Mike McBride on Tech, eDiscovery and Mental Health - Issue #7
From the Blog
You Are More Than Your Job — www.mikemcbrideonline.com I think this is something that many of us have been realizing to some degree in the past couple of years. We are more than our work, and there are things in life that are more important than our work. I enjoyed the questions and challenges Arthur lays out as well, so you should go read the article and consider those. As I read through them I had one thought, over and over again. How many of my friends don't even care about what I do for a living? I feel very lucky to have those folks. The people who've remained friends regardless of my current career status, The ones who might not even really understand what I do for a living. Because they ground me, and remind me that in actuality, what I do during my workday isn't really that big of a deal. It's all well and good to be great at my job, but the important people in my life are there because of the relationship we have, not because I'm good at legal tech, and I want them in my life because of who they are, not what their job is. That's a big deal.
Does Remote Work Make It Obvious Who is Getting Work Done? — www.mikemcbrideonline.com Regarding technology flattening the organization, I would agree with Ed. Where I'm going to disagree is in assuming every workplace has figured that out and taken advantage of it. Bad managers are still bad managers, even if they are remote. If the management style at your company is to measure work by, what Ed calls, the "appearance of work", you've probably struggled with remote work. Or, you've got everyone in meetings, or at least available online all day, every day. On the other hand, if you've switched to remote work and also switched the way you measure your directs, you've probably been very successful and might even be willing to accept remote work permanently. It's all about understanding that what we do with teams when they work in-person doesn't work with remote teams and adjusting. Remote work isn't compatible with management that measures workers by the hours they spend at their desks or how many people like you. Those measurements kind of go out the window. So it would be best if you had new, better measurements. I'd argue that you need the measurement you should have always been using, but I digress.
Linked: 1 in 3 Employees Might Quit "for the Sake of My Mental Health," Survey Shows — www.mikemcbrideonline.com This is a real problem, our C-Level folks think they are addressing the issues of burnout, mental health, etc. because they've adopted an employee assistance program and instructed their people managers to be concerned about mental health issues, but they've not actually given them any training in how to do that. That's a real problem and puts those managers in a real bind. How do they support the people who report to them, when no one has taught them appropriate ways to do that?
Are Your Long and Late Hours Actually Making you Less Effective? — www.mikemcbrideonline.com Look at it this way, if you're a client of one of these companies, who do you want doing your work, the associate who hasn't slept more than 4 hours a night in weeks, or someone who's actually rested? Who is going to do a better job for you? Who is going to be most cognitively effective? Why do we keep grinding away at the expense of our own cognitive abilities then?
Social Networks and Job Searching — www.mikemcbrideonline.com Interesting food for thought from Forbes the other day, that has drawn quite a bit of attention around the online world. What Prospective Employers Hope
From Elsewhere
Become a Microsoft 365 Advanced eDiscovery NINJA - Microsoft Tech Community — techcommunity.microsoft.com Become a Microsoft 365 Advanced eDiscovery NINJA In this blog post, we share the top resources for eDiscovery users to become masters of the Advanced
Stop Using the Same Password on Multiple Sites! No. Really. — uk.pcmag.com When you reuse passwords, a hacker can access multiple services, which might explain why many of our survey respondents have been victims of cybercrimes.
You Can (and Should) Learn Almost Anything for Free – Review Geek — www.reviewgeek.com Education can be expensive, with a course at a community college costing $338 on average and tutoring for those learning an instrument or language potentially adding up to thousands. However, it is possible to learn almost anything for free these days.
5 Tips to Stand Out in a Job Seeker’s Market — www.linkedin.com According to Forbes, during the pandemic over 70 million Americans filed for unemployment and the rest were sheltering in their jobs. “The Great Resignation” is a term that has been coined to describe a trend in which after keeping their jobs for the duration of the pandemic, a slew of individuals a
How to be an introverted leader — www.theladders.com “If you don’t speak up in the next 10 minutes, I’m going to call on you and ask for your opinion.” I received this text message from my CEO (and boss) during an executive offsite. We were 20 minutes into the kickoff, and the executive team was discussing what they were afraid of and excited about in the coming six to 12 months. The people who enjoyed voicing their opinions in these types of discussions had already covered everything that I was both nervous about and looking forward to (multiple times, in fact), and I value efficiency over talking just to talk, so I stayed quiet.
How to Build an eDiscovery A-Team Cast Casey highlights, the key components in building the perfect eDiscovery A-Team.
How To Be Helpful To A Coworker Dealing With A Mental Health Challenge — www.forbes.com It can be extremely isolating to be at work while privately dealing with a mental health issue, afraid of being found out, but desperately wanting support.
Shadow IT | A Serious Threat to Law Firms - Attorney at Work — www.attorneyatwork.com The first problem with cautioning lawyers about the dangers of shadow IT is that most of them have no idea what it is. So let’s start there.