mparkola

Hi, what do you mean by that?

I've encountered my fair share of such people and I probably was one of them for at least some portion of my own career :(

Is there anything in particular that worked for you?

That's indeed challenging. Is there anything specific that helped you do the untangling?

And on the company front - how do you stay in touch with the overall direction while minimising those meetings?

That's super interesting. How do you go about increasing that consistency?

I'm sorry you've had such a bad experience with managers. I can assure you it looks much different in my neck of the woods.

Still no silver bullets, but the next best thing is an easy to remember framework that can remind you to take care of what needs taking care of.

I think this perspective/skill is extremely powerful. It is also extremely hard.

I try to repeat to myself "find something to agree with" whenever I encounter a difficult situation. Sometimes I succeed.

Other questions I found useful are:

"In what circumstances does that make sense?" "What part of that might be useful?"

This is also a step in the "Five Secrets of Effective Communication" as described in the Feeling Good podcast.

"Logic is not a great tool for understanding reality" as my mother used to say ;)

Another way to look at it is that there's always a perfectly good reason _from a certain perspective_.

I agree! ;)

I try to make it more meaningful by saying why I agree with or like something in order to clarify the (prefferably shared) values behind my appreciation.

I've also recently used a torrent of appreciation (the Mesita strategy) to build up the self-esteem of a person struggling with self-confidence.

The trick is it has to be honest and at least somewhat meaningful to them (it's not good to compliment someone on things they don't value).

A really over the top example: complimenting a woman in the workplace on her looks. will definitely not be appreciated and these days might get you fired ;)

I struggle with this as well as I read many warnings against deriving self-worth from external sources. However I am not free from that and I don't think I'll ever be.

I draw the line at excessive rumination when someone does NOT provide that external validation or criticizes me outright.

It was and still is hard for me as well. I tend to get emotionally involved with whatever job I do and the people I work with and that sometimes creates friction with people who prefer a level of professional detachment (or just don't care).

Anyway: I recommend the book "Reinventing Organizations" for a look at how to create more human-friendly orgs and "Time to Think" for some powerful tactics to use at a team level.