair up a slope. But if we’d just asked that person, we might have discovered they didn’t want that. And they may have needed something else. 

So the action allies take must be collaborative, not well-meaning gestures they impose on a person or group. As Ladau points out, doing something for disabled people and working with them are two very different things.  

"In one, you are essentially erasing the very person who you’re claiming to advocate for, whereas when you’re doing things side by side, what you’re doing is you’re amplifying the perspective of the person who you’re trying to be an ally to. And I think it’s essential to recognize that difference."

It’s a mindset shift that can only happen through open conversation. 

Disability Inclusion or Exclusion?

As someone who "navigates the world on wheels," as she puts it, Ladau has had a lifetime of dealing with ableism. I’m still thinking about a particular example from her book – it encapsulates a lot of the issues she’s working to change...

When Ladau was at college, a resident assistant in her dorm was running a disability awareness event. Did this person invite Ladau along to talk with participants about her life on wheels? No. Instead, they asked to borrow Ladau’s wheelchair, so that participants could use it to go around an obstacle course they’d set up in the lounge. 

What was Ladau supposed to do while her expensive mobility equipment – her only means of getting about – was being used like a toy? She declined the request, saddened by this missed opportunity to engage with and educate nondisabled people about her experiences, herself. 

“I remember feeling like less of a person in that moment,” Ladau writes.

Ableism makes people feel like that, as well as causing numerous practical and logistical problems for disabled people as they go about their day-to-day lives. Allies can help change that, person by person, moment by moment. 

Beyond the Infrastructure 

In the workplace, managers can be allies by “creating an environment where people feel safe and welcome to show up as their whole selves at work and to be open about their disability experiences... giving people the space to speak up for what they need to thrive.”

But Ladau concludes, "I want people to understand that allyship is very much a journey and not a destination. 

"You can listen to a podcast episode, you can read an article, you can watch a documentary, you can attend a webinar or have a conversation with a disabled person. But that doesn’t mean that you stop there.  

"My best advice is to keep learning, to keep going, to seek out new resources and new ways to learn and new ways to engage."

The Full Story

You can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Emily Ladau if you're a Mind Tools Club member, or a Mind Tools for Business licensee. You'll hear about her time on iconic children's TV show "Sesame Street" and how being disabled cuts across all other identities. As ever, the audio comes with a full transcript.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. Or find out more about Mind Tools for whole organizations, big or small, by contacting our enterprise team.

Meanwhile, catch more excerpts and insights from my guests by searching the Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up to the new Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.

The post "I'm Not More or Less: I Just Am" – Emily Ladau on Disability appeared first on Mind Tools.

We've become accustomed to digital assistants that recognize our voice to conjure up information on demand. And we're as comfortable to use fingerprint scanners to unlock our phones as to accept facial recognition technology to cross a border or to catch a criminal.

The pace of technological change is fast and phenomenal. But how afraid should we be that it will run away with us, creating a world where our identities are swallowed up and reshaped for profit and control?

This is a question for a futurist – someone like Tracey Follows (pictured above), the author of a new book titled "The Future of You: Can Your Identity Survive 21st-Century Technology?"

When I spoke to her for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, she stressed the importance of engaging with the march of technological progress, rather than ignoring or resisting it. Each of us, she says, has to "operate as a digital persona" to function in today's world, whether we like it or not.

Below is an audio clip from our conversation. You can download a transcript here.

As Follows emphasizes, "if our identity is being digitized, then we want to be in control of it."

Technology: Possible, Probable or Preferable?

According to Follows, members of the "futuring community" can be divided into those who think you can predict the future, and those who think you can't, but you can do some useful preparation for what might come. She's the second kind.

"Obviously, anything societal or cultural is a lot more difficult to predict, and so that's really more about preparing," she explains. "So you're preparing for different possible outcomes or different possible futures, as we would call them, not just the probable future."

In her book, she brings together research and insight about several aspects of our identities in the 21st century, in chapters that indicate their focus. There's "Knowing You," about data collection; "Watching You," about digital surveillance; "Creating You," about our online personas; and "Connecting You," about communication. The others are "Replacing You," "Enhancing You," and "Destroying You."

This builds a mostly dystopian vision of the future, where governments and companies can influence who you are and what you do. I asked Follows if people can opt out of this by simply not using technology. After all, not everyone has an online life. Her answer? It's not that simple.

"It doesn't really matter how much or how little you're using technology. Society is using technology and the state certainly is using technology. And that obviously has ramifications for not only who you are, but how you are treated and how you are assumed to be someone you are," she says.

Creating "You" Through Technology

So what can we control? Our social media personas, for one. We can curate a digital image of ourselves that is close to the reality, or very far from it. Or something in between – a better version of ourselves, if you will. And while this may be fun, it can also have a fascinating impact on our day-to-day lives, back on Planet Earth.

Follows explores this in the chapter "Creating You," in a discussion about avatars. This stood out for me, with its logical and tantalizing upside.

She cites research by Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford University, looking at how people represented by avatars behave in virtual environments.

"What he found was that their own behavior was very much affected by the avatar they thought they were. So how they thought they showed up affected their own behavior," she reports.

"If they thought they were a really tall person in a virtual reality space, they might be much more confident. He found that they were, I think, better negotiators, because they felt like they were more imposing when they were taller. And if they felt like they were very small avatars, they acted differently. Likewise, if they were more 'attractive,' they would be much more confident."

Follows encountered a similar effect among people in Tokyo who spent a lot of time on live social media feeds. The avatars they chose allowed them to be "discovered" – and in more ways than one.

"Sometimes when they are themselves on some of these social platforms, they are less confident," she says. "And if they can take on an avatar suddenly, they're able to turn up in these environments and sing their heart out or play the piano, and they've found these amazing talents."

Tech to Hide Behind or to Shine Through

An avatar can be a mask that hides a person's identity, but it can also enable people to adopt a new identity, with the power to draw out new strengths. It's an intriguing idea, particularly since we increasingly communicate online.

"Who we turn up as, who we represent ourselves as, how we profile ourselves, is obviously having a really fundamental and quite profound effect on our communication and our interaction in lots and lots of different ways," Follows reflects.

Granted, there are moral dilemmas and even mental health risks if "we build ourselves a wardrobe of avatars" for different situations, or to deal with different people in different ways. But on the positive side, unlike some of the other scenarios presented in Follows' book, this is one technological advance that we can manage – and benefit from – ourselves.

Transhumanism and Transparent Government

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Tracey Follows. In it, she also touches on the use (and abuse) of technology for democracy, physical and mental augmentation, creativity, and more. It comes with a complete transcript.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.

Meanwhile, you can read more from me, Rachel Salaman, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic.

The post Avatars, AI and Authentication, with Tracey Follows appeared first on Mind Tools.

Hoque realized that the disruption caused by COVID-19 was one of four huge changes we’re experiencing at the moment, the others being climate change, technological advances, and misinformation. To navigate these choppy waters, he advocates transformational leadership, combined with systemic thinking and experiential learning.

When I spoke to Hoque for the latest Mind Tools Expert Interview, he explained that his theories stretch back to his childhood in Bangladesh, a country where drought and flooding often threaten the lives of millions.

He grew up adapting to constant change, a skill that helped him thrive despite a series of personal setbacks in later life, and that he has successfully translated to the world of work through his writing and consultancy.

Transformation Through Experience

Transformational leaders are driven “by empathy, inspiration and influence,” Hoque says. And in this clip from our conversation, he shows how experiential learning and transformational leadership are linked.

(There’s lots more about transformational leadership on Mind Tools, including its history, and advice on how to become a transformational leader.)

Command and Control Is Dead

Hoque points out that this type of leader stands in stark contrast to the “transactional” leaders more common in the past, who are “all about the bottom line” and drive “maximum return with minimal investments.”

This sounds like the owner of a business magazine I worked for in New York – a man named Arthur. He led our small team from the top down, literally! He worked in a top-floor office and never showed his face in editorial, two floors below.

Although we only knew him from photos, we had to comply with his frequent diktats. For example, all women had to wear skirts and "feminine" shoes, and there was a minimum number of hours we had to spend at our desks, regardless of our workloads.

Unsurprisingly, morale was low and mutiny was simmering. And staff turnover was high, which added to stress levels. Whenever someone quit, other people were lumbered with their work, or were sidetracked by the search for their replacement.

If he’d noticed these negatives, Arthur would likely have doubled down on his command-and-control approach.

Empathy Plus Process Wins

People often think leadership comes in mutually exclusive shades. You can either be firm and process-driven, or open and empathetic. Being both doesn’t seem viable.

But for Hoque, transformational leadership can work hand-in-hand with a rigorous business-centric mindset. In fact, each one enhances the other.

“If you think about transformational leadership, it’s kind of your cultural element and your guiding post to get people rallied behind you,” he says. “Then you have to give people the exact path… a combination of process, tracking and management, matrix and measurement that makes sure that things are actually getting done.”

This approach was modeled brilliantly by a radio news editor I had early in my career, a woman called Juliet. Unlike Arthur, she didn’t give a hoot what we wore, as long as it fitted our assignments for that day.

She sat in the newsroom with us, writing news items and broadcasting bulletins. Despite being busy, she always made time to answer the many questions from her keen yet inexperienced team – with proper focus and engagement.

I remember one morning, I arrived for the early shift at 5 a.m. and a huge news story had broken in our patch overnight. I was alone in the newsroom and I didn’t know what to do. So I rang Juliet at home.

Calmly, she listened to the police report I’d picked up, and then coached me toward the best way to cover the story.

Empowered by her input, I verified the facts, tracked down a witness, recorded an interview, and wrote up the story, with audio clips. It led the morning bulletins – and we were way ahead of the local competition.

Approachable Leadership Transforms

Looking back, what impresses me is not just Juliet’s sound and helpful response. It’s that she was available to talk at 5 a.m. – and that I felt I could wake her up for advice.

She’d created a well-run, professional environment where people outperformed expectations, and she’d done it with empathy and understanding, so that people felt safe to ask for help.

Leaders in other industries may never be woken at dawn by a rookie colleague. But being truly available to team members during office hours could make a big difference to the success of the organization, especially now. Turbulent times call for calm, thoughtful leadership.

“It’s that conscious practice of empathy, to listen and to understand where people are coming from, and as a result, designing your work environment and your way forward,” Hoque says. “[That] becomes monumental if you want to succeed.”

Get the Full Interview – and Many More!

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Faisal Hoque. It comes with a complete transcript for ease of review and accessibility.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.

Meanwhile, you can read and hear more, for free, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic and by signing up to the new Mind Tools Expert Voices podcast.

Your Opinion on Transformational Leadership

How do you lead and manage in turbulent times? What style of leadership does your organization enable and encourage, and what's the impact? Share your experiences and tips in the Comments, below!

The post Faisal Hoque on Transformational Leadership: Expert Interview appeared first on Mind Tools.

During our Mind Tools Expert Interview, the U.S. professor, founder and strategist shared with me stories of how her father instilled a problem-solving attitude in her and her brother. This came to fruition when, with his guidance, the youngsters invented a tidying tool for local diners that was quickly adopted and mass produced.

Marchand told me that that experience – at the tender age of 13 – taught her two things. First, that children are boundlessly creative, and as adults, we can all "tap back" into that spirit. And second, that every successful innovation has to solve a problem that’s a genuine pain point for the customer. 

Be Curious to Innovate

In this clip from our conversation, she offers advice on how to home in on the problems that can lead to great innovations. According to Marchand, it’s all about employing your curiosity, developing observation skills, and asking great questions.

Marchand’s innovation process starts with identifying the "right" problem to solve. Sometimes, a problem may look like it’s caused by one thing when, in fact, something quite different is behind it. Other times, we may think there’s no problem at all. We can get used to long wait times and faulty tech.  

Innovation Begins at Home 

My interviewee said, "The best problems to solve are the ones that you have personal involvement with." A case in point that I’ve noticed in my own life is the variety of ways that publicly funded doctors’ offices try to meet the huge demand for their services here in the U.K. 

Some practices offer patients appointments on a "first come, first served" basis. As each slot fills, availability tightens to the point where patients end up being offered dates that are weeks ahead. But they want action now. 

Other offices run a daily appointment book. Call from 8am and hope to grab one of that day’s slots – along with dozens of other patients scrambling for the same thing. You have to prepare yourself for a long wait on the phone, and when you finally get through, you may be told there’s no space that day. Try again tomorrow. 

Some practices operate a nurse triage system, with nurses talking to patients before any appointment is made. This may weed out time wasters and simple admin. But, by definition, nurses don’t have the same diagnostic training or experience as doctors. What if they make a wrong call? 

I’ve always been impressed by the solution offered by my own healthcare center, which is a mixture of the above. If you want a consultation with a doctor, you can call in the morning and leave your name and number, and a brief description of your issue. Then a senior doctor will call you back quickly, bringing all their authority and medical knowledge to bear. They decide if you need to be seen that day or later, and they can give instant medical advice over the phone as well. 

At first glance, the "pain point" in this scenario appears to be the desire to see a doctor. But it’s actually the desire to know if you need to see a doctor. Face time with a doctor when you don’t need it is a nuisance for everyone. So a short call with a senior doctor before an appointment is even made addresses the "right" problem.  

Step by Step Invention

During my conversation with Marchand, I was reminded of an event I covered a few years ago in central London. It was a "design hackathon" attended by around 100 teenage girls, who were invited there on a Saturday for a fun day of learning. 

The point was to teach them a five-step process to innovation, the first two being researching and defining a suitable problem. Sound familiar? The other steps were: to think through solutions, create a prototype of the best one, and test it with potential users. 

The girls were put into groups, each of which had to come up with an innovation by applying those five steps. During the day, they had access to lots of making materials, from cardboard and glue to feathers, straws and balloons. This was for their prototypes. 

The solutions they came up with were inspiring, ranging from a magnetic levitation hospital bed, through a smart fridge to help people cook nutritious meals, to a teaching app that allowed users to select their preferred level of language complexity. 

Women and Innovation 

I think Marchand would have approved of this event for girls. Women innovators still face unique challenges, and she devotes a whole chapter to this in her book, "The Innovation Mindset," exploring what the sticking points are, why they happen, and how to change things for the better. 

"When we look at the companies that are invested in, still only around two or three percent of founders or co-founders are women," she points out.

Her aim is to help "lift women up and get them to think more strategically, creatively, about being innovators and know that this is something that’s available to them."

For a few dozen young women in London, at least, I’m pretty sure that message has landed. 

8 Ways to Innovate

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to my full 30-minute interview with Lorraine Marchand. It comes with a complete transcript so you can easily review all eight practical steps in her innovation model while being inspired by her encouraging and creative attitude.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain unlimited access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ audio Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo with one of our team.

Meanwhile, you can read more from me, Rachel Salaman, by searching the Expert Interview blog topic.

Your Turn!

Have you seen a problem that no one else has spotted or knows how to fix? What innovative ideas do you have, and how will you test them? Share your innovation successes and failures in the Comments, below!

The post "Become an Observer Every Day!" Lorraine Marchand on Innovation appeared first on Mind Tools.

It's remarkable that, these days, each of these visions is as likely as the others, because people are living for longer and in very different ways. Some of us decline over decades. Others stay fit until the end.

Personal financial insecurity may dictate that people remain in (or return to) the workplace later in life, or it could be a creative passion that keeps them involved. Either way, they're consumers too, equating to a potential $22 trillion market worldwide.

The nuances – and opportunities – of this diverse picture aren't lost on Susan Wilner Golden, a former venture capitalist who now leads a program on the business implications of longevity at Stanford Business School.

She recently brought some of her ideas together in a new book, "Stage (Not Age)." In this clip from my Expert Interview podcast with Susan, she explains what's behind that title.

Breaking Age Stereotypes

Shakespeare wrote of "the seven ages of man." Wilner Golden believes it's more like 18 stages.

Some of them, like caregiving and formal education, may come around a few times in one life. And everyone will experience their stages differently.

"The key is to stop thinking of all older adults as just one type of person," she says. "It's much more important to think about what stage of life they're in. Are they in their repurposed stage, a new renaissance stage?"

Yet the idea that all older people are alike remains stubbornly prevalent in the business world.

"You can look at a lot of advertising and marketing toward older adults. It often portrays people as one type of person, which is frail. Somebody's holding their hand. And that maybe is needed, but that's not true for everybody," she points out.

Opportunities of Age

The "old person" stereotypes may be outdated, but older people still have specific needs, as they move from one stage to another. This is where the business opportunities lie.

Take communication as an example. My aunt Kate has struggled to use smartphones since she first got one. That isn't unusual among her peers. They came to the digital world later in life than others.

The irony is that the model Aunt Kate struggled with the most claimed to be designed for older people. That's why she picked it.

I remember trying to help her perform simple functions such as text and search, but I failed. The icons were large, so they were easy to see, but they weren't standard or intuitive. And when I touched them, they didn't take me where I was expecting.

The designers had set out with a good business idea aimed at serving this large, growing, and often wealthy segment of the population. But they'd ended up with a device that did the opposite of what it promised. It increased stress and a sense of inadequacy among its target users.

Wilner Golden has a simple tip for companies looking to serve older people in the right way: create intergenerational teams.

As well as increasing the likelihood of producing something truly useful, it may give new purpose to the older employees involved, who might otherwise feel like they're counting down to retirement.

Don't Assume – Include!

If an older person had helped design Aunt Kate's phone, perhaps the icons would have been familiar, just a little larger or brighter than usual. Wilner Golden calls such tweaks "stealth features." And the navigation pathways would have matched those of mainstream models. Not everything has to change.

"Having someone to design with, rather than for, is the mantra in the field," Wilner Golden says, "because you may not know what the needs and wants of an older adult are, but your older employees may well."

This applies equally to younger employees. Your millennial and Gen Z team members can bring valuable insight into product design for their peer groups, too. It's all about working well together, regardless of age.

Indeed, for Wilner Golden, "engaging intergenerational opportunities" is the "secret sauce" for companies and individuals looking to win in our changing world.

"We cannot be an age-segregated society," she believes. "To integrate more would be wonderfully powerful going forward."

A Strategy for Older Age Inclusion

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Susan Wilner Golden, in which she discusses her work with students aged 50-80, the imperative to build digital literacy across generations, and which companies are leading the way in inclusion for older employees and customers alike.

If you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews. And to find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo.

When Will You Retire?

Do you love your work too much to leave, or has financial insecurity forced you to return? What product would you like to see redesigned so that you could use it into later life? Share your experiences in the Comments, below!

The post "Don't Call Me Senior!" Susan Wilner Golden on Age, Work and Product Design appeared first on Mind Tools.

But Angie Morgan has a different take, outlined in her new book, "Bet on You: How to Win With Risk," written with long-time collaborator Courtney Lynch.

It's a helpful guide built on the personal experience of its authors and a lot of sound advice.

The good news is we can make our own luck in the risks that we take. The not-so-good is that there are no short cuts.

The Wise Gambler

Morgan's life is proof of her risk-taking prowess. She served as a Marine Corps officer before becoming a sales leader for global pharmaceutical companies. She then set up the successful leadership-development firm Lead Star, with Lynch, and wrote two best-selling books.

In the excerpt below from our exclusive Expert Interview, she explains her approach to taking on another new business venture – a neighborhood café.

So, each step in her portfolio career has been a risk. And through taking these risks, she's learned how to maximize her chances of winning. But, she told me, "It's not just 'dream it': you actually have to do it; you have to do the work."

Will You Risk Saying "No"?

"Bet on You" is full of encouraging stories that drive home this wisdom and offer us tips to put it into practice. One such is starting with a "gutsy no."

"If there are things that are really important for you to pursue, you have to find the time," Morgan points out. "And the best way to make the time is to start saying 'no.' It can create time and space for us to take care of ourselves. It can create time and space for us to take risks on ourselves."

This "no" is "gutsy" because declining anything can feel risky. Will people still like us, or trust us, if we turn down an invitation or a request for help?

"It feels a little selfish," Morgan admits. "Yet, at the same time, it's your life, and we have to have the sense of freedom to be self-directed. That's very important for our own sense of wellbeing and satisfaction."

But make sure you use that hard-won time for its allotted purpose!

"Don't multitask, don't do laundry and pay your bills, and 'Oh yes, I'm going to get my business license right now' at the same time. Focus on whatever it is you're trying to achieve: honor yourself with effort and action," she urges.

Self-Sabotage and Risk

And when it comes to "effort and action," she doesn't pull any punches. A key tip in the book is: "Don't half-ass it."

"We all know these people who cram for a test and fail. And they say, 'Oh, I guess I'm not meant to do this.' [For example,] if you want to become a realtor and you don't really prepare for the realtor's license test and you bomb it, you might say, 'Hey, I guess that wasn't meant for me'," Morgan says.

"It's like, well, no. It probably was meant for you but you half-assed it! You didn't give it the attention and commitment, and now you're saying it wasn't for you. You're drawing a very invalid conclusion.

"So, before you determine whether or not something is going to be successful or not successful in your life, don't half-ass it. Fully commit to it."

Take the Mind Tools "Locus of Control" self-assessment quiz to explore the role of luck in your life.

Knowing When to Quit

Then your success will be built on solid ground – and your failure, if that happens, will be too. You'll know it really wasn't meant to be, and can quit with no regrets.

"If you take the risk and you're just not finding the joy and satisfaction, you don't have to stay on that path," Morgan points out.

"We put so much pressure on ourselves around the word 'failure.' I don't think of things that don't work out as fails. I think about [those] things as wonderful experiences that I learned and grew from…

"Yes, have a moment where you're maybe a little embarrassed about that. But dust it off your shoulders and move on."

Another piece of solid advice.

In a world of instant gratification and overnight celebrity, it's refreshing to be reminded that working hard, with focus and commitment, is still the most likely way to win a bet on you.

And if you end up losing? That's still the best way to learn.

Guides and Mentors

Mind Tools Club members and Mind Tools for Business licensees can listen to or read my full 30-minute interview with Angie Morgan, in which she describes how to gain the knowledge and confidence to take risks.

And, if you're not already signed up, join the Mind Tools Club now to gain access to 2,400+ resources, including our back catalog of 200+ Expert Interviews.

To find out more about Mind Tools' enterprise solutions, you can book a demo.

Your Attitude to Risk

Do you try to avoid risk at all cost, or thrill to the adventure and adrenaline? Share your experiences in the comments below!

The post My Expert Interview About Risk, With Angie Morgan appeared first on Mind Tools.

She thought she'd turned it on, and when she accidentally touched the metal, she expected to get burned. To her brain, that expectation mattered more than the fact that there was no heat at all.

This is an example of the "nocebo" effect, when a negative expectation delivers a negative result. It's the opposite of the placebo effect, when belief in a positive outcome creates a positive outcome.

Getting What You Expect

The science writer David Robson has been exploring how these phenomena can help us in all sorts of ways.

He's recently brought his research together in a fascinating new book, "The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life," which I discussed with him in our Expert Interview podcast.

In this audio clip, David outlines the history and science behind the placebo effect, which first emerged in the world of medicine.

Robson's research shows that "expectation effects" – where expectation has a measurable and significant impact on effect – can happen in all areas of life.

"When we're doing exercise, when we're dieting... [expectation] can affect our sleep and how we deal with sleep loss, how we respond to stress – all of these things can be shaped by our expectations with really profound results," he says.

Don't Stress About Stress!

In Robson's book, there's a whole chapter on "de-stressing stress," where I was surprised to read that worrying about being anxious, which feels so modern, actually stretches back more than 100 years. Foreshadowing Bobby McFerrin's hit song urging us to "be happy," some people in the 19th century established Don't Worry Clubs. These were intended to combat unnecessary stress and generate the happiness that members believed was essential for good health.

"There was always this idea that stress and anxiety, however we experience them, are inherently bad for us... and what the recent research says is that's not necessarily true," David Robson says. "It actually depends on your attitudes and beliefs about stress and anxiety [as to] whether they harm you or whether they might actually sometimes be quite useful sources of energy."

Specifically, we can harness the "adaptive value of anxious feelings" – and then tap into their potential advantages.

Make Your Anxiety Work for You

"One of these advantages is when your heart is beating really quickly, it's pumping lots of blood to your brain," Robson explains. "It's carrying oxygen and glucose to your brain cells, which will sharpen your thinking. Similarly, even the stress hormones like cortisol can actually help to improve your mental acuity."

So rather than being worried about being worried, creating a downward spiral of negativity, we can reframe anxiety as helpful – with surprising results.

"When you shift [into] that mindset… what happens is that people do actually start to use the anxiety as a source of energy," Robson says. "And that can be seen in things like their performance on exams, their performance at public speaking."

Robson tells me that he uses this technique himself, and to good effect. He used to be more of a worrier.

"It's just so much easier for me to reconfigure my thoughts in that way, to just feel the feelings and to acknowledge them and to not try to deny them. But to also just recognize that they could be useful to me," he shares.

Don't Worry, Be Happy?

That debunks "don't worry." What about "be happy"? Robson has some thoughts.

He argues that the relentless pursuit of happiness creates "a negative expectation effect." If we labor under the belief that we should always try to be happy, when we feel anger, disappointment or frustration, we experience a sense of failure and even shame. It's another downward spiral.

His advice is to recast those negative emotions as useful messengers of something important.

Take feeling disappointment, for example. "Disappointment is really horrible to experience, but actually it's helping to tell you that the goal that you were trying to achieve really mattered, and that maybe you can learn something from your failure," David Robson suggests.

So just as with anxiety, we should sit with unexpected unhappiness, however uncomfortable, and think about how it might be beneficial.

"What the research shows is that people who do that, who have a more accepting attitude to negative feelings and who see meaning in their negative feelings, they actually show a lot better kind of mental health and physical health," Robson says.

It's refreshing to think that both stress and unhappiness can be good for the mind and body – if we change the way we deal with them, and change our expectations around them. It might not prevent us from burning ourselves on a cold oven, but it could make a positive difference to our mood and productivity in our everyday lives.

Listen to My Interview With David Robson

Discover fascinating insights from some of the world's leading business figures with my series of Mind Tools Expert Interviews.

If you're not a Mind Tools Club member, you can join here, and access over 2,400 resources, including more than 200 Expert Interviews. For enterprise licensing, request a demo from one of our team.

The post David Robson's Expectation Effect: My Expert Interview appeared first on Mind Tools.