Tag Archives: Career

5 Steps to Build a Strong & Effective Habit

Building a strong habit that brings us the results we want is not that hard once we make up our minds that a change in our behavior is needed. But how do we do it? In his brand new book, The Coaching Habit, author Michael Bungay Stanier includes a chapter on how to teach yourself a new habit

I was intrigued, and Stanier’s ideas got me thinking about some of the best practices I recommend to leaders in today’s rapidly changing and challenging workplace. Here they are:

  1. Be honest with yourself – what is the “why” you are committing to this new behavior, especially when the success of this new habit will positively affect someone you care about.
  2. Identify what will be the specific “clue” or situation that will prompt your new behavior.
  3. Make your new behavior very simple and very short – no longer than 60 seconds to complete.
  4. Repeat the new behavior over and over and over until it becomes “second nature”.
  5. Acknowledge your successes everyday even when they might not have been “perfect”.

What would you add to this list? What works well for you? What can get in the way of your good intentions and how do you deal with those saboteurs? Let me know your ideas!

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Start with Why

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek, 2009.

Simon Sinek has captured a powerful concept that can take our leadership influence to an amazing, higher level. He challenges us to look deeply into the “Why” of our work first before ever addressing the “How” or “What” of what we do. He makes us think – and it all makes sense. So if we want to engage and inspire others in any way, we need to start with the “Why”. Try it and let me know how it’s working for you!
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Rise of the Robots

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future, Martin Ford, 2015.

This is an eye-opening book that is the recent winner of the Business Book of the Year 2015. It’s hard to put down for any of us working in the areas of career transition, leadership and economic growth.

Ford is an author and founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm committed to helping us see the tsunami of a “perfect storm” of accelerated technology, long-term unemployment and income disparity. He begins by taking us back in history to WWII and the impact automation technology had on individual employees – short-term losses with long-term benefits.

But it is very different now. Technology is accelerating so fast that humans have already been left behind. The surge in “information technology” or artificial intelligence in the form of robots, computers, iPhones, etc. is rapidly replacing highly skilled workers in all industries. Ford speaks directly to the impact of this on our college graduates and gives us a disturbing prediction on the future of their careers. Pick up the book and let me know what you think.

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You Have a Right to a Seat at the Table

As a woman, how do you get to a position of leadership? A position of influence? A position to make a difference? It’s by having self-confidence. It’s the confidence to know that you can do it – that you are a strong and capable woman. It’s by taking that seat at the table right along with your male colleagues

As Sheryl Sandberg writes in her wonderful book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, 2013, we as women unconsciously but regularly hold ourselves back from sitting at the table.

As women, we can learn a lot from men about how to embrace our own successes. For example, research shows that when men are asked about how they achieved their various successes, they give credit to themselves – to their own innate qualities, skills and yes, their potential. It’s not in an egotistical way (no one likes that) but men don’t usually minimize or excuse their abilities but rather give themselves credit where credit is due.

Now, when a woman is asked about her success, what does she say? You will hear them (or even yourself) attribute their success to external factors like “I couldn’t have done it without other people’s help” or “I had a good mentor” or the worse for self-confidence . . . “I just got lucky”.

We constantly underestimate ourselves! Does that sound familiar? And the research verifies what we as women have suspected for a long time . . . we judge our performance worse than it actually is (men judge themselves slightly better) and when we are in front of other people, we are even more critical.

Changing this kind of self-talk is long overdue – especially as we raising our talented young daughters. We truly need the best of everyone – men and women of all ages – and, yes, ourselves as well!

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TEDTalk. “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” Sheryl Sandberg, 2010.

I’ve watched this first TEDTalk by Sheryl Sandberg several times and always enjoy learning something new. Sandberg is such an inspiration because she is talking about what many of us professional women have been experiencing for years – external gender cultural barriers and internal self-imposed barriers that continually impact us – often very subtly – as we move through our professional careers.

As COO of Facebook and past Google executive, Sandberg speaks from a wealth of experience both personally and professionally on these issues. She reminds us that no one ever got to a leadership position by sitting on the sidelines – and women often do.

So how do we shift these barriers? In this TED Talk, Sandberg gives us three powerful pieces of advice to get started. First, we must always “sit at the table”. Second, we need to make our partners our “full partners” at home and at work. Third, we need to be careful to not “leave before we leave”. Want to know more? Check out Sandberg’s TedTalk – it already has 5.952,700 views!

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