Work. Shouldn't. Suck. (1/14/21)
Providing resources, research, and reflections on human-centered organizational design for thriving workplaces. From the people at WorkShouldntSuck.co // This edition by Tim Cynova.
Did you end up here because your awesome friend shared this with you?
261 Days
It’s not quite the musically poetic 525,600 minutes a la RENT, but how do you measure a *work* year? One way is 261, the number of working days for a typical full-time administrative position.
Many times these 261 days begin with resolutions — our hopes and dreams for professional development plans and career advancement in the year ahead — and then the days fly by. We excitedly round a corner and then find ourselves stuck, slogging through the muddy morass of the urgent versus the important and our hopes and dreams slide to another day.
Before the days burn away, let’s get to going. If you are working to carve out some time for You Inc., might I suggest a few tools and frameworks that have landed on my radar over the years:
Do you like online courses? Try Dave Evans and Bill Burnett’s Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life based on their book by the same title.
A fan of workbooks? Check out the Job Crafting Exercise from University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations based on the research of Drs. Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski. Or, watch this video with Amy Wrzesniewski leading a job crafting session.
Maybe try this planner instead. One of my coworkers is a huge fan of The High Performance Planner approach. Her protip? Meet weekly with an accountabilibuddy who is also working through the planner.
Apps more your thing? Experiment with WOOP (Wish, Obstacle, Outcome, Plan), a framework based on the research by Dr. Gabriele Oettingen to increase your chances of success. You can also check out Gabriele’s book Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation.
What I’ve been wondering
Where did it all come from? Not, you know, life and all that, but workplace policies and practices. The 40-hour week. The five-day workweek. Three days for bereavement. Ten vacation days a year when you start a new job.
I know that details differ from company to company, but where did these more or less baseline policies and practices originate? I recently fell down a rabbit hole exploring this, and while the wondering continues, here’s some of what I found:
BBC Work/Life’s The Evolution of the Modern Workday
Nikil Saval’s book Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace.
The New York Times’s The Office: An In-Depth Analysis of Workplace User Behavior
Atlassian’s The History of Work from 1950 to 2020
And speaking of non-traditional workplace policies… Are you and your organization experimenting with a four-day workweek? Do you norm the same day off? Do you work 40 hours over 4 days, 32 hours over 4 days, or some other variation? What works and what doesn’t? I’m fascinated by these experiments. Please let me know in the comments how’s it going.
What’s new in my queue
What’s new in my queue? Resources to help map and analyze power within an organization. Several years ago I attended a workshop where we did an organizational power mapping exercise; however, I can’t locate it anywhere. So, I started asking friends and colleagues for their thoughts on the topic, where they would look, and what they would use. Here’s what they suggested:
The Restorative Justice Project’s Resource Guide to Power Mapping
350.org’s Power-Mapping Activity and their Understanding People Power: The Upside-Down Triangle
Result.org’s Power Mapping: A Tool for Utilizing Networks
Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion’s Exploring My Power and Privilege
The Power Flower: Reflection on our Social Identities by Bard Thomas, Doris Marshall Institute
White Dominant Culture & Something Different: A Worksheet adapted and based on the work of Tema Okun and Kenneth Jones.
The Liberating Structures website
Do you know of other resources that can be used as an exercise to help map, analyze, and understand power inside organizations? Please leave the suggestion in the comments. Thanks!
Puppy pic, you know, just because.
Thanks for coming along on this adventure! Discover more about organizational journeys in anti-racism, shared leadership models, and entirely virtual workplaces on Work. Shouldn't. Suck.