Author: Haig Chahinian

Follow Whims, Increase Productivity?

Haig Chahinian

Admit it: at work you sometimes wander over to YouTube to “conduct research.”  And there are times when you’ve played solitaire to distract yourself from a mundane–or especially complex–task.

Well good for you! When you listen to your whims, you often increase your productivity.

James Surowiecki writes in the New Yorker about the benefits of distraction, and cites some interesting studies which conclude that a worker’s impulse to take a break is typically aligned with an organization’s pursuit of higher output. Consider this:

A new study, done at the University of Copenhagen, asked participants to perform a simple task—watch videos of people passing balls and count the number of passes. … One group of participants had a funny video [first] come up on their screens; the rest saw a message telling them that a funny video was available if they clicked a button, but they were told not to watch it. … The curious result was that those who hadn’t watched the comedy video made significantly more mistakes than those who had.

Turns out that following rules can sometimes be more problematic than following personal desire–in this case, to watch a humorous video.

To be sure, we’re not advocating the total disregard of organizational policies in favor of doing whatever you wish. We’re thinking critically about how to match your internal drives with workplace realities, knowing it’s almost always possible to find a fit.

Sometimes, our brain needs a rest to process abundant or complicated data. Time reported on a study about our brains at rest by neuroscientist Lila Davachi at New York University. “Your brain is doing work for you even when you’re resting,” says Davachi. “Taking a rest may actually contribute to your success at work or school,” she adds.

So don’t feel bad about taking a short respite from the daily grind to read Whole Wide Work. Rest assured, you and your place of work will be better off.

What benefits of resting on the job have you experienced?

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Apple Inc. to Employees: “Bring It” [video]

Haig Chahinian

Revealing your internal world on the job is usually a product of your own efforts. Your environment can play a part in your opening up, too, and some organizations are better at this than others.

Enter Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) contribution to the “It Gets Better” Project, started by Dan Savage to help prevent the suicide of teenagers and young adults who feel threatened because of their sexual identity.

Employees of Apple have created a truly heartfelt video, one that dares to depict the pain–and tears–of coming out to oneself and to others. In doing so, they’ve produced a powerful recruiting tool, as elements of Apple’s culture are fully on display.

What company values are inherent in the 6-minute segment?

  • Community service. Apple dedicated financial, personnel, and technological resources to offer their take on a societal problem.
  • Verbal ability. Everybody is so well-spoken, to be a member of the organization is to have top-notch oral communication skills.
  • Integration of multiple identities. Within the lesbian, gay, bi and transgender population at Apple, we see diversity in visible attributes such as race, age, gender and ability. It sounds like every individual’s voice is heard, too.

In this manner, the executive leadership encourages employees to “bring it.” Bring your invisible identities, bring your life stories, bring the intensity of your feelings–so profound!–and bring the corresponding tears, too. The prompt to bring all of your strengths and vulnerabilities must bring about a certain freedom in employees. Now when was the last time you felt free at work?

Indeed the open culture pays off. Apple maintains legions of consumers who breathlessly await the launch of the next uber-cool product, the iPad2 has been an instant best-seller, and the stock currently hovers around $330 a share.

UPDATE 5/2/11: Even though in 2010 Apple took over Microsoft as the world’s most valuable technology company, in the first quarter of 2011 it surpassed Microsoft in net income, too. Not surprising from a company that encourages employees to leverage their full humanity on the job.

What do you think of the video?

Photo via allaboutapple.com

Come Out at Work: As an Immigrant [video]

Haig Chahinian

Call us American-ist. Every time we’ve seen a picture of Arianna Huffington, we expected she spoke with an American accent. Her skin undertone seems pink, her hair is blondish, the Huffington name sounds WASP, really American dominant culture, wouldn’t you say?

Then at last we heard Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington speak in a video produced by Dreams Across America, below, in which she describes her experience as an immigrant.

Upon closer inspection, we see some slight olive undertones in her skin, Huffington is her married name, plus hair color is easy to change. And lo and behold, she has a glorious Greek accent.

The new chief executive of the Huffington Media Group talks in the video about being born in Greece and going to Cambridge on a scholarship. She recounts moving to America and trying to get rid of her accent–which we interpret as trying to adopt an American accent–because as an immigrant, an accent sets you apart. She says:

I actually tried for a while to get rid of my accent–I haven’t done a very good job as you can hear–and then I kind of embraced it. I realized it was really complicated, changing your accent, and in a sense it’s now part of my identity.

Even the brightest among us sometimes work to change ourselves and fit in, to varying degrees of success, and much of the time–certainly in Huffington’s case–it’s energy wasted. Today she’s known as a charismatic leader, and her accent is part of her charm. She uses her immigrant status to engaging effect, referring to herself as a “Greek peasant girl,” for example.

An accent typically represents so much of who we are. It hints at multi-lingual capabilities, for example.  Those who speak more than one language use a part of their brain that monolingual folks often do not. An accent may also indicate a bi-cultural worldview. A broad perspective like this can be extremely helpful in solving complex problems.

So coming out at work as an immigrant can establish your worldliness, bring out your inner charms, and then land you a $315M merger deal. A pretty sweet realization of the American dream.

Were you born in a country outside of where you live? Are you out at work as an immigrant? How does this influence your work experience?

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The Best Way to Work With an Angry Colleague

Haig Chahinian

Yay research! A study conducted at Temple University concluded that instead of punishing employees who exhibit extreme anger, supportive responses by managers and co-workers can promote positive change.

Published in the journal Human Relations, the authors of “The trouble with sanctions: Organizational responses to deviant anger displays at work” state:

when companies choose to sanction organizational members expressing deviant anger, these actions may divert attention and resources from correcting the initial, anger-provoking event that triggered the employee’s emotional outburst.

So rather than engage with your colleagues in a superficial manner, it helps to relate with them more deeply. Listen to the emotional tenor of your conversations, and you may hear a whole spectrum of feelings — anger, sorrow, defeat, uncertainty, excitement, hope, we could go on.

And when you do, you may be in a position to help your coworkers cope with their difficulties. You’re also better equipped to manage your own workload because:

1) you glean useful information about the organization’s projects by being so attuned, and
2) you build closer relationships, which will serve you when you’re the one looking for help.

What about your own anger? We’ve been asked by a reader to explore concrete ways to channel anger more productively.

Start by acknowledging your irate feelings, then identify the specific source or target of your fury. Once you’re able to understand what has ticked you off, and why, we can then apply these researchers’ findings to your experience. Have compassion for your self, which will likely bring about compassion for your colleagues, in turn. This emotional intelligence becomes the basis on which to resolve the situation and your related bad feelings.

We’ll revisit the topic of managing anger at work; there’s so much to discuss when it comes to leveraging at work everything you have inside you.

Under what circumstances have you worked with an angry colleague? How did you manage?

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How to Get on the D-List at Work

Haig Chahinian
Wall Street (subway stop, not the film)

Remember Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” speech in the film Wall Street? Michael Douglas played Gekko, whose credo got etched inside us in the late 80s when the film about corporate excess was released. We were reminded of it recently at a lecture on raising compassionate kids, during which the presenter used video of Gekko’s outburst as context for the world we live in. The most memorable segment went like this:

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind.
And greed — you mark my words — will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

Cute that so much money surrounded a paper company, no? Gekko’s thesis — greed is good — was outrageous, mostly because greed has negative connotations. If we accept his digression “for lack of a better word,” we see he’s really talking about desire. And desire is good — desire for life, for money, for love, knowledge, all of it.

Especially in the workplace. Read more →

3 “A”s of Ambition

Haig Chahinian

Last week we sat on a panel at Pace University discussing “diversity in the workplace.”  Panelists talked about corporate and non-profit initiatives that exist to promote more integrated places of work, and how students can prepare themselves to talk about issues of identity and organizational dynamics during interviews.

It was an even-keeled evening for a theme that many folks have been socialized to avoid:  essentially how race, class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ability, ethnicity and age relate to the American social structure. Panelists focused on how students can excel within this reality.

The final discussion prompt was “what career advice do you have for students?” This is what we had to say, in essence:

The upper echelons of organizations still largely lack diversity. While companies write policies about recruiting a fully representative workforce, and many have “diversity offices,” this sometimes allows the top brass to feel they’re working enough to create an integrated environment.  And yet, the pool of Fortune 500 CEOs is comprised mostly of straight White males. How can a young upstart work her way up? Read more →

From Dee to DVM: Celebrity Career Makeover

Haig Chahinian

One of our most adored TV shows growing up was What’s Happening!! starring Danielle Spencer as Dee Thomas. To us she was the main attraction, with dialogue that made us chuckle. To wit:

Momma:  Dee, where’s your brother?
Dee:  He gave me a quarter not to tell you. That he went to the party.

From 1976 to 1979, she was America’s bratty and lovable little sister, and today she’s an animal care advocate and author of Through the Fire: Journal of a Child Star.

In her memoir, the now Dr. Spencer-Fields recounts her love of animals from the tender age of 7. She raised Weimaraners, and often brought in abandoned dogs and cats near her home in New York City.

Even though she identified as an actor, the former sitcom star sought a mentor who encouraged her to attend Tuskegee University, and in four years she earned her D.V.M., or Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. As she started working professionally with animals, her mentor taught her about being a woman in a male-dominated profession, and about being African-American in the veterinary field. Invaluable wisdom.

Spencer-Fields was prescient to have connected with a mentor for help in navigating this uncharted terrain.  In her role as a protege, she opened for herself many doors into the veterinarian world. That’s right, before giving her mentor credit for the guidance she gave, we credit “Dee” for pursuing a mentor in the first place.

As the story goes, her acting work hasn’t endured–although it may yet return–while her work as a veterinarian remains. So Dr. Spencer-Fields, along with the many animals she’s treated in Southern California, shines.

Have you read Spencer-Fields’ book? What do you think?