Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
Building skills on the job
Managers are continually wondering how to motivate workers. Brown and Fenske would argue that the best employees, the winners, motivate themselves. The write that “motivation is the fuel that keeps your Effort Accelerator going and keeps you…trained on the things that are important.”
Americans, British, Germans, Israelis, and people from colder weather places like Scandinavia and Russia tend to be low context communicators. They also tend to value being on time and efficiency in meetings and business communications. High context cultures include Asian countries, Middle Eastern cultures, African, Polynesian and warmer countries anywhere. In these cultures, people understand much more than they say; body language, gestures and the speakers’ rank in relation to one another all provide a hidden context that may be a complete mystery to a foreigner.
In 2014, the worst waves of the recent economic slowdown have passed, and the job market is heading down the long road to recovery. In cities where 2008 and 2009 unemployment reached record highs, employers are now reopening their doors and sustainable, promising companies are beginning the application review process. But this isn’t comforting news … Continue reading Unemployed Long Term? 4 Ways to Regroup & Get Hired
If your personality is a great fit for the way the team or company thinks, it’s likely that you be able to succeed and enjoy your work. Personality assessments like the Culture Index can help you and your manager understand why things are working (or not) and may be able to help you communicate better and become more effective. Even without a formal tool, you can learn about company culture during the interview, and up your chances of getting a job you’ll look forward to every day.
So you’ve decided you want to go to business school – now what? Assuming you want an MBA, you have two options: the traditional MBA (full-time, part-time, or online) and the Executive MBA.
My recent post on etiquette based on Laura Mathewson’s book Bottom Line: Manners Matter gave tips on how to make a great, mannerly impression. How much did you learn? Take the quiz and find out.
Along with cursive penmanship and letter writing, formal etiquette seems to be a lost art. Do manners still matter in the age of texting and flip flops at the White House?
In a typical day of running errands in Jacksonville, I’ll encounter workers who have come from all over the world: Vietnam, Africa, Europe, India, and South America. I have enormous admiration for someone who chooses to locate to another country and master language, culture and new job skills. I spoke recently to an American who chose to work outside the U.S. and master those same skills.
Every day, someone somewhere loses a job. If you were told that you’d be laid off tomorrow, what would happen? You may never be ready emotionally, but you can take steps to be more prepared financially if you experience a layoff or other change that affects income.
Taleb likens people who don’t prepare for randomness to turkeys in mid-November; they’re happy, but not likely to survive.
