by Lauren Davenport | Workplace tips
It’s not unusual for careers to get off to wobbly starts as young people, hampered by their lack of experience and contacts, find it difficult to achieve a firm footing.
That’s one reason they should make it a goal to find mentors who could help guide them through the rough patches.
One of the biggest benefits of having a mentor is that person’s success can act as a catalyst for your belief in yourself. It’s also a way to expand your network because a mentor can introduce you to people who could help you with your career and who you otherwise might not meet.
While mentors can be a great asset for young people in their career advancement, don’t expect the mentor to materialize out of nowhere and then do all the heavy lifting. Much of the onus is on the mentee to seek the relationship, cultivate it, and make the most of it.
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Four ways to find a mentor
Here’s a list of four simple things you can to find someone willing to mentor you.
- Don’t be afraid to reach out.
A simple LinkedIn search can help you find people who are currently in your dream job. Somehow, they managed to get the very thing you want. How did they pull that off? Send them a short message and tell them your aspirations. Ask if they can spare 30 minutes for you to visit their office and “pick their brains” about how they achieved success.
After you went to all the trouble to set up that meeting, you don’t want to show up unprepared. Learn all you can about this potential mentor with a Google search. Write down any questions you want to ask. For the meeting, dress like you already have a job with the person’s company and be 10 minutes early.
- Join a networking organization.
If reaching out to an individual isn’t in your comfort zone, seek a networking organization that focuses on career growth. Sign up for a MeetUp group taught by someone you admire. Take notes as the person speaks. After the event, you’re also going to need to muster up the courage to introduce yourself. To find a good mentor, in most cases you really are going to need to take the first step.
- Pay attention to the mentor’s advice.
You may not follow through on every suggestion, but you do need to listen to what they have to say. After all, the wisdom and experience they can provide is the whole point of having a mentor. I recall early in my career joining a networking group and trying to pitch my company to the members without success. I mentioned my inability to generate any business to my mentor.
My mentor told me if I wanted to be taken seriously as a business woman that I needed to change my wardrobe. I put away the summer dresses I typically wore and bought some tailored jackets and other clothes that helped present a business-professional look. Soon after, business picked up.
I still actively seek women who are in my industry and at similar career levels. Sometimes they even work for competitors. We don’t share any company secrets, but we often are experiencing similar struggles, so we swap stories and give each other advice on how to overcome those challenges.
Today’s guest contributor is Lauren Davenport, chief executive officer at The Symphony Agency. She’s a contributor for the New York Daily News and has been featured on PBS, ABC Action News, iHeartRadio, AMEX OPEN, and more.
Image source before quote added: Pixabay
by Mona Patel | Workplace tips
As humans, we tend to let ourselves fall into familiar routines, especially when we’re working.
Any sequence of mental action which has been frequently repeated tends to perpetuate itself. ~William James, philosopher
I’ve seen many shades of the autopilot work mentality, which can range from severe creative block to not realizing you have a problem. Regardless of which end of the continuum you occupy, it’s worth your time to ask if whether there’s a better way.
To help you reframe how you work, innovate, and think, I offer four steps to help you rethink what you’re doing.
4 steps to get off mental autopilot
Step 1: If you’re stuck or not sure, ask “What if?”
Ask yourself: Am I treading water? What work goals haven’t I achieved? Can I imagine a new way of achieving those goals?
If you answered “no” or “I can’t,” then it’s time for you to reframe how you think. Telling yourself “I can’t” predetermines unaccomplished goals. Counter-balance that negative responsive by repeated asking “What if…?” That’s the first step to opening the door of possibility.
Step 2: Start making the “What ifs?” real with your work team.
Schedule a meeting and start it with a silent warm-up ideation period of three minutes. Write down all the “What if” ideas that surface in the three minutes.
Don’t worry about people coming up with the same idea at the same time. Just write them down and keep the creativity flowing.
If you and your team need more ideas, repeat the process.
Step 3: Follow good response practices when ideas are shared.
Tell your work team members to say “plus one” if they have an idea that’s like one that someone else has suggested. This streamlines the process and strengthens bonds between those with similar ideas.
Saying “Plus love” is a good way to express that you wish you came up with the idea. Hearing “plus love” on a crazy idea encourages you to come up with more crazy ideas and enables the group to be more creative.
Saying “I’m good” is a positive way of saying “I don’t have any more ideas.”
Step 4: Filter your ideas. How much do you love an idea?
Now’s the time to start sorting all those ideas that have been shared. Ask a few questions to begin the sorting and sifting process: Does the idea solve a real need? Will it save money? Is it feasible?
Next, further whittle down the idea list by asking how easy or difficult an idea would be to execute.
Then move on to consider the “wow” factor, meaning how much the idea would impact someone’s life or how much a client would like it.
New ideas pass through three periods: 1) It can’t be done; 2) It probably can be done, but it’s not worth doing; 3) I knew it was a good idea all along! ~Arthur C. Clarke
Sometimes to get out of the mental autopilot rut, all we have to do is carve out some time so we can discover new ideas for ourselves.
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Today’s guest contributor is Mona Patel, CEO and Founder of Motivate Design, a user-centered design agency based in New York City that helps Fortune 500 clients.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Cameron Herold | Workplace tips
Many employees probably groan and grumble when they see that the boss has scheduled yet another meeting. I believe that doesn’t have to be the case. Meetings aren’t terrible, it’s just that most people are terrible at running them.
5 strategies for having good meetings
If you want to make the best use of people’s time in your meetings and improve employee morale and productivity in the process, there are five simple things you need to do.
• Have an agenda.
Meetings that don’t have a clear agenda tend to get off track easily. They also often include people who don’t need to be there and would be better off back at their desks completing important projects. The agenda can be short and still include the main purpose of getting together, possible outcomes, and action items to be covered.
An agenda prevents the meeting from being hijacked by some random topic. It also allows more introverted team members to prepare ahead of time what they want to say. Most introverts won’t chime in when they don’t know the agenda ahead of time, which means you could miss great input.
• Determine a meeting style.
There are basically three styles of meetings: information share, creative discussion and consensus decision.
In an information-share meeting, the information flows in one direction. Either employees tell the leadership something, or senior management has something to say to employees.
Creative discussions are brainstorming sessions. People toss out ideas without any judgments made about feasibility or validity, and decisions come later.
Consensus-decision meetings are held when a decision is needed. These sessions can get testy so be certain to establish a few ground rules going in. Once the meeting is over and consensus has been reached, put any disagreement behind you, and don’t continue arguments outside the meeting.
• Start on time and end early.
If you scheduled the meeting for 10 a.m., start at 10 a.m. This shows respect for people’s times and good management skills. End the session early if you can. That gives people time to grab a cup of coffee, check emails, go to the restroom, or chat with colleagues before their next timed appointment.
• Foster useful communication.
Some people talk a lot in every meeting. Others rarely speak. For a meeting to be successful, get everyone engaged. Foster dialogue with newcomers or quiet people. Go around the table and solicit feedback or ideas. Have a “be present” rule: make sure people aren’t distracted because they are responding to email on their cell phones or laptops.
• Know your role.
Every meeting should have a chair, a timekeeper, participants and a closer.
The chair announces the type of meeting it is, makes sure everyone sticks with the agenda, and prevents the meeting from going sideways.
The timekeeper does what the name implies, making sure everyone stays on schedule and that no one lingers too long on any one point.
The participants should not be passive observers. They need to arrive prepared to contribute and to remain interested throughout the meeting.
The closer usually the chair, who closes the meeting by recapping action items, i.e., who’s doing what and by when, and agreements. This step assures 1) that participants have noted their assignment and deadline for achieving it, and 2) that everyone is on the same page about decisions made.
Employee frustration drops drastically when you keep meetings focused on the task at hand and avoid people’s wasting time.
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About today’s guest LeadBIG contributor: Cameron Herold is an author and business man best known as the driving force behind 1-800-GOT-JUNK?’s spectacular growth from $2 million to $106 million in revenue in six years. Cameron is a top-rated lecturer at the EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program as well as a speaker at EO/YPO and Vistage events around the world.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Brad Deutser | Workplace tips
Frequent fliers may look back on 2017 as the year those supposedly “friendly skies” turned into “chaotic clouds.”
The list of airlines in trouble seemed to grow by the day, whether it was cancelled flights that led to near riots, prize rabbits dying in the cargo hold or roughed up passengers who declined to be bumped from their seats. Something definitely has been amiss in the airline industry.
Beyond getting past the negative media coverage, if an airline, or any company for that matter, wants to right the foundering ship, someone should do a deep dive into the company culture.
Any business leader needs to understand that their ultimate success starts with what happens on the inside of the organization. If the people inside the company aren’t aligned and in synch with the company’s values and goals, the result will be confusion and turmoil that eventually will affect the brand’s overall performance. A few airlines are experiencing those impacts right now, but so do plenty of other businesses as well.
3 steps to get company culture back on track
A lot of time, effort, and work goes into setting things right when culture goes awry, but there’s three important steps that should be taken right away. Those steps are:
- Strive for organizational clarity.
The most critical ingredient to achieving business success is clarity, and that includes clarity of the organization’s purpose, vision, and the roles of those involved in carrying out that purpose and vision. If leaders are fuzzy on the goals they have for a business or organization, then those charged with accomplishing those goals are less likely to succeed
Keeping an upbeat atmosphere is essential to a company’s culture. You want your employees to be happy. If you can find a way to encourage a positive outlook and attitude, employees will be more motivated and will perform their jobs better.
- Search out what’s right in the company.
When businesses want to improve, they typically focus on what’s wrong or what’s broken. It just seems to make sense to address head-on whatever difficulty has arisen. This approach should be flipped on its head. The right question isn’t What are we doing wrong? It’s What are we doing right? What are the great nuggets inside that organization that can take us to a different place, to a different height?’
If you understand where the company culture is right, you can duplicate those practices in the areas where the problems are.
Just about any company will hit a bumpy stretch somewhere along the way. When that happens, it may be time to explore its culture, re-evaluate how it operates, and re-imagine what its future can be.
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Brad Deutser is president of Deutser LLC, a consulting firm that advises leaders and organizations about achieving clarity especially in times of transition, growth or crisis.
Image credit before quote added: Pixabay
by Parviz Firouzgar | Workplace tips
I
t’s no surprise to some that people who dislike their boring-but-safe, 9-to-5 jobs tend to be unsatisfied and unsuccessful in their careers.
I believe that’s true because the first ingredient to success is doing what you’re passionate about.
We all need money to get by, but if you ever have the opportunity to take a chance and do what you actually love, take it.
If you don’t like what you do, you will tend to have an aversion to doing what it takes to be very successful. Without passion, it’s almost impossible to distinguish yourself. If you keep your boring and safe job, you can keep your boring and safe income, but I don’t know how happy you’ll be.
Years ago, I would have told you I was crazy for thinking that I’d have such an adventurous career. However, the reality is that nothing is out of our reach, for me or for you.
Through trial and error and after decades of experience as a successful businessman and radio show host, I’ve uncovered three reliable tips for achieving success.
3 secrets for success
Find a mentor who can help you develop 20/20 foresight.
- Imagine having the ability to skip ahead and possess the unique set of skills that comes with already having earned your first fortune. Had I known what it would take to earn my first million before I’d earned that knowledge, it would have come much quicker and easier. I recommend developing a relationship with a mentor, who can also help you fast-track success.
- Choose someone who’s already successful so that the advice isn’t some form of wishful thinking. Ideally, find someone who has experienced hardship in life.
Acknowledge that failure is life’s greatest teacher.
- One of the biggest reasons why personal experience is so valuable—and why an ideal mentor has experienced some measure of failure—is because that’s where the most valuable lessons usually lie.
- Our first success is often fleeting and, meanwhile, one’s ego tends to get out of control. Then it all comes crashing down as flawed character traits surface and sabotage what took so much hard work to build. It’s our failures that positively mold the most important features of our character—including humility and gratitude. It’s when we experience and overcome failure that success becomes a sustainable possibility.
Use to-do lists to provide direction for achieving goals.
- Among the abundant academic and self-help literature intended to help aspirational people achieve goals, there is one proven and reliable tool that sets the gold standard like nothing else: a to-do list.
- To-do lists act as cheat sheets for keeping your busy mind focused on what needs to be addressed at any given time. We all need to multitask to an extent, and having a list will keep you straight. Because I’m adding to the list regularly, I enjoy crossing out tasks that have been accomplished.
- An added tip for a to-do list: do first what you like doing least. Even very disciplined people push off what they dislike. But if you get in the habit of accomplishing unattractive duties in the morning, the rest of your day can be that much more pleasant.
What other secrets have you discovered for being more successful at work?
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Today’s LeadBIG guest contributor is Parviz Firouzgar, entrepreneur, radio show host, and philanthropist who provides food, clothing, and education to needy children around the world.
Image source: Dreamstime
by Marsha Friedman | Workplace tips
I once agreed to be a guest on a radio talk show. I thought we would be discussing marketing tips. Not so!
The radio hosts had noticed that in addition to me, my husband, two sons and a daughter-in-law all worked at EMSI Public Relations. So rather than talking about marketing, the hosts asked me about the dynamics of working in a business with so many family members.
Before answering that question, I pointed that there were even more family members working at EMSI—a mother and daughter and in the past other married couples!
In light of that, I observed that our whole company is like one big family, whether or not the employees are related by blood or marriage.
In that regard, EMSI is not unusual. According to the Small Business Administration, 90 percent of small businesses are family owned and operated.
We are certainly not perfect, but I think we owe some of our business’s success to learning how to work every day alongside the people we married or gave birth to.
3 tips for peaceful co-existence in a family-run business
Here are three things I’ve discovered that can help keep things running smoothly when family and business mix.
#1) Arrange for the entire staff to spend fun time together.
This is important for nurturing genuine caring, which is essential to forming a tight-knit team, or a tight-knit family. Co-workers who care about one another tend to jump in to help when they see someone struggling, so whatever is broken get fixed…fast. Co-workers encourage one another and are more honest about their feelings, which means conflicts are aired and resolved, not allowed to fester.
Some of that caring comes from spending time together doing non-work activities, like taking a Friday afternoon off so the whole office could go bowling. These fun events help relationships expand and grow.
#2) Don’t talk about work during your commute—or once you get home.
For many younger married couples with children, this may be easy. They head straight from the office to the day care to pick up their kids. From then until bedtime, it is all about the children.
However, for my husband and me, it is too easy to rehash the day’s events, dissect problems, or work through plans after we leave the office. So instead of giving in to this temptation to extend the workday even longer, we talk about family matters, friends, movies, or what we are going to do on the weekend ahead. It is important to have a healthy interest in concerns and activities beyond the office walls; you cannot be happy if you are consumed by only one aspect of your life.
#3) If there is a quarrel, whether it is between family members or unrelated employees, keep it contained.
Some experts say you should never display anger at work, and others say doing so can be a good thing. But I cannot think of any instance when people who witness a blow-up are more productive, creative, resourceful or innovative in the aftermath.
Angry outbursts create tension, and when you are really angry, you are likely to say things you later wish no one else had heard. At our office, tempers do occasionally flare. Most of us take those arguments for a walk outside or at least close the office door to resolve our differences without upsetting everyone else.
In my perspective, the benefits of working with husbands, sons and daughters far outweigh any disadvantages.
Doing so builds the culture of family, one that, if you are lucky, not only draws everyone in the office together, but extends to your clients as well.
What’s been your experience in balancing work and life with lots of family members at work?
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Today’s guest contributor is Marsha Friedman, a public relations expert, founder/CEO of EMSI Public Relations, author, advisor on PR issues and strategies, and speaker.
Image source before quote added: morgueFile
