Work – Crisbie Coach

How to Thrive Under a Micromanager: Empower Yourself for Success

Imagine Alice, a talented graphic designer at a marketing firm. Alice loves her job and takes pride in her creativity. However, her manager, John, habitually hovers over her shoulder, constantly checks her work, and provides unsolicited feedback on every minor detail. John insists on approving every draft before Alice can move forward, often making her redo tasks multiple times. This constant oversight leaves Alice feeling frustrated and undervalued, stifling her creativity and reducing her job satisfaction. Alice works with a micromanager.

Does it sound familiar to you?

The workplace today can be tough, especially when you are supervised by a micromanager. But what is micromanagement? It can be defined as a management style where a leader controls every detail of their team’s activities excessively. This often signals a lack of trust in employees’ abilities to perform tasks independently. Instead of fostering a collaborative and innovative environment, micromanagement can hamper creativity and reduce job satisfaction. While their intention might be to ensure quality and control, the impact can often feel suffocating.

However, there are strategies you can use to manage this situation effectively. Have a look.

Strategies to Thrive Under a Micromanager

Build Trust Through Communication: Regularly update your manager on your progress. Proactively sharing your achievements and challenges can build trust and reduce their need to micromanage.
Clarify Expectations: Ensure you understand what your manager expects from you. Ask for clear guidelines and deadlines, and confirm your understanding to avoid misunderstandings.
Seek Feedback and Act on It: Request constructive feedback and show that you are implementing it. Demonstrating your willingness to improve can help alleviate their concerns.
Document Your Work: Keep detailed records of your tasks and progress. This can serve as evidence of your productivity and reliability, helping to build your manager’s confidence in your abilities.
Set Boundaries: Politely but firmly set boundaries if the micromanagement becomes overwhelming. Explain how excessive oversight affects your productivity and suggest a more balanced approach.
Focus on Solutions: Instead of dwelling on the negatives, focus on finding solutions. Offer suggestions on how you can work more independently while still meeting their standards.
Seek Support: If the situation becomes too challenging, seek support from HR or a trusted colleague. They can provide advice and help mediate the situation if necessary.

Dealing with a micromanager can be tough, but by taking proactive steps, you can create a more positive work environment for yourself. Building trust, clarifying expectations, and focusing on solutions can help you thrive and succeed, even under close supervision. Remember, your goal is to empower yourself and demonstrate your capability to work independently.

Have you ever worked with a micro-manager? Or if you are a manager, what about your management style? Let me know in the comment box here below and don’t forget to sign up for my blog!

How And Why Determination And Commitment May Change Your Life

Paris, 2004. A young man comes out from a building with a smile on his face. He applied for a traineeship and had just finished his interview that did not go as expected.

The young man, named Héritier, is 22 years old and came from Angola at the age of 8, running away from a civil war. He did not speak French but did everything to learn all well in school, also helped by his family and friends. After his degree, he started to look for small jobs, to contribute to the family budget.

He applied for a internship with a cleaning company. The employer, although they found that Héritier had an atypical profile, was very interested in the boy’s dynamism and the interview lasted about 5 hours!

At the end of the interview, Héritier did not get the internship but his first job contract. The company was just established and was looking for young talents like Héritier, who in short time reached the top of his career within the company.

He decided then to go further to make his dream come true. He wanted to create his own company and started up a cleaning company that would use only organic products.

In those years, his career looked interesting to the media because it reflected a reality that was still unknown: the economical contribution produced by migrants in the country that welcomed them.

With his company, Héritier has generated a turnover of 100.000 euros during the first year, a figure that tripled over the following three years.

Héritier managed to find his way thanks to his commitment and determination to succeed.

What have you learned from Héritier’s story?

How to Improve Your Relationship in the Workplace

Martinique French writer Patrick Chamoiseau said: ‘When you leave the relationship you enter barbarism‘.

If we want a better world, we should focus on effective relationships and rediscover the value of the relationship, without limiting it to that among people, but also consider the one between us and the animals, the objects, the nature to end with our relationship with the environment.

In this post, I will only refer to how you could improve your relationships in the workplace

Here are some ideas for fostering your relationships with colleagues, which may inspire you.

1. “Lunch & Learn” workshops: during a meal, a colleague takes turns presenting a topic that fascinates him, which can be one of their recent readings, films they have seen, or their passion.

2. Meetings while walking. Getting out and walking makes it easier to express yourself because you breathe fresh air and move your body. Don’t be afraid to invite your colleagues, partners, or even clients to join you for a chat while you walk.

3. Go out as a team, to spend free time with your colleagues and get to know each other better, without talking about work.

4. If you have a small gym where you work, organize short sessions of physical activity.

5. Take advantage of the coffee break, tea, or what you drink, to share a moment with your colleagues.

What other special moments come to your mind that could be useful to cultivate your relationships with those around you in your daily business?

Feel free to share your ideas with me by sending a message or commenting here below.

Why I Think Happiness at Work is Overestimated

white printing paper near black computer keyboard

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Why do I think that happiness at work is overestimated? My job is okay but am I really happy? I don’t think I would stop working in the sense that I would sit doing nothing, but I would no longer work for money. I would dedicate myself to one of my passions, for example writing. I would also volunteer, and go to Pilates more often.

I would more or less continue to live the life I am living now without doing the same job and without feeling obliged to earn enough to make my living. This is actually the core issue. In most of the cases we work to support ourselves and our families and not because we like it. So talking about happiness at work is overestimated, at least in some cases. Ask some underpaid workers who work on the assembly line if they are happy to go to work. Or to a teacher harassed by the students if their job motivates them. Or a nurse doing stressful night shifts, if they’d rather work during the day.

The concept of happiness at work seems to me a bit forced, yet a lot of people talk about it, without considering that a large number of employees do not like the work they do but have no other choice, especially in an economic downturn such as the current one (at least in Europe). It seems to me a bit like a race towards a goal that cannot be achieved.

Then let’s look at the increase of the cases of burn-out. In Europe, France holds the record with their 10% of active population suffering from burn-out. Is it better in other European countries? Actually, the key question to ask would be if there is a good balance between private life and working life. People are better where governments implement policies to balance work with life.

The problem of work is therefore the space it occupies in our lives, space and not time. Space means not only the time actually spent at the workplace, but also the time spent thinking about work, the famous work that you take home and that interferes with your private life.

What to do then to change this constant thought that we have towards work?

Have a look at the techniques I described in the following posts:

5 Tips to Start The Day Anxiety-Free

5 Reasons Why Hiking Is Good for the Body, Soul And Spirit

How to Relax in 10 Steps: Making Space Within You

Try also to be grateful for what you have without thinking that this means lack of ambition. It simply means to stop chasing a chimera and to seek your well-being in what you have. Well-being, not happiness, because well-being is a state that can become permanent, while happiness is a moment, or some moments, that may fade away soon.

Pursuing well-being means beginning a journey made of small steps that could lead us to happiness but if the longing for happiness is not achieved, the most important thing is being well.

What about you? If you would win € 2 million, would you keep going to work?

Six Tips to Make Physical Activity (and Continue Doing it)

unrecognizable person walking pack of dogs in park

We hear from all sides that we need to do more sports, that we have to move at least half an hour or take at least 10,000 steps a day. We would need that especially if we sit all day long at a desk, because “sitting is the new smoking”. But if we already have super busy days, how do we engage in a physical or sport activity?

Let’s first clarify what physical activity may be. It could simply be a matter of moving regardless if you do housework or sport.

Therefore, you can consider the activities you do every day, such as climbing stairs, walking, cycling and house cleaning.

Here are six tips on how to fit some physical exercise into your schedule:

Look at your agenda and find the best time for you to play sports or go to the gym. Write it down and you won’t forget it. After some time it will be part of your daily routine. And if you have a friend who comes with you, it is even better because you will be more motivated.
Create a calendar of your activities. Take a calendar and write down the days you managed to achieve your goals in terms of minutes of physical activity. At the end of the month you will be able to see your progress and you will be more motivated and satisfied! The ideal time per week is 150 minutes of moderate activity. A moderate activity is an activity that allows you to talk to someone and that makes you sweat slightly. An example of this activity could be also walking out your dog.
Distribution. Three to five times a week would be ideal. 30 minutes of daily activity would be even better. You can distribute activities throughout the day like this, for example:
- 5 minutes to go to the subway or bus stop;
- 5 minutes walking to your office by getting off one stop before;
- 10 minutes at lunch break to walk around the neighborhood;
- 5 minutes walking from your office to the subway or bus stop;
- 5 minutes to your place by getting off one stop before your place.
Find the activity you really like. If you haven’t found it yet, try some and you’ll find it soon. Jogging, boxing, dancing or swimming are just a few examples of activities you could practice.
Put your guilty feelings aside. The long-term goal is to make physical exercise a habit. If one evening when you come back home from work you feel tired and you want to be at home alone or with your family, do it without feeling guilty. Relaxing is just as important as moving. Moreover, if you’ve already followed your daily distribution, you’re okay, you don’t need to add more activity.
Strengthen your muscles. You don’t necessarily have to lift weights. A Pilates or yoga session will help you strengthen your abs, for example.

What do you think? Could you make it?

Windows

Windows are thresholds for the human mind.

Windows are thresholds for the human mind. Looking out the window, leaving your gaze suspended beyond a glass pane is not synonymous with wasting your time.

Sometimes, the person looking beyond this threshold doesn’t want to see the outside world. They simply want to cross their reflection to navigate through the waves of introspection and reach inner worlds in search of new possibilities. In reality, there are few mental exercises that can be more useful than this one.

Windows are often indispensable resources for any dreamer. And also for that person who needs to rest after a stressful day and leans their head against the icy glass of a subway window. It is at this moment that the gaze relaxes and the imagination begins. At this time, we start to daydream and our brain finally finds relief, freedom, and well-being.

Windows allow daydreaming

Expert psychologists in the world of creativity like Scott Barry Kaufman and Jerome L. Singer, explain in one of their studies that today daydreaming is almost considered a stigma. Whoever chooses to look out the window for half an hour instead of continuing to work on their computer is nothing but lazy.

In addition, in another study by these psychologists, they showed that 80% of business leaders believe that creativity is enhanced by work and continuous activity. Thus, the person who, at some point, chooses to go for coffee in front of a window is someone who cannot stand the pressure, someone who may also be unproductive.

Today, we continue to associate action with productivity and passivity with laziness. We shall change these old and rusty ideas. Daydreaming is the art of going in search of the wonders hidden in our brain. It means training our mind to develop a little more introspection, curiosity, and imagination.

As Art, one of the authors of Wise and Shine, would say: Dare to dream.

Are you a daydreamer?

Ideas to Improve Your Productivity

man wearing black crew neck shirt and black jeans

Looking at some of the most successful people in their job, I found out that they all seem to have one thing in common: getting up early. But what do they do in the morning? What are their routines to be more productive? Here are some ideas to copy from them to improve your productivity,

By getting up early, you could do a lot of things more in a day and therefore in your life.

However, not everyone likes to get up early, it may depends also on your chronotype. I believe that it is better to wake up naturally, without an alarm clock. Of course, it is not always possible. But as far as I can, I try to avoid meetings in the morning. I prefer to take things calmly when I get up and have breakfast quietly.

More active with physical activity

Getting up early also means that you can workout as first thing in the morning. This workout makes you more alert and active, wakes up the metabolism and, above all, you would not need to worry about doing physical activity for the rest of the day.

Cold shower

You may shiver just thinking about it, actually I do and I don’t take a cold shower but if you can take it you will get some benefits. It improves circulation, reduces stress, and can even help you lose weight.

Read, watch videos, participate in trainings

Successful business people are generally also smart people.

Therefore it is not very surprising that they consider it important to have their brains function well. Some read about 50 books a year, others declare spending 80% of their day reading. There are people who prefer watching videos or participating in trainings. This is also very good to keep your brain active.

Meditation for relaxation

Do you practise meditation? I do for ten minutes a day. Most of successful business leaders practise it. And they all confirm that meditation helps them relax, sleep better, reduce stress and improve their quality of life.

Of course, it is not only by following this morning routine that you will have a successful professional life! You would need to work a lot, follow your talent, develop your passion and competences.

Are you ready to become more productive in your work?

silhouette photography of jump shot of two persons — Success – Photo by Jill Wellington on Pexels.com

A Long Lasting Strike

crowd of activists fighting on street during manifestation

Ireland, May 1970. The country’s banks were closing one after the other. The reason? The employees claimed for a salary increase. Their strike would be long lasting, it went on for 6 months! How will people withdraw money, receive their pay-checks or buy things?

Their way out to this long lasting strike was going to the pub! Indeed, these typical bars of the country have a lot of cash.

In addition, the owners know everyone, and enjoy great trust from their customers.

Therefore, Irish people turned to them. They signed cheques and collected cash in exchange. Pub owners will only need to wait for the banks to reopen. Thank to this way out, they could pay for their purchases, and everything went well.

For the anthropologist David Graeber, this episode would tend to show that the job of bank’s employees has no “social utility”. When they would not work, everything continued to function normally. This proved to be true as in the year of the strike, the Irish economy grew as well as usual.

Obviously, Irish could not do some operations, like asking for loans, making investments in the stock market or establishing business companies.

Finally, everyone was very happy when they could go to the bank again, especially the pub owners who could cash out all the checks they received.

Actually, bank jobs have changed a lot during the last twenty years. When I opened my first bank account, I had to go there and meet someone to do all the papers. The last one I opened, I went to the bank just to sign one paper, to verify the authenticity of my signature.

Beyond social utility, today we are witnessing the disappearance of professions due to the increasingly widespread use of artificial intelligence which causes, and will massively cause, a radical change in the job market.

What jobs do you think will change or disappear in the near future?

high angle photo of robot — Artificial Intelligence – Photo by Alex Knight on Pexels.com

Working Four Days a Week

In Iceland they carried out an experiment. From 2015 to 2019, 2,500 people (equal to 1% of the inhabitants) participated in a very ambitious project: to reduce working time without reducing wages. Public sector employees, with different profiles and working in different sectors (schools, hospitals, social and administrative services), worked 4 days a week following their working hours, not necessarily during the day.

Objective

Analyse positive changes in professional and personal life.

How it was achieved

Communication mainly via emails, reduced time of breaks and daily activities redistributed in order to optimize the available time.

Results

The results speak for themselves. In 4 years, participants’ productivity and well-being have increased, while stress and risk of burn-out has decreased considerably.

The results show that the 2,500 workers involved used their free time to recover their energy, to spend more time with their families, or to practise their hobbies. This has led unions to renegotiate employment contracts and now 86% of Icelandic employees have chosen to work less for the same salary.

Benefits

A marked improvement in the quality of life has been noticed. In fact, it is often the work environment that increases states of anxiety and malaise.

This research could be replicated in the UK, because, according to a survey, 63% of the population would be in favour. In addition, 45 deputies voted a motion to ask the government to study this proposal.

Would you like to work 4 days a week? I think this is an inspiring model to be exported without hesitation!

person holding white stylus — Working Week – Photo by Jess Bailey Designs on Pexels.com

Why Being Curious Is Worth

girl sitting on grass smelling white petaled flower

We are all born curious. Think about when you were a child or at children you know. They are extremely curious, aren’t they? They ask a lot of questions and they put themselves in dangerous situations.

Curiosity has great benefits: from rejuvenating your minds to helping you cope with change successfully.

However, we don’t all experience it the same way. There are those who are fascinated by Instagram to look into others’ lives, and there are some people who focus their interest on getting to know how things work, like for instance a car engine.

In both cases they are curious people.

However, the latest research shows that there are different types of curiosity which influence our personality and abilities.

Let’s look at the typology proposed by Todd Kashdan, of George Mason University, and other authors:

Joyful exploration: this is the classic type of curiosity. You look for something related to new knowledge or information, from learning how to cook a dish you liked to knowing who built a particular building. This curiosity, as the name indicates, is linked to the joy of learning something you did not know before.

Anxiety caused by missing something: this dimension has a different emotional tone. While the previous one gives you joy, in this case you get stressed or anxious to know how to solve a problem during an exam or to remember something that does not come to your mind, for example.

Tolerance to stress: it is activated when you accept doubt or anxiety facing new, complex or unknown events. In some ways, it helps reduce resistance to change. It allows you to ask yourself what there may be beyond fear, for example when you experience changes in your job.

Social curiosity: if you are socially curious you tend to observe what others think, or how they behave. It is the desire to learn about others’ lives through the press, TV or social networks.

Thrill-seeking: This is the dimension that leads people to take any kind of risks to seek out new experiences, such as practising extreme sports or travelling to dangerous countries for the pleasure of the adventure.

According to a research conducted in 2018 on over 3,000 workers in the United States, Germany and China, 84% recognized that curiosity allows them to generate new ideas and 64% that it helps them to get a job promotion. Furthermore, according to the study’s conclusions, the first four dimensions of curiosity improve outcomes at work while people with high social curiosity are best at stirring up conflicts and gaining trust.

Ultimately, you can have one or more of the previous dimensions and, depending on this, you will be a joyful explorer, or you will be more inclined to solve problems, or, thanks to your social curiosity, you will be more empathetic.

Which category do you think you belong to?