Career Conversation-Why am I doing This?

Chances are you’ve asked yourself this question when the going got rough at work. What were you thinking!? Really. What were you thinking when you were excited about this job? Spend a few minutes recalling what is appealing to you.  List those things that are  still present.  Do you still have the opportunities to learnContinue reading “Career Conversation-Why am I doing This?”

Career Conversations: 7 Steps – Anger to Action

Situation: Your co-worker is in very upset after a heated conversation with his boss.  He is very angry and calling the boss all sorts of names and using words like, “crazy,” stupid,” idiotic.”  What do you do? a. Roll your eyes, agree and add another ‘name’ to the list. b. Walk away. You’ve heard thisContinue reading “Career Conversations: 7 Steps – Anger to Action”

Your Personal Career BoD

Should I move to take the next step in my career? Is now the time for me to launch my own business? Why should I invest in a Ph.D? A personal Board of Directors (BoD) can facilitate your career decisions. Many of us have our friends, relatives, former teachers, or mentors  that we go toContinue reading “Your Personal Career BoD”

Courageous Career Conversation

Having a tough time at work? Do you see yourself in any of these scenarios: You are having more disagreements with your boss and or team mates. You aren’t getting the assignments or work that you want; You see others getting more opportunities. You’ve ‘paid your dues’ and now just want to do your job.Continue reading “Courageous Career Conversation”

Bridges to Career Conversations

Career conversation can happen anytime and be about so much more than how to get a promotion. But I often hear people say they can’t initiate them without hitting a wall. If your  manager doesn’t seem warm to the conversation… What’s your history with similar conversations? Is it always about more money or a promotion?Continue reading “Bridges to Career Conversations”

Coasting Through Your Career?

Do you have more days at work when you are bored than engaged?  Are you counting the days until the next big thing will be over?  What have you done to jump-start your career lately? Check your career map. Oh, you don’t have one?  What happened to that plan you drafted, the professional development planContinue reading “Coasting Through Your Career?”

5T Approach for Career Conversations

In my March blog, I gave you 9 tips for starting career conversations.  Some of the most important career enhancing conversations are about getting meaningful feedback – observations of the impact of what you’re doing both successfully and things that could be done better. Do others share the same opinion of you and your workContinue reading “5T Approach for Career Conversations”

Friends – What are you expecting?

I’ve been hearing a theme from people and reading the advice columns of how often we are disappointed with our friends. It sounds like this: “I always do [fill in the blank] for her, but she never reciprocates.”  “I was there for him, but now he’s too busy to help me.” Whether its remembering birthdays,Continue reading “Friends – What are you expecting?”

Career Management in 10 minutes or less

You can forge the direction of your career with short, strategic conversations. We often only think about our careers once a year as a new year resolution or a performance review.  Yet we know that frequent feedback, sharing information and asking for help are the keys to growing and developing our careers. If you keepContinue reading “Career Management in 10 minutes or less”

What’s Your Professional Development Strategy?

The most frequent responses I get to this question is #1 Strategy: keep getting a paycheck and hope to get promoted;#2 Strategy for Free Agents: Keep current contract(s) or get new clients. I consider these non-strategies. Too many people approach learning something work-related as a task they have to do to keep their jobs orContinue reading “What’s Your Professional Development Strategy?”