Thought-provoking Things Worth Sharing - Issue #138
Not all heroes wear capes - here's to the people who end meetings early, or replace them entirely.
Indeed, if I leave you with anything today, be the person who ends the meeting early. You are a hero. And not like 2 minutes early; give people some time by cutting these short or canceling them when there’s no reason an email update won’t do.
Welcome to this week’s collection of thought-provoking things. Each week, I’ll share information about careers and workplace culture, mental health in the workplace, talent development, and important information about privacy, security, and legal tech.
You can find out all about me here - Mike McBride Online.
Very few people like meetings. I was talking to someone recently and mentioned that, in my mind, there are very few meetings where I end up feeling like that meeting helped me do my job well. Those meetings are great, but they aren’t the majority. Most meetings are just updates that could have quickly been done with an email or the team simply updating a task management application.
Of course, that requires everyone to send and read the emails or use the task/project management tool to track project updates.
This is the real reason why we have so many meetings.
Careers and the Workplace
This week, I'm including a two-parter from the Culture Study Newsletter. It makes for some interesting reading about passion jobs and how that adage about finding work you're passionate about might make things worse for everyone.
I’m pulling this piece out of my archive because it’s still vitally important -
Culture is Defined by the Worst Behavior Tolerated
The law firm that touts its collegial culture but has a partner who brings in clients who are also able to treat the firm’s staff with rudeness and contempt, or the highly successful sales guy who routinely makes inappropriate remarks to female coworkers, etc. It goes on, and every time it does, that is defining the culture. We also see it in our relationships; tolerating being mistreated sets the tone for our relationships. We see it on social media, where it’s the lowest common denominator of behavior that goes unchallenged and defines the culture of the platform, and we see it in politics whenever one party has members behaving poorly, and the official party still accepts them.
Training and Development
We are all going to need this very soon, if not now. - Resources for Learning How to Spot Deepfakes.
Things We Can't Out-Train Part 2: Misaligned Rewards
This is a common problem, but it’s not a training problem:
The problem was the reward system. These hourly employees received bonuses based on the number of tasks they accurately completed in a day. The complex tasks took longer to complete and there was a greater chance of error.
Team members didn't take on the complex tasks because they couldn't complete as many in a day, and they had a higher chance of making a mistake than when working on the simple tasks.
By taking on the complex tasks, the team members literally made less money.
Mental Health in the Workplace
These are good recommendations - My 5 Strategies For Better Mental Health At Work.
I wonder if we should be thinking about this on our teams at work, too:
Sharing - Giving and Receiving Compliments
Haven't we been talking over and over again about the lack of human connection and the impacts on our mental health? Maybe if we spent a little more time complimenting each other when a job is well done, or on a new look, or a trait that we admire, we'd have more human connection in our days.
Yup. - Work Takes a Toll: Vast Majority Blame Jobs for Most of Their Stress
These are interesting survey results because we often hear about the other things that have increased our stress: climate change, politics, inflation, war, etc. At the end of the day, though, most of us are still stressed, primarily due to work.
Privacy, Security, and Legal Tech
This is the question we are all asking ourselves -
AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?
For the legal folks, this is also a topic of consideration - AI, Deepfakes, And Litigation: It's Not Always What It Seems.
Linked - M365 Conference 2024 Session Schedule Disappoints Me.
He could not find any sessions at the upcoming M365 Conference covering Entra ID or Exchange, two of the core workloads in M365. After all, everyone needs an account to log in, and everyone uses email, and it's not like Microsoft hasn't made changes to both over the last year. (Especially when it comes to identity!)
He also noticed some Microsoft Teams content, but not nearly as much as there has been previously, and I think that's the indicator here.
It's new, bright, shiny toy syndrome at work.
How G.M. Tricked Millions of Drivers Into Being Spied On (Including Me)
That’s all, folks. If you found something interesting in this week’s newsletter, please share it with your friends. It’s the best way to help support the effort I put in each week to share this with you.