I’m a huge fan of chill work, a concept introduced to me by my friends Rand and Amanda over at SparkToro. In summary, chill work is:
- You work to live. Work enables you to live your life, not the other way around.
- You have trust and boundaries. Your workplace and colleagues don’t need to check in on you 24/7 to see what you’re doing.
- Outcomes > input. The important thing to focus on when working is what you achieve in terms of results.
- Do less, but better. It’s not about the quantity of work, it’s about the quality of the work that you do.
- Your priorities are clear. These are different for everyone, but you’re clear on them and live your work life by them, using them to make decisions.
Now, being able to achieve this state of chill work depends very, very heavily on your own workplace and circumstances. But I do believe that many of us can live better work lives if our workplaces adopt even a fraction of these principles.
Why am I talking about chill work?
Well, there is a LOT that we can learn from these principles that enables us to be more effective managers. We’ll explore this shortly.
BUT…
There is also another point that I want to address alongside this – that whilst we can try to build a culture rooted in chill work principles, we can’t also be a ‘chill manager”.
And over the years, I’ve seen lots and lots of managers deliberately try to be “chill managers”. Especially those who have been promoted and now manage those who used to be their peers and are still their friends.
They try to project an attitude and approach that is very “easy going” and relaxed.
This is usually because they don’t want to come across as a “boss” and suddenly be perceived as uncool or a different person by their colleagues. It comes from a place of insecurity and is understandable, albeit misguided.
Let’s look at how you can embrace the principles of chill work, apply them to your management style, without ending up as a chill manager who is ineffective.
What is a chill manager?
A chill manager is someone who basically tries not to “act like a manager” to their team and attempts to be “one of them”. They want to be perceived as someone who is the same as their team and doesn’t act like a scary boss.
It’s mostly seen via their attitude day-to-day, but we can see some concrete outputs from this attitude, such as:
- Avoids conflict and difficult conversations.
- They prefer being liked over being effective.
- Hesitates to give constructive feedback in case it upsets someone.
- They allow performance issues to slide to maintain peace.
- Keeps relationships and meetings overly casual.
Most of these, at their core, are because they don’t want to rock the boat, potentially upset someone or have conflict.
The thing is, as a manager, these things are inevitable.
Sure, we don’t seek out conflict or go into a conversation with the goal of upsetting someone.
But sometimes, these things happen because we’re managing people and people have emotions. It’s part of the job. The true goal isn’t to avoid these things, but to accept that they may happen and manage around them.
Chill managers don’t do this.
In the pursuit of being a chilled out, easy-going manager, they actually end up being ineffective and damaging their team (and themselves).
The cost of being too chill
There are real, tangible consequences to being “too chill” or too easy going and relaxed as a manager. A few examples are:
- Team members miss opportunities for growth.
- Performance issues fester and become bigger problems.
- Other, high performing team members may become frustrated by lack of accountability.
- Key projects may fail due to lack of proper oversight.
- Career development stalls due to absence of meaningful feedback.
And this doesn’t even include the impact on you and your career, not to mention your wellbeing – all of these will lead to lots of stress for you to work through.
What we can learn from chill work to make us more effective managers
Let’s take each of the principles above and look at how to apply them to our work as a manager.
1. Learn what makes your team members tick
Chill work principle:
You work to live. Work enables you to live your life, not the other way around.
In order to do this, you need to understand what matters to your team beyond their day-to-day work. In other words, just why are they doing all of this? What’s it mean to them? A few examples from people I’ve managed in the past are:
- Enabling them to give their kids the best education possible.
- Enabling them to save up and work remotely from Asia.
- Enabling them to move out of their parents and buy their first home.
Knowing what motivates your team outside of their work is really important and whilst you can’t directly control these things, your team knowing that you care about them on this level can really help inspire trust and loyalty.
2. Set clear expectations and trust your team to find their way towards them
Chill work principle:
You have trust and boundaries. Your workplace and colleagues don’t need to check in on you 24/7 to see what you’re doing.
No one likes to be micromanaged and to feel like their boss is always looking over their shoulder. At the same time, you need to be close enough to support them if needed and ultimately hold them accountable.
One way to achieve this is to be very, very clear on what success looks like for them as an individual which can be achieved through effective personal development planning and regular one-on-one meetings.
3. Focus on results and performance rather than hours
Chill work principle:
Outcomes > input. The important thing to focus on when working is what you achieve in terms of results.
When you’re working with your team both day-to-day and looking at the bigger picture of their career development, the focus should always be on what they are actually achieving.
Are they getting things across the line? Are those things making a difference and achieving results? Are they meeting the expectations you have in terms of outcomes? Are they actioning feedback that you give them?
Of course, we all typically have working hours that we need to work within at our workplace. But try to focus on what they do with those hours, rather than just being at their desk for them.
4. Help them prioritise work to enable them to be effective
Chill work principle:
Do less, but better. It’s not about the quantity of work, it’s about the quality of the work that you do.
One of the biggest struggles that team members face, particularly less experienced ones, is being overwhelmed by their to-do list. This can lead to stress, procrastination and trying to do too much at once, leading to them not actually getting things done.
Whilst many of us can’t say no to certain projects or pieces of work – you can help someone say “no, not right now” if they have higher priorities than something that they are being asked to work on immediately.
This will enable them to focus on the right work, at the right time, leading to better results.
5. Be clear on what the priorities of your team are
Chill work principle:
Your priorities are clear. These are different for everyone, but you’re clear on them and live your work life by them, using them to make decisions.
At SparkToro, they are very clear that their priorities are in order of: customers, team, community, investors.
This can help ensure that you’re spending your time in the right areas and prioritising effectively. It’s a bit like an overarching filter on everything that you and your team does.
It also helps to establish a connection between what your team prioritises and how your business (or team) successfully functions.
For example, if you work at an agency, your clients should never be at the bottom of your list of priorities. If they are, then you’re likely to make them unhappy and lose them, ultimately hurting the agency and its ability to succeed as a business.
If you’d like to dive a bit deeper into the principles of chill work, be sure to watch the short documentary at the top of this page from SparkToro.
