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There are three kinds of annoying colleagues. I have already written about dealing with annoying bosses and colleagues. What happens if the source of your annoyance is one of your direct reports? Once again, dealing with what bothers you depends a lot on what it is causing the problem. Here are four common causes of annoyance. 1. The one who sucks up It is natural for people who are ambitious to want to find ways to get ahead. Obviously, doing great work is important, but a little self-promotion cant hurt either. After all, if you have lots of direct reports, you may not notice everything that everyone is doing. So, you should expect that the folks who work for you will let you know what they have accomplished. In fact, you should encourage that. But, some of your direct reports mistake the need to keep you apprised on their successes for a need to suck up. Sucking up means engaging in constant flattery, giving you constant compliments, and otherwise trying to ingratiate themselves to you in ways that are not productive or mission focused. They may do it in one-on-one meetings as well as in more public settings. It is worth chatting to your suck-ups about this. Let them know that you appreciate their intention to be kind, but that you want to stay focused on the work that needs to be done. It is important to help them to see that this behavior is having the opposite influence from what they intend. The sooner that the suck-ups learn this lesson, the better it will be for everyone. 2. The one who has no initiative The most successful people in the workplace are those who find the next task that needs to be done and then makes progress on it without waiting to be told what needs to happen. Unfortunately, a lot of people who report to you may do only what they have been told to do and no more. As a result, you may feel like you need to micromanage your supervisees to-do lists. You should remember that many people in the rising generation of people in the workplace grew up in a world in which everything was scheduled for them. School, activities, even playdates were arranged. Even many college students are in settings in which they have little free choice. It can be hard for people who grew up with all that structure to suddenly take initiative. You have to teach that. When you find yourself annoyed that your reports arent finding new tasks to do, add a section to your meetings with them. Have them identify one or two things you havent assigned for them that they could do. Talk through with them how to recognize things that need to be done. Youre building a new set of habits, and that will take time. It requires some effort on your part at first, but it pays off in the long-run. 3. The one who (unintentionally) pushes your buttons Everyone has pet peevesno matter how laid back you appear to be. I tend to be loose about lots of things, but there are a few things that can really get me going. For example, when people use the word impact as a verb, it sets my teeth on edge. There are some people in this world whose default settings are designed to knock into every one of your peeves. As a result, engaging with them can set your skin crawling before they even say a word. When that person has some amount of power, then you may just have to grin and bear it. But, you can lay out some ground rules when those people are your direct reports. When I bring on a new team or start working with someone new, I usually give them a small list of things to avoid. It is amazing how that simple conversation makes so much of life go better later. 4. The one who is passive-aggressive The least benign of the annoying direct reports is the individual who is conflict avoidant but still needs to let you know when they are annoyed. These folks fall under the heading of passive-aggressive. They wont come out and tell you that they are annoyed, frustrated, or angry, but they let it out in other ways. These days, it is common to have a few direct reports who have this profile. We dont teach good conflict skills, and so people are reluctant to speak up when something bothers them. Then, their bad feelings leak out in other ways. Like the individuals who dont take initiative, you have to teach your reports to state their conflicts more directly and to create an environment in which it is safe to do that. You need to call out the passive aggressive behavior when you see it as quickly as possible (avoiding public embarrassment, of course). Then, discuss with your direct report that they need to talk out their concerns. Developing their skills to engage in difficult conversations will benefit these individuals immensely.
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E-Commerce
Calibri and Times New Roman have been at war for years. And now the two fonts are once again pitted against each other after the U.S. State Department declared it will be swapping its current official typeface, Calibri, for Times New Roman. It’s a full-circle moment, considering the State Department ditched Times New Roman for Calibri in just 2023. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that switching to Calibri was “wasteful” and “achieved nothing except the degradation of the departments official correspondence” in an internal department memo obtained by Reuters and The New York Times. The type designer behind the sans-serif font Calibri calls Rubio’s decision “hilarious and regrettable.” Lucas de Groot designed Calibri in 2007 specifically for readability on computer screens. The width and curvature of its simple letterform was optimized to be easy to read, and it replaced Times New Roman as the default font in Microsoft Office in 2007 (before being replaced by Aptos in 2023). In 2023, the State Department decided to replace Times New Roman with Calibri for all official communications and memos. It was a bid for greater accessibility throughout the organization. At the time, then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Times New Roman can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers. Not everyone was happy about the decision, but de Groot believes it was the right choice. “There were sound reasons for moving away from Times,” de Groot tells Fast Company in an email. “Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman tend to appear more distorted.” [Animation: FC] A DEI typeface In the cable, sent with the subject line “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative. Blinken, Rubio’s predecessor, made the 2023 change to Calibri at the recommendation of the department’s office of diversity and inclusion due its accessibility and ease to read for people with disabilities. Now it’s getting swept up in Trump’s wider war on “woke.” Times New Roman (top), Calibri (bottom) Serif typefaces, with their small feet, or serifs, on the letterform, are sometimes perceived to be more conservative. Meanwhile, some believe that sans serifs read as more modern and progressive, though that’s far from a hard-and-fast rule. After all, Trump loves a sans serif font, and Sen. Bernie Sanders has leaned into serif typography for his campaign logos. “Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively,” says de Groot, noting the spacing is noticeably inconsistent in all-caps Times New Roman in words like “Chicago” and the font appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality. For many readers, though, font preference has less to do with politics than it does personal taste and what they’re used to seeing. There were inter-office complaints when the State Department switched to Calibri that sound an awful lot like normal office grumblings when one has to switch from Slack to Teams. “I think the idea that a typeface is woke is kind of ridiculous,” says type designer Jonathan Hoefler, who designed the Biden-Harris typography and is the co-author of Gotham, a typeface that’s now been used by presidential candidates of both parties. Typefaces aren’t good or bad, he says. They are simply designed to solve different problems. Times New Roman was designed for newspaper text and Calibri was designed for a screen. “None of these are bad typefaces, theyre just designed around their circumstances,” he says.
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E-Commerce
The consulting firm McKinsey and womens nonprofit Lean In just released their annual Women in the Workplace report, which examines how gender disparities are impacting womens career prospects. Unfortunately, this years results show that companies are backsliding on their commitment to workplace equityand one way thats harming women is by making it more difficult for them to work remotely. This is the 11th annual Women in the Workplace report, and its results reflect a broader pattern across corporate America: a retreat from inclusive efforts amidst a Trump administration thats gone out of its way to cut back on DEI policies. Per the study, two in 10 companies say theyre placing low or no priority on womens career advancement, a figure that rises to three in 10 for women of color. Further, almost one in six companies scaled back on formal sponsorship and discontinued or diminished career development programs with content tailored for women. This year, only half of companies are prioritizing womens career advancement, part of a trend in declining commitment to gender diversity, the report reads. One major roadblock to womens success in the workplace is that, in our modern era of flexible work, women are penalized for choosing to work remotelydespite the fact that, at the same time, theyre still expected to shoulder most of the responsibilities in the home. Flexibility stigma: How women are penalized for working remotely McKinsey and Lean In found that women who work remotely most of the time are less likely to have a sponsor (or someone championing their career advancement) and far less likely to have been promoted in the last two years than women who work mostly on-site. In contrast, men receive similar levels of sponsorship and promotions, regardless of where they work. For context, the data showed that 49% of men who worked mostly remotely received a promotion in the last two years, compared to just 37% of women. Similarly, 52% of primarily remote men had a work sponsor, while only 37% of women could say the same. Women who came into the office more often saw a major boost in these percentages, while men saw only a small increase. On top of these existing challenges, companies are now beginning to remove flexible work options entirely. The report found that one in four companies now offer fewer remote and hybrid opportunities. Thats especially detrimental to women who, despite being more penalized for working remotely, are simultaneously expected to carry more of the burden at home. In 2024, women with partners were more than three times more likely as men to be responsible for all or more housework. And, this year, almost 25% of entry or senior level women who reported not being interested in a promotion said personal obligations made it difficult to take on more work; whereas only 15% of men said the same. Flexibility stigma is one of the biggest factors holding women back at work, the report reads. When women use flexible work arrangements, coworkers often assume they are less engaged and productive, while mens commitment is taken for granted.
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E-Commerce
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