#Leadership : 12 Apps to Help Ease Anxiety Struggling with Anxiety? These Apps Can Help you Get Things Under Control.

/in /by

Yes, there’s an app for that too. The 12 below help with stress management, sleep and more, easing anxiety and helping you live a healthier, happier life.

Free- Iphone with Gadgets

Pacifica: Track and rate your mood over time, learn muscle relaxation exercises and deep breathing techniques and set health goals for yourself. You can record your thoughts to develop positive thinking patterns and identify toxic ones. The app also helps users understand personal triggers.

Breathe2Relax: This app does exactly what it promises. Created by the National Center for Telehealth & Technology, it aids in diaphragmatic breathing that decreases the body’s natural “fight-or-flight” response — a big aspect of anxiety, anger and general mood instability.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Headspace: Stress, memory loss, focus, interpersonal relationships, creative blocks… this “personal trainer for the mind” app covers it all. 10-minute meditation lessons aim to strengthen health, performance and relationships. This app is on the pricier side though — subscriptions cost between $6.24 and $12.95 a month.

Positive Activity Jackpot: Another app from the National Center for Telehealth & Technology. This one uses a therapeutic method known as Pleasant Event Scheduling (PES), recommending activities based on the user’s location and interests. You can invite friends, save favorite spots and tag activities you participate in for future reference.

PTSD Coach: Created by the National Center for PTSD, this app helps veterans suffering or at risk of suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. With educational material and a self-assessment tool, it enables users to manage stress and find support.

Recovery Record: This highly rated app draws on cognitive behavioral therapy and self-monitoring methods to help manage eating disorders. Users can keep a food journal, make meal plans and learn coping methods. Questionnaires help track their progress and produce visual charts documenting their journey.

Worry Watch: This journaling tool has a simple user interface where users can log instances of worry, fear and anxiety. They can also add the outcome of each situation, which provides a comparison between expectation and reality that helps reduce anxiety over time.

I Can Be Free: This app helps with anxiety, phobias, insomnia and low self-esteem, offering more than 50 audio hypnosis sessions by well known hypnotist Jacob Strachotta. The sessions help target a variety of common fears.

Relax Melodies: This sleeping aid fights insomnia and stress with more than 50 fully customizable sounds and tunes. The blog also offers lifestyle tips to improve sleep.

Mindshift: Aimed at teens and young adults suffering from anxiety, this app allows users to log thoughts and feelings. It also offers exercises that encourage positive thinking.

Stress Doctor: This app takes you on a deep breathing exercise to promote calmness and can bring your heart rate down in five minutes. The app provides instant feedback with breath and pulse monitoring and tracks long-term progress.

Optimism: Helping with depression and bipolar disorder, this app helps users track their moods and keep daily records of their symptoms, plus log triggers or things that help them stay positive. Graphs of this data give users a visual breakdown of their well being.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 9, 2016 | Andrew Gazdecki

 

#Leadership : FBI Hostage Negotiation Tactics You Can Use Every Day…A 24-Year Veteran of the Bureau Shares the ‘Jedi Mind Trick’ that Works every Time.

/in /by

Where are we ordering takeout from? What new series are we going to binge watch tonight?  Everything in life is a negotiation. Sometimes, as in the aforementioned examples, the stakes are quite low. Bad results, at worst, are heartburn and boredom. But other times negotiations have much more on the line. Life and death, to be exact. These are the kinds of negotiations Chris Voss has dealt with for the better part of his professional career.

FBI Hostage Negotiation Tactics You Can Use Every Day

Voss is a 24-year veteran of the FBI, where in part he served as the burea’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Recently Voss, now CEO of The Black Swan Group, sat down with The Science of Success Podcast with Matt Bodnar and producer Austin Fabel to share some of the amazingly effective negotiation strategies, techniques and tactics that the FBI uses in the field that can be translated to the business world. Read some of the takeaways and listen to the full episode embedded below.

Related:  FBI Director, Again, Says You Should Tape Over Your Webcam

Try the mirroring technique.

When in a negotiation it’s crucial to get as much information out of the other side as possible. Voss explains that by “mirroring” them and simply repeating three to five keywords in their last sentence, people are forced by nature to repeat themselves in a way that gives more information and clarifies their points. An example:

Person 1: To get someone to tip their hand and clarify, simply repeat the last three to five keywords in their sentence.

Person 2: You repeat the last keywords?

Person 1: Yeah, pretty crazy right? What that does is it causes me to explain my point again from a different angle, revealing more information that could be extremely valuable and also it helps you decipher my true desired outcomes and motivations.

Voss notes it feels extremely awkward when you are doing the mirroring, but insists that the other person almost never notices and actually feels listened to. Voss refers to this as the negotiation “Jedi Mind trick” as he says it works every time and no one knows you’re doing it.

Related:  Use This Green Beret Method to Find Out if Someone Is Trustworthy

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Why you should ask “what?” and “how?” 

Voss explains that these two interrogatives can be extremely powerful in negotiating, as they encourage the other side to keep talking, to clarify and to eventually reveal their true intentions and motives. “You’d like to settle on these terms? What is it about that this 30-day window that works for you?”

Likewise, with “how?” if someone demands $1 million in ransom, Voss’s response might be, “I understand, but I need you to take a look at the whole context here. Tell me, how am I supposed to do that?” This causes the other side to actually put themselves in your shoes. It forces them to be on your side for a moment, and in hearing them think out a plan, it can reveal hidden motivations.

Get past gatekeepers by including them.

Voss says that during hostage negotiations you’re often not speaking directly to the boss. Typically someone will be assigned to deal with law enforcement to simply give demands.

There’s a parallel in business as many times there are layers of gatekeepers, assistants and people who are not actually in charge before you get to the decisionmaker. In business and in hostage negotiations, trying to simply blow by these people is looking for trouble. If you talk down to an assistant, they’re not going to patch you through to the boss. Their inaction takes zero effort for them but provides a crushing blow to you.

Related:  7 Rules for Talking With Gatekeepers

Similarly, if you belittle the terrorist handling the phone he may freak and hang up on you. Voss recommends instead bringing them into the conversation. “How does what I’m proposing fit in with what you are trying to accomplish?” This creates a conversation and puts them in a position where they feel respected, and also feel the need to connect you to the decisionmaker.

Never lie to anyone you don’t plan to kill.

Voss says that there are long-term negative effects of lying. In a hostage negotiation, if you lie to someone, he says, you’d better kill them because if word gets out that the FBI will lie, the next group who takes hostages won’t even try to negotiate a compromise. Voss calls lying a “seductive trap.”

Related: Use This Secret Military Trick to Tell if Someone Is Lying

In any situation, it can be an easy way to get what we want right now, but if word gets out that you lie, you’ve lost all your leverage in the long run. So rather than killing someone, maybe don’t lie in the first place.

Entrepreneur.com | November 8, 2016 | ENTREPRENEUR STAFF

 

#Leadership : 5 Common Communication Misfires (And How To Avoid Them)…Tech enables Faster Communication, But that Also Means there’s a Greater Chance to Say Something you Didn’t Intend.

/in /by
Miscommunication happens frequently in life and work, partly because technology allows us to communicate faster, but not necessarily better. While some miscommunications are merely annoying, others can create conflict or be a disrupting influence in relationships.
Free- Iphone with Gadgets

Based on being both the giver and the recipient of unintended communication gaffes, here are five reasons why I believe they occur, and what to do to prevent them in the future.

1. WHAT YOU ARE THINKING MAKES NO SENSE TO ANYONE ELSE BUT YOU

Writing or verbalizing what we’re thinking can be challenging, especially if we’re trying to multitask when we shouldn’t.

My team suffers a lot from this when I delegate a task and expect them to know exactly what’s going on in my brain.

The solution is to let others know everything you’re thinking, even if you’re not completely clear on it yourself. The idea is for you to work ideas out together, so you can reach the best possible outcome. I also like to verbalize my instructions as well as write them down in a recap, so others know exactly what I mean. Over the years, this has helped me sound a lot less like a jerk.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. YOU ARE SAYING TOO MUCH AND MAKING THINGS MORE COMPLICATED

In my first business partnership, I would do a brain dump that included things that didn’t need to be said. This not only caused miscommunication, but it also ultimately ended our working arrangement.

I’ve also noticed this occurs with the creative people who have a tendency to cloud their main point with a lot of words that complicates their message.

To master the fine art of getting to the point, write down what you want to say, then start to trim it back until you can create as simple a message without losing the primary idea. You most likely don’t need adjectives or exclamatory phrases to get your point across.

3. YOU AREN’T CONTROLLING THE TONE OF YOUR MESSAGE

While overthinking your message rarely results in better communication, it’s important to remember that you don’t have any control over what’s happening on the receiving end. If that person is already in a bad mood, they may read something in a way you never intended. Although you can’t control the reaction of the receiver, you can make a concerted effort to take any emotion out of a communication and keep a professional tone in all business communications.

I personally always remember, “You can say anything to anyone, but how you say it will dictate whether you get a positive or negative reaction.”

4. YOU’RE USING TEXTING SHORTCUTS OR EMOJIS TO REPLACE WORDS

I’ve used a smiley face to let the person on the other end know I’m pleased with their message. However, when I start seeing texting shortcuts and emojis I’m not familiar with, I don’t know how to take what the person is saying, and I certainly don’t have time to go look up their cutesy emoji.

I was angry one day with an employee. Later that day, when I thought everything had settled down and was okay, she sent me a text with a string of emojis of a baby, baby bottle, a hospital, and a pink bow. I thought, “Oh, so the little snot is calling me a baby! She surely should know it was not wise to call the boss a baby!”

In another conversation over the phone, someone told me how happy that employee was because she had just found out that day about my new baby daughter. But my temper had flared, and I nearly fired her over a message that she intended to be sweet.

Even if you’re well-versed in emoji etiquette, you shouldn’t assume that everyone will know the intent and meaning of acronyms and graphics. Stick to professional language and save the shortcuts for your best buddies.

5. YOU MAKE TOO MANY ASSUMPTIONS

There are times when people don’t really listen because they think they already know what the person is going to say, or they are busy preparing their own answer. The same idea applies when you assume you know what a person means in their email or text message without actually really reading it for context. It could be that you are tired, emotional, or distracted, or the messages could be coming from someone at work that you don’t necessarily like.

Slow down and read a message more than once while clearing out your assumptions. Focus, reflect, and then read it again before you draw conclusions. If you are still not sure, ask questions to make sure you understood the message correctly. I find people with this skill can be hidden leaders in my company.

Effective communication takes practice. I know haven’t perfected it yet. I do take a step back from a message that made me angry in order to give the person the benefit of the doubt. And I keep these reasons for miscommunication to remind me to take more care in how I read, write, and verbalize what I am sending out or receiving.

 

FastCompany.com | JOHN RAMPTON  | 11.07.16 5:00 AM

#Leadership : Does Your Company’s Purpose Resonate With Everyone, Or Just Senior Leaders?…If your Own Employees Write Off your Shiny New Mission Statement as Just Another Marketing Trick, So Will your Customers.

/in /by
Discovering your company’s “purpose” is tough. Sustaining it can be even tougher. Even if you’ve zeroed in on a mission that your executives love, it won’t do your company much good if the rest of your team doesn’t share the same sentiment.
Free- Boat going Nowhere

PURPOSE COMES FROM WITHIN AND WITHOUT

The challenge is to make sure your entire organization is willing to buy into its stated purpose. The consulting firm Radley Yeldar, which ranks brands according to “social purpose,” gives the top spot to Unilever for its sustainability efforts, among other causes beyond the company’s bottom line to which it has shown commitment.

The fact is that not all of your employees will embrace your new values as readily as your executive team does.

Other big-name companies, though, have dropped noticeably on Radley Yeldar’s annual list, like Johnson & Johnson (which settled a series of health care fraud cases this year for a record $2.2 billion) and Samsung (whose devices, from smartphones to washing machines, have been riddled with dangerous manufacturing problems). A company’s failures in the marketplace can undermine how consumers understand its purpose. But there’s more to it than that.

Purpose isn’t just backing up a do-gooder marketing angle with action. A company’s values—and subsequently its purpose—also come from its culture. For businesses trying to regain or redefine a sense of purpose, embedding newvalues into their cultures takes both top-down and bottom-up efforts. Brands that have seen a significant drop in their “purpose” rankings may have employees who simply don’t feel on board with their company’s purpose, or just see it as another rebrand.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

TIMING MATTERS

So how does a brand, armed with a purpose, motivate its employees to also believe in that purpose—even when they aren’t as passionate about the idea? It’s partly a timing thing.

The problem many companies face is figuring out how to incorporate purpose into a company’s culture without coming off as inauthentic. Try to rush the process, and it’ll likely fail. Purpose is often abused by marketers who try to showcase a brand’s supposed values superficially, rather than nurturing them internally to make sure they take root before launching the next campaign. Slapping a slogan on your website or printing off a series of ads that use a new catchphrase isn’t purpose-driven marketing.

In order to be successful, your entire organization—from your newest hire to your oldest associate—needs to live and breathe your mission. If a talented, capable employee finds that purpose to be just another boring corporate initiative, it’s time to press pause and reevaluate. The fact is that not all of your employees will embrace your new values as readily as your executive team does. But it’s up to management to find ways to make that purpose relevant to those who may not share the same beliefs.

Unsurprisingly, one company found that simple transparency can help fend off some of these risks. Precision Software, a logistics solutions provider, recently introduced a newfound purpose into its organization, kicking off a company-wide initiative to get all of its employees involved. “In our industry, our ‘why’ is what differentiates us from our competitors,” says Robert Clesi, VP of marketing and partners at Precision Software. That may not sound earth shattering or world saving, but that wasn’t the point; excellence was simply the most authentic value the company arrived at. It didn’t try to shoehorn in another one that didn’t fit.

“We really did a lot of due diligence up front and made sure everyone, especially on the management side, bought into our purpose,” Clesi explains. Well before sitting down with a marketing agency, Precision sent out several surveys to get an understanding of how employees and customers felt about the brand. By gathering feedback and taking the time to have those conversations, the company was able to craft a new mission statement that arose organically from within. And if someone wasn’t completely sold on Precision’s values, Clesi said management would sit down one-on-one to discuss that individual’s concerns and work toward a solution that satisfied both parties.

TELL REAL STORIES, NOT FABLES

If your team initially lacks that same enthusiasm your executives share, you may want to consider opening up a dialogue strictly around purpose.

In 2013, Forbes contributor Carine Gallo points out, Southwest Airlines deftly used storytelling in order to drum up that enthusiasm. The airline began to publish accounts of employees who were doing exemplary work in its monthly Southwest magazine, in effect offering public praise for excellent customer service. There’s no doubt that this was also a marketing move, but it felt authentic both within the company and without, because its culture—and the employees who lived and breathed it—was now front and center.

But the effort wasn’t just consumer facing. It ran in the opposite direction, too: Southwest also circulated internal corporate videos filled with real-life stories from actual Southwest customers to help employees visualize purpose in action. This helped the airline instill its brand values in every one of its employees while eliminating doubts that the effort was just a superficial corporate gambit.

“Purpose” only means something when your entire company is on board. Instead of pointing fingers at a broken corporate culture, try reexamining your organization’s purpose—not just to discover if it’s an effective marketing strategy, but to make sure it actually reflects what your team values and responds to.

 

FastCompany.com | BARRY S. SALTZMAN 11.07.16 5:00 AM

 

#Leadership : How To Keep Working Productively When You’re Under Extreme Stress…You’ve got a Big Job with Bigger Responsibilities. Then Disaster Strikes. Here’s How to Keep it Together.

/in /by
Say you’re a high performer who’s risen through the ranks. Now you have even bigger responsibilities. Or you’re working your way toward a promotion and need to show your skills and professionalism in the best light. Then the phone call comes. The results of your medical tests weren’t good. Or you suddenly have to take care of a loved one in an emergency. Or there’s an unexpected financial hit that could spell catastrophe.
Free- Locks

Whatever the situation, your life just got much more complicated. While intuitively you know that these things can happen to anyone, the anxiety of dealing with such troubling events, coupled with the pressure to continue to perform in your job, amps up the stress to DEFCON 1.

“A curveball like that requires sharpening your coping skills and expanding them so that you can deal with what’s being demanded of you,” says clinical psychologist Alicia H. Clark, adjunct professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology. And there is a strategic approach you can take to help you cope and perform better, even when you’re operating under extreme stress.

IDENTIFY WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

Part of the anxiety that occurs during such urgent situations comes from feeling a loss of control, says Matthew Digeronimo, a retired nuclear submarine lieutenant commander and coauthor of Extreme Operational Excellence: Applying the U.S. Submarine Culture to Your Organization. He recommends identifying the things you can adapt or adjust to regain some of that feeling of order. “If a family member is ill, you might not be able to control the illness. But you can control the manner in which you rally around that person. You can control your working hours, or the way you react to it,” he says.

If you can schedule meetings or calls during your high-energy times, or work from home one day a week, take advantage of those options. Use the power you do have to adapt your life to deal with your new situation for the time being, he says.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

IDENTIFY THE “MUST-DOS”

We all have tasks that need to get done to fulfill our responsibilities. However, high-performing individuals often go beyond the basics and take on other to-dos—that’s often what makes them high performers, Clark says. Now is the time to scale back to the most necessary and immediate task. Ask yourself these key questions:

  • Where can I cut back?
  • Where can I save time?
  • What can I put off without much consequence?

For example, do you need to take that trip to China now? Or can you cut back to visiting two states instead of three on your next trip? Can support staff handle some of the legwork on that upcoming report? Once you have a sense of where your time needs to be spent, you can create a list of priorities to ensure you’re getting the essentials done. Then you can decide whether you have time or energy to take on more.

ACCEPT “GOOD ENOUGH”—FOR NOW

This is also a good time to let go of perfectionism and accept “good enough,” Clark says. When you’re good at and take pride in what you do, it can be tough to do the minimum acceptable job. Sometimes, that’s what’s necessary to free up time and energy you need for other things to prevent burnout, she says.

SLOW DOWN

Extreme stress can affect decision making as well. Recent research from the University of Pittsburgh found that anxiety affects the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which regulates problem solving, impulse control, and emotion regulation.

Unlike typical periodic stress, where you may feel the pressure of events that happen from time to time, unrelenting stress doesn’t give you time for recovery, says Richard Citrin, PhD, founder of Citrin Consulting, a talent and leadership development consultancy, and author of The Resilience Advantage: Stop Managing Stress and Find Your Resilience. So your decision-making abilitymay be taking a beating.

As a result, you need to be more intentional about what you’re doing. Gather your facts methodically, and if necessary, take more time to make decisions or take action to be sure you get it right, he says.

SHARE SELECTIVELY

Another decision you’ll need to make is what—and how much—to tell those around you. Should you tell your boss that your parent is ill? Should you tell your boss or coworkers that you’re going through a divorce? There’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, Digeronimo says.

If the situation will require you to change some of your work habits or be out of the office, then it’s probably a good idea to tell your boss the basics and share your plan for managing the situation. He thinks it’s not a good idea to share too much with coworkers, as it can breed gossip and office politics. “For most of us, our coworkers are not our source of support,” he says. “I think it can only add to your stress level if you share these types of details with them.”

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK

When Citrin’s daughter was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago, he and his wife both had full-time careers. He says that one of the most important lessons he learned throughout the experience was to accept help from other people so that he could free up time to help his daughter. He says it can be hard for people who are used to handling everything themselves to ask for or accept help from others, but even allowing a neighbor to bring over a meal can relieve one of your many demands. Clark adds that it’s important to practice good self-care, including getting enough sleep, exercising, and trying to manage your stress.

Chances are that you’re going to have to juggle a personal emergency with your work at some point. Understanding how to keep your work life intact while managing extreme stress requires a combination of cutting back, being mindful, and taking care of your own needs, so you can address both work and personal demands.

 

FastCompany.com | GWEN MORAN  | 11.07.16 5:43 AM

 

Your #Career : 5 Things You Need to Do to Set Yourself Up for a Promotion…Identify the Skills you Need to Make yourself Stand Out from the Competition.

/in /by

Everyone wants a promotion, but it’s not as simple as waiting a year or two to “get” one. That’s because promotions are earned, not given. This is especially true at the leadership level; professionals need to prove their worth and show that they’re ready for career advancement.

Group of happy young business people in a meeting at office

Demonstrating value isn’t making a one-time presentation to senior leadership about why a promotion is deserved. It requires a conscious effort to improve and grow as a leader and simultaneously position yourself as a high-performing professional. Here’s how:

1.Demonstrate a track record of delivering.

The first, basic step to any kind of career advancement is competence. It sounds really simple, but it’s something that many professionals just assume. After a certain amount of time, employees just expect a promotion, but they don’t stop to think if they really are effective.

In fact, a September study from Leadership IQ found that fewer than half of employees know if they’re doing a good job.

Prepare for a promotion by reviewing past performance evaluations. Are there any gaps in performance? Talk with managers, supervisors, and co-workers. What needs to be improved? What can be done better?

Related: 7 Ways to Stay Top-of-Mind When It’s Time to Choose Who Gets Promoted

Look at strengths, too. Gather data, records and any other evidence of a solid track record for delivering. Look for goals that have been met, successful completed projects, and other accomplishments that show effectiveness. Then, use these examples in performance talks with senior leadership.

Finally, look at which skills fall between strengths and weaknesses. Identify the middle skills that, with a little bit of effort, can show a visible increase in performance.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. Delegate strategically.

Professionals can’t take on more responsibility if they’re always swamped with work — especially leaders. Great leaders delegate tasks and lead employees through them, freeing up their time to focus on strategy and other high-level tasks.

Leaders ready for career advancement should take a look at what they spend the majority of their time at work doing. Is there room for more responsibility? Can certain tasks be delegated to the team? Can their time be better spent on strategic initiatives and guiding the team as opposed to actually doing the groundwork?

Once tasks are appropriately delegated to the team, ask senior leadership for more responsibility at the strategic level. Ask for challenges and demonstrate the capability to take on more.

3. Gain a bird’s eye view of the organization.

To be competent in their current position, leaders need to understand their team and their department, and find ways to improve processes, employee satisfaction, and success in that silo. But for career advancement, leaders need to have that same ability across the organization.

Having a broad view and understanding of the organization is a sign that leaders are ready for the next step. As professionals move up in the company, they need to be ready to bring innovation and make changes across the business.

Related: Want That Promotion? Rein in Your Quirks, and Be a True Team Player.

Promotions bring new opportunities to lead, implement changes, and make decisions that will have a positive impact. But to launch new ideas and initiatives, leaders need to know the business inside and out. They need to understand the company vision, mission and strategy and with this broader picture in mind identify what the company is doing well and what can be improved. They need to know what has and hasn’t worked in the past, the role of different departments and leaders within the organization, and the overall guiding mission and vision.

To prepare for this change, take a step back from daily responsibilities and look at the organization as a whole. Are there any gaps in knowledge? Talk to senior leaders, different teams, and others within the company to fill these gaps and learn as much as possible. To make the most of these conversations and leave a good impression, understand the company’s competition, market and goals.

4. Effectively communicate.

Communication is a huge part of effective leadership, and the best communicators know that it comes down to context. After all, research conducted by our company, Skyline Group International, Inc., found that leadership exists on a spectrum. In other words, leaders are seen as effective depending on the situation and their audience.

For example, our research found that men in leadership tend to listen to understand the main points of what the speaker is saying while women in leadership tend to want to understand what the speaker is feeling. Both of these strategies can be effective, depending on the situation and the audience.

To reach the next level of their career, leaders need to understand this and develop different communication tactics. That way, they can be effective whether they’re communicating with clients, team members or the CEO.

5. Establish an executive presence.

For leaders, part of career success comes down to how they represent themselves. Leaders need to have a certain level of executive presence for career advancement. What exactly does that mean?

Related: Why Self-Promotion Is a Terrible Idea

Executive presence refers to how leaders conduct themselves in the workplace and how they are seen by their colleagues and employees. Our research suggests that men in leadership are seen as more effective when they command respect, while women who present themselves with poise and authenticity are seen as more effective.

However, great leadership comes down to balance. Find a middle ground between these two gendered extremes to be respected by peers and viewed as senior leadership material. Behave in a way fitting with company values and demonstrate a personality and professionalism expected from an executive.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 17, 2016 | Thuy Sindell and Milo Sindell

#Leadership : 4 Steps to Reinventing Yourself After Hitting Rock Bottom…Failure is the Unpleasant Beginning of Being Reborn as an Entrepreneur.

/in /by

Hitting rock bottom — as energetic, smart and business-savvy entrepreneurial — types, this dreadful phrase is simply not in our vocabularies.

happy young business man portrait in bright modern office indoor

But it happens — even to the best of us who think we are completely prepared for this roller coaster ride in the pursuit of success. And if you don’t want to commit career suicide by going back to that nine-to-five job that made you jump into entrepreneurship in the first place — you must navigate through the tough times. So, how do you do that? Where do you turn when you’re awash in the confusion, anxiety, self-doubt and worry of “rock bottom?”

“Anytime I hit into a wall,” David said, “I reminded myself why I was doing what I was doing. I connected to my vision. And I realized that no matter the hiccups along the way, it was still way better than committing ‘career suicide’ and going back to being an employee. It was not an option.”

David Schloss, now co-founder and CEO of digital-marketing company rampify.com and one of the most respected names when it comes to Facebook advertising, can tell you how to navigate through that unwanted world — because in 2014, he hit rock bottom himself. He had just been “going through the motions,” he recalled. He had no real goal in mind. “I simply had no direction,” he said. “I felt totally lost.”

Related: How Entrepreneurs Benefit From 3 Types of Failure

On Halloween that year, David had $0 in his bank account. He was only 72 hours away from either coming up with his rent payment or getting kicked out. His car was two weeks away from getting impounded. It felt like walls were closing in. His business was crumbling — and he was very close to throwing in the towel and going back to working a day job.

Thankfully, David was able to turn things around. He didn’t go back to being an employee and instead created his own thriving marketing company. Here are four tips from David that will help you through the tough times, get back on track and rise up in the business you were meant for:

1. Let yourself be vulnerable.

Life isn’t always sunshine and roses. We hit walls. Sometimes we lose. We struggle. Too often as entrepreneurs, we hide those struggles. The problem is, if you don’t let yourself be real and vulnerable when you’re struggling, then it will actually hold you back from progressing through the tough time.

In David’s period of uncertainty, he did something that proved to be a powerful key in his turnaround — he let himself be vulnerable. David had hundreds of business friends on Facebook. Realizing he needed help, David reached out to every last one of them for advice and guidance. Two things happened.

“First, I discovered I wasn’t alone,” he said. “Other entrepreneurs had gone through similar things.” Knowing that other people had made it through, too, helped David develop confidence that he could also get through it. “Second, they were able to give me actionable advice to get on the right track.” It was that advice that got him moving in the right direction.

Related: 18 Ways to Bounce Back from Failure

Had David stayed “closed up,” he wouldn’t have had the support he needed from others to help him move forward. When you’re in a tough spot, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sharing the struggle is the bravest thing you can do. Being vulnerable isn’t a sign of weakness — it’s a sign of strength.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. Develop a vision.

It’s difficult to know if you’re progressing when you don’t know where you’re going. In “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey talks about beginning with the end in mind. Know where you want to end up at the beginning of the trip — it’s your guiding north star. In David’s comeback, asking himself, “What do I want to create?” proved to be powerful.

“Asking that question,” he said, “is what helped me develop a vision for the future I wanted.”

David used the advice from his colleagues to help him get super clear on the vision and direction he wanted to go. It’s that vision that helped him get out of bed in the morning and get to work.

Vision is critical. If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

3. Create an action plan.

Vision is knowing where you’re going. Action is how you’ll get there. You’ve heard “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” While that’s true, there’s an important distinction to be made — your plan must be based on “action” instead of based on “results.”

In my first book, “Fish Out of Water,” I explain how successful people focus on what’s inside their control, versus outside their control. While the result is not always directly within your control, action is.

Related: 8 Ways Intelligent People Use Failure to Their Advantage

David got clear on where he wanted to go, and then he made a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly plan of action of how he was going to get there. To him, his success wasn’t based on the amount of money he made — it was based on the actions he took to make that money. He set time aside to focus on personal development. He committed to contacting at least three people every day to create a conversation without pitching or selling anything. He created two training videos every week to provide value to his audience. David believed that if he took the right actions, results would come as a byproduct of those actions — and they did.

4. Persist.

It’s no surprise that things don’t always go the way you planned. Persistence is a decision to keep moving towards the vision no matter the hiccups along the way. It’s not just doing what it takes — it’s doing whatever it takes. It’s falling down and getting up again anyway, as David did.

“Anytime I hit into a wall,” David said, “I reminded myself why I was doing what I was doing. I connected to my vision. And I realized that no matter the hiccups along the way, it was still way better than committing ‘career suicide’ and going back to being an employee. It was not an option.”

Planning is what gets you moving toward your vision, but persistence is what keeps you going.

Entrepreneurship is a fulfilling journey, not just a satisfying destination. It’s not just about where we are going — but who we become. Throughout the process of crawling up and out of the dreaded rock bottom, David began to realize he wasn’t even the same person anymore. So just remember, when you’re in a tough spot as an entrepreneur, it just means you’re being reborn into the new you. Embrace the new you.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 2, 2016 | Calvin Wayman

Your #Career : Former Wall Street executive Sallie Krawcheck Explains the Best Way to Ask for a Raise — and Get One…Just Because you Deserve a Raise Doesn’t Mean you’re About to Get One. More Often than Not, you Have to Ask — and Then Back up your Request.

/in /by

At the S.H.E. Summit in New York City in October, Sallie Krawcheck — the former Wall Street executive and founder of Ellevest, an online investing adviser for women — spoke about ways women can proactively bridge the gender pay gap. But her advice can be applied universally: Don’t just ask for a raise, she said — provide definitive proof that you deserve it.

Interviewer3

“Be as quantitative as you can be,” she said. “Put numbers on paper.”

Vague requests can easily be denied, but hard facts are far more difficult to argue with.

Krawcheck suggests keeping a running list quantifying everything you do, from the number of clients you bring in to the size of the budget you manage to the work you do on each project. When you go in for a performance review or salary negotiation, you’ll be prepared with indisputable evidence of exactly what you contribute to the company.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Krawcheck also advises looking up your position on sites like Glassdoor and Fairy God Boss to know how your current salary compares to the marketplace and gain an idea of how much you should be making.

“We have more resources now than ever before,” Krawcheck noted. “We should be excited about technology.”

As Krawcheck suggests, it’s smart to make the salary negotiation about the facts and leave personal emotions out of it. Demonstrate why you deserve a raise and how you’re contributing to the company, don’t whine about wanting more money.

“You should always link individual performance to departmental goals, and then to overall company goals and how what you’ve done directly impacted each,” Adam Ochstein, founder and CEO of StratEx Partners, previously told Business Insider.

And if you get denied, don’t take it personally — find out why it isn’t possible right now and what you can do differently. Don’t be afraid to be direct: “Ask, ‘What can I do to make this amount?'” Krawcheck said.

And then do it.

 

Businessinsider.com | November 1, 2016 | Emmie Martin

Your #Career : Want To Nail Your 2016 Performance Review? Show You’re Versatile…Doubling Down on your Specialized Knowledge Might Not Pay Off Like it Used To.

/in /by

With only two months left in 2016, performance review season is officially upon us. As many of us know all too well, it can be an awkward experience. But one key to nailing your review this year may be a departure from conventional wisdom. Typically we’re told to make a strong case for how well we’ve performed in our particular roles—show you’ve mastered the job skills required of you and delivered great results, and now you’re ready to move on to bigger challenges.

Interview2

And it’s not that that’s bad advice. But as the workforce evolves, the value of a broad-based skill set may be rising. Your employer might not even be totally aware of the shift, but they’re more likely to need jacks-of-all-trades than they did even a year ago. Here’s a look at why, and how to play into that trend during your next review.

THE RISING VALUE OF VERSATILITY

“I guess you can look at me and say that I didn’t specialize in anything,” UX designer Amanda Yarmolich reflected recently. “But a lot of times, it ends up being more valuable to have somebody who can kind of pick up whatever you need.”

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Yarmolich isn’t alone in that sentiment. According to the 2017 salary guide published earlier this month in the design magazine HOW, employers will gladly pay top dollar, “but they expect value, which comes in the form of worker versatility.” And that may not just be a quirk of design-focused industries. Yarmolich works for the insurance marketplace eHealth. In her recent experience, “You just have to be ready to do whatever needs doing at the drop of a hat.”

How come? For one thing, the changing macroeconomic landscape is pushing more employers toward low-labor business models—in other words, to find ways of getting more value out of fewer people. That necessity may have first gripped recruiters amid the last financial crisis, but since the recovery since then has been so incremental, it’s seeped into many employers’ hiring mentalities.

As one staffing expert told Fast Company earlier this year, “We’re seeing more cross-pollination among industries than ever before,” which is not only expanding what counts as “transferrable skills,” it’s also requiring workers to be more comfortable tackling a greater range of tasks—including unfamiliar ones. That type of agility is becoming less of an added bonus and more of a basic prerequisite for many job openings in a widening variety of fields.

On the other hand, employers have always prized versatile workers. In his 1957 book The Problems of Design, famed industrial designer George Nelson observed that employers have long sought “general flexibility in relation to almost any situation. Translated into action, this means an ability to bring a high level of detached perception to any problem, and this has a very special kind of value to management.”

The difference now is the change from management preference to economic imperative. Corporate boards seem to understand this value, judging from the kinds of people they put in the corner office. The New York Times recently reported that the quickest path to CEO these days is a circuitous one—often via several functional areas—according to new research suggesting that a mix of skills may now count more than simply long experience in one specialty.

COMBINATORIAL CREATIVITY

These utility players are what coauthors Kenneth Mikkelsen and Richard Martin describe as “neo-generalists” in their new book The Neo-Generalist: Where You Go Is Who You Are. They use the term to describe knowledge workers who excel in “combinatorial creativity.” As Mikkelsen described it to me, “Neo-generalists are people who expand their craft by bringing in knowledge from disparate areas and creating new ideas and methods from those new combinations.”

Martin added that knowledge workers everywhere often feel their organization or industry is too siloed, but he believes it’s the type of worker that makes this true or untrue: “We are arguing that people who have a more neo-generalist mind-set make a difference because they deliberately step outside of those silos.”

Hiring managers may be wising up to this idea. Not only are versatile workers often more cost effective, they also bring silo-busting behaviors to companies that help organizations stay innovative over time. What may have started as a dollar-stretching measure often turns out to be a competitive advantage.

HOW TO BE THE NEO-GENERALIST YOUR BOSS IS LOOKING FOR

According to Martin, “Everybody has the potential to be a neo-generalist—absolutely everybody. But it’s a question of being willing to accept that learning is never done, that you’re never a finished article, always beta.”

 

FastCompany.com |  LISA BAIRD  | 10.31.16 5:00 AM

Your #Career : The Right Way To Discuss Your Failures In A Job Interview…Take Complete Ownership—Even If it Wasn’t All your Fault. Here’s How.

/in /by
In interviewing hundreds of people, I’ve found that the way a candidate answers one key question tells me more about them than any other. I’ll usually wait until the candidate has relaxed somewhat and begins to open up. Then, about halfway through the interview, I’ll ask, “What has been a moment of significant professional disappointment or failure, and what caused it?”
Interview

Straightforward enough, right? Yes, but I’m listening for a few key things. First, it asks an interviewee to come up with a specific moment. Rather than the standard “What are your weaknesses?” question, which more often provokes groans from jobseekers, it asks for a concrete professional incident. But this gives a candidate plenty of options: Do they focus on a lost promotion, or a failed project? Do they make it about themselves, or about their company? You can see a lot of their personality by how they interpret the question.

What’s more, by asking what caused the failure, the question doesn’t require an applicant to take responsibility for it, though they might choose to. In my experience, these are three types of answers I typically hear—with some responses earning better marks than others.

THE NON-FAILURE FAILURE

I once spent too much time on a project because I refused to hand over something that I couldn’t be proud of.

This is the answer that induces silent yawns from hiring managers. It’s a candidate’s attempt to convey a strength wrapped in the veneer of a weakness. You’ll often get this answer from people early in their careers who aren’t yet comfortable with the idea that failure and weakness are part of any job.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K)   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

If a candidate who’s still early in their career answers this way, I’ll often give them a second chance: “That could also be interpreted as a moment of strength and having high standards. Do you have another example?”

If the candidate is more experienced, though, this answer worries me. It implies they still haven’t learned to be comfortable with their own shortcomings. Acknowledging your weaknesses is critical to making career progress—you first need to know when you mess up and then think critically about why.

So as an interviewer, if you can only get a “non-failure failure” from a candidate, it may be time to move on.

THE BLAME-IT-ON-OTHERS DISAPPOINTMENT

I once was due for a promotion, but my manager didn’t give it to me because there was another candidate who was my boss’s favorite.

This answer upsets me the most. It shows that the candidate doesn’t focus quite enough on the things that are actually within in their control, choosing instead to rationalize their disappointments by putting responsibility on someone or something else.

This type of employee may not be looking (or ready) to grow outside their current role; they’re simply expecting to get promoted just for doing their job and nothing more.

But not necessarily. Sometimes life is really is unfair. Maybe they wereslighted! While this might be true, when you’re hiring, you want to find people who view any situation as an opportunity to assess how they might’ve done things differently to achieve a better outcome—even if they weren’t at fault. You want people who put the burden of responsibility on themselves, even if others may share in it, too. These are likely to be the hires who will surprise you by going above and beyond.

COMPLETE OWNERSHIP

I was once working on a project, and the client hated the result. I realized that I could’ve put more effort into the project and worked to better understand their needs up front. It taught me a lot about my approach to kicking off new projects going forward.

This is the ideal answer. When someone says this, I often have to stifle a grin.

Make no mistake: There are multiple people or systems at fault in pretty much any failure situation. The point isn’t to ask a jobseeker to pretend otherwise; in this example, it’s more than likely that the client didn’t do a perfect job of explaining what they wanted, or maybe they changed the scope of the project after it started. Even so, it’s still critical for a candidate to take complete ownership of a problem. That’s the starting point for finding any workable solution.

So yes, complete ownership might seem extreme, but the people who default to that tendency may have some serious advantages over those who don’t. First, they may be more likely to view situations through the lens of, “How can I improve this?” Rather than wait for others to change, they quickly take action within their span of control to improve a situation—including persuading others to act. They realize that their role in the company isn’t just their narrow job description, but includes doing whatever it takes to get a successful result.

Second, they’re the ones who are most likely to improve their own skills by choice. Rather than waiting for formal training, they spend their downtime teaching themselves the ins and outs of a new marketing technology, for instance, or how to program in a new language. They’re passionate, and they’re problem solvers. They realize their own potential and constantly pursue a better version of themselves.

Finally, taking complete ownership of your failures shows you’re someone who avoids politics. Rather then expending emotional energy complaining about other team members, these people realize their own ability to influence a situation and address interpersonal issues head-on.

So while it may seem a little reductive, try testing out this interview question as a hiring manager. It may help you build a team of people who shirk petty politics and are always striving to improve their own skills. And if you’re a job seeker and an interviewer asks you to discuss your failures, don’t hold back—own up to what went wrong and how the experience taught you to switch up your approach. That just may improve your chances that the interview itself will turn out a success.

Allen Gannett is the CEO of TrackMaven, a content and social marketing analytics company. He is based in Washington, D.C., and can be followed at @Allen.

FastCompany.com |  ALLEN GANNETT  | 10.30.16 5:00 AM