Thoughts Unlocked – Productivity Shaming

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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:18 Understanding Work Styles and Pace
02:56 The Concept of Pace Empathy
04:27 The Dangers of Productivity Shaming
05:45 Visible Activity vs. Meaningful Progress
12:51 Challenging Pace Bias and Seeking Understanding

Skot Waldron (00:05:00)
I’m Skot Waldron, and when I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the globe, helping leaders and teams communicate better, build trust faster, and actually enjoy working together. I know, who would have thought? I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot, I’ve spoken at national architectural firms, at their sales training, off sites for major pharmaceutical companies, and industry associations.

A thousand attendees who have read my sessions. With 99% of them saying they found the sessions valuable. 97% saying they’d actually attend again. I’ve had caterers come up to me afterwards and thank me because they actually got something they could use when they went home or when they went back to their own jobs. I mean, if every keynote delivered those types of numbers, nobody would secretly be refreshing their email under the table. And let’s be honest, that’s a little bit of my nightmare, maybe a little bit of yours. Yeah, something that keeps me up at night.

If you’re an event planner, looking for a speaker who’s easy to work with and delivers actual value that people can take away and use on Monday. Let’s make your event unforgettable.

Welcome back to Thoughts Unlocked. Today I want to start with a question. Have you ever been annoyed by how someone else works? Not like how they like work, like how does their body work? We all kind of know that. No, I mean, but I like their work style, not because they’re incompetent and not because they’re lazy, just because they don’t move at your pace. That’s why they don’t move at your pace. So, it annoys you.

Maybe you’re the person who leaves a meeting and immediately starts taking action. You’ve got notes, you’ve got next steps, you’ve got a plan. Meanwhile, somebody else leaves that same meeting and says, hmm, I’m going to think about that one for a bit. And then three days later, you’re wondering if they were even paying attention in the meeting. Or maybe you’re on the other side of that whole scenario. Maybe you’re the person who likes to think first, process first, explore possibilities. And the person next to you has already created a spreadsheet, assigned owners, and scheduled all the follow-up meetings. And somehow manage to stress everybody out in the process all before lunch. And we’ve all been there. We’ve all been on both sides of that table.

And here’s what’s interesting to me, and the problem, though, usually isn’t the pace. The problem is the story we tell ourselves about the pace. And if you’ve heard me speak on other shows, you understand that I talk a lot about the stories we tell ourselves, the gaps we fill in our brains. Of the story that we want to complete, and we want to label somebody really quick because that’s easy.

One of the ideas I’ve been working on lately is something I call pace empathy. You’ve heard me talk about pace bias before, that my pace is better than your pace, but pace empathy is also something I’ve been working on. Pace empathy is the ability to recognize that people create value at different speeds and through different paths. Yes, they do. And the empathy part is the ability to recognize that that exists, that people are different, they work at different speeds, they come up with different things in different ways. Because if we’re really honest about all this, most workplace friction isn’t caused by pace differences. It’s caused by pace judgments. The judgments we place on that pace. Because as soon as I tell myself a story about this thing, I start treating them that way.

Internal perception drives outward manifestation. I see it all the time. Someone moves a lot slower than I would, so I assume that they’re disengaged. Or someone moves a lot faster than I would. And I assume they’re reckless. Someone wants more time to incubate and to think about something. I assume they’re procrastinating. It’s a bad word in my world. Procrastinating. Someone wants immediate action. And I assume that they’re anxious. They need to chill out. Notice what’s happened with all this thing. I didn’t evaluate any of the work. I didn’t talk about any of the work. I’m just talking about the person. I’m judging the person.

One of the concepts in my upcoming book is called Pace Bias. I’ve talked about that. It happens when I assume that my pace is better than your pace, and then I judge everyone else for that thing. And once pace bias takes hold, something else shows up. Check this out, y’all. Something I think. That is quietly damaging a lot of teams. The pace bias, sure. Like inside of my thoughts, like pace bias is happening, and my way is better than your way. But the damage comes when we do something called productivity shaming.

Productivity shaming. Now, productivity shaming doesn’t usually sound like shaming. Nobody walks into that meeting and says, “hey, I’d like to publicly shame Dave today.” I mean that would be awkward. That’s not really how this whole thing works. It’s a lot more subtle. It’s more in the comments that we make. It’s like, wow, you’re just now getting to that. Oh my gosh, that just hit me hard. Because you know what? I say that to my wife all the time, oh gosh, that hurt hard. That, it was just like, hey, you’re still working on that? Oh my gosh, that’s yeah, that’s hurting me in the heart.

It’s that sigh or it’s an eye roll. It’s maybe that fourth follow-up email that you’re sending. Maybe it’s your manager who says, I just don’t understand why this is taking so long. Right in there is like so many hidden underlying messages. And it’s a coworker who equates speed with commitment. It’s all those assumptions that visible activity equals meaningful progress. We reward visible activity in our culture. Visible activity means meaningful progress. But here is where all the danger sets in. Because most people who “productivity shame” don’t think they’re shaming anyone. They think they’re encouraging, maybe. They think they’re creating accountability. They think they’re raising the standard. They think they’re being curious, right? Or I’m not judging. I’m curious. What’s taking you so long?

That’s me asking a question with a lot of hidden things underlying. But often we’re just projecting our preferred work style onto someone else or judging them for it. Amy Cuddy is a researcher that I reference lately in a lot of my stuff. This is where she becomes relevant in some of this stuff. Amy Cuddy and her colleagues, they found that people, they tend to evaluate others through two primary lenses: warmth and competence. Do I trust you? And can you do the job?

What’s interesting is that when people feel judged, shamed, or socially threatened, they become less effective at their jobs. When you shame them, they actually seek security. So, what they do, they retract and they get smaller and they don’t speak up. And then we wonder why they’re not engaged. They become less effective, not more, because of the shaming. Because once someone feels they’re being evaluated, they don’t focus entirely on the work anymore. Part of their attention is shifting to protecting themselves, protecting their reputation and their image and their competency and their teams and their project and whatever’s going on. They’re managing perceptions, not working on the thing they should be working on.

So, have you ever noticed this? Like someone gets questioned repeatedly about their progress, and then suddenly they’re spending more energy proving they’re working than they’re actually working. And actually, in my research, 76% of people say that they have a lot of pressure just to look busy. Like, regardless of the output. They just need to look busy because they know they’re getting judged. They’re sending updates or copying people on emails. Like, how many of you want to be CC’d on more emails? Is anybody out there saying, oh my gosh, I wish I was CC’d on all the emails, said nobody.

I want you to create visible activity. That’s what these people are doing. They’re creating these visible activities, and it’s a problem. That’s what leaders, some people are saying. I want you to create visible activity because that’s the only way I know you’re working. That’s not what we need. It’s not because the work requires it, it’s because my anxiety requires it. You get that? It’s my anxiety, and I want you to work visibly and do meaningless stuff because I’m anxious. Hmm.

So that’s one of the hidden costs of productivity shaming. It creates performative productivity, right? Things where people just need to look and stay busy. They start adding you to all the chat messages and all the emails and jumping in, telling you every single update every time they do something, and it becomes too much. Maybe you like it at the beginning, but it becomes rough near the end. People start optimizing for looking productive instead of being productive. And these are not the same thing. This is especially true when you put what I call structured thinkers and adaptive thinkers together. Structured thinkers, they create clarity through movement. Adaptive thinkers create clarity through exploration. Structured through movement, adaptive through exploration. One starts by doing, one starts by thinking. One starts with momentum; one starts with understanding. Both can deliver incredible results, y’all. But when they don’t understand each other, they often assume the worst.

The structure thinker sees the invisible work and thinks they haven’t done anything yet. The adaptive thinker sees rapid action and thinks they haven’t even thought this through. Like, what are they doing? Neither is trying to be difficult. I don’t think either one of them is trying to be difficult. I think that they’re generating clarity in their different ways. And that is a problem.

What I want you to do is I want you to see what pace empathy looks like. And it sounds like, help me understand how you’re approaching this. Or there’s some other questions I got here. So one is, what are you seeing that I’m not seeing? Or what part of this are you still processing? Or what would help create some clarity for you? What’s one thing I can do to create some clarity for you? These questions create understanding. Judgment creates defensiveness. Which one do you want your team to revolve around? Understanding each other, seeking understanding, or do we want a lot of defensiveness? I don’t think anybody out there is like, please, Skot, please, can you sign me up for more defensiveness? Please. I tried to look up defensiveness.com and order some, but I can’t find how to get enough of it. You don’t want more of that. I promise you. And there’s a bit of line rattling in my head, and I’ve kind of tested this out. And I’m going to test it out with you. The opposite of productivity shaming isn’t lowering your standards; it’s a better diagnosis. Okay. The opposite of productivity shaming isn’t lower standards; it’s a better diagnosis.

Accountability still matters. Deadlines still matter, results still matter. But before we judge someone’s pace, we need to understand what’s driving it. Is it processing? Is it uncertainty? Is it a lack of clarity? Is there some type of friction we haven’t diagnosed yet? Or something that’s going on in the environment? Is it a weight that they’re carrying emotionally that we don’t understand what’s going on? Or is it like genuine avoidance? Like, are they really avoiding this thing? Are they truly procrastinating? Like, what is going on? Those are different problems and they require different responses.

I want you to challenge the idea of pace bias in your world and what that looks like. Notice when someone’s speed starts telling a story in your head. Like, what are you making it mean? That’s one of my great questions. What are you making it mean? Notice when you move from observation to judgment. Notice when you’re tempted to equate pace with the actual person, the kind of person they are. I guarantee you that the fastest person isn’t always the most productive, and I guarantee you, the slowest person isn’t always procrastinating. And I guarantee you that the one who is trying to create a little bit more structure isn’t always micromanaging because accountability does not always equal micromanagement. So, you can get rid of that label too.

Some of the best work you’ve ever seen probably happened at a pace you didn’t quite fully understand, or a marrying of the two paces together cause that’s what work really is and that’s where the beautiful dance happens.

Thank you for joining me on another episode of Thoughts Unlocked. If this episode made you think of someone on your team, maybe schedule conversation before you schedule another follow-up meeting. I want you to get curious, I want you to ask questions, I want you to understand the pace before you judge the pace. Great teams, they’re not built when everyone works the same way, y’all. They’re built when people learn to appreciate the strengths hidden inside of different ways of working.

Until next time, stay curious, diagnose before you react, and keep unlocking what’s possible.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay on Unlocked.