Career Coach eNewsletter
Issue No. 10 January 2003
Brought to you by the Careers International: "Helping you take your career to the next level.- internationally."
Web site: http://www.careersnet.com
Editor: Margaret Stead, margaret@careersnet.com
Subscribers: 1205 copies, worldwide
Welcome to this issue of Career Coach - a free newsletter for those interested in using coaching to improve their career performance. Please share this newsletter with colleagues and contacts who will benefit from reading it.
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CONTENTS
- Editorial: This is to Have Succeeded.
- Job Hunting Notes: Your Career Planning Calendar
- Authors Note : Job Hunting Secrets Revealed
- Career Tip : The Brand Called You
- Success Story : How Not to Get a Job!
- Career Tip II: : Why it is Vital to Have a Challenging Dream
- Just for a Laugh : What Not to Put on Your CV!
Tips: How to get through on the telephone/Inner voice/Google
This is to Have Succeeded.
"To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children, to earn
the appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty, to find
the best in others in others, to leave
the world a bit better whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch or
a redeemed social condition; to know
even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) whose original profession and calling was as a Unitarian minister, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. Emerson became one of America's best known and best loved 19th century figures. Quotes from his work never cease to delight and can be found at
http://www.transcendentalists.com/emerson_quotes_sites.htm
This quote appeared on one of my first business compliment slips in 1990 and I've used it frequently in introductory lectures to Career Development Programmes for MBAs. I was very pleased to note that Charles Handy (who I presented with in Paris in 1999) is now using this quote in his introductions. I think it reminds us all that life is not just about making 'big bucks,' if it ever was.
Your Career Planning Calendar
What did you do today? Was it new, was it fun, what did you achieve? If the answer to any of these questions is "No" or "Er," then maybe you need to think about launching your career, fixing it or making a change.
It is not an easy task at the best of times, so we've taken some of the component parts of an effective career planning and job search strategy and broken them down into easily manageable chunks spread over the year.
New Year Resolutions - It's time to have a close look at look at you. Ask yourself where you are in your career, where you are headed, and where you want to be. Are you getting your needs met in your current role/personal life? How is your life/work balance?
A recent survey of 50,000 American employees found that two out of every five were dissatisfied with the balance between their work and their personal lives. Bruce Katcher, the study's author and president of the Discovery Group said that the lack of balance "Is due to long work hours, changing demographics, more time in the car, the deterioration of boundaries between work and home and work pressure."
Start a journal of your career and note down all the the things you like about your current job and all the things you don't like. Chart your successes and your 'failures' (or 'learning experiences'), note your achievements and cut and paste clippings from any articles/pictures that inspire you.
Develop a strategic vision for your career. Start thinking about short-term and long-term objectives in your career planning. Put together a personal mission statement that reflects your course for yourself for the next year (and perhaps for the rest of your life) e.g. 'My dream is to make good careers advice accessible to everyone.
If you have been too busy operating in the past to network, start now. Learn the skills you need to be an effective networker. Remember an effective networker is a 'giver' rather than a 'taker.' (Contact Kathryn Kelly for our definitive guide to 'Networking', on tape cassette. develop@careersnet.com or call +44 1564 779932/0845 130 4344 UK Locall)
Job Hunting Secrets Revealed
"Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with
distaste, it is better than you should leave your work
and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of
those who work with joy."
If you are interested in learning the secrets of getting the job you love via a regular newsletter from Margaret Stead -' Job Hunting Secrets Revealed' - let us know! Send a blank email to develop@careersnet.com with NEWSLETTER in the 'Subject' line.
A Brand Called You
Branding is a term used as a marketing technique to identify a product, service or organization in a particular way. Companies use this strategy to create an image in the hearts and minds of customers relating to their product or service. As a result, the power of a brand is in its ability to influence purchasing behavior.
Nike’s famous swoosh with the tagline "Just do it. " is an excellent example of company branding. When you see that swoosh, you think: “Just do it.” It speaks to what the company is about (fitness, athletics, pushing yourself to higher limits), what they sell (sports gear), and what they believe in (physical achievement).
You Have A Brand Individuals have brands too. You are known for something - a brand called you. And while you may not have intentionally set out to create your current brand, you are not stuck with it forever. You can learn how to create a new one.
A personal brand is similar to a reputation, which involves the act of doing something consistently over time. A brand, however, is larger in scope. It communicates who you are and differentiates you from the rest. Once you determine what you want to be known for, you can actively work to create your brand by developing the skills that support the results you want to achieve.
What’s Your Brand? Discovering what you are already known for is the first step in personal branding. Becoming aware of how others feel about you is part of raising your emotional intelligence. Those who are emotionally intelligent are highly self-aware and seek to decrease the disparity between how they feel about themselves, how others feel about them and who they are capable of being.
Your current brand may not reflect those qualities by which you want to be known. It is, however, your current reality. Be willing to hear the truth from those closest to you. Ask your friends, co-workers and family members what you mean to them. This is the time to just listen and take notes. You may be surprised at the impact you make in the lives of others.
In speaking with others, you may discover that you are known for different things in your personal life versus your work life. While this may not be inherently bad, it begs the question, what does this do for you and is this want you want? Become self-observant and reflect on the following questions honestly. How do people respond to my presence? Are people glad to see me in meetings or do they sigh with relief when I leave? Do people listen to me? Do they want to hear what I have to say or are they glad when I stop talking? What do I see and hear from others in daily conversation that gives me ideas about who I am to them and how they feel about me?
You may discount the little things said to you like the 'thank you for a job well done', comments made about your work or what others say if you are out of work for a while. All these things matter in identifying what you mean in the lives of others. In fact, the little things matter the most. Take notice of the things said to you and compliments made to you. Learn to receive them graciously. You cannot know what you mean to others unless you pay attention.
Why A Personal Brand? Does this matter? Does it matter how people feel about you? Why should you care about others or about creating your own personal brand? You are always marketing yourself. To move up in your career you need to be viewed as someone who can handle the responsibilities of your position. If you want to find a new job, you need to know what your references will say about you and you need to know how to present yourself to a prospective employer. This means, you must be branded as someone who possesses the qualities sought for the position or the promotion.
If you do not play an active role in creating your own image and your personal brand, you will still be branded because others will be glad to define your brand for you. So, why not play an active role in determining your brand? Branding Yourself What do you want to be known for? Determine what qualities are most important to you. Are there certain attributes that you admire in others? What experience do you want people to have when they are in your presence? People may not remember what you say; but they will remember how you made them feel.
Work to close the gap between who you are today and how you want to be perceived by others. Focus on the results you want to achieve and not on how you will change other’s perceptions of you – you cannot control or change other people! You can only control how you present yourself today. As you present yourself, as you want to be known, consistently over time and continue to obtain feedback from others, you will become the brand. A brand works when it stands for something. So, what do you stand for?
Julie Fuimano, MBA, BSN, RN is a Success Coach and co-founder of Nurturing Your Success, Inc. Her passion is coaching clients on leadership and career development, communication, team building, marketing and branding. You may visit Julie at www.nurturingyoursuccess.com or email julie@nurturingyoursuccess.com or call her directly at (484) 530-5024.
How Not To Get a Job!
A toast this month to Jane (name witheld to avoid her and ours embarassment) a friend we have known and loved for at least eight years. She has just got herself a fabulous job as an international HR Director with a global company using all the wrong techniques.(almost perversely) She has got to be an inspiration to all of you out there who either haven't got a clue or who are not prepared to make any effort.
Now Jane is brilliant at her job (though don't tell her that), really brilliant and we have worked together over the years at times of different job changes, progressing her career and in between on human resource issues. In spite of my best endeavours however, she has consistently evaded putting together a personal career plan, is never sure of what she wants and makes 'half-baked' attempts at getting what she may not like.
Thus in spite of wasting time 'flirting' with recruitment consultants, putting in speculative applications to 'off the wall' opportunities and doing that badly, not knowing whether she's 'HR' or 'Operations,' and spending her networking time with people who enjoy joke mailing lists, she's cracked it!
We are thrilled for you Jane and we hope you will continue to 'muddle' along so stupendously for a v long time to come.
Why it's Vital to Have a Challenging Dream
The following is taken from a summary of the book by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. HarperPerennial, 1990, New York and has been brought to my attention by my friend Coach Eileen, Dr. Eileen Grellert who is currently completing her book - 'Ageless Wisdom,' on "The Psychology and Spirituality of Aging in America." (All 'bits' on Ageing/US-Ageing gratefully received)
I've spent years persuading my customers that they need a 'Dream, Purpose, Mission, Objective or Focus,' (DPMOF) that is bigger and more challenging than they can see themselves achieving and if this DPMOF has an element of altruism to it then they will find that they have the support of others around them. Once they adopt a DPMOF, the individuals seem to get immense enjoyment from the exercise and become 'new' people. The blindingly obvious but often excrutiatingly difficult task is for the individual concerned to take their first step towards it.
"Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself does not bring happiness. Sleep, rest, food and sex provide restorative homeostatic experiences that return consciousness to order after the needs of the body intrude... But they do not produce psychological growth. They do not add complexity to the self. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create new order in consciousness." (p46)
When people explore more deeply what makes for a rewarding, satisfying life they begin to recall experiences that took them beyond what they though could be achieved, something new, something caharacterised by growth, something unimagined. These experiences fall into the category of enjoyment.
Elements and Conditions of Enjoyment - Csikszentmihalyi (MCsi) presents here the findings from his wide research studies on the elements of enjoyment, reporting that people from around the world, from all walks of life describe enjoyment in very similar ways and also identify a common set of underlying conditions that facilitate enjoyment. The seven elements of enjoyment are:
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A Challenging Activity That Requires Skill - Almost everyone describes flow experiences as involving a series of activities that are aimed at a specific and challenging goal, are bounded by rules and could not be accomplished without the right skills. "Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's ability to act." (p52)
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The Merging of Action and Awareness - "When all a person's relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenge of the situation, that person's attentions is completely absorbed by the activity. There is no excess psychic energy left over to process any information but ewhat that activity offers... they(people) stop being aware of themselves as being separate from the actions they are performing.. (p53)
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Clear Goals and Feedback -"The reason it is possible to achieve such complete involvement in a flow experience is that the goals are usually clear, and feedback inunediate." (p. 54) Feedback varies given the nature of the goal or activity. Where goals are not clearly articulated in advance, as in some creative endeavors, an individual must have a strong "personal sense ofwhat she intends to do."
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Concentration on the Task at Hand -"One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life. This feature of flow is an important by-product of the fact that enjoyable activities require a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand- thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information." (p. 58)
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The Paradox of Control- "...the flowexperience is typically described as involving a sense of control- or, more precisely, as lacking the sense ofworry about losing control that is typical in many situations of normal life. II (p. 59) "...what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control, but the sense of exercising control in difficult situations. It is not possible to experience a feeling of control unless one is willing to give up the safety of protective routines." (p. 61)
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The Loss of Self -Consciousness -" ...when an activity is thoroughly engrossing one item that disappears from awareness deserves special mention, because in normal life we spend so much time thinking about it: our own self'. (p. 62) When not preoccupied with our selves, we actually have a chance to expand the concept of who we are." (p. 64)
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The Transformation of Time -"One of the most common descriptions of optimal experience is that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily does freedom from the tyranny of time does add to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement." (pp. 66-67)
What not to put on your CV!
‘S/He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.’ Koran
Responsibility makes me nervous. They insisted that all employees get to work by 8:45 every morning. Couldn't work under those conditions.
Was met with a string of broken promises and lies, as well as cockroaches.
I was working for my mom until she decided to move.
The company made me a scapegoat - just like my three previous employers.
While I am open to the initial nature of an assignment, I am decidedly disposed that it be so oriented as to at least partially incorporate the experience enjoyed heretofore and that it be configured so as to ultimately lead to the application of more rarefied facets of financial management as the major sphere of responsibility.
I was proud to win the Gregg Typting Award.
Please call me after 5:30 because I am self-employed and my employer does not know I am looking for another job. My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I have no training in meteorology, I suppose I should try stock brokerage. I procrastinate - especially when the task is unpleasant.
Minor allergies to house cats and Mongolian sheep.
Donating blood. 14 gallons so far.
Education: College, August 1880-May 1984.
Work Experience: Dealing with customers' conflicts that arouse.
Develop and recommend an annual operating expense fudget.
I'm a rabid typist.
Instrumental in ruining entire operation for a giant retail operation.
Part 2 What not to put on your CV - Next month
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We hope you enjoyed this issue of Career Coach. If you would like to learn more about how we can work together, then please contact me, Margaret Stead:
Telephone: +44 (0) 845 130 4344
E-mail: margaret@careersnet.com
