Month: October 2020

Mental Strengths: Aligning Your Career to the Way You Think

Mental Strengths: Some people are stronger at solving problems with one correct answer. They are convergent thinkers. Other people are stronger at solving problems with multiple solutions. They are divergent thinkers.

Aligning your career with the way your brain works will increase your ability to excel in the workplace. How can you shape your career around the way you think? Here are some ideas that may help you understand your strengths and weaknesses.

Mental Strengths

What Kind of Solutions Come to You More Easily?
To understand how your brain works, consider these two types of problem solving.

Convergent Thinking
Some people have terrific skills for solving problems that have only one answer.
2 + 2 =?
The specific answer is 4.

When people solve this type of problem, they are using convergent intelligence. Their reasoning converges or comes together to settle on this one answer. Their mental strengths can give them happier lives and more successful careers by working in roles that require convergent thinking.

Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking skills enable people to see multiple solutions to the same problem. For example, many people climb a mountain by following a well-marked, well known path. This is the path most people know and the only path that most people take.

However, other people see multiple paths for climbing the same mountain. These people not only discover new paths.  Their discoveries may help other people find ways of doing the same thing in new and more interesting ways.

Their mental strengths can give them happier lives and more successful careers by working in roles that require divergent thinking.

What Type of Problems Do You Like to Solve?

If you like to solve problems with convergent thinking, developing careers for solving those types of problems should be enjoyable for you.

Nearly every industry needs convergent thinkers. Whether you are an English teacher grading papers or an engineer validating the structural integrity of a bridge, you must have the ability to see fundamental answers specific to individual problems.

On the other hand, some industries rely heavily on creative solutions. Inventors are people who have success with divergent thinking. They find better ways of doing things. These people innovate. They look at existing platforms like computers and create new solutions using this platform. In the case of building bridges these people can design new bridges and turn the convergent tasks over to architects and engineers who can solve the integrity issues.

When to Use Both Ways of Thinking

If you are starting a company, you may have to solve problems that require convergent and divergent solutions. You are alone or have a small staff.

However, as your company grows, you can outsource jobs that challenge your patience and effectiveness. Furthermore, you can become more successful working in the areas where your attention focuses on your mental strengths.

Career Intelligence

There is no rule that baseball catchers cannot develop the skills to play first base or that a pitcher cannot also be a pinch hitter. Likewise, broadening your skills in both convergent and divergent thinking can increase your career intelligence. You can play at a higher level in jobs that require both types of thinking.

In this case, career intelligence is viewing opportunities to become smarter and more capable by using both types of skills. Finding jobs where you can broaden your career intelligence (that is, convergent and divergent thinking) most effectively will help you become more successful.

Moreover, developing skills in areas of both convergent and divergent thinking will help you throughout your career.

At the same time, stick to your core strengths. Working in the areas where your mind is more powerful will more easily enable you to succeed. Natural catchers are more effective behind the plate than playing a secondary, more challenging position.

Summary

When are you most effective? What roles play to your mental strengths?

Some people are naturally more gifted to think convergently. These people learn quickly and can apply what they learn to solving problems

Other people are more gifted to think divergently. With less knowledge than convergent thinkers, the people see options intuitively. They excel in helping companies find new ways to succeed in failing conditions.

7 Steps to Starting a New Job

Starting a new job:  The first few weeks in starting a new job are critical. You must establish yourself as a great hire. Moreover, while people are forming impressions of you as a new hire, you are faced with many challenges. To deal with the challenges, the first step is learning what to expect. The second step is learning how to prepare for and handle new situations.

Here are steps for gaining support and respect at your new job.

In your new job seize upon small wins.

You bring with you experience, qualifications, and skills. Use those traits and skills to draw positive attention to you. If there is a task or project that enable you to shine, take on these responsibilities. Some of these small wins can relieve you of the pressure of succeeding in areas where you feel more challenged.

Impress your boss.

Do the job your boss expects you to do. Make your number one priority to do the things that your boss has told you to do and in the order in which your boss directed you. Let your boss know when you complete each task. When you are giving your boss more information than you need to give, your boss will let you know.

Build positive relationships.

Create a chart of the organization. Learn who does what and who reports to which person. Treat everyone with respect. Do not poison a relationship with anyone. You may later learn that the maintenance manager is a scratch golfer who is the golf partner with a board director at the annual company golf tournament. However, do not waste your time listening to everyone who wants to talk with you. Forge relationships with people who can help you with a successful start.

Some of the people who are junior to you will help you understand your job and your new company.

Moreover, turn to others for their experience and intelligence. Often, they will bond with you over your interest in seeking their help.

Write it down.

Make a list of the names, the contact information, the jobs, and the relationships of the people you meet. When your boss tells you to do something, write it down. Write the task and the action date.

Get in step.

The first weeks of the new job are an orientation. You will meet new managers, new co-workers, and, perhaps, new people who work on your team. You will learn the details of your responsibilities. Moreover, you will get a measure of the authority you have in managing your new responsibilities.

Learn the company culture and way of doing things. Do not try to change things until you have established yourself in the job for which your company hired you.

Become a sponge.

Avoid giving your opinion when you can listen and learn. You don’t have to try to prove how smart you are.

Be open to new ideas.

A dangerous pitfall for experienced people is to do things the way they did them at their former employer.

For example, when I entered sales in the consumer products industry, I sold facial tissue, bathroom tissue, and disposable diapers. Except for facial tissue, the products I sold were daily consumer goods. Consumer demand was the same throughout the year.

When I left that company, I went to a company that sold cameras and film. The transition for me required adapting to different selling cycles and new methods of projecting sales. During the holidays, the photography retailers would sell as much in a day they sold in a month during non-holidays. A day of film sales during the holidays was a great as a month of sales the rest of the year.

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