Whether your stress comes from after-hour emails, demanding bosses, irritating teammates, or other work-related issues, peace is possible, but your first enemy is You. To win this war, start to build your defenses with a dose of the 3 Ds, Delineation, Deflection, and Delegation.
A just-saw-a-ghost shiver ran through me…
as I skimmed a list of notifications on my phone — too many for the relatively short time I’d been at an extended family gathering. I felt some of my enjoyment drain away — several texts awaited in my queue along with a list of…
missed phone calls from my boss.
Until that night, I didn’t remember my immediate supervisor calling me. Not once. Not while I was at lunch or offsite, and definitely not after working hours. So you understand why…
I might have panicked just a little.
Some of my colleagues checked email and answered their phones nearly 24-7, but not I, not for a long time, if ever.
The messages justified the shiver.
The crisis details don’t matter as much as the fact that the words “lawsuit” and “sue you” may have been thrown at our system director by an irate parent.
Director was not happy. He called my boss, who called me since the situation involved our student information system — my work domain. Both bosses wanted the source of parental consternation removed.
Immediately, if not sooner.
You must understand — I absolutely hated the thought of displeasing the guys above me, specifically my almost-friend boss and Dr. Paycheck Signer (the Director). I was not full of myself — I wanted to be a team player — still do.
I was not indispensable — ask retirees how quickly the workplace moved on without them, and you’ll know.
Neither was I independently wealthy — if there is a mythical last hurdle into the Magical Land of Financial Security, I haven’t vaulted it.
But I didn’t instantly leave the family gathering.
As I read the shiver-inducing notifications and listened to the voicemail, a storm of emotions pushed me toward a quick resolution. And no doubt, walking out of the gathering and driving straight to my office would have brought some peace, at least temporarily.
Temporarily — that’s the rub. Like a drunk who had hit rock bottom, I knew better than to pursue a quick fix. I was tired of automatically sacrificing time with my family and friends for the demands — real and imagined — of my job.
So I started a war with myself…
and a fight with the old me and his old way of doing things. I started with this incident because it provides an excellent illustration of my ongoing war for workplace peace and an appropriate framework for explaining the 3 Ds that gave me more workplace peace.
The first truth is this: there’s always something drilling into our calm, whether it’s an after-hours phone call or a missing million dollars… if we let it.
PEACE HURDLE #1
Do you have the freedom to choose your responses to circumstances in your workplace? Can people change?
Victor Frankl, a World War II concentration camp survivor, said the answer is yes. “Between stimulus and response there is a space,” he said. “In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
I don’t want to drive anyone off, but if your answer is “No,” then
Stop. Reading. Now.
For a detailed argument that changing one’s reactions — reshaping our ways of thinking — is possible, check out Carol Dweck’s book Mindset.)
You can’t pursue peace half-heartedly. Truly, you must go big or go home.
The first D we’ll discuss is DELINEATION —
To delineate means to set forth with accuracy or in detail, according to Merriam-Webster. I like this section of the definition even better — “to indicate or represent by drawn or painted lines.”
In my mind, I see a chalk outline, the kind pictured in thrillers and mysteries, a crude figure of a body on a crime scene floor (image from clipart-library.com).
That image — a thick, clear chalk line outlining your job responsibilities, not space formerly occupied by a dead body — is useful for applying all three of my D words. I’ll unpack the idea as we go along.
To truly delineate,
For example, one of my prime motivations is the desire to help others. I frequently prioritize actions by asking questions such as “Is this the best way to love Denise (my wife)?” or “Is this the best way to help Phyllis (a friend and customer)?” Millions of resources exist to help you find clarity in this area. I’ll point to three that impacted me — Stephen Covey’s use of tombstones in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to get at core motivations, Drs. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend’s book Boundaries and their exploration of why we think and act the way we do, and Dweck’s box full of tools in Mindset to help us make changes in the way we think.)
But for our purposes — outlining your data warrior life — I’m setting this question in front of you —
As a data warrior, do you really know what is expected of you?
PEACE HURDLE #2
Delineation is the first crucial step in developing a workstyle of PEACE. It takes HONESTY because you will probably confront uncomfortable, sometimes painful, reality if you’re truthful with yourself.
Read this section carefully and absorb it well before going to step two. Ask me for clarity if need be (615.887.3818 or RKBrison@TennSRS.com). Get a second opinion from a trusted source. Put off delineation if circumstances demand — and sometimes they do — but come back to step one when you’ve bought in and are ready for more peace.
- To get started on delineation, list the tasks you must complete either fully or partly.
Leave plenty of space between each one. Use your official job description, sure, but don’t be trapped by it since it can be laughably out of date and it may not include several tasks officially or unofficially assigned to you.
- Beside each task on your list, answer this question: do I know how to do this?
I understand job insecurity better than most after years in the classroom and a school district office. Still, I learned that true peace is impossible without courage (more about that later) and honesty with yourself and others.
- Below or beside each task,
- write down the hours and days of the week when you are supposed to complete or work on it, and
- write down where that time comes from — is the schedule based on direct orders (contractual or leadership assigned times) OR an assumption based on veiled hints or explicitly communication from leadership or VIPs from the greater community you work in.
Here’s a quick example of what I mean about assuming — another member of my department called me one weekend and told me that a school counselor could not log into our student information system. The counselor needed to finish scheduling students by Monday. My job involved facilitating SIS access — that was by direct order — but my official working hours were to mirror those of teachers — seven hours not including lunch, Monday through Friday.
Based on the conversation, I could have assumed that I was expected to work that part of my job 24-7. I plan to give you my response in the deflection section, but hear this: listing the source of your work schedule honestly is a mountainous component of finding peace.
- Below your list, answer this question with a simple yes or no: do you prioritize the tasks for which you’re responsible over special requests and projects? Resist the urge to say, “It depends.” We know that priorities depend on the answers to questions such as “Who’s making the request?” and “What is the completion deadline?” I’m not encouraging rigidity — if we don’t bend, we’ll get broken by the first unexpected event. Triage — adjusting our priorities and actions on the fly — is another essential and continuous process in the battle for peace.
Then dig out complete answers.
- Without overthinking this step — use brainstorming mode — type, handwrite, record audio or video and pour out what you know or assume about all your tasks as far as dates and frequency of completion — concentrate on spilling thoughts rather than saying them perfectly.
- Turn your draft into a printed version you would be comfortable showing to someone else. Go through as many rounds of revision and editing as it takes.
- Take your responses to leadership — I recommend you start with your immediate supervisor — and ask if he or she agrees. Add and revise information as necessary. Fill in the blanks from other sources as needed. Get everything in writing. I can’t say this enough — having a document that you can review, print, post, and send to colleagues — and refer to when necessary — is a HUGE peacebuilder. A printed outline helps you keep working on essential tasks when high emotions compromise reasoning. It enables you to be courageous and keep work life in perspective.
Having fun yet? It was my experience that peace increased as soon as I neared the finish of this first step. Delineating — being honest with myself and my bosses, asking those tough questions, and getting everything down in black and white — helped me realize that the load I was supposed to carry wasn’t as big as I thought, and some people were willing to help me move it.
Not to say that the next step — Deflection — is super easy, but you’ve jumped the most formidable hurdles — you’ve chosen to change, to be honest, and to act courageously.
PEACE HURDLE #3
A job description existed when I became the student data manager for Dickson County Schools in 2011. For various reasons, it did not provide clear delineation, and I didn’t follow the guidelines that applied to my situation. I fell farther and farther behind in vital tasks. Things came to a head when my excellent supervisor realized I was on the brink of losing a million dollars.
After cleaning up that mess, I began to delineate my actual responsibilities and prioritize them.
Here’s where courage comes in — talk about hard conversations! I desperately wanted to keep my job, and there was a possibility (in the board’s policy) that leadership could send me to Siberia or back to the classroom.
BUT I’d reached a point where peace and clarity trumped job options.
So remember this:
Courage isn’t a state of fearlessness — it is doing the right thing despite fear.
I’d like to hear what you think of this, and I’d really like to hear your go-to peace fixes. Give me a shout at RKBrison@TennSRS.com
And until the next installment, data warrior, no worries! And I mean that literally 🙂