Career Education

August 29, 2023

Are You Headed for Promotion or a PIP this Performance Review Season?

Performance review season is the time to assess whether you’re on the path to promotion or facing a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). These outcomes usually stand on opposite ends of a spectrum, and here’s how you can frame your perspective on your upcoming review.

The Paradox of Success

Recognition and advancement come by taking care of the problems facing our managers. The reward for taking care of this problem is the opportunity to take on a greater problem.

How clean are your windows?

I have been working in my basement office for about five months. My desk is situated so I may look through the full-length sliding door to the creek that gurgles behind our complex. Today I decided I would clean the windows. What a difference that makes.

When thinking about what is next “What are the right questions?”

A client this week doubted the questions she was asking were helping her search for her next career. She like many people who are at a loss for an answer of “What’s next?” are drawn to thoughts of self-doubt.

Where does the Corporate Grinder fit in our society?

What do I mean by the “Corporate Grinder?” This is the person looking for a place to fit in, do their job, help their colleagues, and have it support the rest of their life. When thinking about their priorities, rarely is it a conversation about rising to the executive offices.

Who is in charge of productivity?

What is at the heart of productivity? It is the way for managers to evaluate performance and compare operations. We can say it relates to the volume produced divided by the cost of production.

Do we see ALL that is there to be seen?

Perspective in life can make all the difference. I have been enjoying my return to drawing. I am becoming bolder in selecting subjects. As you can see from the picture, I selected the corner of the room with a glass sliding door onto the deck and the adjacent mirrored wall.

Achievement is obtained with focus on Career Satisfaction

Memorial Day is coming. The transition date portending the end of the school year, summer vacation season begins, and we are in the middle of the business year. The focus at work is work.

How to know what is right for you?

Four years ago, I remember thinking about the offer in front of me as well as the list of tasks for my clients. At the heart of my pondering was a choice: To continue doing what I was doing for another 5-10 years or accept the offer to leave my job and the company with a bonus package.

Why is having a purpose important for a job to have meaning?

Have you had any friends or family members reflect upon their career and declare they are tired of what they are doing? They want what they do to mean something? They are done selling widgets, done with the routine of work?

Is Your Career Change a Response to a Symptom, Not the Cure?

Spring has arrived, sun is out, and I wanted to go for a hike. I invited my daughter and targeted the Glen Cliff trail up Mount Moosilauke in the NH White mountains. I have hiked this mount three times before and it would be my daughter’s first such summit.

What’s better than Lemonade?

“Let’s make some lemonade!” is the battle cry from the managers in conference rooms to their staffs when facing the unexpected or the challenge. It speaks to those situations that weren’t anticipated. Its transformational thinking. It may be the best compliment a person could get.

Would you rather be Happy or have Joy?

I have been watching cooking shows. One last night focused on air and fermentation. I learned the role fermentation plays in our food options. Without fermentation some foods would be less appealing and would not release their nutrients.

Do I love my job?

What is the true test of “Do I love my job?” If your company closed tomorrow, would you look for the same job in a different company? This could be an unfair question since Americans lack savings. Our futures are tightly tied into our current employment.

Stacks of comfort or chaos? How are you filling your space?

I look around my basement and I see islands of order and clutter. It is a multi-use space containing my office, lounge area, and storage. Oh, and my exercise bike has a temporary home here. Another element of which I don’t know if it is more clutter than order.

Boring Job Equals Boring Retirement

It’s been over a year since I last painted a picture. I bought new canvases this Fall thinking this would give me motivation. I maintained the space for my easel and paints in a prominent place in my living room so as to make it easy. However, I have not picked up a paint brush.

Is your Job work?

Has anyone ever suggested to you our lives are defined by our obstacles in life? Said another way, we live within our comfort zone emotionally, physically and mentally. Who we seek for conversation, where we travel, the hobbies we choose, aren’t these typically determined in this way?

Why Happily Ever After is Not so Happy

There are lessons that recur for me. I see them in others as well as myself. My particular scenario is the tension between doing and not doing. The question I catch myself asking is do I really have to work this hard? Am I working too hard, or not enough? Why can’t I be allowed to enjoy the spoils of my toil?

The Purpose of Happiness

Purpose. We have to have purpose it seems. I have worked all these years doing my job and now I want to do something that has meaning! Is it true that all that I have done is for nothing, meaningless? This has been spoken by more than one of my friends after the kids moved out or as they approached retirement.

Beware of Wishes!

What is the impact of wishes? I went cross country skiing for the first time in maybe four years this week. I pulled out my equipment and noted how the fabric on the collar of the boot was disintegrating. They felt a little tight initially until they warmed up and stretched to accommodate my foot.

If you find yourself in front of a window into your soul will you open it?

Gratitude Journals. My girl friend gave me one with the suggestion of using it. She said she has observed a pattern of negative leaning comments from me. I added the “leaning” because I am not fully buying the “negative” characterization.

Stock illustration of people leaving group

When did topics become so hard to discuss?

Why are personal things so hard to mention? Is this the topic for this blog? I don’t think so.

My monthly book club was discussing “We Can’t Talk About That At Work” by Mary-Frances Winters this past Tuesday. It was a timely topic for all attending as we have been feeling the intensity of so many conversations that a fatigue was setting in. The intensity was dulling our will to engage. Before 2020, how many major topics were present in a given year? How often did they overlap?

When 45 minutes is too far! A tactic for achieving your goals

Well I finally setup my bike on the indoor trainer. I brought it in after two years hanging in the carport. Knocked off the layers of dirt that settled on the frame and handlebars. I was surprised to find the ring for the front wheel so the bike frame would be on the level. The special rear wheel with the axle for the trainer accepted and held air. I found my bike shorts. Good, they are lycra and stretchable. My bike top seems to have shrunk, as it doesn’t extend below my stomach.

When is scheduling that after hour appointment important?

When has this happened to you? A client asks to meet at 6pm because the rest of the day is occupied with other meetings. The natural response is sure because we wish to accommodate and show we are flexible. We can buy almost anything with a click of a button and expect it to arrive in a day without additional shipping charges. If we don’t like it, then return it and be irritated there is a shipping or restocking fee. We are expecting companies and services to meet our needs and schedule. When is this right for us and right for our clients?

No pain no gain

At the end of our last session I asked my client about the wraps on her wrists. At first I thought she was wearing long sleeves with a thumb hole. Instead it was an ace bandage backed up with a velcroed-splint. I waited to hear about slipping on the ice or other such fall. What she said is the motion at her work has put a strain on the tendons in her lower arm and wrist. The discomfort has been building into sustain pain. The kind of pain that wakes her from her sleep.

When is Retirement a Job?

This is the time of year for reflection and speculation. Why at 64 do I choose to create a business? This is the age when retirement was to have begun. The opportunity to sleep as long as I like, go to the store for groceries in the middle of the day, and sit by the stream until I am ready to move on. Instead I have just completed logging over 100 hours in the last two weeks for purposes of accumulating capital to fund this growth period of my business.

Are we Interacting or Dominating?

This has been the year of BIG decisions. Our health, our politics, our social lives have been challenged this year presenting us with questions about each of these topics. Each of these topics was accompanied with a lot of information, a lot of opinions, and competing arguments with supporting evidence for their perspective. There always seemed to be two opposing answers being presented with heart felt support.

When is the right time to think about the next thing?

Retirement is talked about as a destination. “When I get there” or “When I am ready” then I will figure it out. It reminds me of my vacation planning. When my kids were in school, vacation was planned in sync with the school’s calendar. I didn’t start with an idea, we had dates. Most of the time that resulted with last minute planning and, mostly forgettable memories. There were some vacations which started as ideas that we fit into those windows. These were more memorable.

Nobody hears me

I was discussing the recent elections and the timing of the announcement. I spoke up about why I thought the announcement was premature and was shocked at the reaction my observation generated. What I hadn’t anticipated was the bees nest I had jostled. I was sharing my feelings about the event and it stimulated strong feelings from others. We continued talking about the “facts” and our feelings were what the real conversation was about.

Gear or Attitude – What is the key ingredient for success?

The desk clerk at the AMC Highland Center at Crawford Notch confirmed their service was predicting the snow fall would continue another three hours. Our decision was wait, hike or cancel. My predisposition is to go regardless and figure out the unexpected. In this case the stakes were greater than just me.

What are you going to do this winter?

Winter is coming. The question was asked what is my plan or perspective about this winter? This came up during the biweekly meeting that I have been attending for the last 30+ years. We have a name for this group, The Magnificent 7. It was formed after the core members attended a Men, Sex and Power weekend workshop. We attended all those years ago on the promise of finding out how to be the men we always wanted to be. Most of us were in our late 20’s or early 30’s. Wide-eyed with possibilities and full of bravado. We learned most guys have three dimensions which were described as the following architypes: Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry, Ghandi, and Curly of the Three Stooges.