7. How to Get Along with Work Colleagues
Do you have coworkers who drive you absolutely crazy? You wish they would carry out tasks or projects the way you think they should - but they never do. You think work would be so much better if these people would just behave the way you want them to, but there’s just one problem with that approach: it turns out we can’t control other people.
I used to see this as a big problem in my work life, and if this sounds familiar, this episode is for you.
You might believe right now that having fun at work and having great work relationships without your coworkers changing sounds far fetched. But today, I’ve got one simple coaching tool that can help you have all of that, and I guarantee that doing this work will serve you beyond just the realm of work.
Tune in this week as I introduce you to the concept of “the manual.” Identifying your own manuals and cultivating awareness around them will not only help you have better, easier relationships, but you’ll start building the skill of resilience and the ability to feel create the outcomes you want no matter how other people choose to behave.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m going to be giving away 3 deep-dive strategy sessions with yours truly! These are 90-minute sessions where we come up with a plan to get you where you want to go.
To enter, leave a rating and review of the show on Apple Podcasts. You can find all the details on entering the giveaway here. I can’t wait to announce the winners!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
What a “manual” is and how we have one for everyone in our lives.
How understanding your manual for other people makes it easier to create enjoyable work relationships.
Why your idea of the way things should be won’t always match what other people think.
The importance of identifying what your goal outcome is.
How to clue yourself into what your manuals are and why.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
FEATURED ON THE SHOW:
Leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to be entered into my giveaway of 3 deep-dive strategy sessions!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week, we’re talking about coworkers and how to have a great work life even when your coworkers don’t do things the way you want them to do them.
You are listening to Love Your Job (Before You Leave It), the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. I have actually been feeling a little bit under the weather. Don’t worry, I got a COVID test, there were no signs of COVID so that’s great news. Where I live, they actually have drive-in tests, which is super helpful, so you can get tested in the privacy of your own car, which is great.
Although y’all, let me tell you, that test made me laugh and cry at the same time. Because for me at least, it was such an intense sensation of being tickled inside my nose. So while I’m super grateful that they’re available, I am hoping I don’t need to take another one of those for a while.
Being sick is not my favorite, but it’s actually something I have coached myself on a lot. And it’s really amazing how your experience of being sick can change, depending on whether you’re fighting against being sick or not. So this time, even though it wasn’t what I preferred, I chose not to fight against it.
I sat on my couch for about four days and just watched a lot of old episodes of Rizzoli & Isles and ate a lot of Thanksgiving food, including some turkey soup that I made with the leftover turkey. And you know, for being sick, it was actually pretty great.
So just a little mini teaching there for you, that even though being sick is none of our favorites and we would never choose it, even stuff like that can be really different when we decide what we’re going to think about it on purpose.
And speaking of the way we think about things, this week we’re talking about the way we think about our coworkers, even when they don’t do things the way we’d like them to do, just like we can think about being sick even when we’d rather not be sick.
But before we do that, I want to just take a moment to read one of my reviews. As y’all know, I really want to get to 50 reviews. Right now, we’re at 40, so hello, 10 of you, I would love it if you would go leave me a review. And then definitely go to korilinn.com/podcastlaunch and enter my giveaway with a screenshot of your review because I’m really excited about what I’m giving away. I’ll talk about that more at the end.
But yeah, I want the reviews pretty please, but also, I’ve got something for you too. So this week’s review is from EJ McKisson and the title is “game-changer.” And the review says, “Kori Linn’s coaching has been a game-changer in my life. She’s honest, she’s hilarious, she has been an expert guide to show me where I’m holding myself back. My life is better because she is in it. The first podcast was like she was speaking directly to me, so I know many people will relate. Focusing on what is working has allowed me to make hugely impactful changes in my personal life and my business. Her process works. I can’t wait to have her in my ears, mind, and heart whenever I want with this new podcast.”
Thank you so much EJ for this amazing review. It’s been my delight to coach you and to offer my coaching and my teachings to you and to everyone else via this podcast. And I really hope that this is everyone’s experience because I know that this work is game-changing, and I want it to be game-changing for all of you.
Okay, so without further ado, let’s talk about your coworkers. Do you have coworkers that drive you a little bit crazy? Maybe it’s because they don’t do their jobs, maybe it’s because they keep trying to take over your job, or tell you how to do it. Maybe you just don’t like the way they always say yes to your face in meetings, but then block your work indirectly later.
Whatever your work situation is, the main idea is the same. Work would be better and so much easier if only these people would just act the way you want them to. But here’s the problem, they won’t. No matter how much you want other people to be different and follow your rules, you actually can’t control them.
If you’re anything like I used to be, you may see this as a big problem. But what if it doesn’t have to be? What if you could do a really good job at work, have fun doing it, and even have great work relationships without your coworkers having to change at all? With the help of one simple coaching tool, you could have all of that. But I’m going to tell you right now, simple does not mean easy and it will be an adjustment. I just happen to think it’s also an adjustment that’s totally worth making.
Because you’ve tried judging your coworkers and wishing they were different and that hasn’t really helped, right? Maybe you’ve even tried making requests or giving them feedback or escalating issues to their bosses, and yet you’re still dealing with the same old thing.
And don’t get me wrong, there is totally a place for making requests and for escalating. I have a whole podcast episode on requests and I definitely think it can be helpful to escalate issues as well. But at the end of the day, we can’t actually control other people, so it’s important to have some tools in your toolbox for when people won’t change, but you need to work with them anyway.
In order to do that, we’re going to need to try thinking about things a little bit differently. When we want other people to behave a certain way, what we have is a set of beliefs that we’re trying to apply to the other person. It’s like a book of rules about how they should be, how they should act, how they should think, how they should behave, et cetera.
In coaching, we call this a manual. You have a manual for your work colleagues. You might have one manual for all of them, or you might have different manuals for different people, depending on their roles, seniority, whatever.
And we don’t just have manuals for people we work with. Most of us have manuals for all kinds of people in our lives. Partners, parents, friends, even our children. Sometimes especially our children. But for the purposes of this podcast, we’re going to focus on work relationships, specifically work relationships between colleagues because the issue is a little different when it comes to supervisors and direct reports.
When you can understand your own manual for other people and what it is you actually want to achieve, it’s much easier to create enjoyable working relationships. The manual is the set of rules you want other people to follow. What you actually want to achieve is the work outcome that you’re trying to get.
And usually, you think that if people would just do things your way, according to your manual, then it would be easier for you to get to that outcome that you want so badly. But of course, this does not work because lots of people don’t want to follow your manual.
However, that doesn’t necessarily have to stop you from getting whatever it is you want to achieve, whatever your endgame is. You’re trying to get it by getting other people to follow the manual, but often we can get that same thing without the manual.
But first, let’s dig into what a manual actually is. Like I said, a manual is just a set of beliefs we have about how another person should be. Just like we have beliefs and social conditioning about how we should be, we also have social conditioning and beliefs about how others should be.
And just like our thoughts about ourselves, our beliefs about others are often very old and sometimes even subconscious. The rules in your manual may seem like just the way things should be, how nice people act, or even just what a good project manager would do.
They probably seem really obvious to you and your brain thinks that anyone who gave it some thought would just agree with you that this is clearly the way things should be. Our manuals match our beliefs, so they seem very clear to us, but everyone else doesn’t necessarily agree and that becomes pretty obvious because the person you have the manual about isn’t doing the things the way you think they should because they have a different manual than you do.
So you have your idea of this is just the way things should be, and that seems right to you because it matches your beliefs. But other people have other ideas about the way things should be.
So let’s look at an example. I have a manual that critical feedback should sit inside of a compliment sandwich. I think this is just the way it should happen. I think it’s just easier to hear and implement feedback if someone gives me an honest, authentic, compliment first. To me, this makes total sense. This is also how I give other people feedback when I want them to take my critical feedback and because I have a human brain with confirmation bias, my brain has lots and lots of data about why this is the right way to do things.
For those of you who don’t know, confirmation bias is the bias that all of our brains have to give disproportionate weight to data that matches our existing beliefs. So when we have manuals, our brain always also has a lot of data and evidence about why our manual is actually correct.
But here’s the thing y’all, there are other people in the world who do not use the compliment sandwich when they deliver feedback. And while my manual may say they’re doing it wrong, they’re actually not doing it wrong. And even more importantly, I don’t actually need the other person to follow my manual in order for me to get what I want from the compliment sandwich.
That endgame that I want, the work outcome that I was talking about earlier, I can get that whether they do the compliment sandwich or not. So let’s break this down because it’s a bit of a mind-bender. I’ll use an example from my own business.
I write blogs and podcasts and post for y’all all the time to share teachings and insights with you that I think will blow your mind and help you have more fun and meaning in your career. I often ask my girlfriend Alex to read these posts before I share them with y’all because she’s really smart and insightful and her critical feedback always helps me material be even better.
And she almost always does have feedback about what could be better and I really like it when she tells me what could be better in the form of a compliment sandwich. I believe that this makes it easier for me to hear the critical feedback.
And if you remember, like I mentioned already, episode four about making requests, I have even made the request that she implement the compliment sandwich. But even if she doesn’t implement the compliment sandwich, I can still get so much value from her feedback.
And let’s be honest y’all, that’s what I actually want the most. That’s the endgame I’m looking for when I ask her to review my stuff. Yes, my manual says please only provide critical feedback in between authentic complements. Side note, no fake compliments y’all.
In the compliment sandwich, compliments must be authentic. So like I was saying, my manual says please only provide critical feedback in between authentic compliments. But when I know what I really want from the situation, I don’t actually need her to follow my manual to get it. What I really want from her reading my posts is to find out if she thinks the post makes sense and what she thinks would make it better.
And I don’t need her to follow my manual in order to get that. Knowing this is a game-changer. I can ask for the compliment sandwich, I can enjoy it when I get it, but even if I don’t, it doesn’t have to ruin my day, it doesn’t have to stop me from getting value out of her feedback, it doesn’t have to stop me from asking her for feedback even if she doesn’t use the compliment sandwich, which often she does because I did make a very clear, specific request and explained why I would like it to happen.
But a lot of people in our lives aren’t going to do the things that we request or they’re going to forget sometimes. So it’s so important to see what it is the endgame, the outcome that we actually want. Because when we are able to get that whether people follow our manual or not, we get it a lot more often.
So let’s think about you and your coworkers. What do you want them to do? And more importantly, why? Why do you want them to do whatever it is you want them to do? What would you get to have or get to believe if they did things your way?
In the case of my girlfriend and the compliment sandwich, what I could get if she followed my manual is just to be able to believe that my work is good, even if it could still be better. I want her to read it and say it’s amazing, and mean it.
Then I want her to tell me how I can make it even more amazing, and then I want her to say something else that’s nice about it. But like I said, the only reason I want her to do it this way is so that I can think my work is good. Me, inside my own head thinking my work is good. And y’all, I can think that even if she gives me only the critical feedback.
Would I rather have the compliment sandwich? Every fucking time. But do I need it to feel okay? No. Not when I’ve done the work of figuring out what I want to believe and working on that belief on my own.
This is so important y’all. Like if we’re depending on other people doing things the way we want them to do them in order to be able to think the thoughts we want to think, we’re always going to be feeling crazy trying to control other people.
But when I do the work ahead of time to figure out like, oh okay, I want to believe my work is good, I can cultivate that belief on my own, no matter how someone else shows up when they read my work, whether they do give me the compliment sandwich or whether they don’t. That’s my job. it’s not actually someone else’s job to make me believe my work is good. If I want to have that belief, it’s my job to create that for myself.
Back to you and your coworkers, what does your manual say? What do you think you get if others followed it? And what do you actually want out of the situation? What is the work outcome or endgame you’re looking for?
Your manual will be about how other people should behave, but why do you want that? What would you get to think if they did things your way? That will clue you in to what you want to be able to believe. Just like what I want to believe is that my work is good and I can believe that, even if I don’t get the compliment sandwich, you can figure out what you want to believe about your own work, about your own work life, and you can practice believing it even if others don’t do what you want.
But then also ask yourself about that work outcome or endgame. Like if you want a certain project done a certain way, and Rafael isn’t doing things the way you want them done, does that actually matter when it comes to getting the outcome? Or can you still get the outcome even if Rafael does things differently than you would?
In some situations, you may find that to get the outcome you want, you need to step up and take some extra action. But in many situations, once you consider the outcome you want, you’ll realize that you can actually have that outcome without the other person needing to change.
Just like I can have the outcome of getting the critical feedback and using it to make my work better, even if it doesn’t arrive swaddled in a compliment sandwich. This is one way to become so much more resilient at work. Because when we want other people to follow our rules, we’re very rigid.
But when we can stop and figure out what our endgame is and what the belief is we want to have and go from there, we don’t need to control other people, which is great because we can’t control other people at all and we just wear ourselves out trying when we think we have to.
But on top of that, we also have a much clearer view into when we need to take additional action to secure the outcome we want. Because if you really want something at work, and someone’s doing something a different way, yeah, you can make a request, you can escalate, but sometimes the simplest way is to do the thing we need to do to have the outcome we want.
And again, it doesn’t mean we don’t follow up with other people or make the requests or let other people know when things aren’t going the way that they should be in a project, but it is a lot easier to get what we want when we just ask ourselves, how can I create the outcome I want, versus asking ourselves, how can I make this other person with free will do the thing I think they should do? Because that just doesn’t work.
So with all of that, I’m going to ask my question again. Think of one person from work that you really wish behaved differently. If they acted exactly the way you want them to, what would you get? How can you create that for yourself? How can you get the value you want no matter how they show up?
How can you get that endgame, how can you get to the work outcome? Also, are you going to get there anyway, even if they’re just taking a different path than you think they would, and if they’re not going to get there anyway, how do you create it? But also next to that, side by side with that, how do you cultivate the beliefs that you want to have about yourself and your work life no matter how other people act?
Because they’re always available to you, just like it’s always available to me to think that my work is really good, even if my girlfriend gives me zero compliments on it, even if she gives me critical feedback that could make it better, I never have to take that and make it mean that the work isn’t good to begin with.
And interestingly, when I start from the place of believing that my work is good, then critical feedback is way more fun, but that is a subject for another podcast.
Also like I mentioned, you can of course re-listen to episode four and you can make requests. But when you do the work of understanding your own manual and creating what you want on your own, both the beliefs and the endgame work outcomes, you can have a joyful work life without having to depend on anyone else to be a certain way, which is good news.
Because like I’ve said over and over, we can’t change other people. We can’t control them. But we can change how we think about them and when we change how we think about them, it often seems like they did change. It makes it much easier to get along with other people and to enjoy them for the people they are, instead of spending all of our time wishing they would be someone else.
So to review, we have manuals for pretty much everyone, and those manuals are made up of old beliefs, often subconscious, about how people and the world should be. But people, like I said, have free will, and we can’t make them be any kind of way. On top of that, other people have their own manuals and social conditioning running their lives.
But once you know what your manual is and what you really want, you can give whatever it is you want to yourself, no matter how others are acting, and you can create fun satisfying relationships with people at work when you give yourself what you want and simply let them be whoever it is that they are.
And if working on your manuals is something that you think is going to be a big part of creating a joyful work life and getting to where you want to go, I’ve got good news for you. To celebrate the launch of the podcast, I’m going to be giving away a few deep dive strategy sessions with yours truly.
I want to be clear that these are not consult calls. They’re not actually even coaching calls, but we still can talk about the manual. These are 90-minute sessions where we unpack exactly what’s going on with you and your career, and then we come up with a point-by-point plan for how to get you to where you want to go.
I know exactly what it’s like to leave an amazing job and launch a six-figure business, and I can walk you through what that might look like for you. And if you’re not interested in launching a business, we can focus on your particular career objectives, whatever they are, such as getting a raise, getting a promotion, locking in that flexible schedule, or whatever your heart desires.
I’m only going to be giving away just three of these sessions. In order to be eligible, all you need to do is subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts.
It doesn’t even have to be a five-star review, although I of course hope you love the show. What I really want is your honest feedback so that I can create a show that will blow your mind and help you change your life every week.
Visit korilinn.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. There are even screenshots to make it super easy. I will be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode once I have 50 reviews. So if you haven’t left a review yet, I would super appreciate it if you go leave one right now. Thanks, y’all. Have a lovely week.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilynn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job (Before You Leave It), the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y’all. I have actually been feeling a little bit under the weather. Don’t worry, I got a COVID test, there were no signs of COVID so that’s great news. Where I live, they actually have drive-in tests, which is super helpful, so you can get tested in the privacy of your own car, which is great.
Although y’all, let me tell you, that test made me laugh and cry at the same time. Because for me at least, it was such an intense sensation of being tickled inside my nose. So while I’m super grateful that they’re available, I am hoping I don’t need to take another one of those for a while.
Being sick is not my favorite, but it’s actually something I have coached myself on a lot. And it’s really amazing how your experience of being sick can change, depending on whether you’re fighting against being sick or not. So this time, even though it wasn’t what I preferred, I chose not to fight against it.
I sat on my couch for about four days and just watched a lot of old episodes of Rizzoli & Isles and ate a lot of Thanksgiving food, including some turkey soup that I made with the leftover turkey. And you know, for being sick, it was actually pretty great.
So just a little mini teaching there for you, that even though being sick is none of our favorites and we would never choose it, even stuff like that can be really different when we decide what we’re going to think about it on purpose.
And speaking of the way we think about things, this week we’re talking about the way we think about our coworkers, even when they don’t do things the way we’d like them to do, just like we can think about being sick even when we’d rather not be sick.
But before we do that, I want to just take a moment to read one of my reviews. As y’all know, I really want to get to 50 reviews. Right now, we’re at 40, so hello, 10 of you, I would love it if you would go leave me a review. And then definitely go to korilinn.com/podcastlaunch and enter my giveaway with a screenshot of your review because I’m really excited about what I’m giving away. I’ll talk about that more at the end.
But yeah, I want the reviews pretty please, but also, I’ve got something for you too. So this week’s review is from EJ McKisson and the title is “game-changer.” And the review says, “Kori Linn’s coaching has been a game-changer in my life. She’s honest, she’s hilarious, she has been an expert guide to show me where I’m holding myself back. My life is better because she is in it. The first podcast was like she was speaking directly to me, so I know many people will relate. Focusing on what is working has allowed me to make hugely impactful changes in my personal life and my business. Her process works. I can’t wait to have her in my ears, mind, and heart whenever I want with this new podcast.”
Thank you so much EJ for this amazing review. It’s been my delight to coach you and to offer my coaching and my teachings to you and to everyone else via this podcast. And I really hope that this is everyone’s experience because I know that this work is game-changing, and I want it to be game-changing for all of you.
Okay, so without further ado, let’s talk about your coworkers. Do you have coworkers that drive you a little bit crazy? Maybe it’s because they don’t do their jobs, maybe it’s because they keep trying to take over your job, or tell you how to do it. Maybe you just don’t like the way they always say yes to your face in meetings, but then block your work indirectly later.
Whatever your work situation is, the main idea is the same. Work would be better and so much easier if only these people would just act the way you want them to. But here’s the problem, they won’t. No matter how much you want other people to be different and follow your rules, you actually can’t control them.
If you’re anything like I used to be, you may see this as a big problem. But what if it doesn’t have to be? What if you could do a really good job at work, have fun doing it, and even have great work relationships without your coworkers having to change at all? With the help of one simple coaching tool, you could have all of that. But I’m going to tell you right now, simple does not mean easy and it will be an adjustment. I just happen to think it’s also an adjustment that’s totally worth making.
Because you’ve tried judging your coworkers and wishing they were different and that hasn’t really helped, right? Maybe you’ve even tried making requests or giving them feedback or escalating issues to their bosses, and yet you’re still dealing with the same old thing.
And don’t get me wrong, there is totally a place for making requests and for escalating. I have a whole podcast episode on requests and I definitely think it can be helpful to escalate issues as well. But at the end of the day, we can’t actually control other people, so it’s important to have some tools in your toolbox for when people won’t change, but you need to work with them anyway.
In order to do that, we’re going to need to try thinking about things a little bit differently. When we want other people to behave a certain way, what we have is a set of beliefs that we’re trying to apply to the other person. It’s like a book of rules about how they should be, how they should act, how they should think, how they should behave, et cetera.
In coaching, we call this a manual. You have a manual for your work colleagues. You might have one manual for all of them, or you might have different manuals for different people, depending on their roles, seniority, whatever.
And we don’t just have manuals for people we work with. Most of us have manuals for all kinds of people in our lives. Partners, parents, friends, even our children. Sometimes especially our children. But for the purposes of this podcast, we’re going to focus on work relationships, specifically work relationships between colleagues because the issue is a little different when it comes to supervisors and direct reports.
When you can understand your own manual for other people and what it is you actually want to achieve, it’s much easier to create enjoyable working relationships. The manual is the set of rules you want other people to follow. What you actually want to achieve is the work outcome that you’re trying to get.
And usually, you think that if people would just do things your way, according to your manual, then it would be easier for you to get to that outcome that you want so badly. But of course, this does not work because lots of people don’t want to follow your manual.
However, that doesn’t necessarily have to stop you from getting whatever it is you want to achieve, whatever your endgame is. You’re trying to get it by getting other people to follow the manual, but often we can get that same thing without the manual.
But first, let’s dig into what a manual actually is. Like I said, a manual is just a set of beliefs we have about how another person should be. Just like we have beliefs and social conditioning about how we should be, we also have social conditioning and beliefs about how others should be.
And just like our thoughts about ourselves, our beliefs about others are often very old and sometimes even subconscious. The rules in your manual may seem like just the way things should be, how nice people act, or even just what a good project manager would do.
They probably seem really obvious to you and your brain thinks that anyone who gave it some thought would just agree with you that this is clearly the way things should be. Our manuals match our beliefs, so they seem very clear to us, but everyone else doesn’t necessarily agree and that becomes pretty obvious because the person you have the manual about isn’t doing the things the way you think they should because they have a different manual than you do.
So you have your idea of this is just the way things should be, and that seems right to you because it matches your beliefs. But other people have other ideas about the way things should be.
So let’s look at an example. I have a manual that critical feedback should sit inside of a compliment sandwich. I think this is just the way it should happen. I think it’s just easier to hear and implement feedback if someone gives me an honest, authentic, compliment first. To me, this makes total sense. This is also how I give other people feedback when I want them to take my critical feedback and because I have a human brain with confirmation bias, my brain has lots and lots of data about why this is the right way to do things.
For those of you who don’t know, confirmation bias is the bias that all of our brains have to give disproportionate weight to data that matches our existing beliefs. So when we have manuals, our brain always also has a lot of data and evidence about why our manual is actually correct.
But here’s the thing y’all, there are other people in the world who do not use the compliment sandwich when they deliver feedback. And while my manual may say they’re doing it wrong, they’re actually not doing it wrong. And even more importantly, I don’t actually need the other person to follow my manual in order for me to get what I want from the compliment sandwich.
That endgame that I want, the work outcome that I was talking about earlier, I can get that whether they do the compliment sandwich or not. So let’s break this down because it’s a bit of a mind-bender. I’ll use an example from my own business.
I write blogs and podcasts and post for y’all all the time to share teachings and insights with you that I think will blow your mind and help you have more fun and meaning in your career. I often ask my girlfriend Alex to read these posts before I share them with y’all because she’s really smart and insightful and her critical feedback always helps me material be even better.
And she almost always does have feedback about what could be better and I really like it when she tells me what could be better in the form of a compliment sandwich. I believe that this makes it easier for me to hear the critical feedback.
And if you remember, like I mentioned already, episode four about making requests, I have even made the request that she implement the compliment sandwich. But even if she doesn’t implement the compliment sandwich, I can still get so much value from her feedback.
And let’s be honest y’all, that’s what I actually want the most. That’s the endgame I’m looking for when I ask her to review my stuff. Yes, my manual says please only provide critical feedback in between authentic complements. Side note, no fake compliments y’all.
In the compliment sandwich, compliments must be authentic. So like I was saying, my manual says please only provide critical feedback in between authentic compliments. But when I know what I really want from the situation, I don’t actually need her to follow my manual to get it. What I really want from her reading my posts is to find out if she thinks the post makes sense and what she thinks would make it better.
And I don’t need her to follow my manual in order to get that. Knowing this is a game-changer. I can ask for the compliment sandwich, I can enjoy it when I get it, but even if I don’t, it doesn’t have to ruin my day, it doesn’t have to stop me from getting value out of her feedback, it doesn’t have to stop me from asking her for feedback even if she doesn’t use the compliment sandwich, which often she does because I did make a very clear, specific request and explained why I would like it to happen.
But a lot of people in our lives aren’t going to do the things that we request or they’re going to forget sometimes. So it’s so important to see what it is the endgame, the outcome that we actually want. Because when we are able to get that whether people follow our manual or not, we get it a lot more often.
So let’s think about you and your coworkers. What do you want them to do? And more importantly, why? Why do you want them to do whatever it is you want them to do? What would you get to have or get to believe if they did things your way?
In the case of my girlfriend and the compliment sandwich, what I could get if she followed my manual is just to be able to believe that my work is good, even if it could still be better. I want her to read it and say it’s amazing, and mean it.
Then I want her to tell me how I can make it even more amazing, and then I want her to say something else that’s nice about it. But like I said, the only reason I want her to do it this way is so that I can think my work is good. Me, inside my own head thinking my work is good. And y’all, I can think that even if she gives me only the critical feedback.
Would I rather have the compliment sandwich? Every fucking time. But do I need it to feel okay? No. Not when I’ve done the work of figuring out what I want to believe and working on that belief on my own.
This is so important y’all. Like if we’re depending on other people doing things the way we want them to do them in order to be able to think the thoughts we want to think, we’re always going to be feeling crazy trying to control other people.
But when I do the work ahead of time to figure out like, oh okay, I want to believe my work is good, I can cultivate that belief on my own, no matter how someone else shows up when they read my work, whether they do give me the compliment sandwich or whether they don’t. That’s my job. it’s not actually someone else’s job to make me believe my work is good. If I want to have that belief, it’s my job to create that for myself.
Back to you and your coworkers, what does your manual say? What do you think you get if others followed it? And what do you actually want out of the situation? What is the work outcome or endgame you’re looking for?
Your manual will be about how other people should behave, but why do you want that? What would you get to think if they did things your way? That will clue you in to what you want to be able to believe. Just like what I want to believe is that my work is good and I can believe that, even if I don’t get the compliment sandwich, you can figure out what you want to believe about your own work, about your own work life, and you can practice believing it even if others don’t do what you want.
But then also ask yourself about that work outcome or endgame. Like if you want a certain project done a certain way, and Rafael isn’t doing things the way you want them done, does that actually matter when it comes to getting the outcome? Or can you still get the outcome even if Rafael does things differently than you would?
In some situations, you may find that to get the outcome you want, you need to step up and take some extra action. But in many situations, once you consider the outcome you want, you’ll realize that you can actually have that outcome without the other person needing to change.
Just like I can have the outcome of getting the critical feedback and using it to make my work better, even if it doesn’t arrive swaddled in a compliment sandwich. This is one way to become so much more resilient at work. Because when we want other people to follow our rules, we’re very rigid.
But when we can stop and figure out what our endgame is and what the belief is we want to have and go from there, we don’t need to control other people, which is great because we can’t control other people at all and we just wear ourselves out trying when we think we have to.
But on top of that, we also have a much clearer view into when we need to take additional action to secure the outcome we want. Because if you really want something at work, and someone’s doing something a different way, yeah, you can make a request, you can escalate, but sometimes the simplest way is to do the thing we need to do to have the outcome we want.
And again, it doesn’t mean we don’t follow up with other people or make the requests or let other people know when things aren’t going the way that they should be in a project, but it is a lot easier to get what we want when we just ask ourselves, how can I create the outcome I want, versus asking ourselves, how can I make this other person with free will do the thing I think they should do? Because that just doesn’t work.
So with all of that, I’m going to ask my question again. Think of one person from work that you really wish behaved differently. If they acted exactly the way you want them to, what would you get? How can you create that for yourself? How can you get the value you want no matter how they show up?
How can you get that endgame, how can you get to the work outcome? Also, are you going to get there anyway, even if they’re just taking a different path than you think they would, and if they’re not going to get there anyway, how do you create it? But also next to that, side by side with that, how do you cultivate the beliefs that you want to have about yourself and your work life no matter how other people act?
Because they’re always available to you, just like it’s always available to me to think that my work is really good, even if my girlfriend gives me zero compliments on it, even if she gives me critical feedback that could make it better, I never have to take that and make it mean that the work isn’t good to begin with.
And interestingly, when I start from the place of believing that my work is good, then critical feedback is way more fun, but that is a subject for another podcast.
Also like I mentioned, you can of course re-listen to episode four and you can make requests. But when you do the work of understanding your own manual and creating what you want on your own, both the beliefs and the endgame work outcomes, you can have a joyful work life without having to depend on anyone else to be a certain way, which is good news.
Because like I’ve said over and over, we can’t change other people. We can’t control them. But we can change how we think about them and when we change how we think about them, it often seems like they did change. It makes it much easier to get along with other people and to enjoy them for the people they are, instead of spending all of our time wishing they would be someone else.
So to review, we have manuals for pretty much everyone, and those manuals are made up of old beliefs, often subconscious, about how people and the world should be. But people, like I said, have free will, and we can’t make them be any kind of way. On top of that, other people have their own manuals and social conditioning running their lives.
But once you know what your manual is and what you really want, you can give whatever it is you want to yourself, no matter how others are acting, and you can create fun satisfying relationships with people at work when you give yourself what you want and simply let them be whoever it is that they are.
And if working on your manuals is something that you think is going to be a big part of creating a joyful work life and getting to where you want to go, I’ve got good news for you. To celebrate the launch of the podcast, I’m going to be giving away a few deep dive strategy sessions with yours truly.
I want to be clear that these are not consult calls. They’re not actually even coaching calls, but we still can talk about the manual. These are 90-minute sessions where we unpack exactly what’s going on with you and your career, and then we come up with a point-by-point plan for how to get you to where you want to go.
I know exactly what it’s like to leave an amazing job and launch a six-figure business, and I can walk you through what that might look like for you. And if you’re not interested in launching a business, we can focus on your particular career objectives, whatever they are, such as getting a raise, getting a promotion, locking in that flexible schedule, or whatever your heart desires.
I’m only going to be giving away just three of these sessions. In order to be eligible, all you need to do is subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts.
It doesn’t even have to be a five-star review, although I of course hope you love the show. What I really want is your honest feedback so that I can create a show that will blow your mind and help you change your life every week.
Visit korilinn.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. There are even screenshots to make it super easy. I will be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode once I have 50 reviews. So if you haven’t left a review yet, I would super appreciate it if you go leave one right now. Thanks, y’all. Have a lovely week.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilynn.com for more guidance and resources.
Enjoy the Show?
Don’t miss an episode, listen on Spotify and subscribe via Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.