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September 2, 2010
By Diane Moore
The end of the summer and beginning of the school year always seem to put me in a learning frame of mind. I find myself scanning various courses starting in the fall to see if there’s anything that captures my interest. This time of year reminds me of my school days of the past when I would re-enter the world of academia, armed with a shiny new lunchbox and a package of freshly sharpened coloured pencils.
Although most of what I might take in the way of courses these days falls more under the category of leisure interests, in general I just like the idea of starting something new and learning new ideas, concepts or skills. It’s always surprising to me when I come across individuals who “finished” their education many years ago and have not seen the inside of a classroom since then. Lifelong learning does not seem to be a concept they have embraced.
There’s lots of evidence that learning something new stimulates your brain, which in turn improves brain functioning and actually prevents cognitive decline as we age. Doing the same things in the same way with the same information leads to stagnation.
Not only that, many fields and industries change by leaps and bounds, whether there are new processes, technologies or concepts that must be adopted in order to remain competitive and successful. Resting on your laurels is a dangerous approach for both individuals and businesses in this economy.
I once heard Tom Peters say that if you have not put anything new on your résumé in the past six months, you are out of date. I wonder what he would say about someone who has not learned anything new for many years.
So this is a good time of year to think about your own learning and what you can do to begin stimulating your brain cells with some new and different ideas. Although it may be uncomfortable to put yourself back into the mode of a student, the benefits to our brains and our careers are well worth the effort.
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Tags: education, learning, updating skills
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August 30, 2010
By Diane Moore
PRODUCTIVITY: Nine ways to conserve office supplies
When using office supplies that we haven’t paid for out of our own pockets, it’s easy to forget how the cost of items like paper, binders and file folders can add up. Organizations appreciate workers who take a careful approach to using supplies. This podcast outlines nine tips for conserving office supplies. (3 min.)
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Tags: office supplies, productivity
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August 27, 2010
By Diane Moore
How lightly do you travel? I’ve never quite mastered the art of traveling light whether I’m going on a two-day business trip or a week-long vacation. I like having some of the comforts of home with me. But when it comes to traveling through life, especially at work, I’m in favor of traveling light by letting go of negativity and bitterness.
I started to think about traveling light recently when I had a chance to watch the movie “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney. Clooney plays a kind of “axe man” for hire by companies that want to terminate employees, traveling on the road constantly as he moves from one company to another. Ironically, he also works as a motivational speaker. His theme is that we go through life carrying a metaphorical backpack with us that contains all the things and people representing our obligations and responsibilities.
He encourages us to empty our backpacks in order to, in effect, travel light. This is symbolic of the life Clooney lives in the movie, which is free of emotional attachments and encumbrances. The flaw in his approach is that of course we can and should form attachments to others as an essential way to live a life that is meaningful and rich with relationships. In effect, we want people and even things in our backpacks that support, nurture and ground us.
However, some people allow years’ worth of anger and bitterness to accumulate in their emotional backpacks, weighing them down. They are unwilling to let go of slights and offenses that happened many years ago and seem to enjoy accumulating new grievances to add to their complaints.
You can probably identify people like this in your workplace.There’s a definite sense of heaviness about them as they carry their metaphorical backpacks around with them each day, stuffed full of all the cynicism and bitterness they’ve accumulated throughout their careers. When we’re around them, their heavy backpacks bring us down, too, as they often leave us feeling discouraged and disempowered.
These individuals should not be confused with a co-worker who has a legitimate concern or is dealing with a difficult situation and needs our support. We all have times when we need to gripe, vent or just lean on someone else for a period of time. But I’ve always tried to steer clear of toxic co-workers whose raison d’être is to complain endlessly about the latest problem or betrayal they’ve experienced. People like that can really drag down the whole team.
To borrow from the theme in Clooney’s movie, it’s important to unpack our backpacks if they are full of anger and bitterness. These feelings really do us no good in the end. Take action on what you can, then find some way to make peace with the way things were or are. You’ll find yourself traveling much lighter. What’s in your backpack?
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Tags: attitude, negativity, positive thinking, relationships
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August 25, 2010
By Diane Moore
As the lazy, hazy days of summer begin drawing to a close, I find myself wishing I could slow things down. The summer is always a time that allows me to catch my breath, take time to think and generally take things at a more reasonable pace. Once I get back into the school year, it doesn’t take long for things to speed up and demand more effort to keep all my tasks and projects on track while maintaining an effective life balance. I’m always on the lookout for concepts or tools that help me maintain this balance.
So it caught my attention recently when I got a copy of an article “The Necessity of Downtime for Leaders at all Levels” by Susanne Biro, leadership coach at Bluepoint Leadership Development. Biro talks in the article about the notion of creating “white space” in our lives–a period of time when we step away from our work and give our minds a chance to rest and recharge. This allows us to replenish our creative juices and regain a perspective we might have lost in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of our work.
When I read about this notion of white space, being a writer and editor, I thought of the value of white space on a page in a book. If you picked up a book you were thinking of reading and saw that the words inside flowed to the very edges of the pages, with no white space or margins at all, you would probably not want to read that book. Having white space on a page makes it easier to focus and read the print.
Similarly, creating white space in our lives renews our sense of focus and perspective. Biro points out that anything that leaves us feeling energized and gets us away from our day-to-day work and worries helps to create white space. She emphasizes how critical it is to build white space into our lives and to protect it.
What creates white space in your life? We each have our own unique preferences about what we enjoy. Biro finds cleaning her house to be energizing and one way to create white space in her life. House cleaning doesn’t really float my boat. But I do enjoy volunteering time each weekend to help at a stable which runs horseback riding lessons for children with disabilities. I bring the horses in, groom them, saddle them up, clean up their “business,” and so forth. This may sound like hard work to you but for me, that’s white space. I come home dirty from head to toe, but feeling quite re-energized.
If you’re about to return to a busier fall schedule or haven’t really had time during the summer to relax and enjoy it, I encourage you to look at your schedule and see where you can build in more white space on a regular basis. No one else will do it for you. Your ability to create breathing room in your life will allow you to be more productive and effective in the long run.
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Tags: life balance, productivity, relaxation, stress management
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August 23, 2010
By Diane Moore
WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS: Boost workplace morale
Some people think that maintaining team morale is management’s responsibility. But today, every team member is responsibility for keeping group morale high. You can be a morale-booster with the four strategies described in this podcast. (2 min.)
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Tags: morale, workplace relationships
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August 22, 2010
By Diane Moore
Have you ever known people who have a seriously inflated opinion of themselves? I’m not talking about someone who’s good at something and has the confidence to do it. I’m talking about people who seem to feel that everything they do is outstanding, over-the-top, the ultimate. They have a distorted view of themselves and would rate themselves a 10-plus on their performance even when it’s in the poor-to-middling range. They are usually quite horrified when given an honest appraisal of their true abilities and performance, and often become quite defensive or go on the counter-attack.
I think of this as the “American Idol” syndrome. You’ve probably seen some of those horrible auditions on American Idol where people open their mouths to belt out “My heart will go on” like Celine Dion, but end up sounding like a cat walking on a bed of nails. After they get honest (and sometimes brutal) feedback from the judges, some contestants claim they have “natural talent” or that many others have told them they are good singers. I can’t imagine they even sounded good in the shower, but apparently they think they are good enough to be the next American Idol.
I’m sure you see examples of this type of distorted thinking in the workplace, too. I used to work with someone who operated at a snail’s pace but viewed herself as a very productive team member. The truth was she only produced half the work that the rest of us turned out and what she did produce was often of poor quality. She was astonished when told by our manager that she needed to work harder and more consistently and stubbornly refused to accept any feedback that suggested her work was less than perfect. In the end she was let go, insisting all the way out the door that she had been hard done by and maintaining her self-image that she was a star.
There is a concept called the Johari window in which our personality and character is represented by four quadrants or “panes” in the window. It’s used to depict the degree to which we see ourselves clearly as well as how others see us. The four quadrants are labelled:
–”Open” to represent our personality traits that both others and we are aware of.
–”Hidden” to represent personality traits we know about ourselves, but others may not know about.
–”Blind spot” to represent the things others know about us but which we are not aware of.
–”Unknown” to represent personality traits we possess that both others and we are not aware of.
The more we understand clearly ourselves and our personality, the larger our “open” quadrant becomes and the smaller the “blind spot” quadrant becomes. We may or may not choose to shrink the “hidden” quadrant by revealing more of ourselves to others. While we may always have some blind spots, the bigger this quadrant is, the less likely we are to see ourselves realistically. Like my former co-worker, we may delude ourselves into thinking we possess strengths we don’t have or that we are doing better than we think. It’s worth being open to feedback when we hear it repeatedly from others as usually that’s a sign they are seeing something that’s in our blind spot. It’s not always easy to hear this kind of feedback, but most often it presents us with an opportunity for growth.
As for me, I’ve always wished I could be a singer, but for now, my heart will only go on in the shower.
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Tags: feedback, Johari window, performance, self-image
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August 19, 2010
By Diane Moore
Having worked as an administrative assistant for more than ten years and written for the office professional audience for twenty-two years, one of the key issues I’ve often heard from many admins is how important it is to them to be taken seriously and recognized as professional members of the team. I remember what it was like to be an administrative professional during an era when we really were thought of as “just a secretary.” I’ve written several blogs in the past about some of my experiences in offices where there was definitely a glass ceiling between support staff and management.
The battle to overcome the “just a secretary” image has been long and hard. Those of you who have been in the field for many years have probably had your own struggles with establishing yourself as an equal member of a team and worthy of being viewed as a professional.
Although I do think the role of office professionals has been dramatically transformed in the past several decades, there is still progress to be made. Unfortunately, some people still just don’t get it. I recently clicked on a link to read an article that professed to offer the top ten reasons to become an
administrative professional. I was deeply disappointed at the tone of the article and wondered how someone currently working in the field would feel about it.
Some of the points the article offered as good reasons to become an office professional included being able to change a coffee filter (because no one else knows how to do it), being able to plan parties and decorate the office for holidays, getting to “chat” with people all day and knowing all the office gossip. Maybe the article was meant to be tongue-in-cheek but somehow I don’t think so.
After reading it, I felt the role of the office professional had been made light of and diminished. It certainly didn’t recognize the level of professionalism, knowledge and expertise that is demanded of the office professional in today’s workplace.
So, I’d like to outline better reasons I can think of to be an administrative professional:
–You can work in any industry in any type of setting, whether you want to work in a large corporation, a one-person office, providing support to a high-profile politician or celebrity or in a grass-roots movement in your own community. Your skills as an administrative professional can take you anywhere you want to go.
–You have the opportunity for constant learning and growth. Things are continually changing. As the person on the front lines, you have unlimited opportunities to develop new skills and expertise, whether it’s mastering the latest software program, learning how to handle budgets or developing the ability to speak in public.
–The sky is the limit in terms of where you can go from here. The office professional role can be a stepping stone to your next career, if you desire to make a change. As an office professional, the skills you develop can be used in a wide range of roles including manager, graphic designer, writer, copy editor, librarian, trainer and teacher, to name just a few.
These are just three good reasons I can think of to become an office professional. I’ll bet you could think of a few more, and I’m sure they won’t have much to do with coffee filters, parties or gossip.
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Tags: administrative assistants, office professionals, professional recognition
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August 16, 2010
By Diane Moore
PRODUCTIVITY: Reaching consensus at meetings
Do the meetings you attend ever get bogged down with too many ideas and no way to reach consensus? Next time you’re at a meeting that seems to be going around in circles, try one of the approaches described in this podcast. (3 min.)
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Tags: consensus, meetings, productivity
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August 13, 2010
By Diane Moore
As a job search specialist, I’ve worked with many people who are looking for work, helping them through the process of writing résumés and cover letters, preparing for interviews, handling the post-interview follow-up and salary negotiation, and so forth. I’m always surprised by the number of “rules” people think there are for job search. The truth is that there are very few hard-and-fast job search rules and lots of gray area.
Résumés: one page or two? Cover letters: use or don’t use? Dress for the interview: formal business attire or smart casual? Interview follow-up: phone or e-mail? These are just a few of the quandries that job seekers face. While these may seem like fairly petty concerns, when you’re a job seeker there is often the concern (and rightly so) that one mis-step can lead to your being rejected for a job.
For almost every job search “rule” that I’ve heard, I’ve seen exceptions. Even the rule that one typographical mistake on a résumé can lead to a candidate being rejected has its exceptions. Although it’s true 99 percent of the time, I’ve seen applicants in some industries still get interviews and get hired despite having one or more mistakes on their résumés. Someone hiring chefs may not care if they can spell Tzaziki as long as they can make it.
I sometimes see articles written by well-meaning job search experts making fairly extreme statements that I think are misleading and confusing for job-seekers. As one example, I recently read an article in which the author said we should not bother with cover letters. The individual offering this advice said that cover letters should only be used in cases where the applicant knows the name of the hiring person, knows what the job requirements are or has been referred by a mutual acquaintance. I’m never sure what leads people to make up these new rules. Unless one has polled every employer everywhere in every industry to see what they are looking for from applicants, I think it’s doing job-seekers a disservice to make “always” or “never” statements, particularly when it departs from what has been accepted practice.
While some employers may not look for or like cover letters, others have told me that’s the first thing they read. If they don’t like what they see in the cover letter, they will not even turn the page to review the résumé. On the other hand, some employers have told me that they skip the cover letter and read the résumé first to get a sense of the applicant’s basic background experience, then they review the cover letter to get a sense of the individual’s personality. It’s highly unlikely that a candidate would ever be rejected for having a cover letter, but they might be rejected if they do NOT have one. Whenever I’ve been involved in the process of reviewing résumés and interviewing applicants, a lack of a cover letter says to me that the candidate was too lazy to prepare one.
So what’s a job seeker to do? Do your research in the industry that you’re targeting. Talk to as many employers as you can in your field of interest to find out what they look for from applicants. You will probably hear lots of conflicting preferences even within the same industry. Some employers prefer one-page résumés while others prefer two. Go with what you hear from the majority. Pay attention to what the employer requests if they’ve advertised a position. If they ask for a one-page résumé with a cover letter, be sure that’s what you submit.
In general, when it comes to job search, be careful about following rules that seem to be a little unusual or different from what most employers seem to look for. If you’re getting advice from people who put themselves out there as job search experts, if any “rule” you hear seems to be a little controversial, talk to people in your field to see whether it would help or hinder your job search efforts.
As for those typographical errors, unless you’re planning to specialize in making Tzaziki, making sure your résumé and cover letter are letter-perfect is still a good rule to follow.
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Tags: cover letters, interviews, job search, resumes
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August 10, 2010
By Diane Moore
COMMUNICATION: Improving verbal agility
Do you admire people who have the “gift of gab”? Some people seem to know just what to say, when to say it and the way to word it best. The five strategies in this podcast will help you to improve your verbal agility. (3 min.)
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Tags: Communication, verbal agility
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