Work, success, and meaning at every stage of your career
If you’re a big-picture, inspirational leader, you may rely heavily on your charisma and persuasive skills to win over skeptics. That’s fine, until you encounter a data-driven analytical type who cares more about whether you’ve done your homework than how fine your words are.
Personality conflicts are a fact of life in the office. Even if a team has the same goals, they will differ on how to achieve them. Understanding your own communication style and decision process is important if you want a successful team. Even more important than self awareness, though, is your ability to adapt to the other team members’ styles when communicating with them.
Recently, a jobseeker wrote to us with this question: “I need some advice on what to say to potential employers about the reason for leaving my past job. I received a message today from a company with a possible job, and I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity. I was dismissed from my last job because an employee starting a rumor about me…"
So, genius (or at least mastery) is achievable for all of us. That’s the good news – you don’t have to be born brilliant to become brilliant. That’s also the bad news – you’re only as good as you want to be.
Retailers are gearing up for seasonal holiday hiring, and people are asking how to convert their temporary job into a long term opportunity. If you’re considering retail as a career, (and many people are after long and brutal searches in other fields) here are the rules for success.
Not only are employers starting to investigate their workers’ crazy stories, but they are also getting more prone to check out even believable excuses. Nearly 70 percent of surveyed employers said they asked for a doctor’s note, about half called the “sick” employee to check-in, and 18 percent had someone else make the phone call to catch the employee off guard.
Barbara Sher’s book, I Could Do Anything, If I Only Knew What it Was, is a great read. Sher takes the time to she reveals how to “recapture long lost goals, overcome the blocks that inhibit your success, decide what you want to be, and live your dreams.” Sher has a formula for deciding what you really want to do (which may or may not be related to what you’re doing now.) Then she helps you plan steps to get there.
As you go through the personality results, you begin to see how your style has probably been a part of you since you were very young – and how little you’ve changed over time. (You can predict your four-year-old’s behavior just as accurately as your spouse’s, can’t you?)
Networking is about deep connections, but it’s also about wide ones. Gladwell estimates that most of the benefit you get from your network does not come from strong connections (former bosses, personal friends, etc.) but from what he terms “weak ties.”
Brad Raney spoke to the WorkSource Professional Network on September 23. He is the author of “Improve Your VOWELS, Improve Your Career! The A,E,I,O,U’s of Finding Your Perfect Job!”
