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[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]H[/mks_dropcap]ave questions about job search that aren’t answered in our job search guide or in our recent Job Search Q&A?
Or do you have career-related questions not covered in our guide to working smart?
Ask them here and we’ll do our best to give you a thoughtful answer.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process visit our career advice hub.
I know a developer who lusts after all the sexy projects. He asks for them and he wants to talk about them. You might think this kind of enthusiasm makes you a star in your boss’s eyes. And it can, up to a point. But what if my developer wants to talk about the sexy projects with a handful of unfinished ones still on his plate?
That’s a dangerous habit for your career because it can give your boss the impression that you’re a lightweight – someone who will try to take on everything that comes your way leaving unfinished and half-ass work in your wake.
Those who really succeed, do so by handling a few important projects really well. Below are two critical ingredients to making that happen.
1. Know your boss’s priorities and live by them. He’s the one who decides what’s important and what’s not. If you are not getting clear guidance, you’ll need to ask questions until you really know how to rank what you’re working on. Help your boss understand the trade-offs.
If you want to talk about something that’s not currently near the top of your list of important projects, make sure you first give an update on the top projects presently underway before bringing up a new subject.
2. Say ‘no’ when low priority items will degrade your performance on important projects. Just as it’s tempting for you to take on every project your boss mentions, it’s also tempting for your boss to give you too many projects. We all have eyes that are too big for our stomachs. When you say ‘no,’ you are simply introducing some reality into the discussion and that’s a mark of maturity.
You’d be wise to say ‘no’ gently, however. You might say something like “Eric, can you help me prioritize that in relation to my other projects?” and follow up with “Based on those priorities, I’ll probably be hitting that project next quarter, does that work for you?”
When you focus religiously on your boss’s priorities, you’ll earn a reputation for strong execution, for accepting guidance well and good teamwork. Your boss will know that you understand the meaning of ‘less is more’.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]A[/mks_dropcap]good conversation is often like a game of ping-pong — the ball goes back and forth with a steady rhythm. Speak, PAUSE, speak, PAUSE, etc… but, when you fail to pause after a thought, it’s like you just threw a basketball on the ping-pong table… and your boss is thinking:
We’ve all over-explained because when in the presence of power, we tend to babble. In the business world, this usually takes the form of unnecessary explanation of details. Details are important, but the babbling of them is an inappropriate form, usually delivered at an inappropriate time. Don’t.
Don’t explain unless asked. Think rhythm instead and be a pro! STOP, PAUSE… Keep it short and you send this unspoken message, “I trust you to ask the right questions at the right time.” If instead, you dump all you’ve got on your listener, you’re implying, “You don’t get it and I’m going to smarten you up!”
Here’s a real-life example of over-explanation. All he needed to say was “Thanks for the advice. I’ll be on top of it by the 15th!” This worthless babble is what he actually wrote:
Thanks for the advice on inetwork and the other stuff. I will need a week or two more to get on top of inetwork…..Over the last 10 days, other priorities have kept me from jumping on that…..My projects combined with assuming Isabelle’s job and WebFarmers have me overloaded right now. I think it’s fantastic that we have Isabelle focused on where the money is, and I’m extremely willing to contribute by taking on the additional work. I just ask for your patience…some of the smaller stuff is not going to get done immediately…. And, Jack, please don’t respond with your blame/responsibility shtick…..”
Consider how long it took him to write this email, instead of the short powerful email he could have written. Consider that this is typical communication, and he largely spends his days communicating messages like this, and begin to see: he could probably get ten times more done every day if he was communicating better.
This is how we make the jump from being worth $100,000 a year to creating the kind of value that is worth $1 million a year. Don’t over-explain. The efficiency of competitive sports is a useful comparison. Imagine a footballer in the World Cup, running down the field, who stops to tell his coach:
Thanks for the advice on passing the ball and the other stuff. I will need a week or two more to get on top of my kick…..Over the last 10 days, other priorities have kept me from jumping on that…..My projects combined with covering for the fullback and the new halfbacks have me overloaded right now. I think it’s fantastic that we have new attacks focused on where the goal is, and I’m extremely willing to contribute by taking on the additional work. I just ask for your patience…some of the smaller stuff is not going to get done immediately…. And, coach, please don’t respond with your blame/responsibility shtick…..
Shut up and play!
Now, for all the derision we’ve placed on the email, his email is fantastic in three ways – keep these great things separate and strive for them!
Finally, good examples of terrible behavior are so rare and precious! Thanks to this footballer for providing us such a rich topic and remember: “Perfection,” as Antoine St. Exupery wrote, ‘is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove.”
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
[W]hat I crave in my role as a boss, is to feel that my team can complete my sentences. That they follow me like my shadow. That doesn’t mean they should always agree with me – but understand what I’m talking about, where I’m coming from and why — yes!
What’s the next best thing to seamless teamwork? And how do I know when someone who just joined our team is going to work out well? They ask frequently for feedback. This is best when done casually as part of our workflow and especially near the start of new projects or responsibilities.
For example:
BAD: “Eric, can we schedule a time to talk about my job performance?”
GREAT: “Eric, how do you like what I’m doing? Is this what you had in mind? Any ideas for improvement?”
(by e-mail, IM, tel or VM, all great)
If you need to schedule a time to ask for feedback, then you probably are not in the habit of asking and you’ve created a situation where your request may be perceived as an annoyance and the meeting itself a source of tension. Why?
If you are not in the habit of asking for frequent feedback, the meeting you requested comes too late. Too late to make changes to work that has already been done. If you haven’t asked me for feedback in nine months, I’ll assume that you are fearful and unreceptive. Or, I may assume your interest level and commitment to the job are just average.
Whatever the reasons are, a lack of steady communication about performance, will eventually create tension between you and your boss. Of course, if you aren’t asking for feedback because I’m already giving you a steady stream of positive feedback, that’s understandable – we’ll probably have a good meeting if you insist.
Should the boss ask for feedback from the team also? Yes! While you’re waiting for the boss to ask you for feedback, here’s a checklist.
Ask for feedback:
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]I[/mks_dropcap]’ve just asked you not to over explain, so this may seem a little contradictory. But, please, please, be precise, be specific and be blunt:
Why? I don’t know what you were thinking 10 seconds before you started talking. I don’t want to guess what you’re referring to, I want to know. And I want to know without asking you. It’s not efficient or fun for me to ask you what you’re talking about.
Without precise communication, there is too much room for error. And errors, presumptions, and miscommunication can be very costly. So please give me the material I need to follow along – give me names, titles, dates, links, documents, and examples!
And please be blunt. Half the time what you thought you said was not heard. The other half, you’re perceived as timid or manipulative. Speaking directly may be a little uncomfortable for both of us, but it’s an unavoidable side of life and business. Not addressing the difficult issues and not asking difficult questions allows issues to fester and grow and breaks trust. Show you care by telling the truth clearly and politely.
Confusion is expensive and demoralizing and avoidable. It always reflects badly on us whether you’re the culprit or the victim or we’re working as a team to create confusion. Is that clear?
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
My boss wanted me to help him get a prostitute back to his hotel in Mexico City because he didn’t speak any Spanish. At the office in Charlotte, NC, I noticed he didn’t want to go home in the evenings (he didn’t like his wife). I had just graduated with an MBA and was selling chainsaws and weedeaters to Latin America. My heart wasn’t in it and I’d have sucked at that job had I stayed longer. The chainsaws I sold were used to cut down the tropical forest and the weedeaters were second rate – it just seemed like meaningless work.
If you hate your job, it doesn’t help to know what your boss wants. You’re going to suck at your job anyway when it doesn’t have meaning for you. If you’re faking the passion (or not even trying), you’re headed for a train wreck. Find a job you can do with real passion before your boss decides you suck and fires you.
As your boss, why should I care if you’re following your bliss or not? I care because I want a team whose passion for the job can keep us together for 5 years, 10 years or longer. If you don’t know yourself well or fake the passion, you introduce a lot of risk to our relationship, and it usually doesn’t work out for either of us. So search your soul.
When people think about following their passion with their career, often it ends with the money. “Can’t make enough money at that”, we think. And, probably – it’s true. But, before you put the idea to bed, read The Man Who Quit Money
– it’s a deeply moving story that changed my thinking.
Why should YOU care whether you’re following your bliss or not? Popular wisdom tells us that who you are is more important than what you do — but what you do can also change who you are. If you don’t find meaningful work, you may end up becoming someone you don’t want to be.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run – in the long-run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.
-Viktor E. Frankl
Not sure how to find meaningful work? Answer some tough questions! First, let’s consider if you are doing meaningful work now:
Read What Should I Do with My Life? if you want to go deeper and hear how others have answered these questions.
Second, consider what inspires you:
This is just a sample of the questions you’ll be asked when you work through the legendary book What Color Is Your Parachute?
Finally, a few more timeless words from Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning
:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes – within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.
Viktor Frankl on Youth in Search of Meaning 1972:
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]M[/mks_dropcap]y daughter flew over the handlebars a dozen times and got banged up pretty good. I had taken her to a gentle grassy hill just like it said in the magazine article about teaching your kid to ride a bike. But, it only works if your kid can reach the ground while sitting on the seat. Oops! Lucky for me, she’s focused and ignores pain. She was still eager to try something new and learned in a heartbeat on a basketball court. That’s how success is.
Success demands pain and suffering. Consider Steve Jobs. Easy to forget his failures now, but he was devastated when he was fired from his position as CEO in 1985. He also had many product failures which you can be sure he took personally. He often cried in difficult meetings too.
Success causes mental and physical pain for your boss. Building a business is not a 9-to-5 job – it’s 10 to 12 hours a day and there are times you don’t sleep when you want to or need to. It’s the nature of managing people and getting things done in competition. It’s a little like war (or raising kids) – there is always a crisis. There is always noise, there is always pain and there is always fear. You don’t want to add to your boss’s pain.
How you handle crisis matters. It matters to your boss and your career. If your boss looks calm and collected to you, it’s for a reason. Negative emotions are costly – they drain energy needed for thinking clearly and performing at a high level. Negative emotions undermine performance and are contagious too. Chronic negative emotions cause illness. So choose – you can be the one your boss wants to take into battle, or the negative, panicky, hysterical one.
If you want to be combat-ready for your boss, your family or your friends, learn to manage your energy. Below, I show how. I’m not speculating about these things. These are things I’ve actually done to recover from a chronic illness that brought me to my knees (that’s code for “I wanted to die”). Actually, I didn’t really want my life to be over, I just wanted the pain to go away badly enough that I thought through every option for stopping it.
These are the things that eventually restored me and will charge you up, too. I know they work:
Exercise – There are a billion studies showing that exercise improves your emotional, mental and physical health. You could spend years reading them or just start exercising 20 minutes or more a day. Make sure you’re breathing hard for at least 10 minutes. If you’re outside in a beautiful setting, it works even better. Read about high intensity interval training if you want to get your workout down to 4-8 minutes.
Recovery – You need a proportional recovery for every effort. You won’t notice this if you are young and healthy enough, and that’s why we send 18-year-olds off to war. Eventually, with enough age and stress in your life, you’ll find this like the law of gravity.
To keep your balance, you need to plan and formalize your recoveries. Do whatever it takes to bring yourself back to a full charge. When your battery gets drained, that might mean walking around the block, a 10-minute nap, a half-hour massage, 5 minutes of meditation, a day off, or going to bed early for three days in a row. Whatever it takes for you.
Enjoyment – You’ve got to have fun and joy in your life to balance the crap. Joy is powerful. Being silly with my kids does the trick for me. I also garden and fly radio-controlled gliders. Watching TV doesn’t count unless it’s something short that can make you cry with laughter like a good episode of the Three Stooges (try Men in Black).
Positive rituals – your ability to focus on new things and exercise discipline consciously is more limited than you think. Every bit of self-control you exercise in a day draws on a limited reserve of energy. When you feel overwhelmed, it’s because your tank is nearing empty. One way to stretch your energy farther is to build rituals into your day. A ritual or routine allows you to run on autopilot for a while, conserving energy for other uses.
Even better, routines can replenish energy if they are recovery rituals. A few examples on the personal side: I wake up in the morning and say a prayer. It doesn’t have to be religious, just a reminder of you want to live your life and what you’re grateful for. I try to walk or hike every afternoon for 20-30 minutes. My walk starts with another “gratitude prayer” and then I stretch for 15 minutes. This is dynamite for me.
Sleep – Sleep is sacred. Get seven or eight hours of sleep. Go to bed at 10 o’clock. If you have a sleep debt, take a nap during the day (if it doesn’t interfere with your sleep at night). If you are a light sleeper, make sure you sleep in total darkness (use blackout shades), no telephones or TVs in the bedroom, and use ear plugs if necessary.
Go to bed at the same time every night after reading a book for 10 or 15 minutes (no electronic devices). If you have insomnia, use Sleep Restriction Therapy – nothing else works as well. If your sleep quality is poor, find out if you have sleep apnea.
Anxiety and fear – Embrace them. Your fear has the power to paralyze you and it will win if you fight it. Don’t. Often, there is some important message behind your anxiety you need to hear. Talk to yourself. Say, “I feel anxious and that’s alright. I’m basically okay. I have what I need and I can handle this. What am I afraid of specifically?” Write your fears down on paper and consider them carefully.
Look at the worst-case scenario. Can you survive that? Then write down some possible solutions. I don’t know exactly why this works. Maybe spelling out your fears puts a clear border around them. With no border, they ooze around and can grow like weeds. Get them out of your head and into words and they’ll shrink down and sometimes blow away altogether.
Energy drains – Find work you enjoy with a team that energizes you. Don’t enjoy the work? Ask for different responsibilities. Crappy boss? Leave (read What Should I Do with My Life?). I had a crappy boss once and also developed a strong stomach pain that lasted until I got away from her.
A coworker said “just do what I do – every morning I get in the shower and pour a gallon of Vaseline on myself so her crap will just slide off me.” I couldn’t do it. If you can’t get away from the crappy people around you, the next best thing is to refuse to engage with them, and refuse completely.
Food – What you eat has a big impact on your energy level and mood. Anything you eat that causes your sugar level to spike also causes it to crater afterwards. This causes your adrenal glands to pump out cortisol which makes you hungry and now you are on a roller coaster leaving you drained at the end of the day. To get off the roller coaster, you need to make dramatic changes and unlearn most of what the media says about nutrition.
I’ve left this for last, because it’s too difficult if you haven’t experienced a health crisis. But it works and will be here when you’re ready for it: No caffeine, no alcohol, no sugar or sugar equivalents and no processed food. Sugar equivalents are things like fruit, juice, bread, rice, pasta. Those are all foods that cause your sugar to spike.
On the plus side, healthy fats found in whole foods like eggs, cheese, butter, beef, pork, shrimp, fish, olive and coconut oil, etc. are delicious and will keep you feeling satisfied. Everything else you eat should be a vegetable. All you need to know is here.
One last thing – if you follow this diet, there are only two critical vitamins you need to learn about: vitamin C & vitamin D. I take a little over a gram of vitamin C every day and get 50 g by IV a couple times a year. When I was very ill, I would get vitamin C by IV up to twice a week. Next to a good night of sleep, nothing (that’s healthy) has the power to energize like vitamin C.
Okay, there is one other thing and that’s methyl B12. If you’re a vegetarian, eventually chances are you’re going to develop a chronic illness. You need to take mb12 (and its companions) supplementation seriously.
Nobody can do everything on this list all the time. I can’t. But do whatever you can manage and people around you will notice your increasing calm and strength. Energy is the final frontier. Go boldly.
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
I teach my kids about winners and whiners; that winners:
At 10 years old or at 30, at home or at work, it’s all the same — we only thrive when we take ownership of everything in our life. In each moment we are interpreting events around us with the opportunity to take the high road of responsibility (and leadership) by stepping up to bat, or the low road of avoidance.
Sometimes these events are mighty transgressions: “I admit, the train wreck was my fault!” But these big events are few and far between. More interesting are the tiny, constant, momentary decisions that sum to become our careers and lives. At the end of the game, we are clearly either leaders making things happen or whiners, the pawns of events and circumstances.
At the most basic level, this is what it means to take ownership – if I ask you for something as your boss, I want you to:
What stops an otherwise talented person from taking ownership? Blame! Imagine this – you work all night long on a presentation, or perhaps weeks brokering a difficult agreement, only to have your ‘moment of victory’ viciously stolen when your foul-mouthed manager shoots down your idea.
Your reaction might include elements like:
Note that in each of these responses we have placed the cause of suffering outside of ourselves; i.e., we have placed the blame on someone else. But there is another option – we could take responsibility for each of these things with responses like these:
In reviewing the two paths of response, blame or responsibility, note the following differences:
Strength has nothing to do with doing things that are easy – real strength is being strong when you feel weak. Strength separates the wheat from the chaff. Like shooting free throws, getting better and better gets harder and harder. The 1% improvement is easy when you are young and foolish, and takes increasing concentration the better you get.
Blame is easy to recognize when obvious as in: “You moron! I can’t believe you did that! This is all your fault!”
It’s less obvious here: “I was late because Joe couldn’t finish on time.” The path of responsibility: “I failed to plan well with my team.”
It’s even harder to see here: “I was late because the plane was delayed.” But, we can always take earlier flights, so try: “I need to allow a little more slack in my travel schedule.”
Instead of saying, “Yupi hasn’t sent us the contract yet,” let’s try this: “We haven’t received the contract from Yupi yet.” See how the burden subtly changes between Yupi, (“those irresponsible jerks, when will they send it?”), to us… why are we failing to receive it, and what can we do to change that?
This is subtle: “I didn’t have enough time.” Here, we are actually blaming the universe for being herself, for creating a dimension of time that is not to our satisfaction. What a childish tantrum: it’s like blaming water for being liquid! Try this instead: “I didn’t schedule my time well enough to finish.”
An extremely subtle and advanced lesson – look within. Maybe you’ve heard the saying “When you point one finger, there are three fingers pointing back to you.” Often when accusing or blaming someone, we find we are talking about something we were actually committing ourselves. This law is as mysterious as the relationship between matter and gravity, but a guarantee: the closer you look, the more it turns out to be true. Heard long ago in our office:
“Apologies for the emotional outburst. … I also realized that it was a bit hypocritical to personally attack you for personally attacking others.”
When you begin to see that you control everything, you will begin to see that you control everything.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]H[/mks_dropcap]ave a great memory? Take notes anyway! You can stop taking notes when you’re the top boss and you hire someone to do it for you. In the meantime, taking notes tells your boss and colleagues you mean business.
Take notes at work:
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.
[mks_dropcap style=”letter” size=”52″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]T[/mks_dropcap]hree weeks after I hired Maria (not her real name) she distributed her first press release for me. She published the draft version instead of the final. Maria was not a native English speaker and the draft was chock-full of grammatical errors. This was the most public mistake my company had made.
I was very embarrassed. Still, I let Maria make a lot more mistakes over a period of two years before I finally let her go. With little experience managing people or running a company, I was a pathetic boss (15 years ago).
If you make mistakes at work like Maria, you might coast by for a while too. Or, you could use checklists and stop making mistakes in the first place. Ever since Atul Gawande popped up with his book The Checklist Manifesto
, I’ve been using checklists and encouraging my team to use them as well. In fact, now we run through a checklist when we let someone like Maria go. We also use checklists for recruiting, interviewing, and reference checking.
Would it feel demeaning to you if your boss asked you to use a checklist for a simple task you’ve performed many times before? If you answered yes, imagine you’re about to have your appendix removed and the operating surgeon is known to be one of the best in the country. Does he need a checklist that starts out like this?
1. Wash your hands
Probably not. Do you want him to use it anyway? I do.
If you just graduated from college, life might appear simple. But, if you’ve been through life’s big traumas like death, divorce, moving, illness, etc., you’ll know in your bones why checklists are not for dimwits. Experts are susceptible to stress and distraction like anyone else; that’s why checklists that save lives might possibly save your job someday. Use them.
Get the ebook! If you liked what you read here, and think you may want to refer back to this guide later, grab the Kindle version – we’re hoping you’ll thank us with a five-star review on Amazon if you found this material helpful. The ebook also includes our job search guide.
For comprehensive advice on the entire job search process, read our complete guide to landing a job at a great company or visit our career advice hub.