I won’t give you a fussy psychology lesson, as usual, I will give you a straightforward, actionable approach to the topic.
Let me put this in simple terms
- Empathy: What are they feeling? Read their verbal and non-verbal language to understand what people around you are feeling. Why do you care about it? Accurately reading feelings is key to having the ability to predict their behavior.
- Introspection: What do you want? Check with yourself what matters to you.
Let's get hands-on!
Let’s have a look at a situation we outlined in our lesson about the importance of building the right team:
“... in the meantime, your PA can take care of all of that stuff. If she is about to get burnout, get her an intern, it costs little to nothing.”
How can you establish if you offer your personal assistant the option to hire an intern?
Step 1. Empathy
Observe and scan for signs of feelings and/or physical or psychological cues.
- Are there emotional cues, like a “moody” mood, easy cry, or irritability?
- Is your personal assistant having health issues? Is he or she complaining of frequent headaches, catching every virus that is flying around Is there a stress vein popping in their forehead or neck? Does the person
- Is this person having psychological issues like forgetfulness, sudden claustrophobia, or any other sudden phobia? Hast this person attempted suicide at the workplace (check for signs of blood on staplers, scissors, and other office supplies)?
If the answer to 4 or more of the questions above is yes, your personal assistant is overwhelmed and is very likely to burn out and call in sick shortly.
Step 2. Introspection:
With all the information you have gatherer, you are now able to predict a very likely outcome.
Your personal assistant is about to go on sick leave if you don’t take action.
Now it is time to figure out what you want.
Dedicate your alone time to do a serious soul-search (if you need a refresher, double-check how you should be spending your time), figure out what you feel and what you want as an outcome.
- Do you want this person to be able to keep on working and get all of the pending stuff done?
- Do you want a break? You yourself could use a break, and you would rather hire a new PA after a while, there is plenty of desperate highly qualified people out there, that's a fact and you can count on it.
Step 3. Take action
If your desired outcome is the first option, then tell your PA you can see the workload has increased, and that you are worried about his/her health, and hiring an intern is necessary.
If your desired outcome is the second one, you can either speed it up by adding some additional challenging requests or just let it roll at the current speed.
You see, observing how other people are doing and acting upon is a good thing.
Feeling more confident? Happy to guide you in this journey to becoming the most effective CEO you can be!
