Feeling flat? You’re languishing

Hello and welcome to Working It.

This week I discovered a new (for me) workplace trend on TikTok — “shift shock”. It’s when the job you are hired for turns out to be not quite as advertised. That issue has always existed, but it’s interesting that it’s now being labelled on social media. “Quiet quitting” was another phenomenon we all knew about — there have always been people who choose to work only their contracted hours — but TikTok gave it a catchy name.

What other workplace quirks and failings should get the viral treatment? I’d love to hear your ideas: [email protected].

Read on for the huge and under-diagnosed issue of “languishing”, which causes misery and can contribute to workplace burnout and mental illness and in Office Therapy we advise an overstretched manager.

Why languishing matters — and how to spot it

Are you languishing 🙁? A lot of people are in this state of non-wellbeing — it’s the opposite of “flourishing” — and it has implications for your life, work and mental health. It’s not the same as depression or burnout, either — although it can coexist with both of those conditions.

How can you spot languishing in yourself or in others? Corey Keyes, a sociologist and professor emeritus at Emory University in the US, has been researching mental health and the science of human flourishing for decades, and has just published a book on the subject — called, yes, Languishing. Here are some of the ways it shows up in our lives (the book has a lot more detail and self-assessment charts).

• You feel emotionally flattened. It’s hard to muster up excitement for events and milestones on the horizon.

• Your job once gave you a sense of meaning, or at least accomplishment, but it is starting to seem pointless in the grand scheme of things.

• Small setbacks that you might once have weathered fairly easily leave you feeling defeated. You feel restless, even rootless.

I spoke to Corey to find out more about why understanding languishing is important. He said:

“I think we assumed things are black and white when it comes to mental health and illness — and I think that was a nice tidy world to live in — ‘if you are not mentally ill you are doing fine, you are healthy’ — and that’s simply not the case. I think we have assumed somehow that we don’t live in a more nuanced world.”

Good mental health may protect us against some of the more harmful aspects of the workplace. Corey cites research that followed people working in high-conflict, high-stress workplaces. Those who were “flourishing” — engaged, happy, purposeful — did remarkably well.

“Over time your psychological distress was no higher than people who worked in a low-conflict, low-stress workplace. If you are languishing in a high-conflict, high-stress workplace, then your distress was much higher over time.”

He went on:

“The thing about good mental health is that somehow it’s a protective factor against working in a high-stress, high-conflict workplace: what a remarkable finding. We don’t know why, but my hunch is that when your life has purpose, you are making contributions, can express ideas and opinions, you are functioning well and feeling good. So you are able to respond better and deal with conflict, rather than let it bubble up and boil over.”

Corey also made the point that huge amounts of money and effort go into alleviating the symptoms of mental illness but very little goes into prevention. “I don’t understand this, because things keep getting worse. There is a growing crisis of mental illness, so obviously what we are doing isn’t working.”

Some of the ways Corey suggests we help ourselves to flourish include being part of a wider community and finding purpose in the everyday — you might say mundane, plus small acts of kindness.

I really like this focus on “languishing” as a distinct state from burnout, depression and anxiety. Books like Corey’s are important: we need a post-pandemic reset of how we work, to make it better and more humane. I’ve also just read Cal Newport’s new book, Slow Productivity (published next month), which sets out a simple and appealing prescription (the title gives it away) for leading a less frenetic work life, while accomplishing more 😌.

It feels that, finally, something may be shifting in our often fraught relationship with the demands of modern life, and with our work as part of that. Let me know whether you think that’s correct. Or are we doomed to languish in pointless overwork and lack of human connection? I’d love to know what readers think.

*Thank you for the overwhelming response to last week’s giveaway — those winners should get their books very soon. This week we have 10 copies of “Languishing” to give away. Email [email protected] with “book giveaway” in the subject line and include your details. All entries we receive before 5pm UK time on Thursday 22nd February will be entered into the draw.

This week on the Working It podcast

People pleasing is a multi-faceted thing. For some people, it can mean being so anxious about our job security or what others think of us that we take on too much at work in a bid to be appreciated. More commonly, it can mean doing extra work or putting in long hours to please a boss or client — sometimes with the expectation of getting something in return (a promotion). And at its most transactional, there are people who do “performative” extra work so they can claim credit in public.

In this week’s Working It episode, we unpick all the forms of people pleasing, and offer guidance on how and when to take on extra tasks — and when to set firm boundaries. I talk to Tessa West, professor of psychology at NYU, and to Christine Braamskamp, London-based managing partner at international law firm Jenner & Block.

Office Therapy

The problem: Everything I read about good management centres on having regular one-on-one meetings with your team. I can’t see how that works: I manage a big team and we all work long hours. If I had chats with everyone I would have very limited time to cover my own workload. I rely on the team to tell me when they have a problem. Any ideas for me?

Isabel’s advice: This is a recipe for burnout and disengagement, for everyone. You obviously care about the team but this kind of set-up, where no time is built into the working week to do any sort of people management, is old-fashioned and self-defeating. I am going to bet you were promoted with no training, and that your workload is just the same as the people in the team — i.e. you are doing the same job that they do, but with more responsibility 😮.

A small thing you can do is to block out time for a few one-on-ones — maybe that’s an hour on Friday afternoon: whenever the workload is a bit less pressing. You could call a team meeting, say you’d like to have regular catch-ups with everyone and start doing it bit by bit — even two or three 15-minute meetings per week would be better than nothing. The team will appreciate your efforts.

Do you have a senior manager or HR manager you can talk to about this? What do your peers do? If your team is too big for one person to manage meaningfully, is there a deputy who can share the load, or can you hire someone into a dedicated managerial role?

If you don’t get any back-up or buy-in from senior leaders then you may need to think hard about your future in this organisation.

Got a question, problem or dilemma for Office Therapy? Think you have better advice for our readers? Send it to me: [email protected] or via a voice note. We anonymise everything. Your boss, colleagues or underlings will never know.

Five top stories from the world of work

1. Should pay be more transparent? The fast-evolving world of pay transparency gets an economist’s-eye view from Soumaya Keynes. Results are mixed so far, but transparency on job adverts does help lower-paid people.

2. Work from home if you want but don’t expect a pay rise: Pilita Clark gets to the bottom of some of the latest data on WFH — there’s a link between working from home and higher productivity, for one. But still bosses aren’t happy . . . 

3. The real quandary of AI isn’t what most people think: Tim Harford examines how management consultants are using ChatGPT in their work — and makes an interesting link with early smartphone use.

4. Interview: Redbird’s Gerry Cardinale The former Goldman Sachs executive behind a string of Wall Street, Hollywood and sports deals talks to James Fontanella-Khan about his entrepreneurial way of leadership.

5. How businesses are managing the four-day week: Many of the companies involved in a big four-day workweek trial in the UK have carried on with the practice — Emma Jacobs finds out how that’s going.

One more thing . . . 

At last, someone has done a proper examination of the crisis in airline carry-on luggage. We all dread that tension at the gate as everyone queues impatiently, ready to sprint to put their own oversized bag in the overhead locker. How did it get this bad? In “The Carry-On Baggage Bubble is About to Pop”, Ian Bogost of The Atlantic talks to experts and discovers that this madness began after many airlines started to charge extra for checked baggage — and some are still raising their fees — so carry-ons got bigger. The answer may be a radical shift: checking it all in and returning the overhead space to its original purpose, storing coats and small bags.

A word from the Working It community

There were some excellent replies to last week’s “meet me in the bathroom” newsletter from people who hate their office restrooms, but they are (sorry) not printable 😳. So to raise the tone, here’s another great response to the newsletter on learning to be better at active listening.

This is Toms Mūrnieks, an industrial designer, explaining his process of getting to know new clients and meeting teams of industry experts:

“The best way to make sure that there are minimal errors in your communication from the get-go is to follow the speaker’s first explanation of the challenge and their solution with a summary or repetition of what you just heard, the way you understood it.

“It might sometimes seem naive, but, especially when it comes to embracing something that is out of your expertise, it allows you to evade the ‘search in the dark’ of follow-up questions and lets the other party correct you, so that you get on the same page and truly understand.”

This approach, as Toms further points out, requires us to let go of our “inner professional” and the urge to add value with our insights.

I love this. Don’t be afraid to let go of your inner professional 😅.

And finally . . .🇺🇸

The FT has launched the US Election Countdown newsletter to bring you the latest news and polling data from one of the most significant elections in decades. Written by Steff Chávez in Washington, it will also include behind-the-scenes insights into the campaign, with an emphasis on where the big donors are putting their cash. Sign up here.