Dealing with Coworkers The Disgusting Part I

Employment, Employment Jobs

The work environment often can be described as a meeting place of people with different characters and backgrounds. Every employee is required to be responsible for the work entrusted to them and can work together with other colleagues. Moreover, when in a team. Cooperation is needed most.

In cooperation with other team members, sometimes there is one person who often become the source of the problem for you or other team members. Employees often say this one and being rude, grumpy and happy to shout. This is of course difficult for other employees that often intersect with her, especially about work. How could I not, yet nothing has been commented spicy mouth and offend. If you have a colleague like this, what should you do?

1. Remember that often the things that underlie the behavior of employees who are hostile in fact not caused by you. Expenses caused by problems outside the office as a personal or family problems unconsciously carried over into the working atmosphere. So, if you feel you've done the best thing to deal with these people and always do the job you well while still hostility emanating from the follow his horns, then remember that the person is likely to have other problems, not with you. Do not take it personally.

2. Before the deal with this employee, prepare yourself with a clear argument. Create a scenario in your head to face all the reasons that may be conveyed. Remember to not show arrogance or even fear, but to say every argument you with confidence.

Boss, Build Your Team Now Part II

Employment, Employment Jobs

3. Does each member of your team understand what impact any results of their work for the productivity of the team? Every member you should know that whatever their contribution in the work will yield results for the company if executed in accordance with its mission, goals, principles and vision of the company. That each of them is an important part that must exist to support the continuation and development of a company. A company will not be able to stand without employees. Important is the feeling of being one of the effective ways to build morale for members of your team.

4. Remind about the initial commitment. When the spirit of teamwork and performance began to decrease, you must boost their morale back with the reminder that they have a part in decisions on targets, goals and ethos of teamwork culture, so that each team member is committed to continue the things they had decided themselves to the development of company. Because the work without the spirit will not yield the maximum work.

5. Whether your team members feel appreciated? Did you know that by updating their skills through training or seminars funded by the office, is one effective way of showing that you appreciate the employee? The advantage would be obtained either by companies or the employees themselves; their skills is to increase office productivity, and they have the spirit because it was given the opportunity to grow.

6. Challenges, excitement and opportunity. Routines can sometimes be monotonous. The work that had challenged the skill and creativity can be so boring after a long time so that it can weaken morale. Make sure you provide opportunities for members of your team to re-experience the challenges, the spark in the works. There are many ways you can do; job rotation, freeing them to use new work systems are considered more effective, or giving new responsibilities.

Boss, Build Your Team Now Part I

Employment, Employment Jobs

Very often we hear jargon or quote that gives inspiration to build teamwork or team work. The team is solid and productive, of course, dream of all leaders. Members of this team understands that every task and responsibility that they entailed is to improve and maintain productivity and performance of team work to achieve the target set by the company.

Building a team's performance has its own challenges and not the job can be done easily, then hope the results can be obtained with the instant. Building a team means to develop character and upgrade the skills of each team member is a gradual and continuous. Meanwhile, often building blocks to do this is coming from the company itself. For example, the system rewards given for achievement or achievements of individual employees, instead of the result of team work, companies also often provide an appraisal of the work or the progress of employees in private as compared with the achievements obtained by the group. These things also have to 'consider' before you prepare and plan a strategy to more actively build your team.

There are several ways you can help and inspire you to build a solid team, productive and could continue to grow.

1. Equalized perceptions, goals, targets and work ethic, and socialized to every member of the team. At the beginning of the formation of a team or when you start to get into a team as a leader, to convey to all members of the targets, objectives and work ethic that you want to apply in the team. Then give your team members an opportunity to give their opinions about things you have to say. Deliver them to discuss and express objections, approval or even their ideas. In the end, every employee will feel that they have a stake in any decision made by the team. Thus will arise a feeling obliged to account for every decision made itself, so that decisions taken are ayng ayng best for the company where he works.

2. Make sure your team member knows their responsibilities and job description. Of course you as a leader not only in charge of managing the task you are a member, also have to understand each activity and the difficulties they face. Because each type of work in a team associated with each other, then the procedure that you specify must also make their work more efficiently with the aim of the work in accordance with maximum hasilakn work goals.

My Ratings of Popular Careers

By Marty Nemko

Employment, Employment Jobs

Attempted to rate careers. Alas, in its attempt to be as objective as possible, it seems to have missed the mark. For example, its #2-rated career is actuary. Yes, it’s lucrative and the working conditions are safe, but most people would find a life of analyzing insurance statistics, pardon the pun, deadly.

In contrast, this resource bases its ratings on both objective and subjective criteria. The objective information is gleaned largely from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook and the subjective information is a distillation of what I’ve learned from my confidential discussions with 2,400 clients plus countless conversations outside the office. I have always been fascinated by people’s work, so for decades, I’ve been asking people—at parties, in supermarket lines, everywhere--to tell me about their job.

Of course, a career that is excellent for one person is poor for another, but I believe valid generalizations can be made. While I’m issuing caveats, please also remember that each career profile is based on a relatively small number of interviews. This resource should be but one data point in a thorough effort to choose a career. At the end of each profile, I list additional resources: a link to a more detailed profile of that career in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (henceforth referred to as OOH), the Web site for an association of people in that career, and/or a book I believe would be helpful in exploring that career. If after reviewing those resources, a career continues to be of interest, conduct one or more informational interviews with and job shadows of people in that career. That approach will maximize your chances of being satisfied with your career.

Work & Heart

by Johannes Siegrist, Ph.D.

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Work gives people opportunities to receive many rewards. Some rewards include job satisfaction, whereas others are outward societal rewards, i.e., money, esteem, and status. There is, or should be, reciprocity between the effort expended to accomplish work and all the gains realized.

It has long been recognized, however, that a discrepancy exists between work and reward. That discrepancy leads to psychological stress that frequently finds expression in somatic symptoms, including heart risk and cariac health.

In an exhaustive review discussing the links between psychosocial occupational stress and health, Johannes Siegrist, Ph.D., concludes that high-cost/low gain employment must be considered a risk factor for cardiovascular health.

In his review, Siegrist measures high cost by extrinsic forces such as the demands of the job and intrinsic sources such as the motivations of the worker in a demanding situation.

He measures low-gain conditions by salary, the workers perceived esteem of colleagues and supervisors as well as availability of help from those sources and degree of status control the worker perceives as having relative to the work, i.e., control over the type of work done, whether or not relocation was required, prospects for promotion.

The review addresses three relevant questions concerning the links between psychosocial occupational stress and health:
1) How to identify those components within the global psychosocial occupational environment that are of critical importance to health.
2) How chronically stressful experience is maintained in individuals who are exposed to the psychosocial stressors identified in theoretical models.
3) The relationship between adverse health effects of chronically stressful experience in terms of high effort and low reward.

Although Dr. Siegrist concludes that high cost/low gain conditions at work must be considered a risk constellation for cardiovascular health, he defines some of the numerous questions that still remain and should be addressed in future research.

The New Leaders: From Control to Influence Part IV

by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D.

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

New leaders understand that they are powerless over life's natural processes: in nature, in people, in the marketplace, and in the enterprises they are entrusted to lead. They surrender to the truth that the more they try to control, the more they create mediocre organizations filled with compliant, incomplete, and inauthentic people who, as a result, perform at a fraction of their capability. Our desire for the illusion of control reflects our own deep fear, ignorance, incompleteness, powerlessness, and inauthenticity.

In our obsession to control, we live an insidious and powerful denial. We try mightily to impose what is unreal upon what is real and do massive damage in the process-to nature and to other human beings. We cannot control life, and we cannot change others. To try to control others is to deny and damage their spirits and their right to live an authentic life, and none of us has that right. We can only change ourselves by becoming more aware, authentic, and courageous and then we can contribute our unique gifts and influence the systems around us in life-enhancing ways.

We human beings have always known, deep down, of our powerlessness in the larger scheme of things. The fear and insecurity of our impotence in the face of dynamic natural processes much more powerful than ourselves leads to efforts to control and to convince ourselves that we are in charge. Since the human experience began, we have tried to make sense of life and to control nature through our religions, our sciences, our addictions, and our philosophies.

In the recent past of human history, the mechanistic world-view promised to remove this insecurity from us. Many of us fell prey to this view of people and organizations as machines always fixable, controllable, and predictable. This view of life, people, and organizations is incomplete. We are not machines, and denying our humanity will not make us so.

We know the impact the mechanistic world-view has on people in organizations. We feel the alienation of being treated like objects. Corporations are machines, where management is equated with control, where employees are children, where people are motivated by fear, where change is synonymous with pain, and where emotions are forbidden. Many of us are bored, afraid, confused, alienated, and angry living in that world, and we experience those emotions as "numbness." Is the way we are leading working for us?

This is the organizational world we created. Much of it is abusive. We are responsible for the impact this view of the world has on people, on ourselves, and on the natural world. We can change this reality if we first face it and accept responsibility for what we have done, what we are doing, and what we can do. We can no longer blame ignorance for how we lead. Powerful knowledge has been available for a long time. Leaders have, for the most part, ignored it and perpetuate a destructive system of thought.

The first step in our leadership transformation is to understand that our thinking is flawed and our mechanistic beliefs false when applied to living systems. We realize how our atomistic and fragmented beliefs (along with our egos) block the development of ourselves and of many of those who look to us for leadership, and we internalize the harm we have inflicted on others and ourselves. I believe the lack of awareness by people of how they impact others is the single most destructive force in organizational life; a mindlessness that brings forth destructive behavior that the perpetrators are unaware of.

We see reality as it is and accept personal responsibility for change. We realize that if we participated in the cause of an event, we bear our share of responsibility for the outcome and impact. This accountability is a necessary inner shift that may frighten and humiliate us.

Such a personal accounting is difficult to accept. What prideful executive wants to admit failure of any kind--much less a personal failure of leadership? What self-centered manager wants to admit to behavior destructive to the spirits of others? What employee wants to see their complicity in the system they blame for their powerlessness? We may feel lost, angry, guilty, betrayed, confused, and powerless. Reality is a tough teacher.

We internalize the craziness of a belief system and behaviors that deny so much of our aliveness--our spirit, our emotions, and our intuition--and then ignore, for the most part, the destructiveness of those aspects of ourselves when they are expressed indirectly. We grasp the insanity of a way of thinking that requires people and organizations to be mediocre and that continues to jump at every quick-fix solution put forth. A quick fix for what? To be mediocre in new and exciting ways?

We understand the harmfulness of the truth we deny, the conformity we demand, the authenticity we punish, and the responsibility we refuse. We see our organizations and ourselves in conflict between life-sustaining creative forces and the path of equilibrium and death.

We finally understand that much of what we thought about leadership is wrong. The foundation of beliefs and practices that provided meaning and structure in organizations are now understood to be false and destructive. Even if we had superficial material success, we, as leaders, realize the impact our behavior has on others and on the sustainability of our planet and organizations. We see that so much more is possible. We study and begin to learn the essence of a new world-view.

Twentieth century sciences are "proving," in the language of the scientist, what the spirit has always known: nature is a living system and everything is interconnected, interrelated, and interdependent. Life's natural creative processes are orderly but cannot be controlled by anyone.

To try to control is to try to reverse life's natural processes. Why would we want to do that? The mechanistic world-view is not rejected--a more encompassing understanding of life eclipses it. Newtonian science still works-for machines and linear processes-but not for living systems (including human beings and organizations).

The implications of an ecological world-view for leadership and organizational life are profound. Our eyes are opened to a new vision of life. The diversity we force into conformity is seen as the essence of life and sustainability. The truths we do not talk about are seen as essential to growth. The chaos we dampen is seen as the source of creativity.

The relationships we refuse are seen as the substance of life. The self-organization we limit is seen as the process to new growth and development. The emotions we deny are seen as life's energy from which all vitality emerges. The personal and organizational identities we neglect to get acquainted with are seen as the path to authenticity and provide the conceptual controls that guide members of our organizations toward a common destination.

Our role as leaders shifts from heroic control to authentic influence. Our responsibility is to create conditions that free life's natural processes within our organizations and to align the organization's energy around the shared identity of purpose, values, and vision.

We begin with ourselves. We come to know our beliefs, our purpose for living, and our vision. We speak them, and we live them. We honor diversity. We tell the truth. We utilize chaos. We nurture relationships. We facilitate self-organization and we feel our emotions. And we fulfill our new role with a steely inner resolve regardless of what others may think.

In time, and with a new world-view, we begin to give up our efforts to control (within ourselves and externally), and we let go of our many preconditions for life and for others. We reduce our egos intentionally, and we live our new beliefs. We don't have to know everything. We don't have to be right all the time. We don't have to have every idea and make every decision. We don't have to have certainty before we act. And we don't have to be the bully dictator for everyone else's life.

We put the good of the team, the family, and the organization ahead of our selfish wants. We stop identifying with external symbols. Ultimately we identify only with life itself. We shift our view of life from a win-lose scarcity model to a win-win world of abundance. We begin to live more intuitively. We spend more time in solitude. We are vulnerable. We find our direction within. We may use a coach to guide us along the way-someone who has done the work we are beginning. We do not gain the insight we need from costly seminars led by slick presenters who have not done their own work. Our conscious evolution cannot be purchased. We must work for it. A healthy (and reduced) ego is needed to do such difficult work.

New leaders free massive amounts of human potential and discretionary energy with powerful impacts on the enterprise. We come to realize that our authentic participation (influence) has greater impact on the organization than our inauthentic efforts to control and change others. We honor the authenticity of every person and see their spirits flourish and their contributions to the organization grow.

We, as leaders, can create conditions for this emergence of authenticity to happen and can model the way through our own learning and development. Dumbed-down, compliant, and inauthentic people and mediocre organizations can be so much more creative and productive than they are, and organizations can be much more sustainable. And life and work can invigorate us. We do what works for us. Do we have the courage to abandon a world-view that has served its purpose and embark on a new leadership journey?

In our first difficult efforts to give up control, we might abdicate our leadership responsibilities thinking we can no longer say or do anything that might be interpreted as being controlling. We might retreat to our offices and just "let it happen." The organization flounders, and we are disappointed and blame others for the failure of "the new ways."

If we are bored, frustrated, stressed, or in a crisis, we may over-react and take control more than ever before. People fear we are going back to the old ways and think we are not walking the talk. We feel angry, afraid, confused, and anxious. This "relapse" is normal and part of our growth. Our trust and faith is weakest when we need them most. They will grow if we stick with it and gain experience. We learn and try again. We realize that influence is not the same as abdication.

With reflective practice, our judgment grows, and we get a feel for a middle ground and come to understand that we can still lead, but differently. Instead of telling people what to do, we ask them questions and provide them with information. We give them time to be in relationship together so that the wisdom that is in the system can emerge.

We give people freedom to make decisions and to take action about the work they do, and we hold them accountable. We don't do their work for them. We teach others how to do things for themselves and require them to do so. Instead of talking we listen. Instead of trying to control people we create conditions which free them to use their capabilities. Most of all we model the change we want to see in others.

In some circumstances it is right to take charge, make decisions, and give direction. Experience teaches us when this is appropriate. Our inner wisdom, maturity, and judgment gradually replace quick-fix leadership programs.

We see changes in people. We notice that those who have been among the walking dead for years come alive and make important new contributions. We recognize unnoticed talents in people and feel new energy in them as they make new contributions. People take new initiative, and teams perform great feats. The organization's performance improves in dramatic and unpredictable ways. We comment to others about how much people have changed. Then we realize they are changing because we are changing, and we are changing because they are changing. The power of this insight is compelling. We understand that we grow in relationship with others.

Leadership transformation is difficult and requires tremendous commitment: to new learning, feedback and dialogue, a deep examination of beliefs, and a decision to change fundamental operating assumptions. A transformation requires the development of latent capabilities, and the practice of new skills. We suffer the humiliations of the novice and develop our ability to apologize, because we will make many mistakes.

Our transformation requires action, courage, and awareness along with faith in life's natural processes. We go forward courageously into the chaos of life with wise uncertainty. This is the new leader. Why would we do this hard work? We do it because we want a sustainable world for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. Real leaders take on this hard work willingly.

The New Leaders: Humble Warriors Part III

by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D.

Jobs Vacancy, Employment, Employment Jobs

Richard Knowles, Ph.D., consultant and former executive with the DuPont Company, about his leadership experience at the Belle, West Virginia plant:

I was a tough, command and control manager, setting high expectations and driving the people in the organization very hard. I was seen as cold and tough minded. I had to get good business results; this is the way I thought I had to be to get things changed.

I tried to be rational and analytical--there was no place for emotions. But I did lose my temper with people, especially those who worked most closely with me. I felt I had to drive people to get the best results quickly. I was hard on them and myself.

Even though it was awfully rough, we made a lot of progress and our performance got a lot better. Many people hated me-- several wrote letters to the DuPont CEO telling him I was a bear and that they should get me out of there. I even had a couple of death threats. I knew I had to change. A painful and difficult time of personal growth as a leader began.

My role shifted from being the standard setter and driver to cheerleader. I started to spend a lot more time with the people in the plant. I paid a lot more attention to the processes we were using. I began to go much deeper into the way the organization worked, learning a lot about what was really going on. I opened up to how people were feeling: our caring and feelings for each other grew. I spent a lot of time trying to help people see the meaning in what we were doing. As more and more people discovered that they could make a difference, huge energy and creativity flowed into the organization.

I learned that it was much more effective for me to ask questions, helping people to understand what we needed to consider than to try to have all the answers. I found that I just needed to ask questions and invite the people to come in to help. They always came! Their answers were usually better than those I came up with. Further, the answers were theirs so they helped to create our future together. Resistance to change just melted away.

During this time the people at Belle made one improvement after another. Our safety injury rates dropped by 95%, and we became the third safest DuPont Plant in the world. Earnings tripled. Productivity rose by about 45%. In every way, we saw exciting performance improvements as we learned together. Several families adopted us into their extended families; we still go to reunions.

Richard Knowles grew from a mechanical man to a complete human being.

The mechanistic world-view teaches us that we are separate and distinct from nature and from others. This world-view even teaches us that we can disconnect from our spirit and emotions and rely on our rational minds only. We seek to control and dominate nature and others. We believe we are responsible only for ourselves and others must fend for themselves. Such beliefs alienate us from others and ourselves and allow us to harm others with no sense of personal responsibility. Many leaders manage from this view of life. In positions of power and influence, and justified by ambition and the bottom line, our organizational leadership damages many people.

We learn that success and promotions often go to the strongest and most ruthless--not the most caring, creative, or competent. Individualistic employees identify with and defend their fragmented jobs and/or departments. Relationships between people in organizations are often dishonest, conforming, competitive, paternalistic, and politically correct. Often we create enemies who we demonize and scapegoat to justify our own bad behavior. We act like living machines, each in conformity with one another. Rigid and impermeable boundaries maintain and protect our disconnection from others. The beliefs that drive these behaviors are false.

Quantum physics teach us that relationships are primary in the universe. Elements in the sub-atomic world are life-like, exchange information constantly, and transform based on these dynamics. They exist only in relationship to other energy. They are not separate, distinct, or atomistic as we once believed. These unseen connections are the essence of creativity. Life is relationships. The same dynamics occur at the human level. Like sub-atomic particles, people are created to be in relationship with others. When we understand this truth we internalize that what we do to others we do to ourselves.

In the workplace connections are made around the shared identity (vision, values, and purpose) of the enterprise and shared information that allows employees to self-organize around the vision for the future. Richard Knowles averaged 5 hours a day, over 5 years, out of his office teaching the plant's vision, values, and purpose to employees. Enlightened leaders see the importance of relationships to family, leadership, and to creativity and self-organization in our enterprises.

To take advantage of life's natural dynamics in our organizations, we must utilize this knowledge and move from being machinelike to being complete human beings as Richard Knowles did. This is difficult. For first we must see ourselves as we are. Our denial, rationalizations, and need to blame people, combined with a lack of honest feedback about our impact on others, make it hard for us to realize and admit the destruction we do to the spirits of others. We do not see how our leadership behavior brings forth sub-optimal performance even as we try to enhance performance. We can choose to open our hearts and see beyond positional slots to the humanity of those around us.

If we choose to grow, then we look back honestly through the lens of new beliefs, accept responsibility for our actions, and hold ourselves accountable for our impact on others. We are mindful of the destructive patterns and dynamics of our relationships with others. We see how our behavior often brings out the worst in others. We reflect on how we harmed others mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, and in their careers.

We also examine our impact as leaders and citizens on nature and the impact of our world-view on our families and ourselves. We realize that in the past we acted from what we knew and now we have new knowledge. We forgive ourselves. As we see how living from a new world-view can evolve us as human beings, we become willing to apologize, to change our leadership practices, our business practices, and our personal behavior We begin to make amends. We learn how to form and sustain relationships with others and our isolation from others begins to end.

The positional boundaries that separate us are removed. We accept others as fellow human beings worthy of equal respect because of our shared humanity. We see how relationships impact innovation and understand the power of ownership, participation, and engagement with others. We also realize that we can lead only in symbiotic relationship with our followers.

We realize that our new principles for life apply equally everywhere: in the home, the workplace, and in our interactions with all people we come in contact with. Our new growth will disrupt patterns of behavior and relationships in our families and workplaces. This may lead to considerable anguish and need for further growth and change.

This is the hard inner work of personal growth and transformation. We are at a new level of consciousness brought about by a series of spiritual awakenings, moments of metanoia, and painful, profound, and penetrating personal insights. In effect, we change our minds about how to live and lead. We begin to give back.

We share our stories, learnings, and experiences with others with no strings attached because we are servants to the greater whole of life. We become teachers and coaches, and we bear witness for others. At times we subordinate our personal wishes and do what is in the interest of the larger system of which we are a part. At other times, we put ourselves first. We give up control and create conditions where the talents of all can emerge.

We put into practice the fundamental wisdom we acquire. We learn to love wisdom and desire to live by its dictates, a life of service, simplicity, authenticity, and faith. The material world lessens in importance, and we live courageously and authentically from our souls. We experience the joy of touching the spirit of another.

We feel no need to control and are content to observe, to let things unfold, to introspect, and to ponder the meaning of things in a mindful way. Our goal is to understand. We learn to bring forth the wisdom in every group and seek to learn from people in the most humble of positions. We become continuous learners and eternal travelers into the world of higher knowledge. We hold our beliefs up for examination continually and ask others to do the same. Through our work we inspire, provide hope, open eyes, and are wise and embody the spiritual, mystical parts of our lives: we create meaning.

We learn to trust our inner voice and know things from our own experience. We do not accept the views of others blindly. We coach this capability in others. We help everyone to be who they are. We give back and institutionalize a spiritual way of life. We achieve fantastic results when we lead in this way.

I had an experience similar to Richard Knowles. I led a massive change effort at a large Midwestern newspaper for 1990-94. Little did I know when the experience began, that I would be changed the most. I began the same inner journey that Richard took. I continue it today. First year business results were spectacular including $5 million in savings and a 70% reduction in first-line supervision. All service measures improved by as much as 70%.

The work we did, and the relationships we developed within the 4,500-employee business unit, were destroyed by my successors. A significant decline in performance ensued and continues today.

Leaders are paid to deliver results. Leaders want to transform their organizations because they want them to survive and prosper. Few leadership talents are required to deliver short-term results obtained when we cut budgets, reduce staff, push people beyond their limits, and manipulate numbers. These tactics reflect mechanistic beliefs that kill organizations in the long-term in exchange for the illusion of success in the short-term.

Richard Knowles achieved fantastic results in ways that promoted the wholeness of people and called forth the tremendous latent potential in organizations. He understood early that living systems are creative and self-organize naturally around a core identity in ways that enhance sustainability. Richard Knowles learned to lead in ways that support the long-term sustainability of the organization, the economy, and the environment. I believe this is the leadership purpose, and the organizational challenge, for the 21st century.