Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Audio Downloads

  • Listen In -> The Career Journey #1: Why the Traditional Categories Don’t Work Anymore

    Are you tired of people asking what you’re going to be when you grow up? I sure am.

    When considering career options if you feel things like, “I don’t fit any of the categories,” “I haven’t had enough experiences to know what I do and do not like,” or “There are too many rules, hoops to jump through, and games to play,” then this is the series for you!

    We start a new series this week entitled, “The Career Journey.” Join us as we discuss this new and helpful metaphor for a meaningful and rewarding lifelong professional journey.

    The Career Journey
    Week #1: Why the Traditional Categories Don’t Work Anymore
    Week #2: Thinking in Terms of a Journey Instead of a Destination
    Week #3: What If You Were the Most Important Clue?
    Week #4: Engaging Fully With Your Own Career Journey

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #5: Process

    It’s easier to make a small adjustment rather than a major change.

    Instead of viewing change as an all-or-nothing proposition, (which usually prevents us from taking any action at all,) try viewing change as a process in which we check in with ourselves and make smaller incremental adjustments.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I look at process. Join us as we talk about being alert to what’s working and what’s not working for you, and then learning and adjusting on the go.

    What if the way forward involved only taking a next step?

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #4: Structure

    Ah life.

    Yes, it does come down to making real choices in real time.

    In this week’s show, Claudia look at how setting goals can help us structure our choices.

    Instead of slowly and painfully suffocating in your current position, try setting one goal for yourself in three simple areas.

    1. Professional goal. A challenging contribution to the mission of the organization.
    2. Personal development goal. Tend to your own learning, growing, and maturing as a person.
    3. Relational goal. Make and deepen connections via networking, mentoring or collaboration opportunities.

    Working toward these three goals will give you a meaningful and rewarding reason for staying in your current position.

    When it is no longer possible to set a goal in any of these three areas, you then have a basis for making a move to another company or another field.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #3: Criteria

    After opening up so many possibilities by exploring clues last week, we now need a way to make choices. We need to go somewhere in particular instead of everywhere in general.

    What makes work meaningful and rewarding to you?

    The answer to that question is different for each of us.

    You may be looking for a particular role. You may want to fund a certain lifestyle. You may want to continually expand your responsibilities. You may want to leave work at the office at 5:00 p.m. You may be drawn to a certain industry.

    The key is to be able to articulate (to yourself) your criteria for making your next decision.

    Join Claudia and I as we discuss the value of knowing your criteria for making career decisions and the risks of not doing so.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #2: Clues

    Clues instead of conclusions.

    When looking for a way out of a room with no light, is it more effective to grope around blindly until we find the exit or to pull out the key-chain flashlight in our pocket?

    A key-chain flashlight is not a very significant source of light. But bringing a small amount of light into a situation is actually far more helpful than continuing to grope blindly.

    In our second conversation about avoiding career suicide Claudia and I explore how to shed additional light on our job situation by looking for clues. Looking for clues opens up options. Drawing conclusions closes options off.

    While we eventually need to make a single choice, thinking that way at the beginning of the process in actually counter-productive. Watch the world open up when you begin by looking for clues.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #1: Avoid the Coffin

    It’s bad enough when we feel like our job is killing us. But what if we’re stepping into the coffin and closing the lid ourselves?

    We begin a new series this week on avoiding career suicide. Too dramatic a description?

    Not once we realize that we’re never as stuck as we feel.

    One of the reasons we feel stuck is because we believe the only alternative available is to make a major job change. Get out of our current situation altogether.

    Job change, though, doesn’t need to be an all or nothing decision. Instead searching for a huge life-altering solution to our situation, what if we were simply looking for clues that would suggest alternatives?

    Join this freeing conversation as we learn together how to explore alternatives instead of jump to conclusions.

    Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide
    Week #1: Overview
    Week #2: Clues
    Week #3: Criteria
    Week #4: Structure
    Week #5: Process

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Performance Management with Jeff Hunt #4: Rewarding

    Everyone loves rewards. I more than most.

    This week we conclude our excellent series with Jeff Hunt of Goalspan with a look at the fourth key component of performance management: Rewards.

    In this week’s show we explore four types of rewards:

    1. Recognition and praise
    2. Pay for performance
    3. Pay for contribution
    4. Pay for potential

    Do you know what reward most managers think that employees want? “Good wages.”

    Do you know what reward most employees actually say they want? “Full appreciation for work done.”

    Wages rank #5 on employees’ lists.

    Rewarding people is not the booby-trap of fueling spiraling expectations that many leaders fear.

    Are you overlooking a powerful tool at your disposal?

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Performance Management with Jeff Hunt #3: Assessing

    Surprise!

    Not the feeling you want to experience during your performance review.

    “What do you mean, you don’t think I’m pulling my weight?” exclaims the dumbfounded employee who thought his supervisor was actually quite pleased with his work.

    “What do you mean, you want to expand your responsibilities?” mutters the astonished supervisor who can’t believe such mediocre work would warrant a promotion.

    In this week’s conversation with Jeff Hunt of Goalspan, we look at the third component of the Performance Management process: Assessing.

    Did you know there are four elements to an effective assessment process?

    1. They are two-way. Both the supervisor and the employee do the assessing.
    2. They take place frequently. Issues need to be addressed closer to when they happen.
    3. They have both quantitative and qualitative components.
    4. They assess for future potential. Which employees are keepers? Future leaders?

    Remove the unnecessary surprises from your performance reviews.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Performance Management with Jeff Hunt #2: Managing

    Has it been an entire year since you’ve talked with anyone on your team about their job performance?

    Does it feel a bit awkward to bring up that negative encounter nine months ago?

    Did you miss an opportunity to provide needed resources simply because you didn’t know about the need at the time?

    We are in week 2 of our conversation with Jeff Hunt of Goalspan about performance management, and our topic this week is “managing.”

    After establishing expectations for results having planned, our next step is to establish an on-going conversation about how we work together. Instead of performance management being a single annual event, we are going to make it a process.

    Don’t miss Jeff’s insights into the three components of managing job performance:

    1. Coaching and feedback – Establishing the ongoing conversation.
    2. Supporting learning and development – Providing the resources and training.
    3. Proactively addressing issues as they arise instead of waiting 10 months to the next evaluation.

    What is your process? Do you engage early and often? Do your performance evaluations increase or decrease employee morale, motivation and engagement?

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Performance Management with Jeff Hunt #1: Planning

    Are you dreading all the paperwork and lost time involved in annual performance reviews?

    Are you dreading being judged by a supervisor that doesn’t know enough about what you’re doing to have a meaningful opinion?

    Are your annual reviews exercises in self-protection… the supervisor protecting the company from the employee’s entitlement mentality and the employee protecting him or herself from the company’s need to control costs and wages by being stingy with positive feedback?

    Get ready to have your assumptions blown to bits by Jeff Hunt, the founder and CEO of Goalspan, who joins us for a new series on Performance Management.

    In this first interview, Jeff unfolds a strategy for transforming the dreaded employee performance evaluation into a on-going conversation and intentional management process.

    That process begins with planning.

    Listen in.