Career (Page 2)

In: Working From Home

Around the world and in every industry the future of work has changed dramatically. Some roles made an easy transition to remote work delivering significant benefits. Other roles were unable to work away from the workplace leading to furloughs and layoffs. Most office worker roles actually made a successful transition to remote work. Forcing an urgent transition to what was previously only a workplace experiment. The success of remote work has seen global surveys of executives confirm that remote work or a hybrid version is definitely here to stay. McKinsey Global Institute have conducted analysis and found that the potential for remote work is “highly concentrated among highly skilled, highly educated workers in a handful of occupations and geographies”. However at least half the workforce has little or no opportunity to work remotely. People who need to work physically collaborating with others, those who use specialised machinery etc. They goContinue Reading

In: Career

Research at Kellogg North Western University proves the old adage “When you’re Hot, You’r Hot”. In a study of creatives and scientists they found that career successes really do come in clusters. While there is no common findings about when people might experience this in their careers, virtually everyone did have a hot streak at some point. One theory is that one great result might lead to another. “If I produced a good work, I feel like I learned the trick,” says Wang. “Now I feel like I’m equipped to do another work that’s just as good or even better.” Studying the academic papers of more than 20,000 scientists, the film careers of more than 6,000 directors and commercial value of artistic works by 3500 painters, sculptors and other artists . “If we know where your best work is, then we know very well where your second-best work is, andContinue Reading

In: Career, Time Management

With everyone working remotely, the demands on the day seemed to increase exponentially. Many people feel like they have lost control of their schedules with video calls back to back from dawn til dusk. Author Cal Newport proposes to time blocks in his book The Time-Block Planner: A Daily Method for Deep Work in a Distracted World. Schedule Breaks It is easy for the day to eat into lunch and coffee breaks when you don’t have to leave the house. Newport suggests that you make sure to schedule time in your calendar for lunch and breaks. Intentionally Allocate Your Time and Attention Set a regular time to plan your week, consider the best way to spend your working hours and map it into your calendar. Schedule blocks of focus time. When you are following the schedule “You know what you’re supposed to be doing, and you don’t want to fallContinue Reading

In: Career

Carter Cast Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Kellogg University writes that you need to plan your own career and as such proposes this 8 point DIY guide to career growth. Develop goals and performance objectives. Establish clarity of your destination through specific goals and objectives with metrics that measure and track your success. Solve for blind spots. Seek feedback as widely as possible to gain insights into how others perceive you. Reach out to peers, subordinates and your boss. Ask open questions about what you could improve or could have done better. Reduce gaps. Look at your role and reflect on the key skills required to do the job well and assess your current competency level. Then build a plan to develop and refine those skills. Seek a mentor. A mentor is someone who you can learn from, they understand your purpose and have experiences, skills and networks that are important to helpContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development, Purpose

Identifying your genius is about understanding what makes you different or special. It is your personal and professional unique value proposition. It fits quite nicely with defining your purpose (there are numerous articles in HBR and various Journals on the topic of purpose). Purpose is about being really clear what drives you. Genius is about knowing your key strengths. This is the point to say that there are alternatives to the Genius model. CliftonStrengths created by Don Clifton (and sold by Gallup) is based on decades of research. It is often referred to as StrengthFinder which was the name of his very successful book. It breaks down into 4 domains and 34 dominant themes: Strategic Thinking – Analytical, Context, Futuristic, Ideation, Input, Intellection, Learner, Strategic Relationship Building – Adaptability, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Harmony, Included, Individualisation, Positivity, Relator Influencing – Activator, Command, Communication, Competition, Maximiser, Self-Assurance, Significance, Woo (winning others over)Continue Reading

Finding a Job

In: Career

Finding a job, the right job can take time and it can be quite hard. During the pandemic that challenge has become exponentially harder for many people. This DIGEST examines the challenges of finding a job during this difficult time with some practical advice. You Are Not Alone No matter if you are a new entrant into the workforce or a seasoned senior executive, roles at all levels in many industries and right around the world have been impacted. Governments are working hard to establish incentives and reboot the economy, getting jobs going again. But if you have recently lost your job all that uncertainty about what life and business is going to look like can make it easy to become overwhelmed. You may end up feeling that this is the worst time to job search, or that there aren’t even any jobs for the taking.  As an executive theContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development

Managing your workload when you get promoted can be very difficult, as getting promoted means more responsibility but the hours in the day are finite. Having an effective plan on how to manage the workload is critical for any leader stepping up. Leadership coach Liz Kislik suggests three practical steps to keep things under control. Build a 90 Day Plan For any leader taking on new accountability it is very important to establish a plan that sets out the known and the unknown. It helps set timeframes for hand over of any old responsibilities and coming upto speed with the new ones. A 90 Day Plan (some people prefer 100 day plans) should consider the strategy (which may include vision and mission if they are not clearly inherited from the organisation). It should also be clear on the objectives (scope of activities), the resources available to the team. The planContinue Reading

In: Career, Influence

There is no question of the importance of body language, it says all sorts of things about how we are feeling, (moods, stress levels) in conveys our engagement and reflects our EQ. Many of these non verbal clues might actually be messages we do not want to share.. “You make an impression in less than seven seconds” Carol Kinsey Goman This article provides analysis of a series of stories from various writers on the topic, explaining the mistakes people make and ways to correct them. LeAnne Lagasse writing for The Helm explains how leaders have significant non verbal methods to communicate accessibility or approachability. She looks at three of the biggest mistakes that a leader can make with respect to non verbal communication. You use an indirect body orientation, closed posture, or increase physical space between you and your employees You consistently look too stressed or too busy to beContinue Reading

productivity

In: Career

Most of us are looking at ways for getting a productivity boost, a way to get more done, to lift to our performance in both quality and throughput. Jandra Sutton writing for Entrepreneur makes five suggestions that can apply immediately and start achieving results. SLEEP – Well it may seem obvious but getting enough sleep is a fundamental step to our wellbeing and poor sleep can significantly impact our decision making processes. Studies of sleep deprivation have shown that when you are tired, even increasing the time to make a decision will not improve the quality of the decision.  SET A TIMELIMIT – Based on the ‘Five Second Rule‘ promoted by Mel Robbins who makes the argument that if you don’t act on an impulse in five seconds you wont do it. If you set yourself arbitrary limits to tasks you will get more done – timebox how long to spend on email,Continue Reading

In: Career, Career Development, Resilience

Creative inspiration can help you to be happier, smarter and more emotionally aware. Amy Stanton-Minutes writes about how you can build your creativity and use it to change the way you see the world. She has four ways that can help you have a happier and healthier life through a little creative inspiration. MORNING PAGESAn exercise in free writing your thoughts first thing in the morning. No editing what you have written or criticising it. Much like writing a journal the creativity of capturing your thoughts no matter where they ramble, also helps with clearing the sub-conscience. PERSONAL PROJECTSDesign a business card or a T-Shirt, take photo’s make a music playlist, knit sweater it doesn’t matter what your project as long as you feel you are creating and putting some original thought into it. SING, DANCE & PLAYDancing, singing and other kinds of play help release inhibitions and provide aContinue Reading