Month: September 2017

Job Counter Offers: The Stress of Leaving a Company

Job counter offers are ways companies avoid the annoyances of losing employees at the wrong time.
~ www.jaywren.com

Should you stay or should you go?

Job counter offers are risky.

If you stay, the reasons you resigned seldom go away.  In addition, when you met with your boss to turn in your resignation, you showed your boss that you have been disloyal by interviewing with another company.

As for the value of a counter offer, be aware that companies prefer to lose people based on the company’s timing.  The reasons are easy to understand.  Your company is in the middle of a work project that could fail if people leave.   You are one of those people.  You find yourself in a counter offer that has more to do with completing the project than your value to the company.

So, what happens during a counter offer?

You go through a standard process to keep people aboard until the company can throw them overboard.

  • Your boss asks you the reasons that you are leaving.
  • Then your boss shows understanding about your frustrations.
  • Your boss promises to make changes to keep you on the job.
  • You may receive a pay raise or a promise of a pay raise.  Remember that you forced the pay raise by trying to resign.
  • Your boss may even may promises to improve things as time goes on.
  • Your boss gets the details of your job offer and shows you the flaws in going to the new company.
  • You feel pressure from the counter offer process.  You become indecisive.  Even if your company does not offer you a pay raise or change any of the conditions that have made you unhappy, the company pressures you to stay.
  • You begin to waver in your decision.

The Stress of Job Counter Offers

If you are feeling the stress of a job counter offer, you are not alone.

As a recruiter, I have had applicants go through so much stress that they have cried.  I had one manager who was going through a counter offer that was so stressful he called me at 2:00 AM.  He was in tears.  He was still in tears later that day when he called me to say that he had accepted his company’s counter offer.

The company convinced him to stay.

Seven month later, he was out again interviewing with another company.  Nothing changed after he accepted the counter offer.  He still hated where he worked.  He needed to get another job.

Unfortunately, another employee saw him interviewing at the airport.   The job searcher turned in a daily report that showed that he was making sales calls.  The report was false.  His boss knew that the report was false.   At this point, his current employer no longer needed him.  The same boss who had talked him into staying seven months before fired him.

He was unemployed without a job offer in hand.

How to Reduce the Pressure of Job Counter Offers

You can reduce the pressure.

When you resign, make the discussion short and to the point.  Just be polite.  Say that you are leaving.  Don’t share any information about your future employer or the amount of the offer.

When you think you are reasoning with your employer by sharing information about your new job, you are just engaging in a discussion that will increase the pressure.

Just give your resignation and listen but don’t speak.

Passionate Living: Turning Resolutions into a Lifestyle

Passionate Living:  Common sense tells us to sleep, exercise, and eat correctly.  How do we find the passion for a healthy life?

Are You Struggling?

If you are struggling, you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans do not get enough sleep, do not exercise regularly, and eat processed food that makes them overweight.

Common Sense is not Enough.

It seems to me that most people have the common sense to know how their energy, mental clarity, and self-esteem rise with healthy habits.

However, one-third of Americans are not getting enough sleep. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.

Spending Money is Not the Answer.

According to various articles online, Americans spend between $40 and $60 billion each year on sleep aids, weight loss, and exercise programs.

Buying sleep aids doesn’t change our behavior.  People who stay up too late and take a sleep aid to go to sleep are more tired than people who simply go to bed on time.

Believing that a financial commitment will lead to a change of behavior, people sign a year-long contract to a gym in January.  By March, most people have stopped going regularly.  Others don’t go at all.

Additionally, other people buy expensive exercise equipment.  Much of this equipment ends up gathering dust in the corner or on Craigslist.

Passionate Living: How People Form Healthy Habits

No one has needs to tell avid golfers to get off the sofa.  They are too passionate about playing golf to care about the sofa.  Tennis, fishing, soccer, softball, basketball, running, sailing, or any exercise that stirs our passions are good choices for creating new habits.

I have switched activities from time to time. But I continue to find new physical activities that I love.

As for eating healthy foods, I have never given up cake or ice cream.  However, for 6 days of each week, I eat things that are healthiest for me instead.  I have good luck with eating a ketogenic diet.  My eating plan is 10 percent carbohydrates, 20-25 percent protein, and 65-70 percent fat. I track what I eat and track my weight.

About once a week, I purposely drift away from my eating plan to eat the most indulgent things I can find.  And, I remind myself the next day that I had planned to eat that way for one-day week.

Then I return to my keto eating plan. The indulgent day kick-starts my metabolism into high gear.  It is not just a day of pleasure.  The indulgent day is a day of necessity.  I have fun and feel passionate about the way I am eating and about the results.

Attitudes: How to Choose the Way We See the World

Attitudes: How is it that some people seem to have a natural, positive attitude? Even when life gives them challenges, these people live wonderful lives.

Attitudes not only affect the way we see the world. Attitudes change the way we deal with the world. 

Understanding Moods and Attitudes

When I am in hungry, tired, or rushed, things can seem more personal.   I may feel more anxious or impatient.   My mood declines and my attitude declines with it.  I may feel angry over things that might not otherwise bother me.

It is easier for me to treat other people the way I feel.  Then I infect them with my bad attitude.  By simply taking a deep breath, having lunch, or taking a break, I can often change the way everything looks and improve the way I treat other people.

By understanding that other people experience the same decline in attitudes based on what is going on with them, I can avoid catching a bad attitude from them.  They are human.  I am human.  I can allow them the same understanding people have so often given me.

My response to other people in this light relieves me of the stress of owning their bad feelings.  I can let those actions toward me to pass.  I feel healthier when I can to see that, as humans, we share the same wiring.  I can find compassion for people who need compassion.  I can find patience with people who are being impatient.  I can stop and listen to people who are being rude without agreeing but simply letting them air out their thinking.

Conditions Affect Moods

Driving has a profound territorial impact on attitudes.  In my car, I have a sense that I am in my personal moving territory.  My mind says that the area around my car is like the yard around my house. It is my space, my yard, my safe distance between from other people and cars, my mobile territory.

If another driver moves into my mobile territory, I have a sense of violation and frustration.  My sense of mobile territory can even extend to a sense of injustice when I see a driver cut off another driver.

Among the thousands of other drivers on the highways every day, there are people who feel overwhelmed, experiencing grief, living in fear in failure, or experiencing other very difficult situations. There are other people who are simply tired and hungry and have just had a dreadful day and caught a bad attitude from someone else.

However, I can’t change their attitude.  On the other hand. I can change my attitude.  Maintaining a bad attitude is painful.   If I allow myself to stay angry or anxious, or fearful, I am trying to punish other people when I am hurting myself.  Bad attitudes are very painful.

 Furthermore, good attitudes have so many benefits.

  1. I am healthier.
  2. I feel better.
  3. I can focus.
  4. I can feel joy in the present moment.
  5. I can celebrate life as a flow of passing events.

When someone has a cold, I do not see them as being a bad person.  I see them as a person with a temporary disease.  When someone has a bad attitude, I see them as a person with a temporary attitude disorder.

When you can, avoid people with bad attitudes.

Most people avoid those types of people.  However, when that person is your boss or coworker, you may find that the best way to keep from catching negative attitudes from these people only takes some practical steps.

  1. Be very positive and upbeat around these people.
  2. If the person is your boss, try to understand what your boss wants done and try to do those things without expectation of approval.
  3. See them as people and not as evil forces.
  4. Angry, rude, difficult, even obnoxious people are just people.   When I see them as human just as I am human, I realize that they are the one in pain not me.

Surrounding Myself with Positive People

The most important thing that I can do is to stay close to positive people and read or watch positive things. I love the healing that I get from positive people, places, and things.  Today I am going to catch the good attitudes and heal the bad ones, in myself and in the people around me.

Self-Empowerment: 5 Traits of Highly Productive People

Self-Empowerment: What are the things that successful people do for themselves to create power other people never have? Are they things that you can do?

People who empower themselves don’t see the world as the source of their problems. ~www.jaywren.com

What is Self-Empowerment and How Can We Achieve it?

Self-empowerment is taking control of your behavior to reach your goals and achieve success. This trait empowers us to do the things that we can do. Furthermore, it enables us to recognize our weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

Horrible things happen to all of us. Things beyond our control. But self-empowerment changes the questions about our predicament. We stop asking, “Why me?”  Instead, we ask, “What are my steps for today?

Hustle

The people who hustle move ahead of the competition. They are the ones who recover the fumble, catch the rebound, or bring their product to market before competitors do.

Integrity

There are many quotes about integrity. Usually these quotes look something like this:  Integrity is what you do when nobody’s watching.  However, integrity is a quality that builds success whether people are watching or not.

People without integrity lie in public, con people into choices, break their commitments. They lack loyalty, fairness, decency. No one trusts people who don’t have integrity.

On the other hand, people with integrity do none of these things. Nor do they have any of those bad qualities. Additionally, people trust people who have integrity.

Self-Honesty

There are two types of honesty. Cash register honesty is one. Certainly, cash register honesty is important for building trust and staying out of jail. However, self-honesty enables people to see their shortcomings. More importantly, self-honesty enables people to correct their mistakes and strengthen their weaknesses.

To have self-honesty, we must be open-minded and have a willingness to change.

Priorities

Anyone can make a list of things to do. However, a simple to-do list is not a list of priorities. Successful people must have the ability to know the difference between the things that they should do today from the things that must do today.

Action

Do not confuse motion with action.  A swivel chair has motion, but it is not going anywhere. People who move into action create self-empowerment to reach their goals.

Relentless

People who are relentless don’t give up on themselves or their success. Through effort and intelligence, they move past obstacles to achieve their goals. I write two to three blog posts a week. Sometimes, I don’t feel like writing. Other times, I can’t think of ideas for writing. However, I have a relentless attitude to continue to read and grow and find powerful ideas to share on my blog.

 

Breaking Habits: How to Quit by Doing Something Else

Breaking Habits: Why is quitting unhealthy or counterproductive habits so difficult? What are the tools that everyone can use to end these habits and start healthier and more productive habits?

Quitting a bad habit is easier when we do something healthy instead. ~ www.jaywren.com

Here are some typical unhealthy or counterproductive habits: procrastination, sitting, overspending, drinking too much alcohol, tardiness, snacking, staying up too late, and so on.

Guilt is Never the Answer

Guilt is never the answer to quitting or breaking habits. You are not weak. However, unhealthy, rude habits are powerful. We succumb to our habits to find comfort from bad feelings. Guilt only makes the habits more powerful.

My Story

I am going to discuss the steps I used to stop smoking. However, these steps work in breaking habits of all types.

Smoking may not pose a health threat for everyone. People who smoke an occasional cigar or a cigarette with friends may not damage their health or their relationships.

This article is not a lecture. I can only speak for myself about how I have ended unhealthy habits.

I was a chain-smoker. Whenever I was awake, I had a cigarette in my hands or a cigarette burning in an ashtray at my fingertips. I had an addiction that created cravings when I didn’t smoke.

However, today, I haven’t smoked a cigarette for over thirty years.  Before smoking my last cigarette, I had quit smoking countless times.

I found that I had two problems.  Quitting and staying stopped.

Recognizing the Habit for What It Is

I had two experiences that told me that smoking was very dangerous for me.  First, my father, one of my uncles, and my father’s dad were smokers. All three men developed emphysema and suffered chronic bronchitis, which is common among people who suffer from emphysema.

Second, I had two colds that turned into bronchitis in as many months.

I realized that smoking was a dangerous threat to my health.

Furthermore, I had people who complained to me about how my smoking bothered them. Until I became a non-smoker, I had trouble understanding what I was doing to these people.

Breaking Habits: Admitting the Habit Exist

I reached a point where I could admit to myself that smoking would eventually kill me. Second, I admitted that smoking was selfish and threatened the health of my family and the other people who worked around me.
Furthermore, I had to admit smelling like a smoker had a negative effect on my relationships with other people. Now that I am a non-smoker, I can smell cigarette smoke fifteen feet away.

Finding Healthy Tools

Quitting was never easy. Simple, yes. Easy, no.

The last time I stopped and stayed stopped, I used tools that replaced the elements involved in smoking. I talked to people who had quit. Also, I read articles about the things other people had done to stop and stay stopped.

Furthermore, I would call friends when I craved a cigarette. Talking with them took my mind off my cravings and discomfort.

Here are things helped get through the first two weeks of discomfort.  Part of smoking is the habit of having something between our fingers. I made a chain of paper clips and kept it in my hands to keep my fingers busy. Cravings for a cigarette lasts about 90 seconds. When I became aware that I was craving a cigarette, I would go for a walk to the water fountain or around the atrium at my office.

Knowing that many people ate more when they quit smoking, I began to keep low-calorie foods nearby. For example, crunching on an apple helped me overcome the habit of putting a cigarette in my mouth.

For two weeks, I felt empty-headed. I had trouble concentrating. I understood that this sensation was common and would not last.

Lifestyle Changes

Now that I was not smoking, I felt more comfortable doing more exercise.

I joined a health club and went there each morning before work.

With my wife, I took up co-ed softball and soccer. Also, I coached a couple of adult teams. Then I coached my younger daughter’s soccer team.

Instead of trying to stay off cigarettes, I took up healthy habits that changed my life for the better.  By just giving up cigarettes and doing other things instead, my entire lifestyle changed. I was exercising regularly. My wife and I were making new friends who were active non-smokers as well.

Staying stopped was the real problem. I would go through the discomfort of quitting. Then I would start again.

But by finding healthier things to do, I have become a non-smoker who can’t understand why other people still smoke.

 

Complaints: How Top Managers Manage Feedback

Complaints are a grievance issue, not a management feedback issue. Knowing the difference is important to becoming a strong manager.  www.jaywren.com

Why do weak managers confuse complaints with reporting a problem? How can we train managers to build teams with an effective flow of information?

The Difference

Reporting a problem is feedback that something isn’t working or conditions are deteriorating.  At the same time, complaints are feedback that something is unsatisfactory, but complaints come more in the form of a personal grievance or personal criticism.

People who report problems seek to prevent or correct problems.  Complainers seek an audience for their issues or resolution to personal problems.

Weak Managers

One trait of weak managers is that they don’t want to hear anything negative. They are too busy, too distracted, or too emotionally off-balance to deal with problems.

This management style lends itself to negative, sometimes hostile management relationships with people reporting to these weak managers.

Furthermore, these managers don’t learn about the information they need to know to manage their responsibilities.

How to Train Managers to Deal with Complaints and Problems

Strong managers create a list of conditions that they need to know.  When I was a bridge officer, my commanding officer had a list of standing orders.  These were the things that the bridge officers needed to tell the captain to keep the ship safe.

In other conditions, the commanding officer had temporary orders for a scheduled event.  For example, call the captain when the admiral arrives today.

However, complaints were never in the plan of the day.  The captain didn’t want to hear that the soup was not to your satisfaction or that someone cut you off in line at the ship’s store. He welcomed feedback.  However, he wasn’t interested in personal, negative issues.

In a business environment, managers may want the production supervisor to contact them when they first see a sign that production may start to fall behind.

Another condition might be that a manager wants to know as soon as anyone sees that a project might come in over budget.
A key part of notifying management is to tell them before it is too late to make corrections.

Have a Format for Reporting Problems

Employees need to know how to report problems.

Some managers simply want a notification when a potential problem appears. Other managers may want recommendations when a person is reporting a problem.

In every case, smart managers train employees how to present problems effectively.

Keep It Simple.

When reporting a problem, don’t jumble the report with other information. Just state the problem and, when expected, a solution to the problem.

Have Priorities for Problems

Smart managers may have conditions on when and how to present a problem.

Highest priority are the wake-me-up problems. In the middle of the night, wake me up before the roof starts leaking or before the equipment breaks down.

Wake-me-up directives typically apply to potentially catastrophic problems.

The Safe and Open Environment

Managers should show an open, receptive attitude.  As a business owner, I tried to create as free and safe an environment as possible.  My employees felt safe in knowing when they could make decisions and solve problems.  Also, they felt safe to tell me when a problem would arise.

The best managers assure that employees no one will criticize them for making a mistake in calling out a problem.  Everyone has 20/20 hindsight.

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