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Welcome to "Proactively
Managing Your Career Newsletter"
Issue #4
Brought to you by Iris Wood from
Pro-Active Human Resource
Management
http://www.proactivehrm.com/index.html
Inspirational Quotes
The ladder of success is best
climbed by stepping on the rungs of
opportunity.
Ayn Rand
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Welcome back to "Proactively
Managing Your Career" newsletter
A warm thank you to the people who
have e-mailed me
with kind words and encouragement
to continue to offer useful career
advice.
I have had a few suggestions for
possible topics. Believe me, I have
a mountain of material so let me
know if there is any particular subject
you want to cover.
Raylene suggested that I provide
specific information about outsourcing
and the impact of globalisation on
our jobs. Now I am tempted to write
about this pet subject of mine,
but really I think it could be a bit negative.
Perhaps I will just provide links
for people to read if they feel so inclined.
Let me know your views, as it is
an important subject.
However I am pleased to say that I have had my first
great success
story that I will publish next
newsletter.
There are not many books available
on how to advance in your career.
So I was delighted to find this
book which has proven to be very popular
with my readers."Learn
how To advance In Your Career"
by Dr Jeffrey Magee.It has had
some very good reviews and the feedback that I have
had is that it is excellent very
practical.
Have a look Here
Topics covered in issue #4
-
How to rise above
disappointment.
-
Using questions
skillfully
-
Lunch - for wimps?
-
Focusing on growth.
-
Giving presentations - a
highly marketable skill.
-
Paper Clips.
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Career Advancement
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How to Rise Above
Disappointment
We've all experienced that sinking
feeling - whether it was the
promotion that went to someone
else, the coveted award we
didn't get, or the project that
didn't receive the hoped-for acclaim.
Invariably, in both our
professional and personal lives, there are
times when our highest hopes are
dashed on the rocks of hard
reality. Here are some words of
encouragement to help you
through those difficult times:
* Seek support, but be sure to
choose helpful (and hopeful) friends.
Talk to people who believe in you,
but avoid "complaint junkies" who
will only encourage you to feel
further victimized and disempowered.
* Don't give up. Although you may
lose something in the short-term,
learn from this and come out
stronger and more determined. You may
need to hone your skills, approach
the situation from another angle, or
change direction entirely.
Regardless, devise another strategy and give
it another shot. Most successful
people have been knocked down plenty
of times before realizing their
dreams - Walt Disney was sacked by a
newspaper editor for "lack of
ideas".
* Have faith, both in yourself
and the growth process. Remember,
everyone experiences setbacks, so
don't let the situation get the better
of you. In fact, many successful
people look back on their past
disappointments as blessings -
knowing that they learned a lot from
them - and that something better
was waiting down the line. When
one door closes, another will
open, especially if you remain positive
and persistent.
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Job Hunting Success
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Using questions skilfully.
The art of active listening is
relevant to job search Use active listing
to
anticipate the employer's unstated
needs and address them. This is
a strategy I have used in my
interviewing techniques section on my
site under Job Search. Active
listening comes under the
"marketing approach".
http://www.proactivehrm.com/JobSearch/Job_Interview_Techniques.html
Effective active listening is
crucial in communicating effectively in any
situation and crucial in the
workplace.
Effective questioning begins with
active listening - listening for the feelings
behind the words. It is listening
that puts the speaker's feelings, concerns
and thoughts first. Few things are
harder than active listening. Not only must
you first process information,
then remember it, interpret it, evaluate it and
respond to it; you must also not
ask anything back for yourself - no chances
to 'have your own say' or 'get
your two cents in'.
So why bother with such a
demanding listening skill? Because you
can't truly be an effective
manager, supervisor or co-worker unless
you do!
Once you master the skills of
active listening, you'll 'get' as much as you 'give'
in terms of increased
productivity, morale, motivation, sense of teamwork, etc.
Questions can sometimes be
detrimental to the active listening process.
However, if asked correctly, they
can be extremely helpful. It all depends
on the kind of questions you ask
and the way you ask them.
Active listeners consciously avoid
using questions that would threaten
or challenge the speaker. ("What
do you mean by that?" or "Why did
you say that?").
Instead, they use questions to
clarify, elaborate and understand.
("How did you come to feel that
way?" and "What do you think is the
biggest stumbling block right
now?").
To get a better handle on the
questioning, let's first take a look at some
questioning 'do's'.
Do use open questions
'Open questions' are questions
that call for more than a simple
'yes' or 'no' answer or similar
short reply. Open questions make it possible
for a person to respond with
what's on his or her mind. Open questions
often begin with words such as
"how", "what, and "where". For example,
"How did that make you feel?"
"What happened next?" "Where do you
see this leading?"
Do use expanding questions
This type of question may
encourage the speaker to elaborate or clarify
something she/he has said before.
These questions are especially effective
when you sense that the speaker is
hesitating to say something she/he may
wish to communicate, but is afraid
to say for some reason.
Examples of 'expanding' questions
are: "Can you tell me more about that?"
"I'm still a little hazy on that
last point. Could you be a little more specific?"
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Newsworthy Information
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Lunch - for wimps?
With up to 25% of the workforce
skipping the traditional refuelling point of
the day, the lunch break could be
on its way out. Only 2.3% of US workers
are taking an hour or more for
lunch. The average time away from the office
is 40 minutes, according to 500
18-45 year olds questioned in a recent survey.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the main
reason for this is tight deadlines and/or
heavy workloads in general.
However, the longer term results may not work
to anyone's benefit, according to
psychologists. Although some stress improves
performance, not taking a lunch
break in which people can recharge their
batteries and clear their minds
may be part of the vicious cycle leading to
stress-induced days off.
In addition, 76% of those surveyed
admitted they took their frustration out on
work colleagues and became short
tempered under pressure.
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Professional Development
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The best investment of your
time and money is to invest
in your own career development.
This subject was requested by Anne
Davies Thank you Anne.
Delivering presentations and
making speeches.
Creating presentations and
speeches are both marketable skills
Some of us learned how to make
presentations at university or school, and
today it is child's play. Have you
seen what a 10 year old can do with
PowerPoint?
For people who haven't had to make
speeches or given a presentation, the
thought is enough to fear and
panic.
Here are some tips.
The more you know about and care
about your topic, the better speaker you
will be. Your enthusiasm will help
displace your fear.
Now it's time to think about the
visual portion of your presentation and how
It will effectively create the
results you are seeking. When your voice is
combined with visuals
(photographs, slides or charts), your audience's
retention of the content increases
by 50%. Since the use of PowerPoint,
presentations, especially when
they were first introduced, audience, retention
rose to nearly 80%, according to
some sources.
Organise your information.
Keep it simple and structured
point by point. Your audience will better retain
what you say if it's easy to
understand and is presented logically.
For small, informal meetings of up
to 10 people where discussion and
participation is encouraged, an
whiteboard or easel and pad, coloured
markers, a flip chart or overhead
transparencies will work best.
Audiences of 10 to 30 people
benefit most from overhead transparencies,
slides or computer/video
projection systems. Transparencies are the most
portable, but computer generated
graphics can be different and help keep
your audience's attention.
For large audiences
PowerPoint presentations are the
most effective, giving you the most
control over your material and the
attention of your audience.
* Prepare your visuals ahead of
time.
* Make your material simple,
clean, colourful, and relevant to what you
are presenting. The use of some of
PowerPoint visual art is effective
if it is truly linked to your
message and doesn't distract your audience
from your ideas. Use short
phrases or words that highlight what you
are saying. Just using a
coloured text is an effective way to heighten
interest.
While being able to make an
effective presentation or speech are highly
marketable skills, training is
harder to come by. Fortunately the use of
PowerPoint can be learned at night
school, generally a TAFE or night
school..
If your company uses
presentations, put yourself forward and ask if you
can watch and learn. However, if
you use PowerPoint you will need
excellent facilitation or
presentation skills. You may be able to access a
night school class or summer
school class.
You can become a very effective
presenter or speaker simply through
home study. Take, for example,
How to Create and Make a
Presentation Toolkit
by Michael Green. Michael boasts that his
"Breakthrough New Course Shows
You How To Master Your
Presentation All in less than 60
minutes or it's your money back!"
He will show you how to access
thousands of PowerPoint templates.
Now Michael is a pretty switched
on guy and the one thing he does well
is public speaking. I use a lot of
Michael's resources and over the next
few months you will get to hear
about them if they are relevant. .
Download it HERE
now and you can be on your way to becoming a
public speaker within minutes.
Oh!! I forgot to tell you. Sign
up for their Free courses, for example,
Michael has a three day tutorial
you shouldn't miss.
Public Speaking
This is another resource suited to
the novice and aimed at the person
who goes to pieces at the thought
of giving a presentation. At the same
time all people who have to make
presentations will benefit from reading
this book. The author, a
professional public speaker, claims to assist
you to "speak with success and
without fear" and to design and deliver
unforgettable messages. Added
bonuses and a guarantee.
Stress Free Public Speaking and Presentation
Course
- Paul Daniels
All the resources I refer you to have a money back
guarantee and not only
that but usually some extra bonus'
here. Once again you will be reading it
in minutes. Do you have to give a
presentation soon? Well this book will
save your bacon.
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Surviving in the Workplace
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Focusing on growth
You might be surprised to learn
just how much time is wasted by business
people performing non-essential
activities.
Recent research has revealed that
most people spend more time performing
unproductive tasks than productive
ones. And surprising, it is a problem
encountered by even the most
organised and best focused people.
Diversions from core money making
work can be found in any number of
"other" activities and most people
don't even realize, at least at first,
that they are heading down a dead
end by pursuing them.
The most common "time waster" is
often getting involved in a casual
conversation that might waste
several minutes. But there are many other
less obvious cul-de-sacs that are
worth considering:-.
* Any conversation, enquiry, or
casual remark, no matter how brief
is actually eating into your
productive time (as well as somebody else's).
What's more it may end up lasting
for more than the initial few seconds,
as your colleague replies and you
respond back. Unnecessary non
work-related conversations waste
time.
* The "hiding to nothing" project
can take up significantly more time
and represents a more serious
waste of resources. It might not be
immediately apparent that your pet
project of the moment is really an
obscure diversion from getting
your real job done, but once you know
that it is leading nowhere - kill
it off.
* The Lotto syndrome. If you are
the person who spends time walking
around the office collecting
money for the Office State Lottery syndicate,
then you are probably suffering
from this one. Stop and think about it for a
moment. Does this really improve
the productivity of the work place or is
it just another diversion, a
chance to chat to work colleagues, not only as
you go round collecting the money
on a Friday, but as you talk about how
you didn't win a thing (again) on
the Monday
morning.
* Having said all of the above, I
am not saying that the office should be a
boring place to be. On the
contrary, despite what most people think, it is
more usual to work because you
enjoy it, than purely for the monetary
reward, and so it wouldn't make
any sense to build a work environment
where nobody talks about anything
trivial, ever. But try to ensure that your
conversations are relevant and
that your work is focused.
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A Little Bit of Trivia
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Paper Clips
Every day, 35,000,000 paper clips
are purchased. Seven
million are used. Between eight
and nine million are lost.
Almost 5 million are twisted up by
nervous fingers during
telephone conversations.
Data source - someone with too
much time on their hands.
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So that is it once again, I hope
you found this issue
informative. Your feedback will be
appreciated. E-mail me at
proactivehrm@tpg.com.au
To your success - cheers
Iris Wood
http://www.proactivehrm.com/index.html
PS. Don’t forget to keep checking
my career development and
Job search articles and resources
as they are changing all the
time.
http://www.proactivehrm.com/careersupport/index.html
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