photo credit: the_progressive

Over at WebWorkerDaily, there’s a great article called Teach an Old Dog New Tricks: How to Break Bad Work Habits. Karen Leland admits that impatience is her bad habit, and it affects her work:

In terms of how it’s affected my productivity at work, I’m embarrassed to say that my impatience has led to countless instances of emails sent in a hurry, which only needed to be retracted or clarified latter; decisions made on quick assumptions — that turned out to be wrong — and occasional crankiness with those around me who are not moving fast enough.

She goes on to list steps to break bad habits, including naming the habit and setting up alternate actions to get around the habitual behavior.

How have you overcome bad habits at work?

photo credit: Sarah G…

Routine can be a helpful mechanism for getting repeating tasks done on a regular basis, but it can also trick you into blind cooperation with the past. Do all of your repeating tasks still matter? Are there others you’re doing only sporadically that could be scheduled for better reliability and efficiency? Should you be delegating some of those tasks, if you can?

Why not use a few moments this morning to review your to do list, your calendar, and your mental checklist of habits for anything that might need some freshening up. I just read through mine and noticed that I don’t have a time scheduled regularly to review our client list and projects and make sure we’re not overlooking anything we should be doing. I’m going to go schedule that now.

In other words, perhaps: don’t let the everyday craziness get in the way of a stable routine, but on the other hand, don’t let routine get in the way of your creativity.

Happy Monday!

photo credit: MikeSchinkel

So much attention is paid in the business world to starting things. We value entrepreneurs as celebrities. We praise people who are innovative and think up the next big idea.

But rarely do we congratulate someone on finishing something. We hardly ever pat someone on the back when they prudently decide it’s time to move on, that the business model no longer works or that they need to break up with a client.

Maybe it’s because usually, things end badly. Most of the time, when we end any relationship (business or personal), we’re not sure quite how to do it, so things go awry, people get angry, and we hastily halt everything in order to move on quickly.

It’s like all of our professional relationships can be summed up in Berger’s post-it note to Carrie.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be transitioning out of the world of entrepreneurship, consulting and freelancing, at least on a full-time basis. I’ll be transitioning into a world of offices, 9-to-5 schedules, and corporate hierarchy. It’s a big transition in and of itself, but it’s also one that’s been full of small details that are equally important.

There are client projects that I must finish in a timely and efficient manner. There are duties that need to be described and handed over. There are roles and responsibilities that must be abdicated and then passed on. As excited as I am about what’s next, I’ve still got to make sure everything is still taken care of.

When I was graduating high school, a mentor told me to make sure I finished well. That advice has stayed with me, and every time I end something, those words ring true. No matter what we’re ending, we’ve got to do it well.

How do you end things? Do you rush through them in order to move on, or do you double-check to make sure everything is happening in a timely and professional manner?

photo credit: Jasmic

Looks like Apple is the latest company that has chosen to end its affiliation with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the Chamber’s stance opposing legislation aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions and other factors in climate change. On the one hand, the Chamber’s position makes a certain kind of sense: as an organization whose primary mission is to serve its member businesses, working to prevent oppose legislation that would be difficult and/or costly for members to effect seems as if it would be the default position. And yet, according to a post at Forbes.com:

That stance isn’t sitting well with some members of the chamber, one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Washington. In the last week of September, three major energy companies left the organization: PG&E (PCG), PNM Resources (PNMPRA) and Exelon (EXC). Two days later, Nike (NKE) resigned from its board. Other members, like Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and General Electric (GE), have complained about the chamber’s positions on the issue.

It’s an interesting day for ecology when large, influential companies are taking bold actions in support of it. Granted, a lot of the incentive for change still probably boils down to money, no matter which side you’re on, but it’s encouraging to see green issues winding up with some allies in their corner, whatever the reasons.

Updated to add: more on this story at Mother Jones.

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Regardless of what you think of football or Brett Favre, you’ve seen the same song and dance happen in different sectors. You’ve seen the CEO who hops from one large company to the next, even after his judgment and ingenuity have left him. You’ve seen the teacher who needs to retire instead of hang on one more year. You’ve seen the designer who no longer has a knack for creating compelling book covers.

But none of them can let go. Financial needs aside, some people can’t walk into the sunset peacefully, knowing when to call it quits and to move on.

I’m sure there’s a little bit of Brett Favre in most of us. Something is telling us to move on, but we just can’t do it.

I’m reminded of a stellar article written by Dr. Jeff Cornwall, Director for the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University. He challenges the entrepreneur (and the non-entrepreneur, too) to not “become the noun of what you do for a living.”

He continues:

One of the risks of using nouns to describe what we do in our work is that it can reinforce the tendency we all have to get carried away with our work. I loved starting a growing businesses (most of the time, at least). I love teaching and writing. It is indeed a blessing to love what one does for a living and enjoy the hard work that goes along with it. But, with every virtue there is a vice looming in the background. Although hard work is a good thing, it can be taken to excess and become a vice if it keeps us from all the other things we should be doing with our lives.

Go read the rest of the article and come back here and tell us how you resist becoming the noun of what you do for a living. How do you keep things in check and know when it’s time to exit gracefully?

photo credit: greg westfall.

According to the results of a July 2009 McKinsey Quarterly survey, many of us have more responsibilities (without a corresponding increase in title or pay) and a good deal more stress since the economic downturn began. In an article called Leaders in the crisis, Kevin Lane and Monica McGurk summarize the survey’s findings:

Most respondents are working more hours since the crisis began, and nearly 40 percent have more responsibilities without the benefit of a new title. But although stress levels have increased, most executives say they can cope.

There’s a lot more great content in the article, particularly dealing with motivating employees who are overwhelmed and overworked, and keeping the company staff aligned. Definitely be sure to read the whole thing, particularly if you manage people and want some tips on motivating them through these conditions.

But it leads us to wonder: what are you doing personally to cope with your stress? Even if your techniques aren’t completely healthy, we’re curious. And especially if you have healthy techniques we haven’t listed in the poll, be sure to share them in the comments.

photo credit: tm_lv

My dad worked 38 years with the same employer. I know there were times he thought about going elsewhere, but since he didn’t have a college degree, he always felt limited by what he thought wouldn’t be available to him.

I, on the other hand, have held a lot of jobs, and most of them were for less than a full year. Some were even 6 months or less. (A few have even been 3 or 4 weeks, but those were generally contracts or really bad fits.) In the earlier years of my professional life, my dad regarded my “job-hopping” with some anxiety and counseled me to stick it out longer with each employer. After a while, though, he began to recognize that I was doing good work and not leaving my employers in a lurch,  that I had a different role in most of these companies than the one he had with his, and that I was more comfortable with change than most people seem to be.

I bring this up to ask this question: do you know what your role is at your workplace? Are you a long-term fit, or are you there to fulfill a more short-term mission?

It’s an important question to ask yourself occasionally, as it may change from time to time. Company cultures do evolve as their leadership and the markets they serve evolve. Subtle changes in management two or three levels up can have ripple effects on your surroundings. And what might have started out seeming like a perfect long-term fit can, over time, become ill-suited to your goals and ideals.

In much of the marketplace, moving from job to job after a year or more is rarely considered suspect anymore. Under a year in each job, though, and you’re at risk of being labeled a “job-hopper.” If you don’t think that’s a weird bias for corporate America to have, ask yourself this: do we have even a quasi-derogative term in corporate parlance for someone who stays in an ill-fitting work environment far longer than they should? Why not?

It’s certainly true that hiring employees can be an expensive process, and training them even more costly. Some estimates put the cost at 1.5x to 3x the cost of the employee’s salary. So when employees leave after only a short tenure, it can adversely affect a company’s bottom line. But employees who make themselves too comfortable after years of service, consider themselves too senior to downsize, and become locked into an outdated view of “the way things are done” come with a cost as well. (It’s a cost that’s more difficult to quantify, and more difficult to find studies about, but the discussion is out there.)

Recently, I’ve had a series of phone interviews as a job candidate. I hadn’t been pursuing a new job (I’d already started a company of my own doing web marketing strategy and services) but I was gladly entertaining the conversations because it’s a company I really respect and, truly, you just never know. But I was struck by the fact that every interviewer asked me about why I had a history of “job hopping.”

As I explained to the folks I was interviewing with, my role in most of my previous jobs was, whether explicitly or implicitly, that of a change agent. And a change agent, by nature, doesn’t generally hold a long-term role inside a company. And in most cases, by the time I left each company, even after some of the shortest tenures, I felt that I had achieved what I was there to do. (By the way, as a side interviewing tip: the tie-in with the job I was interviewing for was that it was a consultant position, and my frequent role as change agent makes pretty good sense in that context. I wasn’t lying or rationalizing at all, but having a way to align your story with the story of the job you’re interviewing for really helps overcome anti-job-hopper biases.)

Could I have articulated at the outset of each of those jobs what I was there to do? Probably not. But that doesn’t change the fact that those companies and I each met at times when we needed each other. And I have, as a result, developed a skill for sizing up a company’s situation and helping it improve.

We each have a purpose in our professional lives, and our roles at work should reflect that, even if it becomes inconvenient to explain to future employers. As Penelope Trunk pointed out when she wrote about job hopping a few years ago:

A resume is not a laundry list of job and duties. It’s a document about a story. Your resume needs to show the story of a person who contributes in large ways wherever you go.

No one chooses at the outset to take on a role as a mindless cog in a machine, yet some of the compromises we are asked to make in the name of seniority require selectively ignoring parts of our life goals or ideals. We all owe it to ourselves to perform periodic checks of how well our roles suit us, and answer ourselves honestly.

What are your thoughts on knowing your role within your company? Thoughts on job-hopping or on seniority? Leave them in the comments.

photo credit: rickilevy69

I’m an unrepentant Bear Grylls fan. His show on Discovery Channel, “Man vs. Wild,” always inspires and encourages me. Most of us will never encounter the challenges and outright risks and dangers Grylls does, but this weekend’s show got me thinking about how we may not be so far apart after all. He used the phrase, “a proper wilderness,” and that feels like a great metaphor for so many people striking out to find their new best careers and goals.

Grylls served three years with a special forces unit of the British army. One can really only officially be on active duty in the army for so many years before one has to start thinking about other things; particular if one has broken one’s back in three places during service! But what if what you do, what you love, what you were meant to pursue and prove and teach, is the very thing you feel required to depart?

Today’s economy and the dramatic shifts in the work place have required many of us to take a step back and start thinking about how to answer this question. If you find yourself required to make a change, don’t be too hasty to assume that all of what you loved about what you used to do is now out of reach. Spend some time in self-analysis, identifying not only your hard skills but your favorite pursuits and activities. Think not only about yourself as an individual, but about your skills on a team, and within an organization.

Grylls left the special forces, and one might think he would never skin a rattlesnake barehanded and eat it raw for a living again; yet here he is, still doing what he does better than anyone, and doing that in which he finds the most personal and professional satisfaction.  (He earns a nice paycheck as well.  Coincidence?  Probably not!)

Give yourself a taste of something new and off-the-charts innovative this week, but bring your favorite existing skills. You might just find yourself rethinking what is and is not possible for your own next adventure.

It’s not often that I do a double-take when I’m shopping for routine household goods, but last week I was actually on my tiptoes with excitement over a new version of an old product. What had me so enthusiastic? If you can even believe it, it was plastic bags.

Having a small child in the home, we seem to use a lot of sandwich and snack bags these days. Nothing is quite as convenient for Cheerios, cheddar bunnies, carrot sticks, graham crackers, or even a handful of wipes as a Ziploc bag, and we go through plenty of these plastic disposables every month. I’ve been less than thrilled with using even this small amount of plastic, but it never occurred to me that the bags would or could become more environmentally friendly.

Enter my show-stopping product: The new eco-friendly Ziploc evolve sandwich and storage bags are made from a new resin that uses 25% less plastic than their regular bags, are manufactured using approximately 50% renewable wind energy and packaged in a 100% recycled box, with at least 35% postconsumer content. I read these stats over and over again in disbelief. Ziploc is a brand of SC Johnson, a company that has been working rather diligently to transform their brands into “green” products; frankly, until the evolve bags, I wasn’t really convinced they were serious. I suspected that most of their effort was re-marketing the same old thing with new words and label designs without actually making a change.

It’s difficult to deny the statistics behind the new product. Significantly less plastic, 100% recycled packaging, and what impressed me the most, clean renewable energy as a major power source in production. As a consumer, I truly appreciate the opportunity to put my money into a company that is making a positive change in how it brings products to market and in how that product makes an impact on our world through its lifecycle.

I’m going to keep trying to cut back on the bags and use more reusable plastic products; but SC Johnson has my gratitude for their new direction, and my support with a new loyalty to their brand when I do need some sandwich bags. I only hope they will retool their entire lineup to meet the same standards of this one product!

This may not be the product that gets your attention, but I’m sure something has. What companies have you made a conscience effort to support because they are willing to change? What are you willing to change in your work that will encourage new supporters for you?

photo credit: dan taylor

Jeff Stibel writes over at the Conversation Starter blog at HarvardBusiness.org about 7 Ways to Be Happier at Work. We’ve talked before about how to feel good about your work, but you can just about not cover this topic enough. One of my favorites on his list is this:

Do things differently. Part of the problem at work for many people is boredom. We are stuck in a rut where we come in and do the same thing over and over and over again. Get your enthusiasm back by doing things differently. Make every effort to learn, to grow, and to challenge yourself. Take on more responsibility or attempt something you never thought you were capable of doing. Even if your responsibilities don’t allow for much flexibility, try a different approach to your existing responsibilities.

I once managed someone who needed coaching to improve his work process, but he so resisted change that we decided to try making one very small change in his work process each week. Each Monday, we’d decide if the change from the previous week had become enough of a habit yet to try adding a new change, and most of the time it hadn’t. He was so entrenched in his old way of doing things that it was all but impossible for him to accept even the slightest variation.

That’s not an isolated example in much of the workforce. People in general are distressed by change, and they avoid it at nearly all costs. But when you resist change, not only do you miss out on the benefit Jeff Stibel mentions of breaking out of a rut, you also stand to miss out on new possibilities when the culture around you changes. If your reaction to change is to dig your heels in and cling to the old ways, you may be thought a hindrance to progress. As Scott Robinson writes at TechRepublic:

Culture change in corporations is often breathtakingly rapid because only the largest multinational corporations can get away with gradual change. Change is never easy, and it can be traumatic for some, especially when it’s rapid and broad in its scope. But a company streamlines its in-house culture to redesign the way it does business.

In other words, it’s often get with the program or get out of the way. Understandably, the greatest resistance to change usually comes from fear: fear of the unknown, of what will happen to our individual roles once the changes sweep over the land. And in this time of economic uncertainty, that fear can be strongly exacerbated by looking around and seeing friends and loved ones out of work. But by far the best way to ensure that you’re not a corporate casualty is to adapt as smoothly as possible. If you can’t visualize yourself as a full participant in the new corporate structure or new corporate culture, it may be difficult for others to visualize you there.

Our best bet, then, when we see change coming our way, is not to cling to the old ways, but to view the change as an opportunity to learn, grow, challenge ourselves, and yes, ultimately, be happier.