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Hows work? If you feel like answering meh, youre not alone. Gallups latest workplace survey found that employee engagement has slumped to a 10-year low. It might not be the work itself, though. You might want to take a closer look at your boss, says Dr. Katina Sawyer, coauthor of Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives. The proximal experiences that you have in the day to day of your workplace are what predict your general overall sentiments about your work, says Sawyer, who is an associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Arizonas Eller College of Management. That means that the people that you work with most frequently tend to be really important, specifically leaders. Direct supervisors are often the key determinant of your feelings [about your workplace]. Leadership norms are causing employees to disconnect, says Sawyer. Traditional beliefs include the idea that work should be a leaders entire focus, working tirelessly. Leaders should always have the answers and be very decisive and assertive. And the individual leader is more important than the collective team in terms of what they bring to the table. These ideas have permeated our workplaces, says Sawyer. As a result, when leaders rise through the ranks, instead of being the leader that they would have wanted, they unconsciously adopt these norms of what we’ve seen other leaders do. Unfortunately, these beliefs just dont work, and employees dont want to work for a leader who behaves this way. Feeling meh comes from the norms that workers have inherited, says Sawyer. Organizations have not figured out a way to solve for meh. When they see burnout on the rise and job satisfaction on the decline, they turn to shortsighted and trendy wellness initiatives, such as yoga in the morning and mindfulness breaks at lunch, says Sawyer.� Sure, they may be fun, but are they actually driving results? she asks. While none of those things are bad in and of themselves, there’s no substitute for a bad leader. If your proximal experiences are not great, its like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Instead of investing in one-off solutions, Sawyer suggests that organizations boost leaders capabilities to lead in a way that supports teams and, as a byproduct, drives results and productivity. She offers four techniques that can help. Forgo the Fearless Leader The first mechanism she suggests is realizing that people don’t want superhero leaders, who are stoic, decisive, and unafraid. Actually, that’s quite demotivating for employees, because they can’t see themselves in their leader at all, says Sawyer. They also often start to see the cracks when someone presents a very perfect image of themselves as a leader. People are looking for authenticity. When they don’t see it, it gets confusing and discouraging. Building stronger teams happens when leaders and teammates share their struggles. They become motivated to continue to grow and thrive in the organization, because they actually see a pathway forward for them as human beings, says Sawyer. Dont Worry About the Clock A second mechanism is training leaders to deprogram themselves from thinking that the amount of time that they spend on work is the best metric of productivity. Overworked leaders often produce a negative climate and expect overwork from their employees, says Sawyer. That’s a recipe for burnout. Instead, leaders need to create a culture in which people feel comfortable and confident to support one another through their struggles and to show gratitude to each other. Positive team environments end up saving the leader time in the long run, because what’s supposed to be happening is functioning more smoothly, and leaders are not constantly putting out fires, says Sawyer. Reset Priorities Third, leaders need to recognize that work supports life instead of thinking you must fit your life around work. This includes encouraging employees to prioritize their personal lives by maintaining and respecting their boundaries. Help them do the things that are important to them as people, says Sawyer. If someone is a parent and they’re coaching their kids T-ball team and have to leave every Tuesday and Thursday at four in order to get there on time, be cognizant of the fact. If you make it hard for your employees to participate in things that are important to them, over time, they’re going to grow resentful. Tailor Your Wellness Approach The fourth mechanism is to realize that nothing is one-size-fits-all. One of the problems that broader wellness initiatives have is that they take a blanket approach, says Sawyer. It assumes every employee will love to participate in mindfulness at lunch, but not everybody does. Leaders need to have honest conversations about things that really contribute to each employees health and well-being. Sometimes those are physical things, like needing time to walk in the middle of the day, says Sawyer. Sometimes theyre mental health things, like needing to get to a therapy appointment every Thursday morning. Try to tailor what you offer to the extent possible to best support employees varied needs.� What Employees Can Do If you are feeling meh at work and your employer isnt taking steps to change the norms, Sawyer recommends looking for people in your organization who are like-minded and then suggesting some of the cultural elements that can shift the workplace dynamics. Create a committee on health and wellness, where it’s not just one squeaky wheel, but it’s a group of people who are brainstorming to try to create a better work environment for everybody, she says. You can also try to create a micro subculture sphere of influence that adheres to new norms. Document the positive impacts to sell the idea that these mechanisms work. And take steps to regain balance and well-being on a personal level, such as participating in a hobby after work. But dont keep feeling meh about work.� The meh feeling is a leading indicator that people are movng in a direction of being less engaged, says Sawyer. Companies should think of meh as a yellow flag that’s headed to red and a recipe for burnout. It wont get better on its own. Turn course now and recover instead of simply following the downward trend.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Seattle Mariners will be repping Nintendo this season. The team announced that starting with the season opener on Thursday, team members will be wearing Nintendo patches on their jerseys. It’s the first time the team has ever had a jersey sponsorship. The Mariners promoted the partnership in a video posted to social media showing center fielder Julio Rodr�guez wearing the new jersey and grabbing a Mariners ball cap that’s sitting next to a red Mario hat in a locker. Major League Baseball announced in 2022 that it would begin allowing teams to put sponsorships on their uniforms. Some teams quickly capitalized: The New York Yankees signed Starr Insurance, and the Kansas City Royals signed the convenience store and gas station chain QT. For the Mariners, the Nintendo patches are just the latest in a long-running partnership with the video game company that goes back more than three decades to 1992, when Nintendo of America purchased a controlling stake in the team. Though most of Nintendo of America’s stake was sold in 2016, the company still owns about 10% of the team. “Nintendo and the Mariners have been inextricably linked since 1992,” Kevin Martinez, the baseball teams president of business operations, said in a statement. “Now, each time the Mariners take the field, our jersey sleeves will help serve as a reminder of all that Nintendo of America has done for the Northwest community and the team.” [Photo: Seattle Mariners] Mariners players will wear white jerseys with the red-and-white Nintendo “racetrack” logo on the sleeve for home games. For away games, their turquoise jerseys will feature a red patch for the Switch 2, the Nintendo console that comes out next month. For baseball fans unhappy with corporate sponsorships finally making their way to players’ jerseys, the Nintendo patches may be unwelcome news. But at least for Mariners fans the team’s first ad might just be something they actually want to buy.
Category:
E-Commerce
In early 2024, Ben Collins was contemplating the future of the media businessand his place in it. He was in the process of resigning after spending six years as a senior reporter at NBC News, exhausted by the disinformation beat that took him to some of the darkest and most disturbing corners of the internet. It hadnt helped that in December 2022 NBC News had suspended Collins from the Elon Musk beat following his highly critical coverage of the gazillionaires acquisition of Twitter. The media landscape looked bleak. Layoffs were decimating storied media titles like Sports Illustrated, and Collins was hearing rumors that G/O Media, the holding company owned by private equity firm Great Hill Partners, was looking to shed 36-year-old satirical news publication The Onion from its portfolio. (G/O had dumped Jezebel and was about to purge other titles, including Deadspin and The A.V. Club.) As a joke, Collins posted a message on Bluesky: So uh how do we buy The Onion? Two media friends (Leila Brillson and Danielle Strle) jumped on board, and they quickly joined forces with another Onion lover, Twilio cofounder and former CEO Jeff Lawson, who also just so happens to be a billionaire. By late April 2024, the team had closed the deal. Heres how it felt from the inside. Ben Collins, CEO There was this article saying that The Onion is aggressively for sale. I knew that Elon Musk had been dreaming for a long time of owning it. And I was like, If The Onion is in his hands, just give up on American society. Hes the most humorless person on earth. So I [posted on Bluesky], Who wants to buy The Onion? I think I have $600. I had no idea how to buy a company. Im not a guy who buys stuff. All my shirts are from the dollar store. Its a huge problem. But Leila Brillson was sitting at home. She had just had a baby three weeks before. She was the first female executive editor for Playboy and then went to work at Netflix and Disney and TikTok. Leila Brillson, chief marketing officer I think the reason Ben picked up my call is that I had just moved back to Chicago, which is where Im from. The Onion is based in Chicago. My thought process was, Huh, its for sale. It cant be that much. Followed by, I bet they have an incredible social footprint. Followed by, Theyre in Chicago. Hey, Im in Chicago. I think he thought I was much more connected than I am. The best thing I brought to the table was that I was the only one who lived in Chicago. Also, my sister is an M&A lawyer. [Paula Brillson is now general counsel at The Onion.] Danielle Strle, chief product officer I had a lot of freedom after Tumblr [where Strle went from employee No. 8 to director of product] to just work on fun projects. I had helped a friend run a cheese shopI was the chief technology officer of New Yorks best cheese shop. When Ben called, I was immediately interested. I remember seeing The Onion on newsstands in New York right after 9/11, and I was like, Wow, The Onion is here. Were going to bounce back. My first call was to Scott Kidder [now acting as The Onions CFO]. Hes a true wizard on the spreadsheets. If youre going to try and buy something, youre going to need a powerful set of spreadsheets. Jeff Lawson, Owner Jeff Bezos bought The [Washington] Post, and Marc Benioff bought Time. The universe would just be right if I bought The Onion. This sort of started like a joke but then, as we looked into it more, it was like, its hit some hard times under the last owner and needs some revitalization. So it wasnt just a matter of, I could buy The Onion, [but] hey, we could save The Onion. There was a real opportunity here to take this modern American institution and help it thrive in a new media environment. An environment where we need satire more than ever.
Category:
E-Commerce
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