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Early in my (Chantals) career, my manager, Scott, shared something in my annual review that Ill never forget. My sarcastic sense of humor made some people uncomfortable. He recommended that I “tone it down a bit.” I felt embarrassed and defensive. Since I was young, Id always leveraged humor to connect and signal mental acuity. The feedback made me question what I thought I knew. Was my presumed superpower actually a liability? The conversation rattled me, and I didnt know what to do with the feedback. So often, early-career professionals enter the workforce and receive technical feedback from managers: fix code this way, prepare for a check-in using this template, sequence slides like this for a presentation. This type of feedback is helpful. Too often though, managers are nervous to share behavioral feedback (like what Scott gave to me). They worry that itll come across as too subjective and therefore not valid or offensive to the receiver. These are reasonable concerns, but unfortunately, perception can impact how your career progresses. It might be jarring (and unfair) to receive this kind of feedback, but you can actually use it to your advantage. If youre lucky enough to have a manager who gives behavioral feedback, heres how to move from unproductively rattled to productively responsive. This way, you can leverage the feedback to grow professionally. Be open (not defensive) As humans, we are wired to self-protect ourselves from danger. Research shows that feedback activates the brains threat response. As a result, it can be difficult to accept feedback. To resist a fight, flee or freeze reaction, start by giving yourself grace. As humans, we all have blind spots. That doesnt mean were not good enough the way we are. Then remind yourself that every piece of feedback is one persons perspective, not a fact. Were allowed to hold it at arms length, examine it, and decide if accepting it would support our professional development. When we are “at choice,” we can treat feedback with curiosity, which encourages growth. Practice gratitude Saying thank you releases dopamine and contributes to overall well-being. This is a great antidote to the “fear of not being good enough,” which we often experience when confronted with difficult feedback. Take a moment to appreciate the thoughtfulness of the person who is trying to help you develop and explicitly thank them. This might sound like, I imagine sharing that feedback was difficult, and Im really grateful you did. Its important I understand how Im experienced by others. Thank you. Ask open-ended questions Resist asking the feedback deliverer for numerous examples to back their point. Remember, its not a litigation. This approach will ensure that you dont receive useful feedback from them in the future. Instead, get curious about their experience of you with follow-up questions like, How did that affect you? What else feels important for me to know? What advice, if any, do you have for me? Resist doing the opposite When we receive difficult feedback, it can be tempting to respond by doing the opposite of what weve been doing. But, critical behavioral feedback we receive is often an overdone strength, not a behavior to abandon entirely. For example, one client, Izzy, exuded optimism. She always saw the best in colleagues or opportunities and could frequently be heard saying, Dont worry, itll all work out! and Sure, its possible, no problem. Unfortunately, over time, her relentless positivity started eroding her reputation. Some people perceived her to be naive and thought that she lacked critical thinking skills. Upon hearing this feedback, Izzy felt self-conscious and began to shift her behavior in a dramatic way. She wanted to prove that she could operate with a skeptical eye, It sounds like I should always be the devils advocate in the room, she said. But this reaction would have created a host of other issues. Other colleagues suddenly saw her as overly negative or even inauthentic. Instead, to support Izzys growth, we worked together to invite a little more critical judgment into her leadership to complement her gift of seeing whats possible. When you get tough feedback, instead of over-dialing, figure out specific behaviors that you might be exaggerating. And then, rather than trying to adjust the dial by 180 degrees, try to change it by just 20 degrees. Make small adjustments How do you adjust just 20 degrees? Experiment with new behaviors. Make the experiments small, easy, and playful so they feel appealing versus daunting. For example, my client, Drew, received feedback that he “talked too much and came off as a know-it-all in meetings.” So he decided to conduct an experiment. For a week, he committed to practicing affirming someone elses idea and asking a curious question when someone contributed in meetings before saying what he thought. This sounded like, “Lisa, I see how that could help progress things. Who else do you think we could involve to make it happen?“ At the end of the week, he reflected on how it went, what he learned, and what he wanted to do more or less of the next week. This type of experimentation enabled incremental growth that led to meaningful shifts in how others saw him. The importance of feedback All of us need to receive feedback to hone and continue to grow our skills. For me (Chantal), I started paying closer attention to the way my humor landed with colleagues. I started noticing when my sarcasm enhanced connection and the times when too much levity diminished psychological safety or signaled less professional behavior. Scotts feedback equipped me to use my superpower more skillfully and navigate the nuanced professional realmwith greater effectiveness. Ultimately, we must all know if our humor isnt landing, our communication is too blunt, or our empathy is overbearing. When we have the courage to hear about how others see us at work and are willing to adjust our behavior, were able to have a bigger impact in our careers and in life.
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E-Commerce
Insincerity is the mother of deceit. Whenever we say something we don’t mean, we tell a lie. It may be a small misrepresentation, but its still a lie as we are being dishonest to hide what we truly think and feel. Repeated insincerity breaks down trust, communication, and understanding. So why do organizations, often without even knowing it, encourage insincerity in their employees? The answer lies a little with social media and a lot in narcissism. NARCISSISTS, NARCISSISTS, EVERYWHERE Since the early 1980s, psychologists have been tracking a steady rise in narcissism: a growing self-consciousness and preoccupation with our image and what other people say about us. The exact cause remains unclear. Changes in parenting styles, increasing individualism, and a cultural obsession with self-esteem have all been blamed. Social media has accelerated the trend, but the rise started well before the likes of Facebook arrived, with one large study of college students finding a 30% increase in levels of narcissism in the 25 years leading up to Facebooks launch. Whatever the cause, the effect has been widespread. People have grown more sensitive to how others view them. You can see it in how people curate a personal brand on Instagram and a professional one on LinkedIn. Cancel culture and political leaders appearing to prize loyalty over competence have hammered home the message: Be careful what you say and do or risk the consequences. Even if it isnt top of mind, the pressure sits in our culture and shapes our behavior. ORGANIZATIONS, TOO And its not just individuals that are becoming more narcissistic, but organizations, too. Because around the same time as psychologists started tracking rises in individual narcissism, they also identified what has come to be called organizational narcissism. Firms increasingly seek visible loyalty from their employees, and emphasize the importance of everyone being aligned and on the same page. As with individuals, organizations have always focused on image to some degree, but evidence suggests they are doing so more than ever before. Broad social forces play a role. Leaders, like individuals, now obsess over reputation. Social media and cancel culture have forced firms to guard their online image. With any message able to spread globally in seconds, firms understandably try to control what employees say about them. Some positive factors, such as organizations investing more in motivating and communicating with employees feed into this. But less positive factors matter to. If todays CEOs are more narcissistic or image-conscious than they were 30 years ago, then they may create a culture in which perceived disloyalty is less tolerated. All this drives organizations to demand affirmation and alignment from employees. What started as a growing awareness of brand image and employee motivation has often morphed into a preoccupation with positivity and controlling what gets said. Even when firms don’t demand this, because individuals have become more image-conscious, employees may nonetheless perceive organizations as requiring these things. An environment in which everyone is positive about a firm can be a good thing. But it is too easy for it to tip to become toxic for individuals and dangerous for the organization. SIGNS AND SOLUTIONS The warning signs of organizational narcissism resemble the symptoms found in individual narcissism. A preoccupation with image and what people say, punishing perceived disloyalty or noncompliance, and reacting negatively to questioning. What matters most is not whether firms behave this way, but whether employees believe they do. The consequences are always damaging. Just as with individuals, organisational narcissism erodes trust, communication, and understanding. Studies show that trying too hard to create a culture of positivity can undermine information flow and decision-making, making them blind to their weaknesses. Some argue that organizational narcissism is an inevitable consequence of a capitalist-driven need to succeed against all competition. They may be correct to some degree. But not entirely. Firms can avoid a slide into overdone loyalty and positivity. The writer Somerset Maugham once said, “What we call insincerity is often just a method by which we can avoid an unpleasantness.” By “unpleasantness” he meant a disagreement. And that disagreement is exactly what breaks insincerity. Leaders and organizations, must actively seeking out, encourage, and reward debate and questioning. They must step back from a preoccupation with whether internal communications make leaders look authentic and inspiring. Instead, they should focus on whether they enable employees to be authentic and inspiring themselves. Because there’s only one thing worse than a negative and disgruntled employee, and that’s an insincere one.
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E-Commerce
The Washington, D.C., architectural firm that President Donald Trump tapped to design his White House ballroom is known for its ornamental, classical architecture, but the firm’s work is not generally known, even by design aficionados. Crews are now demolishing the entirety of the East Wing for an expansive, $250 million new space designed by McCrery Architects, which compared to the detailed, hi-fi portfolios of today’s most prominent architectural firms, has a strikingly light online footprint. The firm’s site shows only contact information for new commission inquiries and a slideshow of work that includes artist renderings of the planned ballroom. There’s no longer a list of its projects, but an archived list reveals a CV that leans ecclesiastical. Its Instagram account is bare. “Committed to Tradition and Excellence,” its bio reads, but there are no posts. The firms portfolio is heavy on churches, and it’s now fast building up public-sector work, driven by a love of classical American architecture. “The very best American architecture is classical architecture once made American,” James McCrery, the firms founder and principal, said last year during a talk at the conservative Hillsdale College. “Americans love classical architecture because it is our nation’s formative architecture and we love our nation’s formation.” Here are some of the firms most notable projects, as its work on one of the most iconic buildings in the U.S. gets underway. Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Knoxville, Tennessee [Photo: Nheyob/Wiki Commons] Ecclesiastical architecture Catholic churches are the most common building type in the firm’s portfolio. McCrery Architects has designed several houses of worship, including the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in Knoxville, Tennessee; Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina; and Our Lady of the Mountains in Highlands, North Carolina. St. Mary Help of Christians, Aiken, South Carolina [Photo: Jude.anthony1972/Wiki Commons] The firm’s design for St. Mary Help of Christians in Aiken, South Carolina, won the John Russell Pope Award in 2017 for the traditional architecture contest’s Ecclesiastical Design over 3,000 square feet category. In a 2015 reflection about the building, McCrery said the church was “designed to encourage and strengthen all in the Faith . . . [and] intentionally made to be beautiful,” which typifies his and his firm’s approach to design. This year, McCrery Architects was awarded for the baptismal font at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Gloversville, New York. Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, Raleigh, North Carolina [Photo: Farragutful/Wiki Commons] McCrery’s work in academia McCrery Architects designed the University Saint Mary of the Lake Feehan Memorial Library in Mundelein, Illinois, and the Saint Thomas Aquinas Chapel at the University of Nebraskas Saint John Newman Center in Lincoln. Public-sector work The firm’s government work has grown from designing a statue pedestal and gift shop to making one of the biggest changes to the most famous federal government building in the U.S. Here are the details. [Photo: Architect of the Capitol] McCrery designed the pedestal for California’s statue of Ronald Reagan for the National Statuary Hall Collection in 2009. Each state can send two statues to the collection at the U.S. Capitol, and McCrery made the Tennessee Rose marble pedestal for artist Chas Fagan’s statue of the late president and former California governor and actor. The pedestal includes concrete pieces from the Berlin Wall. McCrery’s firm also designed the U.S. Supreme Court’s book and gift shop, and, according to the Catholic University of America, the North Carolina state legislature commissioned the firm to create a master plan for its historic State Capitol Grounds. The White House ballroom The firm’s White House project is now its most visible workand it’s most controversial. [Rendering: whitehouse.gov/McCrery Architects] The sudden demolition to make room for a privately funded addition shocked at least one former White House resident, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation asked the Trump administration and National Park Service to pause until plans can go through the legally required public review processes that it says include consultations, reviews, and public comment. [Rendering: whitehouse.gov/McCrery Architects] Trump’s White House makeover parallels his attempts at expanding presidential and state power, and represents an outward, physical manifestation of a wider Trump project to remake the presidency and leave a mark in his second term. Like using emergency economic powers to impose tariffs or sending National Guard troops into U.S. cities, Trump’s power plays today feel anything but precedented or traditional. Traditional, though, is exactly what the architect who designed his grand ballroom is trained in.
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E-Commerce
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