SPEAK UP!
This morning I met with a client who is unhappy in her job. And it’s not just her job; she is concerned about her career overall. She’s not happy where she is, but she’s not convinced that changing her workplace will make her happier. What she is interested in working out is what is at the bottom of her unhappiness.
I appreciate this because people often think if they are unhappy at work, the solution must be a new workplace. Well, not necessarily. My client, for instance, is identifying what she doesn’t like about the culture where she is but also what she can do to make things better for herself wherever she is, whether it is where she is now or if she does eventually choose to go somewhere new. And what she’s noticing is that a lot of her unhappiness is related to not speaking up.
This is a difficult time for people who are not naturally inclined to speak up or to otherwise assert themselves. Even before the pandemic, these days we tend to seal ourselves off, even when we are commuting to work, plugging into a podcast or some other distraction. Now, everything is remote. We are all walking around in masks. It is harder even for social people to make a connection.
It turns out that she has some real fear behind speaking up, and this is part of what is holding her back. Even when she determines ahead of time that she is going to say something in a meeting, before she knows it the meeting has ended and she has been quiet the whole time again. This is a big obstacle for her professionally, but turning things around for her doesn’t have to be a big project.
What we decided to do was to work on those muscles that she is not using, those social and emotional muscles that would be at work if she was speaking out. Instead of distracting herself with a podcast at the start of her day, she’s going to pick music to sing to and get used to the sound of her voice and start to enjoy it. She’s going to make a point of making eye contact with everyone at work, one person at a time. She is going to warm up those muscles and be ready to hear herself speak and look her colleagues in the eye when she does. In this way, she won’t be going from being entirely in her head to trying to break into a behavior she isn’t used to. She will have already warmed up, and it will feel that much more familiar to speak up.
I am optimistic that this will help her take a step closer to being heard at work, and I hope that there's something from this that you can take into your own work day. Cheers
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