Author: Marcia Zidle

I’ve had a disagreement with a coworker. In the heat of the moment, I said things that I wish I hadn’t. How do I remedy the situation?

We have all said things we later regretted. That’s human. The important thing is to remedy the situation immediately. Here’s what you can do in a communication or career misfire.

First, apologize as soon as possible. If you wait too long, there’s time for bad feelings to fester. Say something like:

“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. That’s not how I’m feeling towards you. I was just letting this issue get to me.”

Be sincere but concise. Some people, who find themselves in uncomfortable situations, tend to blabber on. This is a time to say what you have to say and then concentrate on listening to the person’s response.

Most of the time, he or she will say: “Forget about it or it’s ok”.

You then can say: “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

If your sincere apology doesn’t seem to be sufficient, find out what would help the situation.

Just ask: “How can we move beyond this?” Or, “What can I do to get us working together again.”

Again listen intently. If you can agree to the solution, then do what needs to be done. If there’s still a problem, then work hard to find a way to make it right. As a last resort, you may want to bring in your boss to resolve the issue.

Career Success Tip:

Learn from the experience. The next time you’re discussing a volatile issue, take a breath – or two or three – before you speak. If that doesn’t work, remove yourself from the situation until you can think logically instead of emotionally. And learn to be more forgiving of those who commit the same error.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

What makes a great life and a great career?

Here’s what high performing professionals and managers have said during my seminars on The Career Edge.

Key #1: Life Comes at You Fast – Be Prepared, Plan and Anticipate

• During change, don’t be an ostrich hiding your head in the sand. Be aware of what’s going on.
• Be open to opportunities and even challenges. It can change your career trajectory.
• At the same time, have focus – it provides clarity for what you want to accomplish.

Key #2: The Power of Attitude – We Can Change our Lives with Optimism

• Be resilient. Challenges, disappointments, mistakes happen. The important things is to move on.
• Stay away from negative people. If they’re not happy for themselves, they certainly can’t be happy for you.
• Visualize success, talk success, believe in your success. Expect success to happen.
• Thank the people who have made a difference in your life and career.

Key #3: NETWORK = Net WORTH

• Increase your connections. Success is all about relationships – building,maintaining, leveraging.
• By increasing your network, you build the number of people that can impact you and that you can help in return.
• Make it easy for people to help you. Give them the tools they need to make connections and introductions for you.
• Be happy for others, acknowledge their success, celebrate their achievements. They will remember.

Key #4: Feedback is a Gift – Information is Power

• Be open and acceptable to both good feedback and constructive criticism.
• Nobody takes the time to give feedback to someone they don’t like. They just walk away.
• Then decide on how you are going to turn that feedback into positive behavior and skills.

Key #5: Politics is NOT a Dirty Word

• It’s all about knowing your organization and how things get done.
• Assess the situation and understand what’s important to decision makers.
• Be realistic. There’ll be times when it’s better to compriomise and times when it’s important to take a stand.

Key #6: Do a Great Job Every Day

• Know your strengths and use them in the most effective way you can.
• Don’t stop learning – new ideas, new skills, new ways of doing things.
• Make sure your work serves the larger goals of the organization.

Key #7: Remember, a Fulfilling Life Is a Journey Not Just a Destination

• Take time to enjoy – stop and smell the roses!
• Realize that you’re the only person who can lead your life – so don’t wait for others to take charge.
• Know that people remember not what you say but how you made them feel. So make people feel good.

Career Success Tip:

Success is more than working hard, being busy and burning a lot of energy. It’s a laser focus on what matters. So examine all your “to-do”s and pick the ones that count the most – the ones that can make a big difference in your life and career.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we’re ready for it.

Careers are evolving. What used to be success yesterday – joining a company or field, staying with it for most of your life and working your way up the ranks – will no longer be success for tomorrow. What will be success in the future is building a portfolio of meaningful, marketable experiences that you will sell to a variety of buyers. What a change!

This also means that successful careers are less about moving up the corporate ladder to moving around within your company; moving outside to other opportunities; and moving to become a free agent – working for a variety of employers.

Building a Portfolio Career

1. Re-frame your view of career success.
It’s moving from one of a series of upward positions to one of building a portfolio of experiences that will make you marketable to an increasing number of buyers who may be companies, consulting firms, contractors, consortium of professionals.

2. Review your career up to this point.
It doesn’t matter whether you have a couple of years under your best or whether you’ve been in the workforce for 10, twenty or even longer! You must consider the following questions.

• What do you do now and how did you get here?
• Are you doing the job in the field you imagined when graduating from college?
• Is it the same job and/or in the same field you were in five years ago? 10 years ago?
• How many different organizations have you worked for full time or on contract?
• How many jobs have you had since you entered the workforce permanently?
• What additional education (degree and professional) since leaving school?
• Do you think this is your final stop? If not, what will it be?
• What have you learned about your career?

3. Realize you must continually enhance your portfolio.
At the end of each year, whether you are looking for a new job or not, take the time to write or update your resume and compare it with last year’s. See if it has gotten noticeably better. See if it shows growth in a variety of skills, or growth in satisfied customers, or completed projects. If not, what do you need to do.

Career Success Tip:

The biggest mistake you can make is to believe you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a successful career comes from YOU: your experiences, your skills, your network, your responsiveness to change. Remember: jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

How do you manage your career when you work for a non profit or community organization?

That was a question asked of me during a recent presentation at a conference for community health care professionals. No matter if you work in human services or business services, one thing is for sure…your career is your responsibility. Yes, of course your manager should have your best interests in mind, but your professional development is not at the top of his or her daily to-do list. It should be on the top of yours.

Here are 7 key strategies for moving up in the non profit world.

1. Develop strong competence in your specialty.
You need substance. Produce outstanding results that add major value in one of the big areas of your organization. Do it on time, under budget, and without a big hassle.

2. Build a web of contacts throughout your organization.
It’s difficult to survive on skills alone — you need a network of allies who know and appreciate your value. Join committees and task forces so that you can show your capabilities and make yourself known.

3. Listen to the talk around the water-cooler.
Most of it is gossip, but you’ll learn a lot about the politics in your organization. Focus your attention not so much on what gets said, but rather how it gets said.

4. Move in the direction the organization is going.
When change occurs, your energy is better spent on trying new things, not putting extra effort into old ways. Most of all, don’t waste time complaining about the change.

5. Develop broad management expertise.
Professionals, no matter what your expertise, will be of greater value if they develop a broad base of practical management skills including budgeting, grant writing supervision. Therefore, you will more likely be chosen for greater leadership responsibility.

6. Reorder your work priorities.
Meet the needs of your boss first, then co-workers and your personal ones last.. Treat them like customers. People may not always notice what you do for them, but they are well aware of what you don’t do. That means balancing the various demands on your time selectively.

7. Seek out a mentor and others who can help you.
You need people who will help you understand how they managed their careers so that you can learn how to manage yours. Also, find a coach who can build your skills and help develop your long term career strategy. The use of coaches has been commonplace in the business sector for many years and the practice has taken hold in nonprofit world.

Career Success Tip

It’s okay to have personal career goals and be ambitious in the non profit world. It doesn’t mean you have to climb over people but it does mean you have to have confidence, assertiveness, and of course integrity.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

What to do when you hate your job?

In an earlier post on job satisfaction – “have you lost that loving feeling” – I presented three reasons to stay and three reasons to leave your present job.

Well here are additional options to consider before making that critical career decision. It is based on the principle that there are only two things you can change: you can change YOU or you can change IT.

Changing YOU refers to changing things that are under your control. Changing IT refers to changing any of the influencing forces or people in your life and work. It is basically everything that isn’t you.

The choice of whether to change IT or YOU is up to you, and it can be difficult to determine what is the best route to take. A lot of times we make the wrong choice and try to change IT when we should be changing something about ourselves, and vice versa.

So, to stop hating and start liking your job, you can:

1. Alter your attitude toward the company or the circumstances.
   Try to find new and better ways of interacting with coworkers and even your boss. Mentally readjust and try to make peace with the situation. That’s changing YOU!
2. Change your work environment even in small ways.
   But be mindful of what is allowed and what’s not. I’ve seen cubicles decorated with pictures and drawing; people at their computers working intently with earphones; an inexpensive pool for championship sports events that generated great excitement. That’s changing IT.
3. Accept what you can’t change, change what you can and know the difference.
   Respect final decisions that cannot be changed and also realize you can impact decisions that are in progress. Then figure out how you or your team can influence the situation. That’s changing YOU and IT.
4. Do nothing.
   Stoically endure the situation. Whine and complain hoping somehow things will miraculously get better. I’ve never seen this work. I doubt you have either! That’s not changing YOU and not changing IT.

Career Success Tip:

Changing YOU is not necessarily preferable to changing IT – nor is the opposite true. It depends on the situation. However, once you are aware of a specific YOU or specific IT option or both, you will see situations differently and you will have a much more satisfactory experience. You will no longer feel that you are just a cog in the wheel at work. Rather you will believe that you do have some control over your career. What a great feeling that is to have.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?