Tag Archives: job

What Value Is A Piece Of Paper?

by on December 5, 2009 in Career

There’s a rather lively conversation taking place at Olivier Blanchard’s The BrandBuilder blog about social media “certification” being promoted by the International Social Media Association (ISMA). I put certification in quotations because I question the very idea of whatever this organization is pushing as true certification. I’ve been on the professional association side of things and know how much work goes into developing a certification program, the standards and oversight needed to make it truly legitimate. (If you’re curious about what basics go into developing and maintaining a recognized certification program, here’s a terrific article from the American Society of Association Executives.) Once completing the program, you may receive a certificate, but it is not certification and there’s a huge difference. I understand the proposed value and rationale for a certification program as a ward against snake oil salesmen but based on the site’s info, I wonder about the true purpose of the ISMA’s program.

But lest I go into a more focused rant against ISMA, I actually want to address a tangential issue that arose from Olivier’s post. It has to do with the value of the diplomas and true certifications we earned. Think about the Bachelor’s and other post-graduate degrees you hold as well as the professional certifications necessary to practice your craft. Maybe it was an advanced engineering degree earned from a large university twenty years ago. Or perhaps it was a general liberal arts degree from a small college last year. What is it’s value to you today? If you’re thinking it has little or no value, I’d encourage you to think again. Even if you’re not actually using that degree today, I wager it has had some impact on the way you view the world.

My personal example (and yes, your mileage may vary) is that I went to a small liberal arts school and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in history. If you know my profile and background, you’ll notice that I haven’t spent any professional time working in museums, teaching history or any other historical-related efforts. Yet, what I learned through my history major has impacted how I view the world around me. I see cause-and-effect differently; I seek out root causes for incidents; I believe there are multiple viewpoints to explore for any event. So while I’m not a practicing historian, I do see and think about my world through the lens of a historian. And that is what adds to my unique value as a professional no matter what I choose to do in my career. Now I’m working on a Master’s degree in Business Anthropology and that further adds to my specialized approach to working with clients.

Try to think about that diploma differently. Don’t disregard or undervalue the learning that you’ve gathered over the years regardless of how detached it may seem to the work you’re doing right now. That academic learning coupled with your experiential learning makes you the unique and highly valuable professional you are today.

Are you doing something different in your career than your undergrad or post-grad prepared you for? More than likely you are…if so, how do you think your academic learning has influenced your professional work? Love to hear your own stories.

Don’t Like To Work? (And What You Can Do About It) Part II

by on January 2, 2009 in Career

Man on LedgeInterestingly, this phrase is one of the top search phrases that lead folks to Bailey WorkPlay. As much as it pains me to say it, I can understand why. I’ve done my fair share of work that’s sucked, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to do work that’s been exciting and rewarding.

Here’s a truth about me: I don’t like to work either when that work doesn’t challenge me, inspire me, or use the best that I have to offer. So, this issue is one that I’m curious to explore in more depth. Below is part 2 of 3 in this series covering three more reasons why we might not like to work. Tomorrow, I’ll post the final reasons. And like last time, I’ll flip each reason in a more positive direction so we can do something about it.

Reason #3: I don’t like to work because…I dislike the people I work with/for.
I guess there are two ways of looking at this. Either you’re working with folks who you genuinely have no connection with (I’m trying to be diplomatic here…we all have worked with people who were flaming numbskulls). Or you’re the problematic person who seems to push co-workers away. If it’s the latter and you’re self-aware enough to know it, consider whether your negativity is due to your own unhappiness in your work or personal life. If that’s the case, it’s okay…you have an opportunity now to fix it.

But if it’s the former and you find yourself working around unpleasant people, that’s a level of stress that’s probably not going to go away any time soon…particularly if it’s your manager. I can’t promise any easy remedies, but I will offer this: they’re likely not going to change for you. Which means you’ll need to either learn to navigate around difficult personalities or get the heck out of there.

Reason #4: I don’t like to work because…I’m tired.
There’s no doubt about it…a job can exhaust us, sap our energy, keep us in what feels like a never-ending spiral. Taking a vacation often means coming back to more work so we don’t take the leave that is one of the top benefits an organization offers. But I will argue that’s not work, that’s a J-O-B. Work often requires an intense energy, but it’s an energy that quickly restores itself because we can’t wait to do it again and again. If your job drains you, think deeply about whether it’s work you really want to be doing.

Reason #5: I don’t like to work because…I’d rather do something else I enjoy a lot more.
There are two questions that are worth asking here: what is this activity you’d rather be doing and is there a way to turn it into an income-generating gig? While it’s not always possible, sometimes there are ways to pursue a playful passion and make it a career. It might take some imagination and bit of risk-taking, but wouldn’t you rather get up every day knowing that your work is something you absolutely love?

Here’s another question: are you ignoring a powerful signal trying to tell you something important? If play means being outside hiking and you’re stuck inside an office all day, maybe your work is better geared toward being in the open air. If you love to cook, but you’re crunching numbers for 8 hours a day, maybe it’s time to think about those culinary classes you’ve been putting off or that dream of starting a catering business.

If you come to determine that your playful activity will always just be a non-paying hobby, that’s okay. You might just keep it in your backpocket and perhaps there will come a day when your playful activity might open an opportunity to take it in a professional direction.

Tomorrow, we’ll finish up with these final reasons:
Reason #6: I don’t like to work because…the money creates a conflict.
Reason #7: I don’t like to work because…it means time away from my family.

If there’s a reason that I haven’t touched here, please leave a comment (and feel free to make it anonymous if it helps). I think there are many out there who struggle with this question and your input can help make a difference.

Don’t Like To Work? (And What You Can Do About It) Part I

by on December 29, 2008 in Career

Interestingly, this phrase is one of the top search phrases that lead folks to Bailey WorkPlay. As much as it pains me to say it, I can understand why. I’ve done my fair share of work that’s sucked, but I’ve also been fortunate enough to do work that’s been exciting and rewarding.

Here’s a truth about me: I don’t like to work either when that work doesn’t challenge me, inspire me, or use the best that I have to offer. So, this issue is one that I’m curious to explore in more depth. Below is part 1 of 3 in this series covering two reasons why we might not like to work. Throughout this week, I’ll post five more reasons. And because I think there’s always something we can do to love our work, I’ll flip each reason in a more positive direction so we can do something about it.

Reason #1: I don’t like to work because…the work I do feels like drudgery.
I’m starting with what I think is probably the #1 reason folks do a Google search on this phrase in the first place. You’re in a rut, doing a job that sucks, wishing there was something better on the horizon. Now, I can tell you that the answer is to get out and go find work that you’re truly passionate about, but somehow I think you already know this. The question you’re likely wrestling with is…how? I can’t offer a complete answer here, but I say this: you owe it to yourself to find work that is uniquely yours, that fits your unique set of talents, that makes you feel of use. Make a commitment to find a career coach who can help guide you toward work that let’s your best shine through every day (note: I’ve worked with quite a few who I can highly recommend so shoot me an email and I’ll be happy to guide you along).

Other things you can do right now…
Know exactly what that drudgery looks like to you. Do you seriously want to leap to something else only to land in the same muck you left? Sit down and create an inventory of what you dislike about your JOB. Once you know what that drudgery looks like, you’ll hopefully be far less likely to find yourself neck-deep in it again.

Okay, now what do you like about your JOB? I guarantee there’s something there you can work from. Build an inventory of these things. You can use this list to construct an idea of what your best work looks like.

Reason #2: I don’t like to work because…I feel undervalued, underappreciated, underpaid, under-etc.
This was the impetus behind my recent post You Alone Define Your Value. Far too often, we internalize these feelings and own them as if they were ours to hold. Well, it’s time to disown this crap right now.

Things you can do right now…
Reclaim your value in your current work. If you feel undervalued, underappreciated, etc., create a gameplan for addressing this. It starts with you. Do you honestly feel that you’ve added value to your organization? Have you done something remarkable in the past few months? Have you visibly grown your business over the past year? If you can answer “yes” and have concrete examples, put these to paper. Now, it’s time to have a chat with your manager. Given the belt-tightening that’s going on right now, you may not be able to do much about the underpaid issue, but focus on a persuasive argument as to how your performance deserves greater visibility. Managers aren’t mindreaders and as much as we might expect them to instantly see our work and give us the necessary kudos, we need to understand they can fall prey to busyness too and can benefit from our gentle prods.

Find another place to work where you are valued, appreciated, well-paid, etc. Let’s say that you’ve done the first exercise and had the talk with your manager to little effect. Then, it’s time to move on. If you like the work you do and need to find another place to practice it, connect with your network. If you don’t know what that looks like, find a career coach, a mentor, or a colleague to bounce ideas.

Later on this week, we’ll take a look at these other reasons. And if there is another reason not listed here, leave a comment and let’s explore it together.

Reason #3: I don’t like to work because…I’m tired.
Reason #4: I don’t like to work because…I’d rather do something else I enjoy a lot more.
Reason #5: I don’t like to work because…the money creates a conflict.
Reason #6: I don’t like to work because…it means time away from my family.
Reason #7: I don’t like to work because…I dislike the people I work with/for.

The Relationships Of Our Life’s Work

by on October 27, 2008 in Career

Leave it to Pamela Slim to help me fine-tune something that I’ve been playing around with for a while. As I aim to keep all the various parts of my professional life in some sort of harmonious symmetry, I find myself struggling to define what I am doing. On a near daily basis I ask myself questions like:

How does my career path relate to my current job?
How does my current job relate to my graduate work in business anthropology?
How does my graduate work relate to Bailey WorkPlay?
How does Bailey WorkPlay relate to my career path?
…and so the cycle continues.

Much of the confusion lies in that word ‘job’. I often wonder how the work I do daily relates to where I’m going in my professional life. Don’t get me wrong…I enjoy what I do. Yet, there’s little of the business anthropology that I’m being trained to do and the employee engagement that embodies the focus of Bailey WorkPlay. How does all of this integrate? Or is that just the technicolor dream of a guy who is often accused of being a crazy idealist?

Let’s start with the whole notion of a job. It’s a word that carries some fairly crappy baggage…and more often than not we help pack its bags. By taking the small view of a job, we easily lose sight of our greater professional purpose. Pamela smartly points out:

When you focus first on the perfect job, you automatically narrow your opportunities to jobs you are familiar with. Jobs are temporary things, often enticing on paper until you realize that as soon as you get comfortable in your position, it will change, your boss will change, your team will change or your organization will change. That is just the nature of business. Therefore if you go into a job excited by the position or the person you will be working for and not the work itself, you often set yourself up to be disappointed.

Instead, she encourages us to think about our ‘life’s work’ instead. I’ve been mulling over my own life’s work (or what I tend to think of as a calling) ever since I left college. There are days when I think I have it all figured out only to have something happen that puts my idea of a calling in doubt. Thanks to Pamela I think I now know what happened: I focused a bit too much on the job details of the calling. I know…strangely paradoxical.

Now I have the beginnings of a new perspective on the question of my own life’s work. Where the core of Pamela’s life’s work is transformational, I believe mine is relational. You can see this in the questions I pose to myself above. It’s one of the reasons I chose anthropology since so much of it involves intensive study of human relations. I love taking ideas and seeing how they relate to each other. I love bringing people and ideas together and then helping them see the relationships. I love working in organizations and helping leaders better relate to their employees and customers. This is the core purpose behind my work in business anthropology and Bailey WorkPlay.

And knowing this, I too can be in occasionally rough situations in my job and still remain focused on my core passion of relationships. Even when I’m not actually doing business anthropology or employee engagement, I am helping to generate relationships between people, ideas, and actions every day.

So…here’s a gentle challenge for this week. If you’re struggling to figure out how your job, career path, and life’s work relate to each other, take some time and reflect on the exercise at the end of Pamela’s post. Then come back and share what you believe is your life’s work. I’d love to hear about it and know what I can do to support you.

Why Job Fit Is Important To Your Confidence

by on September 10, 2008 in Career

Unless you’re one of the exceptionally rare and fortunate individuals who has always landed in the right job, you’ve had at least one job that didn’t fit right. Like a pair of shoes three sizes to large or small, it always felt poorly aligned with who you are and your unique set of talents. Maybe you’re in one of these jobs right now. If so, let me ask you a few questions:

  • Do you often question your own personal value?
  • Do you sometimes feel a distinct lack of confidence in your abilities?
  • Do you feel marginalized and demotivated?
  • Do you wonder if you’re professionally valuable not only within your current organization, but possibly in future organizations, as well?

When we talk about job fit, at least on a surface level, we may understand its importance. But there is a deeper level to job fit which affects us psychologically. Here, we begin to form stories about ourselves. If the fit is wrong, then it’s much easier to create stories that the reason it’s wrong is because of what we’re doing. We tend to pin the blame on ourselves. If we’re not getting it, then it must be because of a deficit of ours, rather than the actual job or even the organizational structure supporting the job.

I’m not suggesting that we should throw personal responsibility out the window. But all too often, we take a bad job fit and assume all the responsibility for not doing well, not feeling content with our work, not feeling that we’re bring our best into the world everyday.

Instead, let’s take a breathe, back up, and consider a bigger perspective. Let’s get curious about whether we’re doing a job or in a position that uniquely fits us. Let’s think of how our work can create a healthier livelihood for ourselves. Let’s hold true to the knowledge that we do have choices about how we live each day.

ExtraPlay #1: Michelle Malay Carter has written a concise and extremely useful post on how to think about job fit (or what she calls work levels).

ExtraPlay #2: Rosa Say continues her terrific series this week with a post clarifying the differences between a job and work…well worth checking out.