Today’s Rose – plus
October 16, 2010
Weather has been warm in Northern CA and my roses have been enjoying a late flourish. As the weather cools and New Englanders can look at fall foliage we get to enjoy color in our own way.
Today’s rose: and two bonus orchids
Sexy Rexy
An orchid pas de deux
Corporate Rudeness
October 14, 2010
A recent business forum I follow was focusing on rudeness in the workplace and how to create a better corporate culture. One participant suggested that HR professionals needed to introduce courses to teach employees how to behave.
The issues this brings up are numerous, but I will leave some of them for future posts. For now, I would suggest that if you did not learn how to treat others – friends or co-workers – when you were growing up, taking a course now is not going to help. It’s like teaching business ethics to MBA students: it’s already too late.
Rudeness and it’s related activities are part of any business’s corporate culture. That culture is created at the top. If the chief executive allows it in the executive suite, it will be tolerated in every corner of the business.
If the CEO creates an environment based on civility his or her managers will run their departments the same way.
Examples are numerous but even this week the impact is clear. When the Chicago Tribune suspends an executive for sending an improper email just days after the New York times featured a lengthy report on the ‘bankrupt’ corporate culture at the newspaper the connection is obvious.
Unfortunately, chief executives often fail to see the connection and will ask a coach, or management consultant to come in and ‘fix’ the problem. I’m more than happy to take the corporate money, but unless the ‘fix’ starts at the top, anything I do will only be temporary.
Next: Corporate culture and productivity
Moon over San Francisco
October 9, 2010
Ok, last night you looked at Yosemite. Tonight it’s San Francisco Bay at sunset, from my back porch. Those are the towers from the Golden Gate Bridge you’re looking at.
Moon over SF bay
The Yosemite Few See
October 8, 2010
In case you’ve never been to Yosemite National Park, and even if you’ve just been to the valley, these picture are pretty impressive.
Enjoy.
Today’s Rose-Summer Passion
October 7, 2010
That’s all, just today’s favorite. It’s fall and there are fewer blooms but they still bring beauty to my world. Enjoy… it’s called Summer Passion.
Summer Passion
What Does a Coach Do?
I met a potential new client today. He wasn’t looking for a career coach and I wasn’t exactly looking for him but our paths crossed and he asked what I did for a living. I told him I was a coach.
I should point out that ‘Nelson’ is a recent college graduate with a degree in criminal justice and was working at the kind of first job everyone gets. No relation to the field he wanted and no prospects for advancement. Naturally, he hated it.
I asked what he wanted to do and he rattled off a few possibilities but admitted he didn’t really know. At one time his goal was law school but he did poorly on the LSAT (twice) and didn’t have any money to take it again, so he figured that wasn’t meant to be.
“So,” he said, “you don’t like, coach football? That’s the only kind of coach I know, but you don’t look like that kind of coach.” I had to laugh – if you’ve seen me you’re already laughing too – but I explained that I help people make decisions.
I tried to use an example he could identify with. “If you go home tonight and tell your dad you want quit, he’s gonna have 12 reasons why you shouldn’t and why your ideas about what you could do won’t work – probably because they didn’t work for him,” I told him.
But if you tell me, a coach, I don’t offer an opinion, I just help you go through what it would take to get you to the goal you want. It’s up to you to decide what’s right, and any decision you make is the right one as long as you understand what it means.
He smiled, like he had already had the conc0versation I described. and offered a few more ideas about what he might want to do, including a small business idea, getting an MBA and three or four other possibilities.
After 45 minutes we had taken cursory look at most of them and he said he had to leave but added, “That’s the first time I ever had a conversation like that with anyone, that was great.”
“So.” I said, “Now you know what a coach does.”
“Yeah,” he said taking a bunch of my business cards, “But when I call, I know I’m gonna have to pay you right?”
Maybe he doesn’t need that business degree.
The Perfect Resume
October 6, 2010
I have yet to see the perfect resume. I’ve helped a lot of folks write resumes and they are all ‘right’ when we’re finished but I’m not sure I would call any of them perfect.
The purpose of a resume is to get an interview. The purpose of the interview is to get a job offer and then you can start negotiating for the actual position. This progression is easy to write and most people understand the words but few understand what they mean.
People seem to think that the resume has to a multi-page treatise on their life. Rather than a document that explains the unique experiences and skills that make you the right candidate for the job opening.
Organizing your resume chronologically by position makes the reader search for items that suggest whether you can perform the functions of the job that’s open. It’s your job to connect the experiences to specific skills and relate them to the job you want.
Even if you have relatively few work experiences – as a recent college graduate, or an older worker re-entering the job market – you have skills that you have learned. They may be from part-time summer jobs, or from volunteer positions at a local community group but they are skills.
When I put together my first resume – typing and retyping – on my trusty Underwood (or later a
Smith-Corona), creating a separate resume for each job was a difficult proposition – especially for a two-finger typist. But now with ‘copy and paste’ on my Mac, crafting a resume with specific skills and listing relevant jobs is easy.
Believe me, if you don’t take the time to customize you’re already behind the competition and might wind up in the circular file. Remember, anyone looking at resumes in this environment, is just looking for ways to edit the pile, so anything can be an excuse to put you out of the running.
Graphically it should be easy to read and the layout should emphasize the message. It’s not an exercise to show the HR folks how many typefaces you can use. If the experience you have that’s relevant to the position does not include a specific job, you can either leave it out or relegate it to a single line.
You can always add details during the interview.
On Aging Well
October 2, 2010
A recent convergence of events got me thinking about my age.
Over the last month I have paid my respects at the grave sites of my four grandparents , visited my mother’s grave
, and helped my 90 year-old father spread the ashes of his younger brother.
Modern technology allows me to keep in touch with a long-time friend who turned 60 and marked the event with a wonderful essay.
At the same time I celebrated the wedding of the beautiful daughter of a woman who I grew up with, but died way too young seven years ago.
I have the feeling the universe is trying to tell me something, only I’m not smart enough to get the message.
We Need the Sounds of Silence
October 1, 2010
I always been a walker/hiker. No big deal, I like to walk in Hawaii, in Yosemite, around my own neighborhood, wherever… it’s a good way to meet people and see what’s going on. Just observing the world and listening to nature.
Since MP3 players, primarily iPods and their kin, became popular there seem to be a lot more folks walking around listening to music. I have no objection to music but it seems to me. if you’re hiking, or even jogging in a beautiful natural setting, listening to the birds would be pretty good music.
Not to mention how those little earbuds close you off to the world. They prevent even a pleasant ‘hello’ or ‘good morning.’ Maybe that’s the intention but chance encounters make life more interesting.
This week I finally found someone who agrees with me. Please listen, he knows what he’s talking about. He must, he’s speaking at a TED Talk.
Defining the Orwellian Generation Gap
September 28, 2010
I was recently in New York City to meet with a new client and unexpectedly got some new insights into the generation gap.
I was having lunch at a small SoHo restaurant where the tables are so close you can’t help but hear the discussion next to you. I listened for almost 20 minutes while 4, 30-something managers talked about marketing, social networking demographics, and user information to keep in touch with young customers and create an online community. I knew the terms but this was the first time I heard them used in polite conversation.
This was my first clue that there was a generation gap between our tables.
Finally I couldn’t help it, I excused myself for listening but asked if the group was at all concerned about privacy, noting the recent Verizon television ad which shows everyday objects morphing into antennas for the ‘always connected’ generation. I told them I found it creepy and didn’t ever want to be that ‘in touch.’
Their unanimous response – privacy is always part of the conversation but the younger generation thinks always being connected is the way things should be. They want everyone to know where they are and what they are doing all the time. As one young woman said, “our generation doesn’t want that, but the young people do.”
I thought I was talking to young people, but they were describing their generation gap.
I was worrying about George Orwell’s predictions and they were worried their company would be left behind because it wasn’t Orwellian enough.
I’m not sure what all this means. I thought i was pretty up to date with my Twitter account (eariess), blog, LinkedIn page, and text messaging but I guess the faster I go the further behind I get.
I do take some solace from the text messages I get from my 90-year-old father. I hope if I make it to his age I’ll at least be in touch with whatever the current generation is doing.
In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about you can find details at this Wall Street Journal Article.