Careers // Forrest Christian // 2012 November 23 // no comments
Did you ever stop and think of what that bad job, the one where you don’t fit and is so stressful, is doing to you long term? You should. Because it could be destroying any future you have, even your very soul.
After the second Great War, many of the orphanages were severely understaffed. A researcher studied what happened when these babies, who had enough nutrition and acceptab…
Managing Motivation // Forrest Christian // 2012 November 1 // no comments
What does a great workplace look like? Walter Ulmer took a stab at defining it over 25 years ago. He saw that there was a big difference between regular teams and high performance teams, one where everyone took it to the next level.
And what is the essence of a “supportive” climate that promotes esprit and gives birth to “high performing units”? It may be easier to feel or sense than to…
Overachievers Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2011 August 31 // 1 comment
If you’re old enough to bother reading this, you likely can look over your life and see the points at which you have changed your mind. Or finessed one of your pet theories of life. To you this seems like a normal process, one that comes with aging and growing.
It’s not.
You’re weird.
And it makes people see you as wishy-washy or “compromising”. More after t…
Coaching Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2011 June 28 // 4 comments
Hulk misunderstood. Puny humans always trying to kill Hulk. Hulk smash puny humans!When you are bigger than everyone else, you are much more likely to get hammered for irritating people. It doesn’t matter if that’s physical size or “work” size, where you have the capability to do a larger job than the people around you.
This is one of the key problems of Hidden High Potentials (HHPs). Work…
Change Coaching // Forrest Christian // 2011 June 8 // 6 comments
In my lessons on the Tao of Joe: Redeeming Our Stories, I’ve pointed out that the patriarch’s model was to forget well before he ever forgave. Forgetting not only the wrongs, he forgot those who had wronged him (in his case, his brothers).
Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh (Forget), saying, “God made me forget all my hardships and my parental home.”
[Genesis 40, The Message]
It’s important…
Careers Change Motivation Overachievers Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2011 March 29 // 2 comments
One of the things that Elliott Jaques and Katherine Cason discussed is that most people seem to develop over time according to general pathways. That is, your capacity for work increases over time generally along a predictable path once you get into your 20s. Dr. Jaques saw this in his work with people over time — he did work with Glacier Metal Company for some twenty-five years — and…
Careers Change // Forrest Christian // 2011 March 1 // 3 comments
Greg McElroy’s alleged Wonderlic score has been leaked and it’s created a buzz. The Wonderlic is a part of the bevy of tests the NFL puts draftees through and generally measures what is known as “general mental ability”.
SEC standout quarterback McElroy’s problem is that his Wonderlic score is almost 2 times as high as the average NFL quarterback. And QBs are known as the smartest guys on t…
Change Generations Overachievers Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2011 January 17 // 1 comment
Let’s start out the new year with the fortunes of the so-called 13th generation, the decried Generation X (born 1961 to 1979): you are totally…
Careers Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2010 October 5 // no comments
Trust, it seems, is the glue that makes organizations sing. But you don’t necessarily need much of it to succeed. And you can simply eat off the store trust (social capital) built through long years of hard work by those who came before.
Come to think of it, it doesn’t take long to eat through a century’s worth of social capital.
I’ve been thinking about this as a result of reading Fukuyama’s…
Careers Underachievers // Forrest Christian // 2010 August 7 // 2 comments
Let’s take another gander at how a hidden high potential can either get or stay in a that low-level job. It’s counter to prevailing advice you get, so you may want to pay attention.
Before I start, I have to emphasize that I’m only talking about Hidden High Potentials (HHPs) and not Normal People. Normals give HHPs advice which is lousy because it’s the advice that works for them (other Normals,…