Is your career glass half-full?

 
I have some time on my hands. My role was made redundant recently. Bummer hey? But there are always positive sides to any situation. For example, I get to go to Pilates and Yoga during the day! It's nice I tell ya! I go to Quro Health Studios, which are walking distance from my house. The Yoga class last Wednesday was awesome! I can't say I have been to a bad class there, but this one was different. The instructor had prepared the room. It was warm. The lights were turned way down and candles were lit all around the perimeter. Great start. Then the instructor, who I had only known as the Receptionist until this point, conducted the most beautiful, zen and challenging class I have been to. When I complimented her at the end, she said she was leaving soon, to move back to Canada. Bugger.

This person is so lovely and so positive. She seems to get so much joy out of what she does, which is serving people and helping them to have healthier minds and bodies. She obviously loves her job and choice of career. I would say she understands her purpose.

Have you worked with anyone like this? I worked with "Joe" for around 3 years in one of my jobs. He is flat-out the nicest person I have worked for, and with. When I first met Joe I couldn't believe he was that nice. I was always looking for times when he wasn't this nice person (and I don't think that says great things about me). You know, I never saw it. He operated in a tough and political environment and managed to develop the trust and companionship of each of the Senior Executives. He is genuine, nice and optimistic. Even when I was at my most frustrated, he always took the time to listen and help.

Thinking about these two people got me thinking about positive psychology and the "happiness" movement. Have you heard these terms before? They sound a little "pop", a little naff maybe. But is it really? Don't we all want to be happy, and do things that make us happy? That's what understanding your "why" or your purpose is all about.
 
After one of my Pilates classes last week, I decided to go through each of the 6 or so very large bags of books, folders and papers I had packed up from my work office and do a clean-out. Cleaning out clutter is supposed to make you feel happy. It did feel good to throw away a whole lot of stuff I was keeping "in-case" I ever needed to refer back to it. I never do. Plus I don't really have anywhere to keep it all! During the clean out I found a booklet from a seminar I attended a few years ago, run by Dr Martin Seligman.  He is a Psychologist and the founder of Positive Psychology.  He is focused on building mental strength and wellness rather than just removing mental illness.

What I really like about Dr Seligman is that his theories are based on strong empirical evidence from rigorous research. He has done a lot of work around understanding and developing your signature strengths, which has excellent application when trying to work out how to be happiest in your career and life. Signature Strengths are things that are inherently part of each of us. By identifying,  developing and using these strengths, we can improve our performance and happiness. If you would like to learn a little more, this article has a good summary of Positive Psychology and Signature Strengths.

You can use Dr Seligman's Signature Strengths questionnaire to identify your inherent strengths, then ask yourself the following questions:

• Does your current job allow you to use your signature strengths? If yes, how could you use them more? If no, are there opportunities you can identify to start to use your signature strengths?
• Thinking back to this post on identifying your purpose....does understanding your signature strengths match with what you think your purpose might be? If you are still working out your purpose, does understanding your signature strengths help you move closer to your purpose?

Inspire me  

Want to learn a little more from Martin Seligman on positive psychology? Here is the man himself during a TED talk

Develop me

What did you just love doing as a kid? Do these activities relate to your signature strengths? I bet they do somehow. How can you start doing these again? What do you think my husband Arran loved doing when he was young? Check out his passion here

Just for me

Have you heard about The Happiness Project? Learn about Gretchen Rubin's year, where she test drove all sorts of ways to improve her happiness. You might like to get started on your own happiness project!

Working out your purpose: 3 ways

My last post was all about understanding your "why" or your purpose. Once you can define this and really know  and understand yourself, your career and life choices become much easier.

This is not an easy process and it takes time and reflection. It can be frustrating if you know you are not enjoying where you are at, but don't know how to move forward. I once worked with a lovely colleague, who has now become my friend, even though she lives on the other side of the world. She would often say to me "If only I knew what I wanted to do, then I could work towards that". She is in her fifties and still working it out!I I think its pretty normal to not know your purpose. I received lots of comments about my last post from people who needed help working out their purpose. It seemed to make sense that I should pull together some ways to do this.

You might be fine with the first suggestion below. If you need a little more time and effort to work it out, try the third one.

1. My first suggestion is a good one if you have a fair amount of self awareness already. I have been a participant on leadership programs where I have used this technique. It works well if you take it seriously and take some time out. Find a quiet place and sit with a pen and paper. Writing is a great way to bring clarity to your thoughts. Answer the following questions:

• How would you describe yourself?
• When do you feel most alive?
• What interests you most about yourself?
• What types of situations do you feel most at ease in?
• What types of situations do you feel most uncomfortable?
• What situations stress you?
• What is your definition of success?
• What do you love doing in your spare time?
• What do you do in your current job that you would continue to do, even if you weren't being paid?

You might like to come back to these questions over a few days, or a week. Once you have been able to answer all these questions, review your answers. Can you summarise them? Hopefully this summary will help you understand what you like and don't like, and what your purpose might be.

2. At the Simon Sinek workshop I attended one of the audience asked Simon "How do I work out my why?" and he answered with the following:

Ask this question from some of your good friends, who you respect: "Why do you like being my friend?" Your friends will sqirm and try not to answer. Keep at it. They will say things like "I don't know...um..you are nice....we hang out together....you are funny.....(it's a bit like asking your partner why they love you!) Keep at it! Keep asking. Eventually they will start saying things like "I like myself more when I'm with you" or "You inspire me". This is the good stuff! Ask some more questions like "Tell me more about that" or "How do I inspire you?"

Simon has some great online tools which you can fine here.

3. Sometimes you find great books at the airport. I was recently in Changhi airport in Singapore, waiting for my flight home to Sydney and came across this book Business Model You: A One-Page Method for Reinventing Your Career. It's a comprehensive way to work out who you are and what your career purpose is and it helps you put actions in place to make change. It's well written and thoughtfully set out with great graphics. It includes real life examples of how people have used the Personal Business Model, which is my favourite part of the book. If you are really struggling to work out your purpose you could work through this book over a number of weeks or even months and I think you would have your purpose clearly defined, as well as being inspired by the people featured in the book. There is also a great website that supports the book.
     
       

Inspire me

David Kelley discovered his purpose while sick with a potentially fatal illness. I'm not suggesting you get sick to find your purpose but it often seems this is a catalyst for many people to work out very quickly what matters and what makes them happy. In a TED talk David reveals here that everyone has creativity and that you just need to build confidence to use it.

Develop me

Do you know your purpose? Well what are you waiting for!? Larry Smith knows all the excuses as to why you will fail to have a great career.

Just for me

Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning is a Harvard Business Review blog post about staying focused in a world of distractions and the two lists are easy to implement.

Do you understand your why?

Some weeks come and go without much remarkable happening. We go to work, we do our jobs and come Friday, we look forward to the weekend. Other weeks stand out because we are given a gift that was unexpected, surprising, and that changes our view of the world. I had one of those weeks this week. In the past month I have returned to my job, from being on maternity leave. My job is relatively new, both to me and the company, and I have two new managers of sorts and two new team members, one in the US and one in the UK. I'm still finding my way. What are my responsibilities? What person needs me to communicate what? Which people do I need to build strong relationships with? Who do I need to influence? What do I need to remember? I'm sure many of you can relate. 

Despite this, my week has been one of connections: meeting new people, having new experiences, consolidating my views and passions,  learning some new things, being inspired and as a consequence challenging where I am at, where my career is heading and our priorities as a family. While lots happened this week there, were two main events that stood out.


On Tuesday I attended the Simon Sinek workshop in Sydney run by Business Chicks. I joined Business Chicks fairly recently as they run interesting events and networking opportunities. When I first moved to Sydney, over 10 years ago, I attended as many free networking opportunities as I could to try and meet new people and build my contacts in what seemed an overwhelmingly big city. Not a good strategy. The only thing I achieved was eating bad food and being a captive audience for marketing opportunities conducted at 7.30am. After a couple of years of this I decided no more free breakfast networking events. As with many things in life, you get what you pay for!


A couple of other awesome 'business chicks' I know also had joined so I thought I would give it a go too. So far I have been to two events and I can say they are well organised, professional and awesome. The food has been great and I haven't been 'marketed' to. I even got out of bed to see Danni Minogue over breakfast (my first Business Chicks event). Anyway, back to Simon.


I had seen Simon's video on TED and knew he was going to talk about leadership. It was a inspiring workshop and I'm glad I went. He had some great things to say that relate to personal and career development, as well a leadership and business. He comes across as authentic and passionate and is a great storyteller. The key takeaway for me was that organisations need to understand why they exist, and it's not to just make money (most of the time that's a given). What is their purpose and why do they exist? A goal to make an unrealistic amount of money by a particular date is not something that employees or customers can connect to.


The same can be said for individuals and leaders. What is our purpose? What do we exist to do? This is really important when you are thinking about your career. The best most inspiration leaders I know are very clear about the "why" they do what they do, not what. A discussion with one of my favourite Managing Directors this week revealed that while she obviously wants the business she leads to do well, grow and be profitable, her purpose and passion is looking after the people who work in her organisation and providing a great place to do that. When you meet her she is very authentic about this. It is evident in the way she communicates, the way she leads her business, and the way she lives her life. As a consequence people want to work for her. A true leader has followers.


Yesterday I was invited to a networking event with the HR Leadership Forum.  This is the second time I have attended as a guest and they, like Business Chicks, provide interesting speakers and solid networking opportunities. They also hold their events in really nice places at lunch time. Yesterday was a function centre on Sydney Harbour and on a sunny, sparkly Autumn Sydney day like it was yesterday you couldn't help feeling positive about the world.

The first speaker was Dennis Shanahan, political editor of The Australian. He talked about the current state of Australian politics and the recently released labour government budget. Dennis obviously lives and breathes politics and his intimate understanding of all things related was inspirational. Passion is a very attractive trait. Unfortunately I just can't get excited about politics so I was hanging out for Peter Murray (Director of Operations) and  Peta Jurd (Group General Manager) from Veolia. Veolia had been featured in the Australian series of Undercover Boss and were to speak about their experiences being involved in the production. Don't you love a "behind-the-scenes" story?


When you are sitting enjoying a lovely lunch with a nice glass of wine, with a nice view of the harbour you don't expect to have your perceptions changed about waste management companies, have a laugh, empathise, be inspired and then be in tears. All in the space of an hour. However it bought home to me again (and again and again) that organisations have great responsibilities in looking after the people who work there. Veolia benefited greatly from being part of Undercover Boss. They received lots of media attention, got amazing feedback from members of the public and their Senior Managers gained a lot more insight into their operations.  The stars though, were the featured employees who demonstrated that when organisations are clear about their "why", employees will be attracted to work for them, be passionate about what they do for that company, and will go waaay outside their position description to help the organisation. It was clear that Veolia takes recycling and their environmental responsibility seriously and their employees are passionate about "why" Veolia exists. 


The trick in our life and in our career is to work out our purpose and be true to that. As Simon Sinek says "When we have a clear destination the route is flexible."

Inspire me

"When you work really hard but don't know where you're going it's called stress. When there's a destination it's called passion." Simon Sinek

Develop me

Not sure how to work out your "why"?  Check our Simon Sinek's website for tools and courses.

Just for me

If you want to learn more about Veolia and Undercover boss you can watch the episode here

I-develop-me

Hello!

Welcome to my blog, I-develop-me. For a while now I have wanted to share what I have learned over the years from my experiences working in Human Resources and Organisational Development for small, medium and large organisations. Some of this experience has been great, some not-so-great, but you know, I have learned a lot! I have worked with some amazing and inspiring people and some who perhaps should only be allowed to work in a locked room. Alone. And I’m being kind. I bet you have worked with someone like this!

The focus of this blog will be helping you to develop yourself in whatever you want to achieve. I’ll be providing tips and tricks and resources to help you along the way. Some will be focused on your career, some on general personal development. The main thing I have learnt is that while organisations often have talent management processes, career development initiatives and learning and development programs and opportunities unless you know what you want to do and where you want to go in your career, it’s not much help. Or maybe you are not part of a workplace that has these kind of resources? Maybe you have your own business? Or maybe you are pursuing interests and goals outside of your day-to-day bill paying job? Maybe you are considering a career change or a tree-change?  Well perhaps there will be something for you here.

My basic premise on career development, or perhaps that should be life development, is that if you are waiting for someone else i.e. your manager, your company or your family or partner to take charge of your destiny then you are in big trouble! The only way to be successful is to be clear about:

• who you are,
• what you enjoy,
• what makes you happy in life, and  
• where you want to be in the future…

That’s why the blog is called I-develop-me. Only you can take responsibility for your career and your life. I’ll be covering topics to help you work some of this stuff, like; self-awareness, education and qualifications, self coaching, leadership, culture, emotions in the workplace, mentors, life balance, feedback, getting happy, finding your passion…..Is there a topic you want me to cover? Do you have a burning issue? Drop me a line!

I will be kicking off with Education and Qualifications in my next post. How important are they?

In the mean time check out this great video called Try something new for 30 days. My husband bought me a digital SLR camera for my birthday last year and I’m currently participating in the photoaday challenge by @fatmumslim to help me improve my ‘eye’. I’m using instagram and posting to twitter and facebook. Is there something new you want to try? Maybe this video will inspire you?

Lisa

Tertiary Education. Yes? No?

Well of course the answer to that question is yes. Mostly. Sometimes. Depends....

 
It's always good to be learning, but what I'm talking about today is formal qualifications. You know, the ones that take years of your life to complete and many thousands of dollars; a degree or Masters or MBA, for example.

I thought this was a topic worth exploring because over the years I have interviewed hundreds of people for jobs and worked with lots of Managers. Reviewing a candidate's resume and their stated qualifications is always interesting, as is helping Managers with their career aspirations and development. Tertiary education usually factors in at some point.


One of my favourite CEO's, who I worked for early in my career, lets call him Wayne, was adamant that every employee we hire should have an undergraduate degree. He didn't care what the degree was in, as long as they had completed one.  "You want our Receptionist to have a degree? Our Customer Service employees? Really?" I thought he was mad. Of course he wasn't. I was just naive and still learning. His reasoning was sound and not about academic snobbery, as you might think.

1. He wanted people in his organisation who had potential beyond the role we were recruiting for. Working in a niche industry, he understood that it is easier to develop internal people for future opportunities than to find people on the open market. And it was much easier to recruit people then! People who were well educated may stand a better chance of developing themselves and the business in the future.

2. He wanted people who could demonstrate their commitment to something, such as a 3 year degree, and see it through to the end. What organisation wouldn't want employees who had the tenacity and determination to see something through to its completion? Hellooo?

3. He felt that going through the process of completing tertiary study helped people to think about an issue or problem holistically and from a systems perspective while having the skills to gather information widely.  Great skills to have in business and in life, don't you think?


As I have gained business experience, I can add to Wayne's list:

4. Studying at a Tertiary level improves your reading, comprehension, and writing skills. Most tertiary study requires lengthy assignments and essays. The more study you do, the better you get at reading large swathes of content, making sense of it and expressing yourself in a written form. There are many, many careers where this is incredibly important. 

5. Further education helps you understand that "the more you learn, the less you know". Yes I am blonde, but this one makes sense. Education opens your eyes to so much stuff you wouldn't learn just by going to work each day. And it's different learning. Of course it tends to be more theoretical but this is based (usually) on solid research, which can only enhance your work if you are able to apply it in a practical way. Every time I learn something new I'm reminded of how much I don't know and this increases my curiosity to learn more. Organisations love curious employees who want to make a difference.

So here is my take on whether you should complete tertiary study or not:

• If you want to. Yep, lets keep it simple people.
• If the profession you want to work in demands it. Derr. Obviously if you want to be an Accountant or Doctor or Teacher you are not going to get too far without the requisite bit of paper. 
• If you will be competing against others in your chosen career who will have qualifications. Many times I have advertised a role and received a large number of applicants. If I specified in the ad you need to have tertiary qualifications and you don't, this is the first and easiest cull. You won't get a look in. Harsh but that's life. (and as an aside, do not put your photo in a resume. It just gives recruiters and HR departments something to laugh at). There are many careers you can be successful in just through hard work and gaining experience over many years, however if you are competing on the open market for a new opportunity your resume may end up on the floor if you don't have some qualifications to match.
• Qualifications alone are not enough. If you finished your high school education and then went straight on to university and finished a degree, then went straight on to post graduate study, such as a Masters and didn't get any relevant work experience to go with your education, you have what I call "empty" qualifications. Qualifications are great but if you haven't had the opportunity to apply what you have learnt in the big bad world, they are pretty meaningless. Of course I'm making generalisations but you get the picture. A resume with lots of great qualifications and no work experience can be similar to having lots of work experience and no qualifications (depending on your chosen career of course).

My advice is to get some balance in your work and education (as in life). Do a little study and then get some work experience. Maybe you have a solid career and need some formal study to recognise and build on all the great work you have done so far? Maybe you are looking for a career change so study something that matches your future aspirations.

Or if you are happy where you are and the thought of cracking the books and writing assignments into the wee hours of the night is not for you, fine. But understand how this will impact your career.

Inspire me

"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way." 

 Doris Lessing

Develop me

Michael Fox one of the Co-founders of Shoes of Prey, mmmmm....shoes...writes a blog about his experiences in a start-up business and has written two posts here and here about whether studying an MBA is relevant to being an entrepreneur and whether he should complete it.

Just for me

Those of us who have studied and those of you contemplating getting some Tertiary qualifications know you need to have goals, whether career or personal....This video by Daniel Goldstein talks about commitment devices and self discipline (you need lots of commitment to study at a Tertiary level!). He uses "behavioural time machines" to help people see their future. In this video he uses retirement as an example, however the concept translates to your career.

The battle between your present and future self

What does your future self look like? How would some further education change or enhance your future self? I'd love to hear!