Willner Consulting

How can you become more intentional with workplace communication this year? Welcome to 2025. Divisions in society are bigger than ever and most workplaces are affected by change, uncertainty, and tougher measures. All these things can drive reactivity, which often leads to knee-jerk responses driven by emotions or assumptions rather than thoughtful, intentional actions. This in turn leads to more stress, misunderstandings, and negatively impacts mental health all around. Here are 12 intentional strategies to improve workplace communication, inspired by Forbes Coaches Council. Link to article in comments! 💡 Embrace Curiosity: Instead of jumping to conclusions, ask questions to understand others' perspectives. 💡 Ground Yourself Physically: Practice deep breathing and maintain relaxed body language to manage emotional triggers. 💡 Take a 'Time Out': Recognize your emotional triggers and give yourself a moment before responding. 💡 Identify Your Emotions: Acknowledge and label your feelings to regain control over your reactions. 💡 Acknowledge Valid Points: Find merit in others' statements to foster constructive dialogue. 💡 Avoid Personalization: Understand that others' actions are often not about you; maintain objectivity. 💡 Pause and Clarify: Take a moment before responding and seek clarification to prevent misunderstandings. 💡 Reframe Your Thinking: Consider situations from others' viewpoints to reduce judgment and enhance understanding. 💡 Practice Mindfulness: Stay aware of your emotions to communicate more effectively and reduce stress. 💡 Think Before Speaking: Reflect on whether your words will advance the conversation positively. 💡 Draft Your Response: Write down your initial thoughts to process emotions before communicating. 💡 Ask More Questions: Engage in active listening by inquiring further, ensuring accurate understanding. The image is what ChatGPT thought more intentional workplace communication might look like if put in practice..... Do you agree? Notably the guy on the picture only has one foot.... #leadership #emotionalintelligence #emotionalregulation #workplacecommunication #mentalhealthatwork #difficultconversations

”The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities” -Stephen Covey Have you picked -and articulated or visualized- your top priorities for 2025 yet? If not, now might be a perfect time -especially if you want to avoid feeling as overwhelmed next year in December as you might be doing now. Ideally, we should only have 3-5 work/life priorities that we spend 95% of our time on. Modern life in the real world is pretty complex and demanding though- it comes with some compromises and stuff we didn’t expect or ask for. That being said, some of those clients I spoke to this year that were experiencing stress and overwhelm had completely lost sight of what their most important priorities were. Others had a general, yet slightly vaguely articulated idea, but their choices did not reflect these priorities - or they had stopped making active choices altogether. It happens to all of us at times 🙄 I’m not going to claim I always get this right myself. But what I do know is that the more clear and intentional we are at picking, understanding, and articulating our priorities- the greater the chances are we maintain our boundaries and say yes and no to the right things. What do you want more/less of in 2025? What trade-offs are you willing/unwilling to make to stay true to your priorities? #leadership #stressmanagement #overwhelm #prioritization #worklifeintegration

Forget the lofty resolutions and start the year by becoming intentional about habits instead. Becoming intentional about the habits in the below infographic by Dr. Carolyn Frost will give you agency every day to take decisions that are aligned with your interests and values. Happy New Year! #leadership #habits #growth #boundaries #agency

What do you need to become more actionable about your intentions in 2025? Most likely clarity. Without clarity about what your priorities are, and why, it is difficult - if not impossible- to constructively combine intention with action, and effectively prioritize your time, energy, focus and growth in a way that will ensure satisfaction and happiness. "By having clarity about what’s important, you become intentional about where you want to invest your time, focus and energy. This clarity ensures your attention is focused on the areas of your business and life that matter most. You appreciate more and show gratitude to the things that matter most in your life and say no and create better boundaries around the areas of your life that aren’t as important." Mark Pettit, Thrive Global Link to full article in comments With what level of clarity are you entering the new year? Wishing everyone a reflective and good start to the New Year! Image by Liz Fosslien #leadership #clarity #selfawareness #growth #professionalcoaching

Emotions do not just happen to you, but are made by you. This, and pointers to the science beneath, is the best Christmas gift I could think of giving you this year. Your brain constantly predicts and constructs your experience of the world- not always correctly, and sometimes on a low body budget. This gives you a lot more control over your experience than you may have thought you had. But it comes with some responsibilities 🤔 . I am the luckiest, as a big part of my job is to constantly learn and convey wisdom from those who research concepts relating to modern work life, increasing my own wisdom in the process. This year, I have been absorbing the work of neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett. Her insights have not only changed the way I interpret my emotions, and subsequently my surroundings, but also been a game changer for many of my clients. Feldman Barret's research center around how the traditional approach to emotional intelligence (EI) need rewriting, especially as we live and work in increasingly multicultural settings, arguing that emotions are not universally detectable through expressions or controlled by rational thought. Instead, emotions are constructed by the brain, based on predictions and context, a process influenced by past experiences and emotional vocabulary. Hence, greater emotional granularity, or vocab, enhances EI, health, and social interactions, including at work and home. Understanding how your brain works is key for building EI. Also, it helps you reframe the stress and anxiety that often arises when balancing work, life, and responding to a world in change. What are some simple takeaways from this? 💡 The stress and anxiety you might experience is your brain raising to rationalize the sensations that you feel in your body. Often it oversimplifies things or gets them wrong! 💡 Sometimes, when you feel the world is going under, the sensation your brain picked up may have a purely physical cause, such as hunger, tiredness or a cold breaking out! 💡 …this is because the brain operates with the same budget constraints as your body! The brains function is simply to keep you alive and going. 💡 When you learn new words to describe what you are experiencing, you sculpt your brains micro wiring, giving it means to construct new more accurate emotional experiences. 🤣 As mentioned in the Re-thinking podcast linked to below, there is a Japanese word describing the unpleasantness you feel after a bad haircut. What other feelings might you need more accurate words for? Here are some resources! https://lnkd.in/evWF8J6d https://lnkd.in/e-4xEhwr https://lnkd.in/e-KHVWF7 #ei #emotionalintelligence #neuroscience #stressmanagement #leadership #futureofwork

It is feedback season 🥳. But what about bringing it forward? How can you ensure that whatever your direct report/peer does well gets amplified, has impact, and grows further in the incoming year? By being specific, forward- looking, and refining group dynamics. infographic below by @cult of pedagogy, inspired by Joe Hirsh #leadership #feedback #motivation #futureskills #futureofwork

What is the difference between intelligence and wisdom? I’ve always sensed they have emphasized different capabilities. Adam Grant has once again managed to verbalize it, emphasizing judgement, self-control, and longer-term thinking; ”Wisdom is converting learning into good judgment”. #leadership #learning #wisdom

Sometimes we (misguidedly) make it our goal not to feel things - or for other people not to feel things. We seem to think we cannot handle the emotional part of reality. 🙄 We prefer our direct report/peer not to feel anything when we give them critical feedback 🙄 We avoid critical conversations because we might feel uncomfortable things 🙄 We hold back phoning the medical centre because we do not want to deal with the emotional reality of potentially bad news 🙄 We bury ourselves in work/stress because we are afraid to stop up and notice what we actually feel about our work or situation. 😳 Sometimes we even try to skip grief. But emotions, as illustrated in the infographic below (kudos to The Present Psychologist ), can be important motivators, protectors and teachers. And we are built to feel. But we often lack the skills and agility to coexist with our emotions in harmony. As stated by Susan David, Ph.D. ; “Emotions as data, not directives. Think of them as one data point among many to consider as you move forward.” #leadership #ei #emotionalagility #motivation #difficultconversations #selfawareness

What might a reflective response feel and sound like? When we respond, instead of react, we are no longer feeling, acting or sounding like we are defending ourselves, or our fragile egos, from a threat. We are instead able to tap into curiosity, objectivity, and use our emotions as data rather than imperatives. I love the 12 examples below in the infographic by Dr. Carolyn Frost, Lifestyle Designs, of emotionally intelligent phrases. In what type of situations or conversations would you need to hear/use these types of sentences more? How might they shift the dynamics in that conversation? #leadership #emotionalintelligence #emitionalagility #stressmanagement #communication #difficultconversations

Is it possible to love your work, yet hate your job? If this is the case, what might be driving it? Most of my clients are mid-to-advanced-level career professionals who for one reason or another want to change something. A considerable segment comes because they for various reasons feel stuck, disillusioned, and underappreciated. What I have heard more than once from people representing this segment is that they love their work, such as the larger impact the research, expertise, or product they are working on can bring, using the skills it requires, and/or learning about how their area is evolving. When these people claim to hate their jobs, despite liking the work, it is usually because of one – or many- of the below issues are at play ⚠ A direct leader who does not understand, appreciate or support them ⚠Overly political organizational culture, sometimes even toxic, that prevents them from freely and safely expressing their opinion ⚠Lack of mandate to use their expertise, lead, build, or carry out their duties to the best of their professional knowledge ⚠Lack of visibility, recognition or growth ⚠Role description that only allows them to use a limited amount of their professional skills and strengths ⚠Extensive working hours, insufficient pay, and/or lack of flexibility ⚠Uninspiring work environments ⚠Bureaucracy, meetings and politics that keeps them away from the actual work ⚠Lack of team spirit, collaboration, and relatedness among colleagues While there isn’t always an easy or quick fix to the problems above, developing self-awareness around what it is that you do not enjoy about your job is necessary to move past it. Whether through influencing, job crafting, pivoting, or changing direction completely. If you are unhappy at work, is it because of the work or because of the job? What one or two things could change this? As leaders and managers, how can we make jobs inspiring again, and better reflect the strengths and capacities that individual employees bring? Image is a work meme found on internet -original painting apparently Robert Innes “James Eckford Lauder. #leadership #futureofwork #employeengagement #careerpivot #professionalcoaching