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Category: Careers

take charge of your career, before someone else does

Building rapport at the beginning of a dialog improves outcomes
Cordial Political Dialog in the Office

Cordial Political Dialog in the Office

If you want to get a team riled up, drop a political comment into a group conversation and hold on.  Politics are more of a third rail at work than when we gather at the Thanksgiving dinner table.  I can say with confidence that political conversations frequently do not end well.  Oh sure, the casual banter starts off with reasonable engagement, but it quickly devolves into rhetoric as the verbal combatants stop listening and prepare to hurl volleys of poorly…

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Photo Credit: "SMART Goals" (CC BY 2.0) by photocamdavis
Goals are not a Panacea for Achievement

Goals are not a Panacea for Achievement

I have been a strong advocate of S.M.A.R.T. goals.  This method has significant appeal for annual bonus planning and assessing performance achievement.  However, being goal driven in all aspects of your life can be detrimental. What I have begun to understand is that goals always leave me feeling like I am chasing a long-sought reward that never seems to be within my reach.  By moving the objective as soon as I get meaningfully close, I convince myself that striving for…

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What was I thinking?
Fear, Insecurity and the Scarcity Mindset

Fear, Insecurity and the Scarcity Mindset

I feel as if there is a significant volume of works adoring, in a sense, and vilifying the scarcity mentality in our culture. I was fist exposed to these concepts by Brené Brown, and I was challenged by her first TED talk. Personally, I was inspired and motivated for the longest time by the “greed is good” mantra. I felt the constant longing for more was a staircase that drove us to higher levels of personal and professional development. Life…

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Cultural Artifacts of an organization are the most visible elements
The Cultural Artifacts of an Office

The Cultural Artifacts of an Office

The building blocks of an organization’s culture consist of the shared artifacts, beliefs, values, and assumptions (Heskett, 2012, p. 34).  Corporate culture is often considered one of the strongest assets in a firm and may be regarded as the way the company conducts its business (Heskett, 2012, pp. 34-36).  Culture has a measurable impact on performance, and for this reason, leaders seek to build healthy cultures that align with their underlying missions. How an office culture consciously and unconsciously uses artifacts…

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