Career (Page 6)

Career Insurance

In: Career, Career Development, Networking

What is ‘Career Insurance’ and how do you develop it in uncertain times? It has been a long time since we have seen so much uncertainty across every industry. No role is truely safe in the current environment and without psychological safety its nearly impossible to be effective in your role (see previous articles on Feeling Safe in an Unsafe World in sidebar). There are ways we can take back some control and in this article the author Doris Clark refers to her personal experience of being laid off the day before 9/11, learnings she put into practice and included in her book titled Reinventing You. It starts with recognising all the things we do not have control over, the pandemic and the broader economy and being well prepared. Clark suggests a four point plan. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.… Jack Reacher (fictional character written byContinue Reading

In: Career, Strategic Mindset, Values

Ikigai is a Japanese phrase that essentially defines your reason for being, it is the connection between doing what you love, what you value and what you are good at. Your Ikigai is not just about your career it is a more pure reflection of your sense of purpose and wellbeing. Numerous books have been written on the topic with many looking more holistically at why some Japanese who explicitly practice ‘ikigai’ are happier and live longer. Culturally in Japan the separation between making money and reason for being is important, and this coming from a country where people live for their company, a career is often with one organisation for life and they have a word for death by overwork (Karoshi). Ikigai does not specify as many representations show that the intersection between what you love, what you are good at AND what you can be paid for. BUTContinue Reading

In: Career, Career Development

This article starts by explaining the importance of understanding and having clarity of purpose, psychologists describe purpose as a pathway to greater well-being and business experts state that purpose is the key to exceptional performance. An organisation’s Purpose links together with its Vision (where it is going) and Mission (how it will get there) into a concrete statement of why the organisation exists. While most leaders can clearly articulate an organisation’s purpose, they are often unable to clearly define their own reason for being which results in them not having a clear plan to translate purpose into action, limiting their aspirations and potentially failing professional and personal goals. “we believe that the process of articulating your purpose and finding the courage to live it—what we call purpose to impact—is the single most important developmental task you can undertake as a leader.” Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook The thinking shared in theContinue Reading

In: Career Development, Human Capital, Strategic Mindset

Having a strategic mindset is the basis of successful leadership, it supplements your hard work with careful attention to strategy. Reflecting on what is working and identifying flaws to optimise along the way – much like an agile process. “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration” Thomas Edison In his article Robson refers to Metacognition as our awareness and understanding of our own thought processes or ‘thinking about thinking’. He provides analysis of a recent paper published by the National Academy of Sciences and explains how having a strategic mindset might be the difference between success and failure. To assess your strategic mindset Chen and the authors of the paper put together a short questionnaire, simply rate the questions below on a scale of 1 for never and 5 for all the time. The higher your score the more likely you have a strategic mindset. When youContinue Reading

In: Career, Resilience

Feeling safe in an unsafe world is key to grounding our effective leadership, in this article the author explains that humans yearn for a sense of safety, which is deeply linked to our evolution. This provides us with a positive calm when we are confidently able to predict what is going on in our environment, when we can act with certainty and control. However when the world gets unpredictable, we no longer have certainty and we can no longer accurately predict the immediate future in broad terms, that is when our sense of safety flies right out the window. This article is also available as a YouTube video (where you can view Ed’s extremely impressive Santa beard) which is available at the end of the article. “Control is an illusion” Sheldon Kopp We pursue control as way to create a sense of safety in an unpredictable world and here theContinue Reading

In: Career, Effective Communication, Resilience, Time Management

There are lots of reasons where a meeting or group session that once might have been important and highly relevant stops being your top priority. When that happens you have to choose to be fully engaged or to break up with your commitments! It could be a regular social engagement, or a working group where you were included for ‘your perspective’, or maybe it is a voluntary activity that is no longer top of your list of priorities. We all have them, those meetings or events in our diaries that we are not really engaged in anymore, maybe you show up, but don’t really engage, other times we ghost the meeting by not showing up but not dropping off the invite list or admitting we were no longer attending. In this article Saunders explains why you should make a formal break and provides you with four steps to go aboutContinue Reading

In: Female Leadership, Leadership, Resilience

Synopsis of an article from CEO Magazine, by Susan Armstrong, Published 24th July 2020. Four years ago I was on a plane from the USA returning into Melbourne as I walked through customs and immigration Julia Gillard was in front of me, on her own navigating the hordes of people and collecting her own luggage from the carousel. Not that this surprised me she is a remarkable individual but what brought this into sharp relief was the actress Charlise Theron was also navigating the airport at the same time, she had an enormous amount of personal security and minders who whisked her through, there was no queuing or waiting for the movie star. So I was very interested to read this article from CEO magazine. Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has a new book on the lessons of Women and Leadership, in this article the author Susan Armstrong interviews Gillard.Continue Reading

In: Lead, Resilience

Synopsis of an article from LeadChange by Dave Coffaro, Published 27th July 2020 Resilient cultures survive, new threats are constant and constantly changing. “Thriving and resilient cultures endure through good times and bad”. Dave suggests five practices to raise your strategic resilience as a leader. Acknowledge current reality ‘Own the tone’ as a leader you need to communicate with your team, recognise the current situation and acknowledge that this isn’t easy, it is uncomfortable but you need to lead through. Re-connect with the vision and values Having a clarity of your organisation’s vision, mission, purpose and strategy and values will help connect your team to ‘why’ (see The Motivation Secret That Works for Everyone) vision (where the organisation wants to be) mission (what the organisation is going to do) purpose (why the organisation does what it does) strategy (how to achieve the mission) values (how your organisation does what it does) “EveryContinue Reading

In: Virtual Teams, Working From Home

Synopsis of an article from Forbes, by Joe McKendrick Published, 21 July 2020 This article references a recent study Microsoft completed on their employees and how they were coping with working from newly working from home. The team analysed a department of 350 people to better understand what impact mandated working from home was having on the way they worked. some of the key findings included: Longer but choppier work days The work day and the work week was longer with employees tending to work an additional four hours a week starting earlier and finishing later. However this was somewhat offset by more time spent on managing personal priorities such as homeschooling and childcare. More but shorter meetings Lots more meetings especially short 30 minute meetings. Very protective managers Senior managers increased their communication and collaboration. Managers increased messaging 115% as they worked to remain connected to dispersed remote teams.Continue Reading

In: Emotional Intelligence, Leadership, Virtual Teams, Working From Home

Synopsis of an article from Inc. by Anne Gherini, Published 15th July 2020 This article points out that EQ or Emotional Intelligence has been recognised as more powerful predictor of an individual’s success as a leader than IQ. As we continue to work fully remotely what do you need to do to dial up the EQ. “High EQ individuals who display empathy, confidence, and comfort with their own limitations will be able to thrive and emerge as leaders in the pack.“ Human Centric Management Empathy – being aware of how others are feeling and coping. For some working from home can be lonely and feel overwhelming. Not everyone has the best home office set up, they may have to share it with others or have to manage home schooling – be aware. Anne points out that you need to make time for check-ins, with out an agenda to have a basis forContinue Reading