Notice. Explore. Try a Change.

The email was three lines. Just straight to the point: “How do we increase adoption?”

I stared at it for longer than a three-line email deserved. I knew the type of answer the sender was looking for. But the response I needed to give was one of those “you have to change the way you think to get the answer you want” situations.

For at least the last few months, I'd been sensing the limitations of the prevailing playbook for doing the work my job requires. It was that email that finally got me to take the next step.

So I set out to explore those limitations. I wrote about the pattern I was seeing. What wasn't working? How do we address these new questions? What assumptions—personally and organizationally, might need revisiting? What’s happening elsewhere?

It turned into something I felt compelled to share with colleagues. Not as a formal proposal or critique, but as a way of saying: “Is anyone else noticing this?”

Turns out: yeah.

Now we're figuring out what trying a change looks like.

That sequence -- notice, explore, try a change -- is at the heart of The Good Work Life philosophy I shared a few weeks ago. Here's how it works.

Activating The Good Work Life relies on three activities: notice, explore, change. 

Noticing is pointing attention to what's happening within and around you. It’s a conscious sensing of your environment, responses, and experiences at work.

Examples of some things you might notice:

• How you're feeling physically and emotionally

• What energizes or drains you during your workday

• Patterns in meetings, emails, and interactions

• How decisions are made and communicated

• When processes create friction or flow

• Your reactions to workplace challenges

• What resonates with or conflicts with your values

• The energy in a room when entering different work spaces

• Subtle shifts in team dynamics 

• How information flows (or doesn't) across departments

• How decisions are made and influenced

Noticing, I believe, comes naturally to humans, especially humans in the caring professions and organizations. The challenge is more often making the space to notice.

While noticing alone can shift your perspective, exploring can take your understanding even deeper. 

Exploring is inquiring into an element of your workplace experience with curiosity and openness. Examples of how you might explore:

• Question assumptions about yourself, systems, and relationships

• Wonder if current practices are the best way to do the work

• Reflect on why certain situations energize or drain you

• Seek feedback from trusted colleagues about your approach

• Research ideas in books, articles, podcasts, or other resources

• Examine how your values align with your daily work

• Observe the dynamics between different teams or groups

• Consider how your responses to challenges reflect your beliefs

• Learn about different approaches others use for similar tasks

• Find connections between seemingly unrelated elements

• Journal about patterns in your emotional responses to work

• Investigate the history and context behind established practices

Exploring itself changes how we see our work, and ourselves at work, which often brings about the opportunity to act.

Trying a change is taking informed action to improve some element of your workplace experience. It's moving from insight to impact. Examples of how you might try a change:

• Design a new approach to a recurring challenge

• Adjust your schedule based on insights about your energy patterns

• Initiate a conversation about a team dynamic

• Modify how you prepare for or contribute to meetings

• Develop a new skill that addresses a gap you've identified

• Set boundaries that protect your time or wellbeing

• Adapt how you process or respond to workplace demands

• Create rituals or practices to support yourself at work

• Implement a modification to a workflow that causes friction

• Advocate for a system change based on your observations

• Apply research-based approaches to improve communication

• Document and reflect on what happens when you implement a change

Trying a change is about improvement. And learning. And applying that learning for further improvement.

In my experience, workplace experience can be improved by each activity alone: 1) just noticing—noticing creates awareness that can shift perspective, 2) only exploring—examining a pattern can reveal insights that change how you see work, and 3) trying a change—even small adjustments can create meaningful impact. 

Yet their power of progress emerges when the three activities are connected.

Together, noticing, exploring, and trying a change create a take action sequence. The take action sequence animates The Good Work Life as a professional development and workplace experience improvement framework. 

Noticing leads to observations. Observations can be explored. Exploration leads to a working theory. A working theory becomes the basis for thoughtful action. So we try a change. 

Where to begin? Consider what you've already noticed about your workplace experience—an energy drain, a challenging relationship, an unproductive standing meeting. Take a few minutes to explore it—why is it happening? What purpose does it serve? Who benefits from the current situation? What assumptions are you making? 

Then, drawing on things like your professional expertise, others' wisdom, what you've learned through exploration, and more, take informed action by trying a change.

Noticing, exploring, and trying a change—together a take action sequence—is meaningful progress toward shaping the workplace experience you desire.

Around The Water Cooler ⛲

“Of course, you know, management is more and more a ridiculous thing to attach to change.” I enjoyed this At Work with The Ready podcast conversation with Michael Bungay Stanier. He’s got a new podcast about change. I’ve jived with the episodes I’ve listened to.

“Frequency might sound like another word for trust, but it's different in crucial ways. Trust is binary and takes time to build. Frequency is dynamic — you can visualize it as sound waves or patterns in motion. In new relationships where trust hasn't yet been established, frequency can emerge almost immediately when the conditions are right.” Paul Jun

“We consolidated all our knowledge into the internet, which we used to train humanity’s synthesizer. Life is gonna be messy for a while.” If You Use AI to Write Me That Note, Don’t Expect Me to Read It by Mark Wilson

“Care is about intention, patience, and impact. It’s the opposite of scalability; scalability is when you don’t care, when you think that the same user experience should be applied to everyone on earth.” Airbnb’s Relaunch and the Texture Era of Design

“Companies have long fought off attacks from hackers hoping to exploit vulnerabilities in their software, employees or vendors. Now, another threat has emerged: Job candidates who aren’t who they say they are, wielding AI tools to fabricate photo IDs, generate employment histories and provide answers during interviews.” Fake job seekers are flooding U.S. companies that are hiring for remote positions, tech CEOs say

Thanks for reading. Hit reply and let me know your thoughts.

How To Work is healthcare-focused work design inspiration (from the experts!) to nudge your perspectives and practices into better alignment with the world of work as it is, and away from what it was. Here’s my take on what we’re working through.