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With all the “be your best self now!” hullabaloo, we can get overwhelmed with what we think we should be doing. We can drive ourselves crazy thinking about all the things we could do to make ourselves smarter, stronger, better. Not long ago, I actually found myself surrounded by whiteboards sketching out all of my self-improvement plans for the year, kanban board style. And while goals and growth plans are great, sometimes the best ideas for change come from an awareness outside of ourselves. I know, it sounds weird to hear a leadership coach telling you to look for something outside of yourself. I’m all about tuning into that courageous and all-knowing voice who can tout your fabulousness–it’s good stuff. But let’s get real: Sometimes the only way to get perspective about what needs to change comes from an outside perspective. Yes, believe it or not, there is often a gap between who we desire and think we are presenting to the world, and the way others see us. Turns out that when you ask the people around you–the ones who see you in action every day and are impacted by the choices you make–where you can grow, their ideas might be a little different than your own.
Via The Learning Factor
Here’s the dilemma: In a competitive, complex, and volatile business environment, companies need more from their employees than ever. But the same forces rocking businesses are also overwhelming employees, driving up their fear, and compromising their capacity. It’s no wonder that so many C-Suite leaders are focused on how to build higher performance cultures. The irony, we’ve found, is that building a culture focused on performance may not be the best, healthiest, or most sustainable way to fuel results. Instead, it may be more effective to focus on creating a culture of growth. A culture is simply the collection of beliefs on which people build their behavior. Learning organizations – Peter Senge’s term — classically focus on intellectually oriented issues such as knowledge and expertise. That’s plainly critical, but a true growth culture also focuses on deeper issues connected to how people feel, and how they behave as a result. In a growth culture, people build their capacity to see through blind spots; acknowledge insecurities and shortcomings rather than unconsciously acting them out; and spend less energy defending their personal value so they have more energy available to create external value. How people feel – and make other people feel — becomes as important as how much they know. Building a growth culture, we’ve found, requires a blend of individual and organizational components: An environment that feels safe, fueled first by top by leaders willing to role model vulnerability and take personal responsibility for their shortcomings and missteps.A focus on continuous learning through inquiry, curiosity and transparency, in place of judgment, certainty and self-protection.Time-limited, manageable experiments with new behaviors in order to test our unconscious assumption that changing the status quo is dangerous and likely to have negative consequences.Continuous feedback – up, down and across the organization – grounded in a shared commitment to helping each other grow and get better.
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While it's relatively easy for competitors to implement technology similar to yours, duplicate your strategy, and even mimic your culture, they can't clone your people. That's why most organizations agree talent is a top priority. At the end of the day, people are your truest form of sustainable competitive advantage. To expand the capabilities of their best asset, most organizations invest in some form of continued development. Research from the Brandon Hall Group revealed the average training budget for large organizations hovers around $13 million. Also, out of all the delivery mediums available (i.e., mobile apps, simulations, and e-learning), classroom settings are still chosen 22 percent more often than any other modality. This research came as a bit of a surprise, given all the advancements in technology. Although the study also indicated classroom settings were effective, I couldn't help but think that many companies are behind the times. As a part of the research, Rallyware, a training platform that delivers adaptive learning solutions, interviewed learning and development thought leaders to get their perspective on how technology will shape the future of corporate training. Through these interviews, five e-learning trends emerged: 1. Employees will learn on the go. I'm not the only one who says yes to projects that I'm not 100 percent certain I can do, right? My motto is say yes and figure it out later. It's risky, but it's also a lot of fun. I can't tell you how many times a YouTube video or an on-demand course from Lynda.com has saved me. Kevin Delaney, VP of learning and development at LinkedIn, realizes that future corporate training must adopt to these types of situations. Two-day workshops aren't efficient enough. We need access to just-in-time solutions that help us troubleshoot issues within minutes. In his interview, Delaney offered valuable insight that foreshadows future learning tools: When employees are stuck, they want the answer quickly. It doesn't help them to sign up for a class that will happen three weeks from now and sit through a four-hour session to get the answer they need this minute. They are more inclined to engage in learning if they can watch a short video that they have access to 24/7 on any device. 2. The learning experience will be highly customized. Different learning styles and varying role responsibilities are making big-box, off-the-shelf learning solutions less and less effective. Now, customized and concentrated learning experiences are critical. Employees need access to content that's relevant, easily digestible, and engaging. Delaney offered some opinions on how personalized training should be delivered: First, don't bore people. Bored people don't learn. Second, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to learning. Companies need to offer a variety of solutions and focus on creating a one-size-fits-one experience. 3. Learning and development professionals won't create but curate. The amount of content on the web is unbelievable. Udemy, an e-learning provider, has more than 65,000 courses on its site alone. With employees' increased access to content, learning is now a dual responsibility. Learning and development professionals can pinpoint key learning areas and vehicles and employees can be proactive about owning their development. The days of creating a huge list of internal content are changing, says Beth Loeb Davies, director of learning and development at Tesla: At this point, I believe that we don't need to produce our own content in organizations as often as we did before but rather find the right material and deliver it to those who need it when they need it ... People are already learning through alternative media. Our role is becoming to curate resources in the context of the company culture and people's needs. 4. Employees' job responsibilities will be mixed. Many organizations are shifting to flatter and more efficient org charts. However, the same amount of work still needs to get done. It's not uncommon to see employees operating outside their job descriptions. If organizations expect to do more with less, then they'll need to broaden the scope of skills development, says Tom Brown, VP of HR Americas and APAC at eBay: Companies will need to ensure that there are opportunities for their employees to build a quorum of different skill sets which won't necessarily be linked to their job titles. It means that there will be a decreasing emphasis on the career ladder, as we know it. 5. The data-driven approach to talent development will be a matter of course. Data is a powerful validator, especially for cost-center functions like learning and development. Now, through advances in technology, initiatives that were traditionally seen as nice-to-haves can produce quantitative results proving their value. HR (the department in which learning and development professionals sit) will have to adjust, says Kvon Tucker, an Amazon global leadership development partner. HR will need to become more data driven ... Learning experience data will be most valuable to companies, to help them track and correlate the most important experiences to the development outcomes needed for the organization. This is a lot to take in. If leaders want to address all these trends, then they'll have to consider new technology including artificial intelligence, data, and machine learning. These tools are giving leaders the ability to analyze individual behavior and then deliver the right content to the right people at the right time on the preferred device. If you haven't already, take a look at microlearning, big data, and gamification to see if they're the right solution for your organization.
Via The Learning Factor
You’ve heard by now that you need to be “transparent” and “authentic” and to “bring your whole self” to work. More often than not, these phrases are shorthand for expressing your feelings. But while it’s true that you need an emotionally intelligent approach both to build a great work culture and to advance your own career, there’s more to it than just wearing your feelings on your sleeve. Showing emotional savvy isn’t only about candor, though that’s certainly part of it. Properly channeling your emotions in the workplace is a powerful leadership skill. With that in mind, here’s how to calibrate and convey five of the most common emotions you’re likely to experience at work.
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How long should an eLearning module be? What is the ideal length? Can people concentrate for longer than their shoe size in minutes? What is the average attention span? Attention span is the amount of concentrated time a person can spend on a task without becoming distracted. Common estimates for sustained attention to a freely chosen task range from about five minutes for a two-year-old child, to a maximum of around 20 minutes in older children and adults. (www.Wikipedia.org) Recently I had to sit through 2 hours of on-line Contractor Induction which we had developed for a client. The reason was this – we were developing a video to include in another Induction for Ship Captains for an LNG production facility, and I was part of the video crew from our company in charge of the droning video. Initially, I was like, “OMG, do I really have to go through this?” But after realising it was mandatory, I chose to do it as soon as possible. I have to be honest, I thoroughly enjoyed this experience as it was broken into smaller sections: facility, safety, ecosystem, wildlife responsibilities etc. These together with the various interactivity made it engaging. So how do you decide the ideal eLearning length? 1. Learn from a favourite TV Series Think of a TV Series you love to watch. It’s made up of Seasons, Episodes and Acts. Every Season has about 12 Episodes and every Episode has 5 or 6 Acts. Each Act lasts about 10 minutes. Why are there Acts every 10 minutes? The screenwriters understand human behaviour and that we lose attention after 10 minutes. They know the way we restore attention is by taking a rest, doing a different kind of activity, changing mental focus, or deliberately choosing to re-focus on the first topic. One large financial client we have is now developing 5-8 minutes eLearning modules and every employee goes to work and watches one module per day. 2. Know how essential this training is I like to think of ‘essential’ like a set of traffic lights. Red, is ‘mandatory’. This could be a longer module broken up into smaller segments. eg InductionAmber, is ‘important but not mandatory’. This needs to be at a length that people will see as a win/win. Long enough to get the message and training without it encroaching on all my other pressures and responsibilities. This should be 10 -15 minutes maximum.Green, is ‘good to know’. It needs to be short, sharp or if longer requires gamification or great interactivity. This is generally 2-5 minutes or could be longer if it’s engaging. One of our clients is a Pharma company. We have been developed many 2-3 minute eLearning modules for their channel to watch, explaining the different products and their benefits to the consumer. 3. How engaging can you make it? People are generally capable of a longer attention span when they are doing something that they find enjoyable or intrinsically motivating. In eLearning, we achieve this through interactive, reality-based scenarios, quizzes and gamification. These engage people and therefore their attention span. Introducing a video can also help to hold attention as it introduces emotion. The video could involve: people at work, actors, drone footage, 360-degree exploration or animation. With different personalities, different learning styles and different ages the question ‘How long should your eLearning module be?’ is always going to be a challenging one. Over the past 5 years, we have gone from eLearning modules being hours long to being minutes long. However, at the end of the day what is probably the most important goal is meeting your Learning Objectives. If you are still unsure then learn from some of the largest companies today. Most companies are aiming for 8-14 minutes and if there is a subject that requires more then they break it into segments. A bit like a TV series really �� Chris Gaborit is managing director of The Learning Factor, an eLearning company who loves technology linked to learning. Follow him here on Linkedin, on Twitter @droneservicesAU and Instagram @idronefoto
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Advice on how to improve one’s self is everywhere. It accounts for about 2.5% of all book sales in the United States. Add in speeches, training programs, TV programs, online-products, coaches, yoga, and the like, self-help is a $10 billion industry per year, and that’s just in the U.S. However, research shows that much of the advice extolled may be misleading or even wrong. Several myths about performance persist, despite research and practices that show they are half-truths at best. That might explain why the most likely purchasers of self-improvement books have bought another within the previous 18 months. The first myth-riddled book didn’t work, so they bought another, and maybe another soon after. A recent report in the Journal of Management noted that of nearly 25,000 academic articles on performance, only a fraction include what psychologists call within person variance, which describes ranges, such as that between individuals’ top, average and worst performances. Advice too often mistakenly assumes performance can be compared across people, using the same gauge. That’s absurd. Our observation of hundreds of performance seekers largely confirms the report and has led to delineating a series of myths that hold people back when trying to improve. These assertions are based on a diverse set of fields, including psychology, sports, arts, and leadership. We hope that by dispelling these myths, explaining the reality and offering some sound advice instead, we can help move people toward more effective personal development.
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Negotiation is a scary thing. Whether you’re a college grad advocating for a salary bump for the first time, or a seasoned employee who needs to convince their bosses to allocate a bigger budget for training and development–it’s a situation filled with nerves, personality clashes, egos, and uncertainties. Yet it’s something that all of us have to do, and the only way to do it successfully is if we know how we can leverage our strengths as best as we can in the situation that we’re in. Fast Company reached out to negotiation experts to learn how our personality traits can affect our negotiation styles, and why a collaborative “win-win” approach isn’t always the most effective.
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Forget slogans and posters. Forget mission statements. Forget culture decks. A survey of over 400,000 people across the U.S. found that when employees believe promotions are managed effectively, they are more than two times as likely to give extra effort at work -- and to plan for having a long-term future with their company. But wait, there's more: When employees believe promotions are managed effectively, they are more than five times as likely to believe their leaders act with integrity. The result? At those companies, employee turnover rates are half that of other companies in the same industry. Productivity, innovation, and growth metrics outperform the competition. For public companies, stock returns are almost three times the market average.
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We thought 2016 was a year of turning points. But we had no idea how 2017 would shape up to hold far more moments that affected the workplace, from the current administration’s changing positions on labor policy issues, to whistleblowers sounding the alarm on sexism, racism, and other unfair practices, to the shifting demographics of the workforce itself with the first members of gen Z making their entry into full-time employment. Here is a look at some of the more significant trends that will continue to dominate the conversation around work in 2018.
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As the scale and complexity of the cyber threat landscape is revealed, so too is the general lack of cybersecurity readiness in organizations, even those that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on state-of-the-art technology. Investors who have flooded the cybersecurity market in search for the next software “unicorn” have yet to realize that when it comes to a risk as complex as this one, there is no panacea — certainly not one that depends on technology alone. Spending millions on security technology can certainly make an executive feel safe. But the major sources of cyber threats aren’t technological. They’re found in the human brain, in the form of curiosity, ignorance, apathy, and hubris. These human forms of malware can be present in any organization and are every bit as dangerous as threats delivered through malicious code.
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If you’re constantly frazzled on the job, logging super-long hours with little to show for it at the end of the day, chances are good that you’re mismanaging your time. But the good news is it’s easy (enough) to reorganize your schedule and get back on a successful track, stat! “There’s a lot coming at us: mail–and [all kinds of] paper in general–emails, texts, phone calls, bosses calling for help, deadlines, projects–it doesn’t stop,” points out Felice Cohen, organizer and author of 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (or More). No wonder so many of us get so behind and feel so exasperated. But it doesn’t have to stay that way. The answer isn’t to do more. “Not everyone can multitask, and most of us who do probably shouldn’t,” says Cohen. Rather, the answer is to do what you do smarter. And here’s how.
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It happens to high- and low-performing teams alike: The ties that bind everyone together just aren’t as strong as they could be. Maybe you’ve inherited a team that’s always been sluggish and uninspired, or one that’s usually steady, but the trust is eroding under pressure. Or perhaps you’re just trying to take your team to the next level. Whatever the case, every team needs to reflect once in a while on what could be improved. It’s human nature to be conflict-averse, but it’s every manager’s job to bring points of conflict out into the open and move forward together. Unfortunately, most meetings aren’t the best venues for doing that. Typical team meetings focus on planning what’s ahead–an upcoming project, the next quarter’s top goals and metrics, expectations moving forward. But there’s a simple alternative, focused on reviewing the immediate past, that can change how your team works for the better.
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While clear-cut introverts and extroverts may be few and far between–with most people falling somewhere on the “ambiversion” spectrum–there is such a thing as an “entrepreneurial personality,” broadly speaking. That doesn’t mean all successful entrepreneurs are the same, of course. But for all the personality traits they don’t have in common, there are a few core characteristics successful founders share–and some of those traits are more obvious than others. After all, whenever you read about or personally encounter a successful entrepreneur, you’re observing only the surface of where they are in the present moment. These are some of the more decisive internal qualities that drive founders’ success, no matter which qualities they outwardly project.
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Yesterday I walked into my home office and examined the space from a fresh perspective. It hasn't had a facelift in about ten years and I've hardly noticed its dingy appearance. Don't get me wrong, I love my office but it's simply out of date and no longer reflects my personality. It's time for a change. Approaching the challenge like any diligent, problem-solving coach, I did my research. What does science say about an office space that boosts energy, creativity, and productivity, all while projecting a safe, calm feeling for clients? Yes, it's possible, and you can do it all on your own. Here's what I've learned. 1. Use color, but not just any color. Color psychology studies (and there are many) reveal changes in the body and brain when people view certain colors. These changes influence productivity, creativity, health, stress levels, focus, communication, and emotions. That's some powerful influence! Color psychologist Angela Wright explains the phenomenon this way: "Color travels to us on wavelengths of photons from the sun. Those are converted into electrical impulses that pass to the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus, which governs our endocrine system and hormones, and much of our activity." First decide what's most important about how color affects you, your employees, and your visitors. In an interview with Chris Bailey, Wright offered this simple breakdown of the effects of color on the mind: "The four psychological primaries are: red, blue, yellow, and green. And they affect the body (red), the mind (blue), the emotions, the ego, and self-confidence (yellow), and the essential balance between the mind, the body, and the emotions (green)." But it's not that simple. Bailey nicely breaks down the process of choosing just the right color in this article.
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Traditional goal setting focuses on the beginning and the end—start strong and keep your eye on the prize. Unfortunately, that process doesn’t work for every kind of goal, says Scott Young, author of How to Change a Habit. “A lot has been taught around the classic self-help style of Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins where you have a clear goal, you visualize it, write it down, and focus on the starting point,” says Young, cofounder of the career development course Top Performer. “Some goals, though, aren’t clearly sequential.” The middle can and should be your starting point when you’re setting a goal where you’re unclear of the level you can achieve within a particular timeframe. This is especially the case with daunting, unfamiliar goals where you don’t yet have a strong sense of the big picture.
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Automation isn’t a simple struggle between people and technology, with the two sides competing for jobs. The more we rely on robots, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, the clearer it’s become just how much we need social scientists and humanities experts–not the reverse. These four skills in particular are all unique to us humans, and will arguably rise in value in the coming years, as more and more companies realize they need the best of both worlds to unleash the potential from both humans and machines. AI and machine learning are extremely useful for solving straightforward, predictable problems and finding patterns no human would ever be able to spot in big data pools. But they’re less helpful in sussing out issues where it’s not a given what the problem actually consists of. Say a patient gradually stops taking her medication, and an algorithm picks up on that fall-off early on. That’s great, but you still need a human being to ask why and contextualize the reasons–with a full understanding of what it means to live with chronic illness. For instance, is the patient simply forgetting to take her medication, or actively choosing not to? Is there an alternative remedy that suits the patient’s priorities and lifestyle?
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It's that time of year--leaders everywhere are charging employees with the task of establishing goals for 2018. If you've never been through a structured process, this exercise can be daunting, and frankly, feel like a big waste of time. I can assure you, it's not. Setting goals is critical. Goals provide direction, help you focus, prioritize your time and energy, and ensure that you can objectively prove you've advanced the company's agenda. But just any goal won't do. Research shows that goals are not only important but also that the level of specificity and difficulty matters. Goals that are both clear and challenging drive higher levels of performance. To set their teams up for success, many organizations use SMART goals. Google leaders use something a little different--"Objectives and Key Results" (OKRs). On Google's re:Work site, a resource that shares the company's perspective on people operations, Google explains the concept.
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hen it comes to our daily schedule, most people fall into one of two camps: The over-scheduler: Their calendars look like a kindergartener’s finger painting. Meetings overlap meetings while reminders for events, breaks, tasks, and more meetings are going off like it’s New Year’s Eve. Their days are determined from the moment they wake up to their evening routine. The minimalist: Also known as “The Dreamer.” They’ve got one or two recurring events, but a whole lot of whitespace so they’re “free” (at least on paper) for long stretches of work. The problem is that both of these are terrible. For their own reasons. Being over-scheduled leaves us no time for ourselves. The more “in control” we are of our calendar, the less control we feel like we have over our lives. Not to mention we’re notoriously bad at knowing how long tasks take us to do. When your schedule is this jammed, even going 15 minutes over on your morning task will throw your whole day out of whack. And the minimalist? Well, they’re just living in la la land, aren’t they? They’ve offloaded their schedule to some other format–most likely a to-do list, scheduling app, or series of angry emails asking “Where is this?” A good daily schedule is a blueprint for a successful life. Knowing what we’re doing and when empowers us with a sense of purpose, meaning, and focus.
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What are the defining attributes of great leaders? That's the age-old question thought leaders and scholars galore have been attempting to answer in mountains of books and literature. While great leadership, to an extent, can be personal and subjective to the follower, there are universal principles you can't argue with (but you can try). Speaking of those thought leaders and scholars, here are six traits that keep surfacing over and over again in the leadership literature and best-sellers. 1. They challenge their own assumptions. Great leaders may be smart and know a lot, but they are humble enough to recognize there are smarter people in the room that they can learn from. They don't restrict themselves from opinions and input outside of their own. They surround themselves with diverse perspectives to help them answer questions like, "How do I know my decision is the right one?" or "Is there a better course of action here?"
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Every year for the past ten years, Glassdoor announces the top places to work all across North America and parts of Europe. The most unique part of this award? You can only win the award if your employees say so. Glassdoor's methodology for the award includes a collection of anonymous company reviews where employees share their honest opinion on pros and cons of working for the company, overall satisfaction, the CEO, and workplace attributes. They're also asked if they would recommend their employer to a friend. It's a juicy turn of the tables. Within the top 100 best places to work for, the industries that came out on top were tech, retail, healthcare, consulting, finance, and travel and tourism. The top cities included the Bay Area, Boston, and Los Angeles (just to name a few). So, what does it take to be the top of the top?
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Of all the things you learned in school, chances are the right way to learn wasn’t one of them. To make it through academic life, most of us opt for what psychologists call “massed practice,” better known as cramming: It’s Monday and your test is Friday, so you save studying for the night before. One four-hour session can nab you a passing grade, so why not? Well, because that’s not how your brain likes to absorb information. You might remember enough to pass your exam the next day, but just a week or two later and the details will already be fuzzy, if not gone completely. Here’s how to do better.
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If you have a love-hate relationship with lists of all kinds, you aren’t alone. On one hand, making a list–whether it’s a grocery list or a to-do list–gives you a single place to keep all your priorities front and center. But that same list can also be a source of anxiety. The longer it gets, the more you may find yourself avoiding it, knowing that the effort it’ll take to cross everything off is going to be considerable. But as it turns out, you’ll be much more productive if you actually read your to-do list regularly–even if you don’t manage to finish every single item that’s on it. Here’s why.
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Whether you’re speaking to a roomful of colleagues, your boss, or a group of friends, you can’t wait to draw people in. You either hook them with your first words, or you don’t. Think of the expression that hooks people in as your “grabber.” It’s the prefatory line or phrase that basically says, “Listen up! You’re gonna want to hear this.” An effective grabber isn’t shouty or alarmist, though–it builds a bridge to your listener. You can call them by name, mention something about them, refer to a point they’ve brought up, or reflect on a conversation you’ve had with them. You can even just ask them about themselves, or bring up something that you know interests them. The point of the grabber is to create rapport, so not only will it vary depending on whom you’re speaking to, it will also change according to the situation. With that in mind, here are seven of the most common scenarios you’re likely to encounter at work, and the grabbers that are best suited to each.
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We all want to learn and grow. Improving our skills and being exposed to new ideas not only makes us better at our jobs but makes us happier and more engaged at work. But with a full-time job, it can be tough to find the time and resources to dedicate to personal development. Some people, like me, are lucky to work for companies that encourage and even fund classes, sabbaticals, or fellowships. But if you work for a company that doesn’t have an official policy, how can you make the case to your manager (and the necessary higher ups) to support you?' Identify how you want to learn and grow. If you don’t yet have a clear picture of what you want to develop, spend time honing in on exactly what you need. Do you want to build your emotional intelligence skills to be a more attuned business leader? Are you interested in going on a yoga or meditation retreat? Set aside a specific period of time, such as one evening or even a week, to explore ideas and research what appeals to you. Write down what you want to learn and how you would grow from the experience you’ve identified. Research shows that the physical act of writing has a neurological effect on the brain which tells the cerebral cortex to “wake up and pay attention.” Writing stimulates a bunch of cells in the brain called the Reticular Activating System that plays a key role in being more conscious and alert. The more you can write down, the more aware and real your ideas become.
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No commute. No drive-by meetings. No dress code. Remote working can seem like a dream — until personal obligations get in the way. These distractions are easy to ignore in an office, but at home it can be difficult to draw the line between personal and professional time. Consider when you’re working on a project and get a call from a friend. You know you need to finish your work, but you feel rude for not talking when you technically could. Or think about when you’re planning your daily to-do list, but also need to decide when you’ll squeeze in your personal commitments. Taking the time to put a few loads of laundry in the washer midday can seem like a quick task — until you find yourself making up that work time late at night. In the end, it’s never entirely clear when you’re really “on” or “off.”
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Receiving feedback is hard. Here are some tips on how you can be better at it.
The truth is, we can’t always control the feedback we receive; we can only control how we choose to accept and use it. And learning how to use it wisely can be a game changer.