Crisis of Meaning in Work

Facing the Crisis: Society as a Game of Rules

In the contemporary work environment, we find ourselves immersed in what Yuval Noah Harari has described as the “Crisis of Meaning in Work.” This phenomenon, which is shaking the foundations of our labor and social structures, poses significant challenges for individuals and organizations alike.

Society as a Game of Rules

Society is a game of rules. As Yuval Noah Harari says, we are organized around fictions (gods, corporations, countries, money itself) that are neither objective nor subjective; they are intersubjective. They exist because we all believe in them. This is how humans manage to cooperate flexibly in large numbers. We are the only animals on the planet capable of this.

Yet, we remain herd animals. Work provides us, on the one hand, with material sustenance, but it also gives us fictional values, in the sense mentioned, such as dignity and meaning. Ultimately, from a collective point of view, it gives us belonging to a role in society. A class, a caste, an identity.

This gives us meaning. Significance and direction. When I find meaning, I know (“know”) who I am and where I am going or should go. It’s like if in a soccer game, they tell me I play as a midfielder. I already know what my place and my role are. Thus, it used to be that whoever worked was a worker. Some jobs were called professions, distinguishing a place, a role, different in the game of society. This game is in crisis. It’s as if in that soccer game suddenly four robots enter, five people with a racket, one on horseback, and they change a goal for a hotdog stand. Meaning is in crisis. The meaning of our everyday reality is crumbling, revealing that it is nothing more than fiction. This occasionally happens. It happened in the industrial revolution. We struggle to deal with these voids of meaning. We try to reorganize, create new rules… and we wage wars.

Impact on Modern Society

The crisis of meaning in work, described by Yuval Noah Harari, is profoundly affecting modern society. We find ourselves at a moment where the old structures of work and social roles are crumbling, leaving many with a sense of emptiness and lack of purpose.

Technological Evolution and Identity

The unprecedented technological evolution we are witnessing only exacerbates this situation. With automation and artificial intelligence taking on roles previously held by humans, many people face uncertainty about their identity and purpose in the current labor world. The useless class, Harari predicts.

Existential Anguish and Meaning

It’s no surprise, then, the growth of the entertainment industry. Entertainment… being held between two moments of consciousness, of lucidity, of being present. Entertainment numbs us, dulls us. In this sense, it’s dangerous and addictive. Until 200 years ago, peoples fulfilled functions of workforce and army (wars were everyday occurrences). Today, both of these are increasingly taken care of by technology. Robots, AI, IoT, etc. The question is, who am I? It’s not a new question, it’s millennia old. But the context puts it back in the spotlight.

After the industrial revolution, we achieved unprecedented levels of productivity and well-being (or, rather, comfort). In that process, everything is reduced to one indicator: profitability. How does this or that contribute to the bottom line? It made sense. But this meaning is also in crisis, which is why B corporations emerge; this is what the new generations express. They are searches for something more.

All this generates anguish. A well existential anguish. Who am I? Are we perhaps homo economicus? Cogs in a productive machinery? What is the meaning of life?

In the pursuit of productivity and efficiency, we have forgotten the why.

Why do we work?

To produce.

Why do we produce?

To consume.

Why do we consume?

Generally, to achieve a peak of dopamine, of instant pleasure.

But we have forgotten inner development, the pursuit of happiness (not pleasure), the growth of consciousness. We have put productivity in the center, the client in the center… we have taken ourselves out of the scene. Because, let’s be clear, when we say the client, we are not referring to anything other than the subject of consumption and the next transaction of goods or services for legal tender.

The Search for True Purpose

In the face of this panorama, we need to recover freedom (existential), autonomy, fullness, and evolutionary purpose. We need to be people who play, love, grow, suffer, connect, evolve, cry, laugh, create, believe, develop, and yes, produce. It is crucial to reflect on our motivations and deepest aspirations. Who are we beyond our job roles? What truly drives us in life? These existential questions take on new relevance in a context where work no longer provides the same sense of identity and belonging as it used to.

That’s why teal companies emerge. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So, to work with people, we have to start with ourselves. Evidence of this direction in the business world includes the inclusion of mindfulness, wellness programs, the rise of conscious leadership, the leader as a coach, B corporations, the foregrounding of the organization’s purpose. Leadership ceases to be technical and becomes empathetic. To be a leader, one must look at oneself before others. Ready for the journey?

A Transformative Future: The Importance of Purpose in HR Performance

At HR Performance, we understand the importance of addressing this crisis of meaning in work. Our recruitment, coaching, and personal development services are designed to help people find meaning and purpose in their careers. We believe that by reconnecting with our true passions and values, we can transcend the limitations imposed by traditional work structures and create a more satisfying and meaningful future for all.

Join us in this exploration of the crisis of meaning in work and discover how we can transform this adversity into an opportunity for personal and professional growth.

 

Ezequiel Conesa

CEO and Founder of HR Performance

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The Fifth Question

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It is 11:01 am and the managers meeting begins surprisingly on time and in a relaxed but energetic atmosphere. The gestures between the different participants confirm something that I already know: they know each other well, there is a feeling of trust between them, they can anticipate each other’s movements. The company, a —let’s say—  well established national distributor in its home city and with some 200 collaborators, is managed by this team that has already demonstrated its professionalism and orientation towards results. Indeed, the area managers’ profile is not a problem. Many of them have a background in larger corporations, others are born and raised within the company, but all have been specifically trained in managerial activity. You can see this in the results when evaluating objectives in each area. The meeting goes on as we delve into the different topics that were selected with the purpose of thinking about next year. However, I realize that there is an issue that is being left aside, and I am sure that when it comes up, it will explain many of the other little problems discussed in the meeting. All the topics we discussed are coherent and focused, presented and addressed by the heads of the different areas: that, in principle, is great, it is an example of the work division.

We discussed a couple of goals for 2020 with focus on industry changes, and when we started talking about how we stand for this, the response from all managers was, in unison: “Great”, “totally prepared.”

So, I ask: what is the most important thing right now?

The first response from the commercial manager was “increase sales.”I cross-examine: is that a goal in itself? “Modernize logistics”, “open new branches”, “expand the portfolio”, they say. I look at them and say, “All these priorities are important, but if we have a lot of priorities, we don’t have any priorities.” There has to be one that is the most important. They looked at each other, feeling a little awkward to mention their area as the most important one. So, it occurs to me to show you an example of my own: If in six months or a year they were to achieve only one thing, what would it be for the team to feel satisfied? And I continued explaining as if it was a rhetorical question. “Four years ago, you moved. Do you remember what you thought about the whole year before that milestone?” There were a few laughs, but the answer was unanimous: “The move.”

Then, I changed the subject and some of them were kind of frustrated that I brought up that issue. “I saw you here and I felt great satisfaction to see the dynamics of the meeting; to see trust, respect. But I have to talk about the internal environment survey, which says that “managers do not work together.” And I believe that this is because each of you leaves meetings and talks to their own area team, about how to meet those objectives with great effectiveness. That’s why I just asked about the objectives. They only mentioned area objectives, at the most, sales objectives that, of course, impact the bottom line, but they do not constitute a true common objective, a “motto”. Then, I asked again: “Outside of core business, what brings you all together as a management team?”

Timidly, the diagnoses, the needs, the longer-term vision began to appear, and ends up crystallizing in an expression: “Expand geographically”. After a while, the motto was taking shape: what do we want? Increase our footprint by 100 km.

Sometimes, for those of us who train under the paradigm of a SMART objective, it is counterintuitive to set a qualitative goal, almost a slogan rather than a goal.

The common goal should be a topic, something that must be achieved or resolved and, its metric, its specificity, arises from the praxis of each area. So, yes, each area contributes the flavor, color and number it requires. What operations do I need to cover 100 more kilometers for the market? What do I need from human resources? What am I going to measure in customer service? What about shopping?

The question arises within the management team, made up from what they hear from their surroundings in 360° (customer, market, employee), but it goes back to the company team to make sense of it. Each action, from the creation of this goal, of this mantra, becomes relevant in light of the common goal. We begin to study each metric, each need, each project systematically in light of our common goal. Does it bring us closer to him? It is a priority. Doesn’t it bring us closer? It can wait.

This adoption even modifies the meeting scheme: each one brings what is important to them, measured from the view of our thematic objective, and they continue monitoring the usual objectives of business operation. From such obviousness, arises only one great benefit: clarity. That clarity like when Lencioni questions us with his six questions, contributes to this fifth question: “What is the most important thing right now?”

In short, we gain clarity because in the next period this objective is thematic:

1) It brings together all managers with the name of “company executive.”

2) Optimizes our actions before, during and after meetings, we know what to talk about, how we can all evaluate by contributing to all areas, and not just our own. 

Dissolve islands and build bridges.

3) And, as a consequence, we communicate more clearly to the entire organization. The salesperson who meets with the administration will identify that there is one same objective that both of them aim for from their own areas: it is their own managers who will speak to their areas from a common priority.

A company with clarity works more easily and fluidly than a company without clarity, and this arises from distinguishing priorities, among other things.

When answering these crucial questions for the clarity of the company in the board, we bring down three fundamental aspects: cohesion (a close and lasting union based on mutual knowledge), an aligned view of the company itself, and focus on simple and concrete aspects. For the small price of answering some questions as a team, choosing a priority and acting accordingly. And trust me, it’s almost easy!

 

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About commitment

About commitment

You have already heard me talk and write about the importance of commitment in a team. In my case, I have already heard infinite times those speeches that ask teams for commitment: with results, with proposals, with changes, with deadlines. Sometimes, I consider “commitment” as such a familiar and elusive concept that it is hard to define. Is it surrender? Is it a certain resilience? Is it a sense of belonging? Is it a bit of all that?

I am going to explain this with an anecdote that shows true commitment, in my opinion. And I’m going to start spoiling the end: there is commitment when we can agree even without consensus. Yes, I know, it seems like a contradiction. How does that work?

The story happened with two partners in a graphic: Gonzalo, born and raised in the industry, with a well-operational, technical profile, expeditious in his decisions and clear in his demands. Sebastián, his partner, intrepid when it comes to taking risks, against the trends, buying when everyone sells and sustaining, from his obsession with numbers, the company growth in a context in which the industry falls apart.

At the time this story began, the people who made the decisions in this SME are the two partners we already mentioned and Hernán, the production manager – another industry expert who had joined the team and worked alongside the partners. He was detailed and meticulous with the technical aspects of a métier.

It turns out that a client’s order arrived: a book with considerable circulation. An interesting job that arrived at a financially inopportune moment because the purchase of paper was somewhat stuck and delivery time was pressing. In the meeting -in which I was present- Hernán suggested using a heavier paper and argued his position: “We will have a happy customer, a delivery on time and a quality result.”Sebastián looked at him in silence and then contradicted him: “On the contrary, use the 80 paper. We lower costs and stock and deliver even faster.” Gonzalo nodded, his pragmatic style quickly assessing the impact and deciding that getting rid of the lower quality stock was a good move. Hernán insisted that the client was going to object to the quality of the work, that he knew the difference and that he was not going to accept the result. Although he tried a couple of times with his arguments —which I, without understanding much, considered logical—, he ended up simply taking some notes. He said, “Great, let’s move on with the 80 one,” greeted me and left.

After a while, while I was going for a coffee, I ran into him and said: “What a pity that the final decision was not the one you wanted.” And he answered me something that surprised me: “A decision was made, and my job now is to execute.” I did not find a trace of anger in his words, nor did I find a submissive acceptance. “There was no consensus,” he continued, “but we agreed, and now I know what to do.”

I kept thinking and when I met with Sebastián and Gonzalo again, I shared my reflection with them. What they see in Hernán is commitment. For him there is no “me”, it is about “us”. It was not possible to reach a consensus, but he knows that reaching consensus takes time. A time they do not have right now, and then he accepts, agrees and continues: he executes. Because he knows that seeking consensus paralyzes them. Sebastián and Gonzalo looked at me and nodded.

The important thing is to move forward, think together, think differently, reach an agreement and move forward, execute. The important thing is to do, not “to do what I say.”Instead, when the need to be right wins, we move to the level of resistance. Hernán forgot his individualism, but not from the romanticism of belonging to the team, but from the pragmatism of agreement. “That was the decision, so I execute.”

It is very easy to identify resistance after an agreement: in the worst case, you see a clear boycott of the project or idea. It is more obvious, but it is also more unlikely. What we are going to find in most post-agreement cases, when there is no commitment, is a set of acts of passive resistance, more dangerous, more silent but, unfortunately, more effective. I delay the issue, I put other priorities, I raise doubts.

However, when there is conscience on our part, the company prospers. Ultimately, what makes us successful is not planning or risk assessment, but alignment. Committing is being part of a team that defends ideas that are not personal, but ideas that you can make your own. If the ideas belong to the team, then they are their own.

Once again, with Sebastián and Gonzalo, we summarize the three maxims learned from Hernán:

-The moment to execute is not the moment to decide.

-Don’t leave the meeting without saying everything you have to say.

-Whenever possible, let’s achieve consensus. 

But if we can’t, let’s come to an agreement.

-Let’s execute.

The agreement works when decisions go well —of course— but also when they go wrong. If we made agreements when something did not go well, we will be willing to seek solutions and not guilty people. This also leaves us looking forward to the company, not backward.

And, of course, the invisible side effect of the deal strengthens relationships to the point of generating engagement. And compromise is the ingredient in future deals.

 

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Joshie Come Back

 

It was the summer of 2012 when the Hurn family decided to spend their holidays at The Ritz-Carlton hotel on Amelia Island, Florida. The vacations were good: good weather, excellent service, very good food and unforgettable experiences.

 

But, everything that begins has an end, and so they left for home. Upon arrival, they noticed that something was missing: the most precious toy of one of the children, his stuffed giraffe named Joshie. When the child asked, his parents replied that, as it liked the hotel so much, it wanted to stay a few more days on vacation.

 

That same night, a hotel employee called to report that they had found a toy in the room where they were staying, the parents told him the story they had invented to their son and, to make it more credible, asked if they could take some pictures of Joshie in the hotel hammocks. The surprised employee replied that he would gladly do so.

 

The employee told the anecdotal request to his boss, who congratulated him for accepting the request and together they decided to surprise the client.

 

Days later, the doorbell rang and a package was delivered. It was sent by The Ritz-Carlton and it contained Joshie, and many other surprises: some documentation detailing the stuffed animal’s experience in the hotel; an envelope with a VIP card from The Ritz-Carlton with its photo and its name engraved on it: Joshie Hurn!At the request of the photo in the hammocks, they added sunglasses that made him look very cool and other pictures of him at the spa and with some friends (dolls forgotten in the hotel by other people).

 

The couple was so amazed by this that they told everyone about their experience with the hotel and the story was heard by a lot of people around the world. 

Will that be valuable to the hotel? I have no doubt. Reputation and brand value is something that costs to win and, there’s nothing better than your own clients recommending you without you having to ask them for it. Nothing better than your clients talking about their charming experiences with your employees. 

What did the extraordinary hotel employee do to create this emotional bond with the brand?

 

What he achieved with the Hurn family would not have been achieved even with thousands of dollars invested in advertising, the honest opinion of a satisfied client is not comparable with what contracted actors can say. 

The “cost” of this experience was the time spent on Joshie —for the photos, packing it and sending it— and the love they put into achieving the smile of this family that, thanks to all this, now does not stop telling and viralizing their story around the world. We can pay for the employee’s time; now how do we pay for their love?

For this, it is necessary to ask the employee to go beyond the written protocol, not only to smile and provide answers on time, but also to listen to the clients’ voice every day -measure their level of satisfaction-, walk that extra mile to make their experience extraordinary, they should take more care about the customer than the business. This is what makes you get the most benefits; favor the employees’ personal development and emotional intelligence regarding contact with the client and thus achieve the transition from Customer Service to Customer Experience. Companies that implement these methods obtain benefits that are multiplied compared to organizations that do not place the customer at the center of the scene.

 

All of us as employees like to say “my client.”

Taking ownership of the client is taking care of that bond, connecting emotionally, and when that person transcends the business, we are in front of an experience more than in front of a transaction.

A manual and a care protocol can be written, but even if it is done and we look at it, we would not be looking at people. The customer experience arises from the employee’s “being”, not from his “doing”: if the employee follows a formula and works according to regulations, we are focusing on the attention concept and we are not transcending towards the experience. 

Joshie taught us that it is happy employees who take action beyond the process that makes happy customers. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is in the culture of the company.

 

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The new guy

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I was waiting in the lobby on the fifth floor of a building in Buenos Aires. I was waiting for a long-standing colleague to receive me, he had recently been appointed director of Human Resources for a company whose industry I prefer not to reveal. I started scanning the brochures available on the coffee table; examining the quick hands of the receptionist typing who knows what on his computer keyboard, and losing sight of the glass door with frosted vinyl that barely allowed people to guess those shadows behind: hurried, expeditious, almost choreographed figures. Until I noticed the young man to my right, also waiting, with a quite short suit, impeccable gel hairstyle, a sportive backpack almost dissonant with the outfit, leaning on his feet. I noticed that he took out his cell phone after opening the pocket of the backpack, but not to look at it, I imagined he did that to check the time.  

The receptionist looked at him and said briefly: 

“I told him you were here, they will come right away.  Have you already gone through Human Resources?”  

“Um, no,“ the young man hesitated, almost apologizing for not knowing if he had made a mistake. 

“First day?”, I inquired, beginning to feel amused. 

“Yes, I start today,” he replied and I felt a relief in his voice as of gratitude for having noticed him in the middle of the dense silence of the lobby music.

The conversation we had is irrelevant: it was short because they came to look for me (me, not him, who had been waiting before) and it was only about the area in which he was working, the soccer team  he was a fan of and the university schedule.

 

But that brief conversation makes me think of something I think every time I carry out a selection process, and then what? It happened to me more than once: concluding a successful selection process, happy client, optimal candidate, and returning after three months to find out that “they haven’t passed the probationary period.” What? I ask myself — sometimes to myself and more than once out loud. It turns out that we are mostly convinced that all the effort we made in the selection process, the time spent in the area interviewing, the costs of the hard process and the effort invested are enough to guarantee – or, at least, favor – the permanence of the new employee. That employee will have to go through an induction, a tour, dozens of presentations with faces and names (that for a long time he will not be able to link), and some kind questioning about his family, sentimental, academic and, of course, football.

Managing new recruitments for the company can make the difference: success or failure.

In recent years, many organizations began to implement Onboarding so that new employees are perfectly and immediately integrated into their job. Managing new recruitments for the company can make the difference: success or failure. For that, the Onboarding technique creates a process designed to help employees successfully transition to their new professional stages and allow them to become aware of their roles from the first day.

Differentiating it from induction (it is carried out in a single way – from the company to the employee – and it is informative in nature; the problems that arise are handled reactively), it is not a training program, but a dynamic integration process that has constant interaction with the new member through two-way communication with a clear tendency to anticipate and avoid problems.

It goes beyond “welcoming” the new employee, assigning him his space and resources and accompanying him on a tour. It is a two-way process and requires verifying the progress in the bond, favoring the absorption of the culture and values of the organization.

It is not a question of receiving it only with a notebook, a computer with your corporate mail and a folder with product information. The process is two-way: it requires checking if there is progress in the relation; cover aspects, from operational and formal (departments, location of rooms, schedules, methodologies) to activities that support the absorption of the culture and values of the company.

There are two cases of Onboarding that can be taken as a parameter of good practice: the first is about Twitter. There they follow a method that includes “75 different points of contact between the new employee, the team and the HR manager.” Their goal is to provide a new team member with an exceptional experience from the first moment until they show up for work on the first day. In this way, the company prepares its staff and has all the material that the new professional will use so that it is ready before contact. Your equipment, phone, systems access, and workspace are meticulously provided according to your process. They insist that the first 90 days have exceptional features in all the aforementioned senses (material, emotional and operational).

The second case is Google. Delegate the Onboarding at the team level, in this way “employees have the power.” It is a company that implicitly trusts its individuals to do the best they can.  His method of managing recruitment is: the direct team welcomes the new member, performs the “hard” induction and introduce him to the social dynamics of the team.  The important thing is that the company gives rise to this situation, foresees times and steps, provides material support for the process to be carried out. The obvious impact of this method is that onboarding is slightly different from team to team. But Google accompanies this methodology with obsessive handling of data, internal surveys and studies on its teams. Everything is measured, the best process is identified and a new baseline for incorporation common to all is established in a continuous improvement procedure.

When I left the meeting with the director, the boy was still in the chair, a little more relaxed than before. At that same moment, the door opened and, behind the frosted vinyl, a woman in her thirties appeared, notebook in hand, asking the lethal question: “Are you the new one?” Fortunately, the meeting had been to design the Onboarding process for the company that hired my young friend.

 

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Laying bricks or building Cathedrals

LEGACY: How do you want to be remembered?

I was recently at a Human Resources congress where the panelists had 18 minutes to talk about a topic related to people management inside the companies they worked. The speakers sought to mobilize and inspire the audience by sharing their stories and those of their work teams. All talks had two factors in common:  purpose and culture. That was not common 10 years ago, companies were more focused on consumers than on employee, they could identify with the brand and be true protagonists of a change.

Culture: What are we made of? Do our people define who we are or are companies who truly shape people? It is certainly a bit of both. Culture is the way, “what happens in the company when the bosses are not looking”, and what is rewarded and punished within an organization. 

Just as all profiles can play in a rugby team: tall, short, fat and skinny… what is never negotiated between the team is the effort and commitment in training. 

Companies today undoubtedly have within their diversity a competitive advantage to provide the products or services they have. 

However, companies that encourage the participation of their people in culture have the advantage of increasing the commitment of their employees. 

Nothing better than a person who does not care about going to work or not, who finds meaning in what he does and, not only that but also feels part of something great. 

Culture is the way; it is built with the DNA that each work team contributes within the company. 

“Some put bricks, others build cathedrals.”

Purpose: They say that for a few years Microsoft has had a day in which all employees are asked to write on a sheet “where is the company going.”

On the other side of the page, I would ask them to repeat the question “why are we here? ”

In such a changing world, where services and products seek to retain an increasingly demanding customer, it is essential that we do not think that we have captive customers and that we do not seek the goals in the market, but rather to comply with the organization’s “reason for being.” 

I remember a class at IE Business School a few years ago, an innovation professor told us “everything that can be uberized will be uberized” and he was so right. 

The search for a purpose helps us focus on what is important so that we do what we do, it does not matter to us who we reach with our products or services, we have the possibility of influencing beyond what we believe. 

This is the case of Nestlé, whose purpose for more than 150 years has been “to improve the quality of life by contributing to a healthier future.” 

When people identify with the purpose, they cooperate from their “being”, they put their own values at stake and align their actions with the objectives of the company. 

Clearly, the numerical goals and market shares, although they still exist, of course, remain in the background: they seek to achieve them, but their achievement is not the engine. 

The commitment of this identification works as a bridge between the purpose and the culture, it provides feedback, it strengthens it. 

Culture, perceived in the visible actions and behavior of people in the organization, carries in its essence that purpose embodied in the employees.

Happy people, people with a reason to be and do, contribute to generating happy customers, happy companies, successful companies.

This paradigm shift, the “change of focus” from the consumer to the employee is key, it does not deny the importance of the client but rather positions us as actors at a much more neuralgic level of the organization, and from working with our people, promoting the sustainable fulfillment of the organization’s goals. 

It will be for this reason that more and more panelists, more experts in organizational development and above all more entrepreneurs, will speak of purpose and culture rather than mission and vision.

 

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Death to meetings

If we often classify meetings as boring and useless, to the point of hating them, why can’t we stop having meetings?

Paul Graham, an investor and essayist with vast experience in the computer industry, concluded that meetings have different costs for the two groups he distinguishes: those who thrive in meetings, the “managers,” and those whose meetings take away their creative, productive and focused time, the “creators” (in their experience, programmers).

 How does each of them face the workday? A boss, director or manager performs small and short tasks, usually, one after another. The nature of these tasks is organizational and communicative, and almost always involves other people. The work of the creator, on the other hand, requires great concentration and therefore many “continuous” hours to carry it out. Working in a context of two or three meetings per day is for the creator a direct attack on their productivity. 

Therefore, it is very necessary to bear in mind that meetings require the contribution of both profiles, and that the ways of working of each of them must be known and respected to take advantage of this valuable exchange time. However, the spirit with which we meet is close to discouragement. According to studies, 15% of an organization’s time is used (“spent”) in meetings, and about 11 million meetings are held every day in the United States, according to Fuze’s research. The percentage increases significantly in the highest ranks of companies, reaching 33% in CEO’S

“Aren’t you excited about having a whole day off to work, without any meetings?” Graham asks in his 2009 essay, “Creator’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule.” And he describes his ideal meeting: “There are no more than four or five participants, and they know and trust each other. They quickly go through a list of open-ended questions while doing something else, like eating lunch. There are no introductions. No one is trying to impress anyone. Everyone is eager to leave and get back to work.” What do we do with the meetings?  Do we ban them? Are we replacing them with a collaborative platform of those that abound in the market?

 Turns out, there is too much value that can come from an in-person meeting. It is difficult to align wills in the long term without meetings. In a valuable meeting, the information “channel” should be like a river, we all pour information and take away its wealth. All other means of information exchange are poor in relation to an effective meeting. But it turns out that the key is in that fantasy: no one tries to impress anyone, the participants are few, they know and trust each other. And in that “anxiety to leave” prevails the need to cut unnecessary reporting, data without analysis, the mere factual account that often dominates team meetings and makes them repetitive and ineffective.

How many times do we hear the expression “reunionitis” ? That evil afflicts organizations that react to any circumstance by raising a meeting. Many meetings. Many unproductive meetings. There are some tips to avoid this situation: first, deciphering the reasons for the meeting. Are we Informing? Do we have to expose someone? Receive credit for my achievements? Then, understand our role in the meeting and its “price” regarding time and result.

Meetings are worth analyzing, just as we have proposed to review all aspects of life in the organization, in light of what makes an effective team, those discoveries of Google’s Project Aristotle:

Psychological Safety – “If I make a mistake in the team, it will not be used against me.” And in the context of meetings, I can trust that what you say “will not be used against me.”

Reliability – “When my teammates say they are going to do something, I can count on it to be so.”During the meeting we make commitments, do they just decorate the minutes and “drag” from meeting to meeting as “work in progress”? Or do agreed deadlines become tracked and performance-oriented tasks?

Structure and clarity – “The team’s decision-making process is effective.” The most important question takes us to the time “between meetings”. Are we making decisions during the meetings or between meetings?

Sense – “My piece of worj for the team makes sense to me.” Is my role in the meetings relevant? Or do I feel like “I’m in the wrong meeting”?

Impact – “I can visualize the relationship between the work that I carry out and the corporate objectives.” Is this meeting related to a specific project or task? Upon completion, will we have moved the project forward or is it merely a purposeless data exchange?

And what happens when we cannot respond positively to these questions? 

It is the symptom that the meetings are not effective, they do not summon the appropriate participants, they do not have the correct duration or frequency and ultimately, they do not consider the needs and characteristics of the people who participate in them. 

Because ultimately the meetings confront us with our colleagues and co-workers. 

And to continue focusing on the mechanics of meetings (the agenda, timekeeping, follow-up, agreements) is to divert the focus from the human nature of meetings and lose the richness of, precisely, the diversity that our roles offer us in the organization.

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THE EMOTIONAL GPS

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The emotional GPS to get through the crisis. The pandemic, the economic crisis, the new modality of work and “life with social distancing” require an adaptive effort, an effort greater than usual. This means a higher demand on our inner GPS: our emotional system. 

However, the care and development of our emotional system is usually relegated or, even more, not even a topic on the organizational agenda. Perhaps this is due to the inheritance of that old attempt to separate personal life from work. 

Times of change require adaptation, creativity, and responsiveness. The amount of new information and uncertainty that we face and will face will be greater than what we are used to. Fortunately, nature provided us with a system for interpreting reality: emotions, a system that we have been trying to despise and silence. Not only do we live in a culture that has not taught us to harness and use those emotions, but some of them are somewhat frowned upon. Emotions as basic as anger, joy, sadness and anguish, fear, love are censored. It is frowned upon to have a laughing fit in public. Not to mention crying… “well, think of something nice”… as if sadness were not an invitation to dive into the inner world. Not to mention the anguish. That’s weak, better get a pill and move on. Is love forbidden? Yes. “I come here to work, not to make friends.” Thus, the only emotion that we seem to manifest, and this is particularly noticeable in Latin American culture, is anger. Everything angers us. Nothing makes us happy, anguished or saddened. 

All this hardening that we have endeavored to build goes against the adaptive effort that we will have to make to build the “new normal” that will require, to go through –and use- a range of emotional states. Emotions, then, should not be seen as pathological symptoms to be eliminated to return to the state of normal. This would be equivalent to silencing the colors of a painting to return to the whiteness of the canvas. It’s not funny … nor does it work.

We can use emotions not as a symptom of the individual’s pathology, but as a wonderful source of information about the world around us. 

Then there is a crossroads. So much a choice. Do we choose to train and develop emotional wisdom to encourage ourselves to fully live joy, sadness, anxiety, anger and all the emotions that the creative process will require to adapt and co-create the new reality, or will we prefer to silence these annoying alarms? 

My proposal is, of course, the first option. I believe that we need to expand consciousness, that is, the ability to go through with acceptance -which does not mean with pleasure- what we have to go through. Do not turn fear into anger because it is weak, nor cover laughter because it is immature, nor believe that anguish is a fault.

The skills to be developed are: 

  1. Appreciation: It’s easy to complain about quarantine. We woke up on equal days, days of confinement, day of crisis. The option is not to wake up. Waking up is being alive. Reason enough to thank. And I’m sure most of you who read me have a lot to be thankful for. Putting the focus there puts us in a positive attitude and leads us to creativity.
  2. They see the glass half-full. It is the cognitive exercise of focusing on what I have and not what I lack. I do not focus on the problem but on the resources I have and the solution I want. This requires the following skill
  3. Will. Starting with giving responsibility to the individual and the team.
  4. Resilience: we are faced with a new situation. We are going to try things and we are going to be wrong. Resilience is the difference between each mistake making us weak or making us stronger as a learning opportunity. Success does not depend on the result of what we try, but on our ability to manage our mind and our emotions. Resilience is that it is not about what each experience generates, but about how we take advantage of each experience, how much we learn from it.
  5. Troubleshooting: The focus is not on the rational aspect of problem-solving. Problems are solved by thinking, as long as you can think. This requires emotional management strategies that help the brain to function well. From techniques like how to recite the alphabet backward to meditation techniques.
  6. Humor: In addition to generating endorphins, humor is the basis of the game, it is what allows us to create new senses, see things differently and it is the emotional basis of creativity. Without humor, there is no creativity and without creativity, there is no adaptation or co-creation. And if we don’t unleash that urge it can turn into anxiety. And anxiety in panic attack. If you use humor you can play and thus create, but if you cannot laugh you take things very seriously, you breathe short (wanting to control everything) and when control comes out of hands, anxiety transforms into panic attack.It’s better to laugh, right?
  7. Self-acceptance: If I am not going to work because I have the flu, it is valid. If I’m not going to work because I argued with my wife and I’m distraught, it is not. We do not validate emotional states. And not only the system does not accept them. We ourselves do not accept them. If I am anxious, I consume sugar and fat, if I am anxious, I eat my nails… instead of inhabiting the emotion and using it as a guide, I deny it. Self-acceptance is the unconditional collaboration with what it is. I’m sad. It is valid.I’m going to be sad. Not to wait for the sadness to go away to continue with my normal life. My life, now, is this sadness. Happiness is living that sadness with awareness. Emotional support means: “Come on, experience it, the team is with you.”
  8. Stress management: Ultimately, this point should be resolved with the previous ones. Once I become aware of my tiredness and my need to rest, I rest. No, I don’t have to be infallible. Curiously -or not- I am convinced that the systemic acceptance of this does not constitute a threat to productivity but quite the opposite.
  9. Faith: In a non-religious sense. Simply suggest the conversation about the meaning of life. What do we work for? What do we care about? At the end of the day, all the companies we admire have their statement of values, their purpose. Faith is that. Values Purpose Direction Something more important than the commercial result for the quarter. There cannot be a company with values without the courage to connect with what I call faith, which, again, has nothing to do with religion.
  10. Trust: Successful teams enjoy a sense of psychological security that allows their members to expose themselves emotionally in front of others (for example by showing an idea, we open the possibility of being judged.) Adapting requires innovation, innovation requires creativity, creativity requires confidence to expose ourselves. This idea was developed in the article “Tension and Creativity.”

In the midst of the pandemic, the crisis and uncertainty, where nobody seems to know what to do or how to process so much information, we have a GPS that has thousands of years of development: the emotional system. 

Let us focus on the development of emotional potential as the engine of adaptive co-creation.

 

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