February 28, 2007 by Kara.

There is a great post by Penelope Trunk, at Brazen Careerist, on ways to make your life more stable with frequent job changes.  While the change I’m contemplating at the moment isn’t necessarily a full change, as I’m looking to change to a different station and post in the same organization, it’s still important to not get too complacent in any one career path or workplace setting. I love the statement she makes, “companies are under too much pressure to be lean and flexible (read: layoffs, downsizing, reorgs), so workers have to be, too (read: constantly on the alert for new job possibilities).”  I have a few friends who still live with the “work to get the gold watch” mentality.  They rarely take opportunities to develop new skillsets, they don’t work to advance their position within their company, and they don’t attempt to be more valuable than simply what their position description denotes. They work 8 - 5 and nothing else.  In this day and age, that simply doesn’t cut it on a regular basis.  You have to look for every single opportunity to shine. 

I also appreciate the point Trunk makes that “you will experience more personal growth from changing jobs frequently.”  I’m in a position now that has been of extreme value to me.  I can’t tell you how important it was to my personal development and my career development, to take this position.  It has been and will continue to be, if I stay in this post, a valuable learning experience.  However, I’m looking for a new job, not because this isn’t a good job with great benefits, but because this job doesn’t have much more to offer me in the realm of advancing my skill set.  Sure, I’ll continue to polish my presentation skills, hone in on working through politically charged situations, and adapt even more tools to work with varied and diverse groups of people.  However, I just don’t feel I can grow this position much more, simply because of the way it is configured in the organization as a whole and hence there are limited opportunities for my continued growth and development.  (Note - of course if I keep this position, I plan to look at various ways to change its orientation in the organization to allow for more growth, but at this point I’m not sure that is even in the best interest of the organization).

Towards the middle of her post, Trunk points to a true ho-ohana style value, “Key values today are time and relationships. Stability means knowing you can get yourself work that is fun and accommodates those values. The stable people are those who can manage to consistently get work they enjoy that pays their bills.”  Isn’t that true.  You want to live life while working - not wait for retirement - which is about as uncertain as anything these days - to live your life.

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February 13, 2007 by karamonroe.

The midwest is being pounded on by mother nature in the form of a winter storm. It’s one of those storms that isn’t really bad yet, but has promises of many great things to come.  As a facilities director, it is my job to assist in the decision making regarding whether or not to close our little campus.  Thankfully, we’ve decided to close for the day.  Needless to say, this helped me greatly in my question towards the early rising and more routine evenings/mornings as I always try to get to sleep a bit earlier the night before a stron like this since I know I’ll have to be up so early and I got up at 4 this morning to start monitoring the weather situation.  I did take a couple of cool pictures out the window this morning with my Nikon D80 which I’ll share with you in a post a bit later.  If you’re in the midwest, stay inside today and off the roads.  If you’re on the east coast, particularly New England - get ready.

Anyway, if you work in a business where you have the opportunity to take a snow day once in a while (either the business imposes it or you simply save a sick day or two in order to use as snow days - regardless of whether there is snow on the ground), I say congratulations.  It is a great day when mother nature says, you need to stop.  For those folks who can’t stop - doctors, nurses, my social worker friend who works at the local hospital, road crews, police, fire, and emergency workers - the rest of us NEED to stay off the roads and let these people do their jobs under the worst possible circumstances.  The rest of us need to cuddle up under a blanket with our favorite pet and a good book and catch up on our leisure reading, blog postings, or just get a little shut eye. 

I do love snow days.

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February 12, 2007 by karamonroe.

Blog lifehack posted the original series of questions which inspired me to start this blog and this question/answer set was one that really caught my attention. However, I’ve not been ready to post my response to it until now.  Recently, I’ve been doing a great deal of reflection on my strengths and weaknesses, particularly as they relate to my work.  I’ve come up with the following strengths:

1. The ability to make order out of chaos
2. The ability to apply technology to a situation to streamline a process
3. The ability to teach people a new skill (and the desire to do this teaching)
4. The ability to pick up new skills myself and apply them to existing problems

I’ve shared these strengths with my boss and a few trusted friends. They agree these seem pretty accurate for me so I fell confident that these are some of the reasons why I work. It’s number 3 - the ability to teach people a new skill and a desire to do that teaching that I plan to talk about here.

Teaching is a part of who I am.  Since I was three if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, part of the answer was always teacher.  I might have wanted to teach ballet or I might have wanted to teach people to be lawyers, but I never wanted to “do” - I always wanted to “teach”.  Sure, I’ve heard the saying that those who can’t do, teach which I think is the farthest thing from the truth.  I can do all that I teach - however I have chosen to share my ability widely with others.  My undergraduate degree was in teaching and my doctorate is in higher education so teaching and learning are just a part of my blood.  But, what is the role of teaching for the normal person at work and how does that lead us to ho-ohana (intentional and worthwhile work)?

Every person possesses skills and knowledge that another person does not have.  Take the example of Sam, one of our cleaning staff.  Sam can buff scratches out of anything.  It’s truly an amazing skill.  I’ve seen near gouges in furniture that Sam does some magical thing to with a cloth and some cleaning fluid and the scratch disappears.  Sam isn’t super strong - Sam just knows how to do this.  Yet, when asked to show others this skill Sam is resistant.  Why would that be?

There are several possible reasons.  Perhaps Sam is afraid that her value as an employee will go down if other people have her amazing skill as well.  Sam may be unable to put a voice to her skill.  She understands the concepts, the skills, and the tools - but perhaps she is unable to explain it to another person.  Or, perhaps Sam simply doesn’t wish to help another person learn.  Regardless of the reason why, Sam won’t share her information with others.  For Sam, teaching, coaching, and mentoring - at least regarding this one particular skill is not why she works.

However, for me, this is a thing that feeds my soul (a phrase I’ve taken to using lately in my quest for intentional and worthwhile work).  Last week, a staff member walked in my office while I was mid project - a project that had to be done by the end of the day. That staff member was having difficulty interpreting a report and knew I would be able to help.  We sat down together, worked through it, and the staff member was on their way.  The staff member doesn’t report to me and the report had little or nothing to do with my position - however that staff member knew I would be able and willing to explain the information to them in a way they could understand.  Teaching, coaching, and mentoring have just become a way of life for me.  Helping others to understand the world and function in it a little more easily is part of what feeds my soul and helps me on the quest to ho-ohana.

What about you?

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December 12, 2006 by karamonroe.

As noted in my initial post, this blog was in many ways inspired by a post by Rosa Say on Lifehack (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/why-work.html). In this post, she provides several thoughts on the reasons why poeple might work.  In this post - and several others that follow it (see the tag why work), I’ll respond to each of these items for me and hopefully provide some thought provoking ideas for how you might consider this same item as well.  The first of Say’s items mentioned in the post is “Work in celebration of your natural strengths, talents and gifts.”

As I considered this item from Say’s list, I thought it would be important to determine what my natural strengths, talents and gifts are.  There are inventories, particularly associated with spiritual gifts, which one can take that help you to determine what it is you have as your strengths.  I have completed a couple of these over the years.  In each I score high in the organization and administration categories and lower in social and caring occupations.  In contrast to that, I have a high score for teaching and training  - generally referred to in these types of inventories as informing.

Aside from formal inventories such as these, there are is the less scientific, yet probably more realistic method of identifying your own strengths, talents, and abilities.  This is simply to determine what it is you feel you are good at, what you enjoy doing, and what it is you are often selected to do or asked to do.  For me, organization and administration come up again.  My ability to use technology effectively is also a significant strength and ability.  In addition, I have a passion for teaching and training others - although this is a skill which is always in need of improvement.  I love to learn and typically learn very quickly.  One of my lesser used skills and abilities is my appreciation for and some abilities in the arts - particularly music. 

So, once we determine our natural strengths, talents, and abilities  how do we work in celebration of these items.  The easiest way to do this is simply to find a job which allows you to use these items.  If you can not find a job which allows you to use these in a professional capacity - you need to find ways through your religious organization, civic organization, volunteer groups, or work with your children to put these skills to use.  What do you get in return?  There is a feeling that comes over you (or at least that comes over me) when I use my natural strengths, talents, and gifts.  I find that not using these things makes it hard to focus, hard to concentrate - and hard to stay dedicated to the task at hand.  It’s important to find your natural strengths, talents and gifts and to use them as often as possible.

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