Many have noticed an unpleasant change in recent years when doing our jobs, especially for those who perform customer-facing work. This deterioration comes in the form of an increase in incivility among the general public. Discourtesy, rudeness, and disrespect directed at frontline service providers by customers, clients, patients, student parents, airline passengers, and many other service recipients have made working to assist and benefit the public unnecessarily difficult and disheartening. 

This observation is not just anecdotal. Christine Porath is an author, consultant, and management professor at Georgetown University specializing in optimal workplace conditions. Earlier this year Dr. Porath surveyed 2,000 workers and people who had witnessed workers on the job. Twenty-five industries were represented in the study. Here are some of her findings from respondents: 

• 76% deal with incivility at least once per month on the job 
• 70% see and hear incivility two to three times per month on the job 
• 78% claim customer bad behavior is more frequent than five years ago 

Dr. Porath has been conducting surveys of this sort for some time. In 2005 approximately 50% of employees reported they were treated poorly at work at least once a month. In 2011 this number rose to 55% and in 2016 it jumped again to 62%. 

Our careers cannot flourish amidst a barrage of atrocious behavior delivered from the very individuals we are trying to help. Most jobs present plenty of inherent challenges with which to contend as it is. Work is rarely an easy and carefree endeavor even under the best of circumstances. Piling on impertinent and ill-mannered behavior risks making our jobs unpleasant and unsustainable. 

Given this situation, two basic questions come to mind. What is causing the increase in incivility? What can we do about it? 

I will go out on a limb here and make the claim that very few people, if any, are natural born jerks. Further, I think people are basically social, want to be nice to others, and want to be treated kindly in return. Fundamentally, we all understand that to make it in this world we need the help of others and the best way to receive assistance is to be agreeable with one another. 

What goes awry in a word is stress. Too many of us are mentally frazzled. There are countless reasons for our stress from unmanageable pressures at work and home, to uncertainty about the future, to the unceasing flood of bad news from media, to our politics, to coping with pandemics — the list goes on and on. 

Stress is bad for our personal health and the health of our society. It deprives us all of living fruitful lives. Getting a collective grip and learning how to manage our stress levels and their injurious consequences is critical. Life is too short to be consumed with the amount of anger we are experiencing. 

Leadership is needed at times like these. We may not be able dictate how the public should always behave, but we can have leaders help our workplaces to better cope with the burden of incivility facing frontline employees. Prepare workers for when incivility happens, not if it may happen. We need leaders to coach, train, and lead by example how their workforces can best handle the repercussions of stress from among the very customers the business or organization relies upon. 

Best practices can be identified from those industries that deal with stress all the time. Police officers, health care workers, teachers, and many others have had to learn over time how to manage the unmanageable. There are techniques, attitudes, and lessons we can learn from them. Such interventions are no longer an accessory. They need to become an essential part of any job that deals with the public. 

Instead of the workplace reeling from bad behavior maybe it can be the place from which more acceptable social interactions are derived. Alleviating incivility on the job is a great place to start. 

Keeping a career vibrant, meaningful, and worthwhile takes intentionality. As career-driven individuals we have an imperative to steer ourselves along a course leading to all the beneficial rewards a successful career can provide. No one can rely on being showered with blessings from afar for a fabulous career. We each need to own this one. 

We often talk about keeping our focus on a set of workplace constructs that will make the difference between being minimally engaged with our jobs or truly embracing them. So, we gauge our achievement levels in areas such as skills mastery, motivational techniques, attractive compensation, work-life balance, and team cohesion among others. However, it is possible that we may be overlooking one simple and obvious, but admittedly elusive, point of concern to best boost our careers — our individual energy levels. 

Feeling energetic is perhaps the most important attribute we can bring to any job. All our talents and expertise are diminished and less valuable if we do not have the physical, emotional, and cognitive energy to perform optimally. And it is not just our productivity that is negatively impacted by low energy. Our mood, self-concept, and demeanor can be adversely affected as well. Taking the time to assess what energizes you versus what drains you may be one of the best things you can do for your career. 

So, where to begin? The Energy Project is a workplace development firm that attempts to peg organizational improvement to the well-being of the organization’s workforce. The premise of their approach states that high performance requires highly energetic individuals. To this end, The Energy Project presents an energy enhancing model they claim is science-based and effective in promoting personal energy for busy people. 

Examining The Energy Project’s design for furthering individual energy offers insights we each can utilize toward fulfilling our own personal goal to get more energized. It begins with an understanding that our energy stems from four different domains: the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit. If we can advance conditions in each of these areas, then we can find ourselves more invigorated and better able to face challenges. 

Let’s unpack these. The body refers to our physical stamina. Yes, we are talking about adequate exercise, nutritional foods, proper amounts of sleep, cutting out or at least down the drinking, and maintaining moderate weight. Sure, you have heard it all before. But this time let us reframe these practices as ways of strengthening our careers. 

Energy is further enhanced when we can manage our emotions. Rather than being continually buffeted by external events that affect our moods and anxiety levels, we can choose instead to find ways of controlling our emotional response to the inevitable pressures and sudden demands of the workplace. So often we slip into fight or flight modes of reacting to too much strain, which ill prepares us for working at our best. 

Upgrading our ability to concentrate and focus our attention is the foundation of mind improvement in this model. Here is news you can use — multitasking diminishes productivity and distractions are ruinous! We can discover and rehearse practices leading to fewer interruptions and deeper immersion in the task at hand while curtailing disturbances that only keep us off our game. Also necessary is to allow ourselves time for mental renewals. 

Our spirit is indistinguishable from our purpose. When we care about what we do and work consistently within our values we feel viscerally connected to our careers. Such an association is energizing. Know how to prioritize requests for your time so that you are spending time on those people and jobs most important. Practice observing yourself. Know the situations that best get you to your sweet spot. 

The bottom line here is to accept the unmistakable link between our energy and our career. And just possibly, more energy may vitalize your life as well. 

The need to make quality decisions is pervasive and continuous throughout our lives. This is especially germane when it comes to the ongoing practice of our careers. All along the long-term spectrum of our careers, from our initial professional entry point through to when and how to retire, decisions need to be made to ensure our professional goals are steadily being addressed and realized. 

Over recent decades, decision making has become an identifiable psychological and operational construct. There are a variety of models and multi-step plans designed to render the decision-making process as a rational exercise, which is considered by many to be more effective than a process too invested in emotions or irrational thinking. The premise is that attaining any consequential aspiration can often be confounding and perplexing requiring application of a logical and objective method. 

Executing a career proficiently can certainly be considered among the significant goals of our lives, so it makes sense to consider an approach that fortifies how we make decisions. The range of career-related decisions we typically face involve innumerable choices such as determining areas of specialization, optimal compensation levels, acceptable stress levels, the purpose underpinning our work, a reasonable work/life balance, among many more crucial preferences we select to improve our careers. 

But before we reach for an off-the-shelf decision-making model to guide us, we need to take into consideration the premise mentioned above — by using a more rational decision-making approach, the better the outcomes will be. The truth is we are humans and not solely computational and algorithmic programs. We each enter decision making as individuals impacted by prior experience. Our singular views of reality are therefore necessarily subjective. To suggest any rational methodology will capture the only and truly best decision for everyone may be over relying on pragmatic analysis at the expense of a more viscerally human variable. 

I am not advocating for ditching all 7-step decision making plans and the like in favor of depending on gut feelings only but am proposing the better process may be a decision-making hybrid consisting of a use of logical and sequential steps that are colored and influenced by our feelings and intuitions. Skewing too much to one side or the other of this hybrid could result in low quality and ineffective outputs. 

However, both rationally-based and contemplatively-based procedures carry with them liabilities. Rational approaches assume the decision maker can clearly identify and weigh all options, alternatives, and consequences. We may try to select the choice that best finds a great solution, but we are often limited by things like lack of time, overwhelming amounts of information, conflicting opinions, and competing priorities for our attention. While rationally-based decision making processes can yield useful insights for determining the course of your career they almost always turn out to be limited to a degree. 

Integrating elements of introspection into your decision-making process means you will exercise your reflective capacity. Focus on past decisions which were successful. Extend that to your values encapsulated in rules of thumb known as heuristics. Some examples are, “Treat others as you wish to be treated”, “The customer is always right”, and “Always maintain a professional demeanor with subordinates”. 

But beware of too much reliance on just what feels right. Lurking in our feelings are biases which may warp our ability to make sound decisions. A particular liability is confirmation bias — a condition where we ignore or discount evidence that conflicts with our preconceived beliefs. This has the effect of closing off avenues which could potentially benefit our careers. 

Career-oriented decision making is part science and part art. Paying attention to how we make decisions and how that process can be improved can go a long way toward enhancing our professional selves and extending the gains enjoyed from a flourishing career. 

We all stop and ponder from time to time if the career in which we find ourselves is the right one. This assumes, of course, that one operates from the premise that there is such a thing as the one appropriate career. During these times of disquieting reflection, it may be helpful to reframe the question at hand as to whether our career is contributing to a life of meaning and emotional sustenance. What follows is a consideration taken from philosophy that is along this line of career self-evaluation. 

When examining the history of western philosophy, one does not have to read far before coming upon the concept of teleology. Teleology refers to identifying the purpose underpinning a phenomenon as opposed to seeing effects arise simply because of some mechanistic cause. Teleological designs intentionally try to reach a pre-determined goal. 

We are generally not patient to wait for a chance to produce desirable outcomes, so we maneuver events to reach the results we want. Our careers are hugely important in the amount of time and energy they take, so looking at them through a teleological lens is helpful. 

In ancient times Greek philosophers spoke of the existence of a divinely inspired natural teleology as they attempted to describe the world as they found it. Organic substances were deemed to have inherent purposes, such as Aristoteles’s example of an acorn being intrinsically driven by a sublime force to become an oak tree. Today, science has introduced controversy into thinking of teleology as having a godlike origin. Nevertheless, the notion of purpose as serving a key role in human nature and agency persists in philosophy. 

We can take this stubbornness of teleology to endure in human deliberation to conclude that there is something essentially positive about acting with purpose. Striving to attain a moral objective that brings happiness and satisfaction to oneself is easily and rightfully justified, right? Therefore, directing oneself to choose a career with a clear intention, acting on achieving career proficiency with zeal, and deriving the benefits of career success with joy is a pursuit worth following. 

What I am promoting is simply applying career to living a life of well-being. Or to borrow another phrase from ancient Greek philosophy, a life of eudaimonia, by which is meant to flourish — what the Greeks saw as the ultimate goal of life. Working at a career that is inherently purposeful leaves us feeling more virtuous as a result of our endeavors and that we have identified a higher aspiration worth working for. 

A teleological career is much more than a means of financial remuneration. It means reaching one’s potential. Like Aristoteles’s acorn, we can unfurl ourselves and find self-expression that is deep within our capacity. Feeling whole and thinking that this chosen profession is what we are meant to do energizes and strengthens us. 

Teleology is also involved in the area of business ethics. Acting purposefully is most complete when it involves not just benefiting oneself, but also impacting others in a positive way. Consider the ethics of your career. Are you attempting to provide value for as many as possible, including customers, colleagues, the community, the environment, and all other stakeholders? Such an expansive purpose is more grounded in goodness for a greater number and for yourself. 

Working with purpose sets up a motivational cycle that is internal, self-generated, and nearly effortless. When working toward a higher purpose we find it much less burdensome to gather the strength needed to function. Having desire to operate purposefully comes on more naturally and feeds on itself such that our expended energy is recovered and amplified by our emotional investment to purpose. 

It is natural to wonder if we are doing the proper thing with our work. We should periodically question it and resolve if it is worth it. Applying a teleological approach to assessing our careers can help us to determine career quality. 

There comes a time with all of us when we find ourselves reconsidering our career. We question why we still cling to the rationale that prompted us to settle on this career in the first place. Perhaps another bad day at work sparks doubt or your hesitation results from something deeper like a recognition of insecurity or uncertainty with the line of work you have chosen. If repeated reflections of your career role continuously point to a feeling of dissatisfaction, then it is time to act. 

The measures I am suggesting need not be sudden and radical ones like going into work tomorrow and quitting your job even though you do not have other employment lined up — although that might be an option in your case. Rather, I would like to outline a mental and emotional approach you can use to assess your situation and formulate possibilities from which future career-oriented decisions can be made. 

Unknowingly, you have already taken the first step. That is, you have acknowledged with yourself that something is wrong with your career. Stay with this insight for a while. Clarify as much as possible what is off. There could be multiple reasons behind your discontent. It will be useful for you to know as much as you can about what is not fitting. Repeating a dysfunctional pattern going forward is unhelpful and to be avoided. 

From there, attempt to visualize an ideal career position for yourself. Beware of overly restricting your imagination. Instead, allow yourself the freedom to perceive energizing possibilities in which you can express your innate talents and leverage your developing expertise. When you inevitably think about an imagined choice as, “But that is something I’ve never done before,” try to shun what might be your usual response of instant rejection and instead play with the concept as an intriguing challenge. Be open to surprising yourself. 

When brainstorming, integrate remembered examples of when you were successful. Compile your greatest hits both big and small. Look for the through line which connects these events. Is it your ability to solve stubborn problems, to be adaptive when innovation is called for, to persevere when others around you are jumping ship, to lead others even when your job title says nothing about management? There will be patterns aligned with what you are good at doing. These can be guideposts to inform you while you consider new career opportunities. 

Another avenue of thought to factor into your self-examination has to do with emerging trends. It is no secret that the world is changing. Set aside for a while your career history with its experiences and the present state of your chosen industry to forecast where your fields of interest are heading. Look for possible intersections consisting of your expertise and developing areas of growth in need of aptitude. Refreshing changes can come from leaping off your steppingstones of familiarity onto novel and steep inclines that have just enough footholds for you to master the climb. 

As fresh and exciting career potentialities take shape the time will come to assess your skillset. Are you stagnated by practicing the same tasks repeatedly? Do your imagined career possibilities call for skills you need to develop or acquire anew? Jolting yourself into expanding your capacity may prepare you for a better future but may also help you to snap you out of your current doldrums. Maybe there can even be the prospect of being able to hone new competencies while in your existing job. 

We spend way too much time with our careers to tolerate having them less than stimulating. If you are content with what you are doing, then congratulations on being part of the joyful minority. However, for the rest of you, give yourself permission to consider and act on a change to bring more purpose and fulfillment to your careers and lives. 

The demand for and expectation of workplace flexibility for employees is a construct that is not going away anytime soon, if ever. The confluence of ever-developing technological means, new generational expectations, particularly by Millennials, and pandemic-related work experiences is leaving business leadership with the challenge of meeting production goals with workforces yearning for more resiliency in how they operate on the job. This phenomenon provides individual workers like you with potential opportunities, but also possible obstacles, as you pilot your careers. 

This is a time to observe how your employers assess and manage workplace flexibility as you determine if your current employment is meeting the needs of your individual career development. 

Initially, ascertain if your employer even considers workplace flexibility a talent management issue. If not, then you will have learned a fundamental quality about your employer and should consider future employment with them accordingly.  

If, on the other hand, your employer demonstrates a willingness to engage the workforce with operational practices which attempt to satisfy both employer and employee needs in a harmonious way, then attempting to participate with management fruitfully may be warranted. 

Balance and moderation should be key features of any workplace flexibility set of policies and procedures. As many businesses realize, this is easier said than done. Flexibility practices can range from employee accommodations, such as allowing for an employee to deal with personal emergencies or other nonwork-related activities to negotiating with employees as full partners in designing an alignment that takes into consideration the interests of employers and employees. Widespread empowerment that results in optimal production and ideal proficiency throughout an organization is the primary goal. 

Practices like employee accommodation, mentioned above, and another now common routine, the always-on workplace, do offer employees adaptability compared to legacy workplaces, but have inherent risks associated with them which may be counterproductive. In accommodation scenarios, managers are in the role of giving permission to employees to take time off to satisfy an employee request, if the manager sees fit to do so. A hierarchical structure is assumed. 

Also, the workforce can become bifurcated between those who more frequently need accommodation, such as women with greater child, household, and elderly parent needs and men, who in general handle these demands less. Resentments from both groups can result. 

Problems surrounding the always-on or boundaryless workplace are now becoming well publicized. This is the type of flexibility in which workers can be engaged anywhere and at any time. Work-anytime arrangements can leave employees working longer hours and carrying more stress than if they remained in traditional on-site settings and confined to well-defined start and stop times. Employers too can be disadvantaged by an always-on model. Retaining valuable talent can be difficult when workers realize their work-life balance is too disrupted and a perception sets in that employers are over-advantaged in the flexibility configuration. 

Researchers Ellen Ernst Kossek, Patricia Gettings, and Kaumudi Misra reveal that superior workplace flexibility arrangements are achieved when employers provide structures comprised of a variety of flexibility choices, related equipment, and positive performance-management mechanisms within which employees commit to organizing how they can best work. Foundational to such an agreement is an intentional diminishment of the top-down hierarchical model to one honoring trust, power sharing, accountability, and respect for the contributions of everyone within the organization. 

Upon this groundwork can spring other necessary features, including universal flexibility for all employees; unambiguous policies and procedures regarding flexibility; better enabled employees and managers; a culture that does not discourage flexibility; and continuous measuring of outcomes with agreed upon policy alterations as needed. 

Above all, there is the need for competent leadership who can embrace workplace flexibility, effectively communicate its objectives, and practice the agility required to make the model work for all. An effective workplace flexibility reorganization can both enhance competitiveness and enliven careers. 

Following is a second career-related piece by guest essayist Leslie Campos of Well Parents. For Leslie’s first contribution to this site go to June 2021 in the archives. Enjoy!

Image via Pexels

Simple Tips for Becoming a Freelance Voice Over Artist by Leslie Campos

Most of us hear voice-over artists every day. Their voices are on advertisements, TV shows, audiobooks, radio, and many other forms of media. But did you know that most voice artists also enjoy their craft?

Though it involves reading from a script, a voice-over allows room for personality and passion, and it can lead to a fulfilling career if you approach it the right way. Of course, the right way means that you do it as professionally as possible! Today, Bill Ryan Writings outlines how to do just that.

What Is a Voice Artist?

You probably have a vague idea of what voice-over is. But do you know exactly what being a voice artist entails? Whether you want to build a full-time career or start a side gig, it’s critical to know the true meaning of voice-over. Essentially, voice-over is a production technique executed in television production, filmmaking, theater, advertisements, and so forth. Most of the time, the voice is in the background of the media.

Voice artists typically read from a script and record their work before it is included in the final product. Everything from documentaries to award presentations, from video games to movies and voice-overs are everywhere. It’s easy to see how much potential there is for a career as a voice artist.

What Are the Requirements?

You will also need to understand what will be required of voice artists. You don’t technically need a college degree or professional qualification to get your foot in the door as a freelance voice artist. Many of the world’s most respected voice artists began as amateurs with minimal equipment and worked hard to build their brand.

However, the voice-over industry is fiercely competitive, whether trying to work for a studio or yourself. The good news is that many companies — large and small — are looking for talented, dedicated voice artists. But considering the competition, seeking professional certification could help set you apart from other voice artists and help you get off to a faster start.

If you’re looking to freelance as a voice artist, you’ll eventually want your own professional in-home studio. You need the room to be both soundproof as in blocking out external noise, but also giving it an acoustic treatment by absorbing excess ambience. This will involve some cash outlay at first, but that investment may be recouped later by increasing your home’s appraisal value. With so many people working from home nowadays, a quiet room for videoconferencing is a unique selling point that makes your home that much more valuable.

You will also need specific skills to exhibit if you want to succeed in voice-over. For example, you must speak clean, meaning that you can talk for prolonged periods without clicks, glottal stops, and other mouth sounds. You also must speak clearly and pronounce each letter and phrase without hesitation, mumbling, or swallowing.

One of the most challenging skills to develop as a voice artist is consistency. And if you don’t have it, this career likely won’t work out. You must be able to speak for extended periods (and on various projects) with a similar volume, energy, tone, and articulation. Moreover, you must exhibit excellent control in your phrasing and be comfortable with cold reading.

Common Voice-Over Side Gigs

If you are not ready to start building a freelance career in voice-over, consider the many different types of side gigs you could explore. For instance, you could produce audiobooks for companies like Audible, which would be ideal if you love storytelling. You could look to online job boards like Fiverr to find clients for almost any type of voice-over work. And you can try your hand at narration and character voicing on indie video games and YouTube.

Practicing Your Craft

Finally, if you want to succeed at your career or side gig, you will need to practice as much as possible. Find voice exercises you can do each day and consider hiring a professional voice coach.

Also, regularly record yourself to evaluate how you sound and improve. And consider putting together a demo for each genre of voice-over you are interested in. This will allow you to find areas that need improvement, show others and get their feedback.

It may not be the most common career path, but becoming a voice artist can be a fun and engaging job if you prepare and practice. Keep learning about what voice-over entails, and start developing the necessary skills to position yourself for long-term success. And remember that there are plenty of side gigs to consider if you are not quite ready to forge a full-time career in voice-over.

Get ready! A novel and historic game-changer appears to be bursting onto the scene. It involves the internet’s next significant iteration known as Web3. Given the pervasiveness of the internet in business operations and in, well, life in general for most of us, it may be wise to pay attention to what Web3 is and what it may portend for our employers, customers, and our careers. 

Depending on who one talks to Web3 is either a blossoming of monetary liberation ushering in new economies and with them original products, services, and currencies or it is a high risk Wild West of over-speculation, thievery, and privacy loss. Those who see its utopian potential, claim the web will be more democratized (Oh-oh. Haven’t we heard that one before?) with critics warning against an increasingly unaccountable centralization of wealth, information, and therefore power. 

The original internet of the 1990s and very early 2000s was essentially a vast digital clearinghouse of fixed and stable documents that became available to a much wider audience than ever before. This was followed by Web 2.0, which allowed user to user interactivity, hence the development of social media, crowdsourcing, content creators left and right, and for better and worse, the web we know today. 

What makes Web3 so different is that it rests on blockchain technology. If it is known at all, blockchain is the architecture which makes cryptocurrency possible. In short, blockchain is a distributed database comprised of digital data arranged in chunks or blocks that are linked immutably to previously created blocks across multiple servers leaving a sequential record of unedited transactions. These chains of data blocks are distributed across a global computer network not controlled by any corporations, but only by individual users or their techie proxies, known as miners, rendering the blockchain decentralized, secure, and trusted. Or so we are being told. 

What is paradigm shifting about this model is that data transactions supersede governments, corporate business, or any legal centralizing organization. Crypto has given us an opportunity to imagine and experience non-governmental currencies. The time is now here to speculate about how this standard can be applied to other products and services. 

One area growing in popularity involves the generation of communities of users who share the value of a commodity of some sort. Blockchain enables the use of non-fungible tokens or NFTs, which are digital units of ownership. These NFTs can be used to purchase, exchange, or trade in art, media, gaming premiums, or any set of items, physical or not, which are deemed valuable by the members of an esoteric community.  

With all communication and transactions encrypted real-world identities are hidden. One is known only by their code. Allegedly, one does not have to know or trust others in the community to conduct transactions with them. The rules of the game are so hard-wired into the technology, security is assured. 

Entrepreneurs are already starting to have a field day with this paradigm. Yuga Labs launched the Bored Ape Yacht Club in 2021. It is an NFT collection utilizing an open source blockchain. The commodity of value, believe or not, is a set of algorithmic generated ape cartoon profiles, which when owned, can be used for creating art or media projects. Sales this year have totaled $1B. You don’t get it? Either do I. 

Established companies are starting to see that something is going on here. Microsoft and others are accepting cryptocurrencies as payment. Nike and others are encouraging collector communities using their brands. The concept of alternative virtual worlds with their own economies and players is catching on. Careers will be formed here that old schoolers like me cannot at all imagine. 

How much of Web3 is hype vs. hope has yet to be seen. It seems that some kind of Brave New World is always just around the corner now that the future is here to stay. 

To be successful in nearly every career, especially those careers requiring interactions with people, and that is a lot of them, you will be placed in a position of needing to persuade others to do something you think is valuable. Guiding direct reports to perform optimally, making a sale to prospective customers, swaying the direction and momentum of a field of expertise, or convincing co-workers to shift tactically are common examples when becoming an influencer is necessary. Whether or not you are a boss, being persuasive makes you a leader to some degree. 

A common misconception is that those who practice persuasion best are of a special class of personality types born with a gift for inducing the masses to do what they want done. We think they are the only ones who can grab the attention, shape the decisions, and erase the doubts of others leading to results envisioned by the persuaders. Oh, if only we could be like them, then we could reach such heights in our careers! 

In a still pertinent twenty-year-old article by University of Arizona psychologist and author Robert B. Cialdini, he unpacks research-based fundamentals underpinning the science of persuasion. He further illustrates how practical applications can be derived from these principles allowing even the most unconvincing of us to hone our influencing abilities. 

What strikes me most about Cialdini’s suggestions is how rooted they are in interpersonal skills. Soft skills are often considered the awkward stepchild of the hard technical aptitudes that form the bases of many careers. As derided as soft skills often are, mastering them can make a worker and a leader extremely effective, and well… persuasive. 

Cialdini identifies six tenets foundational to persuasion, beginning with the deceptively simple idea that people will better respect someone who is seen as more or less equivalent to themselves. If you are a boss this may mean utilizing the peers of direct reports who share your vision and can help you to spread the perception throughout the department or organization. 

If this sounds too manipulative, note that other persuasion principles involve ensuring that you as a leader are well liked and that you treat others the way you would like to be treated. We tend to be persuaded by people who show they like us and are kind to us. So, establishing bonds of familiarity and mutual admiration by leaders can help to make the rest of us more impressionable. 

The remaining standards of persuasion are more specialized and a little less soft, but still rooted in respect. For example, in trying to ensure compliance and commitment from among those being persuaded it is necessary for them to conform to your perspective voluntarily and not by way of coercion. If those being persuaded can be demonstrable in their acceptance by displaying their agreement, say in writing, then all the better. 

Another key aspect of being an effective advisor is also being a credible expert in your field. Many of us still do find plausibility in the vision and words which come from true professionals. To be taken seriously, it is necessary to lay the groundwork ahead of time to establish yourself as someone who knows what they are talking about. 

According to Cialdini, research also reveals that people are more persuadable if the information they are being given is considered scarce or exclusive. Rareness and sparsity make commodities and information more valuable and desirable, setting us up for an openness and willingness to behave in ways which we hope will secure them. If we are delivered a scoop or select information, then we are more likely to believe it. 

Being an agent of influence need not be reserved for only those born with a special talent. We can all practice accessible skills of persuasion by understanding a few essential details. Among the most important of them is to be the change you want to see in others. 

As has been widely reported over the past couple of years, workplaces, particularly in the knowledge economy, have either undergone or are being pressured to add flexibility features to their operations. The combination of Covid-related adjustments and technical innovations has resulted in a reassessment of what productivity and by extension appropriate workplace agency looks like in the modern workplace. 

A 2021 Ipsos survey revealed that globally 30% of workers would attempt to leave their jobs if required to return to the pre-pandemic office setting. Many of the ever-plugged-in younger cohort of workers see only an upside to having jobs with flextime. Benefits such as managing the complex demands of modern living, taking care of children and elderly parents, reducing commuting time, and functioning when one is most energetic and constructive during the day are among the advantages cited as desirable with pliable scheduling and task requirements. 

Flextime features are now much more present in recruiting job descriptions. Some of this is undoubtedly because of the increased demand for flexibility from a workforce that seems to be sorting itself into those oriented toward results-only vs. traditional workplaces, but also due to the uncertainty of the future. Covid has not completely gone away and with further environmental changes said to be coming from climate change, who knows what is next? Disruption is at least as likely as stability when planning operationally. 

However, workplace changes of the sort being described here need to be assessed and designed thoughtfully. It can be easy to dump on traditional workplaces as having rigid, arbitrary, and ineffectual routines, like for example, habitually scheduled staff meetings laden with fill-in blah, blah, blah. Yet, as resiliency transformations occur it can be useful to see not only what is gained, but also what is lost by such modifications. 

A case could be made that as customary practices dissolve not all the consequences may be necessarily positive. Of key importance is what it means to be professional. Parameters were established over time to separate work life from non-work life. We got used to sliding in and out of work modes with a regularity that brought predictability, certainty, and some semblance of balance. 

One negative element of blurring the distinction between work and leisure time is the always “being on” phenomenon. When flitting in and out of work mode multiple times per day, including answering supervisor emails at 8:30 pm and being ready to respond to the Amsterdam office at 6:30 am, cumulative work time can approach 10-12 hours. It begs the question of who benefits. Probably not the worker. 

Also, professional norms and protocols used in performance reviews and advancement decisions have been based on an in-person work context. Are the expected actions of workers who work from home holding up fairly to legacy achievement standards? Managers still wedded to the notion that time on task always equals productivity may be less inclined to favorably view fragmented work as effective, even if the results are of similar quality or perhaps even better than before. 

This can be especially problematic for new hires onboarded with a company practicing flextime. How well can management really get to know their direct reports when they are working remotely? Perhaps fine — or perhaps not. New workers are motivated to do well at their new jobs and are trying to navigate expectations and learn company culture digitally. Might they be ripe for various types of exploitation, such as working exceptionally long hours or having to face other unreasonable demands from management or co-workers in a flextime environment? The possibility is certainly there. 

Decentralization does have its benefits. But it also could have liabilities. As we redefine what it means to be professional in a flextime world, we need to be mindful of how to achieve efficiency in a way that rewards both management and front-line workers. This challenge is a subset of organizational agility and a crucial one going forward.