Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Category: Working Matters

  • Loving Monday: Jury Duty

    I have jury duty this week. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the jury duty system in Los Angeles, we are placed “on call” for one week. We call in every evening to find out whether we’re expected to be present the next day. The entire week may pass without a request, in which case one’s obligation is fulfilled.

    Having said that, though, no plans can be made during the week because there is no way to know whether the next day might be the one you are summoned.

    On the whole, the system works reasonably well. I’d rather be on call than sitting in a jury room every day.

    On the other hand, I can’t make any plans!

    My challenge this week involves incorporating a extra element of flexibility into my attitude.

    I could feel put out and resentful. I could become overwhelmed by the sudden shifts. I could feel like my life is on hold and not make progress on important projects. This strange sort of week could throw me for quite a loop.

    But if I choose to be flexible. If I choose projects that can be put on hold temporarily. If I let people know my situation, then a sudden absence cannot wreak as much havoc.

    I have quite a bit of room for choices, even if I don’t know what I’ll be doing tomorrow. As long as I recognize that those choices are mine and make them, then this week of public service need not be the negative intrusion that I often mistake it for.

  • What’s In A Perception?

    Perception MattersSo what’s the big deal with how others perceive me?

    I can’t control what another person thinks. I can’t force them to change their mind about me if they have settled on some incorrect perception.

    The big deal is that those other people are making decisions that affect you. To the extent that their perception about who you are and what you bring to the professional table is incorrect, so will their decisions be.

    Decisions like whether to hire you, promote you, invest in your training, or in the worst case, lay you off in a recessionary season.

    While you cannot make someone see what they will not or cannot see, you can exert influence.

    Our conversation topic this month is how our resume can be a powerful perception influencer. That is, if we accept responsibility for choosing how we present our professional interests and work history.

    Begin by listing three responsibilities you would love to have in a job, even if you don’t have any work experience in them.

    Now turn each of them into a job title, however silly it might sound. For example, if I want to be in charge of the development of a new product and lead the process from beginning to end, I might call myself a “Project Manager” or a “Lead Designer” or a “Brilliant Idea Implementor.”

    The idea is to create for yourself some job-related vocabulary that would be helpful for describing yourself in terms of what you want to do next.

    Try it. Share one or all three of your desired responsibilities and corresponding job titles in a comment here.

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

    Don’t forget to sign up for our Resume Workshop: A Fresh Approach to Career Advancement coming up in Los Angeles on February 7th! Or contact us for information on inviting us to your community.

  • Listen In -> Resume Branding #1: Controlling How We Are Perceived

    With our Resume Workshop coming up on February 7th in Los Angeles, we thought we would revisit a series on Resume Branding.

    In this series, Claudia and I explore using the resume as a tool for describing what we’ve done in the past in such a way that we communicate what we want to do in the future.

    We want to accept responsibility for maximizing the communication opportunity that this awkward piece of paper (the resume) offers us.

    Over the course of the next four weeks, we’ll introduce an entire method for crafting a resume that articulates your distinct “brand.”

    While listening to the show, make your reservation for the Resume Workshop on February 7th now!

  • Not All Nightmares are Economic

    Jos, NigeriaMy friend, Mike Blyth, reminds me that not all nightmares are related to the insecurities arising out of Wall Street’s collapse this year.

    Check out his touching post about his son’s recent “bad dream” over in Jos, Nigeria.

    My problems are quickly framed in a different perspective.

    Keep Nigeria in your prayers.

  • Loving Monday: First Monday of 2009

    With a mix of dread and anticipation many of us start back at work today.

    We are thankful to have work to go back to. Some don’t.

    At the same time, though, we catch ourselves associating our vacations with when life gets to be lived and our work with when life stops and making ends meet begins again.

    This first Monday of 2009 let’s choose to live fully while making ends meet. This first work week of the year let’s begin a practice of working with excellence, relating with authenticity, and choosing to show up fully.

    Every day matters, but Monday is when we have an opportunity to reframe a new week. Today, we get to reframe a new year.

    What might excellence, authenticity and showing up fully look like for you this week? This year?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Happy New Year!

    newyearseveHappy New Year!

    Let’s choose to make 2009 a very good year.

    Let’s make an intentional decision about what will make 2009 “good” for us.

    The new year is not something that is going to happen to us, but something we are going to make happen. While much is out of our control, there is much to choose, intend and purpose.

    Are you “waiting to see” if 2009 will be better than 2008?

    Join me in actively participating in the form that 2009 will take, both for your own sake and the sake of those you love.

    Happy New Year!

    – Karl Edwards

  • Listen In -> Faking Authenticity #5: When Wanting Others to Respond

    Do you ask for it? Do you command it? Do you trick people into it?

    More than any other, there is nothing like needing others to up their game at work to tempt leaders into faking authenticity.

    Is it that others’ responses are ultimately out of our control that we act so desperately and foolishly to exert control?

    Join Claudia and I in this week’s discussion on this tendency to apply complex leadership principles related to influencing others as if they were band-aids or simple step-by-step instructions.

    Listen in.

  • Plato As Prophet of Economic Hope?

    insightful-linkPlato asserted, “Necessity is the mother of all invention,” and did so quite a long time ago.

    It seems his maxim continues to hold true in the harsh realities of 21st century economic upheaval given Jeff Stibel’s interesting historical survey. Check out his blog post titled, 2009 Will Be an Economic Engine of Change.

    Stibel asserts, “2009 is shaping up to be a trigger for an unprecedented surge of innovation that may be one of the most important turning points in the last 100 years… Times of economic contraction create dislocation in free markets. Smart entrepreneurs recognize this market opportunity and create ‘engines of change.’”

    In one sense you may have experienced great pain this past year in terms of job loss or undermined financial security. In another sense, your need may strangely force you (free you?) to search out, spot and act upon opportunities you would not otherwise have noticed or done.

    How might we develop eyes and ears for unearthing and creating our own opportunities in this time of dislocation and upheaval?

    On your side,

    – Karl Edwards

  • Loving Monday: Making This Monday Your Own

    What’s not to love about a Monday that falls between holidays?

    The preceding week was interrupted by a holiday. The current week is about to be interrupted by a holiday.

    Unfortunately, many companies have decided to close for some or all of these two weeks surrounding the holidays. Without being consulted, some of us have had our incomes as well as our schedules interrupted.

    Whether you are at work or not, it is crucial that you make this Monday your own. With your regular structure truncated or eliminated altogether, this Monday choose something that benefits you.

    If at work, clean off a messy workspace, reorganize chaotic files, or catch-up on important reading.

    If at home, enjoy a special activity with loved ones, take on a home improvement project, or catch up on important reading. (Okay, so I like to read!)

    When change is out of your control, exercise control where you can. Make choices that take advantage of the interrupted work week. This is your Monday too!

  • Misplaced Hope This Christmas?

    nativityThe distractions are many.

    At best the economy feels fragile, though for some it has collapsed. Many of us are hustling to keep our current jobs or secure our next job before this one disappears.

    The holidays are upon us with their strange mix of frantic activity and pronounced loneliness. We feel fragile ourselves.

    This year we prepare for the arrival of yet another politician who has promised hope and change. We greet the possibility as if this were the first time a world leader has ever offered such, and we look forward with enthusiasm to the coming inauguration of a better future.

    Interesting that during this particular Christmas season we are looking to the most powerful leader in the world (maybe even in the history of the world) for hope instead of the powerless infant of Bethlehem.

    Understandable, but the story of hope and change through the centuries has oddly accompanied the powerless, not the powerful.

    Powerful world leaders come and go, but the memory, impact and inspiration of one particular child endures.

    Before you rely on the reigns of power as a source of hope, consider the Christ child who was born powerless and died powerless, and who has inspired life- and world-changing hope for millennia.