First Thing Monday #51
This week we tackle the looming well-being crisis, celebrate our favorite pen, and build community at our Nashville meet-up 🧖♂️🖊️👢
☕ Welcome to the 51st edition of First Thing Monday! Thank you to all our subscribers who read First Thing Monday every week!
☑️ FTM is a newsletter that includes a recap of all the news you need to know to make better career decisions. Each issue also includes four tips for developing better relationships at work and a deep dive into a pressing topic. Issues come out on Monday mornings!
❓ Have a work question or topics you’d like us to discuss? Drop me a line 📱 simply reply to this email or leave us a comment below!
I’m Jon Cochran, a workplace sociologist with over 15 years of experience leading sales, marketing, and product development teams and working with brands like J.Crew, Hilton, and Mattel. I want to provide resources to help you take control of your career and maximize your satisfaction in the workplace.
⏰ What to read before your first meeting:
Fewer Americans are trying to climb career ladder, get promoted (Business Insider): In a fascinating shift, more and more Americans are saying "no thanks" to promotions, choosing instead to prioritize work-life balance, job satisfaction, and personal fulfillment over climbing the corporate ladder. A recent survey found that a surprising 42% of U.S. respondents don't want a promotion because they're content in their current roles. This trend is frustrating for bosses who rely on the allure of advancement to motivate their workforce. But it also presents an opportunity for companies to rethink how they engage and inspire employees in an era when the traditional rewards of careerism are losing their luster.
How to avoid the coming well-being crisis in our workplace (International Institute for Management Development): Leaders have become fixated on measuring employee engagement but they may be overlooking a more critical metric: the well-being of their workforce. Despite business growth and record profits, companies keep salaries stagnant, while all generations face mounting financial insecurity and mental health challenges. With the pressure to do more with less only set to intensify, it's time for a reset—where we advocate for our people, build trust and safety, ensure everyone feels valued and receives fair compensation, and have a shared sense of purpose. Even working on one or two of those areas will improve support for the well-being of our teams.
Women Twice as Likely to ‘Burn Out’ as Men (Education Executive): A new report from Employment Hero reveals a stark gender divide in workplace well-being, with women facing higher rates of burnout, financial stress, and work-life balance challenges compared to their male colleagues. The survey of 1,000 Brits found that 69% of women experience burnout, with 18% feeling stressed at work every day for three months - twice the rate of men. Despite this, women are less comfortable discussing personal and professional issues with their managers and providing feedback to HR. The report highlights the urgent need for employers to address these disparities and provide targeted support, particularly through flexible working options that can help alleviate the burden on women who often shoulder primary caregiving responsibilities.
Your AI Strategy Will Fail Without a Culture That Supports It (Gallup): Despite the rapid adoption of AI tools and a projected $632 billion in global AI spending by 2028, a recent Gallup study reveals a significant gap between the availability of AI technologies and their actual use by employees. Two-thirds of employees believe AI will positively impact their work, but nearly 70% never use AI, and only 10% use it weekly. This discrepancy stems from a lack of clear communication about AI strategies and insufficient employee training. To bridge this gap and ensure successful AI-led digital transformation, leaders must prioritize the cultural component of AI adoption with a human-centered approach to implementation.
Why Companies Should Not Aspire To Be ‘Like A Family’ (Forbes): It was always cringey when I’d work with folks who would refer to a pair of male and female leaders as Mom and Dad. This well-intentioned practice, though, exemplifies a broader issue in corporate culture. While promoting a family-like environment may seem ideal, it can undermine success by establishing rigid roles, discouraging healthy accountability, and fostering a cult-like mindset that prioritizes loyalty over performance. Rather than perpetuating familial dynamics, organizations should build a culture of clear boundaries and mutual respect that emphasizes individual contributions and encourages open feedback and accountability. Although some family-like attributes—such as trust and support—can benefit workplace relationships, organizations must recognize their fundamental nature as distinct professional entities with unique objectives and measures of success.
🚰 The Water Cooler
Guy Trebay’s take on New York City and Manhattan has captivated me for years via his work at The New York Times. I recently listened to an interview with Guy on the Blamo! Podcast with Jeremy Kirkland. I think you’ll also enjoy it!
The tiny red duffle bag I mentioned in my last newsletter proved to be smaller than I expected. Not Lizzo/Valentino-level small, but hilariously small nonetheless. I’m thinking of chronicling how much I can fit into and how useful or not this bag is—would you read something like that!?
I don’t know about you, but I am always on the hunt for the perfect pen. I find that I like to make and take notes by hand on paper, then I transfer them to some sort of digital document. Right now, I’m obsessed with a pen from Bic. Their pens have always been essential to my life. Maybe I’m just a Basic Bic!?
I’m currently reading The End of Fashion by Teri Agins. In addition to books about Stephen Sondheim and Prince, I will read just about any book about the fashion industry, the creators and the suits behind it all. Teri’s a font of intel and insight, even if the book was first published in 1999.
📖 Reflections for this week:
For you: While formal organizational structures at work tell us who we report to and who reports to us, it's often our informal networks that determine how work actually gets done, how information flows, and how opportunities emerge. These casual connections - built over coffee, in Slack channels, or yes, in meetings - create the invisible architecture of our working lives. How do you view relationship building at work? Do you see it as "extra" work or essential to your role? Take a moment to reflect on what holds you back from reaching out beyond your immediate circle. Are you creating space in your schedule for these connections, or are they always the first thing to get cut when things get busy?
Your boss: If you're bought into the power of informal networks but struggle to make time for relationship-building, consider having a conversation with your boss. Think about how to frame the benefits in terms they'll understand: better cross-team collaboration, increased information flow, or stronger project outcomes. Does your manager model good networking behavior themselves? Their approach might give you clues about how to present your case.
Your direct reports: Your approach to team connection sets the tone for everyone else. Are you creating opportunities for your team to build their own networks? Consider how you might introduce them to useful connections across the organization. When you make time for informal check-ins and relationship-building with your team, you're not just strengthening your own connections - you're modeling the behavior that builds stronger organizations.
Your co-workers: Would your colleagues describe you as a connector or a gatekeeper? The best time to build relationships is before you need them. Start small: a hello in the morning, a wave when you leave, or a simple acknowledgment of a completed task. Notice how saying "thank you" creates moments of genuine connection. Focus on getting to know your colleagues without expecting immediate returns - the investment pays off during challenging times when you need those relationships most.
⚡️ And one last thing…
Big shoutout to everyone who joined Ben Bolling and me for our Substack Writers Meetup in Nashville during the Southern Festival of Books! Honestly, I didn't know what to expect. Would anyone actually show up? Thankfully, we had a great group of people turn out! We had an awesome conversation among folks already on Substack and some who were just getting to know the platform. But the best part was meeting in person!
While it was my first time at the Southern Festival of Books, it wasn't my first time in Nashville. I had lived there for a few years in the late aughts when I was in grad school. This time, we were staying in the Germantown neighborhood, right across from the park where the festival would be. The folks at the festival were kind enough to offer us their beer garden as a place to host our meet-up. It was a cute spot with umbrella-covered tables and cold Yazoo beer.
We couldn't leave our booth unattended, so Ben and I took turns at the meet-up. He led the charge and went to the meet-up first. Thirty minutes or so went by, and I assumed he was being kind and hanging out at the beer garden waiting for the time to pass. Instead, he came back and said, "Dude, people came! And they want to talk to you!" I was not expecting that!
It turned out that Ben had already gotten the group engaged in conversation and had made sure they all had a drink! I got there, and everyone was primed to chat. None of us had connected before our meet-up, but we all quickly pulled out our phones and started subscribing to each other's newsletters. The conversation ventured from what got you into writing, why Substack, to how do you get more subscribers—we all agreed you need to start with your friends and family first!
One of my favorite parts of the event was realizing how connected a few of us already were. The connections were surprising: one attendee had been my Airbnb host a few years ago, while another was an HR professional with 30+ years of experience who wanted to learn more about how Substack worked. The group of us had a great chat about writing and our long-term goals, and we’re now connected. We built a little community of people for an afternoon, and I hope to stay connected with those folks online now.
The success of this Nashville meetup showed me how writing can create authentic communities both online and offline. While digital platforms like Substack initially connect us through words, face-to-face gatherings transform these virtual connections into meaningful relationships. In an era where online writing often feels like shouting into a void of endless content, our meetup proved that thoughtful writing can serve as a powerful catalyst for genuine human connection.
By bringing together HR professionals, longtime Nashville residents, and fellow writers, we discovered that our shared passion for storytelling could bridge different backgrounds and experiences. I wish we’d had more time together! This gathering reinforced my commitment to fostering more of these conversations, whether through local meetups or digital spaces. I can’t wait to meet more of you soon!
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WHAT'S IN THE DUFFLE, JON?!?!?!
Love the essay about community. I also need you to show your readers that dumb red duffle bag.