Your Work Friends
Unfiltered Takes. Real Solutions. Your Work Sh*t Handled.
Its not just you - work is bonkers. You get hit from all sides. Your boss. Your team. Your clients. Another org change. A layoff. Which makes you want to chuck it all and live off the grid.
Friend-to-friend? We get it. We're in it. And we're finding the best ways to handle your work sh*t so you don't have to go sell candles in Montana.
We're two leadership pros, and friends, hitting you with the latest news, expert interviews, and real solutions.
Your Work Friends
🔥 #7: Pride - From Our Fishbowl LIVE "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
Help a friend? Tell us how we're doing (we're seriously curious) by filing out this short (seriously, short) survey: https://forms.gle/VG19hQRLy8bCyFMS6
ABOUT THE EPISODE:
From our Fishbowl LIVE series, the "7 Deadly Work Sins", we bring you the last sin, PRIDE …
You know PRIDE:
- That feeling of apathy, laziness, like you just don't want to be here.
- Maybe you slacked off on contributing to a project and let your co-workers carry the load.
- Maybe you keep blowing past your deadlines, and wait until something is due to share you need more time.
- Or, maybe you find yourself picking up the work of your teammate who routinely drops the ball
At work, PRIDE shows itself in a lot of different ways, and we want to talk about it. How you can recognize it, how you can manage it, and what to do if you're a victim of someone's lack of motivation and ownership.
ABOUT "THE 7 DEADLY" SERIES:
You want to know what really messes employees up? Raw human emotions. Listen, we ALL experience them from time to time (we totally have), but if you don't handle them well, man can they be deal breakers. In this series, we break down
• The common spectrum of experiences with each 'sin',
• We talk about real-life (kinda salacious stories) scenarios (yeah, this stuff happens every day),
• How to not ‘commit’ the sin, and
• Most importantly, how to deal with a sinner
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Hey friends, it's Francesca. Can I ask you a favor? Can you fill out a quick survey for us to tell us how we're doing on the pod? Mel and I are finishing our first season. We've loved, loved doing the pod, but we're kind of wondering how we do it. What do you like, what don't you like? What are your ideas for a show? We want to hear it. We put a link to the survey in the show notes, so if you could help us out, fill it out and maybe we'll send you some merch. Okay, thanks Bye. Happy Wednesday, friends, francesca and Mel, here from your Work. Friends, we're going to get started. Mel, what do you think In two minutes? Just give everybody a little bit of time to come in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, give it a couple minutes.
Speaker 1:Cool, we're stoked to talk about pride at work with everybody Pride man, yeah, pride Messes up a lot of stuff it does. It's weird because you should have pride in yourself for sure a hundred percent, but then when it goes way too far, you're like that guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pride is like the one. It's one of the seven deadly work sins that really seems to be like the fastest slippery slope you just don't want to turn into that person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh should we do it? Now, let's do it, let's get into it.
Speaker 2:My two minutes is more like 30 seconds because I have the impulse control.
Speaker 1:Is that the eighth sin? No, yeah, let's give it two minutes, one, two. Okay, guys, here we go. All right, friends, we have officially less than 24 days of summer left here in the US. Can you believe?
Speaker 2:that Mel. No, it's so depressing, but listen, it is in the US. The Labor Day, holiday weekend is coming up, so I'm going to go all out you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm stoked. We're going up to the mountain. I'm out here in Portland Oregon, so we're heading up to the mountains. For sure, it's pretty excited, mel and I thought we're almost through summer. What a better way than to take a light midweek break with both of us to talk about the work shit that we never talk about but we want to talk about. I'm Francesca and I'm Mel, and we have been working in HR for a really fricking long time, Mel. How long have you been working in HR? For a really freaking long time, mel. How long have you been working in HR? 20 plus years, nice, nice, the do it decade, the do it decade. What about you? Same Mel, same Living the dream over here in my 40s, still looking good, though that helps. That retinol, yeah, it is that retinol. I'm telling you friends, the retinol and sunscreen, you cannot beat it. It's a great combination. And Dove.
Speaker 2:Soap. I'm just going to throw it out there. Dove Soap. That's what my dermatologist said and it worked wonders. $2.99. Hold up Like the bar soap. Yeah, dove Soap Unscented. Good for your skin, all right. We got to talk about that That'll be the next topic.
Speaker 1:If anybody else has any skincare tips, reel it in there. I want to see it. But here's the thing about working in HR If you want the good stories, the good cocktail conversation, ask someone in HR, because we have seen it all and, holy hell, have we heard it all as well? And we started a podcast a while ago, about less than a year ago, to talk about it all called your work, friends. Because, look, work is just. I'm just going to say it's bonkers. It's bonkers. Right now it keeps getting more bonkers. Anybody on this call I let me guess what your work week looks like. You're getting hit from all sides your boss, your clients, your teams. Maybe you just got hit with another org change or rumors of a layoff. You're needing to stay on top of emerging trends. Honestly, all of that probably makes you want to chuck it all and go sell candles in Montana. If you're anything like me, that's how I feel. How about you, mel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I keep imagining opening up a flower farm, so yes, oh nice, any particular brand of flowers, flowers in general, just make me happy. I like it. I like it, I like it. Listen, friend to friend. We get it, we're in it and we're talking about it, and we want to help you prepare for tomorrow by making you ready today. Listen, we're just too really unfiltered. As you can tell, we're pretty unfiltered leaders. Mel and I are also friends We've worked together for several years as well but we want to hit you with the latest news, future insights, expert interviews, raw discussion and honestly solid solutions. Because here's the deal Even though work is bonkers, there are great ways to get through it, and now we're only for the ride, but have fun, right A hundred percent yeah.
Speaker 1:Here's the deal with what the hell all of this means. With pride right Throughout our career, mel and I have taught we're talking about what are the things that really trip people up at work, and there are some red threads that really mess people up and sometimes totally destroy their careers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what we found really messes employees up are those raw human emotions that no one likes to talk about, all the feely touchy, feely woo stuff, and in this series we're calling them the sins, if you will so listen. We all experience them from time to time. We totally have. But if you don't handle them well, man, can they be real deal breakers? Yeah, they can.
Speaker 1:So we came up with this series, the seven deadly work sins, where we're breaking down each of the sins that mel just talked about. This is our last one, folks, so if you missed lust, wrath, envy, greed, gluttony, go ahead. They're on the fishbowl app. They're also up on our podcast feed as well, and today we're rounding out the series with Mel. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1:Pride, pride, pride. This is an interesting one because pride, like all the other sins, they happen every single day at work. Here are some really interesting stats to consider when pride goes a little bit unchecked, because pride unchecked can lead to things like overconfidence and decision-making. The American Psychological Association said that overconfident employees are 25% more likely to make errors because they overestimate their abilities. Harvard talked about overconfident leaders can cause companies to engage in riskier business practices. Boeing anybody Theranos practices. Boeing anybody Theranos FTX. A study found that firms with overconfident CEOs are 33% more likely to experience significant stock price crashes as well. They have real business implications, and the other thing to think about is a lot of times very prideful or overly prideful people are resistant to feedback. The Society of Human Resources Management or SHRM, for all of our fun folks who like an acronym. 60% of managers reported that employees who are overly prideful are more resistant to change, leading to slower organizational adaption and decreased innovation. Here's the deal. Do you ever manage someone that's super resistant to feedback, resistant to change?
Speaker 2:Yes, you can't manage a team. Yeah, Because it's like managing is coaching and folks that are resistant to that are just uncoachable.
Speaker 1:Yeah pretty much, pretty much Pride. It's just an interesting emotion. We're going to talk about the whole spectrum of pride, but here, let's be real, though, mel. Okay, like, we have our own stories of pride, right, absolutely. Yeah, let's be real, though, mel. We have our own stories of pride, right, absolutely. How have you experienced pride at work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think in several ways. One and we're going to talk about this on the spectrum I absolutely feel like I've had a healthy sense of pride. I think pride can be good as long as it's balanced with humility, right? Absolutely everyone should have pride in the work that they do. I think that's a good space to be right. But noticing and recognizing the collective effort of achievement is important too.
Speaker 2:But I've also been on the sidelines of this, witnessing overconfidence and arrogance with colleagues and teammates. That experience does not feel good. For example, I witnessed a colleague continuously act as a leader for the team the whole team, even amongst his peers and he presented to a stakeholder that he was the leader for this team, replied to the stakeholder on the request and then forwarded that to his teammate saying take it from here please, because they wanted he needed to be seen as the leader. For some reason could not get over anyone else getting any of that attention or recognition for their leadership. I've also experienced someone who had a superiority complex where they would often belittle and shut down junior team members because they didn't, in her words, have the educational background that she did and noted that their degree made their ideas best Like woof, just gross yeah.
Speaker 1:So, honestly, anytime I hear people be like I have a master's degree in this and I'm like I don't care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, You've already discounted. Like everyone's ideas are, have worth.
Speaker 1:A thousand percent. A thousand percent yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what about you? What have you experienced?
Speaker 1:So here's the thing with all of the sins you can witness the sin, you can be a victim of the sin or you can also be the sinner, and in this story I am the sinner. I am not I have made. I have sinned on all of them. We all have. Though, yeah, go back and listen to lust. You'll hear my story of how I married my work crush, but here I'm. So I'm in my like mid twenties, I think I'm like 25, 26. I'm a brand new manager and I am feeling like hot shit because, like I got promoted I was relatively young to get promoted. I felt I knew my shit. I was amazing at my job per my story that I told myself and was pretty arrogant, quite honestly, and working with my oh, it worked wonders. It worked wonders. I always think being a total dick is a great way to approach your team, but team meeting talking about work, and my team started pushing back on something I needed them to do and I said, listen, if you all can't do it, I can find somebody that can.
Speaker 2:Ooh.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, francesca, which is so funny, for anybody that knows me knows that is not my that's totally not your MO.
Speaker 3:No it's not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mentor pulled me aside and basically say, francesca, leading people is a lot like having kids, it's not about you, it's about them. And that really stuck with me quite deeply because I'm like, oh, this isn't about me or me proving how confident and capable I am, it's about them. So, massively send down that one. Great mentor, yeah, great mentor. Still haven't forgotten that, and every time I think about that story I turn red because it was, yeah, a moment of shame. But that's the thing we have both experienced. You've cried, yeah, and I'm sure everyone on this call has experienced some of that. Right, absolutely Yikes, pride. Right. It's a feeling of confidence that you can go from confidence to superiority really quickly. Maybe you think you've got this and maybe you don't need to take lessons from your peers or your colleagues. I don't need to hear any feedback. Maybe you disregard certain people's points of view, like because they don't have a master's degree, or maybe you find yourself being iced out of meetings and discussions related to work and decisions being made At work. Pride shows itself in a lot of different ways and we want to talk about it. So buckle up. Here's what we're going to do today. One we're going to cover how you can recognize it, how you can manage it and what you can do if you're the victim of someone else's pride. Mel and I love to talk about this stuff. We love to talk all day, every day, but we really want to hear from you. On all of our calls in this series, we've either pulled folks up because they want to talk about it, have something to offer to the conversation, answer a question. We will also keep all of the DMS open. So if you'd rather ask a question or make a point and notously, we'll be checking that as well and at the time we'll leave some questions we always receive some really great questions about people experiencing sticky situations and we're happy to answer them or have you answer them as well. If you have a point of view, this is for all of us. Let's do it All right. So let's talk about pride. Here's the deal Again.
Speaker 1:99.9% of us have experienced pride at work. What is it? Basically, it's a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment about how you perform and contribute. It can be really positive, right, and it can contribute to your motivation. It can contribute to your productivity if it's healthy. However, unchecked pride can lead to massive overconfidence, resistance to things like feedback and coaching. It can escalate into workplace conflicts and, quite honestly, it can even get up into the criminality aspect and we'll talk about that. It can harm you, your team and your organization. Pride, like the other deadly work sins, is really complex and can manifest in various ways at work, and we want to talk about it. With all of these sins, they are on a spectrum. We have a four-pronged spectrum for all of these, because this is how we've seen them come to life in work they go from low to that medium and then freaking illegal right now.
Speaker 1:There's always some criminality happening yeah, listen, that's, that's the fun of being an hr, where you're like they did what and lost their job. How, yeah, fantastic. So we're gonna go through the spectrum. Let's take you through the spectrum one by one. First, the low end of the spectrum self-respect, healthy pride this is healthy. Friends. We all want to stay in the low end, right? Mel?
Speaker 2:Yes, this is where you sit. Just stay steady here, steady here, yeah.
Speaker 1:Please, baby Jesus, please, just stay here. Self-respect, healthy pride. It's a sense of self-satisfaction and confidence in one's work. Right? It's common for everyone to have done this. I hope you feel this periodically for yourself, but it can look like things like really proudly presenting a well-executed project to a team, acknowledging others' contributions while taking pride in your role, receiving praise for work and really feeling satisfied about that, maintaining a balanced view of all of your accomplishments. Right, this is healthy pride. Have you ever?
Speaker 2:expressed one of these. Yeah, I think that's important all the time, especially as a team leader giving space for your team to celebrate wins and celebrate individual contributions in addition to team contributions. I think it's just a really positive place to be, because I don't you shouldn't wait for the big stuff, right, it's all the stuff along the way, so I think it's just super healthy. I think the key here is the humility factor and maintaining the humbleness right Around. That absolutely celebrate those accomplishments. But it gets a little iffy when it starts to turn into bragging or maybe thinking you're better than that's the danger zone. I think we start to get into a thousand percent right.
Speaker 1:It's just that where you're like the braggy, the braggy right, that type of thing right Again, positive If we get to that braggy state can lead to some minor team tension. We all have worked with that person. Where you're like bro, you know cool.
Speaker 1:But for the most part, this is healthy, right, low end of the spectrum, self-respect, healthy pride, yeah. However, it can quickly, to your very good point, move up to the medium section, right, which is this overconfidence. This is where we have something that's really more ego driven. At this stage, there's an inflated sense of self-importance that starts to impact relationships with colleagues, it's noticeable, can be very self-serving and, look, you're definitely someone's bane of their existence right now. Right, because you're just always coming to the table with this At this stage.
Speaker 1:Here's the deal with this and why we like to talk about it. You're really starting to potentially damage your brand because we start to all see it and it really just starts to very much suck for your coworkers and potentially, your boss as well. What does this look like? It looks like things like taking credit for team efforts without recognizing others frequently, like very frequently talking about your successes without considering it how it might impact a team. This happened, actually, on LinkedIn quite a bit, yeah, so I saw several major organizations, for example, do mass layoffs and then, literally two weeks later, people got promoted and then went on LinkedIn and said I'm so excited to take this new role as so, even though their colleagues just got laid off. Yeah, it's that element of not really thinking about how might you talking about your successes might make someone else feel right? Yeah, just that unawareness, slightly overestimating your skills and dismissing feedback. We've worked with those people that they have a very overinflated sense of their abilities and not open to any sort of adjustment.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:And believing one's opinion should always carry more weight in decisions because of where they went to school, the certification they have, the level, even that they are right, or things like over-promising on your capabilities without input from the team. Yeah, I agree All of these things. This is the thing. The risk factor goes way up here because we see it as in plural. Your colleagues, your team, your peers, they feel this. They start to notice this. For your team, this really can turn into things like decreased team collaboration. It can hinder team dynamics. It has a potential to cause increasing conflict. If you're working with someone like this, that's their peer. It's just not fun. It actually is just very toxic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've seen this to grade teams before, like I think everyone. Again, I love the one like the low end of the spectrum because I think it's such a healthy place to be, where you get your accolades and you celebrate that and absolutely. But I've seen it where it's. There's like this thin line of self promotion that happens or like trying to angle yourself is more important. I've seen this where someone received recognition from a leader on a team for work well done and months down the road continue to use that as their angle for why their idea should be prioritized over others on future work because of the past win and the past recognition. And it was like, okay, everyone's moved on. And it took me back to advice from my Latin teacher in high school who said don't rest on your laurels, dear. So I always have that in the back of my mind Okay, you had your win, celebrate it, but time to move on to the next thing and your past win doesn't always equal a future one.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, as a peer, you're sitting in the meeting and let it go. Yeah, absolutely Let it go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing too. Here's my note to managers on this, because again, this is on the spectrum. When we go up to the high end of the spectrum, we're getting into that superiority complex like arrogance territory. My notes to managers here, especially because we see this escalating pretty quickly. If you're seeing this on your team, you want to nip this in the butt here at this stage. Right, because if you don't call it out, it can absolutely get worse. And the thing is it is massively impacting, again, not only that person's career and their brand, but your team, right, your team. So, just something that nip it in the butt. Is it butt or bud? It's bud, right, bud? Yeah, okay, I'm really glad that I'm on a live call and clarifying that for the first time in my life.
Speaker 2:Sorry, tell us if we're wrong, please. Yeah, thank you, you're like?
Speaker 1:these two are fantastic, All right. Medium end of the spectrum. Let's move up to the high end of the spectrum, which is arrogance. This is where you're getting a full on superiority. Complex, right? Yes, as pride intensifies, it can really turn into superiority feelings of pretty massive superiority very quickly. It's a very strong belief that you are superior, quite honestly, to others, leading to massive amounts of dismissiveness and lack of collaboration. How many times, especially like interdepartmental turf wars, this happens all the time where someone's screw marketing. I'm totally not working with them. They do not know what they're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you hear it all the time and it's so disappointing because man, nothing sucks out the joy of work more than that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:It doesn't, it happens all the time. Sometimes this happens again just naturally, because we all talk shit about each other's teams. But you're feeling superior, right? Or someone feels superior to you. Here's again a few other ways that this could come to life A publicly belittling colleagues to elevate oneself, calling out a colleague in a meeting or in front of a stakeholder out a colleague in a meeting or in front of a stakeholder refusing to collaborate because others are less capable ie, I'm not going to work with them.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've heard that before. You're like what? Yes?
Speaker 1:Ignoring advice or instructions because of perceived superiority. Yeah, too good to do the work, too good to do the work right. Or I see this a lot of times in we have a new system integration. Yeah, you need to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just complete refusal.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's a very basic example, but it's grounded in this kind of stuff right, undermining others' efforts and spreading rumors to damage their reputation. Here's the thing. You've probably worked with these people, for instance, leaders that have superiority complex. We typically see them have huge turnover Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Very high turnover, massive retention issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're looking at organization and you're like why are all those people quitting?
Speaker 1:yeah, especially leader of the, the belittling piece in public, that like even in public and private, like that is awful yeah, it's can also look like, uh, individual contributors that are much more concerned about managing up than being collaborative, like managing across or managing down, like they are not interested at all in being a good teammate. They are absolutely not interested in the career development of their team. They are interested in getting themselves higher. It can also be folks thinking they're really above the law in companies as well. Yeah, absolutely All superiority complex. Risk, though, goes way up here, because you're becoming a liability for your company and for yourself, right, and this can also lead to, very quickly, things like formal complaints, disciplinary action. We see this because this behavior is can be create things like toxic work environment sometimes illegal behaviors, if you will and it can also lead to increased team turnover, because a lot of folks do not want to work with somebody that feels like they're superior.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you see this. I've seen this happen on large teams and small teams to across peers, where they're just like that one person continues to set the tone for the team and it's not addressed, and then people like leaving for other opportunities or like begging to get off the team because they don't. They just don't want to deal with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It creates a really crap work environment. Right, that's superior. The last end of the spectrum, the high end, the illegal end, is criminal hubris. And here's the deal. Once someone has reached this, it is absolutely not only a liability, but illegal and actions rooted in arrogance and entitlement can lead to discrimination, harassment, massive illegal behavior. This can look like falsifying performance records, manipulating data to appear more successful, using one's position to pressure others into unethical actions, discriminating against colleagues due to an inflated sense of entitlement, engaging in fraud we see this quite a bit to maintain your status or believing that you're untouchable.
Speaker 1:I have worked with leaders. I have also seen this in the news. I'm going to give you two examples that we all know about, where people think they're fricking God. Yeah, let me give you two examples. Anybody remember Sam Bankman free? Yes, this collapse of FTX led to Bankman free being arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud, conspiracy, money laundering. He had unchecked pride in his belief that he could manage and cover up a financial mismanagement contribute to the downfall of his empire and WeWork Adam Neumann great documentary, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really good documentary. What about the guy who held Fyre Fest and fed everyone cheese sandwiches? Oh my gosh, fyre Fest, that was a level of criminal fever you know what's so funny?
Speaker 1:Not in Sam McMinfrey, but like Adam Neumann, the Fyre Fest folks. Those folks like fail up. Do you have any of that? Yeah, 100% yeah. But here's the deal. They have massively unchecked pride. It's like criminal hubris. They don't believe that they're going to get in trouble. Risk factor at this stage of the spectrum is max red alert zone. It requires legal action, sometimes financial restitution, damage control, to mitigate reputational harm to the company. Right, this is the thing with the spectrum. Understanding the spectrum of pride in the workplace is essential for maintaining a respectful, professional, legal work environment. By recognizing the different levels of pride, right, we can really make sure that we can take proactive measures to prevent anybody from getting into a superiority complex or, even worse, criminal hubris. We love the stories. What pride situations have you all seen? Has anyone encountering anybody or seen anybody have some unchecked pride at work that they'd like to talk about? You can certainly DM us or raise your hand, come up on stage.
Speaker 2:Listen, dm is Vegas. It's anonymous. All right, here we go, alicia.
Speaker 1:Oh no, yep, Is she coming up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, hi, yes, hi guys, how are you Good, I'm doing good, love it, love the energy. Pretty awesome, listen. So I think it was very good. Here's. I have a couple of questions and I love the levels that you gave. Now the one where the manager said something great about the colleague. What happens if the colleague is not necessarily harping on what the manager said, but they're actually good, but the other team members? Insecurity comes out and that person is unaware of it.
Speaker 1:Because, yeah, I'll let you answer, because I'm wondering if that scenario plays out most in high level positions I'm trying to let me make sure so that you feel like is it is the question, like the team member is actually. It's not that there's a pride situation going on, it's that the team member is massively insecure, right, or?
Speaker 3:they may view that as well. This is now placed Melissa ahead of Alicia, because Francesca is the head of that department and she has called her out. Do you see what I'm saying? So like 48 laws of power at play. Yeah, melissa is just doing Melissa and just great at it, and said oh, this ideology is similar to what I said X time and remember, francesca actually like this way of thinking. Perhaps it's something like that. Then what? Because we have to think, oftentimes the not you, because if you're the one that's feeling it, it's you. But sometimes if a colleague comes and says Francesca is just really acting like she's it right Since X, y, z, but is she it? Is she great at it? And if she is, should she downplay how good she is at what she does? What's the dynamic of that in the workplace? Okay, this actually has happened to me before.
Speaker 1:What's the dynamic of that in the workplace? Okay, this actually has happened to me before, so would you like my yes, I want it all. Let me give you my thoughts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's my deal. If someone is feeling like, first of all, if someone's feeling like Francesca thinks she's it, I would argue that if I'm Francesca in this situation, I always if someone's giving me that feedback, or you think you're better than me, or something like that I always think, okay, maybe I do need to check myself, just in the sense of maybe I just need to do a little bit of an audit, am I? However, I would argue that a lot of people shouldn't downplay their strengths just because someone else is feeling insecure about it. There will always be people that are going. I have found, especially as you get higher up there will always be people that will try to quite honestly take down your truth.
Speaker 1:And if you play small in those situations I'm not saying play arrogant, I'd say I'm not like if you're not being arrogant, but by playing small, you're actually not doing yourself any favors, your company any favors, and so I would argue if you are truly rocking and rolling and not being arrogant, right, keep going and doing what Francesca should. Keep going and doing what she's doing and ignore the haters. Basically, that would be my advice to that, mel. What would you add to that?
Speaker 2:you're recognizing your accomplishments. You're not bragging it or using it as leverage for future things or to shut people down, Like you're not moving up in the spectrum. That's the place to be. So never shrink yourself for other people. And you're not responsible necessarily for how other people receive your accomplishments. That's their feelings. But, Francesca, I think it's always good practice to do a gut check and be like is it possible? Is there anything I'm doing that might be taking me up on the spectrum and I don't recognize that I might have moved into the overconfidence state. There's a thin line between the low end and I think, the over the healthy and the overconfidence. That can slip pretty quickly. I think it's always healthy to do that gut check. I think that's a great recommendation. But don't shrink yourself either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that. And my second one was the guy who I don't know if it was real or an anecdote, but the guy who starts taking over the team and talking to the client and then send them back on the email let's get this done. That guy, was that an anecdote or real?
Speaker 3:No, that was no, that's a real story that was real. I needed to work with you because, you see, I'm the woman who says I'm sorry, you don't get to take credit for my intellectual property. You can do what you want, my intellectual property you can do what you want. But if my intellectual property said I was the one who wrote agenda for the meeting.
Speaker 1:I want my credit for writing the word agenda.
Speaker 2:So thank you and I'll go back to the audience.
Speaker 3:That really annoyed me yeah.
Speaker 2:Alicia, we're going to talk about how to combat this right, if you're. We consider the person who was on the receiving end of that a victim of the center and they handled it like you did, by the way, and I think it's healthy to have those conversations right, depending on the level of where things are on the spectrum. So we're going to cover that. I appreciate you coming up here and asking your questions. So thank you, alicia.
Speaker 3:Hard to care. Put me back down somebody. I'm still here, yep.
Speaker 2:All right, listen, I'm going to jump right in, because every time we've held one of these sessions, we've promoted it on our podcast. We add. People send us stories all of the time, day in, day out.
Speaker 2:Francesca and I are having calls, emails, like sharing with us. We did get a listener story. We put a call to action hey, here's pride, here's the spectrum, what's your story? We actually received a story from the center who felt that this might help others sharing their own experience. I want to jump in. Look, it involves colleagues and peers. Names are always changed. We think it's Vegas when people share their stories with us unless they tell us they. We can share their information. So names, everything's been changed.
Speaker 2:This is the rise and fall of a star performer. Let's get into it. Okay, so this is a fortune 500 company. They were known for innovation and a collaborative culture company. They were known for innovation and a collaborative culture.
Speaker 2:Mark the center was a star employee. He was nicknamed the golden boy from his teammates and within his department, and he led product development. He was promoted to a senior product manager after the runaway success of a major product launch that he led. He was known for his sharp mind, relentless drive and ability to deliver results, and that made him a favorite among the company's leadership team. With his promotion, his confidence skyrocketed, right as it should. That's not a bad thing at first. You 100% should celebrate something like a promotion based on the work that you did. He told us he took immense pride in these accomplishments. He felt like his name became synonymous with success. He was frequently praised in executive meetings, but he did say, his ego began to inflate. After several months he started to openly talk about how he saw himself as the key to the company's future, believing his contributions were more significant than those of his colleagues. And he told us he truly believed that he was like I'm a star, everyone's talking about me. He really he was. Like. What else would it be? His new role required a lot more leadership and he began to assert himself in every project, not just the projects he led, but the projects his peers were leading. He started taking on additional responsibilities, often sidelining his team in the process. In meetings, he began to dominate the conversation, subtly making it clear that he believed his ideas were best. And when successes were celebrated, mark made sure that his role was highlighted first, sometimes at the expense of his team's contributions getting recognized. We've all been in those meetings. Time runs out, he made sure to make. He was always recognized in the call.
Speaker 2:As his behavior moved from like that healthy pride area to overconfidence, several of his colleagues noticed the shift and tried to address it with him. Right, we all have work friends, people that we work with that are feel good about confronting these kinds of things. Jessica was a project manager on his team. She was the first to raise concerns when he started to dismiss the ideas of others in meetings. She and Mark were really friendly, so she tried to pull him aside, suggesting he open up meetings to gather more of the team's input so that they didn't miss out on valuable perspectives. Mark brushed her off, though, noting that he felt confident his judgment was sound. He also worked with David, who was a lead engineer on the team, and David started to really feel the impact of Mark's arrogance too. David, also being with the company for many years, was known for his experience and his reputation for meticulous work, and during a critical stage of new product development he pointed out several potential flaws to Mark's approach, because he was worried about the timeline and the quality of the product, and he warned Mark about this Again. Mark told us he brushed David's advice off, wanting to focus on replicating his tried and true process from the previous success, and he left no room for debate.
Speaker 2:And then Emily, who was a junior designer on his team, started to feel more growing tension amongst everyone. And you're a junior, you're just like taking it in, francesco. When you're a junior, you're just taking it in. You're like how does this operate? How does this work? You're in a high pressure environment. She really looked up to Mark. She saw him as a mentor and during a design review he noted Emily approached himjected. Her enthusiasm for the project was clearly gone and he noted like he felt that the trust clearly was broken, like he could feel that oh no, I think I just broke that relationship.
Speaker 2:As the project progressed and the stress built up, mark's leadership became more and more apparent. The cracks in his leadership right the team became disengaged, communication broke down. The quality of the work suffered Mark, however, was during this process. He said he was blind to it. Right, like maybe he made Emily mad in that meeting, but overall he still felt I'm on the right track, I know what I'm doing. But there was growing discontent and he was convinced his decisions were going to lead them to another successful product launch.
Speaker 2:Things moved forward. Based on all of Mark's final calls, the product was ultimately rushed to market. The launch was disastrous. Customer complaints poured in on this, highlighting significant flaws that had been overlooked. The company was now facing a major PR nightmare and some substantial financial losses over some of the errors. During an internal review that was conducted to understand what happened here what was the failure of this product, how do we correct it, etc. Mark was summoned to explain it and in that investigation it revealed that he ignored critical feedback multiple times from his team and at several points in stages on this project. That ultimately led to the product's downfall.
Speaker 2:In this issue and in a tense meeting with his project team, they expressed frustration that their reputations, their jobs, were now on the line because he refused to include them in the process all along. He was tasked with make this right, turn this around. He had to meet with this team, he had to rebuild trust and he had to go back to the drawing board with them. But he had two choices in this moment. With his team, he could double down on his decisions and his process, leaning further into his arrogance, risking further alienation of the team and, quite frankly, leading to potential further damage for not only the team, the org, his own reputation. Or he could take ownership of how his pride got them here and then work with them to really correct this failure. Pride got them here and then work with them to really correct this failure. His team sat there just demanding a response and he sat there silent, waiting for what he would say next, because he truly didn't know.
Speaker 2:You're going to be asking yourself what happened next, mel, and we're going to share that in a minute. This is a great discussion, but we really want to ask the question what do you do in this situation or any other place in the pride spectrum, right? What do you do if you witness someone else either committing the sin or if they're the victim of the sinner? Let's talk about it. We discussed up front this stuff happens on a spectrum. What defines what you should do next? Is it really means you need to take a look at the spectrum and decide where your unique situation falls? So I'm going to jump into self-respect. Healthy pride, low end of the spectrum. Here, if you're the center and I actually don't know if there's a true center at this stage I think we're all centers in the low end and I think that's a good thing. Look, this area of the spectrum is completely normal and healthy. Francesca, what do you think?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is my thing. I actually think more people should have more pride in their work than people being super arrogant, right? But yes, this is very natural. Feel good about what you do.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree, pride in your work is not a bad thing at all. Receiving praise for your work is not a bad thing. At this stage you just want to have self-awareness to make sure you don't slide into overconfidence. That's the biggest risk here. Embrace your sense of accomplishment but remain humble. Regularly reflect on your achievements without letting them define your worth, and stay open to feedback to keep your ego in check. I think those are the two big takeaways. If you're on the sidelines, there's nothing to do with the stage. There's no victims of the sin here. If you see a work friend potentially slipping into overconfidence area, let them know. But otherwise, celebrate your teammate like they would celebrate you and remember you also bring value and contribution to the team.
Speaker 2:This stage is generally positive. So focus on maintaining a collaborative spirit and encourage mutual recognition. And if you're a team leader, we think this is the stage that really sets the tone in the culture of your team. Reinforce the importance of shared success and mutual acknowledgement within the team. Celebrate wins collectively. Ensure that all voices are heard and recognize both individual and group efforts to foster that balanced environment of recognition. What would you add here, francesca? Anything?
Speaker 1:Nothing, just keep it super healthy. Just keep it super healthy. We're all staying in stage one. We're all staying in number one.
Speaker 2:We're staying in here. All right. If you find yourself at the medium end overconfidence, right. If you're the center, if you recognize yourself in this overconfidence stage, you need to slow down and things like taking credit for team's effort or dismissing feedback, believing your opinion carries most weight. If you're doing those things, it's time to do a gut check, recognize that your confidence here may be alienating others and ask yourself why am I doing this? What's causing me to show up in this way? Address the root of it here, before it moves into that next level of the spectrum, and consider seeking feedback from peers or a mentor at this stage to help you regain perspective.
Speaker 2:If you're the victim of someone's overconfidence, if you feel comfortable and only if you feel comfortable you might consider first talking with the center. For example, that guy that's forwarded that hey, take care of this team issue. She felt comfortable, right, like they've worked together for years, and was just like hey, man, that's your action. This is how your actions impact me. This is also how it impacts the work and our relationship with the client. But you can have make it productive. It's a productive conversation. It doesn't need to be confrontational. Letting them know how their actions are impacting you and the team.
Speaker 2:The key here is addressing it directly and diplomatically. Frame your concern around the team's overall success and suggest a more collaborative practice. If necessary, you can seek support from their team leader of that person who's exhibiting this behavior, but definitely address it. If you're the team leader and you've witnessed this behavior or someone shared it with you, it is absolutely your duty to coach the center at this stage. If the center is lacking the self-awareness at this stage, this is really that prime time to help them recognize the impact they're having on the team and their own reputation. Provide constructive feedback to them. Emphasize the importance of collaboration and listening. Facilitate open discussions with the team and reinforce the value of teamwork. Encourage the whole team to share their concerns in a safe and supportive way. For Tesska, what do you think about?
Speaker 1:that there's an expression on this one that I think about all the time, which is carry while you climb. Ooh, love it, thank you. I wish I came up with it. I have a teacher with it, yeah. But I think about this a lot because, listen, I don't begrudge anyone for wanting to get ahead. I don't. No, at all.
Speaker 2:No at all. Ambition is not bad, but no, but take people with you.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. Take people with you, carry while you climb. That's a if you. That's the key for me.
Speaker 2:That's a bumper sticker, thank you. Yeah, it's a t-shirt, it is Absolutely so. Next up is arrogance. Look, we say this on every call. You do not ever want to end up on this half of the spectrum. It's always bad news bears right. So now we've reached arrogance, superiority. You've crossed over from overconfidence and now you're in the uh-oh zone. If you're the sinner, if you've reached this stage, you've left collaboration at the door and you've moved into complete me, myself and I territory. And at this stage there's so much damage your behavior can do, not only to you, but your team, the org, potential customers and clients of the org, depending on what you do. Arrogance is the camouflage of insecurity and superiority is the enemy of collaboration.
Speaker 1:I think that could be another bumper sticker 100%.
Speaker 2:When we allow these behaviors to take root at work, we not only alienate others. When we allow these behaviors to take root at work, we not only alienate others, but we also blind ourselves to the possibilities that only humility and teamwork can reveal. So now is the time, if you're the center, to take a step back and really evaluate the impact that you're having and apologize if necessary and make a genuine effort to rebuild trust here. If you're the victim or you're on the sidelines, you got to start documenting instances of problematic behavior and seek support from HR or higher management if needed. Protecting your own mental well-being by setting boundaries is also important.
Speaker 2:If the environment becomes too toxic, you may need to consider exploring other opportunities within or outside of the org. Unfortunately, especially if it's not being addressed right and if you're the team leader, if it has reached this stage, immediate intervention is needed. Conduct a one-on-one to address the destructive behavior directly. Offer coaching resources if appropriate. Reinforce the company's values and the team values and make it clear that this behavior is unacceptable. Focus on repairing team dynamics through team building activities, open communication. You may also identify some focused professional development opportunities for the center at this point, like leadership or emotional intelligence courses and things like that, and we've seen this done before and it's turned out pretty well. Sometimes people are just completely lacking the self-awareness, and the intervention is needed.
Speaker 1:A thousand percent. I think sometimes also there's this element of not people masking, but people thinking like this is the way they need to present themselves. Oh, wait, they. Yeah, this is what successful. Yeah, this is how we operate. Yeah, not in the collaboration, but more on the competitive, aggressive superior. And that's not. Again, it's to your very good point. Sometimes it takes an intervention to say, hey, this is not the most productive, joyful, healthy way to go through this Right.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, all right, we're going over to the criminal zone.
Speaker 1:I love the criminal zone, I love the criminal hubris.
Speaker 2:Look, if you're the sinner, we hope you have money for a lawyer and unemployment. This is really hard to recover from and you don't ever want to find yourself here. Quite frankly, criminal hubris may result in severe harm to the company or others, with potential legal consequences. If you're at this stage, reflect deeply on your values and the choices that led you here. Quite honestly, this is a critical moment to change course and rebuild your character and, honestly, your life, because this that's bad news bears. But look at the Fyre Fest guy. Come on and did you see that documentary?
Speaker 1:I'm pulling a little bit. That guy is after this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think he's trying to run another one Allegedly. If you're on the sidelines, look. We hope you never find yourself on the sidelines of criminal hubris and we hope you started to report and address things at the overconfidence stage if you were a victim or you witnessed this. But if you weren't and you find yourself on the sidelines watching someone at this criminal level, just report it immediately to HR and leadership. We do not recommend ever confronting a sinner at this stage. It's potentially not a safe thing to do because they're in a space of likely delusion, not thinking or acting rationally, and likely out of desperation. Protect yourself first and understand you're not responsible for the illegal actions of others and just prioritize your safety and integrity. And if you're a team leader, it's your duty just to act swiftly, decisively escalate any criminal behavior to HR or legal immediately and ensure that the appropriate actions are taken to address the behavior. Support your team through the process and, quite honestly, you're spending your time restoring trust and morale.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the way, you're not getting anything done for a good like three to four weeks after that, or six months. Remember that time when Bob got the FBI came in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, truly. Look, we know we're running out of time. Here I'm going to give you the outcome of Mark's story and I am so appreciative that he shared his center story. That was huge. He owned it. He owned it.
Speaker 2:He said he had some serious self-reflection here he was on a slippery slope. He realized actually how dangerously close things got to criminal hubris. If something harmed somebody purchasing that product, it like truly his ass on the line right and the company nevermind the company, like everybody was at risk. Here he realized. He recognized. He said he'd been acting out of arrogance. He did feel superior. Thankfully no customers were harmed by the product.
Speaker 2:He admitted to the team they were right. He expressed that he let his pride and ego get in the way of listening and as a result he recognized and apologized for how much it cost everybody. He also said he didn't want this to be the end of their work and expressed he wanted to work with them to figure this out and work together to turn it around and fix it together. At this point trust was completely broken and the team was absolutely skeptical. He did mention there was a lot of awkward silence, just like after his apology, just like a staring contest he did happening, waiting for the response, but he did say the first step was his willingness to open up to his mistakes and take accountability was the first step to rebuilding trust.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, the team agreed to try to fix the issues together, noting there was a long road ahead. They were like here are the ground rules for how we want to work together going forward. He was open to that. They outlined that together and Mark committed to having a more inclusive approach and recognized that leadership wasn't about being the best but about valuing everybody's contribution here and why it was so important. I think his story is a powerful reminder that success is a team effort and pride, if unchecked, is going to lead to the downfall of not only the individual but the team and the org.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you in any crisis situation. There's two things that I think about especially and I loved Mark's stories right, which was one is the power of owning something like genuinely owning it right, Because we all have blind spots. This one was a pretty major one, but the power of owning it and genuinely wanting to rebuild. The other thing I think about too hot damn, everybody loves a comeback story, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:This was our first non-criminal and positive turnaround. Right, he owned it. He was like, yeah, man, I sucked and here's what happened and here's what I did. I think this is great. Look, we are five minutes away from the end of this episode and this series, which makes us sad. We've loved it so much. We'd love to hear from you, like additional listener questions. You can submit them through DM Again. That's Vegas or you can come up on stage like Alicia did for us. Thank you again, alicia. We did get a few DMs throughout that I'd love to bring up, so while we read those, you can submit yours. Someone said I know this might not be popular opinion, but is a little bit of arrogance really that bad? In competitive environments, isn't it something necessary to have a strong belief in your own abilities, even if it means stepping on a few toes? I've seen people succeed by being unapologetically proud of their work. Where's the line between healthy confidence and arrogance, and do we risk stifling innovation by discouraging strong personalities?
Speaker 1:Ooh, I have two thoughts on this. One, yeah, and I think it's a super fair question. I think you have to believe in yourself. I think the line is when you're starting to really impact others. The reality of work is that none of us the CEO, the board, I don't care, None of us do this alone. No, we do it together. Right, and I think where you're in, when you're starting quote unquote, step on a few toes. That's not good. Yeah, that's never good. It's never good. So I think the line is where it's starting to impact others, where you're not considering others, where you're not taking into account what other people might think. What do you think?
Speaker 2:I agree with you 100%. I would say ask yourself why do you need to step on toes to get ahead? Yeah, ooh, yeah, yeah, mal, I just think you shouldn't. Also, I think you're really, you're missing. We all have blind spots and that's so dangerous to me that you don't need to listen. Feedback is feedback, right. You don't need to take all feedback and take action on all feedback. It's taking it into consideration, but if you're not even listening to it and you're just stepping on toes to get ahead, I don't think that's good for anybody. You're right. What do you want to be known as? The person people want to work with, or the person who steps on toes?
Speaker 1:I think that's yeah, there's another part of this too is what really feels good, and what I mean by that is, to me, it feels so much better to win as a team, or to win fair and square, quote, unquote, as opposed to when you know you're being a shit. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it just never feels good, it never feels good.
Speaker 1:If it doesn't feel good, listen to your body. It's going to tell you no, yeah or yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, we are at the one minute mark, so I'm going to be I'm going to get it done. I think I'm going to get it done.
Speaker 2:You can continue to send us your thoughts. Please do, friends. We really appreciate you joining us today and we want to keep the conversation going with you. Here's how you can do that Check out your work friends, the pod, on any platform of your choice. We're on Apple, spotify, blah, blah, blah. We post episodes getting your work shit handled every week and episodes getting your work shit handled every week. And if you like what you hear, please share with a work friend or two. You could also join us over on LinkedIn. We have a community over there where we're constantly engaging. Or, if you prefer, you can find us on Instagram. If you have a topic you want to share with us, shoot us a note at friend at your work friendscom, or just throw up a comment on our website. There's a whole comments, anonymous comments page where you could submit your recommendations. And then finally, francesca, what else?
Speaker 1:Listen. Thank you for being here as we wrap up the 7 Deadly Works In series over here on the Fishbowl app. You can catch all of the replays on the app or again on our podcast on the network of your choice. We would love to hear from you. Stay in touch, Keep connected with us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hope you all have the rest of an amazing summer and don't be a sinner unless it's on the low end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stay in the low end. People Stay in the low end. Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, you can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful. Share with your work, friends. Thanks, Fran.