There's nothing quite like being at the office when everyone else has gone home. Hearing the hum of the cleaner's vacuum in the background.
Your day was consumed with a report you didn't know you’d need to write, for a project that has already caused more than its fair share of headaches. Somehow, you managed to send out the report before COB, not an easy feat!
You're now tidying up a few things before heading home, you’re re-arranging your to-do list for tomorrow, and you're finally allowing yourself to settle after a day that didn't go to plan.
Then, in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen, an Outlook notification appears. You immediately wish you'd closed Outlook five minutes earlier.
The client you sent the report to has replied. Judging by the first line, they’re not happy.
The feeling of achievement you had allowed yourself to indulge in is instantly catapulted from your body and replaced by that familiar tingling anxiety and the thought:
"Nothing is ever enough.”
We’ve all had projects like this, clients like this, moments at work like this, and there is one project in particular that has stayed with me.
At the time, I thought it was teaching me lessons about stakeholder management: how to communicate more effectively, how to manage expectations and how to navigate difficult personalities. And it was, but it was also teaching me something much bigger.
The project wasn't struggling due to a lack of intelligence or capability. There were highly skilled professionals involved who genuinely wanted a good outcome. But what I can see now is that everyone was experiencing the project differently.
Some people were deeply invested in the outcome. Others were balancing it against a dozen competing priorities. Some risks felt obvious to certain people and routine to others. Some concerns felt urgent to one person and completely manageable to someone else.
The stakeholder involved wasn't necessarily looking for the team to solve the problem differently. Looking back, I think they wanted to better understand how decisions were being made and to feel included in the process.
At the time, we were focused on solving the technical problem sitting in front of us.
What I now realise is that a relationship problem was developing underneath it.
The reason this lesson has stayed with me is because I see versions of it everywhere:
- In workplaces.
- In teams.
- In leadership.
- Even in our personal relationships.
We assume other people see what we see.
We assume they understand what we understand.
We assume they care about the same things we care about.
And when their behaviour doesn't make sense to us, we often fill the gaps with our own assumptions rather than our curiosity.
The challenge is that people don't react to situations alone. They react to what they believe those situations mean. Two people can sit in the same meeting, hear the same conversation, and walk away with completely different interpretations of what just happened.
Neither person is necessarily wrong. They're simply having different experiences.
The longer I spend working with people, the more convinced I become that many of our biggest workplace challenges aren't caused by a lack of intelligence or capability. They're caused by a lack of emotional intelligence.
This week's podcast episode explores that idea, the ability to understand the human dynamics that influence outcomes, the ones we can see, and the ones we can't.
If this topic resonates with you, listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
I have an upcoming presentation on emotional intelligence for Engineers Australia and as I prepare for that, this project keeps coming back to mind because it reminds me that every project is ultimately delivered by people for people.
And until we understand the nuances relating to emotional intelligence at work, we’ll keep coming up against misunderstandings and barriers.
Remember, people are rarely responding to the situation itself. They're responding to their experience of it.
Maybe that's something worth reflecting on this week. Where might you be assuming someone else is seeing the situation the same way you are?
– Nat
PS If you'd like to join me at the Engineers Australia International Women in Engineering Day Breakfast later this month, I'll be speaking about emotional intelligence and the role it plays in helping teams work more effectively together. You can register here.
PPS Have you ever looked back on a workplace situation and realised the problem wasn't what you originally thought it was? Hit reply and let me know. Those reflections are often where the biggest lessons live.
