Jay Wren – Page 72 – Be in the Top 1% in Mindset – Leadership

How To Get Promoted In Any Job Situation

When I can not tell myself what I hope to accomplish, I am probably doing something that I do not need to do.

By understanding the purpose of what I am doing, I work at a higher level.

1. I can know the best way to do a job. I have my goal in sight. I am doing my job based on my vision. I can see the finished product. I can see what belongs in the work and what does not belong in the finished product.
2. I can use the correct tools. If I am fixing a leaky faucet, I need wrenches and screwdrivers. If I am building a deck, I need a hammer and a saw.
3. I can work with the correct people. To build a website, I contact a website developer. To create images for my website, I contact a graphic designer.
4. I can help people understand how to help me. The best way to help people know what to do is let them know the goal of the project. Then when they are doing their part, they can know how to make the piece they make fit into the project.
5. I can set the correct priorities. If I am building a house, the first priority is to clear the land. The last priority is to hang the finished cabinets and fixtures.
6. I know when to set the deadline. If my clients need my work to fit into their larger project, I can set my deadline to get my work to them before they need it. They are happier. I can work to get my money more quickly. If my client does not know exactly how my work will fit into the total project, I can set my deadline when I know exactly what they want me to do.

I know who will benefit from the work and how to make the work fit the needs of those people.
I drop things that make my workday longer. If my goal is to write a new article for my blog, I can exhaust myself wandering around the Internet. I keep my research efforts to books and websites that I need for my article.
I can create a plan of action. Some work may take a day to complete. Some work may take weeks to pull together. Each piece adds service to my customers. I can never finish the total job. I plan to continue to add services. My plan of action is a series of plans that continue to expand my services. I know what I what I want to do. I create and adjust my plans of action to accomplish what I want to do.
I see the meaning of my work. I have a sense of purpose. I want to help people become successful. My work is meaningful to me. I want people to use the ideas and the services of my websites for their success.
I find energy from knowing my goals. I enjoy my work. Knowing that I am trying to help people makes my work fun.
I know at the end of my day where to step right into my job the next day. I wake up excited to start to work. I already know before I go to bed what I will do the first thing in the morning.

I set goals for the work I do. I know what I hope to accomplish. People who know the purpose of their work and fulfill that purpose put themselves on the list of people for promotion.

If You Do Not Know What to Wear to a Job Interview, Dress Like the People Who Are Doing the Job.

What to wear to a job interview: this situation causes a bit of confusion.

Many companies have a casual dress code. People wear slacks, skirts, button shirts or blouses. A lot of workers wear boots, sneakers, athletic shoes, sandals, flats, loafers, or boat shoes. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, wears a t-shirt to work.

If you are interviewing with any company for an office job, dress like the women and men on ESPN SportsCenter. Some of them wear plaid or striped shirts or blouses. You might even dress more conservatively than these broadcast professionals and wear a white shirt or blouse.

What strikes me about the broadcasting team at ESPN is that they dress up for work in a field where many of the athlete stars dress down by wearing warm-up suits and sweats on the way to work. The broadcast team at ESPN present themselves as professionals and authorities at a level equal to or above other professionals in broadcast news.

I have seen people go to a job interview and wear what current employees were wearing on the job. However incongruous or unfair, I have seen these job applicants fail to the job for not wearing a suit. I remember one instance in which an applicant interviewed at a sales meeting where everyone was in casual attire. The meeting was over a weekend. The applicant wore a Hawaiian shirt. The business manager who interviewed the applicant wore suits and white shirts to work, but dressed casually the day of the meeting. That manager passed on the applicant for wearing what the manager considered a vacation shirt to a job interview.

Once you get the job, dress like the boss. If all your coworkers are wearing jeans and the boss is wearing khakis or a skirt, dress like the boss. Always dress for the role that you want, not the role that you have. If you dress like the senior managers in the company, you will be more confident when you meet these people. Give senior managers the chance to see your potential through your performance and your appearance.

Skilled workers need to dress one level above the level of what they wear in their trade. If their trade workers wear coveralls or jeans, skilled workers should wear khakis to an interview. If a skilled worker is more comfortable wearing a suit to an interview, there is certainly no harm in their wearing a suit However, a suit is just not necessary. Skilled workers should dress comfortably in neatly pressed pants, skirts, shirts or blouses, and shoes.

Making Friends at Work

Some people make friends easily. These people have the skills to make people comfortable. They know how to help people bond with them. These people have a lot of friends. They know how to make people feel accepted.

People who have a lot of friends know that what people think comes from personal beliefs. They know that people feel more comfortable, safer, when they are around people who have the same beliefs. They also know that people who have different beliefs are not always right or wrong. People who have different beliefs may simply have different beliefs.

People enjoy other people who reinforce their beliefs. They make each other comfortable. They are members. They are believers. They are fans. They congregate. People follow a political party, attend a church, support a particular sport or support a specific sports team so they can connect with like-minded people. These people are doing things that reinforce their beliefs.

If you are in an office where people are in constant conflict with other people who have different beliefs, you can learn from your own feelings. Talking about some subjects at work is not a good idea. See the people creating conflict as people who are lost and looking for company. Spend time in a different group than the one with people in conflict.

Success is not so much about what you believe as what you do. That statement even applies to deeply religious people, whatever their faith. They may have blind faith. Some people may question the faith of the faithful. Yet the deeply faithful develop their faith through faith-based practice and work.

To quote the bodybuilder Ronnie Coleman, “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to no lift heavy weights.”

So build faith in your success and do success-building things.

Avoid pointless disagreements. When you sense that you are in a sensitive space in a discussion, just let the conversation run dry. Do not ask questions. Do not comment. Just let people talk and listen to what they need to say. Often people voicing their opinions just need to release their tensions.

If the conversation does not run dry, just excuse yourself and step away. Eventually most people will get the idea.

Focus on the job. Join successful people who want to discuss the job. Hang out with the winners in the workplace. Become a fan of your work, the work of your coworkers, and the work of your boss. Become a believer of your success. Read and do things that expand your skills and make you a better worker. Do things that give you faith in your ability. Talk about the job. Draw people to you with positive comments about your work and about their work.

Most of all, remember that when making friends at work, it’s still about the job.

Job Searching: Hard Skills and Soft Skills

Hard skills get you the interview. Soft skills get you the job.

When interviewers read your resume, they are looking for hard skills. Your experience shows your hard skills. Here are some examples.

1. Accounting
2. Analysis
3. Brand Development
4. Computer Programming
5. Data Management
6. Education
7. Financial Management
8. Internet Programming
9. People Management
10. Planning
11. Mathematics
12. Research and Development
13. Software knowledge (e.g., word processing, spreadsheet, image editing, database, etc.)
14. Selling
15. Typing
16. Writing

You show your soft skills in an interview. Your interpersonal skills and your character skills are soft skills.

Flexibility
Integrity
Listening
Motivation
Negotiation
Patience
Positive Attitude
Self-initiative
Sociability
Speaking
Teamwork
Trustworthiness

Some people list soft skills in their resume. If you find that you are having trouble keeping your resume from getting too long, remember that interviewers are not looking for soft skills when they read a resume. They are looking for hard skills that show your qualifications for a job. Therefore, put hard skills on your resume and practice your soft skills for your interview.

7 Ways to Turn Job Ideas into Action: Mahatma Gandhi and Aesop

“You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no results.” Mahatma Gandhi.

The best way I can develop a good attitude about my job is just to do my job. Putting things off because I feel negative or afraid only increases my negativity and fear.

If I have to deal with a person I do not like or who makes me nervous, I can make my entire day better by speaking with that person first thing in the morning.

Fearing failure is a waste of time.

I am not responsible for results. I am only responsible for doing the right thing to the best of my ability. When I do the right thing, which is usually simple, I get the right results. If have to tell someone something they do not like to hear, I am not responsible for how they feel about what I say. I am only responsible for giving that person accurate information in a way that shows I respect them and perhaps their situation.

There is no value in a great idea that I do not put into action.

Some ideas are things I can just do. For more complex ideas, I write a series of actions. Then I can do each action one at a time with total focus and to the best of my ability.

The hours I work is not what makes me successful.

The amount of real work that I do during the hours that I work is what makes me successful. If I allow myself to act on daily distractions instead of focusing on my work, I can have some very long, unproductive work days. If I do a lot of busy work unrelated to completing my tasks for the day, I can have some very long, unproductive days.

When I sit around analyzing everything I have to do, I am not working.

I am procrastinating. Not even analysts sit around thinking about how to do things. They do analysis. They take bags of numbers, sort through the contents of those bags, and turn those numbers into information people can use for making decisions.

I can paralyze myself with analysis.

In Aesop’s fable, “The Cat and the Fox,” the cat has one way to escape danger. The fox has many ways to escape danger. When a pack of hounds attacks, the cat climbs up a tree. Analyzing the best way to escape danger, the fox delays. As the fox analyzes the situation, the hounds kill the fox. The more I can simplify my workday into taking action, the more productive I am each day.

Inventors do not sit around analyzing how to create things.

They take the ingredients they need to create a new product and start mixing those ingredients until they get the product they had envisioned. They act on their ideas.

11 Ways to Turn Job Interview Jitters into Poise

11 Ways to Turn Job Interview Jitters into Poise

People often get the jitters when going into an interview. There are things you can do to relax and develop.

Remember that the interviewer wants to speak with you. The person believes that your experience makes you qualified for the job. Since you are there to discuss your experience, there is no one more qualified than you are to discuss your experience. You are the expert on your work.

Rehearse before you go to the interview. The night before the interview, read your resume. Write notes about your accomplishments. Write specific titles of the people with whom you have worked. Write the specific skills you have used to create your accomplishments. Read your scripted notes to another person.

Try to expect questions that the interviewer might ask. You never know what questions might come out of an interviewer’s mouth, but you can look at your experience for possible questions or objections the interviewer may have. Focus on situations in your background that might make you feel uncertain about your skills and employment history. Write those situations in the form of questions and write your answers.

Review the job spec and do an overlay of your job experience and the requirements of the job. In areas where you lack experience, do not try to lower in your mind or in the mind of the interviewer that your lack of experience is not important. Instead, think of ways that your experience specifically crosses over job requirements and think of things that you have done outside of your jobs that give you the skills that the job requires.

Research the company thoroughly. List five reasons why you want to work for this company. List five reasons why this company should hire you. Tell the interviewer that your purpose in making the interview is to show the benefits for the company and for you in your working for the company.

Research the interviewer. Tell the interviewer positive things you know about their background. Use their name throughout the interview. The most important word you will say throughout the entire interview is the interviewer’s name.

Remember to take a deep breath and relax. Take a deep breath before walking through the door of each interview. Closing your eyes and meditating before the interview can help you relax. However, if you are waiting in a lobby with other people, closing your eyes is not the best idea. Some people might find that behavior a bit odd. What you can do is focus on slowly relaxing each muscle in your body.

Clear your schedule to arrive early and have time if the interview runs late. Take time pressure off yourself. Allow yourself the time to enjoy your interview. Create poise through focusing on the people and the interview subjects.

Google Sites: Free Contact Management and Promotion

Google Sites offers free and pay websites. The sites have settings. Public, private, or shared publication.

The templates work for business, school, public, Wiki, and, Intranet. If you want to set up a site for your career, you can set up an Intranet site. You can keep it private. You can share it with people who are helping you with your career.

http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html
https://www.google.com/sites/overview.html

You can also set up the site for mobile viewing.

You do not need to know anything about making websites. There is no coding required.

Making a career move is not something people do everyday. Setting a Google Site offers these benefits.

Private information management
Collaborate from any place
Contact organization
Strategy development
Activity management
Goal setting and tracking
Presentation development for documents, slides, and videos

7 Daily Practices for Turning a Bad Day on the Job into a Great Day on the Job

When I am having a bad day, I can forge ahead and strain to push myself through the day. I can try to fix everything I do not like. I can ruminate over my frustrations. I can pour over the pointless hassles I have to endure. I can persist with a job that is not going well and push until I finish that job, finally! I can correct other people. I can sit around and sulk. I can call people who have poor attitudes and confirm how miserable the world has become. I can turn on the broadcast news and get more negative information just to make certain that the world is as full of trouble as I think it might be.

On the other hand, I can restart my day by repeating the morning activities that nearly everyone practices every day.

I can go into a bathroom and wash my face and hands. Splashing a little water on my face is refreshing. When I lather up my cheeks and chin and then rinse my face, I have a fresh new smell.

I can dampen my comb and start with a fresh part in my hair, just as I do when I am beginning the day. When I no longer have enough hair to part, I can touch up a bit of my scalp with my washing ritual.

If I wore makeup, I could restart my day with a mini-makeover: lips, eyes, cheeks. Putting a gorgeous new finish on my face sounds as though it would be so reassuring and so refreshing.

I can refresh the way I have dressed. I can tuck in my shirt just as I do when I first put on my shirt in the morning. For people with a military background, you may have heard the expression gig line. That is a line that starts at the top of your shirt or blouse and goes down past your buckle to the flap over the zipper. I can check to make sure my gig line is straight.

On days when I wear a t-shirt, I can simply smooth out the ruffles and check to see how the shirt looks in the mirror.

I can at myself in the mirror and think, “Hey, you are terrific!”

When I am hungry or tired, I may deal with situations poorly. During my morning break, I can restart my day with a small, nutritious snack, sort of mini-breakfast to renew my energy. After my mini-breakfast, I can relax with quiet meditation to calm my mind and reset my disposition to happiness or higher.

Thinking about past failures and frustrations is painful. It steals our joy, our presence of mind, and our usefulness to other people, especially our clients and employers. I hurt myself when I hold pity parties for me.

I can restart my day with an attitude of gratitude. I can draft a short list of things for which I am grateful. I have a job. I have plenty to eat. I have friends and family who care for me. I am comfortable and safe. I have a place to sleep.

Sometimes I schedule too many things. On other days, too many new tasks arise. I can restart my day with a new schedule.

If I am struggling with a task, I can break the task down into pieces. I can look at the pieces or elements of the task and define my true goal for this task. With this process, I better understand what I am doing and cut the number of false starts and revisions.

I can then schedule a completion date for that task. I may find that I am dealing with a truly valuable task that will return greater rewards once I have stopped forcing my way through the task and have begun to work with a schedule of steps.

When I start the day, my mind is a little foggy and clears as I awaken. If I have developed a habit of thinking about the people I need to fix that day, I can restart my day with a new perspective. I can give up trying to change other people. Instead I can see how I can help people who welcome my help. Perhaps, I can simply listen to them with compassion and understanding.

Today I am very selective about when I watch television and listen to radio news and to which broadcasters I follow. I once had the ritual of watching television news every morning. I had a sense that I was going to learn something important or find solutions to issues that concerned me. After a couple of years, I noticed a couple of things about television news. It is repetitive. I get the same bad news every day. Even if the news is about different people in different places, the news is the same bad news about suffering and loss. Most of that bad news has nothing to do with my life. I do not get any solutions.

The flow of information about current events is impossible to avoid. In today’s overwhelming media presence, I learn about major current events whether I want to or not. I do not need to force myself to watch daily broadcast news to learn what I need to learn.

When I am turning a bad day into a great day, I find that reading an inspiring story of someone’s success lifts my day to the level where I want my day to go.

I can restart my day by taking a few minutes to read a few pages or chapters of a great book or gather meaningful information from the Internet. I can tune into broadcasts about sports or other topics that interest me and do not trouble me.

I can take a walk. If I have enough time, I have a complete workout. By exercising, I burn up that adrenaline that accumulates from the mental stresses of my workday. The exercise reduces my anxieties and helps me focus when I return to my job.

I am responsible for how my day is going for me. I can push and grind my way through a bad day or I can turn a bad day into a great day by giving my day a fresh start.

Focus on the Job not the Boss.

Bosses may come and bosses may go. In most cases, the boss eventually moves on. A new boss takes responsibility. Bosses have good days, and bosses have bad days. Some bosses make work a joy. Other bosses make the people around them miserable.

The same principle applies to coworkers and clients. Coworkers and clients come and go. Some coworkers and clients inspire people. Some coworkers and clients discourage people.

The boss is not the job. The reason that I am working is not to get the boss’s approval, but to get the job done. So when working with difficult people, I try to focus on the job I have in front of me and do that job to the best of my ability.

If the boss has specific guidelines for the way to do a certain job, I try to follow those guidelines and exceed the boss’s expectations. If those guidelines are faulty and the boss will not allow feedback, I give the boss the best results I can within the boss’s guidelines.

Some bosses have strict guidelines. I once had a supervisor who required that I only give him information that required his decision. He required me to summarize the situation and make recommendations about what he should do. Then he would question me on the recommendations.

I found that the best way to work with this boss was to prepare before meeting with him.

After time, this boss moved away. My new boss had a very different approach. He empowered the people around him. When these people made good decisions, he commended them for the decisions they made. When people made mistakes, he explained the correct decision to make in the future. I enjoyed working for him a great deal.

Both of these bosses promoted me. They promoted me, because I did a good job for them.

In working for both bosses, I learned to focus on the job not the boss. My performance was in my hands. I controlled my performance no matter how pleasant or unpleasant my boss might be.

Getting a Job and Getting Promoted through Skills Development

When you are not going forward, you are going backward. If you make stagecoaches and your competition makes buses, your competition has moved forward. You have moved backward.

Some people, teams, and companies continue to become more skilled and successful. Other people, teams, and companies become less competitive through a failure to keep up with the growing strengths of their competition.

There are several ways to continue to develop skills.

Do volunteer work that will expand your skills. I became involved in working with public schools.

In one case, I worked with cell phone companies to pay to place cell towers on school property. The result of this work is that a cell phone company built lighting towers for a high school stadium for night games. I learned a great deal about complex public administration and have used that knowledge in working across the internal structure of my clients.

In another case, one of the parents on a volunteer committee asked me to get Cornell West, PhD and Harvard professor, to speak at John H. Kennedy High School, Sacramento, CA.

West is an alumnus of that high school and had recently published a best-selling book titled Race Matters.

Typically West was highly compensated for public appearances.

Neither I nor the high school had the money to pay West to speak at the high school. I negotiated a deal with West’s agent. I would create an alumni award in West’s name: The Cornell West Distinguished Alumni Award.

West spoke at the campus. He gave a terrific speech. I presented the award to West at the finish of his presentation to 750 students. The school made the award an annual tradition to honor other alumni.

I learned that great people like West want to make the world a better place and not get rich off everything that they do.

Interact with your counterparts in other departments. If you are a junior or mid-level manager, you do not have to know how to do most of the things that happen in your company. However, if you are going to get promoted, you will need to know more about the other departments as your responsibility progresses.

Invite people from other departments to join you for lunch and to take a walk during breaks. Ask productive, meaningful questions of your counterparts during business meetings. Thank people when they give you information that expands your knowledge and skills.

Pay attention in group discussions. Stay focused on what each person contributes to the discussion.

During the workday, speak with your counterparts or visit their departments. Be polite. Make sure your boss is okay with your spending a few minutes each day during your break to visit other departments in your company. Get their permission from the department head to come in and see what the department is doing. Take a real interest in their job and show an appreciation for their time and their contribution. Research their work before you visit them.

Remain curious and continue to learn. When you hear or read words you do not know, look them up. When you do not understand a subject, research it. There is information on the Internet to answer questions on almost any subject.

When you are among people who are talking about things you do not know, you can easily feel bored. Your mind may wander. Show an interest in what they are discussing and ask them to explain things to you.

Read books. I recently saw an article that libraries are disappearing. I have seen bookstores close. However, I have a library card and I check out books. I buy books. I trade books with friends and family. Internet tablets are great, but they are not great everywhere.

Some books are great for reference material. Other books are great for picking up new ideas. Sometimes I may read just a few pages of a book and come across solutions or ideas that enrich my life.

Take an interest in the people you meet. When you meet people, give them an opportunity to talk about themselves. Ask them about their interests, their job, and their family. Most people like to talk about things that interest them.

Don’t be afraid to show your ignorance. If they are into fantasy football, Rotisserie League Baseball, fashion design, or some other hobby or interest, and you are unfamiliar with those subjects, ask them about their interests. I can learn a lot more from listening than I can from speaking.

Skills development is a lifelong practice. I want to continue to grow. I want to stay competitive and flexible. I want to add value to my clients and future clients. I want to continue to bring greater value to my family and my friends. I want to stay relevant in an ever-changing world. To do those things, I have to continue to develop skills to match and exceed the needs of the people I wish to help. From continual skills development, I have more fun, I feel more secure, and my career grows from the new skills I develop.