Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
Building skills on the job
‘Tis the season for gift giving, and that means we have to figure out what to give to our office mates, bosses and subordinates. For many of us, this is an exercise fraught with anxiety; we worry about how much to spend, what is appropriate, who might be giving to us that we were not expecting, and the biggest question: whether we should give anything at all.
Everyone hates the idea of being judged, but it’s simply a fact of life.
Depression is a difficult illness for everyone involved. Obviously the person living through depression has it the worst, trying to reconcile persistent negative thoughts or to express feelings to other people. But depression also has a massive impact on people who interact with those afflicted by it. Friends, family, and coworkers of depressed individuals often … Continue reading Guest Post: How to Deal With a Depressed Coworker
Decisions to like or dislike something – or someone – are made quickly, and generally without thinking. What we want, and what we like comes early in our processing, and it’s the crocodile brain doing the processing.
In a previous post, I wrote about author Rita McGrath’s theory of the “transient advantage,” the idea that if you are constantly thinking about what’s next, you’ll be more successful. Everyone should have a reactive and proactive strategy for your next career move. McGrath provides a great quiz to determine if you are ready for … Continue reading Constant Career Planning Part Two
McGrath, who is a professor at Columbia Business School, says that what she calls “transient advantage” – constantly innovating and trying to determine which skills will be most valuable next—is what will make you successful over time in your career.
We watch our male colleagues take risks, while we hold back until we’re sure we are perfectly ready and perfectly qualified. We fixate on our performance at home, at school, at work, at yoga class, even on vacation.
You may just be having a bad week, but you’ve been feeling something in the air at the office. Trust your instincts; your job may be in jeopardy of any of these things start happening on a regular basis.
Finding common ground with new people is a powerful way to increase your visibility and influence, and it only takes a few hours each week to build a strong network.
Brown and Fenske identify some characteristics of people who have what they describe as “winner’s brains”: brains of high achievers who have beaten enormous odds to succeed or come back from adversity. Keep in mind that even our “average” brains are miracles of observation, processing and computing.
