May 31, 2010

How to Effectively Deal with Change

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It’s coming your way! Change is everywhere in your life and work right now, sometimes it will hit you head on and bowl you over, and other times opportunities for you to change things will keep popping up, tempting you.

But will you change? Will you embrace the change, or even proactively encourage and force the change?

Or will you resist the change and try to maintain a feeling of safety trying to keep things as they are?

Of course it depends on the change in question.  Right now I’m talking about the biggest most current change in your life that you’re going through, or at least thinking about going through. The one that’s perhaps long overdue. The one that keeps sneaking up on you, tapping you on the shoulder and reminding you that something’s not quite right, and that change is on the horizon.

So what are you going to do?

Since change is going to occur anyway sooner or later (whether you like it or not)…

“Nothing is permanent but change” – Heraclitus

…are you going to be the victim of that change, and respond to it when it comes (perhaps when you’re lower on resources), or are you going to proactively change, steering things under your own terms in the direction you want?  Are you going to make changes before you have to?

The main reason most people don’t want to change (when they feel they perhaps should) is fear. They feel comfortable in what they know. They know the deal. But they fear what they don’t yet know or understand.

So what’s the remedy? Learn about it. Learn about the thing you don’t understand so that you get a better idea of it. The more you learn about it, and study it, and ask questions and talk to people who know about it, the more you understand it and the less you have to be fearful of. It begins to click. And so the more likely you are to embrace that change or even drive it forwards on your own terms.

Despite reading this, many people will continue to fear the change they feel they should make, because they won’t make the effort to learn about new possibilities. I don’t know, maybe they’re too busy or something. Too busy reacting to things because of a decision or two they made way back. These people will stay put, until they are forced to change, and forced down a particular path.

So there it is, decide if you’re going to change, or whether you’ll leave yourself open to being changed, and if fear is your main hurdle, learn all about how things would or could be after the change. Learn about it until you’re clear. You’ll probably reach that tipping point where you’re ready.

If it’s a career change you’re thinking of, this may be just what you need.


Here are 3 more quotes about why you should embrace both learning and change:

“In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists” – Eric Hoffer

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” – Clarence Darrow

“In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy” – J. Paul Getty


My advice, learn how to learn fast (helps address fear and change) and proactively change under your own terms, in the direction you want. You do know which way you want to go don’t you? If not, try this.

May 28, 2010

Become Instantly Better at Educating Others

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Do you work in sales? Yes you do. Do you educate others in your work or life? Your colleagues? Your kids? Then you’re definitely in sales.

Educating others is largely a sales challenge.

They don’t teach you sales skills at school, but they should.

They don’t teach people sales skills outside of the sales department in organisations, but they should.

And they don’t usually teach teachers, trainers and educators sales skills, which is why learning is often so ineffective, but they really really should.

Selling is the doorway to adding value, helping others, persuading for a win:win, getting agreement, getting alignment, enhancing engagement and leadership, and making progress faster, more easily or more enjoyably.  Selling is about changing mindsets. It’s about provoking thought and challenging ideas. It’s about re-directing someone’s actions and co-operation for the better of everyone involved. It all starts with the sale.  If the sale isn’t made, the rest doesn’t follow.  That’s potentially a lot of time, money and effort down the drain.  This definitely applies to learning.


Organisations, and educators, listen up:  If you want to educate people better, you need to

STOP thinking ‘here’s what you need to learn, now sit down and swallow it’, and

START thinking, ‘how can I help you really WANT to learn this?’

Once you’ve addressed that well and the learners are hungry for the benefits, you may even be able to step back and put your feet up, whilst the learner rushes off to learn in their time, in their style, with whoever they want, enjoying themselves as they go – the way learning should be done.

For more on smarter approaches to learning, contact me and ask how I can help your organisation learn and perform more effectively.  I’ll be glad to help.

May 3, 2010

How to Leap Ahead in Your Career

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Hand holding chess piece

I’m going to show you how you can make a huge leap of progress in your career.

I meet plenty of people through my work, all at different stages in their career.  It doesn’t take me long to decide which of three general attitudes they have towards their work:

1.  There are those who think they’re on a moving walkway in their career.  They think that just because they’re employed in a certain position, that all it takes is time for them to move up the ranks, and that in 30 years they’ll be in a successful, senior position.  It happens to some, but not to most (how can it work for everyone when there’s only a few places at the top anyway?)  If that’s you, then you can leap forwards in your career by understanding my next point…

2.  There are those who realise that there’s no moving walkway, and that no one owes them anything, that it’s not a fair playing field they’re playing on, and that they won’t get their ‘turn’.  They realise that if they want more back from their career, their employer or their life, then they’re going to have to get up and make it happen themselves.  You have to earn what you want.  Their priority is to get their hands on what they need to learn, and then put it into practice as fast and effectively as possible. They can leap forwards in their career by learning how to learn twice as fast (they need their employer to provide them with something like this) and learning how to manage themselves effectively to apply what they learn fluidly and consistently.

3.  There are those who just don’t care.  They just potter along.  They just go to work because, well you have to don’t you?  They’re in the wrong job.  Because when you’re in the right job, you do care.  You’re compelled to make things happen and do a great job, because you enjoy doing just that, and you’re proud of the results you create.  Unfortunately, those who don’t care about their career progress because they’re in the wrong job are unlikely to be reading this blog post.  So you might need to point them towards what they need, which is this.


Join the Queue?

Brian Tracy says that you only have to do 2 things to get to the front of a queue, or to advance your career:  ‘Get in line and stay in line.’

The truth is, you don’t have to stay in line where you’re at.  You can jump the career queue, and the beauty is, it’s a fair jump too. You earn the right to jump the queue by becoming more valuable to those who pay you (and to your colleagues too).  And it’s not a single line anyway.  It’s a mass huddle of people.  It’s a crowd.  It’s like a chess board full of pieces, and you can move like a knight.  You can jump people sideways, if you like, to get to where you want.

Just follow these steps:

1.  work out what position you want to be in and why (make it a position you really care about and will be proud of)
2.  work out what value you’d need to provide to who (and how often) in order to earn the right to be in that position
3.  work out what you need to LEARN and then APPLY in order to provide that value
4.  learn it
5.  apply it
6.  repeat

Of course there are plenty of stumbling points along the way, and there are ways to move through these steps faster, more easily and enjoyably too. If you’ve got a question for me related to this, please post it below or email me and I may blog my response.

April 2, 2010

Employees: Earn More for Less Effort

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People often say ‘you get out what you put it’.  Rubbish.  You can get loads more back than you put in, if you ‘put in’ to the right places in the right ways at the right times.  Whatever you’re currently getting out of your work, you can almost certainly get much more.

How?

I learned this lesson from Michael Gerber in the book ‘The E-Myth Revisited’.  It applies to business owners, but equally applies to employees too.  Michael Gerber mentions that whilst working in your business, you should also be working on your business.  As well as doing the day to day stuff that you get paid to do, you should be giving plenty of attention to strengthening, organising and growing your business too.  You should be planning ahead, deciding which way you’ll move and ultimately building a money making machine that’s as near to self-perpetuating as possible.  You should build your business to free yourself.

How Do You Do it as an Employee?

Whilst working in your career, you should be working on your career.  Few people do.  They don’t want to spend the time.  But it’s an investment.  If you take a little bit of extra time to think ahead, plan, choose your direction, and try to ‘build’ the value you provide in to something as near to self-perpetuating as possible, then you’re on to something rewarding.

If a business owner can strive to build a money making machine that eventually frees themself, then why can’t you as an employee?  Have you ever thought about it?  Can you stop selling your time and instead work out how to still give high value by somehow bottling up the value you provide?  When you’re explaining things to others, or teaching them, can you bottle up your words so that they can listen again if they need to and so that your words can reach others, freeing you from saying them again?  That’s so easy to do these days, but few people do it.  And that’s just one example.

For every task you do, how can you work in such a way that your efforts can be re-used when you’re not there?

Think about it.  Get some answers.  Write them down and schedule to try them out.  And enjoy what comes of it.

P.S. The smartest way to earn more for less effort is to get in to the right line of work in the first place.  Working on your career means purposefully steering yourself towards the highest rewards you want by exchanging the best of yourself.  My new site ‘The Great Career Escape’ helps you do that and you can create a free account: http://thegreatcareerescape.com

There’s also a free ebook on the home page which you might find interesting..

March 17, 2010

Become Indispensable

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I sent this post out as a newsletter back in 2008. For those who missed it, it’s worth a look:

My advice this month was given to me 10 years ago by a colleague who I deeply respected.  It still holds true and I often think about it.  He explained to me that to increase your value and earn more money, and increase the chances of continuous employment you should purposefully become indispensable to your employer or your customers.

He explained that often there is money to be made in the jobs that most people don’t want to do or can’t easily do.  He explained that in every organisation there are certain important areas in which few people, if any, are expert.  And that if you make it your mission to become the expert in any of these areas, then you’ve just made yourself instantly valuable.  Especially if you can create value and impact in your work that no one else can.  That’s when they need you.

When you reach that level, people keep coming to you.  Word of mouth soon travels when you can do something truly useful (and relevant) that no one else around can do.  You (and the value you provide) get free advertising.

With that of course comes bargaining power.  You should become more in demand, so long as you choose the right area to become expert in.  And with that, your (employment) price can go up.

But you must not get complacent!  Times are changing so fast these days that it’s healthy to assume that whatever niche area you are expert in will become obsolete in the next 5 years.  So you must keep learning of course, and keep an eye on which areas to dominate as THE expert.

Give this some thought.  It could change your career and your lifestyle forever.  And of course, if you want to become indispensable fast, then you should learn how to learn fast and self manage effectively so that you can put what you learn into practice in the right way at the right times.

Finally, it’s much easier to become indispensable when you’re in your ideal career. Are you?  If you’d like to find your ideal career because you’re not happy in your current one, drop me a note. I might have a surprise for you.

Help Yourself and Your Organisation

Since 2003 I’ve helped businesses and corporates in the UK and Australia grow high value engaged employees who:

  • learn fast and adapt quickly
  • become highly productive
  • think like a business

Here’s what they’ve said.

If you think I might help you or your organisation, then either get in touch, or put them in touch with me.

March 12, 2010

Free Learning by Thinking

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Often you don’t need to learn theory by attending a course or reading – you can extract it yourself from examples and analogies that you’re already aware of.  It’s an incredibly powerful way to learn and make highly memorable connections in your mind.

Use What You Know

Learning is attaching what you don’t know to what you do know.  By starting with something you already know and using it to trigger what you think you don’t know (hang in there, I’ll explain!) you create something that’s always at your fingertips, rather than having to learn completely disconnected new theory.

It’s like the difference between being able to derive formulae back in maths, vs memorising one.  Anyone who knew how to derive formulae knew how powerful this was.

Here’s What I Mean

Well, I’ve just done it in the paragraph above.  If you want to learn productivity, then choose an example of something you already know that’s very productive, and pick out the ingredients that make it so productive.  Write them down. There’s your lesson.

Or use an analogy.  You might ask yourself how doing your work each day is like going on a flight somewhere, with a take off time, and landing time, and so on.  I did this in a recent blog post myself which you might find useful.

Free Lesson on How to Make More Money

If you want to learn how to make more money, extract the lessons from people you know who have made money, or again, choose an analogy.  Maybe somehow you could relate making money to earning respect from people and question how they’re similar.  You might decide that to earn respect you must keep promises and provide value to people.  You might realise that to earn more respect you should provide even more value, and do it to more people, so they all respect you.  You might realise that doing it once isn’t enough, but doing it again and again means they’re bursting with respect for you.  Then you might realise that it’s the same rules for making money.

Einstein said that everything is connected to everything else.  So sometimes, do away with books and external sources, and see what useful lessons your mind can conjur up based on what you already know.  It’s a powerful and cost effective way to learn, and you can do it anywhere you like.

March 10, 2010

Learn Productivity from Airlines

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This post can help you tighten up your entire approach in your work.  You’ll increase your productivity based on how much thought you’re prepared to put into this.  Despite how unproductive you may feel airlines are from a passenger perspective, they always strive to be more productive and produce a slicker turn around.  Their survival depends on it.  My next door neighbour is a pilot.  When he’s not flying, he spends most of his time answering my endless stream of questions about everything to do with flying planes.  As he talks, I clearly see the similarities between his work, my work and everyone’s work.  In fact, I see his work as one of the best models or analogies I know of to improve how we function in our own work.

Let’s steal the hard work of the airline industry…

Your flight:

  • your days work
  • your projects/tasks
  • your entire business or career

Your roles:

  • pilot
  • check-in
  • navigator
  • co-pilot to a colleague
  • and many more, depending on your team structure

Here’s some things to think about that the airline industry take seriously.  So should we:

  • the point of the flight – to get passengers from A to B as safely and enjoyably as possible
  • the procedures for passengers from arrival to check-in, boarding and so on (preparation to commence work)
  • pilot procedures (controlling the plane, checking the dials, communicating and updating…)
  • departure times (when you begin work)
  • landing times (when you aim to complete work – deadlines)
  • check-in times
  • security (preventing any problems creeping in to your work)
  • videos of what you can do at destination (what will you do when you complete this task/project?)
  • turbulence
  • emergency procedures (if x goes wrong, do y)
  • changing the flight plan (be flexible, you MUST get your passengers to B somehow.  Diverting and organising a bus is an option.  Remember, your passengers are your customers.  And your team.  And your boss.  They all want you to help them get from A to B)
  • air-traffic control (landing your tasks and projects safely to completion and organising the ‘take off’ of other tasks and projects)


How Does This Work in the Airline Industry?

This list is just a start, but I write it to encourage you to ask yourself, whenever you have a problem in your productivity or process flow, ‘what’s the equivalent of this in the airline industry?  How do they make it work?’  You’ll find some useful answers to transfer back to your own work.  A lot of productivity theory they train on courses you’ll get from this exercise if you think deeply enough.

Also, remember, the plane keeps flying even when the pilot takes a break (the co-pilot mans the controls together with autopilot).  They keep you heading to B.  So how could you maintain progress when you take a break?  Can your computer get on with something?  Can your co-pilots keep momentum on your work?  Organise yourself and delegate before taking breaks to make this possible.

Circling Planes

And they always keep moving until they land – they have to!  They circle the plane while they wait for clearance which of course costs a lot too.  Every minute they spend circling, the cost goes up and the urgency to land increases.  What flights of yours are currently circling and getting costly?  If they must land, you better prioritise and land them.  Get some order here and land them one by one!

Think about these ideas to improve how you operate in your work.  And if you have any more airline analogies (or others) for improving our productivity then please share them below in the comments.

March 8, 2010

How You Limit What You Earn

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The problem a lot of employees have during their work is they get paid to perform a specific set of actions, so they rarely tend to do anything outside of these.  Why should they if they’re not getting paid to?  That’s the common mentality.

Unfortunately, the deal they’ve agreed to keeps them firmly in place, and for many stifles their potential value and input.  Neither they nor their employers get the rewards they’re capable of creating.  The thinking is set, the actions are set, the pay is set and the rewards are set.  And all the while the thinking is set, the others won’t really change.

Entrepreneurs and business owners are ‘free’ to move in any direction and know that they get paid more for thinking of new things, innovating, creating and acting way beyond a specific set of actions.  They know they need to look for problems and solve them.  They know they need to make order from chaos.  They know the pay and rewards come in the medium to long term.

The same rules and laws however apply to employees.  Don’t let your job description and pay limit and determine what you do.  Start thinking outside of what you’re paid to think.  Start looking for problems to solve, and create more order within your team or department and more order for your customers or those who pay you.  Ask yourself how you’d run things if you were the big boss?  Then, don’t just keep your ideas to yourself.  Use them to add more value, and steer things so that you earn yourself more rewards.

March 3, 2010

Smarter Learning: The ‘Theory’ Rash

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A lot of people come out in a rash when they hear the word ‘theory’.

Theory is boring isn’t it?  We want the fun, hands on, useful practical stuff.  What you may not consider though is that the practical experience came before the theory (and will come again if we apply it).  The theory, usually, is developed from noticing cause and effect over time.  The theory is the learnable set of rules or observations that we can translate into action and results again.  Well…that’s the theory.

The big problem with theory these days is that it becomes out of date faster than ever.  Often, it no longer applies.  Things change so fast that we’re forever playing on a different playing field.  Or it applies to some people and not others.

So what can we do about it?

1.  Learn to recognise the theory or laws or rules that are timeless first of all.  Even then, be careful.

2.  Stop learning new theory and instead upgrade your learning ability.  Learn how to learn fast.  It’s a learnable skill.  You’ll need it moving ahead.  You’ll be forced to do it sooner or later, so you might as well cash in on it now and build your skill.

3.  Purposefully question everything you learn and ask yourself if it’s up to date and resonates well with you, whilst also being accurate and credible.  A hard one to answer sometimes, but do your best.  Definitely ask yourself these questions.  People can deliver up to date theory now online faster than ever before.  You can learn from someone’s actions that they took just hours or even minutes ago.  We’re all pulling together these days and sharing our own personal experiences.  It’s there if you look for it and connect to the right people.

4.  Remember that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.

5.  Finally, my advice is track down 2 or 3 resources that are trustworthy, useful, enjoyable to learn from and help you keep up to date in your field or work.  They’re your ‘heartbeat’ in your work from now on.

Follow those steps and your ‘rash’ will disappear.

February 24, 2010

Better Learning, Business and a Much Better Career

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Better Business

Businesses do best when they continuously give their ideal customers what they want.  This applies to individuals too (where their customer is their boss or employer).

Better Learning

Learning works best when the learner learns information using their own strengths.  If you read well, you should read.  If you learn best by video, use video.

What if you’re in the business of educating your customers?

You are.  When you market and sell or even communicate, you’re usually educating.  Even more so these days where businesses share all sorts of information online to help educate, inform, inspire or entertain their customers to increase engagement.

So then, you want to give your ideal customers what they want when learning too.  If they want to read, then write for them.  If they want to watch videos, create videos.

The Key Here is Ideal

You’ll see I highlighted ‘ideal’.  You can’t aim to please everyone.  My ideal online customers are readers, for sure.  That’s why I mostly write.  The majority of readers have things in common that match up to my chosen market.  Naturally I’ll lose people who prefer to learn by video.  But I know this and it’s part of the plan – they’re outside my niche.  I won’t concentrate my efforts, time and money on them.  I’ve got to focus.  They can find videos elsewhere online, and that’s fine.  The point is, I’m repelling them.
You’ll Be Losing Attention Too

You’ll be doing the same when you communicate online.  You’ll be attracting some people and repelling others, just based on their learning preference!  I’ve just finally given up using an instructional based service I used for quite some time.  Why?  Because they only put their manuals up as videos.  I speed read and learn information about 10 times faster when reading than I do through audio or video.  They’ve lost me as it’s too time consuming for me to use them.  That cost outweighs the monetary cost.  If they wanted to attract video based learners as their customers, then they’ve done the right thing.  If they haven’t thought about it, they’ve done the wrong thing.

How do your ideal customers (or boss) learn best?  Are you delivering to them appropriately so that you hang on to them?  Are you attracting the right customers and right attention?  Are you getting the balance at least right?


My New Service that Appeals to All Learning Styles – The Great Career Escape

Finally, whilst most of my work is written (or in person), my new service The Great Career Escape will meet all learning needs.  It’s in written format, and will soon be in video and audio (for iPod/mp3 listening) too.  I don’t want to lose anyone based on their learning preferences.  I want to help as many people as I possibly can find and get in to their ideal careers, no matter how they learn.

With everyone well aligned to their work, everyone will surprise themselves by the impact they have on others, and the impact on their own life.

As well as helping you find and get in to your ideal career, The Great Career Escape will also help you build a network of people to assist you in your challenge (and make it more social), and you’ll get hold of some excellent mind mapping software which you’ll learn how to use for planning and thinking purposes.  It’s a thorough e-course with loads of useful stuff thrown in.

FREE Access?

The site is practically ready (version 1) and if you are interested and serious about getting out of your career and in to your ideal career, you can get access for free if you’re quick and if you convince me that you’re ideal for it: http://thegreatcareerescape.com

P.S.  There’s just 20 places going free to those who qualify (you have to convince me by dropping me a quick note), so get in quick.

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