In September, Ketzel Levine, a senior correspondent for National Public Radio, came up with an idea for a series about how Americans were handling economic pressure. Called “American Moxie: How We Get By,”
it began in early December. The subjects were people like an Illinois
farmer who loved tending to his cows, but was having to sell them. “My
idea was to look at how we adjust, how we change, what we have to dig
deep and find in order to do what it takes to get by, and that’s where
moxie came in,” Ms. Levine told the New York Times in a piece that was recently written about her.
This just in from a WCW reader: “Dear Alex, my new department works really
hard. How can I maintain the work/life balance I’ve tried so desperately to attain?”
One of my favorite managers used to say that perception is reality, and there is nothing stronger than a perception formed on the basis of a first impression. Whether you have a clock-watcher as a boss or not, it’s crucial that you are on your best behavior during your first month at a new job. Be aware that everyone is watching you, so make sure to arrive on time for work. Remember that half the battle is showing up, so don’t get caught by someone’s attendance radar.
G.L. Hoffman has long billed himself as the wise, older mentor. He’s behind the successful blog What Would Dad Say?, and like most highly educated fathers, he always gives excellent advice. G.L. is a 25 year veteran of the business world. He’s also a serial entrepreneur who has created and consulted for dozens of start-ups and has lived to tell about it.
For the third year, I was invited to weigh in for Yahoo! Hot Jobs’ annual assessment of career lessons learned from high profile people. Here’s the article, and what I had to say about each of editor Tom Musbach’s picks:
DO stay focused on achieving your goals, despite adversity or distractions. (Barack Obama): We
can all learn from Barack in this respect. No matter how many times he was called the underdog, or how many people spoke out against him, he believed in himself and his cause and kept his attention focused on the most important goals to achieve at that moment.
If you have to be at work during the “dead” week between Christmas and New Year’s, what are you planning on doing with yourself? For corporate employees, this is traditionally a time where people sit at their desks and twiddle their thumbs because the majority of business associates aren’t around to do business with. I’m willing to bet that Facebook surfing and online shopping are at an annual high. Here are a couple of tips to get through this week without driving yourself to mindless distraction:
1) Write down your goals for 2009: Think hard about what you want to achieve next year at work, and specific steps you’ll need to take to make it happen. If your boss is around, set up a meeting to talk through what you’ve come up with so that you’re both on board.
2) Have lunch with a networking contact: Now that you actually have some down time, why not use it by spending a little more than an hour with a person you’d like to get to know better and who could possibly help you in your career? After all, informal, in-person networking is the most effective kind.
3) Organize your files: If you haven’t read an e-mail from January yet, you’re not going to. Clean up your Outlook inbox and the hard drive of your computer so that you are able to start fresh in 2009. Make sure important files are backed up and archived for safekeeping.
4) Walk down the hall: If you had to process some financial paperwork for a client, would you know how to do it? The dead week is a great time to better understand how certain systems in your company work and the people you should talk to to most efficiently get things done.
5) Read neglected industry publications: And unless you’re in the entertainment industry, I’m not talking about People. Stop by the mailroom and pick up the December issues, or hop online. Focus your attention on trends pieces that will help you better understand where your field is headed.
In order to encourage better work/life balance, and as a response to technology that allows workers 24/7 accessibility, many organizations are implementing telecommuting policies. In fact, according to The Telework Coalition, more than 45 million U.S. workers currently telecommute from home at least once a week. Chuck Wilsker, president and CEO of the Coalition, recently told Payscale.com that he has seen a three-fold increase in the number of calls he fields from employers, employees and media wanting to know more about the reasons for telecommuting.
Way too many of my friends and acquaintances have been faced with this dilemma recently: my company has given me the option of leaving the company voluntarily with a severance package that sounds pretty good. Do I take it and run, or stick around and risk getting laid off later?
If this applies to you, I can’t really tell you exactly what to do. I don’t know what’s going on at your company, or what your personal financial outlook looks like. But I did think about what I would do if placed in this situation, and here are a few thoughts:
Says Ivan Misner, the founder and chairman of BNI, the
world’s largest business networking organization: “It’s not Net-SIT or NeT-EAT, it’s Net-WORK. Successful networking is about learning how to work the networking process, not just letting it happen.”
If the journalism world is any indication, one would think free agency is just around the corner. I’ve heard through word of mouth that nearly a dozen of the top media outlets have announced layoffs in the last month, and lately, when I do an interview, at least half the time it’s with a freelancer. I suppose this is good news for me.
My friend Anita Bruzzeze has a terrific post on the perils of accepting a counteroffer. You might not think this applies to too many people in this rotten economy, but you’d be surprised. The counteroffer dilemma is something that faces nearly every halfway decent employee at some point in their careers. Anita interviewed DeLynn Senna, executive
director of permanent placement services for Robert Half International, and she reported these valuable insights:
Tune in Monday, December 15th at 2:30pm EST for a new episode of my monthly radio show and podcast, 30/20 Vision.
This series is for the 20-something woman who wishes she had
three big sisters to clue her in on the ins and outs of life after
college.
I have never been good at telling jokes. I rarely remember the good ones I hear, and when I do recall one, I don’t know the appropriate time to share it and the right tone with which to deliver it. I am trying to get better at expressing humor beyond the anecdotal, self-deprecating kind, because I understand from speaker training that today’s business audiences want to be entertained as well as educated.
Here’s what Paul Sloan at Lifehack had to say on the subject:
Reuters, along with every other high-profile media outlet in the country, reported this week that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were arrested in Chicago on two counts each of federal corruption charges stemming from allegations Blagojevich was trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat to the highest bidder. The arrest is part of a three-year probe of
“pay-to-play politics” in the governor’s administration. The criminal complaint by the FBI says each man was arrested on two charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.
It never ceases to amaze me that politicians continue to behave unethically, even when they are almost always caught in the end. As a regular citizen, you may think you’re immune to such ethical choices as the one faced by my esteemed governor. But in reality, ethical decisions confront us in the professional world every day, whether it’s deciding to accept an expensive gift from a client or falsifying records in the name of company survival. Peter Voyt, a longtime friend of mine, provides this quiz to get a sense of how your business ethics measure up.
If you’re not happy with your results, you might consider checking out this useful primer from the Josephson Institute. With realistic examples and a step-by-step decision making model, the easy-to-read booklet examines the hows and whys of making choices that withstand ethical scrutiny. You can also learn to be on the lookout for dangerous rationalizations that cause ethical slip-ups, including “it’s legal,” “it’s okay if I don’t gain personally,” “it doesn’t hurt anyone,” and “everyone’s doing it.”
My friend Penelope Trunk has a great post on why young workers actually have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season. The data she shares is very compelling:
Jobs for low-level candidates are increasing. This data comes from a report from Beyond.com issued
on November 14. In October 2008, jobs for candidates with 0-3 years of experience increased by 3.68% when compared to jobs posted in September 2008.
Ben Koff was hired into the exciting world of gambling right out of business school, when he was selected for Harrah’s Entertainment’s prestigious President’s Associates program. But it’s not all fun and games. Let’s hear what Ben has to say.
Alex: What was Harrah’s like when you first started?
When you work for an organization, an e-mail address is provided to you and you don’t have any choice in
the matter. It doesn’t matter if that e-mail address dumps real e-mail in the spam folder and allows spam to sail into your inbox. You’re stuck with it. A personal e-mail address, or the e-mail address you use when you work for yourself, however, isn’t so cut and dry. I used to think that no one cared about your e-mail address unless it was something inappropriate or tacky like drunkatnoon@yahoo.com. But now I’m not so sure.
Behind the very successful author teleseminars series is a new friend of mine, Elizabeth Marshall. Together with the brilliant Michael Port, who wrote Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling, comes a little book with big sales advice - The Contrarian Effect. You might think that a book like this is for people with the job title “sales representative,” but realize that in today’s world, everyone is selling something whether it’s your personal brand or a refrigerator.
I don’t know how to hold a grudge. I’ve never met anyone who has done something so terrible to me (killed or seriously hurt someone I love on purpose) that it warrants harboring an extremely negative opinion of them for months or years on end. Even when a person does something that I consider rude, mean, or inconsiderate, my anger usually fades after a few weeks and my feelings are back to neutral or even positive. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever I can, and even if I meet someone whose morals and behavior aren’t in line with mine, I usually just put him or her out of my mind and move on to a person more worthy of my time.
Thanks to MSNBC columnist Eve
Tahmincioglu for revisiting the issue of the noncompete agreement. I
address this topic briefly in Success
for Hire, and I think it’s an important one to be aware of if you’re job
hunting or thinking of making a career transition anytime soon. Says Eve:
So Ziff Davis Media, one of the leading integrated
technology media companies in the country, just announced that PCMag, its
flagship brand, will go all-digital. The final print version will be the
January 2009 issue. For the past seven years, PCMag has leveraged its
long-standing position with technology readers and advertisers to build one of
the leading digital media properties in the technology category.
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