Archive for September 2018
Monday Motivation September 24, 2018 – Replace Email with Connection and Engagement
How did we ever manage without email? It’s difficult to imagine and for those of us old enough, hard to remember what we used to do.
Yet for all its benefits, it also has its negatives, the biggest being the way it depersonalises relationships.
We email people in the next office, rather than go and talk with them.
We email our frustrations and other emotional reactions rather than go and talk them through.
We attempt to resolve complex work situations via email, rather than trying to work them out face to face, or at least by phone.
We have forgotten that doing business and running sustainable and successful organisations is about relationships. It’s relationships between people that make or break a project or deal.
Email is one of the most ineffective ways of building connection and engagement, of building sustaining relationships.
Monday Motivation, September 17, 2018 – Do Something Your Future Self Will Thank You For
Yes, I know that you are being told all the time to let go of the past, leave the future to the future because supposedly you have no control over it and stay in the now and make everything happen there. Sometimes, however, that can be your comfort zone area, the place where you can easily get stuck and jeopardise any future you might have. So this blog goes right against the grain because I want you to stop a moment and think about your future self.
We are living in uncertain times, where on-going change is the new normal. Our lives are very busy. On the one hand we are committed to developing our professional lives while at the same time managing the many demands of our personal lives. In most families there are two parents working. We have children who are engaged in as many activities as we are as adults. Some of us have ageing parents to care about. We rush from one thing to another as we try to be all things to all people, meeting everyone’s needs except our own.
This week I want you to stop and think about You and your needs and do something your future self will thank you for.
Here are just a few examples for your professional and personal lives.
Read MoreMonday Motivation, September 10, 2018 – Self-Discipline Can Change Your Life
Why is it that we so often act in ways that we know are not in our own best interests? The answer is Self-Discipline. How we hate that word! For most of us, it has all the connotations of hardship and restriction on our freedom. Is there anything “good” about self-discipline? Yes, there is, so read on. What is self-discipline? I like the definition of Elbert Hubbard: “Self-discipline is the ability to do what should do, when we should do it, whether we feel like it or not.” Self-Discipline achieves self-mastery. It puts you back in the driving seat of your life. It gives you back control. It is very empowering.
Read MoreMonday Motivation, September 3, 2018 – Build Your Internal Networks
Anyone who has been following me for any time will have often heard me say: Your Network is Your Net-worth.
What this means is that it’s not what you know that is most important to your career development, but who you know. In other words, it’s not only what you know that will create your success, but who you know.
The people in your network, therefore, are extremely valuable to you. The quality of those people – their reputation and profile, their experience, their wisdom, their reach into the wider community and who they know that they can introduce you to – is a measure of your net-worth.
But it’s not just your external networks that are important. Building your internal network is also very important, in other words, those people within your organisation who have the power to help you develop and grow your career.