This episode at a glance

If you work on a college campus, I’ll guess that most of what you do, all day long, is talk. You teach, mentor, and advise students. You run committee meetings. You report on your findings, whether you’re conducting research, designing systems, or enforcing policy. You send emails. You chat in Zoom. You message in Slack. You trouble-shoot and problem-solve. You talk to prospects – students, employees, donors. You hire and supervise people. All of that involves auva lot of…talking. 

Which means that whether you feel joy at work – whether you feel valued, whether you feel like you’ve really reached other people, whether you enjoy time with your colleagues, whether you get dopamine hits from the work you do – depends on the quality of your conversations.

In this episode we explore how to use feedback — low-stakes, short, daily conversations with your colleagues — to build trust and increase joy at work .

Readings & resources

The Progress Principle, by Theresa Amabile & Steven Kramer (affiliate Amazon link)

Understanding Racial Battle Fatigue, by Brooke Evans

Like today’s episode? You might also like these:

episode 45: Using Neuroscience to Turn Fear to Trust in Conversations

episode 44: How Crucial Conversations Increase Joy and Reduce Burnout

episode 35: The Secret to Joy at Work

episode 26: In Community: Interracial Feminist CoMentoring