Author Archives: Larry Janis

How Technology Threatens Mental Health – Especially if You’re Inauthentic

When the personality you show the world doesn’t match your true self, it can sap the energy you would otherwise need to deal with technostress.

The word technostress is often credited to Craig Brod, an American psychologist who authored a book about the stress brought on by rapid changes in technology. It was published in 1984, the year Ronald Reagan was re-elected president of the United States, cinema-goers were flocking to see Ghostbusters and the original Apple Macintosh went on sale.

Fast-forward 36 years. In 2020, thanks to Covid-19, it’s likely that the bulk of your life – from working and studying, to socialising and even seeing a doctor – was or continues to be dependent on a tech device. And whilst in 1984, your worst tech-related frustration might have been remembering the WordPerfect command to bold your text, it is quite possible that technostress – now defined as the difficulty coping with the constant demands of tech devices – is preventing you from having a proper night of sleep. Perhaps it has turned you into a cynical, exhausted employee.

Bosses should take note: Health insurer Cigna’s 2019 global 360 Well-Being Survey revealed that 84 percent of workers feel stressed and 13 percent consider their stress unmanageable. In some cases, the habitual checking for messages, emails or missed calls can devolve into mental health issues, such as uncontrollable compulsive behaviours or addiction.

Know thyself, know your risk

A few years ago, we published research (described in this Knowledge article) that looked at how specific personality traits affect how people experience spending so much of their time “connected”. Using self-rated and observer-rated personality questionnaires, we found that tech was beneficial to introverts. It allowed them to communicate with a broader audience without having to physically participate in large social gatherings. However, we suggested that extroverts should watch their tech usage as they may find it more difficult to disconnect. Meanwhile, high self-esteem provided a buffer against techno-insecurity – the stress brought about by fears one will lose their job to someone with greater technical skills.

Building upon these findings in a new paper, we used similar questionnaires to investigate how conscientiousness – the opposite of laissez-faire – is associated with workplace technostress. We found that this personality dimension, which is related to carefulness, thoroughness and the tendency to plan ahead, does increases a person’s risk of experiencing technostress. This is because conscientious individuals might feel more compelled than others to respond immediately to messages and other tech-related demands.

Most interestingly, we found that a gap between an individual’s self-ratings and their observers’ ratings (whether the rating concerned extroversion, conscientiousness or self-esteem) was associated with technostress. To the best of our knowledge, ours is the first study of technostress to include observers’ perceptions of an individual’s personality traits.

Take pseudo-extroverts – people who consider themselves introverts but have learnt to act like an extrovert when the context requires it. This is commonly seen in top leaders of companies: They’re successful at what they do because they have the qualities of both, depending on what is necessary. But it could also be the other way around: Consider an extrovert manager who, wary of groupthink, is attempting to ensure that everyone contributes in a meeting. This person may need to expand extra effort in order to practice active listening (as opposed to merely waiting for others to finish talking).

The Covid crisis has forced many of us to use information and communication technology (ICT) devices in our homes for work purposes. Some people who might have maintained a quiet presence in the office may now feel a need to ensure their visibility through liking, commenting or otherwise reacting to their colleagues’ online posts and comments.

Whenever there is a significant gap between what you perceive yourself to be and the persona you are projecting, it means you are probably putting a lot of effort into presenting yourself in a way that is not natural for you. This energy drain makes you more susceptible to technostress.

Who’s responsible for managing the risk of technostress?

The experience of technostress varies significantly among individuals. Technostress relates the perceived ability to set priorities and make choices. Think of it as an energy equation that each one of us must be aware of and manage. This is the essence of the difference between added value and added stress through the use of information and communication technologies at work.

While managing technostress is ultimately the responsibility of each individual, organisations must be involved too. For instance, HR could offer personality audits and related workshops to share which traits can make people more prone to technostress. This could include a 360° assessment of potential gaps between personality self-ratings and observers’ ratings.

Of course, it is not enough to be aware about one’s susceptibility to technostress. Should a high predisposition be uncovered, the company’s culture should provide enough room for employees to do something about it.

Perhaps employees should be allowed to set stronger boundaries about the use of tech devices in their particular role. Rules such as avoiding answering emails on weekends should be set down and modelled by the organisation’s senior leaders.

Companies need to acknowledge personal preferences when it comes to setting ICT usage and guidelines. For example, they should not expect all employees to be active on all corporate WhatsApp groups or Microsoft Teams channels. Some employees might feel safer with a code of conduct on social media. Others might prefer to receive a detailed plan of social media activities.

If companies do not consider personality preferences and expect only one set of online behaviours, employees will eventually adjust, but there will be a human cost, i.e. technostress.  

Employees should be able to feel a sense of self-efficacy. While HR can help employees gather information about themselves, the organisation must be willing to accompany staff as they figure out the best way to manage their own technostress.

Source: INSEAD

5 leadership tactics that build trust

by Amy Stanton

“It’s really not about being seen as the person in charge. It’s about learning how to communicate in a way that other people trust.”

You never master the art of leadership.

This is something that seems to be missing from the public conversation around how to be an effective leader. In the workplace, in the world at large, and even at home with family and friends. Leadership isn’t a destination, it is a process: a never-ending practice that takes years to develop, and at any moment can feel like a massive fail.

We all, at some point or another, forget how to be great leaders.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about leadership over the course of my career, it’s that the soft skills are what matter most. It’s really not about being seen as the person in charge, or dressing a certain way, or reminding the people around you that you’re the final decision-maker.

It’s about learning how to communicate in a way that other people trust.

Here are five small ways you can start doing that right now.

1. Change up your feedback style, so people know you mean what you say

If you say, “Good job” to every person you work with, for every single thing they do, those words are going to lose their meaning.

(more…)

How to work with every damn Myers-Briggs personality type

by Jonathan Thompson

We got experts to weigh-in on how classic personality traits translate to remote work.

The shift to remote work has given many of us a new perspective on how we do our jobs. Without the context of a shared workspace or the rhythm of a typical office day, our own personalities are having far more of a say in our performance.

It follows, then, that the best way to maximize our output in a WFH environment is to better know our personalities – and those of our dispersed colleagues.

An efficient (and intriguing) way to manage this personality wrangling is via the tried-and-tested Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Generally regarded as one of the most accurate personality tests out there, the MBTI is widely applied within the business world, with 89 of the Fortune 100 companies utilising it.

“The MBTI is deceptively simple, but it’s also an extremely useful way to see how team members are inherently different, and how you can work together more successfully,” says occupational psychologist John Hackston, Head of Thought Leadership at the Myers-Briggs Company. “It’s a means to boost productivity in people, increasing their engagement and making them generally happier in their work.”

In other words, the MBTI might just be the key to turning your remote team into a smooth autonomous unit.

The 16 personality types and their traits

Based on Carl Jung’s Theory of Psychological Types, the MBTI is a self-reported personality survey that has been around in various shapes and forms since the 1940s. Respondents answer a series of simple questions about their feelings and preferences, eventually aligning with one of 16 personality types.

Each of these types is identified by four letters, starting with an E or an I (for extrovert/introvert) followed by S or N (sensibility/intuition), T or F (thinking/feeling), and finally a J or a P (judgment/perception). Each type also has a descriptor, e.g., “the analyst,” to further characterize the personality type in action.

Once you know your team members’ types, the thinking goes, you can better assign them to projects which match their preferences, proficiency, and proclivities. You can also communicate more effectively if you have a better idea of how people process information.

To get started, take the official Myers-Briggs test here (or try a similar free questionnaire, recommended by psychologists here), then check out our expert guidance below on how to work with each personality type. (more…)

3 questions to ask a hiring manager to find out if a company really values its workers

By Stacy Bolger

Many companies brand themselves as “employee-first.” But it’s hard for a job candidate to know if their potential employer will deliver on that promise.

Employee-first means much more than just having high ratings on Glassdoor or photos of fun company events on Instagram. It means the organization appreciates that employees are human beings with diverse goals and needs, some of which they’re achieving in their professional careers and some of which they’re pursuing outside of work (think family time, hobbies, and fitness goals, for example).

An employee-first organization aims to help employees integrate and thrive in both work and life by always considering the whole person, rather than reflexively enforcing one-size-fits-all policies.

This attitude must start at the top, with leaders who include employee experience among their performance goals and invest in ongoing training for managers about the practical application of employee-first values in the workplace.

That’s a lot for a job candidate to suss out and you usually can’t tell how an organization treats its employees from a job listing. The job interview is likely your best opportunity to determine where a potential employer’s priorities really lie—if you ask the right questions.

Your first clue about the company’s priorities will come before the interview itself. An employee-first organization understands that applicants invest a great deal of time and energy in their applications and may be waiting on pins and needles for the company’s response. They’ll reply promptly to your application and set an interview time quickly—or alert you that they’re not choosing to advance you as a candidate.

The interview itself should be a two-way exchange, where you get to learn about the company as much as they learn about you. If and when you get an opportunity to ask the hiring manager some questions, be sure to ask:

(more…)

Do people work better without a crowd?

What we can learn from athletes performing in empty stadiums.

by Ben Lyttleton
On June 20, Manchester United’s star player Bruno Fernandes scored a late penalty to earn his team a draw against English Premier League rivals Tottenham Hotspur. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the stands at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were empty when he took the shot. It was the first of many soccer games to be played behind closed doors, and afterward, Fernandes was asked if it was easier to take the penalty without the distraction of the opposing team’s home fans. “I like the pressure,” he said. “With the crowd, it would be better.”

With fans across the world mostly forbidden from attending sports venues, it’s been possible to compare performances with and without the presence of crowds. In soccer, for example, there have been more goals, more mistakes leading to goals, more penalties scored, and more away wins. In Germany in particular, one analyst described a “negative home advantage,” as away teams, unaffected by a home crowd (and a referee who may give the home team more beneficial decisions), played with a new freedom.

Players and coaches seem emboldened by empty stadiums: more willing to be creative and take risks (and make mistakes) than they otherwise might be.

Could these benefits also translate to the many lines of work that today are being done at home? And how does the lack of an audience affect our own performance? Can we use it to our advantage?

It’s easier to tally goals on a score sheet than productivity on a time sheet, but there are some indicators that a lack of face-to-face office experiences is also having unexpected effects in business — and not all of them bad. One big fear when many companies made the switch was that employees, away from the pressurized environment of the physical office space and with no one keeping an eye on them, would “shirk from home.”

In fact, the opposite happened. The length of working days has increased; digital presenteeism is on the up, and so is productivity. Many people like working from home — and the majority don’t want to return to the office, at least not full-time.

Coaches have also spoken of players who star in training but choke in front of a crowd. Not every player, it seems, is like Fernandes. As Dan Abrahams, a sports psychologist who works with soccer club AFC Bournemouth has said, “More players than you would think are negatively impacted by a crowd.”

Empty stadiums suit those introverts who, according to Susan Cain, the author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, feel most alive and most capable in quieter, low-key environments. Cain believes introverts flourish with more privacy.

For those who do flourish in front of others, an audience provides a change in the pressure dynamics that affect performance. In front of a crowd, our working mode changes from “threat state,” driven by anxiety, to “challenger state,” where we are more likely “to have a go,” according to Gary Bloom, a sports psychologist who works with the Oxford United soccer club. “The limbic part of our brain is where our emotions live — our fear, our anxiety, our excitement. That part is aroused by fear/threat,” he told The Athletic website. “I don’t think it is going to be as aroused [without a crowd].” So, perhaps performing in front of others gives a chance for the challenger state to take over, and we feel more comfortable taking risks.

A couple of years ago, researchers from Johns Hopkins University put the “threat state” theory to the test. They asked people to perform a task on a video game with and without people watching: Those with an audience performed better.

In the experiment, being observed clearly served as an incentive to do well — so maybe all those Zoom calls do keep us on our toes. It may also be that the relationship between performer and crowd builds community and cohesion, hallmarks of a successful working environment. It was French sociologist Émile Durkheim who coined the term collective effervescence to describe how people build a group identity. Sport certainly does that, as can any shared experience.

The changes imposed on our social connections by the pandemic forced us to find new ways to come together: rooftop musical performances, drive-by protests, and online author workshops, to name a few of the many examples of creative responses to lockdowns. “Emergencies often prove to be the forge in which new ideas and opportunities are hammered out,” wrote Erica Chenoweth, professor in human rights and international affairs at Harvard University, in the Guardian.

Our professional behavior may still be performative, albeit in a virtual space. However, we can take inspiration from sport, and specifically penalty kicks in soccer. The secret to a successful penalty, as Fernandes might attest, has little to do with crowds. It’s more about developing the right mindset and practicing with purpose. As we grow accustomed to new working models, these are the habits that can help build success.

Source: Strategy+Business

(more…)