When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing(35)
Phase Two: The Midpoint.
For all the Sturm und Drang of phase one, your team probably hasn’t accomplished much yet. That was Gersick’s key insight. So use the midpoint—and the uh-oh effect it brings—to set direction and accelerate the pace. The University of Chicago’s Ayelet Fishbach, whose work on Hanukkah candles I described earlier, has found that when team commitment to achieving a goal is high, it’s best to emphasize the work that remains. But when team commitment is low, it’s wiser to emphasize progress that has already been made even if it’s not massive.5 Figure out your own team’s commitment and move accordingly. As you set the path, remember that teams generally become less open to new ideas and solutions after the midpoint.6 However, they are also the most open to coaching.7 So channel your inner Dean Smith, explain that you’re a little behind, and galvanize action.
Phase Three: Perform.
At this point, team members are motivated, confident about achieving the goal, and generally able to work together with minimal friction. Keep the progress going but be wary of regressing back to the “storm” stage. Let’s say you’re part of a car-design team where different designers generally get along but are starting to become hostile to one another. To maintain optimal performance, ask your colleagues to step back, respect one another’s roles, and reemphasize the shared vision they are moving toward. Be willing to shift tactics, but in this stage, direct your focus squarely on execution.
FIVE WAYS TO COMBAT A MIDLIFE SLUMP
Author and University of Houston professor Brené Brown offers a wonderful definition of “midlife.” She says it’s the period “when the Universe grabs your shoulders and tells you ‘I’m not f—ing around, use the gifts you were given.’” Since most of us will someday contend with the U-curve of well-being, here are some ways to respond when the universe grabs your shoulders but you’re not quite ready.
1. Prioritize your top goals (the Buffett technique).
As billionaires go, Warren Buffett seems like a pretty good guy. He’s pledged his multibillion-dollar fortune to charity. He maintains a modest lifestyle. And he continues to work hard well into his eighties. But the Oracle of Omaha also turns out to be oracular in dealing with the midlife slump.
As legend has it, one day Buffett was talking with his private pilot, who was frustrated that he hadn’t achieved all he’d hoped. Buffett prescribed a three-step remedy.
First, he said, write down your top twenty-five goals for the rest of your life.
Second, look at the list and circle your top five goals, those that are unquestionably your highest priority. That will give you two lists—one with your top five goals, the other with the next twenty.
Third, immediately start planning how to achieve those top five goals. And the other twenty? Get rid of them. Avoid them at all costs. Don’t even look at them until you’ve achieved the top five, which might take a long time.
Doing a few important things well is far more likely to propel you out of the slump than a dozen half-assed and half-finished projects are.
2. Develop midcareer mentoring within your organization.
Most career mentorship happens when people are new to a field or business, and then disappears, fueled by the belief that we’re fully established and no longer need guidance.
Hannes Schwandt of the University of Zurich says that’s a mistake. He suggests providing formal, specific mentorship for employees throughout their career.8 This has two benefits. First, it recognizes that the U-shaped curve of well-being is something most of us encounter. Talking openly about the slump can help us realize that it’s fine to experience some midcareer ennui.
Second, more experienced employees can offer strategies for dealing with the slump. And peers can offer guidance to one another. What have people done to reinject purpose into their work? How have they built meaningful relationships in the office and beyond?
3. Mentally subtract positive events.
In the mathematics of midlife, sometimes subtraction is more powerful than addition. In 2008 four social psychologists borrowed from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life to suggest a novel technique based on that idea.9
Begin by thinking about something positive in your life—the birth of a child, your marriage, a spectacular career achievement. Then list all the circumstances that made it possible—perhaps a seemingly insignificant decision of where to eat dinner one night or a class you decided to enroll in on a whim or the friend of a friend of a friend who happened to tell you about a job opening.
Next, write down all the events, circumstances, and decisions that might never have happened. What if you didn’t go to that party or chose another class or skipped coffee with your cousin? Imagine your life without that chain of events and, more important, without that huge positive in your life.
Now return to the present and remind yourself that life did go your way. Consider the happy, beautiful randomness that brought that person or opportunity into your life. Breathe a sigh of relief. Shake your head at your good fortune. Be grateful. Your life may be more wonderful than you think.
4. Write yourself a few paragraphs of self-compassion.
We’re often more compassionate toward others than we are toward ourselves. But the science of what’s called “self-compassion” is showing that this bias can harm our well-being and undermine resilience.10 That’s why people who research this topic increasingly recommend practices like the following.