work/life fusion: career stories

You walk to the train station avoiding the puddles. Your umbrella keeps you dry for the moment. The same umbrella will soon make you and the person beside you wet on the busy train.

“Remind me again why I’m doing this?” you say out loud. Thankfully, no-one is close enough to hear you.

Your job is OK. It’s a good company. Good people. You know what you’re doing.

“So what’s the problem?” you say to yourself. Still out loud but a little more quietly this time.

[Rain Tracks - see more at Saundra's Flickr Photostream here]

The more you think about it (and you have thought about it a lot lately) you don’t hate your job. You just aren't one of those people who enjoy what they do.

You don’t envy the people who seem happy at work.

“They should be praised for proving it’s possible.” you think to yourself. Not speaking out loud this time.

“It’s up to me to figure out what’s missing. To understand what I want. Not just from my job but for the rest of my career too.” you quietly resolve to yourself.

You splash into the station and continue to think as you roll up your umbrella.

Your umbrella rolls up in a smooth, practised motion that reflects the many times you have done it before. It's a familiar, satisfying feeling.

“That’s the feeling I want from my job!” you speak out loud again. Louder this time.

The ticket collector hears you.

She smiles and you know that she wants the same feeling too.

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A bit of an experimental post today. I hope you like it!

All the best for now,

Paul

Monday, 18 May 2009

On Preparation & Your Career

My good friend Saundra has been supplying images on work/life fusion for a little while now.

Usually, I write a blog post then we choose an image together. This time around Saundra's image came before the post.

I always found Saundra's work inspiring, I suppose today is proof! :)

[Lone Surfer - see more at Saundra's Flickr Photostream here]

What do you see when you look at this picture?

I looked at the surfer first. Is he plucking up the courage to jump in or is he looking on the sea after a good day at the office?

Then I looked at the sea. There are waves but on the whole the sea looks pretty calm. And that's when the Saundra-inspired-light-bulb appeared above my head...

A surfer can't make the waves. He just has to prepare and be there at the beach when the conditions are right. Hours of practice learning to ride, reading the weather, finding the best beaches and the best breaks; these are the things that make a surfer ready for the day he's at the beach and the waves are there for him.

The parallels with our careers are endless. Career management can only prepare us for the right conditions, the right set of circumstances, the right opportunities.

Sometimes, even when you have done everything right, you will still have to wait.

But the time will come when you have done everything right and the conditions are perfect too. That's when the surfer gets the waves he wants. That's when you get the break in your career you have worked so hard for.

So that's what I saw in this picture. Do you see something different?

All the best for now,

Paul

Monday, 6 April 2009

Self-leadership: A personal career story

Why your judgement of others doesn't matter. Why your judgement of yourself does.

In the exploration of career matters, are the above two sentences a breakthrough? Probably not. But for people everywhere - at any stage in their career - the two sentences above can describe a personal breakthrough moment that changes their future forever.

[Dolphin Emerging, "It's a bit out of focus but you can see him/her none the less. 3 of the swam right up next to the boat for several minutes but it was hard to predict when they would surface. Not having my SLR with me, I couldn't shoot as fast as I needed to catch them. I did get a few second on video though. I guess that doesn't help you guys. :-)" Saundra's own words]

I spent most of my career in an industry that judged others. We were taught that our judgement of other people had the most value (value to our clients, to our colleagues, to ourselves).

I learnt to analyse, assess and pick out personal & professional qualities in other people and I learnt that it was an important, essential work & life skill.

The growing difficulty for me was the raw material for our weights and measures wasn't steel or diamonds or bananas, it was people. Real people with careers, families, hopes and independent potential all of their own.

After a while, judging others became something that no longer felt right for me and so I explored moving my career in new directions. After a great deal of searching (which is another story) I now work in a profession where I am no longer called upon to judge other people for my clients. I am called upon to help other people refine their judgement of themselves. Something I am much happier doing.

Ordinarily, I would have found a case study to illustrate the point about judgement and self-leadership but I realised (reluctantly at first) that my own experience was the best example I knew. This is the first time I have 'shared story' (as my expert friend Rosa might say) on work/life fusion, a blog that was never intended to be about me.

In writing the above, I now realise that it was a mistake to have my own career experiences missing from this blog in that way. I was asking you (my dear reader) to share your experiences before doing the same myself!

Hopefully, the above puts that particular error behind me and offers apology at the same time. The above story is my personal story of self-leadership and it has taken almost all of my career to date to make this distinction for myself.

The distinction that the judgement we make on ourselves is the one that carries the most weight and the most potential in our careers.

If we learn more about this judgement - and keep improving our conclusions - we really do stand a chance of finding work with meaning, satisfaction, fulfilment and personal success!

I've done my bit for now, it's over to you! :)

Paul

Wednesday, 18 March 2009

What career story do you want to read right now?

If there is a story or question related to your career and you would like to read it, find it or ask it right now, leave a comment and we can research it together.

This question was first posted here but 'right now' is whenever you are reading it. It means right now. If you have only just found this question - it doesn't matter if it is today, tomorrow or next year - you can respond right now and start a completely new career research project.

✪ Just to recap, the idea is that you supply the career story or career question and we research it together on this blog. If there are great answers or articles out there already, we'll post them here. If the answers need researching, we can post our results here too ✪

[The work/life fusion wordle: make your own wordle from a favourite blog or RSS feed at www.wordle.net]

Since Monday's post, I have had a few responses via email but have decided that the blog is the better medium for our career research. Normal posting will carry on in the meantime but once we settle on our first story (or question) we can get our first research task started.

Subjects for our research may take a little time coming but that is all part of the process. The main thing is that when the research starts, we can start making progress towards a result!

Until the research begins...

All the best for now,

Paul

Monday, 16 March 2009

What career story do you want to read right now?

What questions would it answer?

If it is out there already, where is it?

If it is not yet out there, can we create it?

[The work/life fusion tag cloud: How will it look in the future?]

Career Research has been a recent topic here - and because research demands action not just words - the best idea seemed to turn this question into a career research project and post the findings on this blog.

This is an opportunity to research the career topics and questions that you think are important and these can be the objectives of our research:

➊ If answers are already out there, we can post details or links to them here [making it easier for others to find them too]

➋ If the stories we want to read are missing, we can post the findings of our research on this blog [building new stories & insights together]

So, if you have a career question that you haven't found a good enough answer to yet, let's research it together and see what we can find! I will post questions & answers on this blog as we go. Together we'll make sure that we all benefit from the result!

✪ Send stories [questions to research, articles, links, etc.] via the comment feed for this post: Comments

✪ Email them to worklifefusion[at]googlemail[dot]com

✪ Trackback to this post here: Links to this post

All the best for now!

Paul

Friday, 13 March 2009

Comic Relief - Red Nose Day 2009

It's Red Nose Day here in the UK. You all know the drill by now but here are some links if you are still wondering what it's all about:

www.rednoseday.com

www.comicrelief.com

www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday

Ricky Gervais Comic Relief 2007 Red Nose Day (a personal favourite)

The motto for today is, "Do something funny for money!" If the following career anecdote makes you laugh, help the two of us meet this Comic Relief request and donate a pound to this excellent cause!

"Jonathan, worked in a team who were all very unhappy. Things hadn't gone well for the whole team for a while. Their much respected boss had recently left. Gone with him were his beliefs in hard work, personal responsibility and mutual respect.

The boss who took his place had his own ideas. Hard work was one of them but personal responsibility and mutual respect were replaced by suspicion and self-interest (and wheedling and favouritism and political subterfuge).

This change of team leadership coincided with the company hitting hard times. Redundancies had begun and Jonathan and his team were all under threat as the next round of cuts approached. To boost morale, the new boss collected Jonathan and the team together to give them a pep talk. The whole team were of the same mind before the meeting: afraid, de-motivated, disgruntled, looking for answers. You could cut the solidarity in the air with a knife!

At the end of the pep talk (which included motivational management messages to the team including, "Team well-being is not my responsibility!") the new boss asked for a show of hands to the question, "Is anyone still unhappy about this situation?"

If they were being honest, everyone's hand would have been in the air. As it was, only Jonathan's hand went up."

Maybe you had to be there for the full comic effect. Maybe you had to see with your own eyes, a management performance that Ricky Gervais would have been proud to have written. Maybe you had to see Jonathan blush. Or maybe you need to know that Jonathan's honesty, bravery, selflessness and professionalism have helped his career blossom ever since.

Maybe you just won't think this telling of the story is funny but, even if you don't laugh, see if you can still find it in your heart/wallet/purse to donate that pound, euro or dollar to Comic Relief.

Have a great weekend wherever you are!

All my best,

Paul

Monday, 9 February 2009

James's story - Talking Careers with your Boss

“It was a risk but I decided to talk with my boss about where my career was going.”

James tells the story of his most recent career move that began - maybe a little unconventionally - with an approach to his boss this time last year.

“We had a really open conversation and agreed that I could look at career opportunities outside the company while exploring internal possibilities at the same time. As you can imagine, there was to be no effect on my performance in the meantime [cheeky smile].”

James continues, “I did the usual rounds of meetings and chats with recruiters and a few opportunities started to come my way. One conversation [with a potential employer] continued over several months. There were plenty of interviews and meetings but - in the end - this was the conversation that turned into my new job!”

[Sometimes you just have to let talent speak for itself]

So far so good for James but how was he helped by having the career conversation up front with his employer first?

James answers, “It’s funny because there is no way I would have got this job if my boss and I had not made our agreement in the first place. I could never have kept such a long process hidden from view. Something would have given under the strain.”

To sum up James says, “I moved my career on with support from my employer and it helped them too because I could stick around to hire and train my replacement. I can now look forward with absolutely no hang-ups about the past and nothing but goodwill behind me. Yes, it did feel like I was taking a risk approaching my boss at the outset but now, I am really glad that I did!”

***Career Health Warning***

James approached his boss about his career future and both sides did benefit from this progressive approach. Talking to your boss in this way is only something you should do if you are absolutely prepared for every eventuality [including the potential for your boss to take offence and dismiss you on the spot!].

A situation like this should be handled with extreme care and any action you take should be based on the history & health of your relationship with your employer [ahead of any external or 'expert' recommendation]. If you are in any way unsure, explore your doubts before doing anything that can not be undone!

***End of Career Health Warning***

In your opinion, is James’s situation unusual or is it something that is becoming more commonplace? Was James thoughtful, brave or even reckless in his actions? Here is some additional material that might help you decide:

KEEP Consulting: The value of career conversations between employers and employees

The value of career conversations - Update!

Best Regards

Paul

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

All our career case studies (so far...)

We're always looking for new work/career related stories on this blog. If you have thought about sending something in, here are all of our previous case studies to show how useful a personal example can be. You might have read a few of them before but they have never appeared in something so innovative and convenient a list until now:

Norris's story: Redundancy/Layoff in a Team

Prem's story: Short & Long-term career planning

Boulos's story: Job satisfaction

Oliver's story: Internal promotion

Laura's story: Career Inspiration

Gray's story - Career Choice from Within

Lise's story - Returning to Work

Ash's story - Career Decision Making

Ash's story - Career Decision Success!

Naida's story - Adapting to Change

Alex's story - Redundancy/Layoff with a Positive O...

Update on Alex - Outplacement Success