Speaker 1: So what percent of your time is dedicated to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you about some things that have been
Speaker 1: challenges between the two of you. What do you think
Speaker 1: gets in the way of your communicating more directly Tobecca,
Speaker 1: you're trying to corral Francesca and you're feeling spoken down
Speaker 1: to what are one of our couple of Francesca's buttons that,
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you very much for closing that.
Speaker 1: This week on Works for Me, we get grilled m.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Works for Me, the show where we test
Speaker 1: out productivity strategies on our own personal problems to find
Speaker 1: out if they'll work for you. I'm back at Greenfield
Speaker 1: and I'm Francesco Leavy. This week it's Francesco's turn and
Speaker 1: Becca's turn to tackle a thorny workplace problem. We're doing
Speaker 1: things a bit differently this week. Instead of one of
Speaker 1: us taking on something we're struggling with at work, we're
Speaker 1: going to solve a problem together. Yeah. So we're right
Speaker 1: in the middle of making this first season of our show,
Speaker 1: and we realized that we have a work issue we
Speaker 1: could both address how to work together better as a team.
Speaker 1: We're in close contact a lot for this podcast and
Speaker 1: naturally attentions arise. But we also realized we've never treated
Speaker 1: our own collaboration as a thing to work on. We've
Speaker 1: just kind of taken it for granted. Yeah, like any team,
Speaker 1: we we have conflict, We get into fights, and we
Speaker 1: don't really address though I wouldn't say we avoid them,
Speaker 1: but we've never taken the time to sit down and
Speaker 1: talk through how we feel about a conflict about it.
Speaker 1: We just move, keep on keeping, keep on moving. And
Speaker 1: I think that's true for most teams of people working
Speaker 1: closely together. You do the work, sometimes there's these little
Speaker 1: moments of frustration, and you just keep on going with
Speaker 1: the work. You know, actually consider the relationship. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do this week. We're going to focus
Speaker 1: on how to work better together. So the first thing
Speaker 1: we did was we went out and found a duo
Speaker 1: that's been working together well for years. I am Erica Cerulo,
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of a kind of business
Speaker 1: that I started with one of my best friends from college,
Speaker 1: Claire Maser, and I'm Claire Maser. I'm the other half
Speaker 1: of this of a kind co founding work life writing team.
Speaker 1: Claire and Erica have been friends for seventeen years and
Speaker 1: business partners for nine, and they spent a long time
Speaker 1: figuring out how to make their working relationship thrive. I
Speaker 1: would say one of the things that we've learned over
Speaker 1: the course of our relationship is a willingness to be
Speaker 1: vulnerable with one another, to not be afraid that if
Speaker 1: you express that you're overwhelmed, or that you know stuff's
Speaker 1: not going well, or you don't feel great about a project,
Speaker 1: to not be afraid that the other person is going
Speaker 1: to judge you forward and be like, oh, she's really
Speaker 1: fallen off. And I think the other thing that goes
Speaker 1: hand in hand with that is transparency. I think the
Speaker 1: more you can share with one another, whether that be
Speaker 1: about you know, context of your professional life outside of
Speaker 1: just your relationship, or even context of your personal life,
Speaker 1: the more that helps inform the other person's understanding of everything,
Speaker 1: including your vulnerabilities. Claire and Erica also believe that the
Speaker 1: power of female friendship has helped them succeed. For their
Speaker 1: new book, Work Life, coming out in March, they talk
Speaker 1: to other successful female payers to explore what special about
Speaker 1: women working together we think about the qualities of female
Speaker 1: friendship that when they start becoming part of the workplace,
Speaker 1: reshape the workplace. Just the caretaker role that women often
Speaker 1: play by nature of the way our society works and
Speaker 1: has worked, means that they bring more fluidity and so
Speaker 1: by lee with these qualities like compassion and vulnerability and
Speaker 1: emotional transparency, you just create a totally different environment. What
Speaker 1: I like about their point of view is that they
Speaker 1: treat being women like an asset and not a liability,
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of the times that when
Speaker 1: people talk about women working together, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of negative stereotypes about it, and they instead their whole
Speaker 1: take is women actually bring qualities to working together that
Speaker 1: make businesses better and hopefully podcasts. So our problem is
Speaker 1: that we think we could work better as a team.
Speaker 1: Ideally we'd work together as well as Claire and Erica do.
Speaker 1: So we dug a little deeper with them to figure
Speaker 1: out how they got to such a healthy place, and
Speaker 1: Claire told us they see a management coach. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily right for everybody, but when you're working really closely
Speaker 1: with some one day and and day out, it can
Speaker 1: be huge. We say that he's one part executively ship,
Speaker 1: one part therapist, and one part marriage counselor clarien Erica
Speaker 1: essentially go to couples therapy. I know, I was kind
Speaker 1: of relieved to hear that that they weren't just born
Speaker 1: perfect collaborators. And also I had no idea that there
Speaker 1: were people who do that, who will just be your
Speaker 1: work wife couple therapists. I love it. So that's this
Speaker 1: week's experiment. We're going to find a management coach and
Speaker 1: see if one session can help us improve our working relationship. Well,
Speaker 1: consider the experiment as success if a week after our
Speaker 1: session we've implemented any of the coach's tips to solve
Speaker 1: a problem. I'm extremely nervous. I'm just terrified at the
Speaker 1: idea of having to kind of think through this stuff
Speaker 1: and talk openly about it. It's a weird thing to
Speaker 1: do at work. It's way easier to just let it fuster.
Speaker 1: We found a management coach named Ben Micalis, who, according
Speaker 1: to his website, Dr ben Micalis dot com, is an
Speaker 1: elite performance coach for CEOs and business partners. He costs
Speaker 1: four hundred dollars an hour procession, so not cheap. Before
Speaker 1: we met him in person, then asked us to take
Speaker 1: some time to think about our relationship. He wanted us
Speaker 1: to send an email with some things we liked about
Speaker 1: working together and some things we didn't. But this part
Speaker 1: definitely made it feel real for me. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you. Yeah, it was like uncomfortable to put to
Speaker 1: words my thoughts and feelings. Yeah, and I knew you
Speaker 1: were never going to read the email because we sent
Speaker 1: separate emails to him, and even just writing down my
Speaker 1: private thoughts about what I thought we could work on
Speaker 1: was nerve wracking without dangerous. Then after that stressful experience,
Speaker 1: the day of the session arrived, I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: like interviewing right now with the two of you, like
Speaker 1: like I mean, like the job. Ben met us on
Speaker 1: a Friday morning. We sat down facing each other, made
Speaker 1: some small talk, and got started, and now we're just
Speaker 1: going to play you an edited version of what happened next.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm I'm pretty direct, and so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask questions and if you don't want to answer them,
Speaker 1: like feel free to just not answer them. But I
Speaker 1: actually my goal is for both of you to actually
Speaker 1: have real takeaways at the end of today, so that
Speaker 1: like you actually have some things to to use. So
Speaker 1: this is not just helpful for people outside, but for
Speaker 1: the two of you. What would you say, Becca, is
Speaker 1: one of your favorite things about working with Francesca? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can say several of them. Well, I like, I mean,
Speaker 1: we like each other, Like I like hanging out with
Speaker 1: somebody who's I like to hang out with. We talk
Speaker 1: about a lot of things, and we have similar interests
Speaker 1: and like talking about the same thing. So that's cool
Speaker 1: and really fun. And then more on like a work
Speaker 1: note that I think to a lot of good big
Speaker 1: picture ideas, so like this as our idea. I have
Speaker 1: a hard time timing up with ideas. Everyone does, so
Speaker 1: it's nice to work with somebody who came up with
Speaker 1: good ideas that you get to work on. That's so nice.
Speaker 1: And how about you, Um, well, I would say the
Speaker 1: same thing that like, I think we're we're compatible as friends.
Speaker 1: She's really thoughtful about giving critiques and edits. She'll go
Speaker 1: through a script and or an episode and give me
Speaker 1: her thoughts on it. And she's not she's not rude,
Speaker 1: but she's direct about what you know she thinks needs
Speaker 1: to be changed, and I'll usually agree, or if I
Speaker 1: don't like, we'll talk through it and we'll come to
Speaker 1: another decision. Obviously, the two of you really like each other,
Speaker 1: you really respect each other, and which is great. So
Speaker 1: really we're we're doing is we're looking at sort of
Speaker 1: optimizing your relationship, which is a great, great place to be.
Speaker 1: So what we're going to move into now is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you about some things that have been challenges
Speaker 1: between the two of you, and I'm going to let
Speaker 1: either of you start. I can start, okay, since Becca
Speaker 1: started with the nice things. UM So I am really
Speaker 1: oversubscribed with all of my other work, and that's my fault.
Speaker 1: But UM, I feel like that sometimes assumes that I
Speaker 1: I'm just not working hard enough on this project because
Speaker 1: I'm not or because I'm you know, I'm putting an
Speaker 1: offer and being lazy. And I think that I have
Speaker 1: often had to triage, and I have found myself triaging,
Speaker 1: and I have bumped this show down the priority list
Speaker 1: at times, and so I think that that pisces back off.
Speaker 1: And then I think that she will sometimes demand a
Speaker 1: lot of time for the show, or request a lot
Speaker 1: of time for the show. Um in a way that
Speaker 1: makes me feel a little bit like she just doesn't
Speaker 1: she doesn't think I'm working hard enough on it, but
Speaker 1: I I feel like I also just have other things
Speaker 1: to do. Any thoughts about that, By the way, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for Well it's it's true. You're right.
Speaker 1: I get frustrated, like I want us to work on it,
Speaker 1: but it's not like I don't think you're not working
Speaker 1: on other things. Like I know why that's happened. I
Speaker 1: know you're busy, but I also think you're not. You've
Speaker 1: never told me that. I mean, it's really interesting to
Speaker 1: hear Becca say while she understands, and while she understands
Speaker 1: in the abstract that I have other work to do,
Speaker 1: I've never actually said this day or this week is
Speaker 1: dedicated for me this particular other project which would be
Speaker 1: very easy to do, and I haven't done it, and
Speaker 1: I think my guilt gets in the way. How do
Speaker 1: you communicate like over the course of like, okay, we're
Speaker 1: working on this podcast, how does that information gets get
Speaker 1: transmitted between the two of you? For I know it's
Speaker 1: a bit of a ham fisted question, but like like
Speaker 1: how are we doing it now? Yeah? How are you
Speaker 1: communicating what what like the workload for a week? I
Speaker 1: mean in our chat? Okay, sorry I'm cutting you off,
Speaker 1: but I sort of set you up for that when
Speaker 1: you're communicating emotional information like oh, this is not going away.
Speaker 1: I thought it would if you can do it in person.
Speaker 1: If if you're going to need to push a deadline
Speaker 1: or if you're trying to push back, do it in person.
Speaker 1: You're entitled to be upset if a deadline isn't respected.
Speaker 1: But I do think that if you communicate like your
Speaker 1: disappointment visually, what does that do does a couple of things.
Speaker 1: It Actually there's a real consequence for you not having
Speaker 1: kept up the agreement is the emotional consequence of seeing
Speaker 1: your partner be disappointed. So it makes you less likely
Speaker 1: to do it in the future because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: And you actually can soften some of the disappointment through
Speaker 1: communicating face to face, but you can do it in
Speaker 1: a way that's empathic as opposed to online. Everything gets lost,
Speaker 1: and I do find that a lot of fights between
Speaker 1: partners or disagreements happen because of the lack of context
Speaker 1: on those channels. I get meeting face to face completely,
Speaker 1: but I don't necessarily need to understand Beca's disappointment because
Speaker 1: I feel like I anticipate because disappointment at all times understood.
Speaker 1: But one of the things that I'm trying to actually
Speaker 1: help with is increase the reliability of the signal. So
Speaker 1: because you anticipate things, Becka might be like, you know,
Speaker 1: having a week where she's just like hanging out drinking
Speaker 1: Margarita's at her desk, which happens all the time, I understand,
Speaker 1: Or she may be anticipating a vacation, or or she
Speaker 1: may be under some other deadline. And I think that
Speaker 1: you imagine more disappointment than is actual. Um, okay, so
Speaker 1: I have a question for you, Um, what are one
Speaker 1: of her couple of Francesca's buttons, things that like she
Speaker 1: just does not like that do not work for Francesca.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, I have to think about that. Do
Speaker 1: you know what your buttons are? I mean, the only
Speaker 1: thing I can really think of when it comes to
Speaker 1: our relationship is when you're just expressing like your frustration
Speaker 1: that time frame is being compressed, or that a deadline
Speaker 1: is going to be master that we're not going to
Speaker 1: get down what we expected to get done. Um, it'll
Speaker 1: come out as like okay, but guys, were really you
Speaker 1: know now we're really pushing it, are now really behind
Speaker 1: on time, and I feel like UM talked down to So.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how these things get communicated, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if you switch the language to UM, so
Speaker 1: I understand that we need to push the deadline. It
Speaker 1: just it makes me very nervous. And it's sort of
Speaker 1: a soft emotion that you're holding that you're expressing, as
Speaker 1: opposed to not even that you express a heart emotion,
Speaker 1: but you're reading a heart emotion, UM. And so being
Speaker 1: conscious of the fact that Francesca actually tends to read
Speaker 1: hard emotions because UM, of some of the check try guilt,
Speaker 1: like some of the guilt that you you expressed that
Speaker 1: if you if you own it and you say it
Speaker 1: just makes me a little bit nervous, it may have
Speaker 1: a better effect as opposed to feeling like like feeling
Speaker 1: like Becca's becas pissed at me. Yeah, that seems right.
Speaker 1: I am conscious that I can sometimes be harsh and
Speaker 1: people are like, you're direct, like if they say that
Speaker 1: in a nice way, But I also know that means
Speaker 1: I know what that means. Would it help if I
Speaker 1: responded with the way I was feeling about it? If
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm also nervous about this. I just
Speaker 1: feel like it's assumed or it's understood or should be
Speaker 1: understood that I'm also worried about all these deadlines and
Speaker 1: worried about getting things done on time. Would it help
Speaker 1: if I communicated that better in the moment where but
Speaker 1: I'm like, guys, I'm really worried about this, but I
Speaker 1: can't see any other way then for us to push
Speaker 1: this two days. Yeah. I think sometimes it comes off
Speaker 1: as like you're more laws I fair about it, and
Speaker 1: like it'll just get done in the time and it'll
Speaker 1: get done because that's what we have. And it's like, my, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. So by doing that, you're you're joining Becca.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I'm with you on this. I feel
Speaker 1: I feel nervous about this too. You know, how can
Speaker 1: we solve this? Think that that's going to be a
Speaker 1: far more effective way of you strengthening the relationship as
Speaker 1: opposed to eroding the trust. Cool. Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: I had. It's my style sometimes where I have a
Speaker 1: tendency to under communicate those feelings. I kind of like
Speaker 1: lockdown and I become defensive because I'm like Becca doesn't
Speaker 1: think I care, and then I reinforce that by not
Speaker 1: expressing that I care. So that's a weird self self
Speaker 1: sabotaging thing that I do. Um, But I I think
Speaker 1: I just need to not be not reading Becca's concern
Speaker 1: as like an indictment of me and actually be open
Speaker 1: about the fact that I'm concerned too. One thing that
Speaker 1: I think, um, we tend to do especially now, but
Speaker 1: is like the idea is that everything is an emergency.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a really high
Speaker 1: standard of quality for your work product, but also realized
Speaker 1: like it's really not an emergency. I think I saw
Speaker 1: from that, and that just seems like in our work lives.
Speaker 1: Everything in my work life, like everything is like a
Speaker 1: reflection of who I am, and like everything is the
Speaker 1: most important thing. So I think, yeah, it feels higher stakes,
Speaker 1: and maybe we need I need to dial down the
Speaker 1: stakes a little bit. Like it's a fun, frankly very
Speaker 1: silly show about productivity and it might not be perfect.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing in nature is perfect. It doesn't exist, right,
Speaker 1: and like taking that burden off of yourself, but also
Speaker 1: the imperfection is the show, you know, is the whole thing,
Speaker 1: and it's like for me anyway, it's the things that
Speaker 1: are imperfect that are interesting, and like it's the moments
Speaker 1: where things don't go right that you get to really
Speaker 1: I mean, you know it sounds a little tripe, but
Speaker 1: you do get to learn about yourself and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of fun. That's you know, that's basically it. I
Speaker 1: mean usually like you kind of have the takeaways, um,
Speaker 1: and so I would have you guys sort of work
Speaker 1: on those things together and see how it's going, if
Speaker 1: it's if it's improving, it's not improving, um, and then
Speaker 1: you know that would be the next step. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we happened to be in the midway point of this
Speaker 1: season for this show that we're doing, so there are
Speaker 1: many of these we can apply these experiences to come
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. This is so good. Yeah. How
Speaker 1: did you feel after that session with Ben? I was
Speaker 1: exhausted and I felt like I needed to go home
Speaker 1: and take a nap. Yeah. It was the first thing
Speaker 1: we did in the morning, and I couldn't believe I
Speaker 1: had a whole day ahead of me where I had
Speaker 1: to do more. I just had to go back to
Speaker 1: our desks and act like it was a normal work day,
Speaker 1: but I felt good about it. We we said things
Speaker 1: that needed to be said, we didn't hurt each other's
Speaker 1: feelings too much, and we realized we were much more
Speaker 1: aligned on a lot of things than we thought we were. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you didn't call me I mean b In fact, some
Speaker 1: of the things that I thought you didn't like about me,
Speaker 1: you actually like about me. So yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was productive and I took away three specific tips that
Speaker 1: I think we could use going forward in our relationship.
Speaker 1: So the first one I would say is that we
Speaker 1: could communicate more face to face. Ben was pretty adamant
Speaker 1: about that. The second one is try to remind ourselves
Speaker 1: that not everything is an emergency all the time. And
Speaker 1: the third one is that we can talk about our
Speaker 1: emotions more when we're communicating instead of telling the other
Speaker 1: person what we think they need to do. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the next step was to see if any of these
Speaker 1: tips actually work. We'll see how that went after the break.
Speaker 1: So now it's a few days after we've met with
Speaker 1: Ben and he's given us some tips, But honestly, we
Speaker 1: weren't thinking about them that much because we were busy
Speaker 1: trying to wrap up an episode of this show, and
Speaker 1: then something happened. Becca. You requested a last minute change
Speaker 1: to an episode that was about to be published, and
Speaker 1: you did it over chat I know, and you had
Speaker 1: left for the day and you didn't get to sign
Speaker 1: off on the change, which is what needed to happen,
Speaker 1: but it ended up going through anyway, and you were
Speaker 1: understandably not happy about it. Yeah, so I sent you
Speaker 1: kind of a terse message over chat, basically saying it's
Speaker 1: too late to do anything about this now, but I
Speaker 1: don't like the way we handled this. And then of
Speaker 1: course it dawned on me this was the perfect opportunity
Speaker 1: to test out Ben's advice to handle these things in
Speaker 1: person and not as we were doing over chat. So
Speaker 1: the next morning we found a spot to sit in
Speaker 1: the newsroom to talk over our issues. So last night
Speaker 1: I was annoyed about something that happened over chat after
Speaker 1: I left the office. First, I'm sorry that had happened
Speaker 1: that way, Like, I agree that we should not be
Speaker 1: doing last minute and it's let the person who owns
Speaker 1: the episode, which you did, does not get to sign
Speaker 1: off on. And I kind of, in back my mind
Speaker 1: knew that was happening, but we were both less like
Speaker 1: chaosma or you were. I was running to an appointment
Speaker 1: and it was five am. I think maybe you felt
Speaker 1: more strongly about it than I gave you credit for,
Speaker 1: because you said I want this edit. I had taken
Speaker 1: a bunch of your other edit it's on a previous draft,
Speaker 1: and then I had said this one thing that you
Speaker 1: said I don't really agree with. I think we should
Speaker 1: keep it in. Yeah, And then you heard it in
Speaker 1: the final draft of the show that was right about
Speaker 1: to be published, and you were like, I still don't
Speaker 1: like this, And that was the thing I didn't have
Speaker 1: a chance to respond to. It wasn't just an edit
Speaker 1: I didn't like. It was something where I like the
Speaker 1: way I've not sounded that I was saying something I
Speaker 1: don't want to be on the record saying, and don't
Speaker 1: be in and I think that I don't know how
Speaker 1: to like quotify this. I'm not sure if we can.
Speaker 1: But it's if you ever were like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say this on tape, I feel like there should
Speaker 1: be some sort of clause clause, and like making a
Speaker 1: show where it's like if you ever were like I
Speaker 1: hate people who juggle, and then you were like, great,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that, but I think I could have
Speaker 1: explained that to you in person and also be more
Speaker 1: clear about it. I understood that you felt like you
Speaker 1: you weren't represented well and this thing that you said,
Speaker 1: and I felt like you were overreacting, and so I
Speaker 1: think probably I didn't understand the extent to which I
Speaker 1: bothered you. And then I also kind of was like,
Speaker 1: I think she's overthinking this. Like I think to me
Speaker 1: that moment when I listened to it sounded perfectly incu
Speaker 1: like a perfectly omacuous exchange. And I think that probably
Speaker 1: what needed to happen was you needed to communicate to me,
Speaker 1: I don't like this. You're not getting why I don't
Speaker 1: like this, But this isn't about This is about, yeah,
Speaker 1: something about me that I don't want on tape. I
Speaker 1: think that the not to get too bad about it,
Speaker 1: But I think the value of talking face to face
Speaker 1: is that the issue I thought we were having was
Speaker 1: that we had is that like I was like, well,
Speaker 1: this this is my episodes where I should be the
Speaker 1: final sign off, which I think, but you basically agree
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, Well, I'm glad we didn't let it
Speaker 1: continue to unfold over chat because this is a busy
Speaker 1: morning and that would have been easy to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like we came to two important points, which
Speaker 1: is that like, the one who owns that episode should
Speaker 1: on the episode and we should be respectable of that.
Speaker 1: And we should also be mindful if there's like times
Speaker 1: and episodes people really feel uncomfortable with what they're saying
Speaker 1: and tried to express that better. I think we should
Speaker 1: have a paganism though, Like I don't want anyone to
Speaker 1: feel like they can't say like, no, you sound good,
Speaker 1: and we keep it in because I think that instinct
Speaker 1: is right too. We should be like I'm invoking yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm invoking the you know, personal discomfort clause. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: will say, as somebody who does like face to face encounters,
Speaker 1: that one even better than I thought it would. You
Speaker 1: were in paradise, that was so face to face, and
Speaker 1: it would have been a bigger fight if it had
Speaker 1: stayed on chat, yeah, because we would have just kept
Speaker 1: kind of missing each other's main point and staying annoyed
Speaker 1: privately about the things we were annoyed about. So I
Speaker 1: honestly felt bad about sending you a snotty chat message
Speaker 1: at like nine thirty at night the minute after I
Speaker 1: did it, and then I was nervous about sitting together
Speaker 1: and talking about it, and then so relieved that we did.
Speaker 1: And I think that we we came away from it
Speaker 1: understanding something that we didn't understand before, which is that's
Speaker 1: the whole idea. Yeah, I agree. I will say that
Speaker 1: we spent twenty minutes talking about this one chat, and
Speaker 1: I don't know how people how we're supposed to do
Speaker 1: that for all of our interpersonal conflicts like that seems.
Speaker 1: I think if we had snotty chat arguments every day,
Speaker 1: we would have to probably be more efficient about the
Speaker 1: I r L conversations. But this doesn't come up that often.
Speaker 1: It's not that common that we have a real life,
Speaker 1: bona fide conflict like this. Maybe like every two or
Speaker 1: three weeks, once a month, I don't know. So we
Speaker 1: could do a twenty minute we could do a twenty
Speaker 1: minute heart to heart every month. Yeah, alright, let's we'll
Speaker 1: try to commit to that. I don't even like you
Speaker 1: want to do it twenty hard to heart every day
Speaker 1: right now. I think it's fair to say we enjoyed
Speaker 1: a lot of these experiences, but the measure of success
Speaker 1: for our experiment was if we used a tip that
Speaker 1: we learned from our coach and it worked, then we
Speaker 1: would consider it a success. Would you say that we
Speaker 1: did it? I think we did. Yeah, yeah, totally. I
Speaker 1: mean we wouldn't have talked face to face if it
Speaker 1: hadn't been for Ben, And the face to face talk
Speaker 1: was way more fruitful than a chat conversation would have been,
Speaker 1: So I think that equals it worked. Yes. Agree. I
Speaker 1: think we need to say that seeing Ben is not
Speaker 1: a reasonable option for most people who are just working
Speaker 1: on work projects with their cut workers. Yeah, they don't
Speaker 1: have four out of pocket to spend on improving their
Speaker 1: work relationships. But I do you think it is I
Speaker 1: able to work on your work relationship And that's something
Speaker 1: that Erica, who we talked to earlier said is a
Speaker 1: skill that most of us aren't trained for. I think
Speaker 1: if companies were smart, they would pick up the slack
Speaker 1: here a little bit, like maybe not invest in four
Speaker 1: management coaches for everybody, but do some training around this
Speaker 1: with their employees and take it seriously as something people
Speaker 1: need to work on. I don't know I would be
Speaker 1: down for a certain company to continue paying for four
Speaker 1: therapy sessions. I don't know it's a good idea. Next
Speaker 1: week on Works for Me, Francesco cleans out her inbox.
Speaker 1: Where would you say I rank and like among all
Speaker 1: the people you work with? Am I like the worst
Speaker 1: about email? Or am I in the middle? Or am
Speaker 1: I post to the bottom? I don't think you're at
Speaker 1: the very bottom, but you're near the bottom. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to another episode of Works for Me. If you
Speaker 1: like our show, head on over at to Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts and rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 1: This show was hosted by me Backa Greenfield and Me
Speaker 1: Francesca Leivie. And if you have a workplace problem you're
Speaker 1: trying to solve, we'd love to hear about it. So
Speaker 1: leave us a voicemailt with two one to six one
Speaker 1: seven zero six and we might use it on the show.
Speaker 1: Or you could tweet at us I'm at Francesca today
Speaker 1: and I'm at rs Greenfield. You can find more great
Speaker 1: Works for Me content on our show page at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash Work for Me, where we also have
Speaker 1: illustrations done by Jordan's Spear. The show was produced by
Speaker 1: Cooper four Hits and Francis Bellivia is Bloomberg's head of
Speaker 1: podcast