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I’m sure you’ve seen the articles on things you can do — independently — to bolster your career prospects. You can take steps to get more face time with your boss, you can volunteer to take ownership over projects and you can develop other talents on the side. But the thing is: Advancements aren’t all you, you, you. In other words, I’m sure several of the job descriptions you've seen call for a “team player,” and in job interviews, you you may have been asked to describe how you work with others. So even if you nail your solo tasks, you still have to be able to work with a group.
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Sometimes, being asked the right question at the right moment is a powerful motivator. Case in point: My dad said to me at college graduation, "We know what you can do. But who are you going to be?" At the time, I wanted a job and hadn’t yet realized how connected employment is with happiness and life’s purpose. I was a bit too hungover to come up with a good answer in the moment. However, the question stuck with me, and it resurfaces when I'm off-track.
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You probably don't need research to tell you that people are feeling more and more overwhelmed and overscheduled, but if anecdotal evidence isn't enough to make this clear, studies do exist. Americans tell pollsters they struggle to find work-life balance and generally feel like they spend their days on a slightly too fast treadmill scurrying to catch up.
But no worries--this problem has an obvious solution, right? All we need is better time management--get more done, choose and batch tasks more wisely, keep tabs on our to-do list more carefully, etc.
That seems reasonable but it's totally wrong, according to a fascinating article by business psychologist Tony Crabbe that appeared on Quartz recently. The in-depth piece looks at the history of the relationship between work and time (hint: we weren't always so clock obsessed) and goes on to argue that, as we've misdiagnosed what ails us, the prescribed treatment--time management--is actually making our problems worse.
"Time management, we believe, is the solution to our busyness: if we could organize our time better, we'd be less overwhelmed, happier, and more effective. We are completely wrong on all three counts, and it's damaging our lives and our careers," Crabbe writes.
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There have been several books written about the subject of happiness including several from Tal Ben-Shahar ("Happier", "Even Happier" and "Being Happy") and Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh who wrote Delivering Happiness. All great books if you're looking for a deep dive into the subject of happiness. But I came across a quote from the Dalai Lama XIV that really nailed it for me: Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.
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We’d all love our brains to process information faster and have better memory recall. While you might think doing crossword puzzles, math puzzles like Sudoku, or brain-training apps will keep your brain in top shape, Dr. Jennifer Jones, a psychologist and expert in the science of success, says there’s no real proof that these can improve your mental acuity. She offers some daily practices that can truly grow your brain: Brain Growth Habit #1: Rise With The Sun And Go To Sleep Not Long After Sunset. Moving in your circadian rhythm is the best way to improve your brain power, according to Jones. When our sleep cycle is disrupted, our brain’s ability to process information and consolidate stress is inhibited. "Our cognitive abilities don’t work the way they should," says Jones.
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"In most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again." That quote was made famous by Harvard psychologist William James in his 1890 book The Principles of Psychology, and is believed to be the first time modern psychology introduced the idea that one’s personality becomes fixed after a certain age. More than a century since James’s influential text, we know that, unfortunately, our brains start to solidify by the age of 25, but that, fortunately, change is still possible after. The key is continuously creating new pathways and connections to break apart stuck neural patterns in the brain. Simply put, when the brain is young and not yet fully formed, there’s a lot of flexibility and plasticity, which explains why kids learn so quickly, says Deborah Ancona, a professor of management and organizational studies at MIT.
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You’re ready to deliver a talk or presentation or take on a new project. It’s the culmination of a great deal of preparation and hard work. Then, without warning, all of your hard-won faith in yourself evaporates, and you’re facing a crisis of confidence at the worst possible moment. Most of us have been in situations where our fearlessness waned just as we were about to realize an important accomplishment. When you’re in those minutes before a presentation or up against an important deadline, what can you do to get your confidence back? We turned to the experts for advice:
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Our brains are weird. Very weird.
Take the study showing that just looking at a green roof for 40 seconds can boost your focus, for example. Or the one that found that simply switching the units of time you use to conceptualize a deadline (swapping days for years, say) can help you beat procrastination.
These sorts of findings might be odd, but they're also potentially useful. Putting a green plant in your line of sight costs next to nothing. If it can help you get more done with less struggle, why not? So it's worth noting whenever scientists come up with a new way to hack our work routines with so little effort.
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LinkedIn can make or break your chances of getting an interview — you probably already know this. But just like with your resume, what you leave off your profile is just as important as what you keep on it. When it comes to the latter, we've given you plenty of tips regarding what should be there — from brilliant summaries to killer headlines that attract recruiters. But today we're talking about the former — all the items you need to leave off. Or, in most cases, remove before you make one more more hiring manager cringe and X out. I know, that sounds bleak. However, there is a silver lining, and it's that removing these items won't take you more than five minutes.
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Living in places where awesome people live is awesome for you. For instance, if you live near folks you really love—your family, your BFFs, and the like—then studies suggest you'll be much happier than if you were all on your lonesome. As well, more and more research is showing that things we used to think were profoundly individual—like health and innovation—are actually quite collective: seems we can't help but be social creatures. The most social of these social creatures tend to congregate in social places: you can call them cities. As Enrico Moretti, author of The New Geography of Jobs, tells the Creativity Post, your location dramatically impacts your creativity and productivity, since the place where you live quite literally determines who you can surround yourself with—in a way that not even the Internet can replicate.
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Over the course of an hour, Mashable covered an array of questions, ranging from how employees can demonstrate successful leadership in the office, to the key questions employees should be asking their supervisors in performance reviews. Several career experts and entrepreneurs shared their insights on the topic, including: James Caan, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Hamilton Bradshaw Group; Laurie Ruettimann, HR writer, speaker and advisor; Lisa Gates, negotiation consultant and executive coach at SheNegotiates.com; Dr. Marla Gottschalk, senior consultant at Allied Talent; Suzy Welch, business journalist and bestselling co-author of The Real Life MBA; Trish McFarlane, CEO of H3 HR Advisors, and The Muse, an engaging job-search and career-advice website. Check out highlights from our chat.
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Recently I helped a client get ready for an intense conversation with his team. There'd been some big stuff happening in their division, not all of it great. He had a "state of the union" to deliver as well as some requests. His concern was that if he didn't handle it well, he'd create a mess, not have any clean next steps, waste time, and ultimately demoralize the team. He was nervous. My good friend was having a challenge with her son. There'd been tension for a while and she sensed he'd been dishonest with her. They needed a heart to heart. Her concern was that if she didn't handle it well, she'd create a mess, alienate him, and create even more resistance between them moving forward. In another land, my colleague's team was rockin' it and he wanted to do something awesome for them. His concern was he wouldn't honor them well enough. I today am wrapping up a move, throwing my daughter a birthday party, working with clients, and writing to you. I want to make sure that I'm productive AND that everyone feels honored and seen. Four scenarios -- I'll bet you can plug yourself into at least 3 of them, if not all. So what to do? It's so simple. Happy Monday.
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If you read the lists of best places to work, you might notice the same companies appear year after year. Google, Bain & Company, Nestlé Purina PetCare, Facebook, and Twitter, for example, are perennial favorites on Glassdoor’s annual list. Renowned perks like company chefs, nap rooms, and massages might seem like obvious reasons for their ranking, but Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer for CareerBuilder, says it’s deeper than that; the best employers know how to use workforce data. "Smart companies rely on data to inform all of their recruitment decisions—everything from job seeker perceptions to industry trends and talent supply," she says. "They analyze this data to gain meaningful insight that helps them understand where to focus their recruitment efforts to get the best return on their investment."
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How many goals have you set in your life? A hundred? Ten thousand? Even more? How many of these goals have you actually achieved? If you're like most people, this second number is going to be a fraction of the first. A big reason is that as soon as you set a goal, three things emerge to stop you. But most of us don't even realize what they are, and as a result, we are just left with our unaccomplished goal and an unshakable feeling of failure. What if you could not only identify these obstacles but also learn to welcome them? Well, the good new is that you can....
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"Team player” is more than an interview buzzword — supporting your colleagues can also advance your career.