General Professional Development

Come Out at Work: With a Triple-Whammy

Haig Chahinian

A dear friend and colleague, “Sandy,” recently accepted the role of manager of recruiting at a preeminent cultural institution in New York City. Before starting her official first day, her colleagues-to-be took her out to lunch to welcome her into the fold.

Which is where trouble struck.

During the meal, Sandy’s coworkers noticed she wasn’t eating much at all. She sensed them taking notice, and felt compelled to speak up. “I’m gluten-free,” she announced, and related her solidarity with her daughter who lives with celiac disease, and manages the condition with the whole family’s help.

Did you see that? She came out at work as a mother just then, too. Her revelations didn’t stop there.

Since this is in New York, the discussion soon turned to Broadway theater. “I love Stephen Sondheim,” she professed.  “He’s dark,” a teammate responded about the American lyricist’s themes, getting a grasp on Sandy’s taste in entertainment.

A couple of days later, Sandy confided to us, “I revealed too much!” She felt exposed, and was unsure about the implications of what she disclosed to her lunch companions.  She acknowledged that talking about her dietary restrictions was practical, since of course she plans to eat regularly at work. And being a mom who works is nothing extraordinary. But piling on to the mix her affections for Stephen Sondheim, she concluded, was probably too much for her new compatriots to bear.

Which got us thinking about the nature of coming out at work. Read more →

How to Work Through a Dry Spell

Haig Chahinian

We’ve been in the midst of a dry spell; ideas and inspiration for writing have seemed elusive, and our energy level’s been lacking. What’s going on? An accumulation of life’s little traumas — unrelenting hay fever plus turning 40 combined with persistent low-grade family tension — has left us post-less over the last four weeks.

Yet here we are, writing again. The question is, how did we get through these dark, unproductive days? And more important, how can you find your groove again the next time you want to produce, but can’t?

Regardless of the specific nature of your task, if you’re getting stuck, there’s creativity in your work that sometimes needs a catalyst to keep it aflame. Consider the following six tips as part of your toolbox to generate momentum on the job.

1. Put your work in its proper context. What exactly will happen if your assignment doesn’t get done immediately? Or in a week? Or in a month? And who will be most impacted by your unproductive-ness?

Your endeavor is probably not a life or death scenario, and you’ll likely be able to salvage your relationship(s) with the person or entities most affected by your tardiness. So if you think your organization won’t cave in from your incomplete assignment, you can relax.

2. Switch gears. Shake up your patterns of working by engaging in a task different from the one you need to do. For example, if you need to be researching, try writing for a while. If you need to write, spend some time researching. This will help you feel productive, which can kick-start your needed forward movement. Read more →

Become an Expert in Your Field

Haig Chahinian

Geneticist Eric Schadt is the quintessential expert. He’s redirecting the practice of biology from a reductionist model to a systems model, which means he knows that finding the cure to a disease is more likely to be done by studying whole systems of genes rather than individual genes. And as if blazing a trail through this new frontier weren’t enough, the way he demonstrates all his expertise is really remarkable.

Dr. Schadt works to make all of his research findings freely accessible to everybody, including profit-seeking drug companies.  He realizes that the information he shares reflects the information he actually knows, which is what comprises his expertise, natch.

To this end, he co-founded Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit biomedical research firm with a mission “to create an open access, integrative bionetwork evolved by contributor scientists working to eliminate human disease.” Not only is he making his own knowledge available, he’s creating a repository for all biologists to make their knowledge accessible, too. Radical!

Just how much intellectual wealth does he share? Alot, all over the Web. Is there a better place to broadcast yourself in 2011? To Schadt, the Chief Scientific Officer of Pacific Biosciences, the answer appears to be “no.” Take a look at:

We glean so much by studying this guru’s example.  Mainly, to be open about the information you have is to show the scope of your expertise. The more information you share, the more expertise you have. So what about you? Read more →

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?

Image via

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

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?

Image via

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 →