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Knowing When to Give Up: Establish ‘Kill Criteria’

March 27, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

'Quit When to Walk Away' by Annie Duke (ISBN 0593422996) Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (2022) by the professional poker player and “decision scientist” Annie Duke meditates on how you could become so wedded to some predetermined goals that you don’t reassess your ever-evolving values and priorities based on new information that you may unearth along the way.

Quitting isn’t bad, especially if you’re blindly heading toward a “fixed object goal” that’s perhaps no longer serving your values—even hurting you in some way you didn’t anticipate.

A Mental Model to Help You Cut Your Losses

Duke suggests instituting “kill criteria” in advance. Before a pursuit, ask yourself: what signals you could see in the future would tell you it’s time to quit or change course?

How to Quit Well Using Kill Criteria

Before entering a marathon, for example, you could decide if the medical tent counsels that you’re hitting your physical limitations, you’d quit trying to push yourself and walk out.

In other words, every goal needs a resolute “unless” for every task, investment, and relationship. E.g., if you’re miserable at your job, you could give it three more months and pre-select some indicators that would tell you if things haven’t improved even after you’ve increased your efforts.

Idea for Impact: Know when to give up. Grit is great—but only for carrying on for hard things that are worthwhile. Beware of tunnel vision; don’t get so narrowly focused on a specific goal and overlook other opportunities or priorities.

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Filed Under: Mental Models, Project Management Tagged With: Biases, Conflict, Critical Thinking, Decision-Making, Discipline, Mental Models, Persuasion, Thought Process

Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?

March 20, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?

An employee’s off-duty conduct is generally off-limits as far as employers are concerned, and an employer can’t terminate an employee for conduct outside work if that termination would amount to unlawful discrimination.

However, exceptions exist if the misconduct outside the workplace poses a serious risk to the employer’s business.

  • In employment-at-will states, employers can terminate an employee for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.
  • If an employment contract is in place, it likely outlines the specific types of conduct for which an employee can be terminated. So the rights and obligations of the employer and the employee are set contractually.

In many cases, though, no clear-cut guidelines can help determine the course of the action, especially for off-duty, private deeds with moral or political overtones that aren’t rightfully the company’s concern. However, the employer can terminate if the employer can establish a logical, if not obvious, connection between an egregious off-duty behavior having some bearing on their job (e.g., substance abuse that impairs the ability to perform work,) posing a reputational risk, damaging the employer’s interests, portrays the employer in a poor light (e.g., the employee was wearing a uniform or sporting the employer’s logo ) or is incompatible with the employee’s duty (e.g., a poorly worded social media post painting the employer or the industry in a poor light, or inciting hatred and hostility.) The devil is always in the detail.

Idea for Impact: Any out-of-hours misconduct with some sufficient or necessary association with the employment is grounds for termination. Best to know the employer’s policy on what makes up a breach of the company’s values, public position, and policies.

Wondering what to read next?

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Filed Under: Managing People Tagged With: Assertiveness, Conflict, Conversations, Feedback, Hiring & Firing, Human Resources, Performance Management

Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director’s Chair

March 13, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

'Notes on Directing' by Frank Hauser (ISBN 0972425500) Notes on Directing: 130 Lessons in Leadership from the Director’s Chair (2008) explores the parallels between directing the stage and managing projects. The shared themes include ad hoc teams, one-off goals, tight time frames, limited budgets, nebulous chains of command, shared objectives, etc.

Compiled by writer Russell Reich from the notes of British stage director Frank Hauser, this tome contains 130 meditations on casting actors, rehearsing, stage-setting, supervising the production units, and handling critics.

Organized temporally from a director’s initial encounter with the play’s script to its final production, this slim volume is so much more—it’s not just for stage directors.

  • #7: “Learn to love a play you don’t particularly like. You may be asked—or may choose—to direct a play that, for any number of reasons, you don’t think is very good. In such cases it is better to focus and build on the play’s virtues than attempt to repair its inherent problems.” Idea for Impact: Focus on virtues and strengths, not weaknesses. Spend more of their time reinforcing the good performers than dealing with untrainable performers—i.e., you can never remediate grievous weaknesses. Position the person somewhere else where her talents are a better match.
  • #33: “Every scene is a chase scene. Character A wants something from Character B who doesn’t want to give it.” Idea for Impact: Productive relationships with balance and joy call for continuous concession and managing one another’s expectations. Work hard to ensure that all sides feel contented with a negotiated compromise.
  • Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director's Chair #73: “Know your actors. Some like a lot of attention; others want to be left alone. Some like written notes; some spoken. Get to know them. It doesn’t have to take long. It’s a good investment that will pay enormous benefits later.” Idea for Impact: Embrace individualized management. No two employees are alike—their temperaments, qualifications, experiences, and backgrounds shape them into thoroughly unique people who’re persuaded, challenged, and inspired in different ways. So why treat them all the same way?

Recommendation: Read Notes on Directing. It’s a worthwhile meditation in managing people, projects, and yourself. Anyone who must get things done through people will find insightful meditations on getting to the core of the narrative, handling people with diplomacy and nuance, and navigating conflict.

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Filed Under: Effective Communication, Leading Teams, Managing People Tagged With: Artists, Assertiveness, Conflict, Getting Along, Negotiation, Persuasion, Relationships, Social Skills

Confirm Key Decisions in Writing

March 9, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Confirm Key Decisions in Writing All human dealings are subject to intended and (largely) unintended misunderstandings and misinterpretations. In fact, when an agreement is distasteful, it’s easy to misunderstand.

Confirm oral agreements, instructions, and understandings in writing at the first chance you get. Don’t rely on just memory.

After meetings, email all the participants recording what was discussed. That way, if there’s ever a debate about what was discussed in the meeting, there is a written record to review. Do this even for phone calls if what was discussed is important. A helpful template:

I am confirming the agreement we reached at our meeting this afternoon. We decided on the following provisions: A, B, and C. Let me know as soon as possible if this information is not accurate so we can finalize this part of our negotiations. Call me to discuss any necessary changes if this doesn’t reflect your understanding.

Idea for Impact: “If it wasn’t written down, it wasn’t said.” Documenting critical decisions—your interpretation of it at least—helps avoid future fracas. If you don’t receive a written protest or correction, your account of the meeting stands accepted.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. The #1 Learning from Sun Tzu’s Art of War: Avoid Battle
  2. Making the Nuances Count in Decisions
  3. How to Mediate in a Dispute
  4. If You Can’t “Think on the Spot,” Buy Yourself Time
  5. Cancel Culture has a Condescension Problem

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Managing People, Mental Models Tagged With: Assertiveness, Conflict, Conversations, Critical Thinking, Leadership Lessons, Negotiation, Persuasion, Problem Solving

Trust is Misunderstood

February 24, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Trust is Misunderstood Trust isn’t just about “them” out there; it’s also about you. Trust is different things for different people.

Trust is a skill and way of operating that concerns choices and judgments, and opportunities and risks. Trust doesn’t transpire like an on-off switch. It’s something you create and nurture. The less trust between the two sides, the more challenging it is to get anything done.

And the hard part isn’t creating trust; it’s sustaining it. Trust isn’t won once but must be re-won constantly—often by affirming the positive and not allowing the win to become more important than how it’s achieved.

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Filed Under: Managing People Tagged With: Character, Conflict, Getting Along, Likeability, Persuasion, Relationships

The More Facebook Friends You Have, The More Stressed You’ll Be

February 23, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Having to Think Twice About How Posting on Social Media Seems to me that everyone’s getting sick of having to think twice about how anything—everything—they say can upset their followers on social media. We live in an oversensitive and censorious culture. The more friends you have on Facebook, the more likely something you say or do on the site will offend one of your “friends.”

The displeased’s hostility, the outflow of anger, and their petty drama won’t stop until they’ve forced their narrow-minded ideologies upon you. Even unintended slip-ups—even those from years ago—abruptly become grave and irreparable. One episode could affect your whole life. You’ll be called out; you’ll be canceled. Your employer may find that the simplest way to steer clear of the controversy is to fire you and destroy your career.

Idea for Impact: Don’t be oblivious about current events, but be aware of what and how you weigh in on cultural, social, or political issues on social media or in other unsuitable fora.

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Filed Under: Effective Communication, Managing People Tagged With: Conflict, Conversations, Getting Along, Networking, Politics, Social Dynamics

Never Make a Big Decision Without Doing This First

February 9, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In 1943, General Motors (GM) brought in Peter Drucker to conduct a two-year social-scientific examination of what was then the world’s largest corporation. Drucker conducted many interviews with GM’s corporate leaders, divisional managers, department chiefs, and line workers. He analyzed decision-making and production processes. The resultant landmark study, Concept of the Corporation (1946,) laid the foundations of scientific management as a formal discipline.

Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., who built General Motors into one of the world's largest companies One anecdote that Drucker liked to share from his GM research involved how his client, GM supremo Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., generally encouraged disagreements:

During a meeting in which GM’s top management team was considering a weighty decision, Sloan closed the meeting by asking, “Gentlemen, I take it we are all in complete agreement on the decision here?”

Sloan then waited as each member of the assembled committee nodded in agreement.

Sloan continued, “Then, I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what this decision is about.”

Concrete Disagreement Stimulates Thought

Strong leaders encourage their team members to challenge them and question consensus. Leaders so counter the tendency toward synthetic harmony that emanates from group thinking and the risk of unchallenged leadership.

A team member with a difference of opinion or contrary position that’s well rooted in rationale is not to be reprimanded. He may have judgments worth listening to or recommendations worth heeding. Every team needs at least one to keep the team from falling into complacency. A team’s culture shouldn’t shun discouragement and conflict.. Look out, though, for team members who merely pay lip service to allow for the counterargument.

There are three reasons why dissent is needed. It first safeguards the decision maker against becoming the prisoner of the organization. Everybody is special pleader, trying—often in perfectly good faith—to obtain the decision he favors. Second, disagreement alone can provide alternatives to decision. And decision without an alternative is desperate gamblers’ throw, no matter how carefully thought through it might be. Above all, disagreement is needed to stimulate the imagination.

Lessons from General Motors: How Conflict Creates Innovative Teams

The Best Leaders Encourage Disagreements

Dissent and disagreement are critical to combat confirmation bias—the human tendency to readily seek and accept ostensible facts that match our existing worldview rather than objectively considering alternative viewpoints and unintended consequences.

'Management Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices' by Peter F. Drucker (ISBN 0887306152) What’s worse, leaders tend to surround themselves with like-minded individuals—people they trust and people who think alike. Drucker later wrote in his wide-ranging treatise on Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1974,)

Sloan always emphasized the need to test opinions against facts and the need to make absolutely sure that one did not start out with the conclusion and then look for the facts that would support it. But he knew that the right decision demands adequate disagreement.

An effective decision-maker organizes dissent. This protects him against being taken in by the plausible but false or incomplete. It gives him the alternatives so that he can choose and make a decision, but also ensures that he is not lost in the fog when his decision proves deficient or wrong in execution. And it forces the imagination—his own and that of his associates. Dissent converts the plausible into the right and the right into the good decision.

Idea for Impact: The more you encourage healthy debate within your team, the better off you’ll be

The first rule in decision-making should be that you don’t make any decision unless you’ve sought out and contemplated the counterevidence. Consider the other side of any idea as carefully as your own.

Wise leaders proactively seek the truth they don’t want to find. Encourage authentic dissenting opinions to generate more—and better—solutions to problems.

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  2. Couldn’t We Use a Little More Civility and Respect in Our Conversations?
  3. Confirm Key Decisions in Writing
  4. Cancel Culture has a Condescension Problem
  5. Charlie Munger’s Iron Prescription

Filed Under: Managing People, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills, The Great Innovators Tagged With: Conflict, Conversations, Critical Thinking, Leadership Lessons, Social Dynamics, Teams

You Can’t Serve Two Masters

February 6, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Two-Boss Dilemma: How to Please More Than One

Learning to “serve two masters” and managing multiple supervisors is a vital skill in today’s work world. Organizations have increasingly embraced matrix structures, with “dashed line” reporting (you work under a supervisor who doesn’t do your performance reviews) and “solid line” reporting (the true boss who evaluates your performance.) Do your best to accommodate the latter, but don’t overlook the other(s.)

Further, with cross-functional teams, it’s common these days to have multiple team-based supervisors, each overseeing your work on different projects. If you’re not cautious, it’ll become all too easy for each supervisor to regard you as if you have no other commitments, and you can end up letting them both down.

The key to managing expectations at odds is insisting on boundaries. If you aren’t too careful, you could become totally overwhelmed—each boss isn’t mindful of what the other’s sending you. Each ends up pushing their own agendas regardless of what you already bear on your plate.

To resolve the two-boss dilemma and try to please everybody, take the initiative and get your bosses to cooperate and liaise regularly:

  • Create and maintain one master priority list of everything on your plate. Update it at the beginning of every week, and make sure both bosses have a copy. This should help each understand how any emergent task would jibe with the other items on your list.
  • When one boss drops an urgent task on your lap, refer to the master priority list and ask, “If you want me to do this, what is it you want me to take off the list because I also have three other deliverables due in the next few days.”
  • Multiple Boss Madness Establish a daily 5- or 10-minute standing coordination meeting (“scrum”) with all the bosses. In the meeting, point out your current and impending priorities. They can adjust their relative preferences for you.
  • Don’t be the “go-between” and agree to speak on behalf of one boss to the other—especially if they aren’t speaking to each other. There’s much ambiguity, and managing conflict can become a significant challenge for you.

Even if you have multiple supervisors whom you take direction from, you’re likely to have one boss who’s ultimately responsible for their career. This boss will judge your performance and decide about your compensation and promotions. Tell her about your double bind and see if she can work out an acceptable arrangement with her colleague.

Idea for Impact: Remember to maintain good relations with everybody you work with. Personnel changes are widespread and frequent in most companies, and you never know who’ll be your next boss. Don’t strain your relationships with the other.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Tips for Working for a Type-A Boss
  4. The Good of Working for a Micromanager
  5. Five Ways … You Could Score Points with Your Boss

Filed Under: Leading Teams, Managing People Tagged With: Conflict, Getting Along, Great Manager, Managing the Boss, Relationships, Winning on the Job

Racism and Identity: The Lie of Labeling

February 2, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

This video examines how categorical labeling and the us-versus-them mentality it fosters are at the heart of division and, subsequently, intolerance and non-acceptance.

From birth, the world force-feeds us these labels, and eventually, we all swallow them. We digest and accept the labels, never ever doubting them, but there’s one problem. Labels are not you, and labels are not me. Labels are just labels. Who we truly are is skin deep. Who we truly are is found inside.

Labels forever blind us from seeing a person for whom they are, but instead force us to see them through the judgmental, prejudicial, artificial filters of who we think they are.

Labels Aren’t Just Idle Placeholders

Racism and Identity: The Lie of Labeling Labels determine what we see. As essayist James Baldwin cautions in The Price of the Ticket (1985,) “As long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you. Because as long as you think you’re white, I’m forced to think I’m black.”

We’ve used the lie of labeling to define and separate people for millennia. We emotionally and intellectually enslave ourselves when we believe the lie of a label. Then we enslave others. Even forcing people to self-identify by labels reinforces separation, stereotyping, and divisiveness.

Rigid stereotypes of out-group norms follow. Such attitudes are harmful because they overlook the full humanity and uniqueness of all people. When our perceptions of different races are distorted and stereotypical, it’s demeaning, devaluing, limiting, and hurtful to others.

Idea for Impact: Let’s Stop Sidestepping the Human Behind the Labels

What we need now—more than ever—is an individual and collective shift from tolerance to acceptance (it’s possible to be tolerant without being accepting, but it isn’t possible to be accepting without first being tolerant.) In so doing, we can work to create a society in which everyone is valued, appreciated, and embraced.

Wondering what to read next?

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Filed Under: Managing People, Mental Models Tagged With: Biases, Conflict, Diversity, Getting Along, Group Dynamics, Politics, Social Dynamics

Why Your Partner May Be Lying

January 30, 2023 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Why Your Partner May Be Lying Honesty builds trust and intimacy. When one partner conceals information or has secrets, it erodes a trusting relationship.

One non-obvious reason people lie to their partners is that they don’t feel safe telling the truth. Their head goes into a defensive mode, thinking merely about the short-term benefits. They fear rejection or disapproval. If such are the consequences of telling the truth, they believe it’s expedient to sidestep it, especially if they expect they’re unlikely to be caught.

If you reckon your partner is lying, first seek to figure out the reason behind the lie. Reflect on the last time your partner lied to you. How would you have responded if they’d spoken the truth? Would you have reacted with anger—even yelling or starting a fight?

When your partner lies, focus first on the one aspect you have total control over: your reactions. Have a “trust chat” with your partner. With no suggestion of judgment or shaming them, reveal your concerns and talk to them about honesty, trust, and secrecy.

Nudge your partner to be more candid with you. Let your partner know you’d always prefer to know the truth, regardless of the situation. Then, when your partner speaks the truth, thank them for being forthright and telling you the truth, even when they know that the revelation may leave you disappointed or angry.

Idea for Impact: Negative reactions like criticism, contempt, sarcasm, or aggression can make your partner more likely to hide the truth, causing a relationship to embitter even further.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. The High Cost of Winning a Small Argument
  2. How to Mediate in a Dispute
  3. A Short Course on: How to Find the Right Relationship
  4. Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director’s Chair
  5. We’re All Trying to Control Others

Filed Under: Managing People Tagged With: Conflict, Conversations, Getting Along, Negotiation, Persuasion, Relationships

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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