Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 10, 2009
I do a lot of career coaching. I talk to youngsters of all ability ranges. I talk to MBA student making career changes after a flying start in management. I talk to people who’ve been unlucky enough to lose their jobs and who looking for an echo career.
What all these people have in common ~ those who are happy to get work at the minimum wage and those negotiating banker-size bonuses ~ is that they will not get what they want until they decide what they want.
Many of us ~ particularly the talented, able and lucky ~ go through life on a set of rails. We go from one school to another, on tracks laid down by other people, and decision making has amounted to no more than “this” or “that”. Both are good and we chose on the basis of the frills ~ which perks were more to our taste.
Then one day, shock and horror, the tracks are gone. We will have to lay them down ourselves. Suddenly, we realize that we are “institutionalized”. We haven’t being make decisions for ourselves. We are capable of rolling down pre-laid tracks without thought, but we are totally incapable of laying the tracks.
It’s a steep learning curve. Today Smashing Magazine has a list of “do’s” for free lancers. These “do’s” are the basis for job searches as well. Print them and rate your progress at getting them right.
I can tell you right now which steps you will find hard ~ deciding which sector you want to work in and finding out about the companies. That’s the equivalent of laying the tracks. That is the part that you’ve never done before because you always took for granted that the tracks were there.
I can be sure that in 1-2 months of doing a little work every night, the industry will come alive. Smashing Magazine’s list will begin to be easy. Indeed, I strongly recommend that you start a blog. Get a Posterous account, which is easy to manage, and start “Expeditions into the Publishing Industry”, or whatever. In time you will be an acclaimed expert ~ and you will have got there by the first step that you took today.
Indeed, if you don’t take the first step, if you keep telling me about step 7 or step 10 or step 53, then I know you are not serious. Step 1: print out Smashing Magazine’s article. Step Two get a shoebox. Step Three get a junk mail envelope and make your first notes.
And stop whinging! This is easy in the days of the internet. Just 10 years ago, this was almost impossible to do!
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 9, 2009
In your worry about where you are going (or boredom on the motorway), don’t ignore the traffic around you!
The best thing you can do is keep moving with the flow. If you miss the exit, keep going and “turn around when possible”.
Don’t fret that you missed the exit! I know it is annoying. But you will get where you want to be much faster if you keep going smoothly and double back when you can. Write the missed exit off to experience.
Impatience is not going to get you anywhere! As you have a moment, start to imagine the road ahead. Don’t try to do it all at once because then you will take your eye off the road.
If you are able to pull over, take a deep breath and get you bearings, good. Do it. Otherwise, keep going smoothly and slowly work out where you are going and what you should be anticipating. Slowly and patiently.
Feeling frustrated at work is not much different from feeling frustrated on the road.
That is the secret – we are antsy because we can’t make a solution happen right now. Well we can’t. And yelling at reality won’t make it behave. Reality won’t here you (and if it does, it won’t like being shouted at).
So start describing reality. Leave your temper tantrum for later. No one cares – least of all reality. Just start describing reality.
Well you get the idea.
Be respectful. Reality does not like being shouted at or ignored!
Yes, it is so hard to put our emotions aside. They clamor for attention!
OK. So listen to them. Say to yourself, I am feeling confused/frightened/annoyed (hey, embarrassed) to be on a road where I don’t know where I am going.
Feel better for listening to yourself?
Good. And know I’ll tell you a secret. So is the guy to the left of you, the guy to the right of you, the (****) who is tailgating you.
You aren’t in this alone. We are all slightly confused. We should all start paying attention to reality.
He or she who is able to do that wins -they get to their destination and they get there in a good mood!
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 9, 2009
I went to a fairly “diverse” university during a civil war: we had black students, white students, and others!
Life as an “other” was interesting. People who were partisan assumed that you were “for” them, or “against” them, on whatever criteria they thought relevant. It was nothing to do with you exactly ~ you just happened to fit in to some fantasy narrative they had in their heads.
As an “other”, you also spoke to people on both sides and you got to hear what they thought of “the other side”.
Conflicts are deadly. Don’t get me wrong, but if people knew how funny they sounded, maybe they would stop to hear themselves.
This is how it went.
Black students said white students were ‘thick’ and white students said white students were ‘thick’
The evidence, on both sides, was that ‘they’ had to work so hard!
I studied psychology and sociology, and even if I didn’t, I would have known that we are ignorant about people we never speak to and that we over-simplify their stories. We also describe common human failings as evil, rather than common human failings.
What was amusing is that both sides perceived working hard as an insult! That was what we all had in common.
Yaz stupid if you have to work hard!
Being lazy wasn’t an insult, but stupid was.
Not all cultures believe that being lazy at college is cool. I taught in NZ for a number of years and we had many students from China. Almost without exception, they would arrive talking about ‘working hard’. Invariably, by third year, they would be saying, “These Kiwis might have something going here. They don’t do half as much work as I do and they get by”.
So what we value is not universal by any means. Our insults are not universal by any means. Indeed, when our families haven’t spoken for generations, it is a bit of a miracle that we think the same way.
People locked in conflict often do have heaps in common. Most of all, they want attention from the other side.
Conflict is about status and belonging. We should never forget that.
It goes like this.
- If I am very powerful relative to you and I have many resources that I could share with you, you might choose to go along with my abrogation of your status.
- If I have power but I lack anything that you really want and can only get from me, you are more likely to react.
In the short term, I might never notice nor care. I have the power, right? Why should I care?
But I no longer have your respect. In time, you will slowly start to make me the mirror of all you worry about in yourself. If you think that working too hard is a sign that you are no intellectually-equipped to be at university, that will be what is wrong with me too. Not because it is true, but because I don’t talk to you any way. As I don’t talk to you anyway, you might as well be the place where I “dump” all that worries me about the world! You make me different (in a way that is intelligible to you) to explain why I don’t like you!
And as our relationship descends in to one based only on power, I will be able to live out my fantasy narrative without worrying about how it affects you.
We are on a one-way hiding to nowhere!
We were in the middle of a war and on the whole, the university did a pretty good job of keeping things moving.
We needed more though. The trouble is that in a civil war, the attitudes of young people reflect the attitudes of their elders and who was going to do ‘more’?
The message for those of us not living in communities torn apart by strife is this.
Don’t go there! Don’t move along that path!
. . .you will be angry, disappointed, powerless and dejected. You will want to retaliate. You should remember that your ultimate weapon is contempt. By diminishing your status, they have lost status too. The have last status enormously, actually, because the only way to regain that status is with your good will which is not available right now.
Maybe when they insulted you, they meant to be aggressive. It is possible. Maybe they have got carried away with their fantasy world. We may be want to head that off gently! Or, maybe their lack of sensitivity to us was caused because we were insensitive in some way to them. Maybe, we did something to inadvertently kick off the spiral of contempt and conflict?
When we are over our initial irritation (which we feel like it or not), our first possibility is to attempt to restore their status. Just gently. Invite and apologize.
. . . you will probably be thinking something like “I am right”. You will be justifying your actions to yourself. That is a good sign that you are riding roughshod over someone. Watch yourself! Remember it is easy to do because it is easy to do. When you have power, it is oh, so easy. You more than anyone must bring to a halt this one way hiding to no where. When you leave people with no alternative but to think “He, or she, has behaved badly. I have to pretend to offer respect but that is all it will be.” Then the spiral begins, so slowly that you may not notice at first.
When you notice the spiral, stop. Don’t worry where it began. Don’t worry who began. Just stop and say to yourself. My loyalty to this person is worth more than anything else. I can absorb a little irritation. I can absorb a relationship where I don’t throw my weight around quite so much. Let me acknowledge that they want my respect as I want theirs.
Let me just stop and show my respect. Apologize and invite, as Ben Zander says.
Apologize and invite, no matter who is right and who is wrong. Anything to avoid getting into deep conflicts where we make each other the bad guy to cover up our hurt.
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 8, 2009
I am a work & organizational psychologist and I might even administer an intelligence test to you if you apply to one of my clients. I can promise you one thing.
No matter who the client is, or what they do, it will matter if your IQ were 25% higher or lower. That is an big enough change to be important.
Yet, the way we are managed affects our IQ by that amount – 25%. According to Ray Baumeister, all of the following will cause your IQ to plummet by that amount.
Most likely because bad management is like a neurosis. If I am scared of snakes, then I won’t go near them and I will never learn how to interact with them safely.
Bad managers become anxious about performance, snarl and snap, and make their staff anxious. And performance falls confirming their worst expectations. Rinse and repeat and they never learn how to manage well.
Not IMHO. Employing people does not confer the right of psychological assault.
Reducing people’s IQ by 25% does not just affect their behavior at work either. It affects their driving, their parenting, and their understanding of wider issues.
Big firms who use psychological tests should be asked to show that they are not assaulting their staff. That is a regulatory burden I know, but I understand that Scandavian countries have ‘happiness’ legislation in place.
I’ve also worked in places where the ethos is that ‘if you can’t afford to employ, then don’t’.
Manage well, and you have a competitive advantage of 25% of IQ!
A cheerful staff who feel they belong will turn into innovation, creativity, problem solving, fewer errors and better ideas.
That’s money in our pockets. I hope Baumeister also experiments with the reverse proposition. Create a sense of belonging and show higher team performance!
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 7, 2009
The weakness of Gen Y managers has bothered me, and I remained bothered until I had made up my mind about the future of management.
I think management is going to exist pretty much unchanged except for three features.
Managers of tomorrow will be puppet masters who specialize in the
Collective will be their thing.
Managers won’t be promoted up the ranks simply because there will be fewer ranks. Specialists will be happy to stay in their own specialities because there will be no advantage to promotion. Managers may have no technical skills but they will be adept at getting people to work together. They will be no more important than any one else though. They’ll ask for support rather than demand performance.
Managers will exist in just the same way as skilled coders exist and skilled writers exist.
Many of the people whose skills I found woeful wanted to be managers. They were very bad listeners though.
Such people may find themselves dislocated if they are poor with people and have no technical skills either. But presumably they can learn management skills if given opportunities early enough.
If management is a career route, then presumably we will take in people to do management work at a very young age ~ and encourage them to acquire management skills at school and in community groups.
Not everyone wants to be a manager though. I know plenty of young people who don’t.
Matter resolved for me ~ for you? This is my take as of November 2009.
What’s your view?
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 7, 2009
A jet on a domestic commuter flight collided with a squad of warthogs that had found their way onto the runway during the night at Harare International Airport. The jet hit the pigs just as it screaming down the runway in take off. The undercarriage was damaged and the plane veered off the runway at speed. The pilot brought the plane to a safe stop and all 30-40 passengers were evacuated safely though obviously startled.
That’s my summation. I am following this story because I want to know what happened to the pigs. It’s called the zeigarnik effect. We always want to know the ending! No one says what happened to the pigs (or whether anyone has mended the airport fence). So I keep reading the stories to find out!
While I’ve watched the story I read an extract from a statement from the airlines chief executive.
In exactly five sentences, the CEO summarizes the situation and he does so in logical order.
I’ve copied the statement below and added a heading before each line. It’s a case study of a perfect business memo.
“An Air Zimbabwe MA60 aircraft impacted with warthogs during the take-off roll on November 3, 2009 at approximately 19:36.
This resulted in a rejected take-off.
The aircraft was on the take-off roll and was about to lift off the ground when it hit the five warthogs.
The nose and left main landing gears collapsed after the impact.
The aircraft veered off to the left side of the runway and stopped off the runway with damage on the engine propeller and on the wing tip.”
What will happen next and who to contact?
NB: There is no mention that the passengers got off unharmed because no one is hurt. We take it for granted that if casualties were not reported, that there is NTR – nothing to report.
I still want to know what happened to the pigs. I know it is not particularly relevant. It is just the zegarnik effect, I know.
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 7, 2009
Many years ago, I friend of mine was negotiating his salary with his employer. To aid his efforts, he paid a friend who was an employment agent to advertise a job just like his and to offer a wonderful package.
My students at the time were all excited. The advertisement vindicated their choice of major. Yes, if they worked hard, they could follow an institutional path and be rich!!
Not even knowing my friend’s devious scheme (I found out later), I dismissed the advertisement with a contemptuous, “It’s a scam”.
See, I knew three things that my students didn’t know:
I remember the first time I fell for an institutional scam. It was a painful experience and it took me years to get over it.
When we are young, we believe that institutional leaders are honorable. Institutional leaders go to great lengths to make us believe that because that is their job. After all an institution is only an institution if it is stable and trusted. So they will tell you anything to have you believe they have done their job.
And that is why we must not trust them. We must ask for evidence. Hard, cold evidence. What are the career paths in the organization? Where are the statistics? What are the future scenarios for the organization? Can you look at them?
Lord Mandelson is doing the right thing by making universities show students the destinations of graduates An institutional leader cannot hold up his own spin as evidence that he has succeeded in making order and stability for us. He was to show us the evidence.
And I am afraid that if that in the days of the internet that if that evidence is not freely available on the internet in slurpable form – meaning that you can download the input data, not the processed data – then they obviously have something to hide.
But remember my friend, and remember how my students were taken in.
Ask questions and the first question is ~ what happens when I ask?
If they don’t want to answer, or if they set up a meeting where we are doing all the answering and our questions come after they have made up their minds, then they are frauds. Then they are frauds and and we have found them out.
Hmmph. Well for now, my priority must be to get what I need and want. Then I will participate to clear out the rotten institutions. Then I will think about recovering my money from you.
Is that the right order?
And if you are young and inexperienced, stop trusting institutions who don’t trust you with hard, cold data. Spin that they have done their job of making a safe, orderly environment for you is not evidence. Ask for the evidence. If they don’t have it, act accordingly ~ warily ~ get what you need and in due course, expose their shenanigans.
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 7, 2009
We do it a lot. It is the hallmark of our institutionalized society. We have these ‘roles’ which we think we are supposed to fit into. We think other people expect us to fit into those roles too.
So we try to dress the part, look the part, say the right things. Why? So we will be treated as if we are the part. We are part of a large scam – and we know it.
When our lives are upset in some way – when our expenses are challenged, when our business model is scuppered by the internet, when our business contracts and our spending power takes a dive through a leaner cash flow or outright redundancy – we often find ourselves unduly taken up with “how will people treat me?”. Will I be taken seriously without my big car? <Panic and dismay>
When someone has the rug pulled out from underneath them, it is sad to watch. Not because they lose their status but because they hang on to an irrelevant formula.
Mate, just get your priorities clear. If a tsunami had swept over your town, you wouldn’t be stopping to blame yourself or to score points over you neighbour. You’d get to fundamentals.
Get real! It is so much easier!
If you are feeling very uncomfortable in your skin or in your current circumstances, maybe stop acting. The old model is broken. Well, and truly bust. Don’t spend another thought on it. The tsunami has come . . . and gone. We are dealing with the aftermath. We can reminisce later. We can ask the climatologists what happened later. For NOW, we only want to know what happens NOW
Judge people by what they can deliver now. If they want you to play a part, do you really believe they have anything substantial to offer? Really?
Imagine arriving at a Red Cross tent after a tsunami and dealing with an official who is pretentious – who makes you fill in daft forms and play games. You will be quick to work out whether they have food for your children in their tent or not. And you will do the minimum to get it. You will get it, but you will do the minimum. These are clearly not people to be bothered with. You may be shocked that the aid workers are scam merchants but, really, you will be busy, so you will put aside the shock and concentrate.
If there is another tent where food is handed out briskly and you can get on with your life, you would choose that tent. Vote with your feet. Hanging around a badly run tent full of pompous officials who demand you look the part in some imaginary narrative will not get you anywhere. The tent might look good, but hang around only so long as they deliver what you need NOW!
It really is important to get real. No one owes us a living, as the saying goes. Do today what needs to be done today.
We also owe a living to no one except the young, the sick, the infirm and the aged who cannot contribute any more. We have to learn to give unto Cesar. Pay the tax that we have to pay. Fill in the forms that we have to fill in. To use the contemporary expression “fake like they are human”. But ignore them otherwise. You are too, too busy, coping with what needs to be done today.
If they think less of you because your world has fallen apart, that is their lookout They are just not helpful.
But don’t lose more friends because you are worried about spinning and scamming in a world governed by necessity and real challenge. Attend to what is real. Leave the spin merchants to their imaginary life.
Posted by: Jo Jordan on: November 7, 2009
A few days ago, I suggested an experiment in extreme living: deliberately take a job you hate. Why not? Take a job you despise. Become a banker or a politician.
A young member of the coaching world commented irritably – why would we want to do that?
Yes, indeed, all the the advice of the world of personal leadership is the same. Be the person you want to be.
But the hallmark of someone who is utterly self-confident about their ability to find their purpose and meaning in life is that they can acknowledge what they are not. And they experiment with what they are not without fear that it will take over who they are.
First do the simple personality test based on Paulo Coelho’s Virgin, Martyr, Saint or Witch?
Before you click to the other post, here are the three steps.
And if you can’t do one hour, try what you can. 5 minutes?
Over time, the time that you can be what you are not, should grow longer. And your assurance about who you are (with all the ridiculousness and humor of who you are will grow).
Once a week ~ impersonate who you are not?
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