On this particular day, I was struck by the clear and pristine beauty of Middleton Beach, while just across the peninsula, much of our South Australian coast is struggling under a toxic algal bloom.
It got me thinking about the different workplace cultures I encounter through my coaching work. Some are clear, positive, and energising, with a healthy, forward rhythm like the Middleton’s waves. Others feel murky, stagnant, and even unsafe, much like parts of our Gulf at the moment.

So, what can you do if you’re a leader trying to make a positive impact within a toxic workplace?

1. Reset expectations around behaviour and accountability:
   Be clear about what good looks like. Involve your people in defining the standards and hold everyone, including leaders, accountable.
2. Model the behaviours you want to see:
   Demonstrate respect, openness, and integrity. Have the courage to call out toxic behaviours, even when they appear in your peers or those above you.
3. Ramp up your self-care:
   Toxic environments can take a toll. Prioritise exercise, rest, and positive social connections outside of work. Without strong self-care, it’s easy to become part of the problem.
4. Focus on what you can influence:
   Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and stay clear about the difference. Influence grows from clarity, not frustration.
5. Know when to move on:
   If the culture has reached a point of no return, look outward. Find your own “patch of coast” – the environment that allows you to thrive and lead in alignment with your values. Sometimes, it’s just across the peninsula.

Even in toxic waters, renewal is possible. But it starts with courageous leadership and a clear commitment to creating safer, healthier currents.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

My first response is usually  ‘Guess what, you’re not alone!’ Unless you’re a narcissist, no-one feels they’re good at selling themselves, and guaranteed, the last person who got offered a job following the interview went in with some feelings of anxiety and self-doubt. Unfortunately these beliefs are often a classic example of self-fulfilling prophecy – believing you’re terrible at job interviews can become consuming and distract you from doing the preparation you need or get in the way of you performing well at the time it counts.

So how do we manage these ingrained thought patterns so we can perform at our best and maximise our chances of success? This often forms a really key part of a coaching program, when a client is looking for support to advance their career, take a sideways move into a new role, or where they have found themselves involuntarily in the position of having to apply for new roles.  I try to frame my job interview coaching around six Ps, spending more time on those Ps most significant for that client.

Performance is the fifth of the six Ps, and is often the most challenging for clients. Performance is the term I use in recognition of the fact that a job interview has many of the elements of other performance tasks such as a musical recital or sporting performance, that require not only aptitude, but management of one’s emotional, physiological and mental processes in order to do well.

The feelings, thoughts and sensations that come up for people in the context of job interviews, including anxiety, self-doubt, unworthiness, and comparison to others, can be at best highly intrusive and at worst overwhelming and completely debilitating for the interviewee. The key is identifying how and when these sensations show up and learning techniques to minimise their negative impact on your performance. Here’s some suggestions:

• Accept that most people feel nervous, you’re no different to other candidates in that respect (in fact, you might even have a competitive advantage since you’ve learnt some techniques for managing nerves!)
• A degree of nervous energy is productive – it stimulates your system into a state of arousal which can keep you sharp and focused
• Practice a relaxation technique in the lead up to, and just prior to the interview, for example a deep breathing exercise, a progressive muscle relaxation, mediation or visualisation
• Notice and challenge your negative self talk – if you find your inner critic constantly reminding you you’re hopeless at interviews, what could challenge that belief? For example, you might say to yourself I used to be bad at interviews but the last few I’ve done I’ve felt better and better about how I did
• And a corollary to this one – it could be helpful to remind yourself that just because you didn’t get the last job it doesn’t mean you did badly at interview – you may have done well but missed out to an applicant with more skills; now might be a good time to check in with your own or the panel’s perspective on what went well in your last interview
• You don’t have to sell yourself – you need to be able to clearly and accurately describe the best evidence you have of your knowledge, experience, skills and attributes, and how these will add value to the potential employer
• Run your own race – you’ve done the preparation and you have the ability to do the job, your focus now has to be on yourself, and conveying evidence of your suitability to the panel – mentally comparing yourself to other applicants (either actual or perceived) is not helpful once you get to interview, as it can exacerbate feelings of self- doubt
• If you do nothing else, before stepping in to the interview strike your best power pose (preferably somewhere private!) then take 10 slow deep breaths to calm the nervous system and ground yourself in the present
• Don’t forget to reflect after the interview on what went well – wait a couple of days and take some time to notice what you were happy with, what you improved on, and what you want to keep doing at your next interview.

Remember, not too many people wake up in the morning relishing the idea of a job interview. But you don’t actually have to love them to do well and be successful in getting the job of your dreams. Apart from working on your Performance, there’s five other P’s that will also make a difference:

• Panel perspective – put yourself in their shoes
• Preparation – learn as much as you can about the company and the role
• Product – that’s you! What features and benefits can you offer?
• Presentation – what impression do you want to create and leave?
• Persistence – how do you sustain your resilience to keep putting yourself out there?

Please get in touch if you’d like to know more about managing nerves and negative self-talk, or how the other five Ps can enhance your interview performance.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

But no news is good news, right? Surely if our performance wasn’t up to standard, or we were behaving inappropriately, someone would tell us??? Unfortunately, No! In the hazardous landscape of performance feedback, no news can all too often signal very bad news.

There’s many reasons why we don’t give feedback when it’s needed. Here’s some you might recognise:

• You expect (hope) the performance or behaviour will just improve over time
• You don’t trust your own judgement – you may think you’re being over-sensitive in your reaction, or too harsh in your judgement
• You give them the benefit of the doubt, believing the incident was a one-off
• You’re fearful of the other person’s reaction – will they be angry, embarrassed or upset?
• You just want to preserve the relationship
• It’s not your job to give feedback – you’re the CEO, or just a supervisor/colleague – someone else should tell them
• They should know they need to improve!

So, in the face of all these compelling arguments, it’s possible that an under-performing or disruptive employee can carry on for a very long time, blissfully ignorant of any underlying concerns, until there’s a crisis or it’s too late.

As an employee, it’s in your interests, and in the interests of your organisation, to avert this scenario. Here are some suggestions:

• Demonstrate a genuine interest in and openness to feedback right from the outset
• Take responsibility for setting up meetings with your manager to define and review changing expectations – your job description outlines broad functions, but may not capture current context or priorities, so review these with your manager when you start and at regular intervals
• Document the scope of your work, agreed priorities and what will be looked at to gauge your progress and performance – you don’t need a formal performance management system or template in place to do this – have the conversation and write down what you agree so everyone is clear
• Proactively seek feedback – ask for examples of your strengths (what you do well) and areas for development (what you could do differently, more of or less of)
• Ask if general feedback could be more specific – let them know if will be more helpful to you if they can provide a specific example of when they noticed a strength or an area for development
• Seek feedback from a range of sources – peers, direct reports, clients and stakeholders can all provide a valuable perspective – after all, your manager only sees a small part of the whole you, and should not be expected to be the sole judge of your performance
• If you’re working on changing a specific behaviour see if you can enlist a trusted friend, colleague or manager to help you to become aware of when you’re doing or not doing the desired behaviour – feedback in the moment will be most helpful
• Listen and try to understand the feedback, even if it’s negative – see if there’s something you can take from it before challenging, remembering we all see the world differently
• Acknowledge the value of all respectful feedback that’s given with positive intent, even if you don’t agree with it – this builds trust and opens the door for future conversations.

Whilst it can be challenging to give corrective feedback, it also takes courage, trust and a commitment to personal growth to proactively seek and act on feedback. You may feel vulnerable and exposed, but within a trusting and respectful culture, it can also be incredibly empowering and a rich opportunity for development. You might even learn something you wish someone had told you years ago.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

So it’s a sad fact that many of us, at some point in our lives, will find ourselves in a job we hate. And worse, although we feel unhappy, unfulfilled, dissatisfied or disengaged, we stay in jobs that don’t provide us with the sense of challenge, meaning and fulfilment that we crave because we feel hopelessly stuck in our circumstances.

We believe we don’t have the skills to do anything else, we feel too exhausted to apply for other jobs, or we think the current labour market is against us.

So is it possible to take charge of your job satisfaction without changing jobs?

People who find their job inherently meaningful, regardless of the tasks they are doing, are generally more satisfied and happier at work. Job crafting is increasingly being recognised as a legitimate career development tool that helps people change their jobs in small but tangible ways, enabling them to derive more meaning and fullfilment from their work.

You might think that your job description is set in concrete, and that from where you sit in the hierarchy you’re in no position to influence anything or anyone around you, let-alone change your role to enhance your personal job satisfaction. But by viewing your job as a flexible set of tasks and interpersonal relationships within your broader job description, rather than a rigid set of duties, job crafting encourages you to look at how you might customise your job to better fit your motives, strengths and passions.  Finding opportunities to pro-actively change the boundaries of tasks and relationships within a job has been shown to enhance personal meaning, engagement and job satisfaction.

Here are three job crafting techniques to consider:

Task crafting – taking on more tasks, expanding or diminishing the scope of tasks, or changing how you go about a task.

Relationship crafting – changing aspects of your relationships at work by altering the nature or extent of interactions with others.

Perception crafting – altering how you perceive certain tasks, or the job as a whole, so you can connect what you’re doing to something personally meaningful.

For example, a project officer with little responsibility and no connection with the project clients, might offer to buddy a new staff member. This is an additional task that provides challenge and development, expands the scope of her personal interactions and enables her to perceive her role as supporting the learning and contribution of others.

The first step is to define your own personal motives, strengths and passions, then look for opportunities to modify aspects of your job to better align with these. The changes don’t have to be big, and can often be made subtly without anyone else even being aware. You’re still meeting the requirements of the job, but you’re also taking responsibility for crafting a role that increases your job satisfaction. People who have undertaken job crafting report being happier, more engaged, and less likely to leave their current job.

Need help crafting your job? Call or email me  to discuss how career development coaching can help you increase your satisfaction at work.

Jo Saies

pbperformance.com.au

Perfectionists set high standards for themselves which are often beyond reach or reason, and are highly self-critical when these are not met. A perfectionist needs to perform at heroic levels and achieve flawless results. This is often driven by extreme fear of failure, avoidance of criticism and negative judgement, or by a desire to please others, to gain their approval and to belong.

But there’s a high cost to perfectionism – do you recognise any of these potential consequences?

• high levels of anxiety – we worry we’re never going to be good enough, and the possibility of failure is always looming
• frustration or depression from never being satisfied with our own efforts or results – like being on a treadmill, we never get to our end point, we just keep setting higher and higher standards then beating ourselves up for not meeting them
• feeling overwhelmed – taking on too much because we’re unable to delegate when we know others won’t be able to meet our unachievable standards
• being highly critical of others who don’t meet our expectations, and so alienating colleagues and those we’re close to
• over-control – trying to excessively control situations or people to achieve perfection
• unable to take pleasure or pride in accomplishments, because they’re never enough..

Perfectionism can be hard to recognise, because it seems natural to us to set and exceed heroic standards. And like many behaviours arising from ingrained thinking patters that once kept us safe and helped as feel worthy, it can be hard to shift.

If some of this rings true for you, here’s some suggestions and reminders –  they’re not perfect, but they may help:

• Start by identifying the areas of your life or work where good enough is OK – does every element of your life need to be driven by such high standards?
• Let go of social comparison – there’s always someone in the world who’s better at something, has more of what we want, or is smarter, thinner, more popular or richer
• No-one is, in fact, perfect
• Although we’re conditioned to judge our own self-worth by socially constructed external markers of success, our true value exists independently of our status, possessions, achievements or relationships
• Set goals that are realistic and personally meaningful – don’t strive for something just because it’s important to please someone else or in order to feed a mistaken belief that you need to be superhuman
• Making mistakes is a fundamental part of being human – recognise and accept that it’s the way we learn and grow
• Think about your definition of success – where did this come from, is it genuinely your standard, and is it now serving you in pursuit of a happy and fulfilling life?
• Painful sensations, including failure and the disapproval or rejection of others, are an inevitable part of being human – allow yourself to experience and accept these
• Get comfortable delegating – let others learn by taking responsibility, practicing and making mistakes, with your support, not your criticism
• Take time to really appreciate your achievements and successes.

The perfectionist’s life is one of striving and struggle, in which goals, actions and relationships are driven by the desperation of avoiding failure, criticism and the disapproval of others, rather than by the joy of working towards what’s really wanted – healthy and realistic goals arising from personally meaningful values. In this sense, perfectionism can be a real barrier to both leadership effectiveness and a happier life. With some awareness and support it’s possible to let go of our perfectionist tendencies, enabling us to live a lighter, freer, happier and more successful life, in which our desire to do well works for, rather than against us.

PB Performance

Perhaps there’s just a plethora of unethical organisations, unfulfilling jobs and hopeless bosses right now. Or perhaps it’s because we often need to step outside of something in order to get a different perspective – and a good holiday provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on how happy or unhappy we’ve become in our once dream job.

So before you dust off your CV, draft your resignation letter and plot your revenge on the boss from hell, take some time to really take stock of your current situation, and where you’re at in your career:

• What are the good parts about your job?
• What are you getting out of it right now?
• What are the opportunities open to you if you stay?
• What are the down-sides, and what can you do to influence these?

If you decide that the negatives really do outweigh the positives, and that leaving is the best (or indeed only) option, don’ just throw in the towel. If you do, you risk damaging your own health and well-being, as well as your reputation and possibly your future job prospects. It will be to your advantage in the long run if you remain as positive and productive as you can while you look for alternative work, so here’s a few tips to help:

1. Choose your attitude – at the start if each day make a conscious decision to be positive towards others, grateful for what you have and hopeful about the future (you might need a clever way to remind yourself at key times during the day)
2. Maintain your own standards of performance and behaviour – keep doing a good job, even if others are not
3. Don’t feed the negativity around you – restrain the need to dump your issues on your colleagues, and don’t get caught up in other people’s whinging
4. Remember emotions are contagious – when you’re miserable, frustrated or angry at work, this affects people around you – their negativity then impacts on you, and this can quickly turn the work environment toxic.

Unless you’re lucky, a new job won’t just appear before you, so if you hate you’re job, take some time to plan a good exit. That means staying positive and productive in your current role, and planning what you need to do to find something more fulfilling. If you need some ideas, get some advice or support from a career coach, a trusted mentor, your EAP or HR team. If you’ve reached the tipping point of dissatisfaction, make sure you take some constructive action before you end up making things worse for yourself and your colleagues.

Got a Question?
Need a Coach?
Looking for staff training?

Not sure what to do?
Email to arrange a confidential, no obligation discussion

PB Performance

Stocktake
Firstly, what are you struggling with? Are you feeling a broad sense of apathy about life in general, or are you having trouble getting motivated in relation to a particular goal? If it’s a general feeling, start with a stocktake of each of your life domains. Write down the following categories on a page: Work; Leisure; Health; Finance; Family; Social; My environment; Community. Now give yourself a rating from 1-10 of how satisfied you feel in each area. This should give you a clearer picture of the one or two areas to work on as a priority. Hopefully, this also reminds you that there are some aspects of your life that are going OK, or even great, and puts into perspective the parts that you feel dissatisfied with.

What Do You Want to Be Different?
Once you’re clear about the area you want to work on, try to shift your focus from what you’re not happy with, to expressing what it is you want that’s different from the current state. For example:
If you’re unmotivated at work, you might say ‘I want to be doing work that is challenging, interests me, and uses my skills in….’
If you’re unfulfilled in your relationship, you might say ‘I want to spend more time alone with my partner talking about our future goals and dreams’.

Why Bother?
Motivation increases significantly when we have a compelling reason for taking action. So once you’ve established what specifically you want, you’ll need to ask yourself why this is significant to you.  The reason has to be something that you personally believe in, not what someone else thinks is important.  The most compelling reasons arise from our core values. For example, getting out of a warm bed to go for a run will require less effort if you have the core belief that your well-being is more important than anything else, and that running increases your well-being.  It will take enormous energy if you are doing it because you believe you ‘should’ or because someone else tells you it will be good for you.

Energy Boost
Finally, think about your general level of energy. Motivation takes physical, mental and emotional energy, so if your energy is generally low, you’ll naturally have trouble summoning the will power to take action.  Think about what drains your energy. If it’s poor diet, inactivity or disrupted sleep, what habits do you need to change? What activities, environments or people drain your energy, and can you limit your exposure to any of these? Now think about the activities, habits, environments or people that boost your energy. What opportunities do you have to build more of these into your life to keep your energy levels topped up and your motivation on auto?

Motivation isn’t the only ingredient to getting us where we want to be, but without it, we’re sure to be stuck somewhere we don’t want to be. What do you need to do, to get motivated and to get moving?

PB Performance

Listen to a short excerpt from Jo’s International Happiness Day webinar interview

Archived Event

March 20 is International Day of Happiness, a day when the world celebrates the importance of happiness, and focuses activities around how individuals, communities and workplaces can build it.

This year, to celebrate International Day of Happiness,  PB Performance Coaching is collaborating with colleagues around Australia to offer a FREE 3-day online happiness expo from 20-22 March 2015.

Live Your Happiest & Healthiest Life: Happiness Masterclass 2015  features speakers and coaches on positive psychology, well-being, relationships, health, and a whole lot more!  it’s all about how to optimise your physical, mental and emotional wellbeing so you can live your Personal Best life.

I’m excited to be a part of this fantastic on-line event, and to share my knowledge and my expertise, along with 10 other experts and speakers from around the country including The Happiness Institute’s Dr Tim Sharp.

You can hear my presentation Taking Charge of Your Career: What’s Happiness Got to Do With It? either live on Friday 20 March, or as a recording at any time over the weekend.

Other talks include:

• Mastering Happiness & Making The Most of Life
• Science-Proven Secrets to Building Your Happiness
• Optimising Health & Happiness For Real Success – Avoiding the top 3 Mistakes Professionals Make That Keep Them Overweight, Foggy-Headed and Fatigued

Join me in this exciting free event! Click here to activate your free registration. 

3 days: 20-22 March 2015 
Starts on International Happiness Day!
10 presentations with speakers from wide range of field
Online event – access from home or anywhere you like!
FREE!

And don’t forget to share the expo details with a friend who would enjoy free training in happiness and well-being.

PB Performance

Employees are facing increasing pressure to keep up, to do more with less, and to respond to constant change, ambiguity and challenge. Supporting our staff to become more resilient so they bounce-back from set-backs, maintain productivity and positivity, and survive and even thrive during tough times, is perhaps the most critical workplace development strategy we can offer.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”
Charles Darwin

Resilient staff

• are better at solving problems and overcoming challenges
• are able to maintain performance under pressure
• are less likely to be absent from work
• positively influence the people around them
• have a positive impact on team and organisation performance.

PB Performance Coaching offers a range of programs based on the Resilience At Work (R@W)^® Toolkit to help build resilient employees, teams, leaders and organisations. The toolkit is a complem-entary suite of measures that recognises the inter-relatedness of employee, leader and team behaviour at work.

Measuring Resilience At Work

Start building resilience at work by taking the internationally recognised, scientifically validated, Resilience At Work (R@W) Scale. It’s the only scale that measures resilience specifically within the work context. The assessment is done on-line and takes less than 15 minutes. A personal, leader or team profile report is generated, enabling staff to benchmark their current resilience against each of the seven components of resilience at work. The profile can be used by staff to enhance the outcomes from resilience workshops or individual coaching by enabling them to focus their learning and action on strategies most relevant to them.

The three assessment scales are:

R@W Individual: assesses an individual employee’s resilience at work against the 7 Resilience At Work factors

R@W Team: assesses the group practices that promote team resilience, against the 7 Resilience At Work (Team) factors

R@W Leader: assesses the leader behaviours that support and foster resilience in the employees and teams they lead, against the 7 Resilience At Work (Leader) factors

Building Resilience At Work

Workshops for groups of individuals

Half or full day workshops teach practical, evidence based strategies targeting  each of the seven components that contribute to high levels of Resilience At Work. Strategies are underpinned by the science of positive psychology, and can be easily learnt and immediately applied by staff at all levels. Prior to the workshop staff complete the Resilience at Work Scale which enables them to focus their workshop learning on the strategies most relevant to them. Staff leave the workshop with an individual action plan for enhancing their own personal resilience.

Workshops for teams

Half or full day workshops teach practical, evidence based strategies targeting each of the seven components that contribute to high levels of Resilient teams. Strategies are underpinned by the science of positive psychology, and can be easily learnt and immediately applied by staff and teams at all levels. Prior to the workshop staff complete the Resilience at Work Team Scale which enables them to focus their workshop learning on the strategies most relevant to their team. Staff leave the workshop with individual and team action plans for enhancing their team resilience.

Coaching for Staff and Leaders

Individual coaching is a fantastic supplement to the Resilience At Work Workshops, providing staff with personalised, confidential support to put their personal resilience plan into action. Even if staff haven’t participated in a workshop, they can still take the Resilience At Work Scale and be coached to identify and implement resilience strategies that will most benefit them. Personal coaching is goal oriented, motivational and solution focused, and is therefore highly effective in bringing about lasting, significant and positive change.

Resilience Re-boot: On-line resilience program

Want to build your resilience in your own time and at your own pace? Our on-line program might suit you.

Click here for details and registration.

Who For?

Resilience At Work Programs benefit Leaders, Executives, Managers, Professionals, Professional Support Staff, Business Owners, Boards and Board Chairs, Tertiary Students and Tertiary Graduates seeking to enter the workforce.

Resilience at Work Workshops benefit teams experiencing change or challenge, for example: downsizing; restructuring; funding challenges; difficulty meeting demand for services; increasing competition; staff shortages; challenging client groups.

What Next?

Resilience is increasingly being taught to kids throughout our school system, is being implemented throughout the entire US Army via the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Training Program, and is now considered a critical indicator of success and prosperity by Governments around the world, including South Australia.

Check out some of our recent Resilience and Wellbeing projects here.

Please get in touch now by phone: 0412 319 394 or via our email enquiry page to discuss how best to structure a Resilience At Work Program for yourself or your staff.

Investing in Resilience At Work could be the smartest business decision you make. 

PB Performance

It’s hard to keep hammering out application after application, painstakingly constructing each cover letter and tailoring each CV, putting your heart and soul into every last word, willing that this time your effort will be rewarded, and it’s easy to lose hope.

We really only have two choices when confronted with an ongoing challenge – give up or keep going. Giving up leads to a guaranteed outcome – in the case of job seeking, no job. Whilst keeping going requires time, effort and the willingness to risk further disappointment, it’s the only choice that gets you further towards your goal.

Resilience is the capacity to keep going even when times are tough, pressure is great and obstacles seem insurmountable. Most of us are actually much more resilient than we realise, but even so, we can all develop our resilience further. Here’s some tips for job seekers to help stay resilient, motivated and progressing towards your goal:

Get feedback 

Ask for feedback on every application you submit, even if you think it won’t be provided or won’t help, and take it on board with an open mind.

Get help

Identify who in your personal or professional networks can provide contacts, advice, feedback on your applications, debriefing, emotional support to handle disappointment, or just practical support like cooking a meal so you have the time and space to focus on job seeking.

Stay healthy

In tough times, it’s tempting to run ourselves down, but even more important to eat, sleep, exercise and relax well. This preserves and boosts our physical and emotional energy, crucial to maintaining focus and effort.

Allocate your time

Sometimes it can feel like you’re overwhelmed with the relentless time and effort it takes to submit applications. Decide in advance how much time you think you should, and realistically can, devote to the process, then schedule the time into your calendar each week.

Remove the personal 

What-ever response you get to a job application, it’s not about you as a person. It’s often not even about whether or not you can do the job. It’s about the strength of alignment between your capabilities and those required in the role, the competition on the day, and may even be the result of unknown factors, unfair practices, or bad luck. But it doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. Learn what you can and move on so you can make the most of the next opportunity.

Check your thinking

When you’re faced with yet another ‘unsuccessful’ response, what do you say to yourself? If you’re telling yourself you’re hopeless, you’ll never get a job and everything in your life is miserable, you might need to do some work on challenging your pessimistic thinking style. Try reminding yourself that your situation, like the weather, is temporary, and there’s no reason why your next application mightn’t just nail that job.

Whether you’re job seeking or dealing with any other challenge that requires sustained effort over time in the face of set- backs and knock backs, see if you can apply some or all of these strategies to help build your resilience and get closer to achieving your goals. In the words of Martin Luther King:

”We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope”.

PB Performance