Fight Less At Work

This week on Works for Me, we get grilled m. Welcome to Works for Me, the show where we test out productivity strategies on our own personal problems to find out if they'll work for you. I'm back at Greenfield and I'm Francesco Leavy. This week it's Francesco's turn and Becca's turn to tackle a thorny workplace problem. We're doing things a bit differently this week. Instead of one of us taking on something we're struggling with at work, we're

going to solve a problem together. Yeah. So we're right in the middle of making this first season of our show, and we realized that we have a work issue we could both address how to work together better as a team. We're in close contact a lot for this podcast and naturally attentions arise. But we also realized we've never treated our own collaboration as a thing to work on. We've

just kind of taken it for granted. Yeah, like any team, we we have conflict, We get into fights, and we don't really address though I wouldn't say we avoid them, but we've never taken the time to sit down and talk through how we feel about a conflict about it. We just move, keep on keeping, keep on moving. And I think that's true for most teams of people working closely together. You do the work, sometimes there's these little moments of frustration, and you just keep on going with

the work. You know, actually consider the relationship. So that's what we're gonna do this week. We're going to focus on how to work better together. So the first thing we did was we went out and found a duo that's been working together well for years. I am Erica Cerulo, one of the co founders of a kind of business that I started with one of my best friends from college, Claire Maser, and I'm Claire Maser. I'm the other half of this of a kind co founding work life writing team.

Claire and Erica have been friends for seventeen years and business partners for nine, and they spent a long time

figuring out how to make their working relationship thrive. I would say one of the things that we've learned over the course of our relationship is a willingness to be vulnerable with one another, to not be afraid that if you express that you're overwhelmed, or that you know stuff's not going well, or you don't feel great about a project, to not be afraid that the other person is going to judge you forward and be like, oh, she's really fallen off. And I think the other thing that goes

hand in hand with that is transparency. I think the more you can share with one another, whether that be about you know, context of your professional life outside of just your relationship, or even context of your personal life, the more that helps inform the other person's understanding of everything, including your vulnerabilities. Claire and Erica also believe that the

power of female friendship has helped them succeed. For their new book, Work Life, coming out in March, they talk to other successful female payers to explore what special about women working together we think about the qualities of female friendship that when they start becoming part of the workplace,

reshape the workplace. Just the caretaker role that women often play by nature of the way our society works and has worked, means that they bring more fluidity and so by lee with these qualities like compassion and vulnerability and

emotional transparency, you just create a totally different environment. What I like about their point of view is that they treat being women like an asset and not a liability, like I think a lot of the times that when people talk about women working together, there are a lot of negative stereotypes about it, and they instead their whole take is women actually bring qualities to working together that

make businesses better and hopefully podcasts. So our problem is that we think we could work better as a team. Ideally we'd work together as well as Claire and Erica do. So we dug a little deeper with them to figure out how they got to such a healthy place, and Claire told us they see a management coach. It's not necessarily right for everybody, but when you're working really closely with some one day and and day out, it can

be huge. We say that he's one part executively ship, one part therapist, and one part marriage counselor clarien Erica essentially go to couples therapy. I know, I was kind of relieved to hear that that they weren't just born perfect collaborators. And also I had no idea that there were people who do that, who will just be your work wife couple therapists. I love it. So that's this week's experiment. We're going to find a management coach and

see if one session can help us improve our working relationship. Well, consider the experiment as success if a week after our session we've implemented any of the coach's tips to solve a problem. I'm extremely nervous. I'm just terrified at the idea of having to kind of think through this stuff and talk openly about it. It's a weird thing to do at work. It's way easier to just let it fuster.

We found a management coach named Ben Micalis, who, according to his website, Dr ben Micalis dot com, is an elite performance coach for CEOs and business partners. He costs four hundred dollars an hour procession, so not cheap. Before we met him in person, then asked us to take some time to think about our relationship. He wanted us to send an email with some things we liked about working together and some things we didn't. But this part definitely made it feel real for me. I don't know

about you. Yeah, it was like uncomfortable to put to words my thoughts and feelings. Yeah, and I knew you were never going to read the email because we sent separate emails to him, and even just writing down my private thoughts about what I thought we could work on was nerve wracking without dangerous. Then after that stressful experience, the day of the session arrived, I feel like I'm like interviewing right now with the two of you, like like I mean, like the job. Ben met us on

a Friday morning. We sat down facing each other, made some small talk, and got started, and now we're just going to play you an edited version of what happened next. So you know, I'm I'm pretty direct, and so I'm gonna ask questions and if you don't want to answer them, like feel free to just not answer them. But I actually my goal is for both of you to actually have real takeaways at the end of today, so that

like you actually have some things to to use. So this is not just helpful for people outside, but for the two of you. What would you say, Becca, is one of your favorite things about working with Francesca? Yeah, yeah, you can say several of them. Well, I like, I mean, we like each other, Like I like hanging out with somebody who's I like to hang out with. We talk about a lot of things, and we have similar interests and like talking about the same thing. So that's cool

and really fun. And then more on like a work note that I think to a lot of good big picture ideas, so like this as our idea. I have a hard time timing up with ideas. Everyone does, so it's nice to work with somebody who came up with good ideas that you get to work on. That's so nice. And how about you, Um, well, I would say the same thing that like, I think we're we're compatible as friends.

She's really thoughtful about giving critiques and edits. She'll go through a script and or an episode and give me her thoughts on it. And she's not she's not rude, but she's direct about what you know she thinks needs to be changed, and I'll usually agree, or if I don't like, we'll talk through it and we'll come to another decision. Obviously, the two of you really like each other,

you really respect each other, and which is great. So really we're we're doing is we're looking at sort of optimizing your relationship, which is a great, great place to be. So what we're going to move into now is I'm gonna ask you about some things that have been challenges between the two of you, and I'm going to let either of you start. I can start, okay, since Becca started with the nice things. UM So I am really oversubscribed with all of my other work, and that's my fault.

But UM, I feel like that sometimes assumes that I I'm just not working hard enough on this project because I'm not or because I'm you know, I'm putting an offer and being lazy. And I think that I have often had to triage, and I have found myself triaging, and I have bumped this show down the priority list at times, and so I think that that pisces back off. And then I think that she will sometimes demand a lot of time for the show, or request a lot

of time for the show. Um in a way that makes me feel a little bit like she just doesn't she doesn't think I'm working hard enough on it, but I I feel like I also just have other things to do. Any thoughts about that, By the way, thank you very much for Well it's it's true. You're right. I get frustrated, like I want us to work on it, but it's not like I don't think you're not working on other things. Like I know why that's happened. I know you're busy, but I also think you're not. You've

never told me that. I mean, it's really interesting to hear Becca say while she understands, and while she understands in the abstract that I have other work to do, I've never actually said this day or this week is dedicated for me this particular other project which would be very easy to do, and I haven't done it, and I think my guilt gets in the way. How do you communicate like over the course of like, okay, we're working on this podcast, how does that information gets get

transmitted between the two of you? For I know it's a bit of a ham fisted question, but like like how are we doing it now? Yeah? How are you communicating what what like the workload for a week? I mean in our chat? Okay, sorry I'm cutting you off, but I sort of set you up for that when you're communicating emotional information like oh, this is not going away. I thought it would if you can do it in person.

If if you're going to need to push a deadline or if you're trying to push back, do it in person. You're entitled to be upset if a deadline isn't respected. But I do think that if you communicate like your disappointment visually, what does that do does a couple of things. It Actually there's a real consequence for you not having kept up the agreement is the emotional consequence of seeing

your partner be disappointed. So it makes you less likely to do it in the future because you're like, oh, I don't want to I don't want to do that. And you actually can soften some of the disappointment through communicating face to face, but you can do it in a way that's empathic as opposed to online. Everything gets lost, and I do find that a lot of fights between partners or disagreements happen because of the lack of context

on those channels. I get meeting face to face completely, but I don't necessarily need to understand Beca's disappointment because I feel like I anticipate because disappointment at all times understood. But one of the things that I'm trying to actually

help with is increase the reliability of the signal. So because you anticipate things, Becka might be like, you know, having a week where she's just like hanging out drinking Margarita's at her desk, which happens all the time, I understand, Or she may be anticipating a vacation, or or she may be under some other deadline. And I think that

you imagine more disappointment than is actual. Um, okay, so I have a question for you, Um, what are one of her couple of Francesca's buttons, things that like she just does not like that do not work for Francesca. Oh my goodness, I have to think about that. Do

you know what your buttons are? I mean, the only thing I can really think of when it comes to our relationship is when you're just expressing like your frustration that time frame is being compressed, or that a deadline is going to be master that we're not going to get down what we expected to get done. Um, it'll come out as like okay, but guys, were really you know now we're really pushing it, are now really behind on time, and I feel like UM talked down to So.

I was thinking about how these things get communicated, and I'm wondering if you switch the language to UM, so I understand that we need to push the deadline. It just it makes me very nervous. And it's sort of a soft emotion that you're holding that you're expressing, as opposed to not even that you express a heart emotion,

but you're reading a heart emotion, UM. And so being conscious of the fact that Francesca actually tends to read hard emotions because UM, of some of the check try guilt, like some of the guilt that you you expressed that if you if you own it and you say it just makes me a little bit nervous, it may have a better effect as opposed to feeling like like feeling like Becca's becas pissed at me. Yeah, that seems right.

I am conscious that I can sometimes be harsh and people are like, you're direct, like if they say that in a nice way, But I also know that means I know what that means. Would it help if I responded with the way I was feeling about it? If I was like, I'm also nervous about this. I just feel like it's assumed or it's understood or should be understood that I'm also worried about all these deadlines and

worried about getting things done on time. Would it help if I communicated that better in the moment where but I'm like, guys, I'm really worried about this, but I can't see any other way then for us to push this two days. Yeah. I think sometimes it comes off as like you're more laws I fair about it, and like it'll just get done in the time and it'll get done because that's what we have. And it's like, my, uh, I don't know. So by doing that, you're you're joining Becca.

It's like, hey, I'm with you on this. I feel I feel nervous about this too. You know, how can we solve this? Think that that's going to be a far more effective way of you strengthening the relationship as opposed to eroding the trust. Cool. Yeah, I think that I had. It's my style sometimes where I have a tendency to under communicate those feelings. I kind of like lockdown and I become defensive because I'm like Becca doesn't think I care, and then I reinforce that by not

expressing that I care. So that's a weird self self sabotaging thing that I do. Um, But I I think I just need to not be not reading Becca's concern as like an indictment of me and actually be open about the fact that I'm concerned too. One thing that I think, um, we tend to do especially now, but is like the idea is that everything is an emergency. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a really high standard of quality for your work product, but also realized

like it's really not an emergency. I think I saw from that, and that just seems like in our work lives. Everything in my work life, like everything is like a reflection of who I am, and like everything is the most important thing. So I think, yeah, it feels higher stakes, and maybe we need I need to dial down the stakes a little bit. Like it's a fun, frankly very silly show about productivity and it might not be perfect.

You know, there's nothing in nature is perfect. It doesn't exist, right, and like taking that burden off of yourself, but also the imperfection is the show, you know, is the whole thing, and it's like for me anyway, it's the things that are imperfect that are interesting, and like it's the moments where things don't go right that you get to really I mean, you know it sounds a little tripe, but you do get to learn about yourself and it's it's

kind of fun. That's you know, that's basically it. I mean usually like you kind of have the takeaways, um, and so I would have you guys sort of work on those things together and see how it's going, if it's if it's improving, it's not improving, um, and then you know that would be the next step. Yeah. Well, we happened to be in the midway point of this season for this show that we're doing, so there are many of these we can apply these experiences to come

thank you, thank you. This is so good. Yeah. How did you feel after that session with Ben? I was exhausted and I felt like I needed to go home and take a nap. Yeah. It was the first thing we did in the morning, and I couldn't believe I had a whole day ahead of me where I had to do more. I just had to go back to our desks and act like it was a normal work day,

but I felt good about it. We we said things that needed to be said, we didn't hurt each other's feelings too much, and we realized we were much more aligned on a lot of things than we thought we were. Yeah, you didn't call me I mean b In fact, some of the things that I thought you didn't like about me, you actually like about me. So yeah, I thought it was productive and I took away three specific tips that I think we could use going forward in our relationship.

So the first one I would say is that we could communicate more face to face. Ben was pretty adamant about that. The second one is try to remind ourselves that not everything is an emergency all the time. And the third one is that we can talk about our emotions more when we're communicating instead of telling the other person what we think they need to do. Yeah, so the next step was to see if any of these tips actually work. We'll see how that went after the break.

So now it's a few days after we've met with Ben and he's given us some tips, But honestly, we weren't thinking about them that much because we were busy trying to wrap up an episode of this show, and

then something happened. Becca. You requested a last minute change to an episode that was about to be published, and you did it over chat I know, and you had left for the day and you didn't get to sign off on the change, which is what needed to happen, but it ended up going through anyway, and you were understandably not happy about it. Yeah, so I sent you kind of a terse message over chat, basically saying it's too late to do anything about this now, but I

don't like the way we handled this. And then of course it dawned on me this was the perfect opportunity to test out Ben's advice to handle these things in person and not as we were doing over chat. So the next morning we found a spot to sit in the newsroom to talk over our issues. So last night I was annoyed about something that happened over chat after

I left the office. First, I'm sorry that had happened that way, Like, I agree that we should not be doing last minute and it's let the person who owns the episode, which you did, does not get to sign off on. And I kind of, in back my mind knew that was happening, but we were both less like chaosma or you were. I was running to an appointment and it was five am. I think maybe you felt more strongly about it than I gave you credit for,

because you said I want this edit. I had taken a bunch of your other edit it's on a previous draft, and then I had said this one thing that you said I don't really agree with. I think we should keep it in. Yeah, And then you heard it in the final draft of the show that was right about to be published, and you were like, I still don't like this, And that was the thing I didn't have a chance to respond to. It wasn't just an edit

I didn't like. It was something where I like the way I've not sounded that I was saying something I don't want to be on the record saying, and don't be in and I think that I don't know how to like quotify this. I'm not sure if we can.

But it's if you ever were like, I don't want to say this on tape, I feel like there should be some sort of clause clause, and like making a show where it's like if you ever were like I hate people who juggle, and then you were like, great, I don't believe that, but I think I could have explained that to you in person and also be more

clear about it. I understood that you felt like you you weren't represented well and this thing that you said, and I felt like you were overreacting, and so I think probably I didn't understand the extent to which I bothered you. And then I also kind of was like, I think she's overthinking this. Like I think to me that moment when I listened to it sounded perfectly incu like a perfectly omacuous exchange. And I think that probably what needed to happen was you needed to communicate to me,

I don't like this. You're not getting why I don't like this, But this isn't about This is about, yeah, something about me that I don't want on tape. I think that the not to get too bad about it, But I think the value of talking face to face is that the issue I thought we were having was that we had is that like I was like, well, this this is my episodes where I should be the final sign off, which I think, but you basically agree

with that. Yeah, Well, I'm glad we didn't let it continue to unfold over chat because this is a busy morning and that would have been easy to do. Yeah, I feel like we came to two important points, which is that like, the one who owns that episode should on the episode and we should be respectable of that. And we should also be mindful if there's like times and episodes people really feel uncomfortable with what they're saying

and tried to express that better. I think we should have a paganism though, Like I don't want anyone to feel like they can't say like, no, you sound good, and we keep it in because I think that instinct is right too. We should be like I'm invoking yeah, I'm invoking the you know, personal discomfort clause. Yeah. I will say, as somebody who does like face to face encounters,

that one even better than I thought it would. You were in paradise, that was so face to face, and it would have been a bigger fight if it had stayed on chat, yeah, because we would have just kept kind of missing each other's main point and staying annoyed

privately about the things we were annoyed about. So I honestly felt bad about sending you a snotty chat message at like nine thirty at night the minute after I did it, and then I was nervous about sitting together and talking about it, and then so relieved that we did. And I think that we we came away from it understanding something that we didn't understand before, which is that's

the whole idea. Yeah, I agree. I will say that we spent twenty minutes talking about this one chat, and I don't know how people how we're supposed to do that for all of our interpersonal conflicts like that seems. I think if we had snotty chat arguments every day, we would have to probably be more efficient about the I r L conversations. But this doesn't come up that often. It's not that common that we have a real life, bona fide conflict like this. Maybe like every two or

three weeks, once a month, I don't know. So we could do a twenty minute we could do a twenty minute heart to heart every month. Yeah, alright, let's we'll try to commit to that. I don't even like you want to do it twenty hard to heart every day right now. I think it's fair to say we enjoyed a lot of these experiences, but the measure of success for our experiment was if we used a tip that we learned from our coach and it worked, then we would consider it a success. Would you say that we

did it? I think we did. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean we wouldn't have talked face to face if it hadn't been for Ben, And the face to face talk was way more fruitful than a chat conversation would have been, So I think that equals it worked. Yes. Agree. I think we need to say that seeing Ben is not a reasonable option for most people who are just working on work projects with their cut workers. Yeah, they don't have four out of pocket to spend on improving their

work relationships. But I do you think it is I able to work on your work relationship And that's something that Erica, who we talked to earlier said is a skill that most of us aren't trained for. I think if companies were smart, they would pick up the slack here a little bit, like maybe not invest in four management coaches for everybody, but do some training around this with their employees and take it seriously as something people

need to work on. I don't know I would be down for a certain company to continue paying for four therapy sessions. I don't know it's a good idea. Next week on Works for Me, Francesco cleans out her inbox. Where would you say I rank and like among all the people you work with? Am I like the worst about email? Or am I in the middle? Or am I post to the bottom? I don't think you're at the very bottom, but you're near the bottom. Thanks for

listening to another episode of Works for Me. If you like our show, head on over at to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts and rate, review and subscribe. This show was hosted by me Backa Greenfield and Me Francesca Leivie. And if you have a workplace problem you're trying to solve, we'd love to hear about it. So leave us a voicemailt with two one to six one seven zero six and we might use it on the show. Or you could tweet at us I'm at Francesca today

and I'm at rs Greenfield. You can find more great Works for Me content on our show page at Bloomberg dot com slash Work for Me, where we also have illustrations done by Jordan's Spear. The show was produced by Cooper four Hits and Francis Bellivia is Bloomberg's head of podcast