Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

How to Be More Optimistic at Work

I was born a pessimist.  From a young age, my thoughts have gravitated to the glass half-empty mentality, negatively impacting my own life satisfaction and my relationships with others.

Over the last several years, though, I’ve been working to change my outlook.  Dr. Noelle Nelson, the author of Make More Money By Making Your Employees Happy, thinks this is definitely a good thing.

Research from Yale University found that being optimistic adds an additional 7.6 years on average to our lives, which is more than low blood pressure, low cholesterol, healthy weight and regular exercise. From the Harvard School of Public Health, study results are similar: the most optimistic people had 50 percent less risk of a first heart attack when compared with the least optimistic.

“Other studies show optimists experience significantly less stress, less depression, and heal faster than pessimists,” notes Dr. Nelson. “Not only that, but optimists outperform their own abilities. You may be good at something, but if you’re an optimist, you’ll be better at it. No matter what you undertake, you’ll experience more success and joy by the simple decision to become an optimist.”

So how can you become more optimistic at work?  For recommendations, please visit Intuit's Fast Track blog.

 

It's Time to Tip Over Those Sacred Cows!

I have to admit, when my colleague Jake Breeden told me the title of his new book, I had to look up what it meant.  But once I did, it made perfect sense.  Jake’s book, Tipping Sacred Cows, is about the hidden beliefs that keep us from achieving our true potential.  While they are mostly virtuous, they can also be dangerous because they are rarely questioned.  Some of them really resonated with me, and I bet they will with you as well:

Balance

This value is often misconstrued to mean constant compromise, but bold leaders must make tough choices. And when we as leaders move from doing one thing well to many things poorly, our organizations suffer. Leaders who hide behind balance as an excuse to avoid taking a stand for an unpopular position do themselves and their companies a disservice. In short, when balance encourages us to say yes to everything all at once, we end up saying no to leadership.

Collaboration

Too often collaboration is automatic, meaning that we work on something together by default instead of making the purposeful, conscious choice to do so.  The default state of working should be working alone; leaders should collaborate only when they must.  Depending on your role, that may mean a significant part of your job requires collaboration.  But ask yourself the question: does this work really need more than me?

Creativity

This value can backfire because of a leader’s need to add her own ideas.  Adopting someone else’s best practice doesn’t give you the same sense of pride and accomplishment as generating a new best practice.  Creating a needless innovation feels better to the innovator than does creating nothing at all. In such cases, creativity has stopped being a tool used in service of larger goals, and has become the very personal source of a leader’s narcissistic needs.

For more sacred cows you should consider tipping, check out Intuit's Fast Track blog.

5 Work Habits to Break Today

Okay, it's honesty time.  I do some of these - what about you?

Being 10 minutes late for everything

You may run late in all aspects of your life, or maybe you just do it at work because you’ve over-scheduled your time.  Either way, stop being the person who’s always holding things up.  Being punctual will endear you to your colleagues and protect you in case your manager happens to be a clock-watcher.

Spending too much time on personal stuff

We’ve all been there.  Things are a little slow at the office, so the work hours between 10AM-12PM are spent shopping on Amazon, checking Facebook, and reading gossip sites.  As much as you can, strive to curb this behavior.  If you need something to do, volunteer to help a colleague or invest in your professional development.

Complaining

The business world isn’t always an easy place to be, but whining about negative circumstances or annoying people only makes your situation worse.  Try to be the solution-oriented person on your team who is always looking for ways to turn a bad scenario into a more positive one.

For a few more bad habits to watch out for, have a look at Intuit's Fast Track blog.

Are You Promotion Material?

According to a study from the Center for Talent Innovation, 268 senior executives cited executive presence, or being perceived as leadership material, as an essential component to getting ahead.  In fact, executive presence accounted for, on average, 25 percent of what it takes to get promoted.  Co-sponsored by Marie Claire, the research initiative was led by my colleague Sylvia Hewlett, who often studies the barriers faced by women in achieving workplace equality.

Executive presence: the two magic words

Apparently, the desire for work/life balance and other oft-cited female challenges are not actually the reasons so few women make it to the C suite.  The principal factor women are neglecting is executive presence.  The majority of female executives don’t understand it and don’t know how to display it effectively.

According to the study, the three areas that comprise executive presence are:

• Gravitas:  The ability to project confidence, poise under pressure, and decisiveness.  Sixty-seven percent of senior executives surveyed cited gravitas as the core characteristic of executive presence.
• Communication: includes excellent speaking skills, assertiveness, and the ability to read an audience or situation.  Twenty-eight percent of surveyed executives felt that good communication telegraphs that you’re leadership material.
• Appearance:  While how you look and dress does affect your executive presence, it’s not nearly as critical as the first two factors.  Only 5 percent of the executives thought appearance was the #1 consideration in the decision to promote.

In addition to having a strong executive presence, sounding educated is essential if you want to ascend to the next level.  Nearly sixty percent of executives felt that unprofessional, uninformed speech detracts from executive presence.

Check out the full post on Intuit's Fast Track blog for more on how to learn executive presence.

How to Avoid Self-Destructing on Foreign Soil

On April 20, 2010, the oil rigger Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.  After the explosion killed or injured 28 workers and released 4.9 million barrels of crude oil, the gushing wellhead was finally capped. British Petroleum (BP), the multi-billion dollar oil and gas company, was indisputably responsible.

Instead of expressing true remorse and compassion for the disaster, then CEO Tony Hayward committed a series of cultural gaffes that enraged U.S. citizens and lawmakers. For instance, well before the Gulf crisis was resolved, Hayward proclaimed that he “wanted his life back.” Then, as efforts to plug the leak continued feverishly in the U.S., he casually took in a sailing race with his son off the Isle of Wight in the UK.

Hayward’s American Disconnect

This behavior was consistent with Hayward’s work/life balance philosophy.  He once said publicly that he didn’t work weekends and took all of his holidays no matter what.  What the British Hayward failed to realize was that most Americans don’t necessarily agree with this point of view. It is the American way to take responsibility for one’s mistakes and do everything you can to remedy a bad situation. Until the problem is solved, free time does not exist. Since Americans were affected most when Deepwater Horizon exploded, many wanted to see Tony Hayward on a boat participating in the clean-up.

Although much of his business is conducted in the U.S., Hayward did not demonstrate strong global competence. His lack of understanding regarding how the crisis would be received in the U.S. led to a backward slide of goodwill and a plunging stock price for BP. That summer, it would also cost him his job.

To find out how you can avoid a Tony Hayward-like PR catastrophe, read my advice over at the AMEX Open Forum.

 

Lessons from a Startup Junkie

My friend Chris Guillebeau has become an expert at helping people opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue ideas they find meaningful.  He is joined by people like Jun Loayza, the co-founder of RewardMe, a digital rewards program for restaurants and retailers.  Jun is something of a startup junkie.  Through his career, Jun has raised over $1M in funding, failed at two startups, and successfully sold one startup.

I thought it might be useful for those of us considering startups to learn from Jun’s experiences, so on the Fast Track blog, we distill some of the most critical lessons he derived from his success and failures. Hope you'll check it out.

Holiday Laziness is Not the End of the World

I have a confession to make.

I have not been as productive as usual lately.

I have set aside 35 hours a week to work, and I’ve written articles, consulted with clients, developed presentations, and done media interviews during approximately 25 of them.  That means that I’m spending 10 work hours a week doing…not much.

I’ve never considered myself lazy.  But well, here we are.

According to my friend Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, however, this is not the end of the world and I shouldn’t feel too guilty about it.   “Lazy means that your body and mind are tired and want to rest. That’s a sign that you should actually rest. When you ignore these signs, it leads to burnout. So rest, and feel good about it!”

Babauta also suggests that one can work all day in a flurry of frenetic activity only to get a little done that actually matters.  On the contrary, one can do a few things that take a few hours but lead to lasting achievement.  You might do less, but the time you spent counts for more.

This last point, which is like a sensible distillation of Tim Ferriss’ early work, has become my new mantra.  But I do think it’s easier said than done.  After all, if everyone could be more effective working a few hours a day, we’d all be doing it.  For some of Leo's ideas, which I've been trying to employ myself, have a look at the Fast Track blog.

 

Do You Understand Your Business?

No matter your role or industry, understanding your business will help you succeed more quickly in your job.  Here are some tips for acquiring this knowledge without breaking a sweat:

Pretend You’re Preparing for an Interview

If you were heading over to your company to meet people there for the first time, you would do your research in advance.  You would want to know current details on the business’ mission, vision, and goals, as well as its operations and challenges.  As an outsider, you might check out the website, the most recent annual report, financial and product press releases, and your favorite business news outlets.  You would skim industry and trade publications online.

As an insider, you may have access to the firm’s strategic plan, which you should try to get a hold of if you can.  This document will usually list key goals as well as development, communications, and staffing plans, and you do not need to be a highly-placed executive to map it to your daily responsibilities.  And the more granular you can get, the better.  If you work with the marketing department, for instance, ask for a copy of its individual annual plan and budget, competitive analysis, and any status reports it regularly delivers to the CEO.

For more advice where this came from, read the full post on the Fast Track blog.

Take Control of Your Career Today

Don’t you love it when the fates align? At the same time that I was writing a New York Times op-ed on the rise of the independent workforce, I had the opportunity to meet Nacie Carson, a twenty-something author and steadfast proponent of training people in her generation to be prepared for a world of temporary, contract work.

In her new book, The Finch Effect, Nacie warns professionals that instead of waiting for a recovery in the job market that is never going to come, we must take our careers into our own hands. Using a set of five strategies, which Nacie calls “the Finch Effect” (in honor of survival of the fittest Darwin’s avian inspirations), we can evolve productively in the years to come.

For Nacie's advice on taking your career into your own hands today, check out my post on the Fast Track blog.

Be the Idea Man (or Woman)

I blog several times a week, and have been writing in the career advice and leadership development space for almost eight years.  How many ideas have I had to brainstorm to write about?  You do the math.  It’s a lot.

Some days I’m feeling especially creative and can generate insights from all sorts of places, but other days it’s a struggle to put forth a single interesting thought.   To generate new ideas when the well is dry, I’ve developed some helpful strategies.  Check out these six ideas on the Fast Track blog and let me know if you have others.  I welcome any and all suggestions!