What do holiday Hallmark movies and your workplace have in common? 🎄
What do holiday Hallmark movies and your workplace have in common? 🎄
Hint: Not a lot of tolerance for the hard-working Jane-of-all-trades from the city.
[Scene opens on a woman dragging a suitcase through the snow. She is dressed for the weather and is wearing appropriate footwear. Not so much damsel in distress as a woman handling a problem, as women have done forever.]
Jane: [mutters to herself] Of all the taxis in all the world, I got the one without snow chains packed. Love that for me. The house is just around the corner, it’s fine.
[A tree branch snaps. Snow falls and obscures her view for a moment. When it clears, a lumberjack has appeared.]
Lumber Jack: Jane, one day you’ll learn that all that city learning won’t do you any good here at home. Here, hop on my snow plow. There’s room for both of us and all of your bags, except the one with your work laptop and phone and confidence. I’ll bring you the opposite direction to the local pub, where you can order a glass of wine that I tease you for choosing, before I interrupt any updates you have from your banner year at work to tell you that it’s impolite to brag on yourself. You’ll fall for me, we’ll get married, and you’ll never speak highly of your career again.
Jane: …. Get lost. But if you want to lend out any more unwanted advice, there’s a driver up the road who might be stuck enough to listen to it.
[End scene.]
‘tis the season to watch The Holiday, am I right?
What Christmas Hallmark movies and your workplace (may) have in common is: a low level of tolerance for career success.
As for the movie, we get it. Nothing makes for a better rom-com than someone giving up their high-powered career to move home and become the local baker.
Work, however, is the one place where talking about work (and work done well) should be celebrated.
Yet, when I asked around, here’s why we aren’t doing it.
“I don’t want people to think I’m braggy.”
“I don’t want to make my colleague / manager / work wife / direct report feel bad.”
“My team / colleagues / peers don’t seem to care, so what’s the point?”
“I’m going to be made fun of. Maybe not to my face, but somewhere for sure.”
So, despite the rule being that we’re at work to row in the same direction, it sounds like some of us are working with, next to, or for people that aren’t happy for us to be rowing exceptionally well.
To that, I say what Jane says above: Get lost.
Any workplace where you can’t show up as a knowledgeable and talented human being, where you have to self-monitor and self-mute for the comfort of others, is not a nice one.
Also, if you’re not capturing your wins, taking credit for your work (and team work), or celebrating when things go well, beware.
Beware because to management, it might not look like you HAVE wins, or have work to take credit for, or have done anything well. We’re all busy humans, and as a human who manages humans, I rely on my team to tell me when work goes well (and to own up when it doesn’t).
Beware because once you start self-monitoring and self-muting, it’s hard to stop.
Beware because once you forget to capture some wins, even if just for yourself, they fade away. We remember negative facts more than positive ones.
Beware because before you know it, you might end up in some B-movie life where a Lumber Jack is able to convince you to quit your job when really, all you need is some hot chocolate and to regain feeling in your fingers.
If you’re not in a workplace where you feel you can own your work without inviting drama, gossip or unwanted negative attention, here’s where I’d start.
Report that to your managers. If it is your manager causing this, take it to HR or another manager you trust. They don’t know what they don’t know. It is the role of leadership to fix toxic culture, and that includes getting rid of managers who contribute to it.
Call it out in your team. If you’re not sure if it is happening in your team, and you’re a manager, ask your direct reports privately if they feel comfortable bragging on themselves in a group. If not, ask why.
Record your wins for yourself. Keep a “sparkle folder” or a list of statistics (projects led, wins, good reports, revenue saved) so you have it on rainy days.
If you are able to share your wins, but don’t because of your own worries about being too braggy, here’s the Nice Work approach to capturing your wins without capturing resentment:
Make it less about what YOU did and what the positive impact was for your team’s goals / the company. Everyone knows you did it, don’t worry.
“Today, the Nice Work Co. is the proud owner of a new trademark! We can start using it from today.”
vs.
“I am thrilled to share I was successful in getting our trademark approved! Reach out to me for guidelines on how to use it.” 🤮
Celebrate “real” wins, not “I showed up to work” wins. It’s good to do work well, but remember that there’s a difference between achievement and achieving the bare minimum.
“We have increased our revenue from paid advertising by 150% from last year to this year thanks to our new strategy.”
vs.
“To get new clients, we ran weekly campaigns.” 🤮
Name everyone who contributed - don’t take credit for other people’s work.
“Today, our company was named as a Nice Workplace! This is due to the hard and amazing work of our dream team Jane, Jill, and Jenna who created this initiative and led the application. Nice work!”
vs.
“I am thrilled to announce that the application I submitted last year got us listed as a Nice Workplace.”🤮
Don’t over-edit yourself. No matter how perfectly you write your post, someone somewhere in your company may screenshot it and make fun of you. To them, we say: Get a life, get some therapy, and get back to work to get your own wins. 🏆
To a 2024 full of wins!
xRachel
PS. If you are the resolutions type, can I suggest - a resolution that focuses on changing how we present at work and, dare I say, championing yourself a bit more? We launched the Nice Work merch line to be - quite literally - surrounded by reminders of our nice efforts, and we have a new year discount code for you! Use NW2024 to get 10% off until Jan 31st. ❄️