Extracting Mental Splinters
How to improve communication and reduce the little things that nag at us
Welcome to the latest entry in The Workaround. You’re in good company with thousands of fellow entrepreneurs and innovators!
I’m Bob, your host. My mission here is to share personal, behind-the-scenes stories of the ups and downs of my career leading tech startups and corporate innovation.
I write to make you think, smile, and discover a shortcut to success or a trap to avoid.
Here we go…
Work is a social endeavor. We must cooperate and coordinate to get things done. Luckily, we happen to be a social species. Like an ant colony or wolf pack, we’ve evolved many different senses and brain regions specifically adapted to improve group output.
The problem is we still can’t read each others’ minds.
This can lead to all kinds of pain and frustration. The other person isn’t doing what we want them to, and we’re unsure why. So, we use our fancy brains to model what’s happening in their heads. This leads to assumptions, which are often wrong. And the pain gets worse.
At this point we can go in one of two directions: Either continue the pain of feeling our ass(umptions) getting kicked or try something new. I prefer the latter, which gets easier once you learn a few “human hacks” that can help all parties communicate better.
Last year, I wrote about one of my favorites, The Moose in the Table. It’s a useful tactic for getting a group to deal directly with problems. Today, I’d like to introduce you to another classic: The Mental Splinter…
“I’ve Got this Mental Splinter”
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working with someone on a new project. Let’s call him “Joe.” When we spoke about the next steps a few weeks ago, Joe promised that he would take responsibility for a specific action. It’s important, not urgent, but it is key to us moving forward together. We’ve had a few discussions and traded emails since then, but he hasn’t mentioned the status of that piece of our partnership lately.
So, for the past week, I’ve had this little voice repeatedly interrupting my peaceful day to say things like:
“What’s up with Joe? Did he remember this? Is it on his to-do list? Is it uncool for me to ask him about it again? Is this how he’s going to be if we partner together?”
Not only is this little voice difficult to shut up, but it leads to additional voices—and painful ruminating:
“Is it rude to ask him about it? I don’t want to look like a jerk with someone I’ve just started working with. Maybe a quick email or Slack message would do it. But I know he’s busy.”
Waiting on our work partners to do something is likely the source of more frustration than anything else. When I reflect on my first office internship role in college, this surprised and pained me the most.
But many years ago, I stumbled upon something that worked wonders for me.
I remember sitting at my desk pondering a recent example of this challenge. John, a direct report of mine, promised to do something, but he still hadn’t gotten to it yet—or let me know if it was complete. I thought about how funny it was that I reacted this way. It was like I had this “mental splinter” in my brain. Not knowing whether and when the other person would complete a key task was nagging me and working its way further into my mind.
So, at our next 1-on-1, I said something new:
“Hey, John, you know that thing you said you’d do? I know it sounds dumb, but it’s like a mental splinter in my head, just kind of nagging at me. I trust you to get it done, but could you please update me on its status?”
John understood in a way that did not put him on the defense. He told me where it was on his priority list, asked if that timing was OK, and promised to give me a heads-up if it was done or delayed.
This silly analogy brought us closer together, and I now had a tool that I could keep using and sharing for years to come.
Going Back to Cal
But don’t just believe me; trust a much smarter guru, Cal Newport. I believe he’s the leading genius in suggesting better ways of working together, and I’ve linked to him a few times in my Cool Content pieces at the bottom of my posts.
His latest book, Slow Productivity, is out, and he’s making the rounds on popular podcasts, including Making Sense with Sam Harris. Around the 55-minute mark, he breaks down his version of the Mental Splinter issue from the perspective of an employee managing up to their boss. In summary:
“You must understand the problem you’re solving for your boss.
A task came into their world…it’s a source of stress…it needs to be done.
When they give you something to do, they would rather you just do it now to get it off their list.”
It’s not that it needs to be done right away, but it’s a lingering pain because they have to keep track of it until it’s done…so they keep pestering you.”
But if it’s visible to your boss—like on a shared Google Doc priority list or Trello board—they don’t have to worry about it. You’re on it. There’s a system. The boss can check on its status if they need to—without interrupting you to ask. So you’re solving your boss’s problem.”
Cal goes on to say that 8 out of 10 bosses will love this. The other 2 are bad bosses that you should escape immediately.
Net, it’s all about having and sharing a process—another example of transparency that helps build a High-Performance Organization.
Why the Mental Splinter Works
Being transparent about how we work and what we worry about brings out the best in our humanity and social cooperation. We get out of the assumption game, which, sadly, tends to lead to the worst suspicions possible (especially in a new relationship where there’s little historic trust building).
This model works in any working relationship: employees and managers, peer groups, partnerships, customer interactions, and even on the home front with friends and family.
By saying, “I’ve got this mental splinter,” you communicate in a more approachable and friendly way. You’re admitting that you’ve got this dumb voice in your head and need help getting it to shut up.
By creating a more transparent way of organizing and sharing where those little tasks sit in your priority list, you’ll manage your work better and show your workmates that you’re a person who’s buttoned up. Discussions move from “Why haven’t you done this yet?” to “Could we move something down your list that’s less important so this can be wrapped up?” You can spend more time doing deep work and enjoying time off rather than continuously updating people or stopping more important priorities to end the nagging.
You’ll feel so much better communicating this way. That’s because our feelings are at the heart of our social systems. It just takes a little bit of creative thinking to reprogram ourselves.
How we might work together…
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BONUS: Cool Content of the Week
A little something I found meaningful. You might agree…
Brave New World
A handful of books I read in high school heavily influenced my thinking on work, life, and my path ahead in both. One of them is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. The book has come back into the orbits of conversation lately as we seem to spend much of the present thinking about the future.
Reading it again, roughly 30 years after my first pass—and 92 years after it was first published—I see less of the industrialization of society that Huxley feared. However, other warnings remain relevant: We seek pain-free perfection, we micromanage our children, and we are loathe to accept disease and death.
The greatest books are what we still read many years after they were written. And Brave New World surely passes this test of time.
Great piece, Bob! "Mental Splinter" is a useful concept. Thank you!