This week I am thinking a lot about how our emotions can sometimes be unhelpful at work.

On Being An Adult At Work

I am working on something new at the moment. Well, rather, I am figuring out the common thread that connects all of my work. You see, I help people through coaching, mentoring, teaching, training and continuously improving. Sometimes that is remote, sometimes in person. Often with individuals, but also with teams and groups.

At the end of last week, I figured out the thing that connects all of this work. What's even better than that is that it naturally has a pretty cool acronym: OSAS. Sounds good doesn't it!

I'd tell you what it stands for, but I'd be breaking one of my golden rules. Never share a good idea until you have nurtured it. If you share too soon, you risk your precious little idea being stomped on by well-meaning questions you have no answers for, or negative opinions from those who don't want you to succeed.

And so, you will have to wait awhile for the big reveal. But, in the meantime, I can tell you one of the themes that I realised runs through all of the work I do.

I spend a lot of my time helping people to be adults at work.

What I mean by this is things like:

• Educating organisations so they can work hard while being humane.
• Helping people to understand themselves and articulate clearly.
• Teaching people how to have difficult conversations.
• Showing teams how to disagree constructively.

I could go on. We're all struggling to be our best, adult selves is, but stress, competition, poor communication and unclear expectations all make this hard. Particularly in complex situations.

The good news is, once you have realised your emotions are running things in an unhelpful way, it is never to late to learn new ways of, well, adulting in the office.

A Quote I Love

"Freedom is the space between stimulus and response." Viktor Frankl

When I was talking to HeRO Program clients on Friday, I found myself using this quote. Again. In fact I use it about once every couple of weeks in some context or other.

Nobody can control their first, instant reaction to something. That's automatic. But we can train ourselves to take a pause, think, and then decide how our higher selves should react.

Culture Tip

I am a big fan of the Modern Wisdom podcast, and so I often listen to episodes whether I am interested in the topic or not. That happened this week when I listened to Chris Williamson interview Eric Jorgenson who has written a book about Elon Musk.

The interview is also on YouTube, titled: How Elon Achieves the Impossible.

I know from bitter experience that Elon Musk is a polarizing figure. I literally lost a friend because she took exception to me saying something admiring about him on LinkedIn. I think this says more about her than me or Elon, but we are where we are.

Anyway, the interview is fascinating. Jorgenson has filtered Musk's interviews, writing, social media comments and biographies to figure out what makes him tick that might be useful for the rest of us to understand.

My biggest takeaway was the phrase: bias towards action. I have a feeling this is going to be a brainworm for a while.

What I'm Working On

Got an exciting week of client work this week. Already got 10 separate client calls scheduled, which means I'll hear some fascinating things from some brilliant people until 6pm Friday.

At the same time, I am working on a bid for a large, multi-year government contract. This will allow me to work with some other coaches and facilitators. The deadline is tight. Lots to be done. No way of judging the likelihood of success. I could reflect on it, or I could bias towards action (see what I did there?).

But the best thing in my calendar this week is that I am hosting a day at Yorkshire Sculpture Park with some people I met on a leadership course many years ago. I now run peer networks for others, but this was my first ever experience of one and I am very fortunate that we became firm friends.

Are you in any peer networks? I'd love to know your experiences.