How's Work Podcast Helps People Deal With Workplace Issues

 We all know that work has its challenges. Overworked. Underappreciated. Bad Boss. Abusive Boss. No Training. Cranky co-workers. Rude customers. No time to catch up.

That's why the Gimlet / Spotify podcast How's Work with Esther Perel can be the Swiss Army Knife of dealing successfully with workplace issues.

In season two of the established podcast, How’s Work? with Esther Perel, the well-respected couples' therapist brings a new perspective to the invisible forces that shape workplace dynamics, connections, and conflict through one-time therapy sessions with partners, friends, and colleagues alike about some incredibly unique workplace challenges faced over the past year. 

 

Throughout the new season, Esther Perel has focused on the hard conversations we're afraid to have in our jobs: Colleagues navigating the new etiquette of a work from home workforce. A newsroom whose journalists feel that covering breaking news has broken them. A doctor who wants to walk away from his profession, during a pandemic. And more.

The powerful season has uncovered some key learnings and teachings across the diverse workplace circumstances explored. Below is a summary of key points from each episode of the second season so far.

●      Episode 1: If I Quit, What Will People Say?       

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      The word “quitting” can evoke self-loathing. Instead, highlight the skills and values that will be parlayed to other fields.

■      As caregivers, we often give the best of ourselves to our patients and bring the leftovers home. Best to save some of that passion for after hours.

■      There’s no room for replenishment if at the end of the day there is no end of the day. The inability to break the connection from work is an occupational hazard and a relationship hazard.

●      Episode 2: Race, Gender and Money    

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      Any productive exchange across diverse groups means examining our own assumptions about the other.

■      A fight focused around one issue may mask a deeper, yet riskier, issue we’re not ready to address.

■      From imaginary confrontation to real dialogue: Take note of sadness, loss and missed opportunity, and sort fiction from fact.

●      What we do — and don’t do — as bystanders in unjust situations shapes our conscience accountability.

●      Episode 3: You'd Be Perfect for Ralph Lauren   

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      Leaving an ambivalent relationship with one profession to replicate it in another is as doomed as marrying a second — and disappointing — choice.

■      The higher the identification with a profession, the lower the chance of dodging performance anxiety. Sometimes a low-stakes career choice is a healthy one.

■      Leaving a profession doesn’t have to be all or none. Our relationship to the field and the role we play in it can evolve into new opportunities to meet our new priorities.

●      Episode 4: He Gets The Respect, She Gets the Toilet Paper       

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      Assigning rigid roles in a romantic or business partnership can keep participants from joining in creative and generative ways. Simulating conversations of real interest are replaced with a checklist of logistics. It’s essential to find a way to share in the joy together.

■      Every trainer will tell you consistency is key. Commit to weekly or semi-weekly shared experiences that introduce something new to maintain curiosity, interest, involvement and the risk taking that generates excitement and energy.

■      “Confidence can be flexible.” Leaders who have real power often concede control.

■      Stuck in a negative feedback loop? Time to course correct and interrupt the pattern. “Let’s not do this” is a powerful statement to prioritize protecting the relationship.

●      Episode 5: Couples Therapy with My Boss        

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      To root out the tensions between coworkers is to root out their origin: organizational, interrelational/relational, or personal or individual—or possibly a combo.

■      To invite a new conversation about the ideas and experiences that bind coworkers is to invite a new relationship with those coworkers.

●      Episode 6: Breaking News Has Broken Us         

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      To counter isolation, collapsed boundaries and a loss of contextual living, create routines and rituals that demarcate functional spaces, roles and states of mind.

■      Self-care amid collective trauma means tapping into the resources of others.

■      Take a pulse check of what colleagues are experiencing and feeling. Asking questions that meet people where they are at this moment helps to strengthen the emotional and relational health of your team. And builds trust and accountability amongst each other.

■      Freedom in confinement comes from your imagination. Create rituals for serendipity and surprise.

●      Episode 7: Since I Can't Be Myself, I Try To Be You        

○      Key Themes & Messages:

■      Psychic energy fuels creative thinking and doing. The more it’s consumed by survival strategies and fears, the less it’s available for freer pursuits.

■      Language matters. How we label people and situations can mask more complex dynamics while also blocking change. It’s never too late to challenge our interpretations and devise fresh ways to name them.

■      Business partnerships don’t always have to be all or none. A more flexible arrangement might lead to happier and richer outcomes.

■      A 50/50 business partnership isn’t always about the number of hours each puts in. The road to equal value in a business partnership can mean valuing complementarity over similarity.