Morale Mindset

In my previous company, I noticed how some individuals would show up to work and do a great job structuring ideas together, but would not speak up at meetings. Furthermore, they did not get the deserved recognition either in the form of more important projects or roles due to this reserved vocal demeanor. If such individuals want to become decision makers, they may progress at slower rates than more vocal individuals with similar or lesser abilities. In line with this, I also noticed how some...

What does it really mean to listen to someone? Listening is just the action of processing sounds. But what most people probably mean is, do we understand the words coming out of their mouth. We listen actively by digging in to understand the speaker's intent and by validating whether we have a complete understanding of their message. Is this conversation going to take more time compared to you just saying your idea? Yes. It will take more time. But this invested time builds morale and in...

Most people think of negotiation as haggling for a lower price when buying an item, but it is so much more. Here are some examples of negotiation beyond fighting over price: When a parent needs to convince their child to come home before a certain time. When an employee needs to convince other colleagues to help push their initiative. When a team member needs to convince their boss to extend the deadline. In short, Negotiation is any discussion aimed at reaching an agreement. Alternatively ph...

From the end of 2019 until now, there have been many changes, an increase in working from home, a reduction in labor for some industries, or even worse - a loss of some friends and family members. These changes can potentially lower morale in the individuals around us, either because of fewer quality interactions in person, potentially a loss job security, or other personal issues.AboutMorale is the drive, the spirit that other individuals have to support our goals. With high morale, all obje...

Gauging morale is all built around understanding the degree to which other individuals support us. This is important because, if other individuals have strong morale towards us, they will HAPPILY work with us through challenges. If we could all read each other's minds, we would be able to directly know everyone's morale towards us. We would explicitly, know whether someone supports us or not? And how much they support us? Unfortunately, most of us likely do not know what exactly other pe...

By knowing their preferences, or goals if possible, we will be able to understand what drives this individual. Taking the time and effort to understand another individual's goals will increase their morale towards us. Helping the individual progress towards their goals will ultimately increase their morale towards us even further. For this episode, we will focus on asking the right questions to understand another individual's goals and preferences. AboutMorale is the drive, the spi...

We need to identify and understand the different types of problems so that we can determine how to support the individuals around us moving forward. The types of problems can be categorized in many ways, such as by urgency or by importance, but today we will focus on differentiating between individual problems and interpersonal problems. Distinguishing between urgency and importance will tell us when to solve an issue, but distinguishing between individual and interpersonal problems will tell...

We can gauge morale by assessing their willingness to open up. The more problems they feel comfortable sharing with us, the stronger their morale is towards us. By seeking to understand their problems, we are demonstrating to our team members that we care about them. Team members are more likely to open up and talk about their problems after rapport has been built with the manager. This rapport is built on the principles of understanding relationships. Specifically, the more ...

We can detect an individual's portrayal by 1) analyzing how the group's reception to the individuals messages and 2) how the group speaks about the individual. When the individual is speaking, Does the group support and believe the individual is coming from best intent... or Does the group assume the worst? Then when the group is speaking about an individual, do they support and lift up the individual or do they antagonize and push down the individual? Understanding an individual's portrayal ...

Influence within a groups covers everything from who makes the final decision on where to meet for dinner to who will show up, and bring others, to support our personal endeavors. If ten friends are all very close to one another, that does not mean they are equally close with each member. An unspoken pecking order does exist and we can interpret social pecking order by leveraging multiple cues, but today, we will focus on proximity. In our earlier episodes, we discussed free time and att...