Negativity, gossip and impatience

A few days ago, I wrote an article for Superperformance.com about the effects of constantly retelling stories about your negative experiences. In Stop Telling Those Stories! Complaining Kills Performance and Productivity, I explain the stress you cause for yourself and others with what amounts to griping and bellyaching when you should be learning and problem-solving.

Yesterday, I received a good guest article to publish from the sensible pen of Karla Brandau that covers a related issue: gossip. Gossip is almost always negative, and when it concerns possible disruptions in an organization, such as layoffs, pay cuts, inequitable promotions and other extreme concerns for employees during tough economic times, it can be deadly. Read Karla’s suggestions in I Heard It Through the Grapevine: How leaders can reduce damaging gossip.

And today, I received and published a guest article from Mark Hunter (the “Sales Hunter”) that applies to sales professionals, small business owners and sales managers: Driven to Distraction: How Latest Trends Will Hurt You. Another thing that is hard in tough economic times is the slowing of the sales process and the lower number of sales that businesses experience. At those times, rather than use new techniques and processes to “tweak” and improve well-established methods, too many organizations and sales pros scrap their proven methods in favor of new, barely-tested ideas that end up failing and put them in worse positions than before. It’s only natural to get impatient to see results, but even in sales, the tortoise usually outruns the hare.

A few days ago, I wrote an article for Superperformance.com about the effects of constantly retelling stories about your negative experiences. In Stop Telling Those Stories! Complaining Kills Performance and Productivity, I explain the stress you cause for yourself and others with what amounts to griping and bellyaching when you should be learning and [...]

Articles Update

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been juggling several time-disrupting events (one of which you can read about in “Bring On The Distractions,” described below.) So, it’s about time for an update on the articles I’ve been adding to the website. I’m not going to tell you about them all. You can find a list of all the articles added over the last 30 days on the home page, Superperformance.com. Right now, I’m just going to update you on some of the ones I’ve written myself, starting with the latest first:

Can A Workplace Have A Panic Attack? — Not being contented with an earlier article (“The Sky is Falling!”) for solo entrepreneurs and micro businesses on the subject of anxiety and catastrophizing, I wrote a stronger depiction of what happens in the larger workplace during times of high stress. This is primarily addressed to management of mid-sized and larger organizations. Solo entrepreneurs and micro business owners need only to mind themselves. In larger organizations, an entire segment of the organization, composed of many employees, can exhibit the symptoms usually found in an individual, and management needs to have leaders ready to deal with it.

You Can’t Beat The System: Unfair Power Plays In The Workplace — Who says you can’t beat city hall? Or “the system.” Many people have. You’ve got options.

Bring On The Distractions: Maintaining Focus While Dealing With Workplace Chaos — It happens to all of us, no matter where we work or for whom we work — things are going along productively and some sort of crisis hits. All work stops to deal with the crisis. It may not be a very big crisis, but it hangs over us until solved. Not to worry: the workplace basic necessities of a “to do list” and a simple scheduler usually solve any distractions from crises.

Follow Your Passion or Impassion Your Work — The idea of “following your passion” is much more than a bit of fluff advice from “touchy-feeley” coaches. The solid psychology behind it is that strong positive feeling for your work is the best motivator we know for overcoming obstacles and getting through hard times. It also builds belief in your work and enthusiasm, both within you and your employees. Not to mention that it enhances your enjoyment when things are going well.

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling on My Business! — Do you “catastrophize?” Do you look for signs and omens that something terrible is going to happen to you or your small business? Do you constantly imagine the worst? Relax. You’re not alone.

Acceptance Defeats Worry — You’ve probably heard about the idea of “accepting” unpleasant circumstances, events or people. Maybe you understand it to be a “letting go” of power struggles, or just resigning yourself to enduring all of the unpleasantness you anticipate from whatever you are worrying about. Actually, it’s a way of getting rid of most of the unpleasantness, releasing the need to struggle and finding practical ways to deal with the actual results of circumstances, events and other people’s behavior.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been juggling several time-disrupting events (one of which you can read about in “Bring On The Distractions,” described below.) So, it’s about time for an update on the articles I’ve been adding to the website. I’m not going to tell you about them all. You [...]

Career, employment, small business and personal mix

Over the last few days, I’ve been writing and publishing a mix of articles that hit on more traditional employment, personal performance improvement and transitions to self-employment that are close enough to traditional employment to make the transition easier than other options.

In “Independent Employment,” I suggest three ways you could keep working for the same kind of employer you now serve, but in more independent roles such as through temporary staffing, contract employment and freelancing in your current field. With each of those, you could try out the mode of work while you are still employed. Just do it on a “moonlighting” basis until you’re comfortable with it and know it’s something you want to do. The only investment is your time, so even if you decide you don’t like it, you can stop and you’ll still have made some extra money.

In “Be The Hero of the Story: Expect to Win,” I illustrate how you develop success — whether in business, career or personal life — through managing your expectations. Your expectations tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies. The article is about how well it works to make your expectations positive ones.

In “What’s Old is New Again: Getting Attention to Your Résumé May Be As Simple As This,” I talk about the most effective ways to make your résumé stand out in a crowd, as well as how and where to send it to avoid the crowds.

And, just today, I published a guest article that takes us back to talking about small business and solo-entrepreneuring again: “Have a Great Idea for a Business? Test the Waters Before Diving In.” It takes up the same dilemma I was addressing in “Independent Employment.” However unhappy a place the job market may be, the self-employment market may be too scary. Valerie Young has a few words of encouragement for trying out various businesses before making a commitment to get into them.

Over the last few days, I’ve been writing and publishing a mix of articles that hit on more traditional employment, personal performance improvement and transitions to self-employment that are close enough to traditional employment to make the transition easier than other options.
In “Independent Employment,” I suggest three ways you could keep working for the same [...]

Small business and entrepreneurial abilities

As a follow-up to my July 24 blog post on Career transitions to self-employment, I wrote an article, Basic Business Start-Up Abilities and published it yesterday. It goes on a bit more about the minimum it takes to start a business for a solo entrepreneur operation or micro-business.

I want to be clear about something: When I say you don’t need as many “abilities” or “personal characteristics” as are often outlined as ideal for small business success, I don’t mean that those skills aren’t important. It’s simply that unless you are considering buying a business or a franchise, getting a loan, or putting a large sum of money into getting started, you can forgo some of the extensive planning and analysis often advised and take a shot at something you already know how to do very well. You can pick up the rest of the business skills you need along the way. That’s the way it’s done more often than not. I just want to encourage you to be creative and not allow yourself to be overwhelmed or intimidated. For example, if you’ve long wanted to try out being an EBay seller, you could experiment by listing a few things you want to get rid of in your own household and it will probably cost you nothing if you strike out or a few dollars if you fail to price correctly. (Although people rarely take a loss there.) So I’m talking about starting on a shoestring, without employees and risking little other than your time. Anytime any amount of money you can’t afford to lose is involved, get help from sources experienced in your field and professional advice. And under those circumstances, yes you do need a well-written business plan, more solid current business skills and a careful analysis of your ideas and the marketplace.Read the article.

As a follow-up to my July 24 blog post on Career transitions to self-employment, I wrote an article, Basic Business Start-Up Abilities and published it yesterday. It goes on a bit more about the minimum it takes to start a business for a solo entrepreneur operation or micro-business.
I want to [...]

Career transitions to self-employment

Lately, I’ve been publishing more articles relevant to small business. Especially one-person operations and micro-businesses. I’ve been focusing more on small business because it’s one of the most available career transitions for the unemployed and underemployed. As fewer and fewer acceptable jobs are available, large numbers of the formerly employed are turning to entrepreneurship, contract work and other forms of self-employment to make a living. Many never wanted or expected to work for themselves; but now they seem to have no other choices. And it’s a hard choice, because so few people are actually prepared for all the variables of working without a job.

I’ve read quite a lot of books and articles about the necessary “characteristics” of people who are suitable for running their own businesses. Much of it has merit as guidelines for identifying your strengths and weaknesses in business. However, I’ve found in my many years of experience researching and counseling, that necessity is truly the mother of invention (or motivation), and the idea that you “must” have certain entrepreneurial abilities to succeed is greatly exaggerated. Most people who have gone into their own businesses have few of the “standard” entrepreneurial attributes, at least in the beginning. The biggest determinant is your willingness to do whatever is necessary to earn a living. If that means making up your own job and making it work, that’s what you’ll do.

You also get to define “success” as being able to make a living or make extra cash or whatever else you decide to call it. You’re not stuck with “success” being defined as becoming wealthy. After all, few people do become wealthy running their own businesses. They may make a comfortable living and move into middle-class neighborhoods. But that’s pretty successful.

There are numberless ideas and opportunities awaiting the unemployed who want to take charge of their own work lives through self-employment. If you are among those people, take the chance, experiment, try it out. Educate yourself so you avoid the many scams. Get creative and think of what you might do that requires little or no money to start.

(If you’re thinking in more traditional terms, however, such as investing your own money that you can’t afford to lose, getting loans, starting a franchise or going into a partnership with some other person’s money, you actually do need to be better prepared. And you need to do all the traditional “stuff” like extensive research, analyses and planning.)

Stay tuned to this website. I’m going to be publishing articles and links to resources for more information for starting up your own solo or micro business. Remember, though, I publish more articles in the main section of this site (http://superperformance.com) than I do on this blog. So look for the daily content uploads there.

Lately, I’ve been publishing more articles relevant to small business. Especially one-person operations and micro-businesses. I’ve been focusing more on small business because it’s one of the most available career transitions for the unemployed and underemployed. As fewer and fewer acceptable jobs are available, large numbers of the formerly employed are turning to [...]

Great video on critical thinking

The YouTube video below is an excellent presentation of the purpose, value and process of critical thinking. No amount of training or education can take the place of the ability to evaluate circumstances, analyze problems and think through solutions. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to get ahead in your company, building a team to complete a project or training your sole employee for your small business: you need to know how to think critically and teach your employees to do the same. Here’s a 5 minute introduction.

The YouTube video below is an excellent presentation of the purpose, value and process of critical thinking. No amount of training or education can take the place of the ability to evaluate circumstances, analyze problems and think through solutions. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to get ahead in your company, building a [...]

Just a reminder (service)

Do you use some reminder service like rememberthemilk.com? There are several excellent ones, and if you don’t use Firefox, they’ll do a good job for you.

However, I’ve just discovered an add-on for Firefox that does the job of keeping your to-dos and reminders/alarms constantly available on your browser. No calendar program needed. Very handy. It’s called ReminderFox and you can find it https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1191/. You can receive alarms in your browser and by email. You can even create “quick alarms” that remind you to do something a short time later, such as “it’s 4:00 p.m. — call your manager about the report.”

It’s set by default to reside in the right corner of the status bar at the bottom of the browser window. Just click on it and a fairly sophisticated reminder and to-do program window pops open. It’s very easy and intuitive, but there’s lots of user info and training available on the developer’s Firefox page (here). And it is free, but the developers would be most grateful for a small donation.

Do you use some reminder service like rememberthemilk.com? There are several excellent ones, and if you don’t use Firefox, they’ll do a good job for you.
However, I’ve just discovered an add-on for Firefox that does the job of keeping your to-dos and reminders/alarms constantly available on your browser. No calendar program [...]

Musketeers, Baby Steps and Employee Motivation

Over the last week, I’ve published some guest articles I’d like to bring to your attention, out of the daily additions I do to the Superperformance.com site:

In “Winning at Working: The Musketeer Approach,” you learn why it is necessary to build a support network of trusted colleagues to get you through the hard times at work.  This is a different consideration from a career-building network, although the networks may overlap.  And how important it is for all in the group to “be there” for one another.  It’s not enough to acquire casual friends in the workplace.  You need folks who can really back you up.

“Behold — The Mighty Baby Step!” is a reminder of how powerful you become when you step out of “overwhelm” by breaking down big jobs into easier-to-handle pieces (or smaller chunks of time) and then persisting at the small stuff until it’s done.

“Motivating Employees: You’re Kidding, Right” is one coach’s response to the idea of employee motivation.  Much depends upon what you mean by “motivating,” but more often than not, when management wants motivation, they mean a system or set of practical techniques that will apply in general.  The consideration of individual differences in motivation makes generalizations very difficult.  While there are some “universal” motivators, it is challenging to make practical tools and methods from them that apply to any particular workplace.  The best that psychologists,  coaches and consultants can really do is teach the principles of motivation and self-motivation, give some typical examples, and let folks try to figure out for themselves what applies to each individual worker.  If it were easy to break down motivations into techniques, I’d be making millions using “motivation” to get customers to buy whatever I wanted to market.

Over the last week, I’ve published some guest articles I’d like to bring to your attention, out of the daily additions I do to the Superperformance.com site:
In “Winning at Working: The Musketeer Approach,” you learn why it is necessary to build a support network of trusted colleagues to get you through the hard times at [...]