Month: October 2014

Goals 2014: How To Be #Mindful And Confident Before Tackling A Change #Goal

Leave a comment
Tai Chi Exercise

What New Challenge Will You Take This Week? Picture credit The Tai Chi Club on Morguefile

I’ve recently been posting on LinkedIn and elsewhere about the feel-good benefits of taking action. Action can mean getting an enterprise of the ground, or encouraging others to make effective use of your time

If you follow the links you will see the context for those posts is making the most of yourself in the world of work. However, in the real world work and life co-exist. Making any kind of change in one part of your life opens up the possibility of a positive outcome in the other.

Starting an exciting new work project adds spice to your social life. Getting people to respect your time at work increases your confidence generally. Having a reserve of confidence to draw on helps you prepare, step forward and change.

How Do You Know That You Are Ready To Change?

Being mindful about your inner state and your readiness to change something significant in your life involves knowing what is in both your head and your heart. Procrastinating about change goals is understandable Taking action on a change goal involves accepting the discomfort you will experience.

Starting a social or commercial enterprise involves making connections; sharing your ideas; overcoming problems; being resilient. It is not a head-based issue. Your heart is involved too. The big question is: How does the idea of changing your situation make you feel? What small, but important, step can you take to increase your confidence levels?

What’s Confidence Got To Do With It?

Like I said you need a reserve of confidence to call on to help you picture your success. You won’t take the first step and plan – let alone undertake – effective action without it. Some people are too low on reserves of confidence to make the first step. Their life goals are low priority items. Their goals lie low on the list, behind the day to day pressures of an agenda topped by paying the bills.

If those pressures persist for long enough they can contribute to health problems. Those problems can escalate to an extent that they become mental health issues (according to the Mental Health Foundation 1 in 4 of us will have a problem like this in the course of the year)

Tackling Mental Health

Great then to see that Sport England is directing £2m ($3.2m or 2.5m Euros) into improving the lives of people with mental health problems.

Their project director (a former boss of mine) Mike Diaper says:

There is compelling evidence that participation in sport and physical activity has a positive influence on mental wellbeing and mental illness. This includes enhancing day-to-day moods, reducing the impact of stress and enhancing self-esteem”.

Obviously there is a long way between under-confidence and serious health conditions like anxiety. I’m just glad some work is being done on these debilitating issues.

How Do You Ensure You Are Taking Good Care of Your Health?

What’s your secret for remaining healthy under the pressure of your personal and working life? If you are preparing to make a major change in your life how do you build up your energy reserves?

  • Is it by ensuring you eat healthily and sleep well?
  • Do you make time for your weekly mind and body work out of Tai Chi?
  • Is your main priority relaxing with your family over the weekend?

Share Your Secrets To Getting Stuff Done

In the pressured world in which we live it is good to know how people maintain their day to day balance. If you are ok sharing your story please add a comment below. You can continue the conversation on Twitter @RogerD_Said too.

Goals 2014: How To Keep From Being A Victim Of A #BadBoss

Leave a comment
Can You Spot The Bad Boss? Picture credit seemann at Morguefile

Can You Spot The Bad Boss? Picture credit seemann at Morguefile

Is your leadership making your colleagues sick? Probably not, if you are reading a web post about how to improve your performance. That means concepts like ‘authenticity’ and ‘values’ ring bells with you. Your goals are based in empathy. Your colleagues will be grateful for that.

Having an authentic set of core values means you communicate in a consistent way with your team and clients. You don’t fake it. Your actions show you treat others as you would be treated yourself. Maybe you can influence a Bad Boss you know to help raise productivity, by treating his / her colleagues better?

What Does It Feel Like To Have A Bad Boss?

Years back I experienced BBS (Bad Boss Syndrome) courtesy of a supervisor who used sarcasm, blame shifting and setting team members against one another as a management strategy.

Working for that colleague made Friday evenings a time to celebrate. It also made Sunday evenings a time for regret. I wasn’t the only team member whose job-satisfaction and productivity dropped. Morale wasn’t a metric that interested the Boss. Luckily I was able to move to another job when a reorganisation took place. Some people, sadly, get stuck in situations like this.

How Do You Keep From Being A Victim Of Bad Bosses?

Stay rested; Stay connected to your network; stay optimistic. A good night’s sleep helps maintain your energy levels. Your professional network helps you maintain perspective about your situation. Optimism reminds you that you are located in a situation caused by your Boss, not by you.

I just read about some workplace research in the Washington Post that describes the symptoms caused by the bad boss. I also found an item posted on LinkedIn outlining possible ways to manage the feelings caused by BBS. Good to know that if your boss could be making you sick there is light at the end of the tunnel, since you can learn How successful people handle toxic people . Both articles are worth a few minutes of your time.

Which Questions Help You Start To Combat BBS?

Here are 3 questions to ask yourself if the symptoms of BBS are starting to ring bells with you:

  • How do you wish to be treated by your supervisor in the workplace (if you are a supervisor how do colleagues rate your style)?
  • What is the effect on your productivity of the treatment you receive right now?
  • What action will you take this week to improve the treatment you receive and to become more productive?

Want To Share Your Story With Others?

I’d be very interested to know what actions people have taken, in the past, to improve their situation where their supervisor was harming their productivity. Feel free to share your stories in the comment section, or on Twitter @RogerD_Said

Goals 2014: How Will You Keep Developing Your #Leadership Skills Next Week?

Leave a comment
What Connections Do Leaders And Managers Inspire?

What Connections Do Leaders And Managers Inspire?

Are you content to leave tackling your leadership goals until the New Year? Or are you ready to spend 5 minutes today planning your next step towards self-development?

What Happens When Leaders Build On Their Strengths?

If you are motivated to take action to achieve improvement here are some interesting trends from a US study of leaders’ self-improvement results:

  • Leaders can measure their performance gains, when they take action on the goal of developing their strengths.

 

  • More than 70% of those leaders who focused on building strengths felt they had improved their overall effectiveness

 

  • Nearly 60% of those strength builders feeling their improvement positively impacted their organisation

The article from which I’ve taken these data was written by Behavioural Statistician Joseph Folkman and is published online by Forbes magazine.

What More Could Leaders Do?

I think it would also be valuable to see how the people who directly report to those leaders view the ‘After’ picture. Also other stakeholders might have valuable views on what the leader’s post-improvement results look like. Do those groups feel more connected to their leadership figure after they have developed, compared to before the change occurred?

The biggest ask would involve leaders applying themselves consistently to the areas in which they are not strong. After all, it is relatively straightforward to take action to build on your strengths. Taking these actions involves going with the flow and doing the things that feel nice and rewarding.

How Challenging Is It To Go Against The Flow?

The real challenge – which involves working against the flow – means acting on goals which involve deep, authentic, growth work. These are the areas where resistance is strongest. These areas touch deep seated fears and are the ones where the knot in the gut usually gets in the way.

That hard work pays off, over time. There are real rewards in overcoming that resistance. Rewards for self, colleagues, and clients. There is a sweetness to those development gains too.

What Does A Mix Of Goals Look Like?

It is a challenge to go full on after hard to reach self-development gains. I remember one of my coaching clients felt much better tackling a mix of goals when she decided where she wanted to be in 12 months, then:

  • Focused on developing her empathic skills (to serve her colleagues and clients better meantimes)

and

  • Prioritised being more assertive (so that she could have a more effective working relationship with her supervisor during her personal development phase).

She was understandably pleased with the results she achieved, over time, by combining straightforward and hard to reach goals.

Which Strength Building and Challenge Goals Will You Act On?

Please use the Comment section here to share your stories of pursuing your goals. Let your colleagues and friends know that goal setting isn’t time consuming and that effective support makes the difference, whether you are in the US, UK, EU or further afield.  Your success will inspire plenty of people who need a nudge to get going.

(Tweet me @RogerD_Said and I will continue the conversation there too).

Goals 2014: 3 Ideas To Help You Stand Out In Your #JobSearch

Leave a comment

It is that time of year.  Your goals set last January have been accomplished.  Your summer break is a fading memory and you are back into the familiar rhythm of the working week.  Hopefully you are ready to take decisive action, rather than staring out of the window at the leaves changing colour.

Your Top 3 Job Search Suggestions

If you are looking to change of your job role, or place of work you might find you need to polish up your CV / Resume and covering letter.  The information in the Tweeted link helps you do just that.

Basically the Guardian’s Job Goddess suggests that jobseekers should remember to:

  • Start their letter by talking about the fit between their experience, their skills and the role for which they are applying
  • Specify how much impact they have had in similar roles (How many customers did they have? How much revenue did they generate?)
  • Demonstrate their continuous learning strategy by mentioning what recent qualifications or experience they have gained.

Who Will You Share These Suggestions With?

If this isn’t the right time for you to be moving on who do you know who would benefit from this information?  How will you share it with them?  When are you going to do it?  I’m sure they will be grateful that you passed these ideas on.

Tweet your feedback to me @RogerD_Said or use the Comment section here.   I would love to know how these ideas help in practice.

Goals 2014: 4 Steps To Get The Job Opportunities You Deserve

Leave a comment
Why Are You The Ideal Employee?

Why Are You The Ideal Employee?

Is one of your weekend tasks completing a job application? You may need to rethink your approach if previous applications did not generate interview invitations.

Stay resilient and keep applying. You will get the offer of an interview in time.  There are steps you can take to represent yourself authentically when applying for posts.  Those steps will take you closer to your goal.

Remember, an employer has a recruitment goal  which is to hire people like you.  People who have the right combination of positive attitude, experience, skills, and confidence.  Those qualities add value to their teams.  You are explaining why you offer the ideal combination of attitude and experience.

Here are 3 strategies to help you represent yourself well and move toward your ideal job.

Increase The Potential For Getting Shortlisted For Interview

Check to ensure that you are demonstrating that you are a very close fit to the employer’s ‘Must Have’ criteria. Are you drawing on your paid and voluntary experiences to show your skills off fully?

  • Take time to ensure your covering letter echoes the language that the advertiser has used.
  • Repackage your Resume / CV for each application, to highlight the skills and experience which you have built up in the sequence the employer is looking for.  Make sure it makes you closely resemble the ideal interview candidate.
  • Remember, if you are copying and pasting your information into an online form make time to check for typos and changing grammar.
  • Also leave time before the deadline for a final check before pressing send. Trying to rush to produce the application right up to the deadline can be fatal. It increases the potential for errors to creep in. Worse yet, it means you are caught in a crisis if you have computer or broadband problems at the eleventh hour.

Give A Good Account Of Yourself At Your Interview

It is all about you. Not the team in which you worked previously.  What did you do?  How did you make a difference?  Use lots of self -focused language.  I did X in situation Y and the positive effect was Z (from which I learned that…).

  • The employer wants someone whose skills are a good fit; who can confidently deal with familiar and novel situations; and fit in with her existing team. How many examples of fitting in and team work does your life story contain?

Manage The Outcome Of Your Interview

If you have stood out from the other interviewees you may be offered the job. Congratulations!  Do your best work to sail through the probationary period and become a valuable team member.

If you didn’t appear to be the best person for the job you will get told that you haven’t been successful.

  • You should be offered some feedback, if not politely ask for some. You are interested in your development after all, so knowing how to be better in your next interview is a smart move.
  • If the organisation won’t provide any you have learned something about their attitude to people. If they do give you feedback take it on board and create an action plan to address any developmental points. Then take action to help yourself.

What Will You Do Differently Now?

If this information has helped you identify the action you need to take please share this post with someone who would find it useful. Please use the Comment section, or social media – my details are below – to add your voice to the conversation.

 

My Twitter feed is @rogerd_said

I’m On Facebook and Google+ too.

If you prefer you can use LinkedIn to View Roger Dennison’s profile