Summer At Work Place

Summer is a time to flaunt your trendy summer wear.  It is the time to experiment with fresh and lively colours.  However, with the rising temperature and power outrages, comfort also becomes a prominent consideration.  It is imperative to look neatly attired while simultaneously surviving the heat and avoiding horrendously unattractive sweat stains.  In short, summers should be about hassle free dressing.  Here are a few ideas on how to build effortless summer style:
Mixing and matching works best.  A light shade top with a stripy shalwar or vice versa makes for good summer wear. 

Splurge on flowery, flowing, printed sundresses for effortless summer femininity. 
Consider purchasing knee length kameezes in colorful print patterns that exude the cool and breezy look. 

Hop on the Capri pant craze, buy a pair of cotton white, being or black Capri or full length pants to take you anywhere.  Pair them easily with a loose or slightly form fitting \bright single toned or floral long kameez, the trick here is the airy fabric.  For the most flattering Capri/pants look, opt for a wide leg.  Choose bright or neutral colors. 

Fancy footwear is key; consider revamping your shoe closet with a new pair of sandals, flip flops or flats with flashy embellishments.

Avoid dark bags; switch to large, bright bags or two-tone canvas, woven straw, or lighter neutral carriers.

Binges in, so be it your shoes, bags or jewellery, bling away.  For work, small, subtle diamantes with a basic elegant pendant and bracelet will give the final finish to your summer work attire. 
Finally, summer is not for tousled hairstyles, long sleeves, dark colored clothes and cotton jackets.  Save them for cooler months. 

Start Living in Three Dimensions

A curious mind is very different from a curious person.  Unfortunately, most of us belong to the latter category wherein we are interested in the lives of other people, colleagues, neighbors and celebrities.  This we do to our own detriment, filling ourselves with envy and resentment.

However, those who cultivate a curious mind are forever filled with wonder and excitement at the universe around them.  They are avid readers and learners and explorers of the worlds within and without.  They discover, create, invent.  They ask why to gain a deeper understanding and uncover mysteries.  They search, probe and investigate to uncover the truth. 

Why is this important? Well aside from the obvious benefits of being knowledgeable in a manner that is useful to you (and to others), the person with the curious mind takes himself or herself into an entirely different orbit of experiential living.
 
Try this for the next few weeks and see the difference:  gaze at nighttime sky and wonder at how early explores traversed the oceans and continents.  Pick up a good dictionary and probe the origins of everyday words.  You will be surprised at what you discover.  Open the hood of your car and try to figure out the relationship and use of all that’s there. 

Keep asking questions like how and why things work or are the way they are.  Ask who invented the machines and gadgets you use.  Don’t just take your life for granted; start living in three dimensions.

Tips to Burn Out at Wrok Place

Do you find yourself in a state of emotional, mental and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress?  Are you feeling overwhelmed and unable to meet pressing demands?  If you are, then you are experiencing what is knows as burn out, a gradual process which can creep up on anyone who fails to spot the early warning signs.  These signs are subtle at first but they get worse with the passage of time.  However, they can be prevented if timely addressed. 

Hare are five signs of a burn out:
Dragging yourself to the office, coming in late, skipping work altogether or leaving early from work.  Your post lunch sessions are spent either frequently looking at your watch or checking the empty email box.

Being cynical, irritated or snappy on petty matters with your colleagues.  You may find it difficult to get along with people you used to get along with well in the past. 

Enthusiasm is replaced by indifference, so that it takes an unusually long to complete even mundane tasks.  This is often referred to as going through the motions syndrome. 

Feeling sudden bouts of failure and self doubt with an increasing sense of general dissatisfaction which may isolate you from the professional network. 

Reduced immunity may leave you vulnerable to frequent physical ailments, including exhaustion, headaches, general weariness and muscular tension, as well a change in appetite and disturbed sleeping patterns. 

Prevention:
Review your professional commitments to reset your priorities.

Apply personal management tips; for example differentiate between what is important and what is urgent, learn to delegate, etc.

Take care of your physical well being with a proper diet, sleep and regular exercise. 

Nurture your creative side by trying innovative solutions of routine problems.

Develop a strong mental resilience to handle stress related challenges. 

Take advantage of your holiday times to refresh yourself. 

The Right Career Move

When it comes to career it is up to you to create options for growth and expansion.  Here are a few helpful points:

Pick a boss, not a job.  Your boss can often be the most important factor in your success or failure.  A boss who is skeptical regarding your capabilities will not allow you to take up new challenges or conduct new experiments.  On the other hand, an easy going boss will not push you to avail opportunities to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone. 

Before making a career move, thoroughly research the organization you plan to join. Does it treat is employees as potential or resource?  Potential is to be tapped, while resources are to be consumed. 

Unless you passionately enjoy what you do, success will remain an illusion.  If you are passionate about marketing but you work in finance, the chances are that you will soon be at war with yourself. 

Apart from your primary passion, profession, always find avenues to create a second line of defense.  If your primary career becomes redundant, due to external factors, you will then have something to fall back upon.  So, Plan B must be in place all the time. 

Fortune favors the bold and the brave.  A certain Colonel Sanders changed his career at the age of 66 and from being a loser salesman he became an extremely successful entrepreneur. 

The Importance of Hiring 10s

Is your company a victim of the law of diminishing expertise?  A law that comes into effect the moment people starts appointing or promoting people less effective than themselves. 

Organizations are generally started by 10s – hard – working, ambitious people with highly effective skills.  They then appoint other people who appoint more people. Eventually, the company notices hat the new people aren’t as smart as they used to be.  Why is this? 

What happens is that the 10 hires a 9 and very soon the 9 starts hiring 8s or even 7s.  At some point, new recruits go as low as 5s.  If the organization is lucky somebody will realize that in such a scenario, the company will fall form good to mediocre to hopeless fairly soon. 

Here are some suggestions for hiring 10s:

Set minimum education and qualification levels for each position.  Publicize benchmark performance standards within the company so that everyone knows what a 10 is supposed to do.

Panel interviews can be quite helpful.  And you should always ensure appointments and promotions are approved one level up.  It ensures that a more senior, more experienced manager confirms or questions your decision.

Injelitis is word coined by the late C. Northcote Parkinson, a renowned British civil servant, in is book Parkinson’s Law:  the pursuit of Progress (1975) which means each level of management is hiring down rather than hiring up.  The same applies to promotions.  Mangers, consciously or unconsciously prefer to promote people who are non-threatening, who will not challenge or demand too much of them.  This is repeated down the line, spreading the disease even further. 

There is no question that a major part of organizational success relates to appointing and promoting superstars and near superstars people who are committed to organizational and personal growth. 

What not to do in an Work Environment

At work, what you choose to say, how you wish to communicate and, above all, your demeanour can determine where your career is headed.  You therefore need to exercise extreme prudence to know what not to do rather than what to do. 
In a work environment, little things can often land genuinely nice people and good performers into big trouble.  Here are some ways to prevent this from happening. 

Don’t give one and you won’t need to take one.

You can find better and more productive things to do that are less career threatening than the apparently harmless small talk.

Make sure what comes around doesn’t have your name flagged all over it.

It has never worked nor will it ever, be genuine or be quiet.

Just because you are happy with your achievements, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is also thrilled about them.  Try not to broadcast them too much; most of your colleagues will already know if you have done well.

Stop taking yourself so seriously, no one else does and if they do, they will probably stop taking you seriously. 

Prudence is leaving the lavatory dry, even if it wasn’t you who left or found it wet.  Just don’t go out and write out a complaint letter to the admin, do some thing else, be creative. 

Control camaraderie driven urges even if your boss happens to be a nice person. 

Exercise formality, work is not a family gets together you go to everyday, though it may appear to be one big family. 

Turn an Internship into Job...Rout to Permanent Job

Internship is a good way to assess one’s ability and get the proverbial foot in the door.  Most internships are only temporary and end after a few months.  It is always better to make the internship work in your favour and land up with a permanent job by employing a few techniques.

Internships are designed to prepare applicants for future careers, so identify your professional goals and try to find an internship that meets your expectations rather than accepting just any internship that is available.  This will assist you in your future job search. 

Keep your supervisor abreast of your work and accomplishments by checking in frequently and making sure you are meeting his or her expectations.  Developing professional connections as an intern will give you a head start in professional networking. 

Employers want employees who show initiative, learn, develop and who ask for more responsibilities. 

Employers will trust you to complete more difficult tasks once they recognize your ability to handle the small stuff. 

Employers seek people who can think out of the box and identify solutions to current problems that management may not have yet addressed.  Offer solutions that you think may resolve a specific problem. 

Employers seek individuals who are good at teamwork and contribute positively to the overall accomplishment of the group. 
Show your keenness to join the organization and feel proud to be part of the group.

Yes, Yes You Can...Slogan of Success

Barak Obama’s election slogan was: “Yes, we can.” Imagine if he said: we will try our best or I really want to, but you know, I am a black man and Hillary Clinton is the front runner.  What do you think the result would have been? 

Besides his self belief and confidence, he put together a formidable team and planned and executed a campaign the likes of which has never been seen.  The odds against him right at the start were preposterous:  his race, colour, middle name (Hussein) and the fact that he is just a first term senator in Washington.  Along the campaign trail he had to endure attacks on his person or real and perceived failings as well as for his associations, but he had the courage to face them down. 

What is clear is that is not just a matter of having confidence, but realizing that it is key to getting on to the road to success.  Confidence infuses you with positive personal energy and tires up the rest of the team to also push in the right direction. It gives you courage (as opposed to bravado).  Planning and execution are equally important but amount to nothing without confidence. 

Too many of us are defeated in the mind before we set pen to paper or take a first step to what we want, so the next time you catch yourself hesitating over an important decision or goal, just paraphrase Obama and say: Yes, I can.