It's easy to be judgemental of others nowadays. Judgment is a signal that someone's behaviour is unusual or out of context to your particular in-group.In today's mobile, digitally facilitated world, judgment can take on new, toxic forms.When you silently cast judgment on someone from afar based on an Instagram story, you don't get feedback from other people.Digital platforms incite and prioritize outrage and conflict.While judgments help signal social norms and allow us to identify our people, mean-spirited critiques are unproductive.

Casting Judgement

If you're motivated to stop hurtful critiques, you have to evaluate their sourceAsk yourself why you're upset by this behaviour or what purpose your anger or annoyance serves in this instance.Reframe judgmental thoughts.Look back on previous moments of judgment and think about what you could do better next time.

Look Inward

<ul><li>When people buck social conventions, those casting judgments are often quick to be offended before considering a reason why someone else is engaging in that behaviour.</li><li>Curiosity is the antidote for judgment.</li><li>Think about how the person you're judging knows about their behaviour or beliefs that you don't know.</li></ul>

Practice Curiosity, Compassion, and Empathy

<ul><li>Focus on what you can control.</li><li>Many human behaviours are actions signalling to others what kind of person you are or what group you belong to.</li><li>You can't make somebody value the things you value, but you can gently demonstrate that valuing them makes the world a better place.</li></ul>

Stay In Your Lane

In today’s hyper-connected world, judgment can take on new, toxic forms. Here’s how to dial it back.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

How to be a little less judgmental

With job openings and turnover soaring in the labor market, organizations must prioritize retaining the talent they already have. However, new research from Gartner shows that only 33% of employees seeking a new role looked internally at their own employer first. Three inequities are driving employees out of the internal labor market: awareness, access, and support. The authors share ways to democratize awareness, expand access to opportunities, and build support for mobility

Looking For A New Role Within

Most employees don’t think of their own organizations when they’re looking for a new opportunity.Three main barriers that discourage employees from applying internally:<ul><li>Awareness</li><li>Access</li><li>Support</li></ul>

Searching For A New Profile

It can be easier to learn about opportunities at a competitor. Gartner analysis reveals only 51% of candidates are aware of available internal job openings, which are often communicated informally. This “tap the shoulder” approach gives the advantage to employees with stronger social connections and can perpetuate DEI challenges.

The First Barrier: Awareness(Or Lack Of It)

Even when employees are aware of a job opening, they may not believe they have access to it. The top barrier is the perception that another employee is already favored for the role. Organizations and managers often prioritize opportunities for high-potential talent. Of candidates who focused their search on external jobs, 32% said they did so because it was easier to achieve career growth elsewhere.

The Second Barrier: Access

Employees don’t feel supported in pursuing internal roles by their managers, peers, or the organization as a whole. According to Gartner research, only 17% of employees feel their manager facilitates the process of applying for internal job openings, and only 20% feel supported by their peers and team. Many employees find it <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/09-30-21-gartner-survey-reveals-ninety-one-percent-of-hr-leaders-are-concerned-about-employee-turnover-in-the-immediate-future">easier to look externally</a>, because they can avoid the awkwardness of expressing their interest in changing jobs and the potential hint at dissatisfaction.

The Third Barrier: Support

Organizations should start treating employees as they do potential external candidates. In-demand talent receive multiple notices every day from organizations trying to hire for open roles, yet employers don’t do this with their current employees.While internal job boards are a good start, progressive organizations are going further, guiding employees’ exploration with platforms that match people to jobs based on their skills. The best platforms can help employees build a development plan that prepares them for roles of interest.

Democratize Awareness Through Technology

Internal job platforms should also allow employees to signal which roles they are interested in, whether or not they’re available at the moment. This can both keep employees from missing opportunities and help HR leaders ascertain interest in and the quality of the internal pipeline for a particular role. Organizations can also use this knowledge to create informational sessions or development opportunities related to roles of interest.

Allowing Transition To Roles Of Interest

the internal labor market does not work fairly for everyone. Women are 55% more likely than men to say they were <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/2022-01-26-gartner-recommends-organizations-confront-three-internal-labor-market-inequities-to-retain-talent">not aware of internal job openings</a>, and women from underrepresented backgrounds are three times less likely to be formally identified as high potential.

The Gender Gap At Work

While most organizations have goal-setting processes to chart in-role growth, progressive organizations work to surface employees’ aspirations beyond their current position or job trajectory. They provide career coaches or mentors who work with employees to uncover their interests, passions, and motivations and explore career opportunities.For employees, exploring a new career at their current organization may feel less risky than changing employers and roles at the same time.

Open Universal Access to Opportunities

Applying for an internal job can feel like cheating on a partner. This discomfort is made worse by policies that force employees to tell managers before they apply. External jobs avoid this discomfort entirely.<a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/how-the-best-managers-improve-employee-performance-and-health">Managers should normalize conversations with employees</a> about their next role, building discussions of potential career options into goal-setting and performance conversations. HR leaders can facilitate this by putting together potential career paths for each role, including lateral moves with similar skill sets.

Express Support for Mobility

With job openings and turnover soaring in the labor market, organizations must prioritize retaining the talent they already have. However, new research from Gartner shows that only 33% of employees seeking a new role looked internally at their own employer first. Three inequities are driving employees out of the internal labor market: awareness, access, and support. The authors share ways to democratize awareness, expand access to opportunities, and build support for mobility.

career

Career

What Stops Employees from Applying for Internal Roles

Since the start of the Great Resignation, millions of employees worldwide transitioned jobs and careers. The next great reckoning to pay attention to is creating opportunities for multifaceted career growth outside of management.
For many professionals with exceeding aspirations, the next step is becoming a manager. They are often promoted to managers because they are good at what they do, but being great at one role doesn't guarantee that they will also be great at making others better.

Creating opportunities for multifaceted career growth

Part of companies celebrating diversified perspectives and talents means admitting that some aren’t meant to become managers. Bad managers can be causing high levels of turnover.
Leaders should remember that employees choose where they want to work and what they want to do. Becoming a manager should be a choice not prompted by career progression. There are ways to create alternate career paths for those who don't want or are not a good fit for a managerial role but can still grow.

Finding alternative career paths

Try to explore what opportunities may be available and could motivate people.
<ul>
<li>What business needs require a more experienced employee?</li>
<li>Are there options for high performers to become their own manager and continue to do meaningful work?</li>
<li>Is there a way for struggling managers to "step off" into a meaningful position that better fits their strengths and interests?</li>
</ul>
Sometimes just being given a new opportunity to learn and grow can be very helpful.

Reflect on the needs of the business

People don't know what they don't know. Creating greater awareness of what's possible helps people find the next step.
<ul>
<li>Clearly describe and outline dual career paths within your organization - ones with and without management requirements.</li>
<li>Consider asking them what they would like to experience in terms of roles and responsibilities so you can present targeted opportunities to them.</li>
</ul>

Define career path profiles based on required skills

Encourage talent enhancement for employees to develop their existing skills or learn new ones that can help them get on a defined career path. Pair employees with "peer mentors" and give employees at all levels the opportunity to contribute their expertise to enhance someone else's. This can lead to an enhanced sense of connectivity within your team or overall culture.

Enable upskilling with mentors

Careers shouldn’t always be viewed as ladders to climb to higher positions argues Apps Associates Lydie Fox. Sometimes a new opportunity to learn and grow can make all the difference.

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Not everyone should be promoted to manager. Here’s how leaders can guide alternate career paths

Unlike chemical addictions that may come to mind more easily, Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is not caused by a substance. It is part of behavioural addictions, along with gambling disorder, gaming disorder, and more. That doesn’t make it less serious, and it can still dramatically affect someone’s life.
Just like chemical addictions, Internet Addiction Disorder includes the following symptoms:
<ul>
<li>Mood alteration</li>
<li>Loss of control</li>
<li>Pleasure derived from the addiction</li>
<li>Withdrawal: anxiety and/or irritation when the person can’t access the Internet or their devices, cravings</li>
</ul>

Internet Addiction Disorder

There are several IAD tests that you can find online, but you can mostly tell addiction from bad habits with the following:<ul><li>One’s Internet use negatively affects other areas of their life, yet they keep at it</li><li>They plan their life around their time online</li><li>They can’t control their Internet use</li></ul>

Key Factors Proving Addiction

Persuasive design is the technology that “changes” human behaviour. Ethics related to persuasion is about to what extent we may influence the behaviour and thoughts of our users.How do we identify persuasive design? Here are some powerful questions to guide our assessment:<ul><li>What is motivating the use of a given design decision?</li><li>Are users feeling pressured?</li><li>Would they react differently if they better understood how the product works? If it was more transparent or straightforward?</li><li>Would they then feel deceived?</li></ul>

Persuasive and addictive design

<a href="https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s13347-019-00376-5">User benefit</a> is an interesting dimension to look at, but it’s not a criterion to categorise a design pattern as non-persuasive or non-addictive. Resorting to persuasive mechanisms can be framed as being in the user’s best interest, and user benefit is subjective. A dating app sending you 4 <a href="https://thistooshallgrow.com/blog/mindful-notifications">notifications</a> per day to complete your profile is good for you, because it will help you attract the right people. Meditation app Headspace uses a daily streak feature, creating artificial pressure on users so that they meditate daily if they don’t want to lose their streak.

User Benefit

Is the persuasion used to align user behaviour with goals that they themselves explicitly selected? Let’s look at the recommendations YouTube makes after you finished watching a video. What if, instead of pushing the video most people watched next — which can be <a href="https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/regrets-reporter/findings/">harmful</a> as recommendations promote more and more extreme videos — it pushed one from your own “Watch later” list?The only form of ethical persuasion that exists in the world is when the goals of the persuaders are aligned with the goals of the persuadees(users).

Aligning To User Behaviour

Addictive design can bring a variety of burdens into someone’s life. An obvious one is spending more time online than they wanted to, but the drawbacks can also consist of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and a sense of isolation, a drop in happiness levels, self-esteem and body image issues, dopamine dependency, and experiencing more outrage. Physiologically, addictive design can also lead to sleep issues and eye strain.

Design implications

The variable rewards used by many online platforms keep us scrolling or returning to a product because they provide us with dopamine surges we get hooked on. For instance, displaying an image feed with very aesthetically pleasing items next to ones we’re indifferent to, or sending completely irrelevant notifications mixed with very enticing ones are ways to induce rewards variability. As it turns out, we experience these addictive rewards <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480687/">even more intensely</a> when they come from mood-enhancing content, such as pornography, video games, dating platforms, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/1CC67609A12E9A912BB8A291FDFFE799/S1052150X20000329a.pdf/div-class-title-ethics-of-the-attention-economy-the-problem-of-social-media-addiction-div.pdf">social media</a>, and gambling.

Variable rewards

You should only display that there is only 2 items left in stock, or only 4 hours left to participate in something, if it’s truthful and relevant.<a href="https://uxdesign.cc/do-stories-make-social-media-more-addictive-3a1519983565">Social media stories</a> also create a sense of urgency: you have 24 hours to view them. The reduced friction (easily moving from one story to the next), induced FOMO, and variability of content are also addictive factors. If your product contains stories, you could downplay the ephemerality by extending their lifetime.

Truthfulness In Scarcity and Urgency

These can be used persuasively. Testimonials are useful, but some metrics don’t make any sense. Here are the “Top Rankings” from AliExpress, displaying the amount of followers a product has, the number of times it was ordered, and how many people have expressed interest in it. As you’ve noticed, none of these signs actually says anything about the quality of the item, or the satisfaction from people who purchased it. “3123 orders” and “605406 followers”

Social proof and Authority

Do you remember when we didn’t have a “seen” icon in messaging apps? Good old times. Have you ever felt more pressure to reply because of it? Do you feel that you need to reply faster and not “leave them on read” (we use such a telling expression)? Does it stay on your mind until you do so?

Reciprocation

Obligations are often artificially created by streaks, that many platforms use, nudging people into visiting them daily. The bigger the commitment, the bigger the pressure: if you are to lose your streak, a 3-day one doesn’t take as long to rebuild as a 256-day one.Contrary to reciprocation that we saw just above, this pattern doesn’t involve anyone on the other end of the line expecting a certain behaviour from you.

Technology-induced guilt or obligations

Inserting natural stops in the experience is a good way to avoid people being stuck in a <a href="https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-break-the-ludic-loop-and-stop-scrolling-2beef97955a1">ludic loop</a>, which is an addictive pattern. You could use pagination instead of infinite scroll, or at least regularly verify with users whether they do want to keep scrolling. A few self-reflective check-ins:<ul><li>How well are you spending your time? (on a 5-point scale)</li><li>Are you happy with what you are doing in this instant? (closed question)</li><li>What is your current activity bringing you? (open question, adds more friction because it’s not binary, but gives a greater opportunity for introspection)</li></ul>

Lack of friction

Gamification consists of incorporating game mechanics into non-gaming software. Its whole point is to ignite dopamine surges with frequent rewards.Gamification is particularly bad when it looks like this:<ul><li>Created your account on the app? You get a badge for signing up!</li><li>Took your first photo? Get 25 points!</li><li>Published your first post? Woah, level-up!</li></ul>

Gamification

We’re all familiar with being caught up in an article and when a pop-in suddenly blocks our view and asks us to subscribe to a newsletter. And how about being stopped dead in our tracks to download an app when we’re using a mobile site, as Reddit does?These nudging interruptions can be frustrating and confusing, and particularly so to <a href="https://uxdesign.cc/inclusive-ux-in-an-era-of-anxiety-dc89c39ec202">people with anxiety</a>. My immediate reaction is that I just want this thing out of my way, and while these are persuasive design patterns, I only experience them as annoying ones.

Interruptions

In 1996, Dr Kimberly Young was one of the first scientists to warn against the addictiveness of computer use. That’s right, 25 years ago. Fast-forward to today, dark patterns are still rampant, and…

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

product

Product & Design

What designers can do about internet addiction

It's difficult for brands to resist wanting to be better than the competitor. The trap hides in many places: faster, cheaper, easier, more responsive, better service, voted # 1, top-rated, guaranteed, are all ways of trying to be better.

The "better" trap

To get out of the trap, change your frame of reference. A brand is not a feature of benefits. It is a belief.&nbsp; The belief is the new benefit. Features and benefits do have a place in your messaging, but they don't define your brand. They are not even the foundation of your brand.

‘Better’ will always be a losing game for your brand

When your product and business model are 'better than X', your identity is tied to the other entity. You're always in some kind of comparative game. A great brand is based on a belief your customers can experience in the future. This shifted perspective allows you to uncouple from the rules that makes your competitor stand out.

Shifting your paradigm

<ul><li>Create a new category others are blind to. E.g., brands like L'Oreal and Estée Lauder defined beauty as something on the outside. Then someone dared to create a category others were blind to - wellness.</li><li>Move from utility to lifestyle. Lifestyle brands are all about life moments that echo the brand's guiding beliefs.</li><li>Change the focus. Brand-led companies show how they think differently by showing the user how the brand belief will change them.</li><li>Change the reality. Smart companies reframe what people take for granted to adopt a new reality that benefits the brand. Eg., gut health or solo travel.</li></ul>

4 Ways to be "different"

Of all the quotes in all of my articles, there is one passage with significantly more highlights, tweets and shares than anything else I’ve written: This quote is from my piece The 16 Rules of Brand…

How To Be Different, Not Better

The key to consistently produce content is making use of a system.The system can be broken down into three parts:<ol><li>Top-level goals. These are created yearly.</li><li>Key results. These are reviewed quarterly.</li><li>Tasks list. This is updated monthly and serves as a to-do list that is aligned with the top-level goals.</li></ol>With the Creator System, you can effortlessly move in the right direction to achieve your goals.

Don’t work harder. Work smarter.

A lot of people had asked me about how I manage to consistently produce content and maintain my personal brand. They want to know how I find motivation and inspiration. Here is the truth; as a…

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

Motivation And Inspiration Are Limited. What You Need Is A System.

When users first encounter your product or service, they often don’t know much how it works, what it looks like, how much it costs… Sometimes they don’t even know what it does! Make sure you leave no such blindspots, because transparency and information breed trust. The more information about the product or service, the more willing they are to trust you with their money.According to the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/digital/81-shoppers-conduct-online-research-making-purchase-infographic/http://www.adweek.com/digital/81-shoppers-conduct-online-research-making-purchase-infographic/">study</a> reported by Adweek, more than 80% of buyers do online research before purchasing a product.

Product description

Product pages or knowledge bases are effective trust builders, but they have a serious drawback — not everybody will visit them. But there are pages that almost everybody visits on a regular basis. Think Twitter. Facebook. Instagram. They can all help you build trust with visitors who have never heard about you. Those who follow you

Social media

<ul><li>Get visitors to follow your channel. The more followers you have, the more likely others are to join in and so — the more trust in your brand they induce.</li><li>Regularly post entertaining content. The more people like your content, the more likely they are to share and like what you post, further increasing trust.</li><li>If there is no interaction with your post, don’t leave it like that. Get your team to share and like and then your followers are more likely to do the same!</li></ul>

How to build trust with social media?

Nothing works quite as well as real-life experience, so if clients had a happy experience with your app or website, make sure they say this out loud. If a review is relatable and clearly shows the benefits of using your app — it’s certain to build trust among the readers. And it may be even more effective when it’s posted on a third-party site rather than your own.

Product reviews

Testimonials influence the perceived trustworthiness of an online store more than trust seals or even this store’s overall reputation.In order to earn trust they need to be valuable for readers. Sometimes even negative feedback can work.

Testimonials

<ul><li>Testimonials will be more trustworthy if they provide a photo of the person writing them. The more personal the details, the better.</li><li>Testimonial focuses less on the business, and more on the positive outcome of using your product or service.</li><li>Testimonials usually take the form of a short written note, but Video testimonials may help you to build credibility even more.</li></ul>

How to build trust with testimonials?

<ul><li>Inform your visitors about conversion goals that have just been achieved! </li><li>Display information about new versions, updates, debugs, etc. as soon as they are released by your dev team </li><li>Notify about system status — and make sure it’s „on” about 99% of the time </li></ul>

How to build trust with notifications?

A trust seal ensuring secure payment or a Trust-Inducing logo can make all the difference. Assure users that their data is encrypted, that the page is secure and payment method safe.

Trust seals

Let’s imagine a possible situation. Two brands with similar target audiences, with reliable and well-developed services and equally awesome customer service. You may think it’s the cheaper one. But…

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

business

Business

How to Make Users Trust a SaaS

Startups need to build a product that their customers want. As an early business hire, your role is to bring people to your initial product so your team can learn what they need to do to improve the product.

What Startups Want

<ul><li>The difference between a startup and a small business is that startups are built for growth. Without a product that meets the needs of the market, growth can be a waste of money. The first order of business is to find product market fit– then you’re ready to grow.</li><li>A sound business model has lots of moving parts. To do your job you’ll need to understand how each component relates to the others.</li><li>Investors will also play a part in determining the fate of your startup. While it may not be your job to fundraise, securing financing will be essential to the long-term viability of the startup.</li></ul>

Startups Explained

<ul><li>Customers don’t care about buying products. They care about making progress in their lives. They buy products to assist them in making progress.</li><li>Business customers have different priorities than consumers.</li><li>Customers hire products both to cure pains and to experience gains.</li><li>To create happy customers you must understand their goals and struggles in life. Learning consumer psychology will help you become an effective and empathic communicator.</li></ul>

Why Customers Buy

<ul><li>If you create a generalized message aimed at everyone, you won’t resonate with anyone. To craft an influential message you’ll need to focus on a specific customer segment.</li><li>To master messaging it helps to know psychological triggers that influence customers.</li><li>If your messaging doesn’t reflect what they care about they won’t listen.</li></ul>

Crafting an Influential Message

<ul><li>Metrics track what matters to a startup. To speak the language of business you’ll need to be able to know what they mean.</li><li>How much a startup can spend on distribution depends on what the company expects to make back in revenue.</li><li>The more complex your sales process is the higher your cost of customer acquisition will be.</li><li>You can spend a lot of time and effort winning deals but still lose the market if you can’t keep your customers.</li></ul>

Metrics that Matter

<ul><li>Getting your first customers is hard. To convince people to take a chance on an unproven product you’ll need to do things that may not scale. The same goes true for keeping those customers happy. </li><li>Before your company finds product market fit, trying to grow too quickly can be a dangerous waste of money. Your job is to bring in enough customers to meet investor expectations and keep the business afloat.</li><li>Finding a channel that works for your business requires deliberate testing.</li><li>Without a product that meets the needs of your customers, any efforts to grow will be a waste of time and money.</li></ul>

Getting Early Traction

In order to help your company achieve meaningful traction you’ll need an arsenal of tactics including: <ul><li>Content Marketing & SEO </li><li>Paid Advertising </li><li>Landing Page Creation </li><li>Prospecting </li><li>Lead Nurturing </li><li>Qualifying and Closing </li><li>Onboarding and Customer Success </li><li>Pricing </li><li>Copywriting </li><li>Customer Development </li></ul>

Learning the Tactics

These days I do most of my writing at The Jungle Gym. It’s a monthly newsletter full of ideas and resources to help you think clearer and work smarter. To learn more, check out this intro post. As an…

How to be a little less judgmental

What Stops Employees from Applying for Internal Roles

Not everyone should be promoted to manager. Here’s how leaders can guide alternate career paths

What designers can do about internet addiction

How To Be Different, Not Better

Austin Wilson