Leadership Today - Practical Tips For Leaders

During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This is from 5th October 2019 - Entrance Interviews Beat Exit Interviews

Summary

Entrance interviews beat exit interviews any day of the week. In this Leadership Today podcast cover some questions to draw on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 56 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we're looking at the power of entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of new starters to improve our organisations.

Last week we explored ways to improve exit interviews. However, it's important not just to focus on those leaving our organisation - after all, they've already decided to move on. We need to also capitalise on those who are newer to our organisation and the fresh perspectives they bring.

Think back to the last time you joined a new organisation. In those first few weeks you were hyper aware of what was different or unusual about the organisation - the positives, the negatives, and the just plain weird. The security access seems really tight, but people hold the door open for others all the time. People make an effort to introduce themselves and make others feel welcome. Meetings always start 10 minutes late. Most people setup their laptop and work on emails during meetings. There's a buzz of excitement around the office. Or, it's like a dentist waiting room in here - all I can hear is typing.

Wouldn't it be great to capitalise on these unique perspectives as people join your organisation? Like exit interviews, entrance interviews are a great opportunity to learn. But they're even better than exit interviews because you can still course correct. You might even pick up some frustrations and reduce unwanted staff turnover along the way.

I suggest undertaking entrance interviews at two points in time - 30 days and 90 days after joining. 30 days gives enough time to process what's unique about the organisation before becoming fully entrenched. And 90 days provides additional time to experience some things for the first time.

I think the two-up manager, the leader two levels above the person, is in a great position to undertake these interviews. It helps that leader to remain close to the experience of new people, while also building relationships and connections. They're also a step further away from the day-to-day which may bring a different perspective to the discussion. The person's direct manager could also be well suited to undertake the entrance interview.

It's important to frame the entrance interview as not being a test. You're not putting the individual on trial here, and there aren't right or wrong answers. This is genuinely an exercise to learn from their experiences and fresh perspective, and to make the organisation an even better place to work.

Here are some questions I suggest for the entrance interview:

• What is unusual about this organisation? Here we're trying to get at the unique attributes, both positive and negative.
• What's exciting about working here? These are the aspects that could motivate and engage our people.
• What's frustrating about working here? This allows us to identify potential impediments to performance.
• What surprised you about the role? Surprises aren't always bad, so we want to draw out both the positive and the negative.
• How would you describe the culture? What does it feel like to work here? Listen carefully to the words used and the extent to which they align with your desired culture.
• What does it take to succeed here? What is rewarded? You might be surprised at what people see. You might think hard work is rewarded, but the new person sees friendships and connections as the way to get ahead.

I think entrance interviews are a fantastic learning opportunity for leaders and organisations. They signal your interest in listening and improvement. Why not trial an entrance interview this week and let me know how you go.

During December and January we are replaying some of our most popular episodes from previous years. This is from 28th September 2019 - Why Exit Interview Stink And Seven Things To Do About It.

Summary

Exit interviews often stink. They end up being overly positive or overly negative. This week we explore seven ways to radically improve your exit interviews.

Transcript

Welcome to episode 55 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we tackle one of today's biggest leadership challenges. This week we're looking at seven ways to radically improve exit interviews.

Exit interviews are one of those things that vary in popularity and application. Some organisations use them every time someone leaves. Other organisations may have been burned in the past or not seen the value. The idea is great - let's find out from people who are leaving the organisation why they're leaving and what we can do to make the place better for the people who still work here. We can do that using a structured interview just before they depart to whatever exciting opportunity comes next in their career.

In application though, the interviews tend to either be really positive or really negative. As a colleague of mine once wisely noted, you're never more popular or better at your job than on your last day. We tend, rightly, to celebrate those who have contributed to our organisations on the day they are finishing up. We bring together a summary of their achievements, list all the great things we love about them, and talk about how much they will be missed. Friends come to the person and question how the place will ever be the same without them. All of that primes the person to say positive things in their exit interview. It turns into a "it's not you, it's me" conversation. The exit interview may well highlight lots of positives about the organisation, but probably understates the challenges and areas for improvement.

On the other hand you have people leaving the organisation where something has gone wrong. They may be angry or frustrated. The exit interview for them is a way to be heard. In those exit interviews the tone is more "it's not me, it's you - and, by the way, I've set the stationery room alight". Those exit interviews end up highlighting a shopping list of problems and complaints, often more about that person than the organisation.

Whichever way the exit interview goes, there's a risk that what we are hearing is not accurate. It seems like a missed opportunity to improve. If only we could source more honest feedback.

Well, help has arrived. Here are seven tips for dramatically improving your exit interviews.

1. Never on the last day. It's best to conduct your exit interview as close to the time when the person tells you that they are leaving. At that point their thinking is usually clear. They will be ready to provide honest answers about why they've chosen to move on.
2. Split the conversation into two. During the first discussion you can focus on the reasons for leaving. It's helpful to schedule a second conversation that's focused on improvements. That provides the person with more time to think about suggestions for improvement rather than putting them on the spot.
   • What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the most?
   • What aspects of the role have you enjoyed the least?
3. Balance the discussion. We can tend to dive into the negatives or try to pull out too many positives. Balance the conversations with questions such as:
   • What could be improved about the role for the next person to fill the position?
4. Focus improvements on the role. This focus on the role helps people to be more open about improvements without feeling like they're being overly critical about their experiences. You could ask:
   • Are there particular skills or abilities you have that could have been used more effectively?
   • How long did you intend to stay versus what you actually stayed for?
   • What will be different in the next role that your present position hasn't been able to provide?
5. Explore missed opportunities. Discuss the areas where the organisation failed to draw the best out of the person:
   • What was your experience of the role and its responsibilities? Was it what you expected?
   • How clear were the goals and accountabilities associated with your role?
   • Was the induction and training provided sufficient for you to perform the role? How could it be improved?
6. Perform a clarity check. Clarity of purpose and role is critical to success, and the following questions can help with that:
   • Would you work for us again in the future? Why or why not?
7. Keep the door open. If the person's departure is genuinely a loss to the organisation, why not leave open the opportunity of them returning one day. You might ask:

Applying these tips will help you to get the best out your exit interviews, while also making the process more positive for you and the person leaving.

Keeping all of that in mind, wouldn't it be great if we could gain some of the benefits of an exit interview earlier in the process? Next week we're exploring entrance interviews - drawing on the experiences and observations of those who are newer to our organisations.

As you might know I've recently launched my three week Boost Your Assertiveness course. I'm offering the course to podcast listeners for 30% off, taking the course cost down from $149 US to the weirdly precise $104.30 . Check the show notes for the link - NOTE - THIS COURSE IS NOW AVAILABLE VIA LEADERSHIP TODAY ON-DEMAND WITH A FREE 30 DAY TRIAL.

Have a great week.

As we draw the year to a close for the Leadership Today podcast, we pause and take a look back over the five most popular episodes based on downloads.

Hello and welcome to episode 104 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. What a year, hey? A one-in-a-hundred year pandemic sent us all scrambling to figure out how to lead effectively through a truly global crisis. Nearly every organisation around the world ended up with the majority of their people working from home. We grappled with Zoom meetings, lockdowns, uncertainty and confusion. And as we draw the 2020 to a close for the Leadership Today podcast, we pause and take a look back over the five most popular episodes based on downloads. I think they provide an insight into what leaders have been focusing on, and what has been the most helpful.

Number 5. Way back in mid-February in episode 66, we explored A Leader's Role in Removing Frustrations. We learnt that frustrations aren't just bad for the individual, but can increase negative workplace behaviours. A key role for leaders is to help people to remove frustrations. We do that by accepting frustrations are normal, and recognising that they can always be reduced either at the cause or point of impact. While our impulse might be to avoid talking about frustrations, we are far better off encouraging people to raise them, provided we take a continuous improvement focus.

Number 4. At the start of March we discussed Five Key Leadership Challenges for 2020 and Beyond. I highlighted a reflection deficit, flatlining trust, internal competition, reluctant leaders and transactional engagement as emerging issues. It is also when I introduced the six daily practices leaders can undertake to engage and get the best out of their people. That turned into our most popular online workshop for the year - The Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership. Check out episode 69 for more details, or you can even complete our Six Daily Practices of Remote Leadership course as part of a free 30-day trial for Leadership Today On-Demand. Links are in the show notes.

Number 3. While I may not have seen the pandemic coming in early 2020, I did have a great episode back at the start of February on The Four Core Skills for Leading in a Crisis. Episode 65 drew on research around crisis management to show the importance of identifying, acting, communicating and reviewing when it comes to a crisis. The research reminded me of the importance of identifying what we have learned once the crisis subsides. Perhaps that's a good thing to keep in mind as we progress into 2021.

Number 2. In July we explored Ten Great Questions Leaders Ask. Being a great leader isn't about having all the answers - it's often about asking the right questions. And research shows that asking questions helps build both liking and learning through connections and trust. Take a look at episode 84 for a list of questions you will find helpful in your leadership.

And at Number 1 it's probably not a surprise that our most popular episode was Ten Tips for Leading Others through the Coronavirus Pandemic. Episode 70 came on on 14th March, just as the virus was really taking hold globally. My tips were to keep informed and prepared, turn up each day, provide as much clarity as you can, remain calm, demonstrate genuine interest in others, provide meaningful work, check in regularly via video, invite others to connect, don't miss the opportunities and don't do it alone. It was pretty good advice, and worth reviewing. The only other thing I would add with the benefit of hindsight is to remember to check that you're not on mute.

So that was our five most popular episodes of 2020. I will be hosting some episode replays through the remainder for December and into January 2021. It has been a privilege to share over 40 new episodes with you this year. When I started this podcast back in July 2018 I had no idea just how helpful it would be in formulating my thinking around leadership by incorporating the latest research. A big thanks to our researcher Lauren Staveley who has really helped lift the level of the podcast and the rest of the work that we do here at Leadership Today. We now have a truly global audience with just 31% of you being from my home country of Australia, and it's a delight to see which random country the podcast might be charting in each week.

If you have found the podcast helpful this year, you know what to do - leave a rating or review and tell a friend. I look forward to sharing brand new episodes with you in February 2021 - who knows what the world will look like then! Until then, keep working on your leadership through Leadership Today On-Demand. Just go to the Leadership.Today website and follow the On-Demand link. There is hours of video-based content. If you like the podcast, you're going to love it. I will be back to host a replay next week.

Empathy seems to be essential for effective leadership, but can it be overdone? This week we explore empathy in leadership, and whether it's underrated or overrated.

Hello and welcome to episode 103 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore empathy in leadership, and whether it's underrated or overrated.

The topic of empathy in leadership can lead to some really interesting conversations. Many leaders will talk about empathy being absolutely essential to leading others effectively - and they're right. Others will talk about the risk of empathy leading to burnout as we take on the concerns of others - and they're right too. So is it just a trade off? Is being empathetic to others and the impact on my own well-being just something I need to accept? Or might there be a different way of thinking about empathy altogether.

Dr Paul Ekman was the co-discoverer of micro-expressions and inspiration for the TV series Lie to Me. He describes three types of empathy - cognitive empathy, emotional empathy and compassionate empathy.

Cognitive empathy is being able to see someone else's perspective and understand what they might be thinking. So when a new person starts with your organisation, cognitive empathy might help you appreciate that they're unlikely to know their way around the office. You might offer to show them around or leave them hanging. Cognitive empathy is just about perspective taking - putting yourself in their shoes to see the situation from their perspective.

Emotional empathy involves feeling what someone else is feeling. For example, if a colleague's computer crashes and they lose a document they have been working on for an hour, emotional empathy allows me to understand that they might be frustrated and upset. After all, if I was in the same situation, that is what I would be feeling. Again, I might offer to help or try to console them, or I might just leave them to have their moment.

Compassionate empathy involves having a genuine concern for the other individual. If I'm demonstrating compassionate empathy, I don't just understand how the other person is thinking and feeling, but I also want to help.

It's more than likely you've heard someone describe the neurological basis for empathy - that we have mirror neurons that fire up when we see another person experiencing an event, and they're the same neurons as the other person. There's pretty good evidence for mirror neurons amongst primates. If I pick up a piece of fruit, a nearby primate might have neurons in regions associated with that movement also activate. However, the jury is still out on whether this extends to humans at an emotional level. That could well be the case but, beyond the initial excitement in the press, the jury is still out.

What is more certain is our brain's ability to empathise with someone else's emotions being separate from our ability to see a situation from another person's perspective. It appears that cognitive empathy and emotional empathy have differing underlying neurological bases. Cognitive empathy appears to involve areas of the brain associated with remembering the past or fantasising about the future. Emotional empathy involves processing of things like facial expressions and speech patterns. As a result, it is entirely possible for me to demonstrate one kind of empathy without the other. For example, I could see you trying to restore that lost document and intellectually get what you are doing, but not be able to appreciate just how much that frustration is impacting your emotional state.

A great leader is able to appreciate both thoughts and feelings - to use both cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. To sustain that, the leader needs to be selective in compassionate empathy. There are times where it makes sense to get in and help - where you can see a team member is upset and needs comforting and assistance. However, in my experience, the leaders that struggle with the burden of being too empathetic over apply compassionate empathy. They're too quick to try to solve others' problems. They take on the fear, anxiety or sadness of others as their own. That can become crippling. It can get in the way of us making good decisions. It may even make things worse for the person we're trying to help. As leaders, I believe we need to primarily focus on cognitive empathy and emotional empathy - to figure out how the person is thinking and feeling. Then we can determine what, if any, help we want to provide - we can choose to use compassionate empathy.

So, empathy - it's difficult to overrate its importance to our leadership. But I think compassionate empathy can become overrated for some leaders, particularly if it means they can't continue to be there for their people.

As always, there are links to the references that Ive used in the podcast in the show notes. A big thanks to both the British Psychological Society for their excellent research digest, and also to the team at Science Daily. I use both of those to keep across the latest research. Have a great week and I look forward to speaking with you next week.

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2019/03/25/there-is-only-weak-evidence-that-mirror-neurons-underlie-human-empathy-new-review-and-meta-analysis/

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110090427.htm

This week we feature a replay of our 21st September 2019 episode - Five Tips to Level Up Your Listening.

This week we have a replay of our 31st August 2019 episode - Confidence in Action.

Collaboration and cooperation have never been more important. However, people can naturally tend towards self-interest at the expense of the greater good, particularly when they believe they personally have the resources they need. This week we explore how people cooperate more effectively when they can't solve something on their own.

Hello and welcome to episode 102 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how people cooperate more effectively when they don't have the resources to solve something on their own.

Imagine you're living in a small community located beside a river. Everything has been great so far, however there has been recent heavy rain, and now flood waters predicted to arrive the next day. Without action, everyone in the community will lose their home to the rising flood waters. People in this small community have sand bags to help either shore up their own house, or contribute to saving the entire community by building a larger wall of sandbags to protect everyone. The catch being that everyone needs to cooperate to have enough sand bags to save the community. How do people respond to this threat to their town and household?

Recent research demonstrates that the response largely depends on the resources the individuals have at their disposal. Jorg Gross and colleagues setup a range of conditions for participants to respond to, all reflecting a similar scenario to the community at risk from a flood. Each person had some resources, equivalent to the sand bags, that they could either contribute to the community in an attempt to protect everyone, or keep in an effort to protect themselves.

The research found that when people didn't have enough resources to save themselves individually, they were most willing to contribute to the collective effort. There was still some risk here as people could act in a self-interested way, and therefore the overall community may fail. But in most cases, where everyone had the same level of resource and not enough to save themselves, they successfully cooperated to help the broader community.

As the researchers varied the resources available to individuals, behaviour changed dramatically. Those who had enough resources to save themselves started to withhold resources from the community effort, even when that led to others failing. Similarly, those who didn't have enough resources and could only rely on community cooperation tended to lose out as the inequities in the community increased over time. Inequality increased as the rounds continued. People began to stock pile resources at the expense of others' immediate needs.

What's the lesson here? If people feel they can do something on their own and don't need others in order to succeed, they are likely to act from a position of self-interest, and are also unlikely to help others out. This continues even when others are at risk of failing or missing out. This finding has obvious implications for public policy, but also applies within our organisations.

Most organisations survive through cooperation. Despite the silos that so often emerge, every organisation needs good will and cooperation to succeed. In most instances if my team "wins" and your team "loses", then the overall organisation loses. Cooperation acts like conduits between the silos, helping to share around resources and knowledge. As I've presented before, the challenge here is the increasing identification of people with their immediate team rather than the organisation as a whole. That creates conditions where people are less likely to collaborate and cooperate across teams. When we're focused on our own team, other teams become either a threat or a distraction.

As leaders, it is more important than ever to help people to see the broader role they play within the organisation, not just within the team. We need to put additional effort into communicating the purpose of the organisation in a way that demonstrates the need for cooperation in order to succeed. It's really helpful to develop a narrative about how different parts of the organisation work together to achieve the broader purpose. Individual leaders can then share that with their teams. If purpose is defined as individual teams winning, then be prepared for more competition than cooperation.

Thanks for joining me today, and remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. That's how you can access all of our recorded webinars and online courses, along with weekly quick hits on a range of topics. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial by going to our website, leadership.today, and follow the on-demand link. Have a great week.

Gross, J., Veistola, S., De Dreu, C.K.W. et al. Self-reliance crowds out group cooperation and increases wealth inequality. Nat Commun 11, 5161 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18896-6

With the shift to working from anywhere, many people have questioned why we still need an office. For others, getting everyone back into the office is seen as mission critical. In this episode we explore five reasons why you still need an office.

Hello and welcome to episode 101 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore the five reasons why you still need an office.

There has been a lot of debate and discussion about the need for offices. The global pandemic revealed just how possible it was for many people to work from anywhere. This has been combined with challenges moving people back into offices, while also maintaining a safe work environment. All of this is likely to lead to a shift in thinking about the need for, and role of, offices.

Most surveys reveal a mix of people who can't wait to get back into the office, people who never want to go in to the office again, and a larger group in the middle who want a mix. It's easy to foresee a challenging road ahead as organisations and individuals negotiate a seemingly endless range of options for people. Some organisations will no doubt declare it all to be too hard and push most people back into the office. Others will jump at the chance to save on prime real estate and reduce their office footprint significantly if not entirely.

But much of this debate and discussion misses the core question - what do we actually need an office for? And, to be clear, this is really about why we need to get our people together, whether that's at an office or some other venue.

Research suggests there are five main reasons to get people together:

1. Community - As people were forced to work from home, this was one of the most cited reasons why people missed the office. We are social animals and long for connection with others. Video conferencing doesn't match the connections people can build face-to-face.

2. Collaboration - While collaboration software and platforms can help, they fail to allow the kind of constructive conflict needed to truly collaborate and generate new ideas. To be clear, I'm not saying that all collaboration needs to happen face-to-face, but there are efficiencies provided by being in the same room at the same time when deeper collaboration is required.

3. Culture - "How we do things around here" is difficult to establish and sustain when we're not in an office together. Communicating strategy and direction, celebrating milestones and achievements, establishing agreed ways of operating - these are all much easier when we have a group of people in a room together. Without being physically together, it becomes much harder to build trust. People then tend to create identity with their team rather than the organisation. This can lead to conflict between teams and competing interests, rather than trying to work together to better the overall organisation.

4. Climate - It's difficult to generate a consistent experience of "how it feels to work here" when people are having such diverse experiences of the workplace. Getting people together helps to create a shared climate.

5. Capability - This, I believe, is the sleeper issue in the work from anywhere movement. Picture yourself at the start of your career. How much of your development occurred just by being around more experienced people, being invited into meetings to observe, and having that chance to be mentored? All of this is harder when people aren't together.

Now, please don't hear me wrong - this isn't an anti work from anywhere statement. In fact, I've been a work from anywhere guy for the best part of ten years. But it's easy to overlook all the seemingly small and incidental interactions that build community, collaboration, culture, climate and capability. These accumulate over time to play a really important part in each person's engagement, satisfaction and contribution. If people shift to two or three days in the office, it reduces all of these incidental moments by half.

To replace that, we are going to need to be far more intentional about community, collaboration, culture, climate and capability. We can no longer leave them to chance. Instead, we will, from time to time, need to bring our people together face to face with a clear purpose and focus on each of these five areas. Trying to build these virtually is inefficient. What 5 minutes together face-to-face does for building trust might take hours over email or Slack or even video conference.

So you may not need an office anymore, but you will always need to bring people together face to face. We need to be very intentional when we have that increasingly rare opportunity to all be in the same room at the same time. Make sure it happens, and make the most of it.

Thanks for joining me today, and remember to check out Leadership Today On-Demand. We have a new quick hit video posted every week which is a similar format to our podcast. On top of that are ten recorded webinars on topics like procrastination, imposter syndrome, well-being, assertiveness and influencing, with a new webinar added each month. In addition we have our online courses which you might want to check out. You can sign up for a free 30 day trial by going to our website, leadership.today, and following the on-demand link. Have a great week.

Procrastination plagues many of us. It seems we are endlessly creative at avoiding things that we know are important. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Hello and welcome to episode 100 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore different ways to think about and avoid procrastination.

Procrastination plagues many of us. In fact, research suggests that around 25% of people have procrastination as a defining personality trait. But whether you procrastinate all the time or just every so often, I'm sure you would love to procrastinate a little less.

And that's not surprising, particularly given that procrastination is associated with a range of negative outcomes including low self-esteem, high pessimism, high anxiety, boredom, fatigue and detachment.

One definition of procrastination is "voluntarily delaying an intended task despite expecting to be worse off for doing so". This highlights a few key aspects of procrastination:

1. It's voluntary - procrastination is something that we choose to do

2. It gets in the way of our intentions - despite wanting to do one thing, we introduce something else as a replacement, even if that replacement is just staring at the ceiling

3. We know it will make things worse - procrastination never makes things easier, and we typically know that at the point we choose to procrastinate

So given all of this, why do we procrastinate? Researchers describe procrastination as "a form of self-regulation failure involving the unnecessary and voluntary delay of important tasks for the purpose of short-term mood repair." Put simply, procrastination is about prioritising short-term mood repair over long-term goal pursuit. We procrastinate because it makes us feel better in the short-term. In fact, research demonstrates that the more negative our mood, the more time we spend procrastinating. We use procrastination to feel better. Understanding this can help us to reduce how often we procrastinate. Once we recognise that we're actually delaying and amplifying negative mood, we can appreciate just how self-defeating procrastination can be. In addition, we can look for ways to boost our mood prior to undertaking a task where we think there is a risk of procrastination. Schedule those tasks where procrastination is a risk at the points of your day when your mood is typically most positive.

I think it's also important to consider how you think about procrastination. Consider someone who says "I am a procrastinator" versus another person who says "I procrastinate". The person who describes themselves as a procrastinator sees procrastination as an ongoing trait, part of their personality, and part of who they are. For that person to overcome procrastination requires a change of identity, not just a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour. In contrast, the person who says "I procrastinate" sees procrastination as a passing state, that it is task-specific, and that it is how they act sometimes. In that case overcoming procrastination requires a change of thoughts, feelings and behaviour, but not a change in how the person sees themselves. If you want to reduce how often you procrastinate, start by thinking about procrastination as something you choose to do, rather than something that defines who you are.

We often fail in making meaningful change because we try to stop procrastinating rather than trying to pursue the opposite of procrastination. The opposite of procrastination isn't just getting things done on time, it's actually a state that psychologists call flow. Flow is a positive state which feels great, where time flies, where we can focus our attention, and adapt and be flexible. How do we achieve flow? A lot of it comes down to how we are led. People are more likely to achieve flow in their work when there are clear goals, flexibility or autonomy in how we achieve those goals, and immediate feedback. But we also need to be challenged and have our abilities matched to the task. As so often is the case, flow requires an environment where we are stretched and supported.

If you struggle with procrastination, here are some things to try:

1. Choose to be stretched in an area of interest - boredom increases the risk of procrastination, so we want to focus on tasks that are interesting to us

2. Set goals and deadlines to work towards - we prioritise and work harder to achieve tasks that have a deadline, so use that to your advantage

3. Boost your mood before you begin - go for a walk around the block or some other mood-boosting activity before you tackle that activity you typically put off

4. Turn off wifi or pull out the blue cable - our computers provide a myriad of tempting distractions, so do whatever you can to reduce these

5. Involve others for encouragement, mentoring and feedback - it's harder to procrastinate when others are checking in on you and holding you accountable

6. Work in bursts - set a timer for 15 minutes and start working, then assess how you're going at the end of that time - you will usually find you're happy to then invest another 15 minutes

Hopefully today's podcast has given you some new ways to think about procrastination and some ideas about how to avoid it in the future. If you have used today's podcast to avoid doing something else, then just go and do it now!

If you enjoyed this week's podcast and want to go a bit deeper, I have a free webinar happening this week called "A Procrastinator's Guide". If you can't make the webinar or have missed it, don't worry. We publish recordings of all of our webinars on the Leadership Today On-Demand service. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link to sign up for a free 30 day trial.

As usual, you will find all of the research used for today's episode in the show notes. Thanks again to our researcher Lauren Staveley for scouring journals to track all of that down.

And given we have hit the 100 episode mark, I would really appreciate it if you could take some time to provide a rating and review via Apple Podcasts, and also tell a friend about the podcast. That makes a huge difference. Have a great week.

Göncü Köse, Asli & Metin, Baran. (2018). Linking Leadership Style and Workplace Procrastination. The Role of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Turnover Intention. Journal of Prevention & Intervention Community. 46. 10.1080/10852352.2018.1470369

Sirois, F.M. and Kitner, R. (2015) Less Adaptive or More Maladaptive? A Meta-analytic Investigation of Procrastination and Coping. European Journal of Personality, 29 (4). 433 - 444. ISSN 0890-2070

Sirois, F.M. (2014) Procrastination and Stress: Exploring the Role of Self-compassion. Self and Identity, 13 (2). 128 - 145. ISSN 1529-8868

van Eerde, W., Klingsieck, K.B., Overcoming Procrastination? A Meta-Analysis of Intervention Studies, Educational Research Review (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2018.09.002

van Eerde W., Procrastination at Work and Time Management Training. The Journal of Psychology (2003), 137 (5), 421-434

Motivational speakers encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. But leaders are better off focusing on creating meaningful work.

Hello and welcome to episode 99 of the Leadership Today podcast where each week we bring research to life in your leadership. This week we explore how to create meaningful work.

Motivational speakers often encourage us to find our purpose in life - our why. If we know why we do what we do, then the things we do become more important and meaningful.

Thankfully, as leaders, we don't need to help our people to uncover their purpose in life. We do, however, have a significant role to play in creating meaningful work. While meaningful work isn't quite the same as a life purpose, it is still a significant part of a meaningful life for many.

Reseach which I've included in the show notes demonstrates that meaningful work links strongly to work engagement, commitment and job satisfaction. In addition there are weaker links to life satisfaction, life meaning, general health and intentions to stay at a workplace.

If I provide meaningful work, I'm providing significance. There's an appreciation that the work really matters.

Now, clearly, there are some parts of our work that aren't wrapped up in deeper meaning. Thankfully research shows that our sense of meaning in work is made up of the various episodes and elements of our work. As humans, we effectively weigh up the various parts to determine, on balance, whether our work has meaning. In fact, the overall sense of meaning makes the meaningless activities tolerable. I will put up with the meaningless parts of my work if the meaning bank account balance is in credit.

To build meaning we can help our people to answer these questions about their work: Why does it matter? What does it contribute to? How does it contribute?

Five whys is great technique to use to explore meaningful work. We covered it in more detail in episode 20. It helps us to take our focus further up the meaning chain. Let me share an example.

I used to manage a team, and part of their role was packing boxes with materials that would be used on leadership programs - all the handouts, materials and everything else that would be needed on that program. They would then send the box to the venue. Now, that job sounds pretty boring and devoid of meaning. So it prompts me to ask five 'why' questions. Packing boxes with materials - why does that matter?

Packing the boxes allows consultants to run leadership programs. That's okay, but why does that matter?

These leadership programs help increase leadership capability for thousands of leaders. Why does that matter?

As those thousands of leaders improve their leadership, it also improves the work lives of tens of thousands of other people. And why does that matter?

That increased satisfaction multiplies out to all of their connections, to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Okay - now maybe that was one step too far, and perhaps we didn't need the full five whys. But hopefully you can see how using the five whys can help us to create meaningful work for our people. Try it out this week and let me know how you go.

Thanks again to Lauren Staveley, our research assistant, who tracked down the research for today's episode. As a reminder, we are still offering a free 30 day trial of our Leadership Today On-Demand service. It includes two online courses, together with recorded webinars, and quick hits on a range of leadership topics. Just go to the leadership.today website and follow the on-demand link.

Have a great week.

Blake A. Allan, Cassondra Batz-Barbarich, Haley M. Sterling and Louis Tay. Outcomes of Meaningful Work: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management Studies 56:3 May 2019