Employability

Turn off your mail alert and schedule specific times to check mail. Don’t leave everything in your in-box. Use subject lines properly to say what the message is about. Use  the out-of-office function so people don’t think you’re ignoring them.

List the objectives. Organise key points. Structure the document.

Use plain English. Make it look readable. Package it attractively.

Put a smile in your voice. Introduce yourself. Is it convenient for the person to take the call?

Control the call. Get caller’s name and use it. Make them feel connected. Ask open questions. Use active listening. Record and repeat information.

Agree next actions and follow up on them. Volunteer useful information. Establish what happens next.

DON’T: adopt ‘status’ positions behind desks; give aggressive eye contact; fold arms defensively; use closed hand gestures.

DO: use round tables; use postural ‘echo’; lean forward and nod; maintain friendly eye contact; use open hand gestures.

Know who you’re talking to, and what you want to say.

Tailor the presentation to the needs of your audience.

Structure the presentation: Position, Options, Proposal.

Let your subconscious go to work – time pressure stifles creativity, which needs an incubation period. Be ready for ideas to flow at any time – always have a recording device or pen and paper with you, including during the night.

Find ways to learn and develop yourself, from workplace training to learning a language. Build on your existing strengths, and follow your natural curiosity – it’s a better motivator than ‘what will help my career?’

Consider why colleagues are behaving in a way that annoys you. Try stepping into their shoes and seeing things from their perspective. Beliefs, not events, cause distress – figure out which beliefs are making you upset. Recall when you have behaved badly and remember your reasons.

Don’t expect everyone to conform to their generational stereotypes. Just because you’re a digital native, it doesn’t mean you’ll be fast to adopt new technology, and vice versa. Most people want the same things from work, regardless of their age.

Don’t be a millennial stereotype. Be present in meetings, and spend face to face time with colleagues it’s the original social networking!

Even ‘ignorant’ interns possess useful knowledge, it’s your job to find it. Today’s junior employee is tomorrow’s senior employee – they will remember who helped them to get there. Set their expectations, be approachable and interested, help them learn, and learn from them.

Being helpful or kind to a colleague will make you feel good: targeted, not random acts of kindness. Focus on where kindness is needed, not just on “being a nice person”. Don’t cut kindness out of your life when you feel time’s at a premium – it’ll make stress worse.

If you think people have negative views of you it’s easy to find “evidence” of that. Don’t let a lack of confidence lead you to read things the wrong way. Ask for feedback regularly.

Encourage your team to share their expertise. Be open to reverse mentoring, and identify good potential partners for mentoring… encourage them to establish clear goals and expectations.

Encourage debriefs after every success. Mistakes are fine, as long as you learn from them. Look at the reasons for difficulties and plan to avoid them in the future.

We all have an inner critic, but we don’t have to follow its instructions, or believe what it says. Treat your inner critic like a toddler, not a boss you must obey. Personify you inner critic, by giving him or her a name, so it won’t be a god-like voice of truth anymore.

Define it. Control it. Communicate it (listening as well as telling).

Choose to see failure as a sign of you reaching the edge of your comfort zone. Fight against perfectionism, which just makes you miserable. Try deliberate imperfection. You could actively seek out low-risk experiences of failure – try new skills where it won’t matter it you fail.

It’s all too easy to get acclimatised to the good things in life, and focus only on the bad things. Think about what you’re grateful for – you can even try writing them down. Don’t forget the tiny things!

The four stages of reaction to change: Negation – Self-justification – Exploration – Resolution

We only have access to our own inner monologue of worry and self-criticism but nobody else’s. Resist comparing your insides with other people’s outsides – remember that social media is an edited highlights reel, not reality.

We catastrophise: if something goes slightly wrong, we assume everything’s gone terribly wrong. We project disasters in our future. Try to keep perspective and recall previous occasions when you catastrophized, remembering that a catastrophe didn’t follow. Ask yourself how you will feel about it one day, one month or one year from now.

Instead of ‘looking on the bright side’, it can be useful to ask ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ In considering the worst outcomes, you realize that you could cope with most of them.

We often treat ourselves in ways we’d never treat even our least favourite colleague – yelling internally at ourselves, setting expectations we can’t meet, berating ourselves for less-than-perfect work. Catch yourself in the act of self-criticism, it is not self-indulgent to treat yourself well.

You can’t push thoughts out of your head – in fact, trying to do so will generally make them louder. If you are friendlier toward them the more stressful ones will often float away of their own accord.

You are not a machine, and a tiring day does not mean a good day. Focus on results: define the most important three results for your day, and do them in the times you are naturally most productive. The rest of the day is for lesser tasks. Take regular breaks, especially in stressful periods.

Ethics are for everyday. Talk frequently about ethical values. Explain how these apply to the work of your team, and explain that being ethical means doing the right thing, even when you’re not required to.

Understand that your emotions are not you, even though it’s easy to assume they are. Your feelings about certain things will come and go, like the weather. If you label your negative emotions as they arise, they’ll fly away faster…

Emotions are contagious, anxiety especially. Anxiety will get in the way of productivity, so communicate urgency calmly, and be careful not to spread anxiety.

Take exercise and allow yourself time for relaxation.

When dealing with a stressful or overwhelming challenge, don’t chain yourself to your desk. Sometimes the solution isn’t in your head. Try changing your physical situation as a refresher. Time in nature is priceless – even five minutes in the park has been shown to help.

The human mind is a marvel, but it’s a terrible device for storing lists of information. If you don’t write lists, you’ll be stressed by what you might be forgetting. So make lists – they bring immediate relief from stress, even before you tackle the tasks.

If you’re facing a fork in the road… take it. Be Bold. You regret the things you don’t do, not the things you do. Inaction means you can berate yourself forever about what might have been. Once you’ve taken the plunge, by contrast, you’ll find a way to feel good about what you’ve done.

We tell ourselves that we need to be in the right mindset to work, but actually that makes it harder. Focus instead on taking some physical actions – and the ‘motivated’ mindset will usually follow.

Be Assertive. Be honest. Stick to the bottom line. Negotiate as equals.

Know the three types of behaviour: aggressive, submissive, assertive.

Listen actively. Show empathy.

Listen to everyone. Especially the quieter voices.

When forming a team, take a strong role in directing them. Establish objectives and responsibilities, and build good relationships. Storming will mean you must resolve conflicts, provide support and remain firm in the face of challenges.

In the Norming stage, take a step back and help team members to take further responsibility. Share controversial views and address difficult issues.

During the Performing stage, give the team space to make decisions for themselves. Recognise contributions and award credit where due.

Multi-tasking isn’t a thing. It just means failing to do any one thing properly. Switching between tasks has an interruption cost, it takes longer to get back to focus. Focus on one task at a time, until it is complete, or you will struggle to make progress.

Rituals can help with work and happiness. If you enjoy a specific moment at work, resolve to do it at the same time each day. Use a ‘shut down routine’ so you can leave work feeling good.

How you spend the first hour in the office will determine your momentum for the rest of the day. Use it to work on a challenging project, before checking email or voicemail, rather than plunging into distraction right away.

Plan your day. Set realistic deadlines. Anticipate problems.

Deal with people. Deal with interruptions decisively. Act assertively. Limit phone time. See others as a source of support.

Organise your work. Do difficult things first. Cut the clutter. Complete one task before moving to the next.

Planning seems like a good thing, and in moderation it is, but it can also be a sneaky form of procrastination and a way of avoiding the fear of actually starting. Make the most basic plan you need in order to take action, then act, and revise the plan as you go.