In your personality, tweaking one thing will change several others. Did you ever think that you could learn something about your career and personal development from chicken breeding? ‘Tis true! Read on, true believer: [Chicken] Breeders working over several decades chose the most productive birds to reproduce, resulting in white leghorns that each year can lay 300 to 320 of …
Accomplishment Does Not Equal Success
One of the mistakes I made early on in my career was to believe that if I had some great accomplishments that I would gain success, including things like money and community respect. This is clearly false, and I’ve recently had a series of communications with an organizational thinker that confirms it. But first let’s look at some of the …
![Employees at Mid-Continent Refinery [ca. 1943 Tulsa, OK (LOC). By John Vachon]](https://i0.wp.com/www.manasclerk.com/wpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2179123915_75b400bf47_o-men-group-Employees-at-Mid-Continent-Refinery-c-1943-Tulsa-OK-LOC-Vachon-John-e1377964113665.jpeg?fit=862%2C519)
Top 5 Job Assignments to Produce Learning (revisited)
Here are the Top 5 job assignments to produce learning with commentary: [full post]
When Your Boss Is Undermining You
Tom Foster has a post recently about what to do when your manager starts to give your management tasks to a coworker, all the time saying that you are still the boss. I’ve had this happen and I wish that I had known this bit of advice back then. It wouldn’t have helped any — but I would have perhaps …
Finding a Dime Can Make Your Last Year Happier
Remember things as being happier by contemplating something positive before you write your resume / CV. You can use this to help you feel happier at interviews and other situations.
Creative Class Job Interview? Go with Stuff White People Like!
A client asks the question: What should I do to win an executive level interview? So let’s look at how to manipulate the forms that are expected by today’s uninformed managers. (I’d say “idiot” but there are too many lawsuits these days.) I’ll assume that you’re a heterosexual American guy who wants a job as part of Richard Florida’s Creative …
Transitions mean starting over again (P.G. Wodehouse)
Yesterday we looked at an ancient story. Here’s a more modern discussion from humorist P. G. Wodehouse’s first “Blandings” novel, Something Fresh [Something New] [1915]: “…I think I have it now. My life has been such a series of jerks. I dash along–then something happens which stops that bit of my life with a jerk; and then I have to …
Top Reasons Why High Potentials Have To Do Things Different For Job Security
If you are a Hidden High Potential (HHP) and you never hear anything else from me, memorize this statement: What is safe for other people is dangerous for you; what is guaranteed to fail for most people is what’s most likely to succeed for you. Or, as Pippin in the Two Towers movie put it: The closer we are to …
Why Is Career Advice So Useless?
eWeek, a leading rag in the corporate IT industry, has a new article by Rich Milgram on “How to Ensure IT Job Security Despite an Economic Meltdown“. It’s a great example of useless career advice. And you don’t even have to be in IT to see that. Here are his four points, if you can call them that: Provide meaningful …
Becoming the Enablement Vehicle for Others’ Unarticulated Desires
Back when I was working on the GO Society’s book, Organization Design, Levels of Work and Human Capability: Executive Guide, I had the opportunity to spend an Sunday afternoon talking to Julian Fairfield in his early Monday morning. (I love talking to Australia!) He’s an amazing thinker with a wide ranging interest that started years ago on the shopfloor, moved …