Hi,

I’ve moved things around a little bit. You’ll now find the usual selection of links at the top and the main insight at the bottom.

In the middle, you’ll find a couple of opportunities for you: I developed a toolbox for managers who need help to better structure their work, and I am making my “second brain” available to whoever is interested in it. See below.

The essence is still the same. Stories, ideas and resources to fuel the way you work, manage and learn. Doing my best to help you be the most interesting person in the meeting room.

To the 213 people who joined us since last issue - welcome!

Enjoy,

🗝️ The secret stash

Selected ideas and resources to help you think, work and manage.

• Making money on the internet: “The past 20 years of the internet have taught us one lesson: Enormously useful does not equal enormously profitable.” A framework to understand if it’s a good idea or if you should stop bragging about “working on your start-up”.

• How to teach yourself anything: “Make sure you understand the fundamental principles - the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves, or there is nothing for them to hang on”. If Musk taught himself rocket science, you can find a way to make sourdough.

• Perplexity.ai is the ChatGPT’s wiser sibling. It always shares its sources, it structures answers in a non-manipulative way and it tells you when research is inconclusive. I switched to it and I don’t think I’ll go back.

🥃 Unrelated

Unorthodox insights and stories. Opportunities to think different.

• ”Anger” and “excitement” mean different things if you are from Austin or from São Paulo: “How people talk—and think—about their emotions can influence social interactions and relationships, the success of therapeutic or medical treatment, and the outcomes of institutional and judicial processes.”

• The Strasbourg dancing plague: one person started dancing, then three other people joined, until it got to hundreds and lasted for weeks, when people died of heart attacks and exhaustion. It sounds like that old youtube video about leadership if Tarantino made a movie out of it.

Two gifts

🗺️ The everyday chaos of meetings, emails and tasks leads talented managers to live messy and not-too-efficient workdays. I developed a simple toolbox that helps you work in a more structured and organized way. It’s called The Manager’s Map of Chaos - you can download it here for free. 

🧞 For those of you who are interested in upgrading your professional life through state-of-the-art tools, content and consulting, I have built The Manager’s Genie. Take a look - it might be what you need to refresh your professional life. Use the code BABEL10 for a 10% discount.

You know at least one person that would appreciate what you are reading here. Why don’t you forward them this e-mail then? They’ll never forget that.

If you are that person, welcome! Now get your own one by subscribing here below. It’s free.

A healthier alternative to toxic positivity

Several years ago, at a funeral, I saw an acquaintance arrive at the cemetery, approach the deceased's relatives, and announce a somewhat insensitive "C'est la vie." After thinking "Who is this idiot," I realized that I too am quite awkward in tragic situations, but I never believed that forcing others to remain positive could be helpful.

That kind of forced positivity has been defined in recent years as "toxic positivity." It's essentially a form of forced and absolute optimism. 

We all know someone affected by this phenomenon: the person who will react to any event with phrases like "everything will be okay," "there's a new opportunity in every problem," and similar expressions, even when most likely not much will be okay, and the only new opportunity is to consume a high amount of alcohol to forget the misfortune.

It seems like just an annoying personality trait, but it can cause serious damage in an organizational context.

Too loose or too shallow

A couple of hypotheses on why we see more toxic positivity around us:

1. Going loose after the rigidity of past ideologies

The great ideologies of past centuries taught us to be fully committed to a cause. If you're a socialist, you would renounce owning more goods than your neighbor, even at the cost of living a life of hardship. If you're a capitalist, you would dedicate most of your time and effort to conquer your market, even if it harms your family and social life. If you deviate and make a decision different from that dictated by your ideology, you've failed: it means you don't truly believe.

After the failures and disappointments from the great ideologies, it's no surprise that we find ourselves inundated with slogans that praise the opposite approach: "it's always okay." Did you mess up? No matter, you'll learn. Don't be so hard on yourself. Everything will be for the best.

In fact, it's a different kind of radical approach. The great ideologies are toxic; so is imposing oneself to always be positive.

2. Positive ignorance

Positive psychology has become mainstream in the last twenty years. Those who don't have the patience to read or understand in depth the findings of this approach think that the main message is "stay positive, and we'll be psychologically healthy." Obviously, this is not the case.

Positive psychology is based on the idea that instead of only caring for our mental well-being when we see it drifting (depression, nervous breakdowns, etc.), we can prevent some of the mental malaise by learning what helps us maintain a general level of satisfaction and mental health. This doesn't mean being always happy like a poodle, but learning to be vulnerable, present, and – not to forget the Covid19 favorite – resilient.

Thousands of influencers, speakers, and consultants have decided to take the shortcut of "stay positive, and everything will be fine." It's not fine.

What does it look like in the workplace?

A variety of phenomena:

• Showing a facade of relentless optimism seems to convey that everything is fine and that the company is moving in the right direction. There’s therefore no need to have difficult conversations about things that are not going well. It’s essentially an escape mechanism.

• Being stubborn about staying always positive doesn’t allow other emotional states in the workplace. If everyone is happy and smiling, you don’t want to express your frustration or sadness – regardless if it stems from personal or professional reasons. Emotional totalitarianism: only productive emotions are accepted.

• The organization’s culture is engineered; it rewards those who align with the captain’s message and ostracizes those who express criticism. Like a cult, but you get paid for it.

• After encountering a failure, the company asks to “reframe” what happened to stimulate recovery. They call it reframing, but it effectively means manipulating the context so that the failure feels better.

This can lead to quite serious problems.

There’s a reason why it’s called “toxic”

First of all, it’s not different than other toxic norms: we need to be aggressive, we need to be blunt, we need to avoid any discussion that can be remotely triggering, etc. The team starts feeling that the workplace is not a healthy place to get stuff done, and they begin searching for a solution (open conflict, shortcuts, a new job).

On a deeper level, a culture that allows only positive messages creates a gap: between how the employee feels about a specific matter and what they are allowed to say about it; between the feelings the employee is experiencing because of challenges in their personal life and the facade that they put up for work; etc. It gradually becomes disengagement, conflict, or bad performance.

More dramatically, in the long term, it will lead to an organizational dynamic of illusion and self-celebration. I’ve stopped counting the number of organizations that I’ve seen entering a crisis because of this reason. At some point hard facts will show that the narrative is broken and there will be no alternative but to surrender to the fact that the organization is going in the wrong direction. If it’s not too late.

Tough love

I’ve already written elsewhere about how important emotional satisfaction is in the workplace. Still, the idea that our feelings come before anything else is a quick recipe for stagnation. Progress will always require dealing with difficult emotions. 

The challenge here is not just to allow the team to express their emotions at work – that is a shallow slogan celebrated by coaches and HR managers who probably never had to lead a complex team or project.

The real challenge is to allow transparency (everyone feels safe if they decide to share what they think or feel) without deceiving anyone that decisions are made by considering all the opinions and emotions expressed. 

In other words: let your team feel free to speak openly and vulnerably, and let your senior management feel free to disagree with you, make tough decisions and sometimes make necessary mistakes.

Additional sources on the topic: Forbes; the Walrus; Dazed; Wall Street Journal.

P.S. There is also the alternative offered by this Indian guy. (Ok, not a valid alternative, but it’s funny)