Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
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.
There’s a big difference between a single, quick interview and a long, intensive interview process. At the end of the long process, you may have met with several managers. You have information about the company from the interview team, and you may even have an idea about how many people you’re competing with and their backgrounds. You’ve invested a lot after several interviews: time, energy and perhaps even a sample of your work or a plan for what your first sixty days will look like. If you don’t get selected, it’s bound to be a letdown. It’s easy to start second guessing yourself.
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.
Bob Kennedy served for almost 30 years in the U.S. Navy. His career included several notable accomplishments, including making the transition from enlisted Chief Petty Officer to Surface Warfare Officer, becoming commanding officer of two overseas bases, and being promoted to captain before he retired in 2012. When he returned to the continental U.S. after … Continue reading Transition from Military to Civilian Career May Take Time
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.
Will your ink affect your career? Surveys say yes. For a related article from my Times-Union column, click here. (Infographic courtesy: salary.com)
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.
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.
