From time to time, I receive emails and messages from people asking how to deal with workplace situations. Over the last couple months, a theme is emerging around colleagues who try to derail your career and how to respond.
From time to time, I receive emails and messages from people asking how to deal with workplace situations. Over the last couple months, a theme is emerging around colleagues who try to derail your career and how to respond.
I remember in early days of my career, back in the late 90’s, I was trained to be mindful of business conversations in public. Working at a Big 5 public accounting firm, we were told that it is best not to speak about business in public. There were also guidelines given:
Wait, that wasn’t a good story? Isn’t that how you remember it? Well, it has all the key components that you need to know. It has the who, the what and the how. It also has information on the results. So, what’s missing?
“There is anxiety, but it comes after you’ve finished filming because it’s out of your hands; people are editing it, they’re cutting it, marketing it. And it’s… part your career sort of rides on that. But when you’re actually filming it’s a team thing and it really feels good there for me.” ~Hugh Jackman
It’s that time of year where we typically think of witches, candy and what we’re going to use to spike the Halloween punch. This year, it seems to be more about the widespread scary clown sightings. That said, I’m still a fan of watching scary movies- the cheesier, the better.
Blogging is interesting because sometimes you research and report, other times you give pure opinion. Today is an opinion day, and it’s a fine line between doing that and becoming “preachy”. The truth is that there have been times when I’ve been nearing job burnout during my career. Face it, we all have those times. It’s important to think about ways to head that off instead of waiting for things to get to that point.
We hear a lot about office culture lately because of its impact on a candidate’s job selection decision as well as the employees’ decision to remain with the company. Since the culture of workplaces are made up of a hodgepodge of personalities and each one adds a unique twist to the mix, it’s this uniqueness that keeps most of us coming back to the workplaces we love.
I had a conversation with one of my friends from India and we were sharing stories about how throughout our careers we have both been known as people who can do more than what our specific job title would indicate. We weren’t talking about being able to take on more responsibility in order to receive a promotion, we were talking about learning and using skills from another industry to help further our careers.
*Sharing a blast from the past…
“We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change place with an easy and blesses facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and happy in it.” ~Mark Twain
For as long as I’ve been working, and I know much longer than that, there has been talk of how to change and evolve the workplace. I guess it is human nature to find flaws in things and think we can make it better. How then is the actual act of changing something so challenging? In the face of change, why do many of us balk and cling to the less-than-perfect current state?
We can all use a little ongoing development. There are certain skills that few people can master and never think about improving. One of those skills is the art of negotiation. I admit, there are people who seem to ooze confidence when it comes to wheeling-and-dealing to achieve the result they want. However, for the majority, being able to negotiate a quality resolution is sporadic at best.