Category Archives: Change

Here’s what’s wrong with the debate on remote work

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Ever since the pandemic, the debate on remote work been both fascinating and frustrating to follow. 
 
Before the pandemic, remote work was practically unheard of. Some organizations allowed it do different degrees, but on the most part it was rare. Then when the pandemic hit everything changed overnight. People weren’t allowed into the office and all of a sudden work that had been considered impossible to do remotely turned out not only to be possible, but actually worked quite well. People realized, that working from home offered a lot of flexibility and now, post-pandemic, most employees don’t want to stop doing it – at least part of the time.
 
Employers, on the other hand, feel differently, which really isn’t very surprising. Research has shown that managers found remote work during the pandemic to be much harder than other employees did. They couldn’t fall back on old management routines but had to come up with new ways of managing their teams when team members were no longer right there in front of them.
 
Now, post-pandemic, organizations have been trying to call their employees back to the office with varying success and some have even abolished the possibility of working remotely altogether. Employers argue that face time is crucial for innovation and development as well as for new recruits, which is true, but getting people to want to come into the office is still challenging. Some organizations set rules for when you have to be in the office, but no matter what they decide, people still aren’t happy. 
 
The on-going debate has been very black and white. Is remote work good or bad? Should people be allowed to do it or not? Yes or no? There are arguments for both sides that are valid, but the debate doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. That is because it’s missing the point.
 
First of all, one problem is thinking about remote work in terms of how we used to think about work when everyone came into the office. Yes, it is true that innovation suffers if people don’t engage enough with each other. But this isn’t actually a problem of remote work, but rather an issue of leadership. If people work remotely, we need to make sure we create opportunities for collaboration and innovation. This is fully possible. We need to make sure we have routines for including new recruits in the community so that they feel welcomed and become part of the team. It doesn’t happen automatically just because we’re in the same building, but it certainly doesn’t happen if we don’t consciously make it happen when working remotely.  We need new routines for leadership and organization. Just like during the pandemic, we – both managers and employees – need to do things differently to make it work. 
 
The other thing that frustrates me is how organizations go about deciding what their policy for remote work should be. It seems that no matter what they decide, people are unhappy. What strikes me is that most organizations fail to see that remote working practices and policies are a question of organizational culture and any changes made with regards to ways of working should be treated as any organizational change. 
 
In order to get people on board with change you have to involve them in that change. On the one hand, you have to allow them to create their own understanding of why the change is necessary and, on the other, you have to let them be a part of the solution. If they actually feel the need to change and have been involved in developing new solutions and routines, they will naturally also be committed to them. 
 
The same goes for remote working practices. Those of you who grapple with this, have you talked to your employees about it? Have you asked them what their needs are? Have you involved them in thinking about what it is you want to achieve as an organization or as a team and what they best way to go about it is? It’s not just a question of how many days to work on and off site. It’s a question of what needs to be done how to best create solutions to achieve that. 
 
Some say people simply don’t want to come into the office anymore, but this really isn’t true. It’s just that they don’t want come in if they don’t feel like there is any point. People have seen what a positive impact working remotely can have on their lives and their wellbeing. 
 
Experiences change us and we can’t go back to the way it was before the pandemic. We can only move forward. Remote and hybrid work are here to stay in one form or another, and that is not a bad thing. They are an excellent way to provide employees with more flexibility and to create sustainable lifestyles and solutions for work. Office work isn’t a thing of the past either. 
 
We can figure this out, but we need to think about work a bit differently than we’re used to.

A time of crisis is a moment of reckoning

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I think we can all agree that we live in a time of crisis. The crises we face are many, they are serious, and they are all interconnected. 

The environmental crisis – climate change – is perhaps the biggest of all because without a planet there is no us. It’s also arguably the first crisis that literally affects everyone, every country and every person on this globe, and as such it is a crisis that we have to solve together. This can be frustrating and difficult because everyone doesn’t seem to think that this crisis is serious, serious enough to give up comfort, economic growth or profit for, or that it affects them. But that is an illusion. 

It affects all of us regardless of where we live in the world, whether it’s about lands becoming unlivable, wars that are fought over diminishing resources, mass migration to countries that aren’t seeing the worst of it yet, or just bees dying which inevitably will mean that we won’t have food.

We’re also seeing a crisis of democracy. I think we’re all acutely aware of that, whether or not we think it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Because the world is exactly that polarized at the moment that there are people who really think it’s a good thing. 

The US is on everybody’s minds, lips and social media feeds at the moment, and the things that are going on there are hard to even grasp. This is also a crisis that affects all of us; it’s not just a domestic issue, nor is it a phenomenon that is unique to the US.

This rise of populism and easy answers to difficult questions is a phenomenon we’re seeing in many different countries around the world. Populist political parties are gaining traction mainly because a lot people are just sick and tired of the status quo. 

What’s going on in the US and in many other places around the world is in other words a symptom of something. We need to take it seriously, not ridicule and antagonize those who think differently, and do our best to understand why some people are just so sick and tired that they don’t even believe in democracy anymore. Because even though democracy isn’t perfect, it’s the best system we have and we need to protect it. It’s vulnerable and can be destroyed if we don’t stand up for it. 

Another crisis we’re seeing is a crisis of the work place. There’s a lot of suffering in the organizational and corporate world. People get sick, people die. People are also leaving their jobs and careers in numbers never before witnessed. There are a lot of people who just don’t want to do it anymore. They feel like the cost to their health, to their families, and to their lives is just too high.

So what do we do? Well, as I said, a crisis is a time of reckoning. It’s a time of change and reinvention, and a time when anything is possible. The balls are up in the air and we need to decided where and how we want them to land. It’s time to change the way we think about work. It’s time to change the way we think about a lot of things.

Change is hard though, especially when it craves a new way of thinking. That’s why it often takes a crisis for change to really happen. But I believe we can do it, if not for any other reason than that we have no choice. 

The pandemic showed us that we really can rethink things completely and change at a drop of a hat when we have to. And we are already seeing some interesting initiatives that redefine how we think about work. 

The four-day work week or six-hour work day is one example. When we have been doing something in a certain way for as long as we can remember we start seeing it as a truth. But truth be told, the five-day, 40-hour work week is actually a relatively recent phenomenon.

The four-day work week questions what we think we know about efficiency, productivity and dedication. Research has shown that we really aren’t very efficient or productive if we work very long days. It’s not the best use of our time. On the contrary, a shorter week or a shorter work day allows us to be more efficient because we don’t get as tired and we have an easier time combining work with other areas of life. This has been tested in a number of different countries and test results have been very positive. So positive that some organization haven’t looked back since. 

We live in a world where we idealize constant growth and efficiency. Still, resources are finite, both our personal and our planetary ones. We can’t always be efficient; if we don’t pace ourselves we burn out. If we do pace ourselves, it opens up possibilities for creativity, creative thinking and new solutions. Not to mention mental and physical wellbeing.

I know, in a world where organizations struggle to stay competitive, it’s hard to be the one leading the change.

But it’s time, it has to be done.  And we can do it!

P.S. If your organization is doing something different that challenges current thinking – anything, big or small – let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

You can prioritize people and still be very successful

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I’m working on a book again. It’s another book on opting out, but this time it’s out of an organizational perspective. More specifically, I’m writing about what organizations need to do to create working environments that people won’t long to leave. Because studies have shown that a lot of people do. A lot of people dream about opting out.

The situation isn’t all bad. There are of course organizations that do great things and there are a lot of people who are happy in their jobs, that’s true. But it’s also true that organizations can be places of profound suffering. In the past 30 years or so, mental ill-health has skyrocketed, the main reason being work-related stress. Main factors include constant cost cutting and reorganizations, as well as work that is dehumanizing and where people are disrespected and not valued. Did you know that there is something known as Blue Monday? Apparently, people are more likely to have what is thought to be stress-related heart attacks on Mondays than any other day of the week. 

So, this book that I’m working on right now is part of my personal mission to change working life as we know it. 

While doing research for my new book, I stumbled across another book that made a really big impression on me. It’s a book by Rob Chapman and Raj Sisodia called Everyone Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family.

Rob Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a large American industrial company. When he became CEO of the company, he “threw away” traditional management practices like the ones you learn in business school and replaced them with what he calls “a truly human leadership”.

This spoke to me right away because I spend a lot of time telling anyone who will listen that business is personal (contrary to popular belief) simply because it’s about people. And people are personal. Companies love to say that their people are their greatest resource, but honestly, it’s a bit problematic to think of people this way. It’s kind of dehumanizing if you think about. 

Chapman gets this. His thinking is, why do we treat people at work differently than we do people we care about? If we say things at work that we wouldn’t say to our own children, for example, why do we think it’s okay to talk that way to someone else’s child? Chapman’s point is that everyone is someone’s child and everyone should be treated as such. Everyone deserves to be treated with kindness and respect. 

According to Chapman, fostering a people-centric culture is to truly care about every human being whose life the company touches, be it employees, employees’ families, customers, suppliers, business partners… A people-centric culture is about including everyone (not just the very talented, everyone is needed and everyone wants to contribute), keeping them safe and sending them home fulfilled. It’s about respect, it’s about trust, it’s about listening to people, and it’s about treating everyone the same no matter where in the organization they are. 

This people-centric culture was implemented during a financial upswing and things were going well for company. Then when the financial crisis of 2008 hit it was really put to the test. Companies were laying people off everywhere to survive the sudden loss of business, but not Barry-Wehmiller. They were reluctant to do it because layoffs have a profound negative affect on people’s wellbeing. It’s affects them, their lives, their health and their whole families. Not only that, it also really affects the morale of those who don’t lose their jobs, which also affects business. So, they just really didn’t want to have to do that. 

What did they do instead? Well, they thought about what a family would do in a time of crisis. They wouldn’t kick some of the family members out to cut costs. Instead, they would all come together and pitch in in any way that they could so that everyone could make it through the crisis. And this is what they did. They treated the company like a family.

One thing they did was that they decided that everyone had to take a four-week furlough, including members of management. They had a system where everyone was allowed to take the time off when it suited them best. Also, if someone felt they wanted to or could afford it, they could take over some of someone else’s furlough if someone couldn’t afford taking that much time off without pay. When employees realized they weren’t going to lose their jobs, everyone pitched in and people felt committed to do what they could to save the company. They made it through the recession without letting a single person go and they came out of the recession strong, and also faster than the economy as a whole. Already in 2010, they made record earnings and decided to write every employee a check for the salary that they had given up to save the company. 

By the way, did you know that regular restructuring, downsizing and layoffs is a relatively recent phenomenon? It isn’t something companies started doing systematically until1990’s. I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Rightsizing, de-layering, business reengineering, streamlining… these are some of the other euphemisms for the now-routine business practice of eliminating jobs to improve profit. Downsizing has become a reflex response to business adversity…to preserve financial performance, raise investor confidence, and boost share price. We know of one company that deliberately over-hires when times are good so it can let people go and get a bump in the share price when it wants to… Simon Sinek puts it this way: “In the military, they give medals to those who are willing to sacrifice themselves so that other may gain. In business, we give bonuses to those that are willing to sacrifice others so that they may gain.””

                                                               (Chapman & Sisodia, 2015: 95)

If you want to hear Bob Chapman talk about this in his own words, google him. He’s all over the internet. 

If we all know something has got to give, then why is it so hard to change?

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All the years I’ve been researching, writing and talking about opting out and in, sustainable solutions for work and work place wellbeing, I’ve never come across anyone in the organizational world who doesn’t think all this is of the essence. I’ve been at it for a while now, and the whole time my work has been received as timely and important and with great interest. 

Still, even though there is a lot of consensus regarding this, people continue struggling with the same issues at work and more and more of them dream of opting out. 

Okay, before you say anything, I do know that not everything is the same. The pandemic showed us that we can change when we have to and there are a lot of organizations that now provide their employees with more flexibility regarding where, when and how they work. Also, some organizations have started prioritizing mental health more and now have routines and policies in place to support that. 

Nevertheless, there are a lot of organizations that don’t. Some may talk the talk but not walk it, and some – all too many – don’t even talk it. 

Why is this? Why is it so hard to change?

Well, one of the main problems is that the way we understand work; and what we know to be a ‘good’ way of working or organizing our work has become something of a truth. When things have been in a certain way for as long as we can remember, we tend to think that is the natural way for them to be and it becomes hard to even imagine doing things differently. It is simply the way things are done. 

But let me let you in on a secret. The way we understand work isn’t a truth. It isn’t a law of nature, it has been invented and implemented by us and not even that long ago. It’s actually quite a recent invention. 

The current career ideal was developed as a result of industrialization and the prosperity many nations experienced after World War II. Employees were expected to be loyal to one employer and career advancement involved an upward movement in the organization in a timely fashion, brought about by promotions. As mainly men started working in the industries, some argue that the career wasn’t created for one, but one and a half people: the man with the career and the wife who took care of everything he didn’t have time for because he was so tied up at work. 

Although a lot has changed in society since then, this is ironically still the career ideal today: the timely upward movement and the expectation of complete dedication and devotion to work. Anything else it considered suspect, at least if you want to advance to the upper echelons of corporate hierarchies. 

But guess what, we don’t have to organize work the way we do! There is nothing natural or predetermined about it. We can reinvent why we work, how we work and how much we work. 

The problem is just that in order to change we have to want to change. And not only that, we also have to realize that we need to change. We have to have that lightbulb moment. Until we do, and if it’s going well enough, it’ll just feel easier to continue the way we have.  

So how do we do that? How do we get people and organizations to see the light? Do we have to wait until things get so bad that there will be no choice but to change?  

#MeToo, racism and other difficult topics (and a guy who isn’t the least bit creepy)

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I got a notification on Messenger the other day, saying that I had a message from someone who wasn’t my Facebook friend. It happens relatively often, people I don’t know contact me every now and then about my blog or my art. So I checked it out thinking it was probably something like that. However, when I clicked on the notification, the message had been deleted. The person must have changed their mind. The sender was still visible though, and I was curious to see who this person was and what it was all about, so I clicked through to get a better look.  

Having public profiles on social media, I get my share of creepy messages. They are often from guys who must think I look ‘hot’ or something and are looking to be ‘friends’. Their messages usually just contain a ‘Hello there’ and nothing else, and they never change their minds and delete their messages, so I really didn’t think this was anything like that.

So, I clicked through to see who this person was and I thought I recognized him from his profile picture. As a matter of fact, I was pretty sure it was the dad of a sweet, little girl who was friends with my daughter almost two decades ago. My family was located in Sweden at the time and this dad and I were both on parental leave with our daughters and had met through a play group. Our girls got along beautifully and we would sometimes meet up in the park for play dates. I remember them well, I really liked both of them.

We only lived in Sweden for a couple of years. We moved back to Finland and lost touch with many of the people we had met. I had not been in touch with these particular friends since we left and had no idea where or how they were, so I was really happy to see that it was him.

I didn’t think twice. I shot back a message saying I saw that he had tried to contact me and is he so-and-so’s dad? He messaged me back saying yes, he is and that he had found old pictures and decided to see if he could find me on Facebook. But then he had changed his mind after messaging me. Whatever, I didn’t care, I was thrilled. What a blast from the past!

By now we’ve chatted over Messenger a couple of times about old memories of when our girls were little. Sometimes he apologizes in case it seems like he’s prying or if he’s messaged me in the evening. He really doesn’t need to, there has been nothing inappropriate about any of this, but I get the feeling that he just wants to be sure that he won’t offend me or make me feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t want to come across as a creep.

I appreciate that, but let me say right off the bat that this guy has never, ever been even remotely creepy or inappropriate in any sort of way what-so-ever. We had some good conversations as our daughters played and he was always just a really nice guy. 

Being the gender scholar that I am, I thought that was interesting. He was clearly apprehensive that I might misconstrue his motivations for getting in touch after all these years. Maybe it’s just who he his, I don’t know, but what I do know is that a lot has happened since we last met. #MeToo for example. 

The #MeToo movement has been, and continues to be, a hugely important movement. Sometimes I hear comments (mainly from men) about how it has gone a bit too far. I really don’t agree, it hasn’t. On the contrary, it needs to go further because awareness isn’t enough, we also need change and we’re just at the beginning of it. 

One problem, however, is that it is an uncomfortable truth and like all uncomfortable truths, it makes a lot of people feel like they don’t know what to say or how to act. It’s the same with racism, also a hugely important topic, but one that many white people avoid talking about. Many are scared they might say something wrong. I notice it when I write blog posts about difficult issues like these. Unlike other posts, they are usually met with almost complete silence. They hardly even get any likes. 

But back to #MeToo. Every once in a while, I will see frustrated posts and comments about how it is possible that men have become unsure about what is and isn’t appropriate when it comes to women. Do they really not know how to be respectful? Do they really not know what is and isn’t appropriate behavior when interacting with another human being? 

Although I really get where these frustrations are coming from, I also understand guys who all of a sudden feel unsure about what is and isn’t okay and are worried they might say or do something around women that may be considered offensive. How can they know if they’ve never been taught?

We live in a world where inequalities are built into the very structures of our society. Misogynism and racism can be overt, and when they are, they are of course relatively easy to detect and people really should understand that it’s not okay to treat others that way. But in this day and age (because a lot of people know it is not okay to be openly racist or misogynist) it is more often than not rather subtle and difficult to detect, although potentially just as damaging. 

Since #BlackLivesMatter became an international phenomenon in 2020, many white people have started to become aware that they need to listen in order to learn what is and isn’t okay. We are invariably racist, whether we like it or not, since racism is built into the very structures of society where we have been brought up. It’s the way we have been raised and we have to work at being better – at not being racist. 

In the same way, there are probably men (and women) who need to learn what is and isn’t okay to say and do, because we have also been brought up in a very gendered society with very gendered social structures. 

So, when men do feel unsure and ask, we shouldn’t lash back and ridicule them for not knowing. The fact that they are asking is a sign that they are listening. They want to know and they want to unlearn and relearn. 

It is the men who don’t ask and who think they already know that we should be worried about. 

It saddens me that these things are so difficult to talk about. People tend to avoid them like the plague in the fear of seeming ignorant or saying or doing the wrong thing. But the fact is, it is only by talking about these things that we will learn and it is only through dialogue that we will see change. 

And if that old friend of mine is reading this and I completely misinterpreted whole the situation, I apologize. But it did get me thinking, so thank you for that!

Calling all like-minded people!

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I haven’t opted out just once, I’ve done it twice. 

I first opted out of a career in consulting in 2009 to work on a PhD. And then I did it again sometime around 2017, when I realized that I didn’t want an academic career either, at least not the publish-or-perish-in-order-to-reach-full-professor kind. I didn’t leave the academic world, but I did step off the proverbial career ladder to do it on my own terms. 

I had a light-bulb moment when I was reworking a particular paper to be resubmitted to a journal for what felt like the millionth time. Several journals and even more reviewers had me and my cowriter jumping through hoops in what seemed like a never-ending loop of critical feedback, rewriting, rejection, resubmission… While the paper was undoubtedly getting better, much of the time it was also a question of nuances and reviewers’ preferences. And ironically, the actual research results remained the same no matter how many hours we spent revising. 

I realized I was working my butt off for the wrong audience (and not really having a very good time while I was at it). I came to academia from the business world and I have visions for what we need to do to make the world of work a better place for all of us. Reworking a paper ad absurdum and then to not even have it seen by people in the world that I want to impact, frankly just felt like a huge waste of time. 

It was then I realized that it just wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to continue doing research, but I wanted to do it on different terms, on my own terms. 

When I started talking about how I wanted to work, some of my former colleagues seemed genuinely worried. Although I’m touched by their concern, I think it was mostly because I was talking about doing things in a way that they didn’t understand. It seemed unheard of. If you haven’t moved between worlds and seen different ways of working and living, it’s hard to imagine doing things differently and going against the expected. I know it is. Banal as it may sound, it was for me too before I opted out that first time and realized that there are so many ways to live your life and make a living. 

Besides, one of the things I have learned over the years is that there are several paths that lead to the same result. We don’t all have to do things in the exact same way.

At the same time my art took off and before I knew it my professional life had warped into something very exciting and unique. It wasn’t planned, but I thankfully had the presence of mind to let it happen, maybe because I was feeling so frustrated with where I was and what I was doing (or rather how I was doing it). My art was a breath of air. What started as a side gig suddenly grew into a part-time job. 

Now I was not only doing research differently, I was combining it with painting, which must have made it all seem even weirder and harder to understand. I still get asked about what it is I really do. Some ask me if I’ve left the academic world altogether (no I haven’t) or if I’m working as an artist full time (no, not yet anyway, and I’m not even sure that I want to). When people ask me, ‘so do you paint or do research or what?’, I just say ‘yes, all of the above’. I guess it must seem like a whacky combination, even though it makes perfect sense to me. 

But it can also make things tricky. If what you’re doing is hard to define, marketing yourself and your products and services can be challenging. People feel comfortable with what they recognize, and a researcher-writer-storyteller-consultant-artist may be hard to, recognize that is.

And then there is the business of finding your group. We all need supportive people in our lives and having your own reference group, be it colleagues, collaborators, friends or networks, can really make all the difference. You need people who you can discuss ideas with. You need people who can give advice when you’re stuck. You need people who can cheer you on when the going gets tough. This is hard to do for someone who doesn’t understand what you’re doing, so friends and family who may be hugely important in your life and who mean well are not necessarily helpful in this respect. 

I do have people in my life who can cheer me on, but being a researcher-writer-storyteller-consultant-artist with my own business can also be lonely at times. I’m thinking there are probably a lot of us out there who could really use each other’s professional input and support. 

So, in an attempt to grow my own reference group, I’m calling all like-minded people. If you’re doing things on your own terms and could use a supportive group, let me know. Maybe we can set up an international group of so-called opt outers. Or if you’re in the Helsinki area, maybe we could have a group meet up at The Art Place. Coffee is on me! 

You can message me through one of my social media accounts or email me at theoptingoutblog@gmail.com

I look forward to hearing from you!

Knowing when to say yes and when to say no

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Many years ago, I was approached by a company that wanted me to be the representative of their coaching method in Finland. As a part of that process they invited me to take their test to find out exactly what kind of a person I was. It was a relatively short questionnaire and I admit I can’t really remember very much about it, except that based on the questions you were defined either as a ‘yes-sayer’ or a ‘no-sayer’. In the discussion that followed the test, it became clear that yes-sayers were considered good and desirable in the work environment, no-sayers weren’t. 

I was told I was a no-sayer.

I found this mildly amusing, although also somewhat irritating because based on the test they obviously didn’t know me at all. On the contrary, I have always had a hard time saying no, to a point of it actually being problematic for me, and especially around that time in my career I was definitely not one to say no in work situations. 

It seemed, however, that critical thought, which is so important in any situation, was easily translated to no-saying. Needless to say, in that situation I did have the presence of mind to say no and I didn’t take on the representation of their method. It was an easy decision, flattered as I was by their interest in me. I just didn’t believe in it. 

But always saying yes, being a yes-sayer as that coaching company would have it, isn’t necessarily always good. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard mainly people in the corporate world talk about how they don’t want to work with people who always say no to anything new and innovative and that they want to have people around them who say yes. Yes, I can see the appeal of that, but let’s also not underestimate the value of having people around you who can think critically. 

I’ve actually had to practise saying no. I have easily ended up taking on too much, or just been dragged into things I don’t really want to be a part of just because saying no has been difficult for me. A former colleague of mine used to celebrate the times she managed to say no and made a mark in her calendar. 

But just like always saying yes, saying no all the time isn’t good either. If we always say no we never take any risks and we never find ourselves on unexpected but meaningful and potentially successful paths. We never do anything out of our comfort zone and we may miss important opportunities that may not have been on the horizon.

The trick is to know when to say yes and when to say no. In fact, a wise friend of mine, Amanda Backholm, said the other day that knowing when to say yes and when to say no is actually a superpower. 

Those who follow me know that when I’m not doing research, I paint on silk and it has become a second job for me. It’s deeply fulfilling, not to mention fun, and I’m thankful every day that I had the presence of mind to just let it happen when the opportunity presented itself. I ignored all those voices of doubt in my head and I quickly said yes to queries of commissions and exhibitions before I could change my mind. 

I don’t always get it right, I’m not sure whether I have that superpower or not. Maybe that is something I will know only when looking back at this part of my life. 

However, getting it right every time isn’t crucial. Every once in a while, you will miss an opportunity you should have taken, or turned something down that you maybe shouldn’t have. But don’t worry. Mistakes can be corrected, minds can and should be changed if needed, and new opportunities always come a long. There are many roads out there that you can take (if you want to), you just have to keep your eyes and your mind open in order to notice them. 

And if you just don’t want to, that’s fine too.

You’re on the right track

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I feel like I just scaled a mountain. I launched my webstore yesterday. 

Getting the webstore set up has been on my to do list since last summer when I first decided it was what I wanted to do. When I first started looking into it, I felt like I was standing in the middle of a jungle and had no idea in which direction to start walking. I just didn’t know where to start and I suddenly acutely missed all the tech support departments I have worked with and have had access to during my professional life, departments that I am embarrassed to say I took for granted. Now that I am on my own and have to do every single thing myself, I finally appreciate what I no longer have. Little did I know the amount of work that goes into what they always make seem to effortless. (I apologize profusely to all the wonderful tech support professionals who have helped me over the years!)

Fast forward to the present. I can tell you I have really learned a lot. I have had to figure it all out: shipping solutions, payment methods, return policies… not to mention the actual software that I had to get my head around just to get the information on to my website. At times, it has been really frustrating and I have all but changed my mind about the whole thing. When I haven’t been able to figure something out or struggled to get something to work to the point of it feeling almost hopeless, I have learned that it is best to just stop, take a break, and come back the next day.

It was at a time like this when I received an uncannily well-timed email from Susan David. You may have heard of her. She is a psychologist and an expert on emotional agility. I have signed up for her newsletter. If you want you can do so too here. 

This particular newsletter was about emotional difficulty and how it isn’t necessarily an indicator of anything actually being wrong. Susan talks about how one shouldn’t mistake “an uncomfortable part of the creative process for a symptom of dysfunction that must be stamped out.” In reality, according to her, it actually often means we are on the right track. 

She had my full attention. Did the fact that I couldn’t seem to get my head around how the shipping template worked just be a part of my creative process? It was stressing me out, to say the least. However, when I read the newsletter, banal as it may sound, it was like Susan was telling me not to let it get to me, that feeling the way I was, is completely normal. It wasn’t just me, and it didn’t mean that I was on the wrong track. Thank you for that, Susan!

Her advice is to first let yourself process these emotions. They are valid and they are bound to emerge. Second, she recommends to try to reframe these experiences not as roadblocks but as evidence that you are actually taking steps to achieve your goals. 

Well, that was definitely what I was doing, I was setting up a webstore for crying out loud! And, as it turned out, the next morning, after having slept on it, I had a light-bulb moment and figured the whole shipping thing out. 

And I did it! Yesterday I finally crossed ‘webstore’ off my to do list and I can tell you, it felt pretty great. 

So check it out! You can find it at www.theartplacefinland.com

Learning about men and what they have to live up to

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When I set out to research men, I admittedly felt a little daunted by the task. I mean, would I as a woman be able to really understand what it means to be a man? Would I be able to give an accurate account of the opting out and in experiences of the men in my research project? This is something that gender scholars spend a lot of time thinking about. For example, how do I as a researcher affect the research and how does my position and perspective color the way I see the world? These are important things to reflect over. Although researchers strive to be as neutral as possible in the face of their task, we are all human and how we understand and interpret things are invariably affected by who we are.

Anyway, so when I embarked on my research project on men opting out, I set out with the intention of learning as much as I could about men and what it is like to be a man from as many sources as possible. I basically read everything about men that I could get my hands on, from research to fiction, hoping to become enlightened and better prepared for my task. I was expecting to learn a lot.

Well, the feeling of a new world opening up to me never really happened. It was almost a bit anticlimactic because I kept looking for that source that would provide me with some Earth-shattering insights, but it never came. I was starting to wonder whether I was missing something or just not seeing whatever must have been right in front of me all along. 

I mean as a sociologist and a person who has just always been interested in people and psychology in general, I already knew a lot about the societal expectations we place on men. I mean who hasn’t heard about what a ‘real’ man is and should or shouldn’t to. You know what I mean, things like men don’t cry, men shouldn’t show weakness, the strong silent type… But I thought there must be something more. 

Okay to be fair, I did learn a lot. For example, I did learn about social codes among men that I had no idea existed. That is, how men interact with each other. But on a whole, I have to say I was really struck by how stereotypical everything I was reading about really was. 

The social expectations on men are to this day really very one dimensional. Men are in a nutshell expected to be manly, strong, competitive, stoic, unafraid and definitely not show too much emotion or any weakness of any kind. The media depiction of men, whatever the genre, is also very stereotypical. It was actually quite disheartening to tell you the truth. The reason is that I know as a researcher who has interviewed men and as a person who knows men that these one-dimensional ideals of what a man should be don’t even nearly describe what real men in the real meaning of the word really are like. They are also difficult to live up to.

Men and women alike are multidimensional. We are all human, and part of being human is experiencing the whole range of emotions that are available to us. We are strong and we are weak, and we are all vulnerable at certain times in different ways. We all need love and closeness and we all have meaningful relationships we want to nurture. And we all cry. It’s part of being human.

The fact that men and boys are discouraged to partake in much of this saddens me. Researching men has taught me that social masculine ideals are very problematic in many ways as they foster violence on many levels in society (including in the home and at work) and have a negative and sometimes detrimental impact on men’s health. I put my hope in younger generations. Research has also taught me that, thankfully, there are a lot of young men who are breaking these unrealistic and unhealthy masculine norms.  

The truth is, that talking about the difference between men and women is actually not really very helpful at all. Even though there are biological differences, obviously, the actual differences in what we are like as people and what we need are really not that great. There are greater differences within the sexes than between the sexes. All men are certainly not alike, nor are all women, and thank goodness for that! So, the idea that all men should act in a certain way is simply ludicrous.

On that note, I have been going over the proofs for my book Men Do It Too: Opting Out and In this week. I don’t have an exact publication date yet, but it will be some time during the summer. In my book I write in-depth about all this, about men and the expectations placed on them; about how that plays out and the impact it has on their lives and life decisions; and what it is they want and need and how they go about creating meaningful lives. I will keep you posted!  

Remote working: why does it have to be either or?

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When I opted out in 2009 to start working on a PhD, I also started working from home. My university department and colleagues were literally on the other side of the planet, because instead of enrolling at a university closer to home, I of course chose one that was pretty much as far away as you can get. I like to joke about that because it sounds so crazy, but actually it made a lot of sense, and in hindsight I clearly see what a wise choice it was for me in many ways. 

But the point is that I went from a job in consulting where I was expected to be at the office every day, to setting up a home office and always working there. For me personally it was wonderful. I like working at home. I like being alone, I find it easier to concentrate and I don’t get distracted by laundry or unmade beds or other non-job-related things that need fixing. Besides, my kids were quite young at the time and things tended to be so intense after school and daycare, that the quiet of my work day was pure bliss. 

However, in 2009, when I opted out, working from home, or any other place than the office, was not a widespread practice. To be honest, although some organizations have had a remote working policy and made it possible for employees at least some of the time, more organizations haven’t. Face time has been considered essential – you know, if you don’t see your employees how do you know that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing? (For those of you who haven’t realized this yet, seeing them is no guarantee. If they aren’t doing what they are expected to do the problem has little to do with them being there physically or not.)

It wasn’t until this past year when people were forced to stay at home, that many organizations that previously had been reluctant, had to try remote working in earnest. And surprise surprise, they realized that not only was it possible, for some it was better than working in the office. But many have also realized, that having people work in different physical places, puts new expectations on managers and work routines. You cannot lead people in the same way you would if you were all in the same location. This is the reason that the lockdown remote working experience of 2020 has generally been most draining and stressful for managers. They haven’t been able to just fall back on familiar routines.

But this is all fine and good. It is lightbulb moments like these that lead to changed behavior and new practices. However, one thing continues to baffle me. Just as many have previously held that their employees need to be physically present at all times for things to work, now I see debates about how always working remotely really can be a strain and difficult in many ways. I get the feeling it might be a defensive reaction of sorts to all the hype we’ve seen around remote working during the past few months? I mean, it turns a lot of the assumptions we’ve had about working life for a long time on their head. 

But who says working remotely has to mean never coming in to the office at all? Why would it have to be a question of either or? 

Even when employees are presented with the option to work remotely, some will want to continue going to the office every day. A study has shown that few people are like me, and most people prefer a combination of the two. And I think that makes perfect sense. It allows people to come in and meet colleagues, have face-to-face discussions, have in-person meetings…. But it also allows people to work from home or somewhere else when they need to and gain more control over where, when and how they work. My own research has shown that this is something people find extremely important, mainly because it increases quality of life. Simply put, it just makes life easier. 

So yes, having to work remotely all the time is not necessarily a good thing. We have seen that during the pandemic. Although many have reported that they are more productive, they have also reported that they feel tired and miss their colleagues. But that does not mean that we should forget working remotely altogether. Allowing people to have a combination – the best of both worlds – is very doable, as is allowing them to decide what they want their mix to look like. 

And yes, it involves a change of management routines.