Tag Archives: teamwork

5 tips to… just get over it

Posted on June 14, 2011 by jillchrist| 1 Comment

Photo by Don Debold: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ddebold/5674779338/

There are times in our work­ing, pro­fes­sional, or per­sonal lives when some­one says some­thing to us just rubs you the wrong way. It can be espe­cially painful when it is done in front of oth­ers, in your blog’s com­ment thread, in an online forum, or with oth­ers copied on the email thread. We can feel offended or put off by these obnox­ious com­ments or ques­tions. When this hap­pens, the most impor­tant thing to do is to move on, and get over it. The worse thing you can do is to let it drag you down.

If you hold onto a grudge it WILL:
…keep you from pur­su­ing your per­sonal inter­ests, such as marathon run­ning, or cool DIY home ren­o­va­tions
…keep you from doing great things, like mak­ing that great dessert you wanted to make for the din­ner party
…keep you from your call­ing, such as learn­ing new tech­nolo­gies like HTML5 or web ana­lyt­ics tools that can help you solve more prob­lems at work

No mat­ter how ter­ri­ble you feel when some­one embar­rasses you, here are five tips you can use to… just get over it.

1. Accept the fact that it’s an ‘ego-thing.’

I heard once that usu­ally peo­ple don’t get over things because they hold onto their ego too much. They can’t believe that some­one could pos­si­bly find fault in them, or could not love them. How­ever, if we accept the fact that offense is all about the ego, we are well on the way to get­ting over the issue, and mov­ing on with hav­ing ful­fill­ing per­sonal and pro­fes­sional lives.

2. Do not tell any­one, do not gossip.

No mat­ter how hard it is to resist, do not tell any­one about the offender — it will NOT make you feel any bet­ter. This will not help you to get over the offender, and it will just make you look like you are a com­plain­ing gos­siper. Peo­ple who are famil­iar with the sit­u­a­tion, and involved with the offender, will look dif­fer­ently toward them. No mat­ter how much you want oth­ers to join you in your mis­ery, this can seri­ously back­fire. You should just give every­one the oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with the offender, and let the truth speak for itself. (Unless they have phys­i­cally harmed you, or are caus­ing harm to oth­ers. In this case, you should talk with some­one about it). It’s best to talk with a neu­tral party if any­thing, some­one who does not work with you, and is not related to you. If you have to let it out, jour­nal about it.

3. Let time run its course — by dis­tract­ing yourself.

Some­times you just need some dis­tance from the offender, or dis­tance from the offend­ing inci­dent. One thing I like to do is escape into enter­tain­ing TV shows, movies, or exer­cise. Some­times only time can help heal from being hurt.

4. Always keep some spare choco­late on hand — dark chocolate.

Don’t deny that dark choco­late makes you feel bet­ter… embrace it. This is def­i­nitely not some­thing to fight, but to allow it to soothe your bro­ken heart. You will soon be so mes­mer­ized by the bit­ter­sweet taste of the dark choco­late, that you will for­get all about the offender… at least for a lit­tle while.

5. Keep sooth­ing scents nearby that remind you of peace­ful places.

Some­one told me recently that smell is the strongest of the five senses for mem­ory recall — he said this is why, for exam­ple, we are able to remem­ber child­hood mem­o­ries so well when we smell the choco­late chip cook­ies bak­ing. I don’t know if this is true, but it seems to work well for me when I’m try­ing to just calm myself down. The scent I like to have with me is laven­der. It reminds me of my favorite yoga classes I used to take when I was in col­lege, which were SO sooth­ing. The instruc­tor used to spray laven­der on our hands just before chavasana, or the final relax­ation phase. Every time I smell laven­der, I can’t help but think of sooth­ing thoughts… and it gets rid of the embar­rass­ing thoughts I’m try­ing to for­get about.

In sum­mary, build a bridge and get over it. Seri­ously, this isn’t just a say­ing. Find some way to get past your hurt — built that bridge that gets you from where you are to the other side of the river.

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Do you need to be right all the time?

Posted on November 21, 2010 by jillchrist| 2 Comments

Have you ever tried to intro­duce a new idea, but had peo­ple tell you that it is a bad idea? Have you ever voiced a con­cern, or offered an alter­na­tive direc­tion, and heard some­one say to you:

“No, that won’t work…that’s not possible…that’s not relevant.”

It can be unset­tling to face resis­tance, espe­cially when the resis­tance hap­pens in front of oth­ers. It can feel like a huge blow, and can be very hard to swal­low the fact that peo­ple don’t see where you are com­ing from. It seems as though UX Pro­fes­sion­als in par­tic­u­lar feel tempted not to voice their opin­ion at all, when they have faced too much resis­tance. How­ever, we can’t let these things get to us. We need to learn to let things roll off our backs, and move on. Here are five tips and advice that UX pro­fes­sion­als can use to approach conflict:

1. Change your atti­tude. UX pro­fes­sion­als think very highly of them­selves, and have a ten­dency to posi­tion them­selves as higher, or more impor­tant than oth­ers. When oth­ers resist their idea, it comes into con­flict with how they view them­selves — how could any­one not sup­port my bril­liant design deci­sion? How could they not under­stand all this bril­liant research I have done? News­flash: you are not more impor­tant than any­one else. So, change your atti­tude, get over it, drop the ego, and move on.

2. Be hum­ble and gen­tle. You may be very pas­sion­ate about your idea, and you may want change to hap­pen no mat­ter what the cost. You might be tempted to talk about your years of expe­ri­ence and accom­plish­ments, think­ing that it makes you more cred­i­ble, and that they should lis­ten to you more. But this just makes you come off arro­gant and con­ceited. It really does NOTHING for your cause. Also, be sen­si­tive to the fact that maybe those you are talk­ing to are not ready to fully embrace your idea. Give them the oppor­tu­nity to solve the prob­lem as well — treat them the way you want to be treated, and seek out their think­ing and exper­tise on the issue. Be gen­tle and soft-mannered in your response back.

3. Do not intro­duce a new idea out of self­ish ambi­tion. Before talk­ing with your team about a new idea, deter­mine why you are intro­duc­ing this new idea. Your team will be able to sniff out any self­ish rea­son you are try­ing to get them to adopt your think­ing, espe­cially if you are look­ing to get more recog­ni­tion. Think instead about what would be best for the team, and for your fel­low team­mates. Gen­er­ate new ideas and opin­ions that make them shine, advance, give them more flex­i­bil­ity, or help them become a more bal­anced employee.

4. Don’t con­sider per­fec­tion as some­thing you can grasp. Accept the fact that you will fail, and make mis­takes, and that oth­ers will make mis­takes too. You can’t pos­si­bly be per­fect at every­thing, and mis­takes will come, no mat­ter how hard you try to pre­vent them. Keep a notepad with you at all times — when you make a mis­take, write it down, and what you will do dif­fer­ently next time. Then move on. Also, don’t expect oth­ers to be per­fect either — they are human, just like you.

5. Be patient. Your idea may be a good one, or you may have a legit­i­mate con­cern. How­ever it might just not be the right time to intro­duce your idea. You can always come back to it later, if you feel you are still con­cerned. But just be patient for your team to get to a point where they are ready to try your new idea.

You don’t have to be right all the time, and you don’t have to stress when oth­ers don’t see things from your point of view. Life goes on, and if you treat each other right, you might just get more accom­plished than you thought you could have otherwise.

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The UX Ego — Non-violent Communication

Posted on July 30, 2010 by jillchrist| Leave a comment

Many times, I find that User Expe­ri­ence pro­fes­sion­als have to debate and argue over their design deci­sions. They have to take full respon­si­bil­ity for mis­takes or fail­ures, and will do every­thing in their power to jus­tify their actions. Whether they are design­ing an inter­face, a sys­tem, or the tasks for a usabil­ity study, they have to be able to defend why they made all the deci­sions they made.

What is inter­est­ing to me is how this debat­ing per­me­ates into other parts of the job. We find our­selves debat­ing over why we sched­uled a meet­ing, or over what the project plan will be. We are con­stantly in a state of debate, argu­ment, and justification.

I find being in this state exhaust­ing, inef­fec­tive, and inef­fi­cient. It is much like the “design by com­mit­tee” sit­u­a­tion, where there are too many stake­hold­ers involved, and too many opin­ions to man­age. I think a much more pow­er­ful way to approach issues, prob­lems, or deci­sions is to bring under­stand­ing, and an abil­ity to express ideals. Instead of fight­ing over what is the best approach, we really need to under­stand what the ratio­nale is behind each oth­ers’ thoughts. Everyone’s thoughts are valu­able, good, impor­tant, and deserve recog­ni­tion. We may have this inten­tion, but it cer­tainly doesn’t come off this way.

We are all in this together, all fight­ing for the best for the user. We just need to play nicer with each other, encour­age each other, and try to under­stand where each other is com­ing from. How do we do this? Well I think the mes­sage of non-violence might help us take a new perspective:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_q-qs6unWA]

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“Heart and Soul”

Posted on March 31, 2010 by jillchrist| Leave a comment

“Heart and Soul” is a blast to play with some­one else. It chal­lenges both peo­ple to be in sync with each other, with the rhythm, and with the melody. One player can’t start play­ing their own tune. They must lis­ten to each other, and find a way to play together.

Team­work takes prac­tice, it takes lis­ten­ing, and a will­ing­ness to play the same tune. In the end, if you do these things, you might just play a won­der­ful duet that will delight (and maybe sur­prise) those who hear it.

Cre­at­ing good expe­ri­ences for your cus­tomers means your expe­ri­ence needs to har­mo­nize with their expec­ta­tions. Together, with their insights, you can make a fan­tas­tic experience.

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