Mar 3, 2022
Working with Other People’s Teams
Working with Other People’s Teams (OPTs) as a Highly Sensitive Business Owner can be… trying. To say the least.
Most of the time, you’ll have your own processes for delivering your services, onboarding and offboarding your clients, and how you work with them throughout. But every once in a while, they’ll have their own way of doing things, and you’ll have to adapt at least a little bit.
My advice, and my overall vibe (lol), is to overcommunicate to the point of annoying the shit out of everyone. I need to deeply understand every teeny tiny detail in order to do my best work. If that annoys people, then… well, I really don’t care.
I always go into a new working situation with the assumption that there is already a “way” they do things. Before I waste a bunch of time creating google docs or organizing things in a spreadsheet, I check to see if something like this already exists.
It’s in our nature as sensitive people to go into new situations with caution—we need to observe for a long time until we feel like we’ve got the lay of the land.
Unfortunately, this can sometimes work to our detriment in an “OPTs” situation. Because in the time we spend hanging back and observing, other people will rush in and determine how things are going to, before we’ve had a chance to fully weigh in.
It’s easy to mistakenly label this as a confidence issue.
A ”confident” person would just roll up and tell everyone how it’s going to be, right? And the fact that you *don’t* do that must mean that you are somehow hesitating or unsure, or “lack belief in yourself.”
Even though this isn’t the case—you’re just trying to feel out who you’re working with, and determine which version of yourself is going to be most appreciated and effective here…
Confidence has nothing to do with speed, especially when it comes to interpersonal dynamics.
Also, What REALLY crushes your confidence is when you buy into this BS, and you start to doubt yourself because you need to take your time instead of Kool-Aid-Man-ing your way through the walls.
Thoughts?
📷: Chris Montgomery via Unsplash
About Sam
Samantha Pollack is a Copywriter & Creative Director who works with ethically minded, mission driven businesses who are actively trying to reshape our culture (and possibly tear down the patriarchy). She’s also the founder of The Highly Sensitive Business Owner, a 12-week online program that helps HSPs & neurodivergent business owners create healthier, more sustainable systems in their work.
Sam also writes about feminism, privilege, pop culture, entrepreneurship, the creative process, and whatever else is on her mind. She currently lives in Asheville, NC.
Emails for cult thought leaders.
(Personality included.)
Want to learn how to craft emails that inspire action and engagement WITHOUT the “tried and true” (cough: patriarchal) norms we’ve all been taught?
I’m doing it, and I can show you how to do it, too.
(But sometimes, I also like to write about the books I’m reading, or the creative process, or the entrepreneurial experience, or why I hate Steve Jobs, or how I met my BFF. I’ll send you emails like that, too.)
*Just kidding. It’s only an email list.
Books. Cats. Rants. Drawrings.
(and every couple months or so, an unexplained absence 🤷🏻)
