The End and The Beginning

Tweet

I'm feeling rather enlightened at the moment, maybe it's because I'm on the brink of two weeks off work in which I intend to do little more than hibernate or maybe it's because this year is coming to a close and hindsight is a wonderful thing.

There have been times this year when I was ready to give up, I was struggling to find a role I was happy with, I was struggling in my personal life and it felt as if time was crawling and I wasn't getting anywhere. It's funny what a little bit of perspective can do, now it feels like the year has disappeared and in hindsight a bad week feels like nothing.

Change is like that, it can happen so incrementally that you don't realise that something has been happening until after the event and then you look back on it and it's obvious. This year for me has been awful and amazing - often at the same time. I have started writing again, I have built a new community of friends and professionals, I have had the opportunity to work with some fantastic, talented and inspiring people. I was elected to the Victorian AHRI Council, I finished my Professional Diploma of HR and of course I got The Job.

So here we are at the end of the year, with 2011 only a few days away and I'm feeling like everything that happened this year was worth it.

I'm looking forward to 2011, the people I will spend it with and the opportunities it will present.

Happy holidays everyone, thanks for all your support, tweets, comments and thoughts over 2010!

Instant Gratification

Tweet

I'm sure I'm not the first person to write about this and I won't be the last, I've been thinking lately about how technology has changed our perceptions of what is a realistic and normal timeframe for people to respond to communication.

Most of us in a business environment are sitting at our desk and receive notification of emails as they pop into our inbox, we have 'smart' phones which have our social networking sites, text messages and phone calls constantly within reach. We are connected in ways that we were never connected before. I've seen articles which state that our constant connectivity is creating anxiety for people when they're not able to be connected to some sort of technology.

But what I'm really interested in is how our connectivity has changed our perceptions in relation to timeframes. There was a time when 5 business days was the standard to respond to correspondence, now if you don't respond to an email within a few hours you can expect to receive a phone call or follow up email to find out what the hold up is.

The ease of technology and accessibility is negated by the constant bombardment we receive. The constant connection leads to additional stress and on the flip side when you're waiting to hear from someone leads to anxiety and depending on your own level of drama catastrophising. I know of people who set their out of office so that they can respond to people in their own time without being held to other people's expectations of timeliness.

What is normal when it comes to response times for emails, phone messages and other forms of communication?

Were There Any Signs?

Tweet

My boyfriend and I recently broke up and the boys I am friends with and work with became very flustered and bombarded me with questions, ‘Were there signs? How long was it on the cards for? Was it out of the blue?’

My answer to them is that there are always signs and the more I thought about it the more I realised that the signs that a romantic relationship is in trouble are the same for a work relationship.

Disengagement is a red flag in any relationship and the ways it shows are like this;

• Getting in late, if someone tends to be in the office by a certain time and then starts coming in later and later it’s a sign
• Lack of interest, when your star employee stops making an effort, stops contributing new ideas and stops communicating it is a sign
• Not making an effort, it’s always obvious when I’m not engaged in my job anymore; I don’t straighten my hair everyday and instead opt to put it up. I make less effort, people begin to care less about their appearance or making a good impression the less engaged they are, and it's a sign
• Not going beyond the call of duty, when you’re happy and engaged in your role you’re more willing to put more in, to work the extra hours and to take on the mundane tasks because you believe it’s worth it. At some point when you’re unhappy you stop making this effort and it’s a sign

When it comes to any relationship people don’t want to be taken for granted, they want to be appreciated and they want to be recognised for what they contribute. There are always signs that someone is unhappy whether it’s at work or at home, but you have to be paying attention to notice.

That’s the key takeaway here, pay attention to people, the ones you work with, the ones you live with and if something changes - ask. People underestimate how important it is for people to be heard, to feel like someone is listening.

Sometimes all it takes is a conversation to get things back on the right track.  

* Clarification: Based on some feedback from peers I'd like to add the following clarification, the points above relate to ongoing behaviour, not a one off. Sometimes people just have a bad day!

Strength Training

Tweet

Today as I sat in the car with my family on the way to a funeral my Step Mum Maria began to speak about the difference between strength and resilience. Strength, Maria said, is about being able to withstand something, to bury your feelings and to carry on but not to deal with the situation, put simply it is being able to carry on. Resilience however, is more difficult, you feel the pain and you fall but because you deal with it at the time it is easier and in turn you become more resilient. The feelings will at some point catch up with the strong person and they’ll crash, and it’ll be far worse than if they’d just felt it at the time.

So here’s the vague link to the work environment, I think of strong people as being the types that stay in a job they don’t particularly like for ten years but don’t leave. They pride themselves on being able to continue to work in a place they no longer like because it makes them strong.

Resilient people are the ones that will take the risk and try to leave. They will take the chances, the rejection, and constant questioning of choices, direction and ‘five year plan’ because they believe that they can get something more satisfying, something that is better.

Strength can also be about not letting anyone in, not showing weakness or vulnerability, for some people this might be a good thing in the workplace. But when it comes to a manager I know I’d much prefer to work for someone who is able to admit their mistakes, who can let me know when there are issues and who is able to actually connect with me.

There are times when you just have to suck things up and be strong, where dealing with the details of a situation isn't a reality because things need to get done. But there are plenty of other times when we could all deal with a few more feelings and a little bit of humanity.

I think I tend to sit more on the strength side of this scale, but I'm hoping I can start moving more towards the resilience end.

What do you think am I even on the right track here?  Is strength and resilience different or just words for the same thing?