Our mission is to help remote employees increase their self awareness and understanding of each other resulting in a stronger work culture. We plan on doing this via stories which are vignettes of common work situations.
- Team members would read the story and review the introspection questions individually.
- Then they would meet to discuss and also watch the coaching insights video.
On this page the coaching text section is a placeholder for the video that will be added later. Companies can also have a live coach attend the discussion sessions instead of the video for a higher price. This page is a bare bones representation built for the sole purpose of gathering feedback. Please be as honest as possible. Thank you, we really appreciate your feedback and support
Chapter 1
Cheryl felt the anger rising in her as she drove around the levels of the parking lot trying to find a place to park. The car in front of her stopped and she ground her teeth as she imagined how satisfying it would be to run into the back of it. Why was everyone here trying to park, didn’t they have anything else to do? She finally found a spot on level 9. It was tight but she wasn’t going to spend any more time circling to find something better so she parked and headed for the elevators.
There was barely enough time with all the searching she had to do getting a parking spot but Cheryl managed to buy two doughnuts on her way to the office. She needed those doughnuts. She had to have them to get through another day at work.
After visiting her desk she went straight to the coffee machine. She heard Joey’s laugh and the anger bubbled up inside her again, her throat tightened and her heart raced. She struggled to keep it from showing. She plastered a smile on her face. Cheryl always acted polite no matter how she felt. She hated confrontation. She had been waiting for Joey to finish his task of fixing the performance of a dataset so that she could start on her own work and he was a week behind schedule forcing her to wait. Now she might not get her work in on time and this was stressing her out. He was at the coffee machine helping himself to the last of the coffee and she felt even angrier because now she would have to brew the next pot to get the cup of coffee she really needed. She was barely hanging by a thread today. “Have you optimized that dataset yet?” she asked with a tight smile. “Still working on it” He replied, walking away quickly.
She got back to her desk and stuffed her anger down with the doughnuts and coffee. She felt better.
Joey walked away from Cheryl feeling scared. He put on a great mask of confidence but he knew something had to give soon. He had been stuck on the task of figuring out why the database tables were running slow but he was stumped. He had tried his best but he just couldn’t figure it out. Cheryl had looked upset though as usual she tried to be nice about it. She was most likely going to report him to their boss Brian. He had Brian thinking he was the best programmer on the team and this was not going to look good. Cheryl was old and stodgy but the old bat knew what she was doing, he admitted grudgingly to himself. There was only one solution to his problem. He hated to do it but he didn’t have a choice. He started walking towards Cheryl’s desk.
He saw the look of surprise on her face when he approached. He mustered up his courage and asked “Cheryl, can you take a look at my code. I can’t figure out what’s wrong”. She nodded, Cheryl loved to help and give advice. They walked back to his desk and she took a look and said “This looks okay, have you checked the table indexes?”. “Indexes?” He said, He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know what they were and how to check them. “Why don’t you have Bob the Database admin check them for you?” She suggested. Cheryl felt a moment of compassion for him. He was just a kid and didn’t know much. It got under her skin that he acted so cocky and that Brian fell for his act but maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.
Joey reached out to the Database Administrator and Cheryl had been right. There was a problem with the indexes. Finally, he could let Cheryl know he had completed the optimization so she could now use the database tables in her task. He was relieved and grateful to Cheryl. Old people weren’t as useless as he had thought. He had respect for Cheryl.
The next day Brian called Joey into his office. Joey felt a little anxious. He hoped Brian was not going to be mad at him about the delay on his last task.He didn’t know if Cheryl had said anything to Brian about it or not. “How have you been pal?” Brian asked with a broad smile on his face. “Good, good, can’t complain!” said Joey. “I have some good news Joey”, Brian said with a huge smile on his face. “I am being promoted to Senior Manager and I have put in for you to take my place as the lead for your team!” Joey was shocked. He forced himself to smile but inside he was having an anxiety attack. He knew he didn’t deserve the promotion, and he wasn’t ready for this level of responsibility but he felt pressured to achieve and succeed. He could imagine how proud his parents would be . He smiled confidently and shook Brian’s outstretched hand. “I accept!” He said smiling, pushing the worry away. He felt good after leaving Brian’s office but he kept worrying. What would Cheryl think when she heard the news?
Introspection questions:
- Have you ever avoided letting someone know you were mad at them or do you know someone who hides it instead of speaking? Why do you think honesty can be so hard for some people?
- Do you think it helped Cheryl to keep her anger at Joey to herself? What do you think about her helping him?
- How much pressure do you feel to succeed? Can you empathize with Joey?
- Do you think ageism exists? Who gets discriminated against most, older workers or younger workers? Or both?
- What in your past has influenced your ideas about different generations in the workplace?
- False empowerment refers to making someone into more than they are. We saw Brian falsely empowering Joey in this story.. How do you think this affects a person’s life both positively and negatively?
Coaches analysis
Cheryl
| What she can do | What she can’t do anything about |
| She can be honest with her boss about how she feels. She carries a lot of the team’s load and is responsible for much of its success but she doesn’t speak up and ask for any recognition. She could ask for more challenges and growth. She could try to introspect to understand why she asks so little for herself | Her boss identifies more with Joey and chooses to elevate him over Cheryl. If Cheryl voices her concerns in a respectful way and is still sidelined she should seek employment elsewhere otherwise she will stay angry and stressed which could have a negative impact on her health and well being. |
| Cheryl can introspect on why she needs to overhelp. Overhelping enables Joey. She could have raised a concern with Brian that Joey seemed unable to do his job and how that impacted her own timeline. Perhaps Cheryl’s self esteem is low and she wants to be compliant and helpful to feel worthy. She could introspect on why she feels this way. She could also get coaching or therapy to help her with this issue via the companies EAP provider | Joey is not up to the job and having him on the team makes things more difficult for Cheryl. She sometimes cannot get her own tasks done on time. Cheryl cannot get Joey to improve or learn. He is not teachable because in the current environment he faces no consequences for his poor performance |
Joey
| What he can do | What he can’t do anything about |
| Joey could be honest with Brian and ask for help in becoming more proficient as a programmer. He could focus on learning, taking courses and working harder. If he was honest about his true abilities with himself and with the team then perhaps he could be coached by Cheryl to gain the skills he needs to develop. He could introspect on why he feels so much pressure to perform and put on an act | Brian falsely empowers Joey and puts pressure on him. Cheryl also enables his behavior by not speaking to the issues |
Brian
| What he can do | What he can’t do anything about |
| Brian gets along with Joey and he sees himself in him. He wants Joey to be the rising star of his team. He sees Cheryl as too old to bring fresh ideas to the team. He could challenge these beliefs. He pays a lot of attention to what people above him want and ignores the team. He could spend more time understanding his direct reports | Cheryl is too deferential making is easy to sideline her and Joey puts on a good act of confidence making it easy for Brian to avoid seeing the problems lurking below the surface for the team |